“Please? I just need to talk to Puma for a few minutes, and then I’ll leave,” Ben pleaded, hoping politeness would help win his case.
The big redhead studied him for the longest minute of Ben’s life before nodding. “Wait here. I’ll go see if he’s still around.”
“Thank you,” Ben said automatically. Good manners had been instilled into him since he had been in diapers, and just because he was two and a half sheets to the wind was no reason to be impolite.
* * * *
Puma was tying his shoes in the hopes of slipping out before anyone noticed he was gone. But as he was heading to the door, Sully stepped into his path.
“There’s someone to see you,” the big stage manager said, nodding to the open stage behind Puma. “Seems pretty desperate to talk to you.”
Puma sucked a breath and looked over his shoulder to where Ben stood, leaning against a trunk they had found when cleaning out the storage closet. It was full of old costumes and props from ten years ago when the building had been a community theater. They would be donated to the local theater group that had just been reorganized as soon as someone came and got it.
The man stood watching him with a wary expression, as if he expected Puma to reject him like he had rejected Puma seven years before. Puma wished he could. Unfortunately, Ben still held his heart, even if the man had kicked him to the curb and gone on with his life.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Puma turned and crossed the distance to where Ben remained standing.
The man straightened, but then had to shift his weight so he didn’t fall over.
“Thank you for seeing me,” he said softly.
“What do you want, Ben? I thought you said everything you needed to seven and a half years ago,” Puma said equally softly, his mood turning dark and angry.
“No, I said everything my parents wanted me to say,” Ben said as he took a half step closer.
When Puma didn’t move away, he dared another step, and another, until the two men were less than a foot apart.
“So, it’s seven years later, and you’re drunk, which you weren’t back then. What do you want, Ben?”
Puma flinched, but held his ground when Ben lifted a hand and reached out. In the next moment, the hand slid around the back of his neck and Puma could not hold back the shiver that raced through him, settling in his cock, which immediately began to harden. “I want to go back seven years and say something completely different to you that night,” Ben admitted, a sad tone in his voice.
“Oh? And what would that be?”
“That I love you, and I want us to be together and I don’t care what my parents have to say about it.”
“Uh-huh, and that’s why you’re getting married to a woman next weekend, because you love me.”
Ben blinked, but instead of backing off, he pulled Puma closer as he dropped his head. Before Puma could react, Ben’s lips covered his, and in the next heartbeat his tongue slipped between Puma’s lips and stroked across his teeth. It was all-consuming, and drew Puma into the past.
Puma found himself remembering the last time they kissed, the last time they made love. The last night they were happy together.
In the next instant, he stiffened as Ben’s current soon-to-be married status slammed through the memories. Turning his head, he broke the kiss and took a deep breath.
“I think it’s time you find your friends and go home before you say something you’ll really regret,” Puma said, pulling Ben’s arm from his neck and stepping back.
Without another word, Puma turned and walked away. When he reached Sully, he stopped long enough to say, “Make sure he gets home safe.”
“Should I ban him from the club?” Sully asked, looking concerned.
Puma took one last glance over his shoulder at the man, who stood looking stunned and dejected. “No, I doubt he’ll be coming back anytime soon. Hell, his brother probably had to trick him into coming here tonight. I doubt he’ll return after this since he’s getting married in a week.”
Sully continued watching him. “If you say so, but I gotta say I’m surprised that kiss didn’t set off the fire sprinklers. You headed home now?”
Puma blinked at his boss and nodded. “Yeah. With your mother coming home in a few days, I have to be up early to let the cleaning crew in tomorrow morning. And the roses need to be weeded and fed so they’ll be all happy and blooming when she arrives. I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow afternoon.”
“You know, Puma, you need a man in your life. Something to focus on besides work, work, work,” Sully said. “I know a couple of guys you might like…”
Before Sully could finish, Puma shook his head and glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Thanks, but until I’m free of the past, I’ll stick to work, work, work.”
“All right, but let me know if you change your mind. Or if you just want to hang out with us sometime when the club is closed,” Sully said as Puma headed toward the fire door that led to the parking lot behind the club.
Puma lifted a hand to acknowledge the man’s offer, but as he said, until he was no longer under the intense scrutiny of the judicial system in another three years, he would remain focused on work and stay far away from trouble.
And unfortunately, Ben Chambers was trouble with a capital T.
Puma stepped outside and quickly marched across the lot to a sleek three-year-old bright-red Mercedes sports car. It belonged to Mrs. Muldoon, but she encouraged him to drive it whenever she was out of town, which these days was more often than not.
Only when he was in the driver’s seat and headed toward her estate did he ease the tight hold he had on his emotions. Which he regretted a moment later as tears began to fill his eyes, blurring his vision.
Thankfully, at two thirty in the morning the road was empty of any other traffic. He arrived at the estate gates with no problems. Hitting a button on the box on the dashboard, he waited for the gates to open, then drove through them and around the main house to the garages, where he hit the second button on the box and watched the garage door open.
Once the car was secured for the night, he headed to the beach. Though he was exhausted from the day that had begun just after daybreak, he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon.
At the end of the wooden walkway that led to the beach from the back terrace, Puma sat on the top step that descended over the dunes to the beach proper. Taking a deep breath of the salty air that gently swirled around him, Puma allowed the tears to come, along with the grief and pain that he had been harboring since the night Ben had walked away after breaking his heart.
The seafood dinner had been spectacular, and now, as they walked the beach, Puma half expected Ben to propose or something equally binding. They had been together since admitting to one another that they were gay two years earlier, and had lost their virginity in every way to one another since that time.
After dinner, they’d driven out to the beach and begun walking the high-tide line. The moon and stars provided a romantic backdrop that had Puma wishing he was brave enough to make the proposal. But Puma was a follower, eager to follow wherever Ben might lead.
Reaching out to take Ben’s hand, he frowned when Ben pulled away and slid both hands into his pockets. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. But Puma did not have a clue what it might be. They had graduated from high school the night before, and though their futures were yet to be set in stone, they had talked about being together, somewhere, doing something. The key word had always been “together,” though neither had really decided on what they wanted to do for the next sixty years of their lives.
“Ben? What’s wrong?” Puma asked when, without a word, Ben turned and began heading back the way they’d come. It took Ben a minute to realize Puma wasn’t beside him and when he did, didn’t even wait for Puma to catch up, just walked as if something were chasing him.
Puma followed, but knew not to ask anything further. Ben would answer, but it would be in his own time, and Puma would j
ust have to be patient with the man.
It wasn’t until Ben parked in the street in front of the apartment Puma shared with his mother that the man finally spoke. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Puma turned in his seat so he was facing Ben. But Ben wasn’t looking at him. He was staring out the front windshield. “Do what?”
“This. Us. I can’t be gay anymore,” Ben said, his voice flat and unemotional. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore.”
Though Puma wanted to argue, wanted to understand, wanted to beg Ben to change his mind, he could tell by the set of the man’s jaw that his mind was made up and there would be no other talking on this subject. Ben was stubborn like that.
“Good-bye, Ben,” Puma said as he unhooked his seat belt and opened the door. He closed the door and walked into the house, his movements stiff and slow because he was sure if he moved too quickly, his entire body would shatter as completely as his heart had broken in the time it took him to walk to the apartment door.
Puma bent forward as the tears he’d refused to shed bubbled up, refusing to be caged any longer. Wrapping his arms around his legs, he hugged himself, trying to keep his body from flying apart in a zillion directions. Seven years he had held onto this heartbreak, and now that he was finally expressing the pain, it hurt no less today than it had at the moment he had experienced Ben’s rejection.
Puma sat on the steps until there were no more tears to cry, until the nearly full moon had set and the sky to the east began to lighten in preparation for another daybreak. He allowed himself to wallow in the pain and sorrow of lost love until the sun broke the horizon. Then he wiped his face on the lower edge of his shirt, pushed to his feet, and slowly walked back to the house.
By the time he reached the terrace, his head was up, his back and shoulders straight, and he pushed all thoughts of Ben from his consciousness. He had too much else on his mind to worry about why Ben had decided to approach him now, just when he was finally getting his life back together again.
Chapter Three
Ben woke the next morning feeling like roadkill. He had come home and had several more drinks, trying to wash away the memory of kissing Puma. But there was no washing away the feeling of how right kissing the smaller man had been. At least not with alcohol.
He had been fighting the truth of being gay for seven years, ever since the night he had given in to his parents’ demands and broken up with Puma. But seeing Puma, watching the man dance, kissing him, brought back the certainty that he was still in love with the man who had held his heart since the first day they’d met in tenth grade.
His marriage to Candace, the woman his mother had handpicked and forced on him, was a sham. Even more so now that he had found Puma again.
Lying in his bed with his head pounding and stomach rolling like waves on a stormy sea, Ben finally admitted to himself that he was tired of allowing others to run his life. It was time to take back the control, control he never should have given away.
He rolled off the bed, stumbled to the kitchen, and made himself a cup of coffee. Then, carrying the mug, he staggered to the bathroom and cleaned up. By the time he’d showered, shaved, and finished the coffee, Ben felt somewhat back to his normal self. Or as normal as he could feel, knowing he would be blowing his carefully constructed world to bits in order to reclaim the future he had once given up.
After digging his oldest, most comfortable jeans from the back of his closet, he pulled them on along with a T-shirt and sneakers. Ben dressed how he wanted, not how the women in his life preferred. Once dressed, he fixed eggs and toast for breakfast with a second cup of coffee. While he ate, he used paper and pen to come up with the speech he needed to break things off with Candace.
It took another cup of coffee and another hour to formulate a second one to explain to his mother why he had broken things off with Candace, and that he was taking his life back. By the time he felt mentally prepared to face the women in his life, the coffee had kicked his hangover in the ass and left his nerves jangling from too much caffeine.
Drinking a glass of milk seemed to calm things slightly, but he was still nervous as he left his house and headed to Candace’s place across town. As he drove, he forced himself to focus on the present and not his hope for the future, or memories of the past.
Once he parked in front of Candace’s house, he sat in the car for a few minutes, working the key to her place off his keyring while he gave himself a last-second pep talk. “You can do this. Just march up there, tell her the truth, hand her the key, and walk away. It’s that simple. Then, after a run by Mom’s house where you give her the same hit-and-run speech, you can go find Puma and start your life for real.”
Ten minutes after ringing the doorbell to Candace’s house, Ben limped back to his car with a black eye and a split lip, feeling like he wanted to throw up from the knee she had thrust into his groin. He had no idea Candace could be such a wildcat, but the bruises he now wore proved the woman was not the sweet-as-pecan-pie Southern belle his mother had convinced him she was.
Too bad she didn’t have a cock and balls to go with the hell-raiser fighting skills. Maybe then Ben would have thought twice about breaking up with her.
By the time he drove to his mother’s house, his left eye was beginning to swell shut, and he could only hope that his mother would take pity on him, instead of berate him for what he was about to tell her.
After climbing from his car, Ben took a minute to breathe and prepare himself for the face-off with his mother. With Seth already a proud gay man, he knew his mother was not going to let him come out easily. But if he wanted to try and build a future with Puma, he had to stop denying, to himself and the rest of the world, who he really was. And that began now.
As he approached the small ranch-style house where he and Seth had grown up, Ben worked to relax. But finding his mother on the front porch waiting for him sent all his deep breathing and confident self-talk flying off in the brisk breeze that constantly blew this time of year.
“You broke up with Candace? A week before the wedding? How could you?” his mother accused as he reached the bottom of the staircase that led to the porch.
“Yes. Yes, I did. Because it was better to break up today than wait until a week after the wedding. Or even the day of,” Ben said simply.
“Why?” his mother asked even as she began to hyperventilate. “Why would you turn down a lovely, cultured young woman like Candace?”
His mother seemed truly bewildered by his actions, which Ben did not find surprising. She was very good at compartmentalizing things. And knowing her, she had erased his high school relationship with Puma as soon as Ben had broken things off with his lover. After all, her youngest son was not gay, no matter what he might believe. Sandra Chambers refused to have two gay sons. She wanted grandchildren, and Seth announcing he was gay thereby negated him from providing them, so it was up to Ben to marry a woman and give them to her.
“Because, Mother, I’m gay and I’m tired of pretending I’m not. I’ve tried for seven years to be what you wanted me to, and I’ve been miserable. Marrying Candace was your idea, her idea, but certainly not my idea. Now, I’m going to find the man I loved and hurt once upon a time, and pray that he will give me a second chance.”
“Benjamin, we are not finished discussing this,” his mother called as he turned and walked back down the path to his car.
“Yes, Mother, we are,” he muttered softly.
He did not turn back, did not acknowledge her continued screams. He was done being the good son, the one who denied himself and his wants and needs for the good of the family, as his mother put it.
After climbing into his car, he drove away quickly just in case she decided to come down off the porch and continue yelling at him. He would give her a few days to cool off before getting in contact again. Maybe by then she would have accepted the situation and he would be able to tell her about Puma.
That is, if he could figure out a way to get Puma to
let him back into his life. Which was the next item on his to-do list. First, he would need to find the man. Then he would need a kick-ass apology to offer, maybe with flowers and candy. Or maybe not.
Did gay men like receiving flowers and candy like women did?
Ben pulled out his phone and called the authority on all things gay—his brother.
* * * *
Puma looked from the tall silver pole set up in the middle of the main stage, to the thick pads on the floor below to him with a disbelieving expression. “You want me to what?” he asked.
“Sully got a deal on this pole, and you’re going to learn how to pole dance,” Toby White-Muldoon, head dancer, said with a grin.
“Why don’t you learn to pole dance?”
“Because you have the upper body strength that the rest of us don’t have. See?” Toby turned on his tablet and held it so they could both watch a man wearing a black Speedo spin and twirl and hold himself perpendicular and upside down parallel to the pole.
“You want me to do that?” Puma glanced from the tablet screen toward the pole again.
“Not today. I found a teacher down in Wilmington, and she’s agreed to give you an intensive training class next week. For now, watch these videos and see if you can do anything with it. Once you’ve got it figured out, we can feature you. And you know what that means, right?”
Puma released a sigh and nodded. “More money.”
Toby nodded but remained silent. In the months he’d been working with Puma, teaching the man how to walk, talk, and dance like a Sex God, he had learned that Puma was beautiful, strong, and kind, but did not deal well with pressure. It also took the man a little longer to make decisions than the rest of the guys, who had all refused to even try to learn how to pole dance. If Puma refused, Toby was going to force his brother-in-law to return the damn thing to the company for a refund. It wasn’t worth injured dancers just so they could claim to have all the sexy dance equipment. It was enough that Dylan danced in the silks several nights a week.
Puma Page 2