Double Blind

by Heidi Cullinan

  “Do I want to be made in Vegas?”

  “Fuck yeah. You sure as hell don’t want to be broken.”

  Ethan would have thought he already was, but he didn’t see the point in saying so.

  They were heading onto the Strip, or rather, near it. Randy took great pains to stay off Las Vegas Boulevard itself, which given the snail crawl their cab had done even in the early hours of the morning seemed a wise move. He wove his way down the side streets until he had them entering the parking garage behind the Planet Hollywood casino, whose very existence boggled Ethan.

  “Does McDonald’s have a casino?” he asked as Randy led him to the mall entrance.

  Randy looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, the one at Harrah’s certainly has the neon glitter down pat.” He took Ethan’s hand and led him into the main body of the mall. “Come on. I’m not kidding. We’re partitioning seconds now, we’re so close on time.”

  Randy moved at light speed, and without his hand Ethan would quickly get lost in the crowd. Partially this was because Ethan had a serious rubbernecking problem.

  “There’s a sky in here.” Ethan had to shout because club music was blaring from up ahead, echoing in the cavernous ceiling. At least, he thought it was a ceiling. It had to be, because in here it was dusk, despite it being blazing noon outside. Still, the buildings were—well, they were buildings, not storefronts. They shone in the same neon glitter as the buildings on the Strip. It was a mini-Strip within the Strip. Or something.

  “Come on.” Randy tugged him around a corner, and then they were at the source of the music, which was also a huge, pulsing fountain light show in the middle of a corner atrium. Ethan staggered back, caught by the sight, remembering the echo of another fountain in the dark.

  “Oh fuck that, Slick. After Bellagio, this is nothing. Besides, it’s just a bunch of skinny dicks shooting come.”

  Ethan looked again at the pulsing bursts of water then burst out laughing.

  Randy got behind him and began to push him like a snowplow. “Come on.”

  The shopping expedition at H&M was the strangest thing Ethan had ever been a part of. He wasn’t exactly averse to shopping, but it was usually a solitary and sober experience, not a frenzied group project where his lab partner alternated between fashion drill sergeant and the lecher who insisted on standing in the doorway watching him dress and undress.

  “I never asked. What did you do for a living before you ran away to Vegas to meet me?”

  “I was an investment broker.” Ethan smoothed his hand over the pleats of the trousers after buttoning them, eyeing their line critically in the mirror. “Do I actually need something this fancy?”

  “You need a whole wardrobe, Slick. But yeah, you’ll wear these tonight.” He ran a hand over Ethan’s backside. “Investment broker. So you played the stock market?”

  “I invested clients’ money in various ways. Stocks, sometimes, but also funds and other projects as well.” Ethan sifted through the pile of clothing they’d amassed on the bench. “Where’s the black iridescent shirt? It would look good with this.”

  Randy reached into the hallway and produced the shirt. “Do you miss it? Being a broker.”

  Ethan shrugged and tried to focus on the shirt. “Are we done here?”

  “Just a few more things. I think you’re right about the shirt, which with the pants can be tonight’s outfit, so as soon as we pick the jacket, you’ll be set. The rest we can return if it doesn’t fit.” He handed Ethan a stylish gray jacket. “Did you like it?”

  “The jacket? I haven’t tried it on.”

  “Being a broker.”

  Ethan fussed with the collar of the shirt. “It was fine.”

  It hadn’t been fine, of course, he admitted to himself as they headed to the truck, and he ruminated on his now-past life all the way to the grocery store.

  He had both loved and hated being a broker. He loved watching money compound and amass, but it was never his money. His clients were grateful for his skill at reading the market, and he had been told he had a killer instinct for knowing when to switch from one type of investment account to another, but he’d had to convince himself more and more frequently this was enough. Eventually he’d begun to be more aggressive with his own savings, investing his own money, but it made him lonely. He wanted to be investing with a partner, like the husbands and wives planning their retirement futures, which was why he had gone to Nick.

  Foolishly he’d thought because Nick had sworn to him it was Ethan he loved, he whom he truly felt he was married to, that he would mean it, that when push came to shove, he would choose Ethan—

  The world went soft and dull, and even though there was nothing wrong with Ethan’s hearing or his vision, as he stood staring into Randy’s cart, the real world fell away. He sank into the cold, dark space inside his head—and then something pressed against his mouth, something soft and small and sharp. He tasted, too, the tips of Randy’s fingers.

  “I need cheese, and I can’t decide which is better. Help me.” When Ethan did nothing, Randy pushed the cheese the rest of the way into his mouth. “Chew, Slick.”

  Ethan did, and the world came reluctantly into focus. He ate the cheese without tasting it. Randy handed him a bottle of water, and Ethan drank absently. But then the second piece of cheese came into his mouth, and Ethan glanced at Randy, startled as a quiet explosion took place on his palate. It was smooth, buttery, but it had a bite to it too, and something smoky—

  “Second one.” Randy tossed several packages into the cart. “I’ll keep extra on hand too, in case you go into a coma again on me.”

  Ethan grimaced and drank more water. “Sorry.”

  Randy resumed control of the cart and aimed them toward the bakery. “You freak me out sometimes, Slick.”

  Ethan freaked himself out, to be honest. What was he doing in Las Vegas, playing poker and having dinner with gangsters? Why wasn’t he going home to Provo, apologizing to Marion, and getting his job back? Why was he eating cheese at Whole Foods and playing dress up at H&M?

  He watched Randy moving with determination through the racks of bread, pinching several and shaking his head in dismissal before picking up a large, long, crusty loaf with an almost piratical look of victory, and Ethan realized he was looking at his answer.

  Because I’m following him. Because Randy is the strangest, most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen, and right now he’s the sun I can’t otherwise seem to find, even when it’s right above me in the sky.

  Randy waggled his eyebrows and held up a loaf of bread like the spoils of war.

  I can’t let him know that, Ethan thought, withholding the full warmth he felt as he returned the smile.

  THE HOUSE HAD been immaculate when he and Randy had come home from the store, but Randy still went over everything, straightening pillows and wiping off the faceplates of the light switches. Once everyone had showered, he’d stood in his towel and wiped it all down again, all but getting a magnifying glass out and searching for stray hairs. For a minute Ethan had thought he was going to iron the hand towel by the sink too.

  Between barking out cleaning orders and arguments with Mitch, Randy prepared a three-course gourmet meal. Ethan had already been impressed—Randy’s taste in food wasn’t parallel to his penchant for grease-stained fingers and shredded T-shirts. But as he watched Randy work, he saw Randy was a much better cook than Ethan was himself, and Ethan was no slouch.

  Randy moved with casual skill around the kitchen, chopping and weighing and sautéing even as he aimed a butcher knife at Mitch’s nose. “I didn’t mean to do this, but it might end up being the best thing for everyone, so just shut up and let me cook if you aren’t going to help.” After that Mitch had taken off on one of the bikes in the garage and headed for a local bar, and Randy paused his preparations long enough to console Sam. Then he sent Sam after his husband in a cab because he didn’t know how to drive Randy’s stick-shift truck or the bike.

  Once Sam was gone,
Randy peeled out of his T-shirt, tied a bandana around his head, and got serious.

  He was making, Ethan saw from the stained notes on the table, baked salmon in cucumber cream wine sauce. The first course would be mesclun salad with lemon vinaigrette, and there was some note about asparagus spears Ethan couldn’t quite mentally map but looked forward to seeing. With the salmon would be new red potatoes—the notes said carved into mushroom shapes, but surely Randy didn’t have time—and a julienne of fresh snow peas and carrots. The third course would be a modified tiramisu, served with fresh custard in a martini glass.

  Randy’s lips thinned as Ethan mentioned the dessert. “I’m cheating on the tiramisu. I’ve run out of oven, so the ladyfingers are from Whole Foods. I’m making the custard to go with it myself, but he’s still going to know I bought the ladyfingers.”

  “How?”

  Randy pulled an apron from behind the broom in a cupboard. “He knows what mine taste like.”

  They’d been talking about tiramisu, but somehow Ethan knew the double entendre wasn’t an accident.

  “You’ve cooked for him before?” Ethan asked, as mildly as he could.

  Randy glanced over his shoulder—his bare shoulder, slick with sweat—and looked Ethan in the eye. “I’ve cooked for him. I’ve fucked him too, but mostly he’s come here for dinner, and then we’ve gone to my bedroom where he’s tied me up and done the sorts of things to my body that would curl your little Mormon’s toes.”

  He resumed chopping, which was good, because Ethan needed a few seconds to recover, both from what Randy had revealed about his relationship with their imminent dinner guest and the knife cut that had been his reading of Nick.

  “How did you know Nick is LDS?”

  Randy shrugged. Ethan noted, helpless to do otherwise, the way it made the muscles in his back ripple. “Lucky guess.” He picked up a cucumber and began to cut into it. Slice, slice, slice. “So he has a name now.”

  You had to go and open this door, didn’t you? Ethan scolded himself. “He’s always had a name.”

  Slice, slice, slice. “He a broker too?”

  “He worked for Deseret Book Company. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints publishing house.”

  “I know what it is.” Slice, slice, slice. Chop. “‘Worked.’ Past tense?”

  Ethan’s fingers dug into his own arms. He wore a new T-shirt, not yet washed, and it itched. “Yes. He was laid off six months ago.”

  Ethan didn’t want to be exposed like this, and he resented being made to spill his dirty laundry. His rage spun out of reason and into wordless chaos, cycling inside him with nowhere to land because Randy wasn’t saying anything. He kept cutting his vegetables, slice, slice, slice, slice, chop.

  Finally Randy glanced over his shoulder again. “You’re gonna pass out, Slick, you keep holding your breath.”

  Ethan lost it.

  “He’s married.” Ethan stormed over to him, looming over him, ignoring how fucking sexy he looked all slicked over, how he was practically oiled, how the sharp, fresh aroma of the vegetables mingled with his musk. Ethan tried to breathe through his mouth, but then he could taste it, and that made it worse.

  It made him furious.

  He grabbed Randy’s wrist. “He’s married, okay? Married. With four kids. Nick and Mary Snow, and their cherubs Jacob, Rachel, Ezra and Ruth. They look like a fucking Hallmark card in their Christmas photos.”

  Randy drew back, surprised. “He sends you his family’s Christmas cards?”

  “No, I saw them on his Facebook. Which I had to hack—” Something started to break inside him, but he pushed on, because he saw the flicker of pity in Randy’s eyes. “I knew, from the moment we met. He was married then. So don’t go looking at me like that.”

  “That’s not why I was looking at you.” Randy tried to school his features again, but the pity was still there, and it made Ethan all the angrier.

  “I knew he was married, so stop. That’s not why I left him.” He waited a beat, then sneered. “This is where you ask me why, Randy.”

  Randy’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay, sure. Why, Randy?”

  The waves of fury were endless, carrying him forward, and Ethan was glad for them, because without them he was fairly certain he would go under and drown. “Oh, you’re so clever, you little shit, aren’t you? Always seeing everything, even what you shouldn’t, and you’re having such a good time picking me apart—”

  “Slick?” Randy’s voice cut quietly across the scream of red.

  Ethan huffed, wind out of his sails. “What?”

  Randy nodded discreetly toward the counter. “Would you mind putting down the knife?”

  To his complete surprise, the butcher knife quivered in Ethan’s hand, its tip flashing, scattering bits of cucumber and knocking over the open container of cream, sending the thick, yellow-white liquid down the drain. The knife he’d aimed at Randy’s hand, which had backed up several inches and was off the cutting board entirely and now balanced carefully against the edge of the sink.

  Ethan dropped the knife, let out his breath and the rage with it, and without his fury to support him, the wave crashed over. To his eternal shame, he felt the dark crush him, and he began to cry.

  Sobbed, really—and why it happened then, after months of wiping away tears and sniffling and nothing more, why it was there he finally broke down, in Randy’s kitchen, smelling of cucumber and garlic and sweaty man and lemon cleaner, why there he didn’t know. He just knew he couldn’t hold it back anymore, the pain of days—which was, of course, the pain of years, and in another view, of a lifetime. It hit him square in the center of the chest, and as if breaking down emotionally in front of Randy weren’t enough, his body had to fail him too.

  Randy’s arms kept him from falling, and when it was clear Ethan and his pain were too much to keep upright, he eased them gently to the floor, sat Ethan between his legs and took him into his arms.

  “Oh God.” Ethan buried his face in Randy’s neck. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hush.” Randy’s rough fingers skimmed over Ethan’s shoulders before drawing him in against his bare chest with only a tiny bit of hesitation. “I’m not trying to be clever, Ethan. I’m not trying to be anything. I’m no good at this, and I’m the one who’s sorry, because you deserve better than me for this.”

  God, it hurt all the worse, to hear the clumsy confession—from Randy, from Randy the poker player, the casual, don’t-you-love-hedonism Randy—and to have to admit that in less than twenty-four hours Randy had given Ethan more real tenderness than Nick Snow ever had.

  He figured he owed Randy at least the full story.

  “He took the money,” he whispered into Randy’s neck.

  “I know, baby.”

  “No.” Ethan swallowed and gathered himself, because this was becoming important to say out loud. “He took the money from the account. Money we’d saved together. For later. For—” But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t finish.

  Randy finished for him. “For when he would leave his wife someday, and you would be together always, finally, like he’d promised.” He hugged Ethan closer a little awkwardly. “Oh, Slick. Oh, baby.”

  It was a good thing the knife was on the counter, because Ethan wanted to put it into the middle of his own chest. “I’m so stupid. I was so stupid to think—”

  “You are not stupid.” Randy’s hands tightened on Ethan’s shoulders. “You are not stupid, Slick.”

  “It’s not that he took the money.” Ethan babbled now, the pain pouring out of him. “It was that he took the money for them, the money for us for them. And then I feel so awful, because they’re kids, and she’s his wife, and they’re all so beautiful, and I’m—”

  The hands on his arms became painful. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking finish that, not even in your head. You’re beautiful too, Slick. You. Fine, they’re cute kids, and she’s a nice wife. He’s the fuckwad who’s gay and thought he could have it both ways.”

&n
bsp; “It’s his religion, he can’t—”

  “Do not defend him. He can so fucking leave his church. Yes, it would be hard. Yes, he’d lose his family. But he’d fucking get to be himself for the first fucking time. He probably was his real self with you, or close, but he was using you, Slick. It wasn’t about you. It was about him. That’s why he took the money. And that’s why it hurts.”

  Ethan felt so heavy. He thought he must be having a heart attack, because his chest was so tight, so full of pain he kept thinking any second he would die, but it kept going on and on and on. “It hurts so much.”

  “I know, baby.” Randy rocked Ethan gently from side to side. “I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  For several minutes they sat there on the floor, Ethan wrapped in Randy’s arms, emotionally bleeding out. Then they rose, Randy not quite carrying Ethan but lifting him and doing most of the work, and then they moved through the house to Randy’s bedroom, which Ethan noted absently had only sort of been cleaned.

  Randy shut the door, reached for a remote on the top of a bookshelf, and took Ethan into his arms as soft music filled the room.

  “You have to cook dinner,” Ethan protested, but weakly, because Randy’s mouth was moving along his jaw toward his ear.

  Randy pushed Ethan onto the bed. “I have to make love to you first.”

  What Ethan remembered most about it later, especially as he stood waiting for Crabtree tricked out in his pleated trousers and pinpoint ironed shirt and lint-free jacket, smelling like Randy’s soap and aftershave—what he remembered was how much time Randy had taken with him, how thoroughly and leisurely he had kissed him, had licked him, had loved him. He remembered the maddening patience with which Randy had removed every last piece of their clothing. He remembered the smell of vegetables every time Randy’s fingers had come near his face, which had been often, because though he explored every crevasse and plane of Ethan’s body, he kept returning to Ethan’s face, taking it tenderly in his hands before kissing him again.

  Ethan remembered the way Randy had kissed him while he worked lube-slicked fingers inside, opening Ethan with an insistent but careful touch that made his insides yield along with his muscles. When Randy finally entered him, Ethan wrapped his arms around him as he opened himself, taking Randy in above as well as below, and in the middle as well, letting cock and tongue and heart pierce him. Randy lifted one of Ethan’s legs and pressed it between them. Randy stretched Ethan to his erotic limits as he thrust inside, rough but loving—more loving than Ethan would have asked of him, more loving, probably, than he should receive from a lover of a single day.