He could only hope.
Ethan trudged up the stairs back to the main cabin. A steward passed him in the hall, carrying a tray of waters for the rear cabin. In the front of the plane, Jack’s private office doors loomed large, leading to the President’s Suite onboard the plane. Behind the office, Jack had a bedroom and a bathroom, and even a shower. Down the hall was the conference room where Gottschalk liked to spread out on long flights.
Ethan had covered Gottschalk with a blanket and turned out the lights in the conference room after he’d passed out more than once.
Two quick raps on the door signaled his arrival. Jack called out, “Come in.”
He slipped inside. Shut the door behind him.
Jack stood slowly behind his desk. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’m glad you came.”
Ethan let his eyes roam over Jack. It was the last time, after all. Jack had shed his jacket and his button-down, and he was just in his untucked undershirt and his suit pants. He’d kicked off his shoes beside the desk.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan started. “I’m sorry for what I did. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have fallen for you. I shouldn’t have given you my cell number, and I shouldn’t have spent any time with you at all. Everything that happened is because of my poor judgement, and all of it is my fault.” He swallowed. “I’m very sorry, Mr. President.”
Sighing, Jack slumped. His shoulders sagged, and his fingers rubbed against one another, over and over. “It’s not all your fault, Ethan. Don’t take all the blame.”
Ethan looked away. If he could, he’d leap from this plane. Land anywhere else, anywhere in the world.
“I didn’t know—I didn’t think—” Jack stopped, stuttering, and exhaled. “Looking back, it seems so clear. But I didn’t know at the time what was happening.”
“Sir, you don’t need to do this.” He spoke through clenched and gritted teeth. “I’m going to request a transfer as soon as we land. We don’t need to discuss this any more. And you don’t need to worry about any inappropriate behavior from me.” Ethan paused. “Any further inappropriate behavior.”
Jack’s head shot up. His eyes were blown wide, shock lining the edges of his gaze as his face blanched. His lips thinned as he pressed them together. Ethan watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall in a long, slow swallow.
The moment stretched long, silence straining the air between them. The sound of the jet engines thrummed through the office, trembling the floor beneath Ethan’s feet. It sounded like static filling his brain, like the electric smear that had taken over his mind, whitewashing his world in a chorus of should-haves and if-onlys.
He should leave. He should excuse himself from the office, but Ethan stayed where he was. Jack seemed to be working up to something. He licked his lips and looked away. Looked down. Leaned forward, bracing his hands against the desk. Exhaled.
Finally, Jack met Ethan’s gaze.
His naked terror speared Ethan, and his breath hitched.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Jack breathed. His voice was rough, catching on what sounded like fear stuck in his chest. “I want you to stay.”
“I can’t.” Ethan hated the way his voice cracked, fracturing on his heartbreak. “I can’t. Not like this.”
Jack’s eyes widened as he drew a ragged breath. But his gaze was strong as he stared at Ethan. “Then let’s figure out how to make this work.”
Ethan’s heart skipped a beat. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Straightening, Jack held his head high, and even though fear still poured off him, Ethan watched him gather his strength. “When I fell for my wife,” Jack began, his voice shaking, “I was consumed with thoughts of her. I wondered what she was doing every moment. I couldn’t wait to see her again. The sound of her voice raised my spirits. Her smile made my day. I wanted to spend every minute I could with her.” Jack blinked fast and cleared his throat. He looked down, staring at his desk for a long moment. “The more I got to know her, the more I fell for her. I knew what was happening, and I fell for her with my eyes wide open. I welcomed it.”
When Jack looked up, all of the air in Ethan’s lungs burst from him in one quick gasp. Longing had replaced Jack’s fear, fathoms deep, and mixed with hope and sorrow. “When I am around you, I feel like I felt when I was falling for her.”
Ethan couldn’t breathe. His palms itched, and his bones were on fire, burning him from the inside. “You’re straight,” he grunted.
“All my life.” Jack licked his lips. “The past fifteen years I’ve actually been celibate. I thought that sex and romance and love was gone from my life. I didn’t want to even consider anything after Leslie’s death.”
Not again
. He didn’t want to be the asshole that reminded Jack of his dead wife again. “Please, sir.
Stop
. We don’t need to—”
“Listen to me, Ethan, dammit.” Exhaling, Jack ran his hands through his wild hair. The ends stuck up, crazy. “I met and married my wife, and I loved her with all my heart. At thirty, I shelved my sex life and pushed away anyone who wanted anything romantic from me.” He hesitated, swallowing again. “And at forty-five, I was kissed by my closest friend, and I can’t get that kiss out of my mind.”
Suddenly, Jack was on a roll. He started to pace in the cramped space behind the desk, pushing the chair away. “Today, when Penelope Mendoza was with me, all I could think of was how much I wanted that to be
you
. I wanted you leaning in close to me, Ethan. I wanted to be solving the world’s problems with
you
. And before, I wanted to be exploring Prague with you at my side. I want you in my life. I want to see you every day. I want to hear your voice. I want to spend my free time with you and steal time away from work just to hear your laugh.” He stopped, staring at Ethan. “I blurted out that joke in the bar because the thought of you and me together has been in my mind since you kissed me.”
“Stop. Please.
Stop
.” Ethan shook his head, back and forth, trying to erase Jack’s words. “You don’t know what you’re saying—”
“Something is happening here. I don’t know what it is. I wouldn’t have ever known… I wouldn’t have ever even considered this if you hadn’t kissed me. You were my friend, my closest friend now, and I probably would have kept up a long-term friendship with you, never realizing what—” He hesitated. “—what this could be,” he finished, his voice soft.
“You’re just isolated. Lonely. This is just the isolation of the presidency talking.” Ethan’s hands clenched into fists, over and over. “If you had any other options, you wouldn’t be saying this.” He turned away.
“Dammit!” Jack’s hand slammed down on his desk, slapping the surface and cracking the air in the office. “I can’t sleep because I keep coming all over myself in my dreams! Dreams about you!”
Whirling, Ethan’s jaw clenched as his eyes burned, staring at Jack.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me!” Jack shouted. “I don’t know what it means that I feel this way about you! I can’t get you out of my mind! I want to be with you all the time! It feels like I’m falling for someone all over again. Falling for
you
.” Jack shook as he exhaled. “Everything I think I know about myself is in flux.” He looked into Ethan’s eyes. “I’ve got two choices. I can ignore this, and I can let you transfer away. We both can bury this, and I go back to my loveless, empty life. I can let you go. It would be easy. So damn easy.”
Ethan couldn’t take this. His heart was going to explode, or he was going to vomit or spontaneously combust. Fire and ice raged inside of him, scorching his soul. His head ached, and his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together. He was going to crack a tooth; he just knew it.
“Or I can face this. Allow myself to feel again. Accept that I…” Jack bit his lip. “That I think I can fall for you. Fall for a
man
. Despite everything I’ve ever known.”
“You think you can fall for…” Ethan shook his head, trying to clear the screaming from his mind. This wasn’t happening. He was dreaming, and he was going to wake up sobbing, again. “What are you trying to say? That you want a gay experiment? Because I can’t do that. I can’t be your gay test, Jack. I care too much about you for that.”
“No.” Jack slid around the side of his desk, stopping across from Ethan, only feet away, but it seemed like miles. Or further. “I never thought that I would feel this way for a man. But I
do
. I want
you
, Ethan. And now I have to figure out what to do about that.” He crossed his arms and shifted across his feet. “I want to figure out how to make this work. Together. I want to try, Ethan. Because…” A pause, as Ethan felt his heart burst. “Because when you truly fall for someone, you have to be willing to try anything to make that work. So I am asking you… Can we figure this out? Can we make this work?”
“You are the president…”
“Only for the next three and half years. I’m not the office. You know that better than anyone.”
“You’re worth more than one term.”
Jack smiled, wistful. “You think so highly of me. I don’t know what I did to earn your respect. But, Ethan, the way you look at me.” His eyes shifted. Heat smoldered in his gaze. “It makes me feel alive.”
Ethan closed his eyes, trying to breathe. In and out, over and over, as his hands clenched into fists. The world was spinning too fast. Ethan was really asleep, probably moaning in his bunk below decks, and he’d wake any minute.
Please, wake up. Wake up! I don’t want to hear this anymore. I don’t want to hear my dreams come true only for them to end!
“You’re straight,” Ethan breathed. “You’ll decide this isn’t for you. You like the idea, but you won’t like the reality.”
“I masturbated thinking about you last night,” Jack blurted out. “After we got back from the bar. I came…harder than I have in over a decade. And,” he quirked his head to the side. “Did you forget the wet dreams I’ve been having? I haven’t had one in, God, years. They started with women, but now… It’s all you. Your body. Us, together. All I can think about is you.”
Hissing, Ethan’s eyes ran over Jack’s body, drinking him in. The thought of Jack, touching himself and thinking of Ethan, tore through him. “You really want this? A man?”
“I really want
you
.” Jack swallowed. His hands clasped the desk behind him. His knuckles were white. “Can we go slowly?” His voice finally shook. “I want to say I’m brave, but…I am nervous, Ethan. I do want you, though. I want to try this. With you.”
“What does slow mean? I want to be absolutely clear.”
“I’m not ready to have sex with you yet, but I want to kiss you again.” Jack’s chin lifted. “Is that clear?”
God, Ethan was going to die. His eyes squeezed shut, and he prayed, harder than he’d ever prayed before, to wake up that moment. Or to stay asleep forever. For this moment to never, ever end. When his heart kept beating and the world kept spinning, refusing to fade away into a dreamscape, Ethan opened his eyes.
Jack was waiting for him.
The choice was his. How had it come to his? He’d screwed everything up. That didn’t lead to happy endings. He wasn’t supposed to end up with his heart’s desire, not after everything he’d done. But, God, Jack was standing there, waiting for him.
He had to choose. Did he step forward and take this chance? Reach for Jack and hope that it would work out? Figure out how to love a straight man negotiating brand new territory?
What did he want?
He wanted Jack like he wanted oxygen. Like he wanted his heart to keep beating. He wanted, so deeply, so badly, but that want ignored the realities of the world. They would have to hide. They’d have to hide everything from everybody. It was wrong to be with Jack on so many levels. He’d lose everything if they were discovered.
So would Jack. The risk he was taking… It wasn’t just his sexuality he was playing with. If word of this got out…
Ethan’s eyes clenched. How could he do this, knowing the risks? Knowing what Jack could lose if it all went wrong?
How could he turn away from Jack offering him his heart? He wasn’t strong enough to make that sacrifice, no matter how much of a hero he wanted to be. He was just a man, a man compromised by love.
He had to choose, and the weight of the decision almost crushed his soul. Go to Jack. Find their love. Find some way they could love each other, despite everything. Live with secrets and lies until they could be free. Share his life with the best man he’d ever met, ever, in the world.
Or turn away. Break Jack’s heart, like Ethan’s heart had shattered. Risk nothing. Leave the world to turn on, without the risk of it falling to pieces when this all came out, and when everything came crashing down. Jack would survive, and he’d continue on. Didn’t the world need him as president? How much would it hurt when this leaked out, and when Jack was destroyed by his willingness to give love a second chance?
It was the choice of a lifetime, and more than just two hearts hung in the balance.
To love or to wither. To cherish or to destroy. Their world, together, or the world at large.
Ethan opened his eyes.
Jack was waiting, still.
He wasn’t strong enough for this. Wasn’t strong enough to deny his heart and choose to save the world instead.
He was just a man. A man that yearned. A man that loved.
“I’m with you all the way, Jack,” Ethan breathed. “As long as you’ll have me.”
Slowly, Jack smiled, though it wavered on the edges. “I will hold you to that.”
They stood, staring at each other, as the moment stretched. Tension poured in, replacing the warmth of their words.
Ethan blinked. What now? What did he do now? How was he supposed to do this? There were a thousand things they needed to discuss, but he just wanted to drop to his knees at Jack’s feet and push the world away.
Jack cleared his throat. “You took the initiative last time. It’s only fair that I…” He trailed off.
Before Ethan knew what was happening, Jack strode forward, his eyes locked on Ethan’s and filled with determination. Frozen, Ethan could only watch as Jack’s hand rose, cupping his jaw in a tender, gentle hold.
Jack’s thumb stroked over Ethan’s cheek. “You held my face,” he breathed. “No one has ever done that.” Leaning forward, Jack’s lips brushed Ethan’s.