Nathan sighed a note of contentment. “Missed you too.”
Fury kissed Nathan’s cheek, pausing to let go of a shaky sigh when Nathan sucked Fury’s cum off one finger. “Hungry?” Fury asked, grit and rasp.
Nathan hummed. “Not as much as I was.”
Fury gave Nathan a long stare, and now Nathan could recognize the intensity in Fury’s eyes as affection. Fury zipped up, got the sack of food, and took it to the kitchen. Nathan straightened himself out too, and together they washed up and got plates, drinks, and forks. It was crazy-amazing, this sexually domestic life he was leading.
“How’d training go?” Nathan asked, sitting across from Fury and helping himself to a burrito.
“Okay. Got one more match and then the final rounds begin.”
“You’ve got it in the bag.” Nathan had gone to more of the qualifying fights after the one he’d seen with Paul. Fury and Nathan didn’t go together and didn’t hook up until afterward at Nathan’s place. There were few things better than Fury showing up in regulation wear and a coat of sweat while still riding the high. Yeah, they had to be careful of the inevitable injuries, but those never seemed to slow Fury down much.
“Maybe.” Fury shrugged. “Next guy’s good. We’ll see. Sooner I’m out, the sooner I can get out of camp.” Fury rolled his shoulders and winced. “Wouldn’t mind that so much. Jay’s kicking my ass.”
“How many hours today?”
“Six.”
Nathan shook his head. “Hell of a price to pay for knocking heads.”
“I know.” Fury stabbed a chunk of meat and shoved it into his mouth. He seemed unusually grim.
“Next round this weekend?” Nathan asked.
Fury chewed slower. “No. It’s Tuesday.”
“You got something sooner?”
Fury’s eyes ticked to meet Nathan’s. “Why?”
“Paul said he had tickets for Saturday.”
Fury took a slug of beer. “Thought he was going to go to your engagement party.”
“He is. He got his dates confused.” Nathan leaned forward, and his chair scraped on the tile. “What’s going on this weekend?”
Nathan had to wait through two bites and another long drink of his sweet tea before Fury answered. “I got something for Dennis.”
Nathan went back to eating and tried to appear casual. “Didn’t think you were doing that anymore.”
“Agreed to it a while ago. More formal than his usual shit. Audience.” Fury’s hand tightened on his fork.
“Huh.” Nathan was treading on thin ice though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe Fury thought Nathan would be pissed that Fury was fighting for Dennis. “Well, a promise is a promise.”
“Yeah, it is,” Fury grumbled.
“I could always trade you? Go smile for the cameras and eat catered food with the rich people, and I’ll go get my lights knocked out.”
Nathan didn’t think he would survive this version of Fury’s constant, inquisitive stare. It was different than the usual ones, like Fury was in Nathan’s head, poking around and kicking up dust in an effort to find something Nathan didn’t even know was there. Nathan squirmed in his seat, hesitated, and covered Fury’s hand with his own. “Something up?” he asked.
Slowly, Fury shook his head, unblinking. “Don’t like being part of bad ideas.”
“I’m trying to make sure you’re not part of mine.” Nathan sighed and tugged at his hair.
“I know,” Fury replied, turning his palm and squeezing Nathan’s hand.
“Laura came by the office,” Nathan blurted.
Fury’s eyebrows rose and fell. “She apologize?”
Nathan liked that Laura making amends for bad behavior was Fury’s first priority. “She did, yeah. Shocked the hell out of me.”
“Good.” Fury grunted and asked around a mouthful, “What did she want?”
Nathan blew a breath that wanted to be a chuckle and fell short. “You do know her.” He sighed and told Fury about Siena and what Laura had confided in him. “She wants to go through with the wedding.”
“’Course she does,” Fury said, but without the recrimination that Nathan would have expected.
“What do you mean?”
Fury put down his fork and reclined in his chair, glass in hand and resting on his knee. “Getting the cash means getting respect. It’s the only way she thinks she can get it from her dad.”
“And this’ll crush him,” Nathan said.
Fury shrugged. “She don’t care. She’ll get what’s hers, and fuck the cost. She probably figures she’s tried everything else.”
Nathan shook his head. “She’s not that cold.”
“Nah. She’s that desperate.”
“Probably. But she’s having doubts.”
“Sounds like.” Fury sipped his tea. “But not as big of ones as you are.”
“Well, no, I’ve got more to lose,” Nathan said, and he flailed when all Fury did was
look
at him. “She knows what she’s doing and why. I can’t quite remember how I got here. Yeah, the money’ll be nice, but thinking about dollar signs doesn’t comfort me quite the way it used to.” Anger welled, along with its cousin shame, and Nathan rubbed at his breastbone. “The whole situation… Shit’s starting to make me sick.” Nathan drained his beer in long gulps, ignoring Fury’s steady-as-Stonehenge stare.
“Yeah, that’s all part of it,” Fury said.
“What’s the rest of it?” Nathan asked drily.
Fury kicked his chair onto the two rear legs. “Harder to hear from somebody else.”
“Oh, just try me and let me figure out how hard it is.”
Seemingly unfazed by Nathan’s tone, Fury nodded. “Okay, then. You care about Greg Moore.”
Nathan went still. “Huh?”
“Your daddy used to hit you, right? Thought it was what your queer-ass deserved. Greg don’t do that.”
“Of course not. He’s my boss.” Nathan paused. “And he doesn’t know I’m gay.”
“Part of you thinks he does, or the rest of you don’t care if he knows or not. He’s taken you as his golden son, and you like how that feels. And there you are, lookin’ at Laura and thinkin’ to yourself that this girl had Greg all her life. She had herself a daddy who loved her or who you think must have loved her in ways you never got, and now she’s screwin’ him over for some cash. She’s takin’ you along for the ride too. Maybe you started out caring for Laura and Greg about equal, but you’re sidin’ with Greg now, and not just ’cause he’s your boss, but because you like him, maybe love him, and don’t want him hurt.”
Nathan tried to digest the Fury wisdom, and it gave him heartburn. “But…I…”
“You told me you were getting crazier and crazier ’fore I came along, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What with the boys and the drugs and shit?”
“Yeah.”
Fury shrugged as though that proved his point. “Somewhere along the way, you switched sides. It all started eatin’ you up, and you had to act out or go nuts.”
“That does sound like me,” Nathan said bemused.
“Uh-huh, it does. You’ve promised Laura, and you want to honor your word. But that means hurting the man who’s like a father to you.”
“So…what do I do?”
“No idea, but you been at war with yourself for a while. It’s calmed down a little now, probably ’cause you’re the kind of man who gets into relationships for keeps.”
“How do you know?” Nathan asked before he could shut himself up. “How do you know I’m like that?”
“The way you acted in the shower, back at the gym,” Fury said with a small smile. “You may screw around, but you do it ’cause you’re dyin’ for someone who’ll be there in the mornin’. It’s a touch thing. You act like you never been touched when I put my hands on you. I know how that goes. What that’s like.” Fury drank his tea, and Nathan wished he had another beer to chug.
“Well, guess it ain’t only that,” Fury continued. “It’s also what you changed. You’re with me, so that means no boys on the side. You know I don’t like drugs, so none of them either. You gave that up like it was easy, and only somebody who finds peace bein’ with someone could do that. You still need outta your head, but it’s different.” Fury rasped a low laugh. “Though we’re gonna wear new holes in you if we keep fuckin’ like we been doin’.”
“You complaining?” Nathan challenged.
“No.” Fury smiled. “Just worried about your ass.”
Nathan snorted. He chewed congealing food until his heart quit trying to beat its way out of his chest. “How do you know so much about this stuff?”
“Been there.”
“You have?”
Fury’s eyebrows lifted straight up. “Spent years trying to figure out what I needed to be a peaceful motherfucker, Nathan. Learned a thing or two along the way.”
“Yeah? What is it you need?”
Fury looked at Nathan and cocked an eyebrow.
“Oh,” Nathan said. He felt his mouth working as he sorted out the right words. “Makes sense,” he said, and he meant everything at once.
“Think so?” Fury asked with no hint of sarcasm.
“Yeah.” Nathan nodded. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.” Fury lifted his glass in salute.
“Want another?” Nathan pointed to Fury’s bare ice, and Fury dipped his chin in an affirmative. Nathan went to the fridge and cracked open a beer and got out the jug of tea.
“Sure you don’t want a Bud?” Nathan asked.
“Nah, I’m good with tea.”
“Why no alcohol?”
“Same reason I don’t do drugs.”
“And that is?”
“Complicated.”
“Got it.”
Fury brought their dishes over to the sink. He handed Nathan his glass, and Nathan poured Fury more tea. “You’ll be a good therapist someday,” Nathan said.
Fury scraped his plate and accepted his drink. “Right now, think I’m happy being a good boyfriend.”
“That what you are?”
Fury slid an arm around Nathan’s shoulders, putting them face-to-face. The heat in Fury’s expression warmed Nathan through and through. “Think so,” Fury said. “You let me stick around and all.”
“Mmm.” Nathan satisfied his craving for a kiss, and by silent, mutual agreement, they moved the making out to the sofa in front of the TV. “One of these days, you’ll have to let me stick around your place. I’d like to see it.”
“You have.” Fury put his feet on the coffee table, holding up one arm so Nathan could lean against him.
Nathan assumed the position. “No, I haven’t. We always stay here.”
There was a Fury-silence. “It’s bigger than the truck,” he said.
“Well, yeah.” Nathan rested against Fury’s side, draped Fury’s arm over his chest, paused on the way to the remote control, and twisted to look at Fury. “Wait. You live in your truck?”
Like dark magic, Fury’s features went flat. “Yeah,” he said.
Nathan couldn’t quite process the idea of Fury spending nights in the bed of a pickup. Especially not all the cold nights that came before Nathan and Fury were together. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Thought you knew.”
Nathan turned and spied the duffel bag. “So that’s…”
“All I got, yeah. Well, that I’d mind people stealin’.”
“No furniture, no nothing?”
Fury frowned at the floor. “Got a few things in a storage building I share with my sister.”
“Why not stay with her?” Nathan asked, hoping his luck held and Fury kept answering questions.
“She tends to stay wherever she’s wanted most,” Fury said stiffly.
Nathan translated that from Fury-speak. “So with boyfriends or whatever?”
“Or whatever.” Fury turned on the TV and started flipping through the guide.
“Where do you park? Sleep? Take a shower?” Nathan asked.
“Campgrounds. Truck stops. And usually at the gym. Jay lets me stay there sometimes too.”
“Like in winter?”
“I got a sleeping bag. It’s not a big deal.”
“But why…” Nathan broke off because Fury was starting to resemble a thundercloud, but Nathan could only keep his mouth shut for a few seconds. “Is it because you feel safer in the truck than in houses?” Nathan asked cautiously, but he had to know. He had to try.
“Yeah,” Fury answered.
Nathan muted the TV, and Fury folded his hands in his lap. One thumb rubbed another in a mesmerizing pattern. “I like to park at the gym in daytime,” Fury rumbled. “Get some sleep. Feel safe there.”
“You still do that?”
“Not since you. Not really.”
Fury could go from wise old man on the mountain to overgrown boy whom Nathan wanted to tuck in at night in less than two seconds flat. It was enough to break Nathan’s heart and offer up the pieces. “I could get better locks for the front door and one for the bedroom door,” Nathan said. “Those metal bars that lock in the middle or the ones that have rods that brace on the floor. I could get them, if that’d make staying here better.”
“It’s already pretty good, Nate.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And, yeah, that’d make it easier,” Fury finished, eyes shining.
“Okay.” Nathan sat next to Fury, propping up his feet and resting a hand on Fury’s thigh. Fury put an arm around Nathan, and Nathan felt lips and warm breath in his hair. Nathan unmuted the TV, found ESPN, and let his brain churn in the silence. “You ever going to tell me what happened?”
At first, Nathan thought maybe Fury hadn’t heard him. Then Nathan thought Fury just wasn’t going to answer. Nathan had resigned himself to ignorance for the hundredth time when Fury suddenly pulled Nathan closer and nudged Nathan’s head backward. The kiss was gentle, and it lasted long enough that Nathan struggled to remember what had brought it on when it ended.
“A bad night,” Fury said, lips tasting Nathan’s between the words.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you on a bad night. One’ll happen, sooner or later, but these nights are too good. I don’t wanna ruin them.”
Nathan’s forehead met Fury’s. “Okay,” Nathan said.
Fury held Nathan tightly. “A bad night might mean an end to the good ones. Don’t know how long any of this can really go for, you know?”
The list of ways they could end in fire and hell was too long to measure. Nathan swallowed. “Nobody does. All we have is right now.” He tried a smile. “One day at a time. Isn’t that what your reverend would say?”
“He’d probably say a lot more than that,” Fury agreed. “You still want me to keep your key?”
“I want you to use the damned key. No truck. Stay here.”
“Nate…”
“Whenever you want. It’s better than a parking lot, right?” Nathan hesitated. “If that’s… Is that okay with you?”
Fury’s kiss was the answer to at least one question, and later, Nathan and Fury slept curled up together with a chair under the bedroom doorknob and the rain pattering against the windows.