Friends and Lovers (6 page)

Talk about melodramatic.

James had been listening, tearing apart his roll. “You should know, Dean Blake, that Hamilton had been placing bets that he could seduce Tom, and that
he’d
be the one walking away.”

Tom hadn’t heard those rumors, and he raised an eyebrow at his friend, who shrugged.

“I know you, Tom. No one gets to you.”

Except Jack.

Once again he had to push thoughts of his best friend and the weekend he’d spent under him out of his mind, and instead studied the Dean. From his expression at that little tidbit, it was obvious he’d been unaware of the student’s actions.

Tom prevented his mouth from curling in a grin, but it was touch and go.

The Dean harrumphed. “Needless to say, I will have a talk with the young man.”

“Do that, Dean. Rest assured, he won’t be happy if
I
have that talk with him.”

Dean Blake stiffened and frowned at him. “That won’t be necessary, I assure you.”

From time to time Tom worked out in the gymnasium at Clarke Hall, and whenever he did, a small crowd of students and instructors would gather to watch. Stripped down to gym shorts and pumping iron with single-minded intensity, Tom was all sleek, glistening muscle.

Rumor had it that in his years at Florida State University, where he’d completed his degree and taught for a short time, he’d had a run-in with the leader of a particularly vicious motorcycle gang, and he had won.

“I’ll… er… I’ll just let you two gentlemen get back to your lunch.”

Tom dismissed the man as soon as he was out of the room. “So, James. You were going to tell me about your weekend?” He put the final segment of tangerine into his mouth.

“You’re going to push him too far one day, Tom.”

“And then what? He’ll make me write on the blackboard a thousand times, ‘Must play nice with others’? He said it himself – I have tenure. Besides, I’m the only openly gay faculty member P and J has. The ACLU would be down on his ass so fast…”

“He can make your life miserable.”

“More so than my life can be made miserable teaching chemistry to kids who take it because they have to and not because they want to?”

“Someone
wants
to take chem?” James grinned, but when Tom didn’t respond, he sighed and shook his head. “I worry about you, Tom.”

“Don’t. I can take care of myself.” He wouldn’t allow himself to think of Jack. “Now, are you going to tell me about your weekend, or will I be left to assume it was just a figment of your overactive imagination?”

As Tom had hoped, James allowed the change of subject.

“I met the cutest nurse at the clinic…”

Blue Monday, how I hate blue Monday…
Fats Domino

For a few hours after class on Monday afternoons, Tom was available to any of his students who needed to consult with him.

Most times it had to do with grades or a lab – “H2O is
not
to be confused with H2SO4!” – or an extension on work that was supposed to be turned in within the foreseeable future.

Sometimes, though, the student who waited to speak to him was gay, and either was the object of harassment, was terrified of being outed, or was nervously excited about outing him or herself.

On this Monday, when he would have been – not grateful, of course not grateful, but simply willing to accept the distraction, there was no one waiting in the outer office.

He raised an eyebrow at Margaret Nordstrom, the secretary he shared with his colleagues in the chemistry department.

“Has the student body been kidnapped en masse?”

She shrugged. “Cheerleader practice, baseball practice, track and field practice. Not to mention Dr. Costello was watching The Music Man again and decided he wanted a marching band with seventy-six trombones. He’s auditioning anyone who can tell him what a spit valve is.”

“Again?” In spite of himself, Tom had to smile. “He does that every spring.”

“Things are going to be quiet for a few days. I’d suggest taking advantage of it.”

“And do what?” Obsess over this past weekend?

“You’ve been meaning to reorganize the files since Dr. Myers dumped them on you.” She was an outspoken woman who considered the department hers. She’d been there since before Tom had been a student at P and J. “You could do that.”

Which ranked right up there with giving himself a paper cut and then squeezing lemon juice on it. He spared a scowl for Dr. Myers, whose office had been bequeathed to Tom when a midlife crisis had the former chair of the chemistry department deciding he wanted to find himself with his daughter’s sorority sister.

“Tom, what’s wrong?”

Was it written on his forehead, ‘I was screwed’? “Long weekend.”

“Oh?” She shook her head. “One of these days, Thomas, you’re going to go up against someone who’s going to knock you for a loop.”

Tom ran into her after he’d returned to Savannah and a position at P and J.

“Ms. Nordstrom?” Tom was stunned.

“Professor Hansom?” She looked only looked mildly surprised.

They were in a leather bar.

“Introduce us, Margaret,” a statuesque woman dressed in black leather and red, spike-heeled boots ordered.

“Dr. Jessamyn Scott, Dean of Girls at Broughton Prep.” A prestigious girls’ school just outside of Savannah. “Thomas Hansom, our newest professor of chemistry at Pulaski and Jasper.”

“Doctor.”

“Professor. What Margaret neglected to mention is that we’ve been partners for the last twenty years.” She put a possessive arm around the other woman’s waist.

“Congratulations, ma’am.”

They shook hands, Tom bought a round of drinks, and they chatted a bit.

“My doctorate is in social science; I’m here…” She waved her hand to indicate the leather bar. “… in an attempt to find a correlation between the subculture of leather and motorcycles.”

The corner of Tom’s mouth curled up. “I’m here to…” And then he spotted a young man dressed in chaps, a silver-studded vest, and a smile. “If you ladies will excuse me?”

A few minutes later, on his way out, with his hand on the bare butt of the young man clinging to him, Tom glanced back to give Margaret a farewell salute. She and her partner stared after him, open-mouthed.

And wouldn’t Margaret laugh herself silly if she knew he’d already fallen into the oldest trap in the book: promising himself things wouldn’t get weird between him and his best friend, and then finding that they had?

“Why don’t you go home for the day, Margaret? I think I can handle the ravening horde.”

“If you’re sure? There’s something on the History Channel I was meaning to tape for Jessamyn…”

“Sure.” Tom followed her to the door.

“I’ll just leave the door open in case anyone shows up.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow, Margaret.”

“Good afternoon, Tom.”

Tom gazed hopefully up and down the hall outside the office, but it was deserted. “Damn. All right, Hansom, there’s no getting out of it. Time to roll up your sleeves and dig in.”

He went into his office and opened the storage closet. Inside, stacked three deep and six high, were cardboard boxes.

“Bastard didn’t even have the smarts to label them!”

Tom muscled out the first box, opening it with caution. No telling what might pop out, and while there wasn’t much that… disturbed… him, spiders were one of the things that gave him the willies. He figured it had to do with the time he’d been bitten by one when he’d taken refuge in his dog’s doghouse.

He’d loved that goofy-looking mutt, and he gave a sad smile. Marshall Dillon, with the long droopy ears and ropes of saliva swinging from his jowls. Staying with his dog was the only thing that made him feel safe when his father had been drinking.

Not liking where that train of thought was taking him, he pulled out the first file, tapped it against his desk cautiously, then began to thumb through the contents, pushing all memories of that time aside with practiced ease.

It was after 6 by the time Tom got home.

Tired, grungy, and hungry, he inserted his key in the lock.

“Yoo hoo! Mr, Hansom!” It was Mrs. Wiggins. “You really should leave a spare key with me, dear.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I could have let your cousin in. He was here earlier, but you must have forgotten to give him the key.”

“How remiss of me.” His smile was tight. “I’d see about correcting that, of course, but I regret to say that Cousin Jack won’t be staying with me any longer.”

“He won’t? I’m so sorry to hear that. Such a well-mannered young man.”

Meaning I’m not?
he was tempted to snap at her, but all he wanted was a shower, a drink, and dinner, and in any order in which they were available.

“Yes, well, he changed his plans.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got.”

“Excuse me?” Was the witch being
arch
?

“The way you two were coming and going over the weekend… I couldn’t help but notice all the little chores he was doing around the house, and your yard? My, my, my! Your yard has never looked so good. I’ll have to look to my laurels, I’m sure.” She
was
being arch! “It certainly seemed to me as if he were ready to settle in. Are you sure he isn’t? He was here only a short time ago, after all.”

For a second, Tom couldn’t catch his breath. “How long ago?”

“Oh, I’d say about forty-five minutes, perhaps an hour. When I told him you weren’t home yet, he said something about having to run some errands.”

Tom relaxed. Jack had probably used that as an excuse to escape the nosy woman. For whatever reason Jack had dropped by, he wasn’t likely to be back. His first ex-wife belonged to some church group or other, and they met to spend Monday evenings on their knees, and not in the fun way. They’d be praying for those who weren’t fortunate enough as to believe in
their
god, belong to
their
congregation.

Jack had his kids for those few hours, and he’d never let anything interfere with his seeing them.

“Well, I’d like to stay and chat, Mrs. Wiggins, but it’s been a long day. Good evening.”

“Oh! Er… good evening, Mr. – ”

Tom shut the door, with its newly caulked window, tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, where the faucet no longer dripped, and stalked to the bedroom. He came to a halt in the doorway. The room was still a wreck, and he was positive if he inhaled deeply enough he’d be able to smell the scent of their lo – fucking.

With savage movements, he tore the sheets off the mattress, stripped the pillows bare, and remade the bed.

While the sheets and pillow cases were in the washer on the sun porch, he poured himself two fingers of Jack Daniels, knocked it back, and grimaced as it seared its way down his throat.

He slammed the glass down on the counter and went to check the fridge.

The proverbial cupboard was bare. “This is your fault too, Jack,” he snarled. They’d intended to go shopping to stock up the larder, but Jack had gazed at him with slumberous eyes, licked his lips, and they’d wound up in bed again. Afterwards, they’d ordered Chinese take-out, and there had been no leftovers. “I’m dead beat, and now I have to go out to eat.”

He deliberately ignored Mrs. Wiggins’ words about Jack running errands.

If one of those errands consisted of picking up the groceries they hadn’t shopped for the day before, Tom would toss him and his bag of groceries – if he happened to bring a bag of groceries – out the back door.

His stomach rumbled, as if wistful at the thought of food. “All right, goddammit! I’m talking you out for dinner!”

He showered, shaved, and brushed his teeth. If he had to go out, he might as well find himself a piece of ass and get laid as well.

He was coming out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist and another catching the last stray drops of water from his hair, when he spied the man lounging in the doorway.

“Jack!”
NO
!
he snarled at his heart, the stinking traitor, as it turned over in his chest.
You will
not
be happy to see him!

“Hi, Tom. You weren’t home when I got here, so I thought I’d…”

“I see students on Mondays after my last class.”

“That’s right, you told me that before. I guess I just thought…”

“You thought what?” There was a bite in his tone.

“I just… after this past weekend, I thought you’d be home early, and we could spend this evening together. We had such a great weekend...”

There! You see! He wants to take over your life!

“How’d you get in?”
He’s
not
gonna get the chance!

“The door wasn’t locked.”

Fuck. He always locked the door after himself. What the hell was the matter with him?

“Well, what are you doing here?”