Restoration 01 - Getting It Right (5 page)

Down the hall to 6D. Knocked.

No answer.

The door wasn’t locked, so he went in. The apartment was never terribly tidy, but its current state redefined disaster area. Cushions off the couch, a vase of wilted flowers knocked over, popped balloon guts, heaps of cards and stuffed animals in one corner. The galley kitchen was especially messy, with an overflowing garbage can and a sink piled high with dirty dishes and plastic takeout containers. Litter box odor perfumed the room. It had only been a week since James had been here last.

Fucking hell.

Schtump leaped onto the back of the sofa and blinked big green eyes at him. Meowed.

“Where’s your daddy?” James asked.

The cat stared. Something thudded in the bedroom.

“Elliott?”

He picked his way through the living room and pushed open the bedroom door. The

closet and dresser had vomited every article of clothing owned by the two men all over the bed and floor. Elliott stood in the middle of it, his normally spiked, green-tipped hair plastered flat to his head, his cheeks flaming red. His face was a muddle of dried and fresh tear tracks.

“I don’t have a suit for him,” Elliott said. “I need a fucking suit, Jay, and I don’t have one.” The suit was a distraction from his grief. James didn’t need a degree to know that.

“We can find a suit later, okay? It’s not a big deal right now.”

“We can’t find it later. It’s not here. It’s not fucking here. I forgot it’s not here.” Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, and he didn’t seem to notice them.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s not here because he was wearing it that night. The hospital threw it away, I bet.”

James heart twisted, and he stepped toward his grieving friend. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll buy one. A better one.”

“It’s my fault.” Elliott’s hands flew up, shielding him from James’s advance. “Should have been me in that car, not him.”

Survivor’s guilt. Classic. “No, you shouldn’t have been there. Doug’s accident wasn’t your fault. He spun off the road during a storm.”

“He was on the road because of me.”

“That doesn’t—”

“I lied to him. The last thing I ever said to him was a lie. I wanted to hurt him and I did, because he hurt me too.”

Elliott’s absolute misery made James believe him. “What did you lie about?”

“I told him I was having an affair.”

“What?” James gaped at him. “Why did you tell him that?”

“I don’t know!” Elliott collapsed onto the bed, shoulders hunched. “Things have been weird since New Year’s. He was always working, and when he was home, he was distant. We weren’t having sex much, and when we were it was all about getting off. No passion. That’s why I was so shocked when he proposed. It was romantic and sweet, and we had the best sex ever that night. And then after a week, it went back to the way it was before. Distant. I started thinking
he
was having an affair.”

Oh hell.
“Did you ever ask him?”

“How do you ask something like that? How do you accuse your fiancé of cheating on you?” He huffed, sniffled. “I called the store one night when he was supposed to be working late on a new floor plan setup. They told me he’d left hours earlier. I called his cell, and he didn’t answer. It scared me, so the next day I swiped his phone while he was in the shower.”

James sat next to him. “What did you find?”

“Photos. Saved in a folder named Heart.” Elliott made a harsh, wheezing sound. “They were all of some other guy, mostly naked. I wanted to think they were just porn shots, or something for a kink Doug hadn’t told me about. But the last photo was of this stranger with his mouth around Doug’s cock.”

“How do you know—?”

“Doug’s got a birthmark on his hip. It looks like Italy.”

“Okay.” James didn’t want to believe Doug was cheating on Elliott. Who in their right mind would do that? “How do you know they weren’t of an old boyfriend? Maybe they were pics that Doug never deleted.”

“That’s what I hoped they were, but they weren’t. In the cock shot, Doug was holding the guy’s head. I could see his wrist.” Elliott raised his head, his eyes swimming with grief. “He was wearing the watch I gave him for Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh fuck, babe, I’m so sorry.”

Elliott crumbled, and James tugged him into a hug. Elliott was shorter than him, on the skinny side of slim, with no real muscles to speak of, and James dwarfed him. Elliott burrowed into his arms and trembled, his chest heaving with no real tears being shed. James’s eyes burned.

He wanted to cry for his friend’s pain, but he had to be strong. He had to get Elliott through this.

Then he could lose it.

“Did you confront him about the photos?”

“No.” Elliott raised his chin so he wasn’t speaking into James’s armpit. “I was too scared.

Scared of him admitting it, because that made it real. It made me a fool, because we’d been going bare for over a year, and I’d trusted him enough to do that. So a few days later, I told him I had to stay late at the office to do a refiling project for my boss, probably wouldn’t be home until after midnight. I sat outside and I watched him leave around dinnertime wearing his suit.”

Elliott’s heart galloped, a slapping beat against James’s chest. He hated every moment of this—Elliott reliving his pain, discovering Doug had been a cheating asshole instead of a devoted boyfriend. A cheating asshole who might have given him something, and Jesus Christ, James couldn’t imagine that kind of news.

“I went inside and waited. Doug came home a little after nine. The bastard reeked of sex, like he hadn’t bothered to shower afterward. He had the nerve to get pissed off that I’d lied about working late. I asked if he had something he wanted to tell me. He said I was clingy and paranoid, and it was pissing him off.”

“Bastard.”

Elliott’s chest heaved. “I was so mad that he wouldn’t just come clean and admit it that I told him I was cheating on him. I just blurted it out. I think I was hoping he’d go ‘me too’ and it would be out in the open, you know? But you know what he said? He said ‘I hope you’re fucking happy together.’ And then he left. And then he went off the road.”

James hugged him tighter, prepared for the inevitable breakdown. “He cheated on you, Ell. He doesn’t deserve your tears anymore.”

“I lied to him, Jay.”

“He lied first. He lied the worst. He broke your trust, and he broke your heart.”

“But he shouldn’t have to die for it.”

“He’s dying because he was in an accident. It’s not your fault, I promise you. It’s not your fault.”

“Should have been me.”

“Shut up.” James cupped Elliott’s cheeks in his palms, forcing the grieving man to look him in the eye. “Do not ever think that way again. You absolutely should not be dead instead of him. You have too many people who love you.”

“But Doug’s family?”

“They’re in pain. It’s going to hurt and hurt bad, but Ell, I wouldn’t trade you for him.

Not for a second. Don’t ever feel guilty for living, hear me?”

Elliott had never looked younger or more fragile in all the years he’d known him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling right now. Tell me how to feel, Jay.”

“I can’t tell you what you should feel, but I’ll tell you what you’re allowed to feel.

You’re allowed to feel hurt and betrayed. You’re allowed to feel grief and anger. You’re allowed to blame yourself a little bit, so long as you heap a good lot of that blame on Doug too. You’re also allowed to lean on your friends. Me and Nate and Boxer and Tori. We love you, and we’re here. Whatever you need.”

He hiccupped. Coughed. “Can you hold me? Please?”

James didn’t argue that he
was
holding Elliott. Instead, he moved up the bed, shoving piles of clothes to the floor, and tugged Elliott along with him. He arranged Elliott on his side, his back to James’s chest, and then wrapped the smaller man up in his body. Arms around his chest and shoulders, legs entwined. Holding as much of Elliott as he could, while Elliott broke completely. He sobbed into the crook of James’s arm, fingers clutching the silk comforter. James held him like he’d asked, and let his friend grieve.

Elliott relaxed by degrees, his tight grip on James loosening as he worked through his pain and his heaving sobs calmed into occasional sniffles. The unusual arrangement of holding another man like this, so intimately without being remotely sexual, made something deep inside of James ache. A part of him that avoided emotional intimacy—because avoiding was easier than dealing with the fallout when things went to shit. Elliott and Doug were a prime example of broken trust and a failed relationship, so why did the entire situation make James want…something?

Want more than a casual fuck and a quick goodbye.

He dozed awhile, until “Roar” blared in the living room, startling him awake. Elliott stirred and groaned, but made no move to find his phone. Instead, he twisted around so he was facing James. His eyes were puffy, his pale skin blotchy, but he seemed…better. He snuggled closer to James, tucking his head under his chin, and James didn’t protest. He liked it too much.

And to be honest, he needed it too. He needed a little comfort and distraction from his own personal drama. Last night’s attempt to scratch an itch and forget for a while had ended miserably and—

Forget it, you are not fucking Ell. No.

As if tuned into his thoughts, Elliott’s hand skimmed from his shoulder to his waist, then beneath his suit jacket. Heat seeped through James’s shirt, into his skin, sending his heart racing.

The hand slid backward, into the small of his back and lingered there. James closed his eyes and sifted his fingers through Elliott’s damp hair, feeling the scorching heat of the man in his arms everywhere their bodies touched.

They hadn’t been together for five years, but James knew all of Elliott’s secrets. Knew that biting the cord between neck and shoulder would make him horny as hell. Knew just the right way to suck him off. Knew how it felt to sink his dick into his body and fuck him senseless.

The X-rated memories sent blood surging south, and James couldn’t stop his thickening cock from pressing against Elliott’s thigh.

Elliott gasped. Shuddered.

This is a bad idea. Doug isn’t even in the ground.

Elliott didn’t really want him. Elliott wanted to forget about Doug for a while. Forget his fiancé was a lying cheater who was scheduled to die tomorrow. James could certainly distract him into a couple of orgasms, but what would Elliott think of it all tomorrow? Was it really cheating if your partner was already gone in every way except a heartbeat?

Don’t give Ell something else to regret, you asshole.

He didn’t get the chance to make a decision, because a shock of movement landed James flat on his back. Elliott straddled his waist and slid his jeans-clad ass backward until he was sitting on top of James’s cock, putting pressure on his erection that sent arousal surging through James’s body. Elliott stared down at him, intensity in his gaze that James didn’t recognize. An intensity born of anger, grief, regret and desire, and the volatile combination was as terrifying as it was arousing.

Elliott leaned down and captured his mouth in a kiss as demanding as it was asking, and shit it was good. His tongue stud scraped along the roof of James’s mouth, and James shuddered.

The piercing was only a year old, and Elliott used to joke that it was the best toy he’d ever added to his sex life, and James believed him now. He used the stud to rub James’s tongue, and James could only imagine how that smooth ball would feel against his cock.

He licked along James’s jaw, down to his throat, that wonderful stud waking up skin and nerves everywhere it went. James clasped at Elliott’s hips, unable to commit his hands to any course of action when all his brain could do was track the path of Elliott’s tongue. Down to the open collar of his shirt, which opened farther as Elliott worked the buttons. He licked and sucked each inch of exposed chest.

James’s skin prickled with awareness. His brain buzzed with need. And he couldn’t stop hesitating.

At least until Elliott bit down hard on his nipple. Shock and heat surged in James’s gut.

He rolled, dumping Elliott on his back. Legs hooked around his waist. James ground his cock against Elliott’s and was rewarded with a long, low moan. Fingers dug into his ass, urging him closer. James rolled his hips, the friction just enough to burn in his gut without getting him anywhere close to orgasm.

“This what you want?” James whispered.

Elliott gasped. “God, yes.”

“You need to be sure.”

A memory stirred in James’s mind.
“I’ve got you.”

Nathan? When the fuck did he say that?

“Am sure,” Elliott said. “Need you to fuck me, Jay, please.”

“I don’t get fucked.”

Ezra.

What in the blue hell is wrong with me tonight?

He didn’t want this. Despite his body’s reactions—and honestly, he could get hard if a hot guy simply winked at him, so he was a goner when a hot guy was rubbing all over him—his head and heart knew better. This wasn’t right for a lot of reasons. He couldn’t fuck Elliott tonight, and then go back to the hospital tomorrow as though nothing had happened. And he wasn’t going to give Elliott anything else to regret.

Elliott mistook his hesitation and tugged him down into another hot, tongue-lashing kiss.

God, he’d always been a fantastic kisser. So good but not quite great. Not what he wanted. As much as James’s body demanded more, this was wrong. This was grief.

The kiss softened, a gentler movement of lips. Nicer. Not grief. This was pity. Pity for his shitty night. He’d craved this man’s kiss for so long, but he couldn’t have it. Not like this.

James tore away. “Nate, stop.”

“What?” Elliott blinked up at him, his kiss-bruised lips parted. “What did you call me?”

Shit. James sat up, then scooted to the other side of the bed. Embarrassment heated his face and sent his stomach rolling.

Elliott twisted up onto his knees, his expression a puzzling mix of amusement and sadness. “You know, I suspected as much.”