“What?”
“I said—”
“Not you, hang on.” Tommy covered the receiver and Alan heard muffled voices in the background before his brother returned. “Patrick says it’s separation anxiety. He says you should bring Oscar to the office with you from now on so he won’t be so lonely and trash stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s just what we need, a wild dog trashing stuff in the office.” Again, Alan heard Patrick’s voice in the background followed by what might have been the rustle of sheets.
“Ow,” The single word came out on a laugh. “Stop it, man.
Wait’ll I get off the phone, can’t you?”
This was followed by more rustling and laughter.
Alan sighed, more than a little envious despite that he was happy his brother and Patrick seemed to be hitting it off so well.
“Listen, Tom, I have to go.”
“No, wait.” Tommy giggled. It was the only way to describe that sound. “Shit, I’m being molested over here and—”
“And I don’t need to listen while it happens. Later, my brother.”
Alan hung up on the sound of his twin’s laughter.
Separation anxiety, huh? Still, Patrick probably knew a thing or two about canine behavior. So maybe there was something to it.
Alan eyed Oscar in his crate. “Want to go for a ride, my naughty boy?”
Oscar thumped his tail happily, secure in the knowledge that he had been, or soon would be, forgiven.
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Alan walked to the crate and opened the door. Oscar bounded out, his entire body trembling with excitement at the idea of going someplace.
What could it hurt? Alan reasoned as he got Oscar’s leash and attached it to his collar. If things got awkward at Michael’s they could talk about the dogs. And who knew, maybe some of Heidi’s good behavior would rub off on his little delinquent.
When they reached Michael’s house, Alan opened the driver’s door and, before he got even one foot out of the car, Oscar squeezed between the front seats, leaping across Alan’s lap, and out the driver’s door.
Alan made a grab for the leash and missed. With visions of a long and fruitless search for a lost Oscar already playing in his head, Alan lunged after the dog, banged his elbow on the edge of the door and swore.
“Oscar, get your butt back here!”
Luckily Oscar ran toward the house instead of the road. He raced up the porch steps and ran in circles, his nose to the porch boards, dragging his leash all the way.
Alan stood by the car and glared while he rubbed his smarting elbow. “Oscar, come.”
Oscar stopped circling, sat and looked at Alan, his head cocked to one side as if to say,
What the heck are you waiting for?
He really did suck at this puppy raising stuff. Good thing he didn’t have kids.
Alan sighed, crossed the driveway and mounted the steps.
Picking up Oscar’s leash, he wrapped it around his hand and rang the bell.
Oscar sat beside him, doing his imitation of the perfect guide dog in training, and waited for Michael to answer the door.
What was he doing here? He had to be out of his mind or maybe just masochistic, to open himself up for more rejection at Michael’s hands.
The door opened and there was Michael, as gorgeous as ever, too soon FoR Love
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his dog at his heel. Heidi let out a low woof, but held her ground.
Oscar, on the other hand, jumped up and pranced around Alan’s feet, tangling them both in the leash, whining and yipping like he couldn’t possibly contain himself.
“Michael, I brought Oscar along. I hope that’s not going to be a problem.”
Michael’s smile was immediate and genuine. It made Alan’s heart skip a beat. “Of course it’s not a problem. It’s great. He and Heidi can get acquainted. You’re supposed to be socializing him to other dogs, right? I thought I remembered Guy saying that was part of the training.”
“Yeah, it is. Unfortunately, it’s a part we seem to be having trouble with, one of many. Oscar, sit.”
Oscar sat just as Michael stepped back and opened the door to let them in.
“That’s a good boy,” Alan said. “C’mon then. Heel.”
They stepped inside and Michael closed the door. There was an awkward moment as the four of them—the two dogs and the two men—stood together in the hallway then Oscar nudged Michael’s hand and Heidi came forward to establish her dog-ofthe-manor status. Somebody growled, and for a few minutes, just as Alan had anticipated, they were distracted by the dogs.
“Come in and sit, both of you,” Michael said when they’d gotten things sorted out. He turned and led the way into the study.
Alan followed. With only the smallest twinge of guilt, he let his gaze linger on the slim cut of Michael’s black jeans, the snug fit of his gray t-shirt and the way the light caught the highlights in his hair that fell loose and wavy around his shoulders.
In the study a lamp burned low on a side table, spilling a small pool of golden light, just enough to see but hardly enough to dispel the early evening shadows gathering in the corners of the room. A fire burned in the fireplace.
Who had built it?
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Alan glanced around but saw no sign of anyone besides the two of them and the dogs. Was it possible Michael had done it?
He almost asked, but then didn’t.
Michael walked to the couch and sank down on the end closest to the fireplace. Heidi followed. She circled twice then lay down, her gaze alert and never leaving Alan and Oscar. “You can let Oscar off his leash, if you want.”
“I’m not sure—” Alan began.
“C’mon, let them scope each other out. They’ve already done their top-dog thing. Nothing will happen. I have Heidi under voice command. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure I have this guy under any kind of command.”
Alan unclipped Oscar’s leash. “You better be good.”
Oscar thumped his tail on the floor and gave Alan his best innocent look.
Again they were distracted by the two dogs and their getting acquainted dance. The entire time Alan remained standing, not only so he could grab Oscar’s collar at the first sign of a problem, but because he so much wanted to go over there and sit on the couch next to Michael. Sit next to him, lie next to him, kiss him and touch him and … Cripes, he was pathetic.
At last the dogs settled, Heidi on one side of Michael’s feet and Oscar on the other, hemming him in and leaving only the chair on the other side of the table with sufficient foot space for Alan to sit. Thank goodness they had relieved him of that dilemma.
Alan sat.
“How about some wine?” Michael reached for the bottle on the coffee table, lifted it but didn’t pour.
Alan hesitated. This was not a date or a seduction. He was just here to read or … something.
So,
que sera, sera
.
He shrugged. “Sure, I’d love some wine.”
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Michael smiled and filled the glasses. He picked up both and held one out.
Alan took it, careful not to let their fingers brush.
Michael raised his glass. “To new beginnings.”
And what the heck was that supposed to mean?
“Cheers,” Alan said, hating how lame and chicken shit it sounded.
They clinked glasses then both sipped their wine.
Michael set his glass on the table and picked up a slim, leather-bound book.
The journal, Alan realized with a jolt. This was Phillip’s journal, the reason he was here, the only reason. He took another courage-bolstering sip then set his glass down next to Michael’s.
“That’s the journal?”
Michael nodded. He held the book in both hands, cradled it, his face turned toward the fire, the flames casting shadows over the angles of his profile.
He’d lost some weight, but it looked good on him. His cheeks, dark with beard stubble, appeared more hollow, but the main difference came from the serenity in his expression, the lines of grief around his eyes and mouth were gone. He looked content, possibly even happy.
“Are you all right?” Alan asked.
“I’m fine. I’m good, in fact.” Michael turned his head and for a moment his eyes seemed to focus on Alan’s face as if he were looking at him. Though of course, that was just an illusion, a trick of the firelight perhaps.
“We can start whenever you’re ready.”
Michael’s lips curved and he nodded.
“Phillip kept a journal the whole time I knew him.” Long elegant fingers caressed the leather binding of the journal. “He used to buy those cheapo spiral notebooks. You know the ones kids use in grade school? Then, a few years ago, I bought him
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this one.”
Alan could see Michael was gearing himself up for what he might learn from those pages, what they both might learn.
He tried to imagine what it would be like, laying bare your lover’s deepest thoughts, and likely his most secret transgressions, to the eyes of a stranger. Or at least he’d been a stranger to Phillip.
It couldn’t be easy opening your relationship up like that. Tearing aside the curtain and revealing everything including things you didn’t even know yourself.
Alan’s heart went out to the other man. He reached for his glass, raised it and found it empty. Michael’s was empty too.
“More wine?” Alan asked, reaching for the bottle.
“Thanks.”
Alan filled both their glasses.
“Michael, is there some way I can make this easier for you?”
Michael laughed. “I doubt it, though you never know.”
He opened the journal on his lap and ran his fingertips over the page as if it contained Braille.
Alan watched those graceful fingers move over the paper and recalled how they’d played his body like a fine instrument. He shivered at the memory. He had to stop this. Seizing his glass, he took a long swallow of wine.
“Christ, what the hell am I waiting for?” Michael slapped the cover closed on the journal and got to his feet.
Alan stood too. “Stay there. I’ll come get it.”
Michael hesitated but let Alan come to him.
Careful not to step on tails or paws, Alan climbed over the dogs and touched Michael’s arm. “Want me to sit here with you?”
Want me to sit here with you?
Yeah, right. Like it didn’t matter to him where he sat.
“That’s fine, but I sort of have a confession to make.”
“Oh?”
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Alan sat.
After a moment, Michael sank down next to him. He gripped the journal with both hands. “Alan, we’re not reading this.”
Alan covered Michael’s hand with his. It might have been mistaken for comfort, but it was really just an excuse to touch him.
“You changed your mind?” Truthfully, Alan was a little disappointed because some prurient part of him wanted to read that journal, wanted to know why Phillip had betrayed his partner, how, or whether, he had tried to justify it to himself. But now Michael had changed his mind.
“I know it can’t be easy,” Alan said, giving Michael’s hand a squeeze.
“No, you don’t understand. I never meant for you to read it.”
“You never—” Alan started to move his hand but Michael gripped it in his and held on.
“No. I let you think that, but I never actually said so, did I?”
“I don’t really remember. I just assumed…”
“Of course you did. I got you here under false pretenses, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re here now.”
Alan’s heart began to beat so hard he could barely swallow. Let alone speak. Somehow he managed. “I don’t understand. Why did you ask me to come over if not to read Phillip’s journal?”
“Because I need you with me, I wanted you with me, when I burn it.”
“Burn it? What do you mean, burn it?”
Michael let go of Alan’s hand and stood. “It’s what I have to do.”
He stepped over the dogs and walked to the fireplace.
Kneeling, he opened the screen. On his lap he opened the journal.
“Michael, wait.” Alan went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Think about what you’re doing. Why you’re doing this.
If you burn it there’s no going back.”
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Michael lifted his face to Alan. The firelight danced over his features, casting them in an other-worldly glow. “I know that, and I don’t want to go back. I’m doing this because it’s what I have to do. It’s how our story ends, Phillip’s and mine. And it’s how our story begins, yours and mine.”
“We don’t have a story, Michael.”
“Everyone has a story. Ours hardly got started, a false start, you might say, because I wasn’t ready. That happens, you know, with some stories, you try to begin them in the wrong place, and it just doesn’t work.”
“I don’t understand,” Alan whispered. But he thought he might be beginning to, and he was afraid to get it wrong, afraid to let himself hope and be disappointed.
Michael reached up from where he knelt on the floor and covered Alan’s hand still on his shoulder. “Come down here with me.”
Alan let Michael tug him down. He knelt on the floor in front of the fireplace. The heat was intense.
“If you don’t start the story in the right place,” Michael continued, “ if you begin to soon, you’ll inevitably need to start over. Every writer knows it. It’s a given.”
“I’m not a writer,” Alan said. “Maybe you better explain it to me.”
“I’ve been attracted to you for a while now, a long while,”
Michael said. “But you know that.”
“Yes.”
“Still, I probably shouldn’t have slept with you. It wasn’t fair.
I’m not sorry for doing it. It was great. What I’m sorry for is hurting you. And don’t tell me I didn’t. I know I did and I’m sorry.
I hope you can forgive me for that, for being such an asshole.”
“You’re not an asshole.”
“Yeah, I was. I was selfish, and I slept with you because I needed to and I wanted to without caring how it was going to affect you, when I couldn’t deal afterward. That’s what I need to too soon FoR Love
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be forgiven for.”
“Michael, it’s not—”
“No argument. It’s not up for discussion. Just do you forgive me or not?”