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  He waited a moment, then climbed out of the car. When Roger didn’t move, Wes sighed. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose, hard, until red blossoms bloomed behind his vision. Roger played him so damn well. “You want to spend the night? Come on.”

  Roger turned off the car. “I need you, Wes,” he said as he climbed out. “You keep me sane, you know that, right? You keep me sober.”

  I’m not doing too good a job of that tonight.

  He followed Roger as his boyfriend led the way to Wes’s apartment.

  Chapter 8

  As Wes entered the apartment, his cocker spaniel yapped at his heels and then pounced on Roger, who sank to one knee to pet the eager puppy. “Hey there, ol’ Saint Queerbo,” he murmured, grabbing the dog’s ears as he growled at her.

  Wes threw his keys onto the table in the hall and closed the door behind him. “Don’t call her that.”

  “Saint Queerbo,” Roger whispered. He laughed when the dog barked as if in approval. “See? Someone likes it.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Wes told him.

  The puppy had been a gift from Roger for their first month anniversary, after four weeks’ sobriety. He’d promised not to touch alcohol again. “You’re my liquor,” he once told Wes. “You’re more intoxicating than anything I’ve ever found in a bottle, you know that?” And he punctuated his words by grabbing Wes’s ass, pulling him into a rough embrace, and covering his neck with sloppy kisses until they both laughed.

  Just thinking about the memory now exhausted Wes.

  Roger had even named the dog for him. “José,” he said, even though it was a female pup. He picked up one furry paw and waved it at Wes. “José Cuervo, you are a friend of mine.”

  Wes didn’t like the fact that he named the dog after tequila, not if he was over drinking like he said he was, but he hadn’t argued the point. He had never argued with Roger when they first got together—then the relationship had been exciting and new, and it felt so wonderful to have someone interested in him. Him, the slightly chubby guy who never got a second look. Him, whose only previous encounter with a guy had been one night in the back of his pickup truck with Nathan. It was heady to have a guy as blatantly sexy and as cool as Roger interested in him, to know he could tame a guy like that. He was the only one Roger would listen to, even in one of his drunken rages. He alone could soothe the savage beast.

  How could he not love that?

  But it’s getting so tiresome.

  As he kicked off his sneakers, Wes felt Roger’s gaze hot on his thighs and back. “Look at my sexy boy,” Roger murmured. He held the dog’s face in his hands, forcing her to look up at Wes. “Look at that. Isn’t he the dreamiest?”

  Wes rolled his eyes. “Roger, stop it.”

  “Stop it,” Roger echoed, talking in that stupid baby-talk he used when he spoke to the dog. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

  Wes stepped around him, heading for the bathroom. He wasn’t going to encourage this—he wasn’t in the mood for it tonight. Stay if you have to, but just please, leave me alone.

  But Roger had other thoughts. Releasing the dog, he stood up and caught Wes as he passed, slipped his arms around his waist, and held him tight like a captured butterfly. Rubbing one hand around Wes’s hip, he squeezed Wes’s ass, his fingers slipping between Wes’s legs. When Wes tried to move away, Roger held him tighter. “Guess I ain’t getting any of this tonight, am I?”

  “Roger…” Wes tried to block his boyfriend’s other hand but it slipped out of his own to cup his crotch, closing with a painful squeeze over the beginnings of an erection Wes tried to deny. “I don’t feel like it, okay? Not tonight. Don’t you understand that?”

  Roger’s fingers tightened over his dick. “You never feel like it.”

  Wes found himself wishing Roger really had had more beers tonight, more than his two or three or five, or however many rolled through his system right now, because then he might be too drunk to get it up, he’d just fool around for a few awkward minutes before he passed out, and that wouldn’t be too bad. Wes thought maybe he could handle that.

  But when he closed his eyes, it was Nathan’s hands on him, not Roger’s, even though Nathan would never be so rough with him, Wes knew he wouldn’t be. He wondered again if he could get Tom to tell him how to get in touch with the guy. We used to be friends, he’d say. Would the lie would come easily enough? They were never really friends, not as much as Wes had wanted to be, but God, he’d love to be so much more.

  With a sigh, he twisted out of Roger’s embrace. “Not tonight,” he said again. “Roger…”

  His boyfriend brushed past him. “Fine,” he said, entering the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Wes heard the cabinets open, a few glasses shoved around as Roger looked for something. “Where do you keep that whiskey again?”

  Tears burned in the back of Wes’s throat. “It’s gone.” When the cabinets continued to open and close, he raised his voice. “I threw it out, Roger. I didn’t—”

  “I bought that shit for you,” Roger growled. He came back into the hall, his sunglasses gone now, the cap pulled off and discarded, probably left on one of the kitchen counters, and short bleached curls hugged his scalp as he advanced on Wes. “You threw out the whole goddamn bottle? It’s not fucking water, babe. That shit’s expensive.”

  “You don’t need it,” Wes mumbled, hugging himself.

  Roger grabbed Wes by his upper arms, hard fingers sinking into Wes’s flesh with a sharp pain. He stepped closer, until his face hung just inches from Wes’s and his dark eyes bored into him, searching his face, looking for a reason not to hurt him.

  “You don’t,” Wes whispered, not daring to look away from those deep eyes. “You said I’m all you need, remember? You need me, remember?”

  For a minute he didn’t think Roger would reply. Then his boyfriend smiled, a wide, toothy grin that didn’t light up his eyes and was quite incongruous with the anger trilling through him. Wes could feel that anger, barely held in check, coursing through the fingers that held him tight, running just beneath the skin of those large, hard hands. “Roger—”

  “But I’m not getting you tonight, am I?” Roger pressed his lips against Wes’s in a demanding kiss, and growled when Wes pulled away. “You’re holding out on me. You want me to use my hand, is that it? Make me fucking want you?”

  Wes shook his head but Roger was already gone, unzipping his pants as he crossed the hall. “I never had a boyfriend like you. All guys wanna fuck. Everyone but you,” he muttered, dropping his jeans in the middle of the hall. His boxers pulled along his thin ass when he bent and kicked the jeans off, leaving them lying in a pile on the floor. Over his shoulder, he said, “If you decide to stop dicking me around, I’ll be in the bed. Where you should be.”

  Wes waited until Roger closed the bedroom door behind him, leaving it open just a crack, just enough to appear inviting in case Wes should change his mind. His arms throbbed where he still felt the ghost of Roger’s hands and the dog sat at his feet, looking up at him with large, dark eyes that looked like his boyfriend’s when he wasn’t drunk and wasn’t being mean and hateful. It’s not you I want tonight.

  He closed his eyes and saw Nathan in front of him, that smile, those eyes, that hair, so much shorter than it had been in high school but God, just as thick, just as heady. The more Wes thought about it, the more he liked the new look—he’d liked running his hands through the smooth length of Nathan’s hair, and he wondered what it felt like brushing along his stomach, or his thighs, or his cheek.

  But what about Roger? I can’t just leave him, not after eight months, not when he needs me like he does.

  Like he SAYS he does.

  From behind the bedroom door Wes heard the bedsprings creak, and then Roger’s low, guttural moan as he used his hand to satiate himself. Roger wasn’t one for loud sex, but he wanted Wes to hear him. Without a sound, Wes entered the kitchen and closed the cabinets Roger had left open in his hunt for the bottle of Jack Daniel
s he thought should be in the apartment. Funny thing was, the bottle was there—Wes knew how much the liquor had cost, he wouldn’t throw out good stuff like that. He just didn’t want Roger getting into it. He didn’t need it.

  Watching the doorway to make sure his boyfriend didn’t surprise him, Wes knelt on the floor and reached behind the stove, his fingers fumbling through dusty cobwebs until they closed over the narrow neck of a bottle. As he pulled it out of the shadowed corner, he hated that it was already almost half empty from his own nipping at it from time to time, when he didn’t think he could get through the day or the night or another one of Roger’s outbursts.

  Working fast, he filled a small tumbler with ice and poured the whiskey over the cubes, jumping when the ice cracked and settled into the glass. Then he replaced the bottle behind the stove and took the tumbler with him into the darkened living room. Without turning on a light, he stripped out of his jeans and started to pull his shirt off over his head when he caught a whiff of Nathan’s cologne, still clinging to him.

  By now Tom had told Nathan about Roger, and chances were Nathan hated him for not saying anything himself. So even if Tom gives me his number, he won’t want to hear from me. Wes smoothed the shirt back down over his chest before lying on the couch. He rolled onto his side and brought his legs up to his chest, rested one arm beneath his head as he sipped at the whiskey. The alcohol burned going down but at least he could feel it. It reminded him that he was alive, he was here and this was really happening. His boyfriend was really in his bedroom jacking off and angry because he wouldn’t join him, he’d really just had a wonderful hour with the guy of his dreams, and he’d really never see him again—all that was in the whiskey, and each sip was like swallowing his memories, his hopes, his dreams. They stung his throat and curled into his belly like smoldering embers.

  The dog jumped up beside him and sat down in the space above his knees, her body warm where it curved against his. He ran a hand down her back, rubbing his fingers into the long coppery hair. “I should just forget about him again,” he whispered, careful not to speak too loud. He didn’t want Roger to overhear. “What do you think, girl? You think I’m just being stupid?”

  With a low “woof,” the dog set her head in her paws and stared at him, eyes glistening twin pools of black night in the darkness.

  Who am I kidding? I can’t forget about him—it’s been four years and I still remember every single word he said to me after the prom, every place he touched, every kiss, every sigh.

  Now that memory mingled with tonight’s stolen moments, and how was he ever supposed to forget that?

  Chapter 9

  Wes woke to the sound of the TV, turned down low. His back and head ached, his neck was stiff, his arms sore, and as he stretched, he wondered if it was too late to just crawl into his bed now. Every time he slept on the couch, he woke up feeling like shit. You’d think I’d learn my lesson by now.

  He heard the shuffle of a newspaper and rolled onto his back as he opened his eyes. A thin shaft of sunlight slanted into the living room through a gap in the closed curtains behind him, casting a bright line across the middle of the TV screen where the color drained away and made everything pale beneath it. From the other side of the room, he heard the newspaper again, someone turning the page, and the faint clikclik of the dog’s nails on the kitchen floor as she circled once before lying down.

  Then Roger’s soft voice asked, “You getting up sometime today?”

  “I’m up now.”

  In mid-stretch, Wes turned and saw his boyfriend, already dressed in jeans and a tank top, sitting at the small table by the kitchen. It couldn’t be called a dining room table, as the apartment had no dining room—just a small alcove between the kitchen and living room. The table fit three, though there was a fourth chair pulled out of the way against the back door that Wes had to move every time he wanted to take the dog outside. Since renting the place after graduation, he’d never had anyone over to fill all four chairs. Once or twice Tom had stopped by for dinner, Cindy in tow, but they never seemed to make it when Roger was visiting. Wes had a funny feeling that Tom was afraid of Roger—a lot of people thought he was intimidating, scary to look at with his devilish grin and his thin goatee, his battered nails, his pierced lip and ears and eyebrow, the tattoos that snaked up and down his arms.

  “I wish you had slept with me,” Roger said without looking up. “That bed’s so lonely. I hate waking up alone.”

  Wes looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. He studied the wiry arms covered with ink, thin arms that Wes knew from experience were much stronger than they appeared. The narrow chest, the slight frown as his boyfriend read the paper spread out on the table in front of him, the way one hand smoothed over his bleached blond hair. This was the Roger he fell for eight months ago, the man without alcohol in his system, a little rough around the edges, true, but he could be so damn loving sometimes that it surprised the hell out of Wes and he didn’t know what he had ever done to make a guy like that look his way. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  The night was over; a new day had dawned. And despite whatever had happened at the party, the fact remained that Wes was here, with Roger, and where was Nathan again? He didn’t know. Not here. Not where it mattered. Wes’s voice was low, apologetic, when he said, “I guess I just sort of fell out here.”

  “It’s okay,” Roger mumbled. His gaze trailed down Wes’s body, stretched out along the couch, and now he flashed Wes a quick smile. “Looks like someone’s got a bad case of morning wood.”

  Wes laughed, a little embarrassed, and sat up, covering his crotch with his hands. His briefs were thin and tented beneath a softening erection—he wondered how long Roger had just sat there, watching him sleep, watching him grow hard on half-remembered dreams of Nathan and his kisses and last night. God, he prayed, yawning awake. Don’t ever let him find out about that. Please don’t. It meant nothing, right? Because now Nathan’s gone back to his own life and I’m here. I’m with Roger, so please don’t ever let him find out about those few stolen kisses, please. It’s not going to happen again.

  “You want I should come over there and take care of that for you?” Roger asked with a wicked grin. “Or are you still not giving it up?”

  “I need to pee,” Wes replied, though that really didn’t answer his boyfriend’s question, did it?

  Standing, he stepped into his jeans and tugged them on, hating the faint whiff of beer and smoke that wafted up around him. As he headed down the hall to the bathroom, he could feel Roger’s eyes on his butt and he could almost see that wolfish leer in his mind. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, would it? To let his boyfriend touch him and love him—this early in the morning before he started drinking, when he could still be warm and gentle.

  Only I’d close my eyes and it’d be Nathan’s hands on my body, Nathan in me, holding me, kissing me, and when I came would it be his name on my lips?

  He didn’t think that would go over well. He didn’t even want to think about how he would have to try to talk his way out of that one.

  When he came out of the bathroom, Roger was still at the table, still reading the paper. In the kitchen, Wes opened the fridge, pulled out a carton of eggs and some milk. “No morning kiss?” Roger asked, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

  With a sigh, Wes set the eggs and milk onto the counter and stepped over the dog, who slept in front of the stove. Roger reached out for him, eased a hand around his thigh and between his legs, and pulled him close. Leaning over, Wes kissed his forehead, just a quick peck, but Roger held him tight and wouldn’t let him go. “A real kiss,” he said, looking up at him. “Not some damn granny kiss. I know you have a tongue in there.”

  His fingers dug into the tender flesh of Wes’s inner thigh, pinching through his jeans, until Wes leaned down and pressed his lips to Roger’s. Nathan, he thought, and when Roger’s tongue parted his lips, delved into his mouth, demanding and tasting like ashes and coffee, Wes squeezed
his eyes shut and tried to remember the kisses from the night before.

  Nathan. Why did we even have to come back to the party? Why did we stop at Tom’s truck? We should’ve just climbed into the back of Nathan’s car and left. Here I get a second chance at what I always wanted and what happens? I don’t take it because it was all just bad timing. I’m with this man now, not Nathan.

  It’ll never be Nathan. He’s gone.

  Wes had to stop thinking about him, he had to, there was no other way around it. He couldn’t have Nathan—he’d have to get over that and move on.

  Like you were able to get over him before, a voice inside his mind whispered. Yeah, right. Look how far you’ve moved on since high school.

  When Roger let him go, Wes backed away, eager to put some distance between them. “So what’re you doing today?” Roger wanted to know, turning back to his paper.

  Wes felt something beneath his bare foot and he stumbled back, stepping on the dog’s tail. “Sorry,” he muttered as the dog growled at him. He bent down to pet her but she snapped at his hand, angry. “I’m sorry.”

  Roger frowned at him. “Wes?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. He gave the dog a wide berth as he began to make breakfast, breaking eggs into a pan, pouring himself a glass of milk, turning on the stove. “Maybe I’ll call Tom.”

  And ask him about Nathan. Though Wes knew his former roommate well enough to know Tom wouldn’t want to tell him anything. And if he did say something? What good would it do? You can’t call Nathan up and tell him you’re sorry about last night, it was great but you just forgot to mention that you’re dating someone, so thanks for the memories and thanks for the kisses and you hope to see him around?

  How much of that do you think you’ll manage to get out before he hangs up on you?