Afire: Entire Blinded Series (26 page)

Ryan studied Lee, who tossed a sweater into their holdall and zipped the bag up. They'd be all right, wouldn't they?

"We'd best be off then,” Ryan said, taking the bag by the handles and hauling it onto his back. “Reckon we'll be home in time for a late dinner. Could stop off before we head into Biddingford, if you like? Get an Indian or Chinese."

"Take away or eat in?” Lee asked, checking the room for anything they might have left behind.

"Whatever you like.” Ryan opened the door and stepped onto the landing, wincing just a little bit at the burn of his ass. Christ. He couldn't believe they'd finally done it. Gone over the line and taken their sex life to a whole new level. He looked forward to further exploration on the many nights they'd share for the rest of their lives.

Lee followed him out of the room, a cheeky grin spreading. “How's your arse?” he whispered.

Ryan laughed and adjusted the bag into a more comfortable position. “Shit. There's that romance talk again. You're just too damn soppy."

"I try my best. So, how is it?” He eyed Ryan with concern.

"It's all right. I'll get used to it.” He closed the door. “As will you."

"Yeah. Maybe."

"D'you think you'll like it?” Ryan put his hand on Lee's shoulder, wanting to tell him if he didn't feel ready then that was okay. “Want it, even?"

"I want it, yeah. Just a bit nervous that's all.” He glanced around the landing. “Fuck's sake, man. Let's talk about this somewhere more private, yeah?"

Ryan nodded and took the stairs, the bag bumping against the bottom of his back. He strode into the reception area and waited while Lee signed them out. Despite Harry fucking up their weekend—and fucking up was an understatement—it'd been a nice break. With Lee stuck in hospital and Ryan limited to only seeing him during visiting hours, here they'd been able to spend some much-needed time alone. He watched Lee sign the register, the receptionist handing him some change, and turned to walk out the main doors. A weak sun fought to warm his face, and he lifted his chin, breathing in the fresh air and hoping their future wasn't as bleak as the grey sky.

Stop thinking like that. It'll be fine, and if it isn't, we'll get through.

Lee came up beside him, elbow-jabbing him in the ribs. “Come on, mate. Time to get our arses back home.” He started walking down the gravelled path then turned. “You driving, or do you want me to?"

"I'll do it.” Ryan followed him around back to the car park. “You can start driving and stuff like that once you go back to work. If the hospital's advised another two weeks off work, then I reckon you need the time to rest up. Get better properly."

"I'm fine,” Lee said, reaching the car and standing beside the passenger door. He ran one hand through his hair, and Ryan wished they could check in again and go back in the shower. “The wound's healed."

"Yeah.” Ryan unlocked the car and dumped the bag on the back seat. “On the outside. No one knows what's going on inside.” He meant more than just the wound, and as he got into the driver's seat, he wondered whether Lee was going to open up about his time at the lighthouse. About everything.

Lee sat beside him and buckled up. “All right. Whatever you say."

He smiled across at Ryan, the dimple in his cheek too fucking cute.

"Yep, whatever I say.” Ryan started the car and eased out of the car park, onto the road that led to the village. As they sped along, he said casually, “So, you got anything you need to talk about?” He kept his gaze on the road and gripped the wheel tight while he awaited the usual negative answer, that no, he didn't have anything to say at all.

"I do, but I don't know if you want to hear all my shit.” Lee sniffed, rubbed the end of his nose.

"I do, which is why I asked, man. Come on. Out with it. We both need to learn to talk things through, don't we? No point both of us locking shit inside, is there?” Ryan drove through the village, holding back a shudder as they went past the stretch of beach where Harry had threatened him with a gun. The images of that incident flicked through his mind. If Lee had been in that newsagent's queue a little longer...

Shit. I've got to get over this. He didn't shoot me. I'm okay.

"All right,” Lee said, snapping Ryan's attention back to the present. “If I bore you, yawn yeah?"

Ryan nodded and waited for the words he knew Lee needed to say. It had been obvious for a long time that Lee had held too much emotion inside. Everything from his childhood, him leaving town and living in Biddingford for a couple of years by himself. Then his old dear's death, the funeral, the shooting. Fuck, when Ryan thought about it like this, he realised they'd been through so much together already. Enough grief to fill a lifetime.

They'd talked in snippets, but wouldn't an honest-to-God unleashing of emotions serve them better? It was a difficult one to call. Sometimes holding shit in worked. But Lee had
too
much shit, and that amount of sorrow couldn't be good for anyone.

"There was this old bloke at the lighthouse.” Lee smoothed his hands up and down his thighs, gripping them just above the knees until his knuckles turned white. “He...uh, he came out to speak to me. Like he knew I needed some perspective.” He paused, then, “I know I've got it worse than some, but there are others who have it worse than me. Than us. Much worse. That's what he was telling me, with his story."

"What did he tell you?”
Keep going, mate. Let it all out.

"He was old, yeah? About eighty-odd. Told me he'd fought in the war, seen people killed. Like old people do. I thought he was going to ramble on and on, telling me I didn't know which side my bread was buttered on and all that crap. But he didn't. Not in so many words anyway.” Lee raised his hands and palmed his face. “When he got home from the war, he married, had a kid."

"And?"

"And someone killed them."

"What? Fucking hell!” Ryan's hands slipped on the steering wheel, and he scrambled to stop the car sliding into the opposite lane. Catastrophe diverted, he glanced at Lee, who nodded, his head looking heavy, like it held too much information.

"Yeah. Mental, isn't it? Like, who the fuck would expect that? I didn't. When he told me, I didn't know that the fuck to say."

"Jesus. How were they killed?”
Do I really want to know?

"Some bloke hung them from the banisters in their home. That old bloke's been alone ever since. Poor old fucker. I just didn't know what to say, you know?” Lee huffed out a breath. “Wasn't much I
could
say.” He sighed and stuffed his hands under his armpits, as though he needed a hug and couldn't have one because Ryan was driving.

"Yeah. One of those times when you don't say anything at all, I reckon.” Ryan scanned ahead, looking for a turn off. A road branched to their left in the distance, and he accelerated, wanting to get there before Lee broke down. And it sounded like he might.

"I mean, how the fuck do you go on after something like that, eh?” Lee asked.

In his peripheral vision, Ryan saw Lee shaking his head. “I suppose you just would, but when Greg shot you... Fuck, I thought you were going to die, and I'll admit I wanted to die right there with you.”
Shit. Blurry eyes are not good when you're driving.
He flicked the signal switch and veered onto the side road.

"I know what you're saying. I felt the same when Harry... Shit. Yeah, when...yeah.” He sucked in a breath. Released it in a whoosh. “I can't live without you, man. I mean that."

Lee sniffed, and it took Ryan all he had not to slew off the road through lack of clear sight. He blinked, letting the tears fall, and pulled over onto the hard shoulder, uncaring that the car's rear end jutted out at an angle. Some things just weren't important.

He wrenched up the handbrake then leaned across, gathering Lee into his arms and squeezing him so tight he had to remind himself of Lee's condition. Releasing his hold a little, Ryan buried his face into Lee's neck, tears hot on his face. Yeah, he might look a weak bastard, crying on his lover's shoulder, but it beat not being able to do it. It beat having to cry alone when your lover was gone, never to return.

He pulled back and cupped Lee's cheek with one hand, staring into wet eyes that told him Lee's emotions were running riot just like his. He brushed his mouth over Lee's lips, whispering that everything would be all right, that they'd get through the coming months and come out the other side smiling. Both of them had needed this release for such a long time, and fuck whether the cars driving past beeped their horns at Ryan's haphazard parking. Fuck it if the drivers saw two men kissing. They needed to get a damn life and mind their own pissing business.

They sat kissing for a while, fingertips exploring faces and heads, a gentle time of nurturing and letting each other know that yes, they were in this for the long haul. Coping with the good and the bad. They hadn't talked like Ryan had hoped, but he knew now that somehow they didn't need to. It was all there in the touches, the swirling of tongues and the soft pecks on lips. They understood one another. No need for words or explanations.

Ryan ended their kiss and pulled his head back so he could look into Lee's eyes. They were moist, red-rimmed, and clearer, as though Lee had come to a point where the words he'd spoken were enough to release the build up inside him. Ryan reckoned counselling might work for both of them. Not for anything to do with their relationship, but more for talking to someone with no emotions invested, someone who could remain objective and help them deal with the trauma they had been through. Whether Lee would agree was another matter, a topic Ryan could broach another day. And if Lee wasn't up for it, that was okay. Ryan would go alone—he felt he needed to; maybe him doing so would encourage Lee to do the same.

"We'd best be getting home,” Ryan said, reluctant to pull away but knowing they couldn't sit on the roadside indefinitely.

"Yeah. S'pose. Be nice if we could stay here like this all the time, know what I mean?"

Ryan smiled. “Yeah. I do."

He sighed and stroked Lee's cheek one last time before starting the car and nosing back onto the road, heading back to the one they'd turned off of. He thought about when he'd first gone to Biddingford to tell Lee his old lady had killed herself, and how Lee had driven them back to the town they'd lived in all their lives. Despite the grimness of where they were headed back then, the uncertainties of what might happen, they also had the knowledge that they'd started the first leg of their life's journey together. Ryan felt much the same now, except they were on their way back to a different place, to the cabin where they'd made their home, to a place where Ryan had once felt safe and now...didn't.

"Reckon we ought to move out of the cabin and start again somewhere else?” Lee asked.

Startled that Lee had read his mind again—though he didn't know why, because hadn't they always had this thing between them?—Ryan nodded and listened to Lee as he put forward suggestions as to where they would go.

"We've still got the majority of my old dear's money. We can use it to pay six month's rent up front. Find jobs. Just...live. No worries. Come on. Pick a town or village, a city even, and we'll look into it once we get back. Anywhere you like."

Ryan smiled, caught up in Lee's enthusiasm, and thought of where he'd like to go. “What about Ireland? Heard it's nice there. Laid back kind of life out in the country."

"Sounds good. Like I said, wherever you want."

"We'd have to check we could go there,” Ryan said. “You know, with the trial and whatnot."

"Can't see why we can't. It's not like we're leaving the country, is it? Not as though we have to stay here, like
we're
the ones who've done something wrong."

"You're probably right."

Lee leaned forward and switched on the radio, selecting an easy listening station. His fingers tapped against his legs, and a shimmer of desire flickered in Ryan's cock. He loved this guy so damn much it hurt, wanted to spend the rest of his life with him, would travel to the ends of the earth if it meant they'd be together. Live in a fucking shack in the arse end of nowhere.

Bound, that's what they were. Tied together by love and circumstance. An eternity of togetherness waited for them, and Ryan stared ahead, to the right, at the rolling countryside that looked like a painting. It spread into the distance, trees and fields blurred against the horizon, the smudge of an artist's chalk.

Ryan glanced at Lee, who looked back at him, a big grin tweaking his lips.

"You know we said all that romance shit wasn't for us?” Lee's cheeks reddened.

"Yeah..."

"D'you reckon I could say just one thing? You know, just blurt it out, and then we can forget I ever did it."

"You could do.” Ryan held off a smile, not wanting Lee to think he found this funny. Lee's blush made it clear his lover was struggling to show a side of himself he'd always sworn didn't exist.

"Oh, right.” Lee cleared his throat. “Okay. Well... Fuck. Um, I...I just wanted to say, um..."

"Go on."

"Well, it's just that I...wanted to, ah... Oh, fuck it."

Ryan released his laughter. “Face it, man, it's just not going to work."

"Might come in time, though, eh?"

"Might do."

"I'll try again. Right. Here we go. I...I want... Ah, fuck it. I give up."

"Yeah. Me too.” Ryan laughed again, loving the sound as Lee joined in.

Once composed, Lee said, “Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"Fucking love you, man."

"Love you too, mate. Always."

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Sarah writes in many genres. Her love of fantasy and historicals often features in her work, and she leans toward the highly erotic. She lives in England with her adorable husband and children.

www.sarahmastersauthor.wordpress.com

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