Confessions of a Wild Heart (13 page)

Ase didn’t know how to respond to any of that.

So he did what any sane person would do. He kissed Jase. He pummeled the man with his mouth. God, he’d forgotten what it was like when all that passion was pouring from Jase, and it was a magnetic pull. And the kiss… it was more open and honest than any he’d had in years, even with the man he’d lived with for a while.

Their tongues mixed, and the combination of vodka in Ase’s mouth with the rum in Jase’s was strong and heady. Ase realized they were both probably doing this because they were either tipsy or on the verge of drunk.

And, fuck. Jase had that fucking girlfriend, with her big blue eyes and her down-home charm and that annoyingly endearing laugh. And here was Ase making a mess of not only Jase’s life because he couldn’t fucking help himself, but also that girl, who didn’t deserve it.

Ase yanked from the kiss, struggling to keep his composure as he pried Jase from him, as he’d melded to Ase’s front.

“God, Jase. That closet is a wreck.” He sneered at Jase like the kiss had been his fault. “Go back to your little woman.” And with that he stalked off. At least now, Jase would leave him be. He couldn’t make a wreck of Jase’s life, too, if Jase avoided him because he was an asshole.

Ase straightened his clothes and returned to what he was being paid to do—take photos of his friend’s uncle’s party.

Luckily, though working made it a bit more like a chore, he was enjoying taking the candids. A laughing child, a wife happily leaning into her husband. Capturing those moments made Ase think about the good in the world. People weren’t all damaged and didn’t all lead fucked up lives. Some people were happy.

After doing a full loop of the party, pushing Jase and his girlfriend far to the back of his mind, Ase found Dustin cheerfully chatting with a lady he’d been introduced to earlier. Dustin’s aunt was much less… aunt-ish than any of Ase’s. When Dustin caught Ase’s gaze on him, he smiled, held up his hand in a wave, and excused himself from their hostess.

“You owe me.”

“Yeah? What for,
ese
?” Ase drawled.

“Oh, I love when you sound all
cholo
.”

Ase sighed loudly, exasperated.

“Come on,
papi.
Call me homie just once,” Dustin teased. He was probably trying to lighten Ase’s heavy mood. Tough luck this time. Even a couple stops at the fucking open bar hadn’t salvaged Ase’s mood completely.

“Okay, okay.” Dustin snatched a tart off the table they stood beside. “The deputy’s name is Jase Emery, though I’m guessing you knew that much.”

“Dustin…” Ase did
not
want to talk about this.

“Unless he went off to fuck his beard, he’ll be at home up at Emery Pines.”

Ase looked at Dustin, incredulous. Mostly because of that name. “That sounds like an old folks’ home.”

“Dude, I didn’t name the damn place,” Dustin said, shrugging. “It’s down old Friendly Highway—again, I didn’t name it. About a half-hour or so.”

Frowning, Ase recalled having opened Matilda II up on the rural stretch of highway late one night. He’d felt like they were on the
Autobahn
. He was probably going fast enough then to go to jail for reckless driving, but Matilda needed to blow off steam just like he did from time to time. And he’d not felt that fucking free in
years
.

Ase was suddenly horrified. “Wait. You asked your aunt about this? What if he isn’t out?”

“What do you take me for, Dr. Ramirez?” Dustin looked offended at Ase’s lack of faith. “I made it sound like I knew him. I pulled the whole ‘oh yeah, he lives over…’ routine.”

“And she just told you?” Ase shook his head, slightly amused, but still mostly horrified.

“I’m family,” Dustin said, shrugging again and popping the tart in his mouth, like that answer explained everything.

“What you are is the reason more Americans should remember not to leave their doors unlocked.”

“You don’t mind it when I sneak in,” Dustin said, waggling his brows. Ase shook his head and tried to hide his amusement at that. “Hey. Maybe you can invite him to one of your little weekend shows.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Ase groused.

           “Gladly. Oh, and my aunt said after your next round of pictures you can call it a night.” Dustin pulled paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ase. Ase took it, opening it to realize it was a personal check. Who knew people still used those?

His eyes bulged, but he played it cool. “This is a bit more than we’d agreed on.” By an extra couple hundred, at that.

“They think you’re my boyfriend. They’ll give you the keys to the kingdom if you keep my mom as happy as she’s been tonight.”

Ase hmphed. “You’re getting on my nerves,” he drawled, before pocketing the payment. He wouldn’t say no to it, even if it felt ill gotten. Not that he was too hard up, but every penny helped these days, and boring as the crowd had been tonight, he’d consider it a tip.

Dustin started to leave, but turned back to Ase. “Good luck.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Dustin laughed softly. “You’re a good guy, Alessandro. I hope you two stop this stupid dance you’re doing, and it’s good.”

Ase put the camera to his eye, thinking how wrong Dustin had it. Closure was what he was after. Maintaining one sweet moment from all that darkness back then, hoping Jase would let him keep that.

Dustin wandered off. And Ase admitted out loud that he was a liar.

After Ase finished at the party, he’d jumped on Matilda II, gone home, and he’d read those damned e-mails again. The ones detailing Abernathy, Hope Springs, and Jase’s family.

           He saw the brief mentions of Jase’s anxiety, but he also saw the cute crush they had on one another. And he wondered when he’d grown so fucking callous, so whiny, and so fucking infantile that he couldn’t admit to himself that he was hurt that Jase hadn’t acknowledged him. He wanted to know when he’d stopped being that boy who followed another boy in hopes he’d get an e-mail address.

           Of course their e-mails had been an escape for a closeted boy in the Army, and a boy who had to pretend he was straight so his family wouldn’t hate him just long enough to get through medical school and make them proud.

           He wondered when the hell Jase had been so hurt that the relaxed man, at peace in his skin, who’d been the subject of one of Ase’s favorite photos ever—the one at
Neuschwanstein
Castle—had turned into the tense man he’d met today, who’d lost the stars in his eyes. Of course, Ase hadn’t exactly been himself since the mess with Jase and then six months later with his family.

           Mostly, Ase wanted to kick his own ass for not e-mailing Jase when he’d decided to move to Abernathy when he knew Jase was here. Because no matter what he told himself, after his nasty breakup with Anthony in medical school, when he wanted to feel some sense of
home
, the first place he’d thought of was here. He thought of trees and open pastures and a city where people knew each other but not everything about everyone. All those things he’d known nothing of, ever in his life, but still gambled on.

           But he hadn’t taken a gamble on saying something to Jase. And he’d antagonized the man tonight when he was surrounded by coworkers and in the middle of something with someone who may very well have been his wife or girlfriend. He’d known from the very beginning Jase had been attracted to both men and women—and didn’t know now whether Jase actually still did anything with men.

           And Ase had been a fool. He’d stayed away from Jase so he wouldn’t make the man’s life implode like Ase’s had, but he’d managed to do it anyway.

           He couldn’t do this. He had a few months left on his residency, and now he had his closure with Jase Emery. He could leave and not look back on any part of that time in his life except the ones he was forced to face. He glared at his phone where he’d missed two calls from his
mami
earlier in the night. She had a knack for calling to try to guilt him on his most shit-tastic days.

           And tonight he didn’t have to face any of it.

           He went to his closet and changed into a deep V-neck black shirt and skinny jeans, feeling more like the old Ase than he had in a while. If he couldn’t call Dustin, he’d celebrate his closure with Jase on his own.

           Grabbing up his riding jacket, he pulled it on and was out the door.

Chapter 11

JASE had sat in his truck, mortified, for at least ten minutes before he made a move. He looked up, wondering if anyone had seen his embarrassing and absolutely
insane
moment of weakness with Ase.

           Fuck, he’d done that in front of all his coworkers and his boss. Fuck, his boss’s nephew of all people, who may be Ase’s boyfriend. He banged his head on the steering wheel. And why? He didn’t even know why Ase had kissed him. Hell, he still didn’t know why Ase was
here
.

Ase’s entire rage seem to be borderline manic and somewhat misplaced. He hadn’t been wrong. Jase’d been a dick for a second, pre-judging Dustin, but damn, Ase had taken it much more personally that Jase’d thought. Then he’d been all over Jase.

And Jase had felt equally turned on and ashamed as he’d melted, become malleable as clay, and clung to Ase. If his daddy could have seen them, he wasn’t sure whether his daddy would’ve had as much to say about him kissing a man and in public so much as Eddie Emery would have lost it over how his son was swooning into Ase’s arms like a teenage girl.

That was why Jase rarely let himself fall into men, because he literally did. He liked being with women, being what a woman needed, but he’d also always liked to be on more equal footing. He didn’t want a girl who needed him to step on all the spiders and clean up all her emotional messes. The same couldn’t be said for when he was with a man, though.

He hadn’t let himself bottom since he’d been with Ase, had barely done anal more than a handful of times. But even when frotting with another man, he had this urge to give up complete control, almost become submissive. One of his old fuck buddies in San Antonio had even broached the subject of true submission. But that hadn’t been Jase’s kink. He just liked being overwhelmed by a man, enfolded.

Jase hated that side of himself for a long time, but he’d come to understand it was a need on his part, both sexual and emotional, in a relationship with a man. He’d started accepting that piece of his sexuality, slowly but surely. But apparently, all the ghosts he hadn’t laid to rest in Hope Springs were turning him back into that same self-loathing asshole.

He could hear some of the names his daddy had called him. “To toughen you up, son.”
Like that was completely logical.

Tonight, the ghosts were strong. He felt his daddy’s breath in his face, spittle flying on his skin as he yelled at his son to “Man the fuck up, for once.”

He cranked his truck and headed blindly down the highway. He drove for what felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been, because he didn’t have that much gas in the tank. He did his best to shut his brain off, to do like he had a million times and focus on work or a drill. He needed more, though.

When he passed Lacey’s house, he thought maybe a friendly ear would help. He was glad to see she was home early, and he’d obviously driven around longer than he’d thought.

She came out on the small four-by-five-foot makeshift front porch to her mobile home, looking pleasantly surprised to see him. He had to admit, he was happy to see a smiling face after all the turmoil of the last while. He got out of the truck, leaving his phone on the charger.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, tying her silk robe tight against the night air. “Long time no see.”

“How’d it go with the munchkins?” he asked, ambling up the steps. She looked at him curiously, probably trying to figure out his mood—he sure couldn’t.

She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “They’re good. Went down after an hour, so I spent more time reading and watching TV than actually babysitting.” She walked into the house, Jase following behind and shutting the door. “Their other babysitter, Tammy, was able to come over and relieve me the last few hours.”

Jase stuck his hands in his pockets, not sure where to start or how he was feeling. He probably should have just gone home. He was still lust drunk from the kisses, a little buzzed from the alcohol he’d had earlier—which spoke to how little he normally drank—and feeling more out of place than he thought possible.

“You okay?” Lacey asked, as she reappeared from the kitchen holding a beer. He smiled, nodded, and accepted the Michelob Ultra.
No. I feel like a wimp. I feel shame.
And most annoying, the strongest feeling, and the thing that made him the biggest jackass for coming here, he felt rejected. And he knew she wouldn’t reject him.

When he opened the beer he wished she had something that didn’t taste like watered down piss, and definitely wished for something stronger. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it’d be nice to dull the edges.

“Well, have a seat,” she said, plopped on the couch, patting the cushion next to her.

He complied, and she didn’t say a word, just kicked her feet up on the table coffee table, and turned up the sound on the action movie she was watching.

Jase remembered many nights like this in his apartment back in San Antonio when they’d tried to make a go of their dead-end relationship. He would study manuals for tests at the academy, she’d watch these stupid action movies she liked, and they’d just… be. Why couldn’t that be enough?

He wondered what it’d be like with Ase, instead. Would they have a quiet routine, or would Ase prowl around the house looking for ways to rid himself of the dark energy that lurked in his feline eyes? Would they go to bed separately a lot, like Jase and Lacey had, or would they fuck ‘til they passed out?

Just the thought had Jase revved up, his cock lengthening as he sipped his beer. He rolled his head where it rested on the couch, taking in the sight of Lacey who sat, relaxed, drinking her own beer. The light from the television cast shadows that made her face look young and sultry. His cock got harder as he looked down her chest, over the mounds of breasts that he knew were soft and full, over her smooth, flat stomach.