Second Chances (5 page)

“Mark,” Brian whispered as we took our seats, “I promise I didn’t mean to start anything. I’ll say something to your dad and slip out the back.”

“Is
he
with you?” I asked. The icicles were back, for him now.

He hesitated.
Now
I could read him. I saw him clearly now that the scales had permanently fallen from my eyes.

“Mark, we aren’t together. It only lasted about a month. I’m back here in town. I’ve got a small apartment, and I’m back at my old job. I knew you didn’t want to hear from me, so I just… I didn’t….” Part of me was celebrating. I hoped it fucking hurt, burned his ass like he did mine. But he’d only been with Henry or Harvey or whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was for a few months, not like a ten-year friendship turned love. Part of me was sad for him, because I didn’t want him hurting. But the biggest part, right that minute, wasn’t really there, was checked out and would weigh in after I buried Mom.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk after the graveside service. And you
will
come to Daddy’s afterwards. We can talk more then. Don’t even think about ducking out, boy. ’Cause you
know
what’ll happen if I have to come looking for you.” I turned my head slightly sideways and gave him a flat look.

I thought I felt a little shudder. “Okay.”

Just that. Okay. I relaxed and focused on the business at hand. The redneck preacher from East Bumfuck Egypt started the service, and I buried my momma.

August 2001

“
W
HAT
time will you be home?” he asked. This was the night I’d set aside every two weeks to have a massage. Brian knew it, but asked the same damn thing every two weeks. It made my head ache.

“I’ll be home late. You know that. I’m having a massage tonight. I’ll be there by midnight, so if you want to come over, just go on to bed. No need for you to wait up,” I told him. I really didn’t have the energy to get into an argument about it.

“But, it’s your birthday. I thought….”

“I know it is. And this’s my treat to myself. You and I’re going out on Saturday, and we’ll celebrate it then. Brian, we’ve been over this already. I need to get back to work. Is there something you needed?” If we hadn’t talked about this shit three times this week already, I’d have probably been less of an ass about it.

But since we got back together, or at least were doing
something
together, he was very possessive of my time. Pretty fucking ironic when I thought about it, since he was the one cheating before and hiding crap.

He sighed. “No, I’ll see you tonight. Love you.”

And there it was.

“See you tonight then. Eat something, and I’ll be there later. Bye,” I mumbled.

I don’t know why I couldn’t say it back to him. Too much water under the bridge maybe? But if that was the case, why did I start things back up again? I sat back in my chair and looked up at the clock. Five o’clock was only a few minutes away. Yes, it was my birthday, and yes, I was thirty today, and yes, that was supposed to be some stinking big deal.

Twenty-nine was a big deal. Forty’ll be a big deal. Thirty—just a blip on the radar.

I was supposed to meet Antonio for dinner, and then he was going to give me a massage as a present. Part of me wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell Brian about that, but to be honest, I was probably being a little chickenshit. Because, yes, I’d been hiding my friendship with Antonio from Brian.

At first, it was because I wasn’t sure we
were
friends. Conversations before and after a massage I was paying for didn’t constitute a close personal relationship to me by any stretch of the imagination. But after the funeral, it was… weird. On the one hand, I was getting closer to Brian again, and the times I saw him were good, but I still couldn’t trust the man. Not fully. But then, Antonio called me out of the blue about two weeks after Brian and I started up again and asked me to go to lunch.

I wasn’t sure how to handle that new development. Antonio said he was just checking in with me when he called, since I hadn’t been by to see him in over a month. He knew things with Mom were close to an end because of the phone calls I got the last time I was there. I filled him in, and he asked me to go with him to lunch at Marie’s. I was back at work, of course, but not really feeling right in my skin yet.

But something changed that day, sitting there eating pizza. After the mandatory
How is your day going, How was the funeral, I’m so sorry for your loss
stuff, he started talking about computers. Like nothing else was going on, like this was normal. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, I found myself laughing and talking about shit I only knew a little about, and I saw Antonio a little differently.

He took the time to make me feel better. Treated me like a friend, showed me he cared. And my skin felt a little more normal again. Damn.

Since then, once every few weeks, I’d get a call and hear that big booming voice of his. “Get your ass down to Marie’s and have lunch with me. No fucking excuses. You have to eat. Get here now,” and he’d hang up. I’d drop what I was doing and go. I never told anybody about it. Not Brian, not Patty.

At the same time, I was seeing Brian a couple of times a week. At first, it was just a phone call to see if I was okay. Then I was calling him to check in. We had lunch a few times. Then dinner.

It was three months before I’d taken him to bed again.

W
E
WERE
sitting at The Colonnade. It was a Saturday night, so of course the place was packed. At least we’d gotten there ahead of the worst of it and were seated so we could watch the procession.

The Colonnade was a landmark in Atlanta. Blue-haired ladies sat side by side with all the Midtown gay boys. The food was wonderful—what’s not to like about fried chicken, and yeast rolls and beef stroganoff made from scratch? But the crowd, that was why we were there. It rivaled anything on
Golden Girls
or
Designing Women
.

The last time Brian and I’d been there for dinner, there was a table of twinks and their mothers next to us. We’d just been seated. It was the middle of summer, and Atlanta in August—no fucking picnic. Anyway, this darling little blond boy looked at his mother as he fanned himself with the menu and said, “I have just been moist
all
day.”

Yeah, it’s that kind of place.

So Brian and I were back there again, sharing that story and I was laughing and he was laughing. I looked at him and it hit me. I still loved him. Was
in
love with him.

Mother. Fucker. I didn’t
want
to love him, because he’d hurt me, and I saw him in bed with that greasy piece of crap and how could he do that to me? But goddammit, I did. I could see it in his eyes when he realized what I was thinking, and his expression softened. His laugh faded.

“I’m so sorry.” His eyes were so sad and my heart gave a lurch in my chest.

I sat there and realized this could go one of two ways. I could stay hard like stone, because that’s what he deserved and I was a hard-ass. Or I could maybe try to feel a little of what made my mom call him, and remember that she loved him enough to do that after what he did to me. Remember that there must have been something more to him.

She’d adored him from the moment I brought him home the first time. Especially when she found out he didn’t have any family. “Son, his mother
left
him? That bitch,” she cried.

After that, she insisted he come over at least once a week to have dinner. When the two of us finally got together, I think she was happier than we were. She just wanted him to be loved. And she’d call him to make sure he was okay and eating enough. She called him her adopted son. She and Dad had even taken the training to become foster parents for kids needing emergency placements so that boys and girls who were scared and hurting would have a good, safe home when they were first put into care. All because of what she’d seen Brian go through. She loved him that much.

She wanted him in her life. In mine.

This is what a leap of faith feels like
, I thought. I reached out and wiped away a tear that ran down his cheek and patted his jaw.

After dinner was over, we drove back to my house. The dogs were ecstatic to see him again, and that felt right too. He petted them and loved on them and accepted wet, sloppy dog licks on the mouth and scratched their bellies. They went into the den with the pet gate up and he went into my bedroom.

“Mark, I want you to know—” he got out before I pushed him against the door and took over his mouth with mine. I ground against him, held his head between my hands, and kissed him hard. I brought all the anger, the grief, the passion, the hate, and most of all the love I still felt for this man into that kiss.

He went still and let me take him. Make no mistake, he fucking kissed me back like he was as hungry for it as I was, but he knew I had all the control here, and he let me have it. It was just what I needed and what I craved from him. If we were going to do this, it was damned well going to be
my
way and at
my
pace.

It was March in the city, so the nights were still cool. Brian was in jeans and a sweater I’d given him for Christmas a couple of years before. It was this creamy silver color that looked so good with his bright blue eyes. I was not really the romantic sort, but I liked to see my guy dressed nice. And he was a fine-looking man, even if he was no longer mine. After tonight, he was going to be mine again.

I moved far enough away that I could run my hands up under his sweater to feel his chest. He wore an undershirt to keep his nipple rings from catching in the weave of the sweater, but that just made me rougher with my groping. My hands ran across his smooth pecs and grabbed, pinched nipples and tugged the rings and swallowed his moans into my mouth. I never let that sweet mouth go.

His sweater went up and over his head, forcing me to let his mouth go for a moment. He looked into my eyes and I saw uncertainty. He wanted me, but I knew he didn’t know what this meant. I did though, and went about showing him.

I pulled his T-shirt up and off, reaching with my mouth to grab a nipple. My teeth caught it, and I tugged and bit and worked the ring. The sounds he made went straight to my cock. He never asked for mercy or begged for more or less, he just groaned and sucked in air. It made my cock hard and uncomfortable in my pants.

I pinched his other nipple with one hand, still sucking the other bud. My other hand snaked behind him to grope that ass. So firm, so tight, it was beautiful. I slid my hand into the waistband and felt nothing but skin. Commando—the fucker knew what that did to me. My fingers went deeper, ran down the crease of his ass, rubbed the smoothness, and teased right over his hole.

That made him move against me, broke the control he held onto so tightly. He tried to push back to get some friction against my fingers, but I took my hand out of his jeans and pulled up and away from him. This time all I saw in his eyes was need. And I knew what he wanted.

“Get those jeans off if you want me to fuck you,” I whispered. I didn’t trust my ability to speak above that—I might have yelled or growled or let something into my voice I didn’t want him to hear yet.

I moved to the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of lube and a condom. We used to go bare, but I didn’t know what he’d done and with whom. So, no glove, no love. And honestly, I heard all that shit about the sensitivity, blah, blah, blah, but my cock never knew the difference between skin and raincoat, because, really, it loved ass regardless.

When I turned back around, he was naked. I took a moment to appreciate the man in front of me. He was my age, jet-black hair and eyes blue like the sky. Shorter than me by three inches or so. Solid, like a gymnast, but not ripped, just… right. Smooth and pale. Pierced nipples that were nice and swollen from my mouth and fingers. He stood still, bare-assed and waiting.

“Get on the bed. On your back. I want to watch this,” I ordered.

He looked at me for a minute, and then lay on his back crossways on the bed. He pulled his knees up, rested his feet flat on the bed, hands to his sides. He knew how to turn me on. His submission always did.

I rounded the foot of the bed and undressed slowly, not looking at him at all. That’s what cranked his engine—the waiting, the anticipation of knowing I
was
going to take him, but not
when
. So I drew it out, tucked my socks into my sneakers, folded my jeans just so. Then picked the lube and rubber up and tossed them on the mattress beside him and edged around the side.

He could only look up, seeing me framed between his bent knees. I grabbed his thighs and pulled him to me, so his ass rested right at my crotch level. My hard cock brushed against his spread cheeks, and I saw him jump a little. His cock flopped up against his lower stomach. He wanted this as much as I did.

“How many?” I asked. He looked at me before answering. Both of us knew what I meant.