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“How is Rory? Is he in that chair for good?”

Thomas put down the juice. Swallowed again. “Why are you asking?”

“Why do you think I’m asking?”

Thomas tried to quell the surge of annoyance. Damn it, Marcus had just fucked his brains out, made him lie beneath him spread like a woman and stare up into his face, feel his lips on his mouth, those eyes so close and overpowering…he’d made him

vulnerable, and then fired off a question like that. It couldn’t
not
be strategy. Thomas wasn’t going to be dicked around.

As he searched for a response, Marcus’ jaw tightened. “You may be able to tell I’m lying, but for some reason you don’t seem to know when I’m asking a simple question,”

he said in a deceptively mild tone. “Which suggests a problem with trust. So I repeat, why do you think I’m asking?”

“You want to know what leverage you have,” Thomas said bluntly. “When you

want something to happen a certain way, you break down defenses. Then you gather 54

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pieces of information, assemble them into a plan and execute it when someone is off balance. Like ‘Item One, his brother might get better, so I can use that to—’”

Marcus rose so abruptly his knee hit the table, jarring the glassware. Fortunately, nothing toppled, but the clink of glass and silver was enough to stop Thomas mid-sentence.

Marcus had fixed a hard, cold gaze upon him. When he said nothing for several

moments, Thomas felt like squirming. If Marcus was silent now, it was because his temper had been simmering and suddenly had gone to open boil. The passive-aggressive energy that had been moving between them—the elephant in the room—

was about to stampede. But goddammit, he wasn’t wrong. He knew Marcus. He’d seen him do it before. Not in personal shit so much, but somehow Thomas figured there was a line they’d crossed where all was fair in love and war. Or had he imagined it?

“You walked out on a gallery showing we spent months planning and promoting,”

Marcus said at last, in a flat, deadly tone. “You called me from an airport hundreds of miles away to tell me that your father’d had a heart attack and died before you could even make the connecting flight. You told me you didn’t need me—”

“I didn’t—”

“Shut. Up.”

Thomas clenched his teeth, but he shut up.

“You didn’t want me to come, even though I could hear your voice breaking over

the phone. I told you I would do whatever you needed, be whatever, wherever you needed me to be, when all I wanted to do was go to you, stand by you, while you faced one of the hardest moments of your life. You came back, thinking you could pick up some of the pieces, but I should have known then it hadn’t been resolved. Your brother got hurt and you left again. In the middle of the night, because you couldn’t handle saying goodbye.”

Marcus leaned down, bracing his knuckles on the table and stared hard into

Thomas’ eyes. “I wanted to know how your brother was because he’s your brother.

Because I haven’t been able to find out from you how you’re doing or how your family is doing. It matters to me, because
they
matter to
you
.

“How many times have you told me stories about you and Rory as kids? How he

tagged along after you, wore overalls without a shirt? How you fished him out of a creek when he was eight so he wouldn’t drown? The way you watched over him when your dad and mom had to keep a farm and a business running while you all were

growing up?

“I asked,” he continued in that low tone that was striping Thomas’ insides,

“Because I love you so fucking much, and I wish I could change everything that’s happened to you. But because I can’t, I can at least ask how things are going, so maybe I can figure out a way you’ll let me help you.”

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Thomas started shaking his head. Marcus had never said he loved him. He was

using it now like a weapon of mass destruction, trying to wipe away all his defenses, use it to…

“Fuck you,” Marcus snarled abruptly, upending the table, sending it crashing

against the railing. Crockery spun and shattered, juice and eggs splattering them both.

“For your information, you selfish prick, I can read everything in your face. I’ve never lied to you about anything. Ever. The only one lying to himself here is you. You tell me

‘one week’. That’s it, that’s all you’ll give us. Well, since I’m on a roll, let me continue to be perfectly honest with you.”

Marcus leaned forward again, his face hard. “That has nothing to do with your

family. You’ve accepted a man can want to fuck another man, but you can’t accept they can love each other. That’s what’s eating a hole in your gut. Your dad dying when he did was just an excuse. You were getting too scared of where we were going. And it wasn’t just the way you feel about me. You’re not only gay, you’re a fucking sexual submissive. Wouldn’t that just send your mother over the deep end?”

”My mom’s been through a lot. You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t,” Marcus shouted. “I don’t understand what it’s like to lose someone when I’m not expecting it. Have my heart torn from me and be told it’s something I just have to accept.”

He straightened abruptly, stepped back, his eyes like emerald fire, heat blasting off him. “At least she knows what she wants is dead. What I want just refuses to be with me. Maybe I should compare notes with her on what’s worse, for I swear to God

sometimes I think if you were dead this would hurt less.”

“Fuck you.” Thomas leaped up and backed away from the upended table, moving

toward the stairs. “I won’t listen to this bullshit. You’re just trying to confuse me.”

“You do that well enough on your goddamned own,” Marcus shot back. “Run. Run

from it all you want. Go home to your little farm and pretend there are all these noble reasons to be there rather than the truth, which is you’re a coward. Afraid to face who you are and what you want.”

Thomas spun on his heel, an angry retort on his lips, but Marcus was already

turning away with a disgusted look. He went back into the house, slamming the sliding door with enough force to make the entire rear wall of the house quake, shuddering through the pilings below, matching the quiver of rage that went through Thomas’ own limbs.

Son of a bitch. Bastard. Asshole. Fucking shithead. Thomas stomped down the deck stairs. But even as he thought it, something was shaken deep inside of him. He’d never seen Marcus have an outburst like that, the sarcasm and intellectual scorn abandoned for raw, pure feeling.

Halfway down, Thomas became aware of a sharp pain in his foot. His pulse was

racing so hard in reaction to Marcus’ words he hadn’t noticed it at first. He hobbled to 56

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the bottom of the stairs, sat down and looked at the three bloody spots where shards of broken glass had lodged in his bare heel.

I love you.
Marcus had never said the words, but Thomas had felt something from him sometimes in a quiet moment, an urgent need, a sudden powerful stillness as if there were such words there, just waiting to be said. Thomas had never said them himself, believing it was just his own desire to hear Marcus say them resonating, reflecting the desire of one heart, not two.

Marcus didn’t love him. He couldn’t.

I’ve never lied to you.

Thomas looked across the patio at his mounted sketchpads. Always a comfort, but now they mocked him, particularly the one in the middle. Just that splayed hand, the fingers inviting touch even as they gave the impression of looking for something that wasn’t within reach. Was it Marcus’ hand, or his soul? Thomas rose, went to it. Putting his hand over it, he saw there was a splatter of egg at the top corner, fallen from the upper deck.

It hit then. Sometimes the pain in his lower abdomen grew to such proportions it compressed his chest, and then he couldn’t breathe through the pain of it. Couldn’t breathe…

I love you… Coward… Father was just an excuse…

Thomas dropped to one knee as if shoved. Holding onto his chest, he tried to suck in air that wasn’t there. Perspiration, cold along his skin.
God,
don’t
do this here.

There was broken glass on the tile, one of the saucers that had been propelled off by Marcus’ violent reaction. Despite the pain in his foot, it wasn’t enough. Thomas grabbed one of the shards, gripped it hard enough it pierced his palm, competing with the pain in his gut, but it was too far gone. The cut of the glass was just a feather brush compared to the sick green fire there.

He managed to get to the edge of the patio before he threw up the breakfast he’d eaten. The labored wheezing was his own, mixed with a peculiar sobbing noise in his throat. He was choking on his own failure, his inability to get any of it right.
Can’t
breathe…

“Hey. Hey!” The snapped command made him realize Marcus was there, kneeling

with him, hand on the side of his jaw and throat, dragging his attention up to meet his stern gaze. “Thomas. Breathe. Slow, pet. Breathe. It’s all right. I’m here.”

That strong hand on the back of his neck, the other over his abdomen, steadying him, giving him back the rhythm of his heartbeat, slowing it down. “Ssshh, sshh…”

“I’m…sorry. Should just go. Not…fair to you—”

“Thomas.” Marcus’ voice sharpened, silencing him. “Stop thinking about it. It’s okay.” His grip tightened and Thomas brought his face back up again. Marcus’ green eyes. So green. Peaceful, turbulent, beautiful. Everything was in that green. “It’s going 57

Joey W. Hill

to be all right, okay? No matter what, it’s going to be all right. We’re just fighting, pet.

Couples do it all the time. Come here.”

Down to the cool tile of the patio, his shoulders hauled across Marcus’ thighs as Marcus held him, legs stretched out while he stroked Thomas’ hair, his other hand still on his belly. Marcus rocked him, murmured to him. Helped him breathe, breaking the clasp of the panic attack. Everything would be all right. He could hear Marcus’

heartbeat beneath his ear, pressed against his firm abdomen. Steady, thudding through Thomas’ body. He gripped Marcus’ calf under one hand, an anchor.

“Oh, Jesus.” He closed his eyes. Mortified, as reason returned. He would have tried to sit up, reclaim a little dignity, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t pass out just yet.

“Guess I won that argument, didn’t I?”

“Just as every swooning Victorian heroine does.” But despite the smartass

comment, Marcus didn’t smile or look remotely amused. He shifted his grip, tilting Thomas’ head up, his thumb on his jugular so Thomas could feel his own pulse, as if Marcus had the right to decide if he lived or died, as if he were his slave in truth.

Perhaps he was. Perhaps he’d rather die at Marcus’ hand, if it would save him from hurting Marcus or his family in any way anymore.

“How long has this been happening? And don’t you even think of lying to me.”

Thomas wasn’t a good liar on his best day. Under the undeniably intimidating

stare, he wasn’t going to try today. Much. “I get them every once in a while. I usually know the signs, so you’re the first person who’s ever been treated to the pathetic sight of one.” The joke fell flat. He closed his eyes. “Marcus, I should go home. This was a mistake, you know it as well as I do. I’ll paint what I can there. You’re right, I want to get back to it, and there’s no reason I can’t—”

“I don’t give a damn if you don’t paint anything this week other than a paint-by-numbers rendition of a Cape Cod lighthouse. Hell, you can give me a crayon drawing of the Shoney’s kids’ menu. I don’t give a fuck about the painting. Can you pull your head out of your ass long enough to get that one thing through your stubborn head?”

Thomas swallowed. He was one of the few people who knew what Marcus was like

when he was genuinely pissed off. Normally, he’d prefer to have some distance

physically from it, because it came off him like an explosion from a volcano, but the anger in Marcus’ eyes was only matched by the tenacity of his grip on Thomas’ upper body, sprawled ignominiously over his knees.

“This is serious, pet.” Marcus increased the pressure of his hand on Thomas’

stomach and Thomas couldn’t help the wincing. “You’re twenty-seven years old and you’re having weekly panic attacks, and you have an ulcer.”

“Weekly? How did you—”

“Because I’m a lot smarter than you, and despite your inability to lie to me, you have a tendency to try to fudge the truth.” Marcus cupped his jaw. “Are you listening to me? You promised your Master a week, and that’s what you’re giving him. We’ve both 58

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said what we needed to say to get it off our chests for the time being. Let’s leave that right there, okay?”

“I didn’t mean it.” Thomas had to say it, make Marcus understand that one thing. “I just—”

“I’m the only person you can strike out at that you trust to handle it.” Marcus adjusted his grip, the hand on Thomas’ throat now firm enough to be a collar, silencing him and riveting his attention. He kneaded against Thomas’ vulnerable windpipe.

Despite the moment, it drew Thomas’ attention to Marcus’ mouth, which made some of his energy drain to his lap. From the flick of Marcus’ eyes, Thomas knew he registered the reaction. He struggled to focus.

“Even so, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s over now.” Marcus squeezed, silencing him. “Go get your swimsuit and a

towel. I’m going to pack up a few things. Today, we’re going to drive to Cape Cod and go to the beach. It’s warm enough. Then, this evening, I intend to take you to a new place I’ve heard some good things about.”

At the sudden shift in Marcus’ gaze, something else tightened in his raw lower

belly, just as searing but a lot more pleasurable. “What kind of place?”

Moving his hand off Thomas’ stomach, Marcus captured his wrist, raising it to study the cut hand. Ignored the question. “If you want pain, Thomas, you’ll ask your Master for it. Not cause it to yourself. You understand me?” He brought the palm to his lip, sucked the blood off, licked Thomas like an animal.