Page 29 of Down in Flames

Michael tipped his head, looking thoughtful. “Who knows what I would’ve called myself if I’d been single? Mary and I practically grew up together. Being with her was just always how it was going to be, you know?”

He didn’t know, but he nodded, anyway.

“We experimented some,” Michael added, and West nearly choked on his tongue.

Suddenly, he was thinking about the postwoman, Dolores, and her innuendo and gossip. She’d never liked Mary Whittaker, and she’d never trusted the packages addressed in her name. West was instantly imagining whipped cream and feathers, or maybe chains and ball gags. Michael naked, stretched out, and tied to the headboard.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

Michael took one look at his face and laughed. “Look at you. Do I even want to know what’s got you making that face?”

“What…” West licked his dry lips. They were still too far away from each other. He felt small and foolish, standing there while Michael loomed over him from the porch. “What does that mean…exactly?”

“Probably not whatever you’re imagining.” Michael’s lips twisted wryly, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Back before we had Abby and settled down, Mary used to be pretty wild. Her favorite thing was to find a third to join us every once in a while.”

“Women?”

Michael inclined his head. “And men.”

West’s brain felt like it was about to explode, overheated by a whole new series of images flickering through his imagination. Mary wasn’t in them. West’s subconscious shied away from imposing on her like that. He didn’t imagine a woman at all, just an amorphous body pinned between two men. Or even better…watching. Just watching as a faceless man laid hands on the sculpted perfection of Michael’s body, worshipping him the way West had always wanted.

A peculiar sense of jealousy filled him, and he was forced to clear his throat twice before he croaked, “I didn’t think…uh, I mean…I thought maybe you’d never kissed a man before.”

“I hadn’t.”

“But—”

With a sigh, Michael stopped holding up the overhead beam and stepped off the porch. Something about the seriousness in his expression had West backing up a step before he realized what he was doing. He locked his knees, both relieved and disappointed when Michael paused just out of reach. The light from the porch was behind him now, and his face was mostly in shadow.

In a low voice, he said, “Kissing is for romance, West. Those men…they were just extra bodies between me and Mary. You understand?”

“But…” West scrambled to put his spinning thoughts in order. “You kissed me.”

“Yeah. I did.” Slowly, Michael reached out and cupped the side of his face. His thumb stroked along the edge of West’s jaw, testing the roughness there, and West desperately wished he’d had a chance to shave. He could have borrowed Michael’s razor, but he’d been worried it would look like he was trying too hard. Or worse, that he expected something to happen. But now all he could think about was how scruffy he must look.

Gliding his thumb over the cushion of West’s lower lip, Michael added, “Neither of us is the type to fool around. Are we?”

Mutely, West shook his head. He wanted to reach out so badly that his hands shook in bloodless fists inside his pockets. The heat from Michael’s body was like a physical wall between them. Part of him longed to throw himself into that warmth, but the rest of him was screaming to run. So instead, he just stood there and quivered.

He was in over his head. In all his naïve, hopeless longing, he’d never imagined this. Michael was so much older, so much stronger, so much better—and so much more experienced than West had ever realized. Even in his wildest dreams, West would never be a match for him.

Michael was searching his face, somehow reading the paralyzing terror there. Gently, he asked, “This is what you wanted, right?”

“I never get what I want,” he whispered hoarsely.

“I don’t know much about how you grew up, but it seems to me you just learned to stop asking a long time ago. How ‘bout you start up again?”

“You could say no.”

“I could say yes.” Michael splayed his hand across the side of West’s face, sliding his fingers through his hair and gripping so tight he couldn’t look away. “Ask me.”

West’s heart was going to explode. It was pounding like a snare drum in his chest, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Somehow, it felt as if this was the first real thing in his life, and everything that had come before was just practice.

His pulse pounded, and every sense had sharpened to a crystalline point: the chill sweeping down from the mountains, the quiver in his legs, and the sweet, woodsy scent of Michael’s soap.

Before this, he’d only been playing at living. But if he could only sack up and find the courage, he could grab hold of this moment and live in it for as long as it lasted.

If only.