Duty and Devotion Read online

  Matt nodded, then walked over to the dresser to unzip his leather kit. He pulled out the tabs of condoms and the lube and tossed them onto the bed; they bounced once and came to rest against Evan's blanketed thigh.

  “Okay,” he said, courage mounting and waning as much as his dick, which couldn't decided if it was nervous or excited about the prospect.

  Evan didn't say anything; he reached out and took the lube and condoms in hand, staring at them for a long quiet moment before looking up at Matt. With his free hand he tossed the blanket off his lap.

  “Come here,” he said softly.

  Matt had done a lot of things with a lot of women over his lifetime. Crazy things, kinky things. The girlfriend who couldn't come unless he called her a slut. The three-night stand (it was a long weekend) who had a vibrator in her purse and redefined the word “insatiable.” Thank God for that vibrator, because at a certain point his tongue went numb.

  The women in coat closets and maintenance rooms and rooftops and the backseats of cars.

  In all the scenarios, it was Matt doing whatever it was that needed to be done. Matt on “top.” Matt's dick, leading the charge. But right now, with this man, he was lying again on his stomach, half-limp dick pressing against the covers, not leading anything or anyone anywhere.

  He felt cold.

  He wished Evan would say something, but for the past few minutes his boyfriend had been entirely too quiet. Evan brushed his hands over Matt's body, gentle and soothing, but it wasn't enough.

  Matt needed that edge back, that momentum of excitement and need. Right now he felt like he was waiting passively for something to happen, and that wasn't his style at all.

  Evan murmured something, and Matt picked up his head to hear better. The tube of lubricant in his hands, Evan was clearly talking to himself—and reading the instructions.

  Matt felt cold and uncomfortable.

  “Use as much as you need to,” he said, rubbing his palm against the bedspread. “On your fingers.”

  Evan didn't say anything, but then Matt felt a kiss against his shoulder—then Evan's body spooning behind him, warm and close.

  “I…I can't do this, okay?” Evan whispered into Matt's neck. His breath was fever hot, and Matt felt the shiver of his body. “I don't want—I thought I did…”

  Matt swallowed. “It's all right—we don't have to do this now.”

  Evan nodded, pressing closer. Matt could feel he wasn't hard and felt the last stirrings of his own renewed erection fade.

  “There's plenty of time. Not like I'm complaining.”

  “Or me,” Evan murmured. He wound his arms around Matt's middle, pulling their bodies together, close and tight. “Not saying never, just not right now.”

  “Okay.” Matt closed his eyes and tried to figure out if he was relieved or disappointed. “It's okay.”

  “Can we just go to sleep?” Evan asked.

  Matt nodded.

  They disengaged just long enough to get under the covers. Evan stayed naked, so Matt shimmied out of his boxers and threw them onto the floor. Evan shut the light, reaching for Matt as soon as he rolled back under the blankets.

  “I love you,” he said fiercely, his fingers tight against Matt's skin.

  “I know, I know.” Matt soothed him, aligning their bodies together, face-to-face, arms and legs entwined. Nothing sexual at this point but the absolutely most comforting feeling he could create. “I love you too.”

  He repeated it until they both fell asleep.

  When Matt woke up the next morning, he was alone in bed. Not surprising when he rolled over and checked the time. It was nearly eleven.

  It was physically impossible for Evan to stay in bed that late.

  Matt got up slowly, listening for sounds of Evan in the other rooms. He felt sore, from the strange bed and restless night of sleep. He worried about what the day's conversation would bring, how Evan would be after the incident last night.

  He was still conceiving terrible scenarios when the bedroom door opened, and Evan appeared, showered and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and carrying a mug of coffee.

  “Room service?” he said, shy and hesitant at the doorway.

  Matt smiled and waved him in. “Did you bring a chocolate for my pillow?”

  “No, but I do have coffee here and bagels in the kitchen.”

  “Nice.” Matt took the mug and scooted over, giving Evan room to sit down.

  “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry I didn't get up with the sun like you.”

  Evan shrugged. “I slept until seven. That's like sleeping in for me. Went down to the beach, took a walk. Got breakfast. Found a nice restaurant for dinner.”

  Matt sipped his coffee. “Great.”

  “Listen.” Evan toyed with the waistband of his shorts. “I'm sorry about last night. I don't know what happened. I just…couldn't.”

  “I told you it was okay.” Matt rested the mug on the bed next to him. “I just thought it was something you were into.”

  Evan tensed slightly. “I don't know if it is or it isn't. It's not something I had to consider before.”

  “We're not discussing mutual funds, Evan. It's sex.” Matt put the mug back to his mouth to avoid turning this into a fight. It was too early, and it was their goddamn vacation. He didn't want to fight again.

  “It's gay sex, Matt. It's not something I had to think about before.”

  The way Evan's mouth curled around “gay” made the coffee turn to ash in Matt's mouth.

  “Actually it's not 'gay' sex as much a different way of having sex.” Matt shoved the cup onto the nightstand and hauled out of bed. “And again, I don't get the analyzing. We played around, there seemed to be definite interest on both our parts, and so I don't see how suggesting it is a big deal.”

  “I'm sorry.” Evan's voice was stressed enough to make Matt stop his angry rifling through the suitcase for clothes and turn around. “I really am. I thought I could do it, and I couldn't.”

  “Fine. Whatever. We don't need to do that,” he said, swim shorts and a T-shirt in hand.

  “I didn't say never.”

  “Right, and I didn't say it was a deal breaker.” Matt stopped at the doorway and gave Evan a backward glance. “I'm gonna change and eat breakfast; then we'll head out to the beach.”

  Evan seemed like he had something else to say, but he just nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Matt walked into the bathroom and shut the door with a more forceful slam than he intended, wincing as the cheap plywood door rattled on its hinges.

  It wasn't a deal breaker, he thought as he looked in the mirror. But more and more he found himself wondering if Evan's inner turmoil about his sexuality was.

  * * *

  They both tried extra hard for the rest of the weekend. Maybe too hard. Both were accommodating to the extreme—Matt keeping a manly distance from Evan whenever other people were around, Evan with his hands on Matt every second they were alone. It didn't feel forced as much as it felt desperate, and they drove home Monday morning with a sense of disappointment and a ton of sand packed into the SUV.

  Chapter Eight

  “So okay, here's a question—why do I care if Evan doesn't think we're gay?” Matt asked Liz as he settled down in the “head-shrinking” leather chair of her home office. His good friend and actual professional psychiatrist looked surprised as she swiveled to face him.

  “Wow, that's quite a starter to the conversation. I thought this was a social call.” Liz's brown eyes widened behind her reading glasses.

  “It is a social call. That was a friend question.” Matt settled back into the squeaky chair, stretching his legs out as long as they could go. He could nearly reach the Legos her boys had left scattered on the floor.

  “It's got shrink undertones.” Liz abandoned the paperwork she was futzing around with and leaned back to give Matt her full attention. “I'm also a little leery of the grammar.”

  “Har har. Now help me.”

/>   “Right.” She steepled her fingers to her chin, teeth worrying her lower lip. “So Evan doesn't think he's gay or either of you is gay?”

  “Both. Mostly him. He says he doesn't like labels.” Matt rolled his eyes. “I think he's got this whole shame thing going on, but it's like—what does he think we're doing? Is he secretly creeped out by it?”

  “Is he going to try and break things off again?”

  Matt thumped his head back against the chair. “Liz, please. Not Dr. Liz.”

  “You gotta let me blend here, Matt.” Liz smiled. “Both the doctor and I know that's where this is coming from. If Evan is so uncomfortable with the perception or concept of being gay, he might end things again, kick you out of his life.”

  Matt nodded, his face twisting into a scowl. He'd rather face a strung-out junkie with a gun and nothing to lose than spend five minutes contemplating life without Evan or the kids. “Yeah.”

  “So it makes sense that it would bother you.”

  “I'm glad I make sense.”

  “It happens on occasion.” She tilted her head at him. “Do you consider yourself gay, Matt?”

  “Well, Dr. Liz, I've actually been thinking that over, and yeah—I think so. I mean—technically bisexual since I wasn't faking it with all those women,” he said drily. “But if I look at me and Evan, it's…different with him.”

  “You're in love with him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you could see yourself in love with another man?”

  “Don't want to.”

  “But you could.”

  He pondered. He thought about Jim. He thought—yeah, if he had to do it again, he'd probably find himself going wherever it was middle-aged gay guys went to hook up.

  “Yeah.”

  “So you're identifying at this point in your life as gay, and you're concerned with Evan's self-perceptions and how they affect you.” Liz leaned over to pat his hand. “You know he has to do the work inside to make his own decisions, right?”

  Matt blew out a deep breath. “You mean I can't just yell at him until he stops making me crazy?”

  “No.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Come on, Haight—you're better than that now. No yelling or picking fights around the issue. You have to confront it head-on.”

  “I try. He says labels don't matter, and it's no one's business and that's that.” Matt toe tapped a small pile of Legos, making them shake and quiver. “Which is true, but it's also not true.”

  “True.”

  “Are you this sarcastic with other patients?”

  “You mean the ones that pay?”

  “I've turned into his wife,” Matt added, throwing his mental burdens out one by one. “Or he's trying to turn me into her.”

  Liz frowned a bit at that. “What do you mean?”

  Matt shook his head. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was going overboard with this. Maybe the whole sex thing during the beach weekend was making him crazier than it should. “I don't know. I feel like I—took her spot. I take care of the kids, I take care of the details and he works, and it's like she never died.”

  “I'm guessing that's a bit of an exaggeration. I don't believe Evan mistakes you for Sherri.”

  “He'd rather she was here than me.” There. He'd said it. Aloud even.

  “Evan didn't get a divorce. His wife died—tragically young. Yes, you're going to feel like a replacement. In some very tangible ways, you are. In other ways you are a unique force in Evan's life.” She paused and made a little “hmmmm” sound in the back of her throat. “Maybe you just want him to recognize that.”

  He opened and shut his mouth, teeth clicking audibly.

  “I know you know these things. And I know you can connect the dots between them,” she said gently.

  Matt moaned as all the pieces of their arguments clicked into place into his head. Being gay meant being different than Sherri, and it was something that was his and his alone with Evan, and there needed to be things about them that weren't just re-creations of Evan's old life. And God, he really hated Liz sometimes.

  “I kind of hate you,” he sighed, and Liz clapped her hands.

  “Painful truths and eyes opened to inner clarity—that's what I bring to the table, Haight. You knew that, and that's why you came here. Now friend Liz will take you into the kitchen and feed you apple cake with some sympathetic back patting thrown in.”

  “I like sympathetic back patting.”

  In Liz's huge kitchen, Matt found his familiar place at her island with coffee and the aforementioned apple cake. She even took sympathy on his hangdog expression and offered whipped cream.

  “Evan's jealous of Jim,” he announced, licking apple crumbs off his fork.

  “One-night-stand Jim?” she asked.

  “My friend Jim,” he corrected. “Stop making it sound sleazy.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Liz coughed into her hand. “I forgot your delicate sensibilities.”

  “Just because I used to be a man-whore doesn't mean I can't have delicate sensibilities about some things.”

  “Point.” Liz considered Matt over the top of her mug. “Does Evan bring Jim up a lot?”

  “Yes. At ridiculous times—not when I've talked to him on the phone. No, he brings him up when we're…” Matt gestured. “You know.”

  “Evan brings up Jim in bed?”

  “Yesss.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “It's gross.”

  “Jim is his rival in bed. He's not used to that.”

  “Jim isn't his rival in anything. Jim is some guy I slept with once and who lives three thousand miles away and who I talk to on the phone.” Matt could see where this was going, and he was putting his stubborn hat on. Evan had nothing to fear from Jim—nothing.

  “Jim is the only other guy you've slept with, which makes you one up on Evan sexually—and when you add on all your other women and compare to Evan's only sexual experience besides you being his wife…” Liz rolled her eyes. “Come on, this is Soap Opera 101 here, Haight.”

  “I may be a househusband, but I don't watch soaps.” Matt sniffed. He reached over and snatched a piece of her cake, chewing defiantly.

  “You know, you're really going to have to bring me tougher problems,” Liz sighed. “These are softballs being lobbed at me.”

  “Sorry my pedestrian issues aren't exciting enough for you, Dr. Liz. Maybe you need to get back to forensic work.”

  “Maybe I will.” Liz pushed her plate over to Matt's side of the island. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Maybe you need something of your own again—something that isn't taking care of the house and kids.”

  “So I should get a job?” Matt considered it, but nothing of interest immediately came to mind. He liked being home, liked being around the kids. He liked going to the gym when it wasn't crowded and taking a run through quiet streets, not fighting rush-hour traffic.

  “Or a hobby or—something. Something just yours and no one else's. It might help ease your feelings that you're just replacing Sherri.”

  “Hmmm… Maybe.” Matt finished Liz's piece of cake and his coffee.

  “That'll be three hundred dollars.”

  “I'll pay the receptionist on the way out.”

  * * *

  Matt took advantage of his quiet day to putter around before heading home to pick up the kids. He went to the gym after leaving Liz's house and stopped by a bookstore to rifle through the magazine section. The Relationship aisle he passed on the way there almost lured him in, but he kept walking. He doubted anyone had written a book to address his special snowflake problems at the moment.

  But when he thought of books, Matt thought about the “joke” books Jim sent last year. The Gay Kama Sutra, if he recalled correctly. When he moved in with Evan and the kids, most of his books and non-sentimental items ended up in the sunroom—which is where Matt found himself wandering into when he got home.

  It to
ok a few minutes, but under the textbooks and old Sports Illustrateds he found the box from Jim and the book, still tucked neatly inside.

  They'd not really ever used it. With all Evan's jealousy of Jim, Matt didn't think it a great idea to pull the book out at bedtime and announce where it came from. Hell, the title alone might send Evan fleeing out of the room in sheer horror.

  He stared at the cover for a few minutes, thumbed through a few pages. His groin showed some interest—that was a nice mood lifter.

  Maybe it was a pipe dream to imagine he and Evan could find this mutual ground, where labels didn't matter but shame wasn't in the equation. Maybe they could find a way to express their sexual desire without all that baggage suddenly throwing itself into the middle of things.

  Maybe he should take his own advice and shut up, appreciate what they had instead of wishing there was more. Who cared if Evan considered himself gay? So long as he came home to Matt every night, why did it matter?

  Fuck, this love thing was complicated.

  * * *

  “So dinner? The four of us? Isn't that a little weird?” Matt stirred spaghetti sauce in a bubbling pot on the mess that previously was their stove. The cell was wedged to one ear as Jim's amused laughter answered him.

  “Maybe, a little. But why not? I think it'll be fine. We're all adults.”

  “Hmmm…and I guess you're technically not an ex because you know, been in that situation unintentionally—ex meeting current, and it was ugly. Authorities were nearly called.”

  “Ha. No, this is just four grown men having a nice dinner and me getting some enjoyment out of an evening of theater.”

  “Theater?”

  “Griffin's friend Daisy is opening in some big Broadway play.” Jim sighed. “It's not even a damn musical—that would keep me awake. It's a play.”

  “That's where they just talk, right?”

  “Sadly, yes. But I promised. And Griffin's dad was supposed to come with us, but he's had bronchitis for weeks. I don't think he's joining us.”

  “I feel like your backup plan. Color me insulted.” Matt turned off the stove and opened the oven to check on the store-bought lasagna. His stomach growled in perfect tandem with the smell wafting upwards.

  “You're more my opening act.”

  Matt could hear a riotous amount of noise sneaking through the phone and walked to the fridge. “Where are you? A carnival?”