Too Soon For Love (5 page)

Alan laughed and felt his heart slipping away already. As much too soon FoR Love
31

as he wanted to, he didn’t crouch down but instead grinned at his friend.

“How’s it going, Guy?” The two men hugged briefly. Alan looked back at the pup. “Oh man, he’s adorable.”

Guy grinned. “He knows it too, the big goof. Okay, you can say hello.”

“You mean me, or the dog?” Alan asked. He hardly got the question out before he was rushed by 50 pounds of doggy energy covered in yellow fur.

Uh-oh. He was doomed. The dog was adorable. Alan crouched down. A warm, wet tongue bathed his face with enthusiastic doggie kisses.

“Look at you! Aren’t you a pretty boy? Aren’t you?” He rubbed the dog between his floppy ears then ruffled the thick fur at the back of his neck.

Oscar stopped licking long enough to flop down and roll over. Big brown eyes gazed up at Alan. A tongue lolled.

“God, he’s cute.” Alan straightened and grinned at his friends.

Oscar leaped up and shoved his head under Alan’s hand.

“That’s enough,” Guy said. “Get him under control the way I showed you.”

Alan raised his hand, pointed to the floor. “Sit? Oscar, sit?”

“Tell him, Alan. Don’t ask him. You’re the pack leader, not him.”

Alan pointed again. “Sit.” He snapped his fingers. “Oscar, sit.”

Oscar paused in his latest attempt to get additional petting.

He glanced over at Guy as if to ask, ‘should I?’ Guy said nothing, didn’t even make eye contact.

Alan repeated the command. Oscar hesitated then slowly, reluctantly, lowered his butt to the floor.

“Good boy, Oscar! That’s a good boy!”

No sooner had he spoken but Oscar jumped up and raced
32 Kimberly Gardner

over for more pets and love.

Guy laughed. “Man, this dog is going to run all over you, Lanny. I can see it already.”

The evening passed in a blur of dogs, kids and Italian food.

By the time he was ready to leave, Alan was beginning to think Guy might be right. As cute as Oscar was, he was willful and didn’t appear to be convinced, not yet anyway, of Alan’s pack leader status.

“I told you, Oscar, you can’t sit in the front seat.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, Alan used the back of his arm to shove the dog’s very flexible and incredibly muscular body back through the space between the bucket seats. “I should have put you in the dog kennel like Guy told me to.”

The dog whimpered and shoved his nose into Alan’s armpit before he settled with his chin on the console, his head and neck stuck through into the front and the rest of him in the back.

Alan laughed. “I guess that’ll have to do.”

Michael sat at his desk in the third floor room he used for a studio, his fingers poised on the keys of his laptop and wrote

… nothing. Instead he listened to the wind howling outside the windows and the silence within. The laptop hummed quietly. A cup of tea sat cooling on the desk.

He moved the cursor up the page. The speech synthesizer read aloud the last paragraph he’d written. He inserted a comma, moved a phrase from the middle to the end of the last sentence.

Read the paragraph again then undid the change before lowering his head into his hands.

What the fuck was wrong with him? The manuscript was due at the end of next month, only six weeks away, and he couldn’t make any progress. Julie, his editor whom he adored, had told him not to worry about the deadline, that they’d slip his date, move back the release.

But he didn’t want to use Phillip’s death as an excuse for not fulfilling his professional obligations. Because the truth was that the book had not been going well even before Phillip’s stroke.

The truth was Michael had not been able to write for months now. Oh, he showed up at the keyboard every day. Read his email, updated his blogs and Facebook, but as for real writing, getting fresh words on the page? That simply wasn’t happening. It was like something inside him had dried up. Whatever had made him the writer he had once been was gone, and in its place there was only guilt and the gnawing fear that he might be finished, washed up at the ripe old age of thirty-one.

Not that he was or ever would be one of the truly great writers. He wrote romance, for God’s sake, gay erotic romance, and though he was proud of his work, he wasn’t likely to ever be nominated for a Nobel prize for it or even make Oprah’s book club.

Hell, forget Oprah’s book club, the particular niche he’d
34 Kimberly Gardner

chosen didn’t even provide him with a decent living. Of course, while Phillip had been alive that hadn’t mattered so much. His lover had encouraged him to follow his heart and write what he wanted, not to the market’s fickle whims. And so after a brief and disheartening stint as a copy writer for an ad agency, Michael had turned his talents to genre fiction, specifically romance, and found some small success along with a boatload of satisfaction.

But was all that behind him? Now that the words had dried up and the romance was gone from his life?

The phone rang, saving him from his own dire thoughts.

For a moment he just sat there, considered ignoring it. Let whoever it was leave a message, maybe he’d even listen to it, later.

Except … If it was someone from Phillip’s family and he didn’t answer the phone they would doubtless think that he’d …

What? Fallen down the basement stairs? Drowned in the bath tub? Hit himself on the head with a hammer? If he failed to answer the phone an alarm would be raised and someone would be ringing his doorbell within the hour.

Michael pushed back his chair and stood. He walked out to the phone in the hallway--he’d refused to have one in his studio

-and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Michael, you’re there. Good. I was just getting ready to leave a message.”

Phillip’s sister, Karen, always sounded like she was rushing from one thing to the next, probably because she usually was. At the moment it sounded like she was in her car.

“Now you don’t have to,” Michael said.

“Right.” She fell silent.

He waited.

“I thought maybe you and Janey went someplace.”

“Jane’s not here.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Michael knew they were the wrong thing to say.

too soon FoR Love
35

“She’s not? Oh, for heaven’s sake, why not?” Karen’s voice rose a full octave, a sure sign that she was pissed and struggling not to show it. “She told me she was going over there today to help you with Phillip’s things. If I’d known she wasn’t--”

“Karen, it’s okay. I asked her to give me a quiet day. I needed to get some work done. I have a deadline coming up.”

“Oh, Michael, don’t be silly. You can work with us in the house. It’s not like you have to entertain us. We’re family.”

He opened his mouth to say …something, but she rolled right over him.

“Now, I can’t make it over there today. I was in the office until noon and now I’m on my way to pick Tina up at school and take her to the orthodontist. But I can give you a couple of hours tomorrow night. How does that sound? In fact,” she continued, hardly pausing for breath, “I can send Andrew over to pick you up when he gets home from school. You can have dinner with us, then I’ll drive you home, fill up some boxes and run them over to the Salvation Army on Friday.”

Michael’s temples began to throb. With his free hand he rubbed at the spot.

“Karen, listen, I have to go. I have … Something in the oven.

The timer just went off and—”

“What are you doing cooking? Did you eat all that food we brought over the other night?”

“I really have to go. I think I smell something burning. Thanks for calling, Karen.”

She was still talking as he put down the phone. It rang again almost immediately.

Michael walked away from the ringing phone. He was getting pretty good at that, if he did say so himself.

He wandered downstairs to the dining room. If he couldn’t write, he might as well get some of Phillip’s things packed up. He found the stack of empty boxes Jane had brought over the day before, grabbed three and carted them upstairs and down the
36 Kimberly Gardner

hall. Balancing the boxes, he turned the knob and nudged open the door to their bedroom. His bedroom, Michael corrected. He needed to stop thinking in the plural. He was no longer half of a couple. He was just himself. And this was his bedroom.

He took one of the boxes over to Phillip’s dresser, set it down and opened the top drawer. Inside were socks. Cotton, wool, cashmere and silk, all organized by fabric and, Michael knew, by color just as all his lover’s clothes were. Phillip had been meticulous about his things, insisting on putting them away himself because Michael, who did the laundry most of the time, couldn’t sort by color.

Michael plunged his hands into the drawer, gathered up socks by the fistful and dropped them into the empty box at his feet without regard for fabric or color or even pairings. Let the Salvation Army people sort them out. He just wanted the job done and over with. He wasn’t even sure why it felt so important, only that he couldn’t sleep in here again until it was done and he was the one who had to do it.

When he finished with the socks, he moved on to the underwear. He worked quickly until the box was full. Then he closed the flaps and got another one.

He hadn’t even entered this room in weeks. He’d been sleeping down the hall in one of the guest rooms. If anyone thought that was odd, they hadn’t mentioned it, not in front of him at least.

Finally he finished with the t-shirts and turned his attention to the boxers. He didn’t allow himself to think about what he was doing or about the man who had worn these cottons and silks.

The skin that had warmed the material. The body of the owner of all these orphaned garments.

Michael scooped up underwear, working faster and faster, not allowing his brain to dwell on what his hands were doing. But as he lifted the last pile of boxers from the drawer, something slid out from the stack and fell to the floor.

Dumping the last of the underwear in the box, Michael crouched down and felt around until his fingers closed on a small too soon FoR Love
37

box. He picked it up and opened the flap.

Condoms?

Yeah, condoms. Half a box of them. But he and Phillip didn’t use condoms, hadn’t used them since that weekend Phillip had asked him to move in.

Except for that one time, about a year and a half ago, when they’d gone to that gay resort in Mexico, the resort where they’d met Robby.

✧ ✦ ✧

The sun was hot on Michael’s bare chest and legs. The glass in his hand was cold. The sound of splashing, along with murmured conversation and occasional masculine laughter came from the direction of the pool. The air, thick with humidity, smelled of sun-screen and chlorine with a hint of charcoal-grilled meat.

“You should put on some more sun screen. You’re turning a little pink.”

Phillip’s voice sounded as lazy and sun-drenched as Michael felt.

“I’m okay.” He didn’t feel like moving, not even enough to pick up the bottle of coconut-scented sun block and squeeze some into his palm. He took another sip of his margarita. The tangy liquid and the hint of salt still on the rim of the glass made the perfect contrast. He felt so decadent drinking at barely eleven in the morning. But what the heck. They were on vacation. And vacations were for doing things you wouldn’t or couldn’t do the rest of the year. Or that’s what Phillip said anyway. At the moment, Michael didn’t see any reason to argue.

“Let me put some on you then.” The lounge chair next to his creaked. “Move over some.” Phillip gave Michael’s feet a nudge then sat down next to him on the end of the chair.

Michael heard the squelch of sun block being squeezed out.

He smelled coconuts seconds before Phillip’s hand settled on his chest and began smoothing sun-warmed lotion over his skin.

“Mmm.” Michael sighed as his lover rubbed leisurely circles
38 Kimberly Gardner

over his chest. His nipple was lightly tweaked, and inside his shorts his cock stirred.

“There’s a very delectable little blond who’s been by twice already, checking you out.” Phillip’s palms smoothed down over Michael’s belly, making his muscles tremble. A fingertip dipped into his navel. “He’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, right.” Michael laughed. “I doubt it’s me he’s checking out.”

Phillip made a humming sound. “Sweetheart, I know what cruising looks like and, trust me, he is checking you out.” There was the sound of more lotion being squeezed from the bottle and Phillip started in on Michael’s legs. “He looks like a runner, or maybe a swimmer. He’s got that kind of build, you know?”

Hands stroked Michael’s thighs, fingers dipped under the hem of his shorts. “Blond curly hair down to his shoulders, a nice golden-brown tan, very little body hair.” The hand slid further up his leg. The fingertips just brushed his balls then slid away. “You two would look very hot together.”

Michael’s hand froze, his drink halfway to his lips. For a moment he quite literally didn’t breathe. Then very slowly he asked, “What do you mean, babe?”

Phillip chuckled and gave his thigh a squeeze. “What do you think I mean?”

It was a simple matter to pick up Blondie and invite him back to their room. Phillip did most of the talking. First because he was the more outgoing of the two of them, and second because Michael was still too shell-shocked by what was happening to get his mouth and brain to work in tandem.

The kid’s name was Robby. They didn’t give last names, any of them. This wasn’t that kind of encounter. Robby said he was twenty-one and about to begin his senior year at the University of Maryland. His parents were footing the bill for this trip, he said, because he’d made the dean’s list last semester.

They ordered another round of drinks out by the pool.

Michael licked salt from the rim of his glass and listened to too soon FoR Love
39