Chapter One
Bathroom Tetris
The flight to California was teaching Trenton a great many things—primarily that he didn’t like to fly.
It was hardly a surprise. He was a large man with zero social skills, a proclivity toward excessive protectiveness, and a strong dislike of things outside of his control. He also hated change, and so, this being the first flight of his life, he wasn’t exactly having a great time of it.
It also didn’t help that the flight attendant wouldn’t stop flirting with the love of his life.
“You’re going to burn a hole in her head,” Hilary said, not particularly concerned about it. “Am I being very whoreish today?”
Not at all. In fact, his beloved ought to be sainted for his patience.
Trenton was only too aware he was being a nightmare to deal with, and had been since he’d opened his eyes that morning—or rather, since the evening before when he’d repacked their luggage three times with ever-increasing tyranny.
“Forgive me,” Trenton said, knowing he’d be making many more apologies before the day was out. “I’m being awful.”
“Are you? I quite like the scowl. It gives you the anguished, brooding look of a Byronic hero. You aren’t currently harboring any thoughts about absconding with me to the bathroom, are you? I don’t think I’d mind being ravished a time or two.”
If Trenton had been any less wretched, he would have smiled. “I don’t think we’d fit.”
“You’re a math genius, aren’t you? Just Tetris your way into the fantasy. You know, I don’t think there’s ever been an Ogre in the mile high club. We’d be making history, Trent. Think of your legacy.”
Hilary was good—so very good—at knowing when his partner needed him.
With an effort, Trenton forced his jaw to unclench.
“I hope you don’t think—it’s not that I don’t trust you.
” Indeed, after fifteen years of what had to be the purest devotion known to mankind, any other insinuation would have been the blackest insult.
“I just don’t see why you should be leered at simply because this group of neanderthals has never seen anyone quite as charming as you. ”
Hilary’s laugh was a hard bark of sound—one of Trenton’s favorites. Amnesia or no, he’d been keeping track of Hilary’s menagerie of laughs since their meeting all those years ago. “Charming? I’ve got toothpaste on my shirt,” the man said.
Yes, it was there near his collar, devastatingly endearing. “Well, that’s how they know you’ve got that illustrious position at the toothpaste factory.”
This time Hilary’s laugh got the eye crinkles. Trenton so loved the crinkles. When they were at home, he would always press his fingers to them. But in public, people could do bad things. Were always capable of worse than anything he could imagine. And he’d learned to imagine a lot.
“Oh right.” And Hilary’s flashing smile was even more devastating than the toothpaste. “I forgot I’m a man of means.”
Beautiful. So beautiful. It had been almost eight hours since he’d last kissed Hilary—the longest stretch since his memory had returned.
Well, conscious stretch, anyway. Hilary could knock out for a good ten hours at a time when he was tired (though he regularly invited his partner to kiss him awake).
Hilary leaned down to check on Trenton’s knees which, even in ‘economy plus’ didn’t have much room to spare. Hilary gave them a pat and said to them, “Almost there, darlings. You’re hanging in there so well.”
It was the only good news of the day so far. The seatbelt sign was back on, and the pilot had already announced they’d be landing shortly.
When Hilary’s hand slipped into his, Trenton found himself blurting, “I love you.”
Hilary’s eyes went soft. Well, softer than they’d already been.
Hilary reached for the blanket that had slipped off his lap and bent to tuck it around his partner, pushing into all the crevices with the focus of a man on a mission.
When he was done, he nuzzled into a now-blanketed shoulder.
“Safe and protected,” he promised. “Aren’t I looking well? ”
“Very well.” A little tired, maybe, but Hilary had already told him that problem would take care of itself—and Hilary never lied to him.
Hilary pressed a kiss to his cheek that bled into another on his jaw. “Handsome,” was the quiet approval. “So handsome.”
Trenton had to press his lips together tight to keep the emotion back. He didn’t know how Hilary could be so brave. After all the hurt. After everything.
Hilary stayed tucked into his shoulder like that, their hands twined together under the blanket, until nearly everyone had deplaned. Only then was Trenton finally released to fetch their bags from the overhead bin.
Hilary didn’t hurry, not through any of it, knowing full well his partner didn’t do well with hurrying—especially in public. “There’s no rush,” he said when Trenton eyed the security line. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“So no hard feelings about skipping the bathroom Tetris, huh?”
Hilary grinned. “I think the terminal bathrooms are a little more spacious.”
An eighty-two-year-old woman named Vivian Rose (always to be called by both names, never just the one) was waiting for them outside the terminal doors.
“Looks like someone remembered to take his vitamins growing up,” she said with approval when her eyes landed on Trenton.
“I took vitamins too,” Hilary said, leaning in for a hug and the double-cheek kiss greeting Trenton would never master even if he lived to be a thousand.
He had no idea how Hilary could do that—intimacy with strangers.
Technically, his beloved had spoken to Vivian Rose on the phone before, but Trenton didn’t think that counted.
Vivian Rose was one of Annette’s regulars at her by now well-established senior class, and the woman had volunteered to pick them up the instant she’d learned about their flight.
Annette had one more class to teach that day, and Albert was still recovering from his cataract surgery and had been forbidden from the road for another week.
“Sorry to put you out,” Trenton said, pushing himself to make unwanted eye contact.
He’d have much preferred to get a cab—or even the relative anonymity of a bus, but he didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
“Nonsense,” said Vivian Rose. “This is the most exciting thing to happen to me all week. Well, after Ephraim getting caught with Cheryl May in the locker room. I could have sworn the man was impotent, but I guess they’ve got a lot of medicines for that now.
My dear Hilary, you won’t try to get out of the performance tomorrow, will you?
Your living miracle of a mother warned us you might. ”
Hilary put on an expression of most offended shock, and clapped a hand to his chest as he said, “I most certainly will be there. That is, so long as I’m dragged there kicking and screaming. I promise to show up so long as I can’t find a single excuse to place myself elsewhere.”
Vivian Rose stabbed a finger into the car’s roof—forced to the full stretch of her reach as she had always been quite short, and had only grown more so with age. “My dearest rapscallion, you swear on our Sissie’s soul right now to cease all tomfoolery this instant.”
Sissie, Trenton would soon learn, was Narcissa Apricot, Vivian Rose’s departed cat who had been dead for twelve years. Somehow Vivian Rose still managed to drag the poor creature into every conversation.
“No can do, I’m afraid,” Hilary said. “As a man of honor, all my promises belong to my husband.”
Husband. That was a new one. And a little too powerful at that, its force filling Trenton’s ears with a buzzing that kept him from hearing a single word more all the rest of that long drive back from the airport.
Thankfully, no one was counting on him to keep up his end of the conversation, though Hilary did try to include him, turning toward him every few moments with a fresh smile or to squeeze the hand he was back to holding.
Does that mean I can buy you a ring? was the text Trenton sent his darling, sure he had at least an hour before the man saw it.
But Hilary was a master of multi-tasking. When his phone buzzed, he looked down at the screen nearly within the same moment of the message’s arrival. It meant Trenton got to watch the flush spread all the way down his beloved’s neck, the pink a perfect complement to the toothpaste stain.
Why stop at one? Hilary texted back.
And so, despite the lack of privacy, Trenton was forced to pull Hilary’s hand up to his mouth and kiss the spot on his fourth finger where the hypothetical future ring would find its home.
Well, maybe not so hypothetical, as Trenton scrolled through webpages about engagement rings and the meanings behind different types of stones.
It meant he got to see Hilary flush again when the man caught sight of his screen, and Vivian Rose had to repeat her question three times before she could get a decent answer.
Help stories like this survive.
Thank you for spending time with my characters.