Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
“ I should probably get that,” said Flip as the pounding on the apartment door grew louder.
Scratch, who was in the middle of playing something long and bluesy, ignored him, but Tony nodded, set aside his pen, and flexed his writing hand. Flip flexed his too as he walked through the hallway and living room. He’d tried recording Scratch on his phone, but apparently that didn’t work with ghosts, so he and Tony had been taking notes for hours. Scratch, on the other hand, seemed indefatigable, spinning endless tales while pounding happily away at the keyboard.
Flip, yawning as he opened the door, found a frazzle-haired young woman in a bathrobe frowning at him from the hall. “It’s late ,” she said.
“Oh, shit. Are you 1C?”
She nodded. “Some of us have to work in the morning. ”
“I am so sorry. We lost track of time. I’ll ask him to stop.”
“Thanks.” She thawed a little. “He’s real good. We were enjoying the music just fine until it got late. Does he play at a club around here?”
Flip smiled, hoping that Scratch could overhear this conversation. “He used to, but not anymore. His name’s Scratch Bergeron.”
“I’ll look for him on the streaming services. When it’s not one a.m.,” she added pointedly.
Good luck with that , Flip thought. “We’ll keep it down. I am really sorry.” He made a mental note to drop off a peace offering as soon as possible. Maybe a bottle of decent wine.
After bidding her good night, he shambled back into the bedroom. Tony gave him a sleepy grin. “Without you touching me, I can hear his music but not his voice. And I can’t see him.”
“The neighbors can hear him too.” Flip sat heavily on the bed, one thigh just barely against Tony’s, and addressed Scratch. “I think we’d better shut it down for the night. Neighbors.”
“It’s never too late for good music, boy.”
“It is for people stuck in the nine-to-five. Like Tony, actually.” He gave Tony an apologetic look; he’d forgotten it was a weekday.
Scratch rolled his eyes but stopped playing. “I got a lot more stories.”
“Good,” responded Tony. “We want to hear them. And after I go over my notes I’ll have a thousand questions.”
“You’ll be back, then?”
Flip was as relieved as Scratch when Tony nodded enthusiastically and said, “I’m going to be counting the minutes.”
“All right.” Scratch stood, fetched his Homburg from where he’d set it on the bed, and resettled it onto his head. But instead of disappearing right away, he stood there in front of them, looking slightly ragged around the edges, like an old photo.
“I been around a long time,” he said. “I’m getting kinda tired. I’m just about ready to rest.” They all knew he didn’t mean sleep in the regular sense. Tony made a tiny distressed noise and Flip’s gut clenched, but before either of them could say anything, Scratch raised a hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll finish what we’ve started here. But when I have finished, I think I’ll be ready for that rest. And that’s a good thing. Guess I have you two to thank for it. You’ll make sure to tell folks about me, though, right?”
“We’ll tell the whole world,” promised Flip.
Scratch’s answering smile came slowly but spread wide, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. It didn’t take a Clear Eye for Flip to know that he and Tony would always remember him like this: youthful, devastatingly handsome, a little cocky, fingers twitching as if a new song was yearning to emerge.
“You’re a good man, Flip Devin. Good enough for my favorite nephew, even. So you both listen to old Uncle Scratch, okay? Take advantage of being young and alive, ’cause that’s something you ain’t never gettin’ back once it’s gone.” He made a lewd gesture to demonstrate exactly what he meant, winked, and vanished.
Flip and Tony stared silently at each other for a long time. How did you follow an exit like that?
Finally, Tony shook himself. “That was…. I don’t have words.”
“You’re not going to wake up in the morning and decide this was all some sort of weird hallucination? Like maybe I slipped something into your drink at dinner?”
Tony clutched both of Flip’s hands. “This is real life, Mr. Devin.”
Flip felt… full. Not with food, but with emotions, and they were good ones. He’d jettisoned so many things in order to get here, and the effort had been well worth it. None of those discarded things were worth much, and the vacated space was now taken up with everything he’d once feared to hope for. Optimism. Promise for the future. The possibility of a true home. The beginnings of love, along with all the accoutrements of family and belonging and mutual understanding. The things a soul needed in order to be fully furnished.
When Tony leaned forward to kiss him, that was better still.
And wow, but wasn’t that exactly what it meant to be alive ? To enjoy the pleasures of the moment yet also anticipate that the next moment might be better still?
Flip kissed him back.
It was late and they were both exhausted, but they didn’t hurry as they undressed each other. Some things were too good to rush, and every new inch of skin was a revelation to be explored with fingers and mouth. Tony had doused the room lights, but illumination from the street—yellow and green and red—filtered in through the windows, giving the bedroom and the lovers a carnival glow. Although Scratch was gone, Flip imagined he heard the faintest echoes of his music, the jazz piano chords augmented by the drums of beating hearts and the saxophones of lungs.
This was a dream. A delirium. Tony’s hands on Flip’s shoulders, on his ass, Tony’s nipples taut salty treats under Flip’s soothing tongue.
Tony was full of delightful surprises. He moaned and gasped freely, every sound making Flip’s cock throb, and he didn’t hesitate to direct Flip to his favorite erogenous zones or to experimentally discover Flip’s. Although his skin was soft, his muscles were more defined than his museum-director clothing had revealed.
“You work out,” said Flip in between licks of abdominal ridges.
“I’m a nerd who exercises.”
“I don’t?—”
“You’re perfect, Flip. Exactly as you are.”
That was the end of discussion, although soft pleas continued, along with inchoate words of appreciation whispered like a poem. Naked, erect, his curls springing free, Tony could have been an ancient Greek statue come alive, and his smiles proved as wicked as any Scratch could manage, his fingers as nimble on Flip’s body as Scratch’s were on a piano.
Flip sprawled on his back over the continent-bed, Tony on top of him. Sweet sweat stuck them together. Tony wrapped his long fingers—a pianist’s fingers—around both their shafts while Flip, perhaps a vampire after all, sucked at the juncture of neck and shoulder.
And the glowing filament that bound them together wrapped around and around them, connecting but not constricting, an ethereal ribbon of warmth and comfort and power.
Flip fell apart with a howl that surprised him and probably woke up Apartment 1C. He was going to have to add some nice pastries to the peace offering. When Tony came just a few moments later, Flip laughed with pure pleasure and joy.
Nestled against each other, allowing their breathing to even and the ceiling fan to cool them, they chuckled as if sharing a wonderful joke. Nothing in the world had ever felt more right than Tony Bergeron in bed with Flip.
“Stay the night?” Flip asked.
“What’s left of it. Don’t think I can move anyway.” Despite his disclaimer, Tony squirmed around and propped himself on an elbow so he could gaze down at Flip. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time. ”
“Yeah?”
“Dinner, ghosts, family reunion, history research, music, exceptional lovemaking, cuddling…. What more could anyone want?” He bent to kiss the tip of Flip’s nose before collapsing back into his arms.
Flip rolled against him, burying his just-kissed nose into Tony’s hair. What more indeed.