Chapter 9
Nine
Victor
Jason looks after Kelsey for a moment, then shakes his head and turns up the lantern-lit path toward our casita.
I fall into step beside him. We walk in silence for a while, the sounds of the rainforest filling the space between us.
Having a romantic dinner with two other couples—one about to get married and the other obviously in the full flush of new relationship energy—makes it harder to pretend I don't want what they have.
“Jason,” I finally say. “It’s been fifteen years.”
“I know.” His voice is curt, but at least he’s not pretending he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
“We’ve never talked about it.”
“What is there to say?” He quickens his steps and pushes ahead of me on the path.
“You can’t avoid me all week, Jason.”
The set of his shoulders says otherwise, but before the distance between us grows even greater, a staff member appears on the path, carrying a bucket of cleaning supplies in each hand.
The path is narrow enough that we have to step to the side to allow him to pass and I take advantage of that fact to step closer to Jason.
“Buenos noches, senores,” he says. “Pura vida.”
“Buenos noches,” I reply. Jason nods at him.
He waits until the staff member has disappeared around a bend in the path before hissing at me, “I’m not avoiding you, damn it. I was grieving. You were grieving. We made a mistake.”
His words cut deep. “Is that what you think it was?” I ask, stepping closer, crowding into his space. I will make him face me. Face this. “A mistake?”
“It was the night of my wife’s funeral,” he says through clenched teeth. “Your supposed best friend.”
“You think Leah would have judged us for finding comfort in each other?” It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times.
“Of course she would have! It was a sin!”
“Or is it you who’ve judged us?” I challenge him. “You, who care more about right and wrong than—” I stop, because what the hell am I doing? Opening myself up to more hurt?
Jason had turned away from me that night even as the sweat and come dried on our bodies. I dragged my clothes on while he was in the bathroom and left his house as soon as I zipped up. We’ve never spoken of it since.
To know that he’s thought of it as a sin ever since fills me with shame and agony. But also frustration. It was one time. We’re not allowed grace for giving in to feelings that were so overwhelming? Was what we did so wrong that we can’t be forgiven?
“Have you confessed this sin?” I demand. I know he’s a devout Catholic. Leah wasn’t, though she attended Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation, if mostly to support his music ministry.
His lips thin but he doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t look at me, either, and I’m struck by his silence. “You haven’t? Not in all these years?”
He shakes his head, but offers no explanation.
I drag up my own distant Catholic education.
“There are four requirements for a valid confession,” I say slowly, out loud, channeling Sister Mary Michael, preparing me and my second grade classmates for our first Sacrament of Reconciliation.
I tick them off on my fingers. “Contrition, the intention to avoid future sin, the confession itself, and penance.”
“I’m aware of the requirements for valid confession,” Jason says tightly. “I don’t need a catechism lecture from you.”
Of all people goes unstated but I ignore that barb. “So, if we sinned, why have you not confessed?” Jason’s adherence to his religion is really none of my business, but I’m on the brink of something here, I can feel it.
“It’s late, Victor. I’m going to bed.” He steps forward to continue along the path but I refuse to move out of his way. He sidesteps along the edge of the path and I match him step for step, keeping my body between him and escape.
“Were you not contrite?” I say in a low voice, and I step even closer so my mouth is near his ear. Jason freezes in his tracks. “Or could you not muster the intent to sin no more?”
“Victor,” he says. There’s a note of deep pain in his voice.
“I’ve never regretted it,” I tell him. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would have done it again that night, if you’d been willing.”
Jason’s throat clicks as he swallows. “Don’t tell me that,” he says. “Please.”
I hadn’t ever planned to. “It’s true,” I say. “Or any night since.” I can feel the heat of his face near mine. If I turn the slightest bit to my left, my lips will brush his skin. “Tonight, even. If you’re willing.”
Jason exhales a shaky puff of air past my ear. My dick hardens immediately.
“It wasn’t a sin, Jason,” I say quietly. “You weren’t married anymore. You were a widower. You vowed to be faithful to Leah until death parted you, and it did.”
“That doesn’t make what we did right,” he says. “I put her in the ground that fucking morning, Victor.”
That dashes cold water on my arousal. I take two steps back, putting an arm’s length between us. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I drag my hand through my hair and rub the back of my neck. “I shouldn’t have made light of your faith.”
Jason blows another breath out and lifts a hand to his face. It’s trembling slightly. “Apology accepted.”
Which doesn’t make me feel any better for the ass I’ve been.
I let Jason walk ahead of me on the path back to our casita. When we arrive, we leave our shoes outside the door and Jason sighs as he drops onto the sofa in the living area.
“Tired?” I ask.
He leans his head back on the cushions and nods. “Wiped,” he says. “But also, I don’t know, wired, I guess.”
Probably from the adrenaline of the confrontation we just had, so I search for something that might relax him.
“Wine?” I offer. The wine on the credenza is a French bordeaux that looks decent.
“Or tea?” Between the wine bottles and a one-cup coffee maker is a box with a selection of teas.
I flip through the tea options. “There’s probably something herbal in here that may help you sleep. ”
“Fuck it,” he says. “Wine.”
Okay then. I open the bottle and pour a healthy amount into a pair of wine glasses, then bring them over to the sofa.
Jason shifts to one end to make room for me.
When I hand him a glass, our fingers brush and I don’t apologize for it, but I don’t turn it into the flirtatious gesture I might have otherwise, either. I’ve learned my lesson, apparently.
“What did you think of Logan and Silas?” Jason asks. “Have you met them before?”
I take a sip and shake my head. After swallowing—and Jason’s not looking at my throat while I’m doing it, don’t be stupid; he’s just looking in my general direction—I say, “I like them. That Silas seems like a handful.”
“He’s awfully young,” Jason says. He sounds like he disapproves of their age gap.
I shrug. “They seem devoted to each other. To each their own, right?”
Jason makes a noncommittal sound and sips his wine. “Logan seemed a little…not controlling, exactly, but…”
“Oh, he’s a Daddy Dom, for sure.”
“A what?” Jason stares at me, his wine glass loosely resting on his knee.
“They’ve got a Daddy/boy dynamic going on. Didn’t you hear Silas slip and almost call Logan ‘Daddy’ at dinner?”
Jason still looks confused. He’s got this adorable wrinkle at the bridge of his nose.
I look away from it. “I mean, who can know what really goes on in another couple’s relationship, right? But my guess is that Logan is the Daddy and takes care of his boy. Pampers him, disciplines him when he’s naughty, that kind of thing. Silas strikes me as a boy with high brat potential.”
Jason shakes his head. “I have no idea about any of this.”
“That’s not how I recall it.”
Jason chokes on the sip he’s just taken, and fuck me, I should have bitten my tongue off before saying that. He lurches up and grabs a tissue from a box on the credenza. He dabs at the front of his shirt, his back to me, and then says, “What does that mean?”
I sigh. “Look, you don’t want to talk about what happened, so fine, we won’t talk about it. I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean anything.”
“Explain.”
Whoa. That was exactly the tone of voice he used when he ordered me to my knees that night.
And it has the same effect on me tonight, causing a sudden urge to do whatever he says.
Shoving that urge down, I try to make a joke of it.
“Wow, Jason, with that attitude, you could probably give Logan a run for his money.”
He swings around and stares at me. “Are you saying that I…dominated you? That I forced you to…” He waves a hand in between us, encompassing what he can’t seem to bring himself to say out loud, then raises his hand to cover his eyes. “Oh, my God.”
“Jason, no. Come on, man, I didn’t mean…”
“I didn’t give you a choice, did I?” He scrubs both hands over his face, still not looking at me. “I just took what I wanted and didn’t give a damn whether you wanted it or not.”
Fuck, the memory of him doing that makes me as hard now as I was then. “Oh, I wanted it. Believe me, I wanted it more than—” I do bite my tongue this time. There’s no need to give him any more power over me than he already has.
I take a deep breath and shove my confusing and conflicting feelings about Jason down where they belong.
“It happened, Jason, and as you said, it was a mistake. But you didn’t force me and I told you I don’t regret it.
So, let’s just leave it there, okay? You should take the bed tonight.
Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll take the sofa and we can swap tomorrow night. ”
He nods, though his eyebrows are still knitted and there’s still that wrinkle at the bridge of his nose. He moves toward his empty wineglass, almost in slow motion, and I tell him, “Leave it, man. I’ll clean up.”
He nods again and heads for the bedroom. At the doorway, he pauses. “I wasn’t,” he says, his back to me, his hand on the door jamb.
“Wasn’t what?” I ask.
“I wasn’t sorry. About what we did. And no, I couldn’t promise God I wouldn’t do it again if I had the chance. So yes, I never confessed.”
And with that, he closes the door behind him.