12. Silas
TWELVE
SILAS
I sit on the porch for a few minutes after Vaughn goes inside, looking at the valley and the mountains beyond and telling myself that the sensible, reasonable, adult course of action is to do exactly what Vaughn just did. Walk away and respect the agreement we made on the couch five days ago.
But right now I’m frustrated and angry at the sensible adults that made that agreement, and I’m done being sensible.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I stand up, leaving my empty cup on the floor by the bench. I can pick it up later, but later I may not have the guts to do what I think I’m about to do.
I push open the door to Vaughn’s room, ready to storm into his bathroom and teach him the laws of water conservation. I’ve taken two steps in when I hear a sound from behind the bathroom door.
It’s barely audible over the water, but I can tell what it is. My cock responds like a moth to a flame, and then there it is. My name. I mean, it could be something else, but I’m sure he called out my name.
At this stage, only an earthquake would make me leave, except my eyes land on the one thing, save for a natural disaster, that would have that effect.
A photograph in a frame. Vaughn and Rowan standing outside the main building at Quantico on the day Rowan graduated.
Rowan in his suit, squinting in the afternoon sun while Vaughn has his arm proudly around him.
It was the photo I took before Rowan insisted on a selfie with the three of us.
That one hangs in the hallway of his apartment in Denver.
I take two steps back and close the door quietly, then sag against the wall. My eyes on the ceiling, I breathe for a moment.
What did I almost do? Why did I allow myself to nearly lose control?
Finally, I go to my room—no, Vaughn’s guest room—and go straight to the attached bathroom.
The waistband of my sweats catches on my dick, which has been hard since I heard Vaughn call my name, as I push my pants down and pull my shirt over my head. I move toward the shower and turn it on, not waiting for it to warm up before stepping in and taking care of myself.
I’m not slow—I don’t want to have time to think. I just need to relieve the tension I feel all over my body.
Of all the people in the world, why did my fucking brain have to focus on the one I can’t have?
My strokes become faster, my grip tighter. I resist touching my hole because I don’t want to go down that slippery slope, but the thought of Vaughn filling me up makes me come against the shower door in under a minute, his name on my lips.
Afterward, the water sluices down my back as I stand with both hands flat against the tiles, trying to cool down. When I regain my breath, I wash my hair quickly and get out.
Today I have two things to achieve: Search the house for clues for anything or anyone who might want to hurt Vaughn, and spend the day in the garden. Vaughn doesn’t know it yet, but he’s growing a contender that could win a prize in the Big Veggie Dick competition.
After I dry off, I grab a pair of shorts, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and go downstairs.
Vaughn should be gone by now, but I find him in the kitchen, standing by the sink, staring out the window with his truck keys in his hand.
He’s staring out like he’s lost in thought, but when my bare feet make the floorboards creak, he turns.
His eyes move over me like he wants me gone but also naked in his bed.
Fuck the rules, I need to touch him, so I close the distance between us and step into his embrace. He’s warm and smells like a fresh shower. His arms are solid around me, and I close my eyes for a moment and let myself have this.
When I step back, I clear my throat.
“Maybe I should leave,” I say. “Go back to Atlanta. This is … this is too hard on both of us.”
His expression is impossible to read. So much for all my training.
“Stay,” he says.
“Vaughn—”
“I know it’s hard,” he says. “It’s hard for me too. But I like having you here. I like it more than I should. I know that, and I’m asking you to stay anyway.”
“You like torture.”
“Apparently,” he says, his expression shifting into something softer, and he reaches up to touch my face.
Just his hand against my jaw and his thumb near the corner of my mouth.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, that thumb tracing the edge of my bottom lip where skin meets beard.
“In a different world, do you think we’d have had a chance?”
“Absolutely yes,” he says, without hesitation.
“Even with the age gap?”
“You’re thirty-five,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to me. You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
I gaze into his blue eyes. The same Rowan has. My skin feels like it’s burning with his touch.
“Can I have one kiss?” I ask. “Just one. Something to remember when I’m out in the garden talking to your dick … vegetables.”
He laughs and shakes his head slowly, the smile still there. “It’s bound to happen anyway, so fuck it.”
His mouth finds mine in a slow kiss, the kind you give when you’ve been wanting for a long time and want to get right. His hand moves from my jaw to the back of my neck, and I reach for his waist because I need to be closer.
He exhales against my mouth, and it’s like something releases in him. The kiss becomes hungry, desperate, and absolutely fucking perfect. He tastes of toothpaste and smells of his shower soap. His tongue is soft and seeking.
I don’t want this to ever stop because I know it won’t happen again.
Eventually we break apart, breathing like we’ve been running.
“What the hell do we do now?” he asks.
I study him. His mouth, wet from the kiss. His face, bearing an expression I’ve never seen on him before. Open. Undone.
“What we’ve both just done in the shower,” I say.
He stares at me for one second.
Then he laughs, and I laugh because he’s laughing. His hands are still in my hair and mine around his waist. I rest my forehead on his shoulder.
The sound of keys in the lock makes us jump. We have only enough time to put some distance between us before I see Rowan’s smiling face.
“Put your clothes on, boys. The fun party is here.”
I know he’s joking. But if he only knew how close he was.
“Rowan,” Vaughn says, crossing the kitchen and pulling his son into a hug that Rowan returns. Over Vaughn’s shoulder, Rowan catches my eye and grins again, and I give him the expression that means I see you, and I’m not rising to it.
He grins wider.
Vaughn steps back, and Rowan turns to me and closes the remaining distance in two steps, and then I’m in his familiar embrace.
“You’re actually here,” he says, against my shoulder.
“You told me to come,” I say.
“I tell you to come every time,” he says, pulling back to look at me. “You don’t usually listen.”
I don’t have a response I can say out loud.
Rowan turns back to his dad. “I’m kidnapping him, and we’re going on an adventure. Overnight.” He refocuses on me. “Pack a bag. Enough for one night, but warm clothes.”
My first thought is I can’t leave Vaughn alone, but Rowan doesn’t know that, so I’m stuck, because there’s no logical reason to not go with him. After all, he thinks I’m on a vacation from work.
If either of them sense my hesitation, they don’t show it.
Vaughn grabs his travel coffee mug and steps forward to give Rowan a quick hug. His eyes meet mine over Rowan’s shoulder, and when he’s done, he turns to me with open arms, so I step in.
The hug is over too soon, but his hand presses once against my back and I feel his thumb moving as if to say he won’t forget what happened just minutes ago before Rowan showed up.
“Have fun,” he says. “Both of you. And for the love of my sanity don’t go do anything dangerous.” The message seems to be pointed at Rowan, who shrugs.
“Can’t promise anything, Pops, but I’ll try to bring this old man back in one piece.” He snorts. “Emotional scars notwithstanding.”
Vaughn leaves, and then it’s just me, Rowan, and the secrets I’m keeping from the most important people in my life.
“Have you eaten?” Rowan asks.
“No.”
“Good. Get packed quick. We’re going to the Sunrise Bakery for breakfast. We need to load up on carbs and protein.”
“Where are we going?”
“Surprise,” he says.
“I’m not liking this,” I protest as I walk out of the kitchen.
“You’re gonna love it.”
The Sunrise Bakery smells like heaven. A beautiful woman with long, curly hair is behind the counter when we arrive.
“Rowan Reeves,” she says. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen your gorgeous face. Pick a table. What can I get you?”
“Give us your best breakfast, Maria. We have a busy day ahead of us,” Rowan says. “And two coffees, please.”
The bakery has only three tables inside the small space, but it seems that people come in mostly to grab a pastry and go. We pick a table by the window and sit down.
“So,” Rowan starts.
“Good drive up?” I ask.
“Fine. So—”
“How’s work?”
“Silas.”
“What?”
He squints at me. “You seem different,” he says.
“I’m the same.”
“You’re relaxed,” he says, like this is a diagnosis. “You’re never relaxed.”
“I’m on vacation.”
“You don’t know how to be on vacation,” he says. “I’ve watched you try. It looks like a man doing an impression of someone who’s heard of relaxing.” He tilts his head. “This is different.”
Maria arrives with two plates filled with pastries, eggs, and hash browns that smell extraordinary. She goes back behind the counter, then brings us two cups filled with steaming coffee.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You must be Silas, our new visitor,” she says.
“I see word gets around,” I joke.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, when someone has a darling face like yours and walks around in the company of the most eligible and mysterious bachelor in town, people notice. And talk.”
My chin practically falls to the ground, but it’s Rowan who speaks. “Ew, Maria. That’s gross. Silas is my best friend.”
Maria gives Rowan a smile that may as well have “Bless you, my innocent child” stamped on her forehead.
I’m five years older than Rowan. We met in college because I couldn’t enroll when I should have.
I’m also only thirteen years younger than Vaughn.
It’s not even a huge age gap as far as I’m concerned.
It just so happens that Vaughn had a son when he was very young.
But I’m not about to offer this information to Rowan and plant any kind of seed that there may be something happening between me and his dad in his head.
Instead, I dig into the best breakfast I’ve ever had.
Rowan eats too, but he doesn’t stop peering at me with that expression I know from thirteen years of friendship means he’s suspicious about something. He’s not an FBI agent for nothing.
What’s funny is the thing I always feared him finding out about me the most is not even the thing I’m most scared of him finding out now.
“Come on. Finish up quick,” Rowan says, and drains his coffee. “We have an adventure to get to.”