Chapter 27 #2
Tuesday, June 5
Gary surfaced from sleep. A warm body lay in his arms, and his nostrils were filled with the scent of clean hair and bed-warmed skin. He didn’t want to know what time it was.
Then he remembered, and his throat seized, an ache spreading through his chest.
It was time to say goodbye.
Dan stirred and rolled over to face him. “Hey.” His voice was soft.
“Good morning.” If it hadn’t been for Cory’s funeral, it would have been the perfect morning.
“Did you sleep okay?”
Gary pushed the hair back from Dan’s face. “Better than I have for a long while.” He kissed Dan’s forehead. Dan tilted his head, clearly seeking his lips, but Gary chuckled. “Nope. That’s all you get. I didn’t bring a toothbrush.”
“There’s a wonderful goodie bag in the bathroom,” Dan told him. “I think there’s a toothbrush in it.” He searched Gary’s face. “No regrets about last night?”
He smiled. “Only that it had to end.”
“And do you want it to end?”
Another soft kiss to Dan’s forehead. “No.” There was a rightness to waking with Dan in his arms that he couldn’t deny.
“I’m glad.” Dan sighed. “And about today….”
He’d been thinking about that too. “You know it’s the funeral.” Dan nodded. “Well, I’d feel happier if you didn’t go to the precinct today. Stay here.”
“I wasn’t intending to go there.”
Relief flooded through him. “Oh, good.”
“I was thinking of going with you.” Dan’s eyes focused on him. “If that’s okay.”
Gary didn’t say a word, but pulled Dan into his arms and held him tightly.
Dan’s lips grazed his ear. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
He breathed Dan in. “Thank you.” Gary released him. “So when we’ve had breakfast, come back with me to my place. I’ll need to change.”
“I don’t have a black suit, only the dark blue one.”
Gary smiled. “Cory wouldn’t have minded. I wasn’t going to wear a black one either. I can hear him now. ‘Bitch, please. Where are the rainbows, the sequins?’”
Dan laughed. “He was a character, wasn’t he?”
“You would’ve liked him.” He shook his head. “And none of this would have surprised him.” His chest tightened.
Dan sat up. “You. Bathroom. Now.”
“Are you always this demanding first thing in the morning?”
His eyes sparkled. “When I’m getting impatient for my first kiss of the day? You bet your ass.”
Gary swallowed.
You bet your fur.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and Dan peered at it. “They won’t call you in to work today, will they?”
“No.” He peered at the text from Riley, and his face tingled.
My thoughts and prayers are with you.
He showed it to Dan, who smiled. “He’s a good guy. Wish I could say the same about Lewis.”
“He has his moments.” When Dan gave him an incredulous glance, Gary shrugged. “Just not enough of them.” Then he pushed such thoughts aside. Dan coughed, and Gary lurched from the bed. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”
He stood in front of the mirror, peering into the bag provided by the hotel. When he straightened and saw his reflection, the reality of his situation finally hit home.
I spent the night with a guy.
What shocked him was how much he wanted to repeat the experience.
Gary scanned his rack of shirts, searching for his pale blue one. “You think that suit’ll be okay?” he called out to Dan in the bedroom. He’d laid the dark blue double-breasted on the bed.
“Perfect. Except we’ll match.”
Gary smiled. As if he cared about that.
“Did Cory have any brothers or sisters?”
“A sister, Nina. She’s great. Well, she is now. She was a real pain in the ass when she was a kid.”
Silence.
“Dan?” When there was no reply, Gary walked out of the closet and came to a dead stop. Dan stood by his bedside chair, holding Brad’s sweater.
His heart fluttered. “Where did you find that?”
“It was here.” Dan sank onto the chair, still clutching it.
“Are you all right?”
He stroked the soft garment. “Never Forget,” he murmured.
Pain lanced through Gary’s chest.
Dan raised his head and met Gary’s gaze. “Can you talk about him?”
He swallowed hard. “What do you already know?”
“That whoever this belongs to, you love him very much.”
Gary walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. He held out his hands, and Dan placed the sweater in them with a reverence that was touching. “It belonged to my brother, Brad. And you’re right. I adored him.”
“Past tense.” Dan paled. “Wait—Brad? That stone in Forest Park….”
He nodded. “My parents put it there.”
“But what happened?” Dan got up from the chair and joined him, his hand resting lightly on Gary’s back.
“Ever since we met, since that first physical contact, I’ve been waiting for you to announce you knew about him.”
Dan sighed. “What did I say that day? I can’t turn it on and off. I knew you were hiding something—I just didn’t know what.” He moved his hand in slow, soothing circles on Gary’s back. “You don’t have to tell me. Not if it brings you so much pain.”
“Yes, it hurts, but I want to tell you.” He sucked in a couple of breaths. “When I was fifteen, Brad was found dead in Forest Park. Murdered. He was twenty-two years old.”
“Aw, no.” Dan uttered the words in a strangled gasp.
Now that he’d started, he had to finish. “It made headline news in Boston for all of a week. The investigation dragged on for months, until finally they closed the case, unsolved.”
“The police never discovered who killed him?”
He shook his head. “His body was discovered by two tourists in the park. He was lying on top of one of the picnic tables.”
“How was he killed? Were they sure it was murder?”
“No doubt about it. Unless his heart managed to carve open his chest, wrench itself from his insides, and place itself in his hand.” Dear God, it still hurt to say the words, even after all those years.
“Jesus.”
“My parents never recovered from their loss.”
“Neither did you.” Dan touched the sweater. “So much pain woven into this.” He traced over the hidden tattoo with his fingertips. “You didn’t need this. Brad’s death left its mark on your life, your soul.”
“From the day Brad died, I’ve felt like an orphan. There was nothing I could do to penetrate the wall of grief they built around themselves. I had to cope with my own grief as best I could. Hell of a way to grow up fast.”
Dan leaned into him. “How did you survive?”
“I would’ve gone under if it hadn’t been for Cory. He was the one who got me through high school. He made sure I studied, covered for me when I ditched class, because Lord knew there were days when I couldn’t face school.” He smiled. “He wrote absence notes from my mom and forged her signature.”
Dan laid his hand on Gary’s thigh. “It’s because of Brad that you became a cop, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I knew when I was sixteen what I was going to do with my life. But I wasn’t going to be just any cop, no sir.
I was going to be a homicide detective.” Gary hugged the sweater to him.
“I had my future all mapped out. I would find the person who murdered my brother, and then my parents would see me, recognize me again, and realize they still had one son.”
Dan kissed his temple, and the sweetness and intimacy of the gesture eased the ache inside him. “You let all your pain, grief, and loss fuel your ambition.”
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and he wiped them away. I’ve wept enough. Except he knew the day would bring more tears before it was over.
“Is that everything? There’s nothing else you want to share with me?”
“Only my gratitude.” Gary cupped Dan’s cheek. “And I have a lot to be grateful for.”
“Me too.” Gary gave him a speculative glance, and Dan smiled. “For a moment there, I thought I was the butt of some big cosmic joke.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, how would you feel if the man you’ve been seeing in your dreams for thirteen years finally shows up, and he’s straight?”
Gary chuckled, until Dan’s words sank in. “That long?”
“I’d almost given up hope.”
“Well, now you’ve met me, I hope I’m not a disappointment.”
Dan studied him in silence until Gary was aware of the throb of his heartbeat. Then he cradled Gary’s head in his hands, and their lips met in a leisurely kiss.
Gary breathed again.
Cory, you were right about one thing. I was single because I was waiting for the right person to come along.
The right man.