CHAPTER ONE
Sammy’s made a new friend. “His name’s Wade,” Sammy says, giving his dad about twelve percent of his attention. The other eighty-eight he’s spending on whatever he’s trying to kill on the Xbox. “Can I go to his house on Saturday?”
“I don’t know, kid, can you?” Elliot flicks a peanut in Sammy’s direction. It bounces off his head, unnoticed. “Did you get an invitation?”
Sammy looks at him long enough to give a withering stare, looking like an old man who has no patience for stupidity. Coming from a ten-year-old, it’s pretty unsettling.
“All right,” says Elliot, mildly chastised. “But you know the drill, kiddo. I have to drive you there and meet the boy’s parents.”
“Don’t say ‘the boy’.”
Saturday is usually one of the days Sammy spends with his other dad—his “pops”—but Lucas (the pops in question) has gone on a three-week work trip. Although if Elliot knows his husband as well as he thinks he does, he can say with some certainty that the work trip involves far more naked men and bottles of sauvignon blanc than it does actual work.
He married Lucas because he was wild and exciting, and then he left him five years later for the same reason. Also, you know, minor detail: Lucas cheated on him for the entire marriage because—well, he’s a catastrophic asshole, mostly. And also because he has an “addiction” apparently. But whatever. Now Elliot just gets to stand back and admire the man’s insatiable desire for the fast-lane life, without having to deal with any of the mess.
So on Saturday, instead of lounging about watching Game of Thrones and eating last night’s leftover pizza as he usually would, Elliot finds himself heaved up and off the couch and herded into the car by his impatient child.
“It’s just his dad,” Sammy informs him on the drive over to his new friend Wade’s house. “Don’t be weird.”
“Why would I be weird?”
“I dunno. Just don’t ask if his mom’s dead.”
“I’ll try to control myself,” says Elliot. He turns onto Wade’s street and promptly gets stuck behind a Prius going about six miles an hour. “Is she dead?”
“I dunno, I didn’t ask.”
“Right,” says Elliot. He chances a dodgy overtake of the Prius and slides into a parking spot farther up. “Because you’re not weird.”
The street is nice. Which—understatement. This is one of the streets he never comes to, because number one, he doesn’t know anyone this rich, and number two, mansions freak him out. If you were in the east wing, how would you even know there was a murderer casually breaking into the west wing?
What happens when you misplace your keys? You’d lose weeks of your life searching for them.
What if you lose your child?
These aren’t really those kinds of mansions, he notes with some relief. These are mini mansions. Pocket mansions. Only enough space for nine cars on the driveways. God knows how these deprived people cope.
“Oh yeah,” says Sammy as they get out of the car in front of a white pocket mansion with a Range Rover in the drive. “The dad’s kinda famous.”
“Famous?” What a time to spring this on him. He didn’t even bother to swap out his glasses for contacts before he left the house.
“Yeah, I dunno,” says Sammy. They reach the massive carved oak front doors and stand staring at them. The doorstep’s bigger than Elliot’s entire bathroom. There’s a metal chain hanging to the right of the doors, with a handle shaped like an arrowhead.
“Do we pull it?” Elliot asks. He kind of wishes there was a better adult around. He isn’t suited to rich neighborhoods.
“I guess?”
Elliot pulls it. It costs him more effort than he cares to admit. It triggers a series of loud bells throughout the house, its pattern random and immensely annoying. “Bit excessive,” he says.
The doors open, and the butler Elliot half expected to see doesn’t materialize. Instead, he finds himself face-to-face with Mark Kade.
No warning or anything. One moment Elliot didn’t have High School King Mark Kade in his life, and the next moment, there he is. Standing there. For real, in person.
Elliot’s first thought is, You named your kid Wade Kade.
His second thought is the much less mocking, Oh shit.
Mark Kade’s eyes go wide. “Elliot Spencer.” And Elliot promptly forgets how to think for a moment, because Mark Kade knows him. Mark Kade remembers him.
“Yeah,” he says.
He has approximately one tenth of a second to catalogue the sight of this throwback to his youth, and he makes the most of it, taking in all the details of Mark Kade before his nerves turn him into a gibbering wreck—which, let’s face it, is inevitable. Elliot has, like, zero chill.
Mark Kade is tall, obviously. And well built, which—duh. Football star. He used to sport a hairstyle not too many steps away from a mullet, but it was the nineties, so Elliot doesn’t hold it against him. Now Mark Kade has a neat short-back-and-sides, light brown in colour, and hazel eyes sparkling with surprise and recognition.
And then Elliot says, “Wow,” which is really the only appropriate thing to say. Mark Kade is an honest-to-got legit sports star. Elliot’s kind of half-heartedly followed his career trajectory for a while, but sports ball—or whatever it is—bores the hell out of him. Lucas always calls him a stereotype for it. The gay man who has no interest in sports. But Lucas is the gayest man for miles around and he fucking loves all the ball sports, so. Whatever. It balances out.
“You’re about the last person I expected to see,” says Mark Kade.
Elliot nods, gives an awkward sort of laugh. “Me too.” Then he says “Wow” again, because apparently he hasn’t embarrassed his son enough yet.
“Dad.”
“Right, sorry. This is Sammy,” Elliot says, putting a hand on the kid’s shoulder and shoving him forward, like he’s some kind of sacrificial offering. “He’s here to hang out with your Wade.” Wade Kade.
“Yeah,” says Mark Kade. “Right.” Then he seems to take a hold of himself and steps back. “Come in.”
His grin is still full of that dazzling twinkle.
The inside is all gleaming marble and metal accents, with massive mirrors lining the walls and weird, abstract art pieces taller than the whole front of Elliot’s one-story house. He almost wants to shiver.
Mark Kade leads them through the huge hall and into a living room completely indistinguishable from the hall, aside from the cream couch that could clearly sit about twenty-nine people, and the flat screen big enough to suit a movie theatre. Then into another hall-type place and then along a corridor, through a second room Elliot would describe as another living room.
Farther still they walk, by which point Elliot’s starting to wish he’d had a warm-up session and a protein shake first, until eventually Mark Kade stops them in his blindingly shiny kitchen and says, “I’ll just call Wade down.” This apparently involves picking up a phone mounted to the wall beside the microwave and pressing a button, then muttering, “Your friend’s here, pal,” into it.
Elliot and Sammy look at each other. Sammy gives him a warning glare.
“He’s just coming,” Mark Kade says, hanging up the phone.
“From the east tower?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Elliot rocks back on his heels, hands stuffed in his jeans pocket. “So…this is a nice place you’ve got here.”
“It’s hideous,” says Mark Kade. Elliot blinks. “But it’s only temporary.”
“Oh.”
Mark Kade gives an awkward shrug. “I needed a rental for a couple months while we settled, and then I’ll be looking for somewhere to buy.”
“And you chose this?”
“I left a brief with a realtor,” says Mark Kade, smiling ruefully. “Apparently ‘a couple bedrooms and a decent kitchen’ translates to this in realtor speak.”
“Well, I mean. You’re famous. So.”
“Yeah.” Mark Kade blows out a breath. “There’s no law that says you have to live in a mansion once you get your name in the press.”
Elliot stays quiet for a long moment, lips pressed together. Then he says, “Do you ever lose your kid in here?”
“Dad.”
“Oh, this is Sammy,” says Elliot, gesturing at his kid.
Sammy goes pink around the ears. “You already told him that,” he mutters furiously.
Mark Kade laughs. “I guess this is all a little awkward.” He pulls out a stool at the breakfast bar and perches one butt cheek on it. “Your dad and I go way back.”
“We do?” Elliot doesn’t really think “we were mandatorily obliged to attend the same building five days a week” constitutes going way back.
“Well,” says Mark Kade. He gives Elliot a look he can only describe as warm. “We went to the same school.”
“Yep,” says Elliot. “We did.” But you’re not supposed to remember me.
Then a kid shows up in the kitchen doorway, looking a lot like most ten-year-olds—weirdly stretched out, a bit vacant in the face, and altogether kinda gross. Elliot smiles at him. “You must be Wade Kade,” he says, to which he receives ringing silence in response. Wade Kade looks to his father.
Sammy groans, “Oh my god.”
It takes Elliot a moment to realize what’s happened. Then he feels himself blush. “God, I didn’t mean—I’m not making fun or anything—”
“His name’s Wade Lewis,” Mark Kade says, eyeing him curiously. “He’s got his mom’s last name.”
“Right.”
“Did you really think I’d name my kid Wade Kade?”
“Well I mean…”
“I didn’t even name him Wade. His mom did.” He blinks at Elliot, like he can’t quite believe this conversation is happening. “I’m not cruel, dude.”
“No,” says Elliot. “No, of course not.”
Sammy looks as if he really wants to dive headfirst into one of the massive art pieces. “What did I tell you,” he demands, eyes sparking furiously. “What did I say.”
Elliot tries to convey apology with a beseeching look. “Don’t be weird?” he offers.
“You’re still doing it. Stop looking at me like that!”
“Listen,” says Mark Kade, swiftly stepping in to break it up. “Why don’t you two boys head on upstairs. Wade’s got the new GTA,” he says to Sammy.
Sammy’s face lights up, while Mark Kade’s shifts to panic. He looks at Elliot. “I mean, if that’s okay with you. I know it’s an adult game, but Wade’s always been kinda—”
Elliot waves a hand. “Eh.”
Wade and Sammy disappear from the room, and in the silence that follows, Elliot and Mark Kade just kinda look at each other. Then Mark Kade says, “How about a beer?” and Elliot nods a bit manically, a mixture of both relief and gratitude. He decides then, if he’s going to have any hope of acting normally here, he needs to stop thinking of Mark Kade as some big sports star. Which means, firstly, he needs to stop referring to him by his full name. He’s just Mark, the kid he knew from high school. Mark.
“Here,” says Mark, putting a beer in front of him.
Elliot sits on the barstool beside him and takes a sip. “So.”
“I know this is weird,” Mark says. “I just got back into town and I haven’t really figured out how to act around all the people I used to know.”
“Am I the first one you’ve seen?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “We’ve only been here a couple weeks. I’m just trying to settle in first, before I…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but his eyes go a little cloudy. Then that dazzling grin returns for a brief flash. “It’s good to see you, though. A familiar face. It’s been, god—how long?”
“Too long,” Elliot says, returning the smile. He fiddles with the label on his bottle, then murmurs, “You’re about the last person from school I ever thought I’d see again.” Off Mark’s quizzical look, he adds, “You went and got all famous, and I stayed the small-town kid you barely knew from high school.”
Mark eyes him a long moment, his expression unreadable, something about the bare parting of his lips that suggests he’s got something he wants to say. Then he swallows and stretches his left leg out, runs a hand down his thigh in a way that doesn’t make Elliot a bit warm behind the ears, thank you.
“Blew out my knee,” Mark says, cupping his palm around it. “It put an end to things pretty fast.”
“Man, I’m sorry.” Elliot can’t imagine it—having something you love snatched away from you, just like that, without any reason or justice. Mark’s been working on his football career since middle school, and here he sits, in his thirties and looking great for it, but forced to separate from his passion with a whole life stretched before him.
Mark shrugs. “It is what it is.” But he can’t hide the edge of bitterness in his words, and his next gulp of beer is long.
“You think about coaching, or…?”
“Nah, that was never my bag.” He pulls his bad knee back in, perches his boot on the lower rung of the stool. His calf brushes Elliot’s shin as he moves. Elliot swipes his tongue over his lip. “I’ve gone into sports journalism now.”
“Oh, well that’s cool,” Elliot says, and he means it. There’s something impressive about this man, and about the idea of him reporting on the sport he loves. “You’re probably in demand.”
“A bit,” says Mark, lifting a shoulder. “I keep busy.” He offers a smile, something a little haunted, then says, “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Your story,” says Mark, shifting his weight on the stool. The ripple of his thigh muscles has Elliot transfixed.
“Oh. Um. There isn’t one, really. Pretty boring.”
Mark observes him, quiet for a moment. Then he says in an oddly soft voice, “Tell me anyway.” There’s such a delicateness to his request that for a second Elliot has trouble imagining him storming around a football field, all powerful unleashed animal. But then he remembers those thigh muscles, and well…yeah.
“Uh…well. College, got a job in IT, got married, had a kid, moved into web design…and now I’m here. Told you,” he says, smiling ruefully. “You can’t really get any more mundane than my life.”
Mark stares at him. “Married?” Swiftly, like he thinks he’s being subtle about it, he glances at Elliot’s ring finger—at the absence of any wedding band, just a vaguely pale strip of skin where one once lived.
“On paper,” Elliot says. “We’re separated. He’s still in our lives, though. For Sammy.” He doesn’t mean to out himself, and for a moment he doesn’t even realise he had, but he’s so used to being open and free about it these days that now he barely ever thinks twice.
Still, though, he can’t help bracing himself a little for Mark’s reaction. He isn’t really sure why.
Mark blinks. “Oh,” he says, his voice cracking slightly in the middle. He covers it up with a swig of beer. Elliot doesn’t really know what to make of it, so he keeps quiet, waiting. “I had no idea, man,” Mark continues. “In high school you never—”
“Yeah, I valued my life.”
“And now—”
“I am what I am.”
“Right,” says Mark, and then he says nothing.
Elliot watches him. “If this is a problem for you—with Wade hanging out with Sammy…”
Mark’s eyes widen in horror. “What? No! God. How could you even—”
“I mean,” says Elliot. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Jesus, really?”
“It’s been hard on him,” Elliot says, shrugging a little. Trying to be casual about it, even when the thought of what Sammy has been through still cuts into his heart like a hot blade. “Kids at school, you know. Some of the parents.”
He looks up at Mark, finds his eyes swimming with sympathy, his expression warm and sorry. It makes Elliot’s throat tighten for a moment, so he swallows and says, “Your Wade seems like a good kid, though.”
That makes Mark smile, huff a little self-deprecating laugh. “Better than I was.”
“You weren’t so bad,” Elliot says, giving Mark’s knee a little nudge with his own—highlighting, all of a sudden, quite how close they’re sitting, face-to-face and somehow having a much deeper conversation than should be possible, considering they’re virtual strangers.
“Likewise.” Mark twinkles at him, eyes soft and bright.
In the heavy pause that follows, Elliot mutters, “Um,” casting about wildly for something to break the moment. His gaze lights briefly on Mark’s fingers wrapped around his beer bottle—trips over sudden images of what those fingers could do—and the matching lack of wedding band catches his attention. “You’re not married, then?”
“Nah.” Mark brings his other hand up to rub the back of his neck—hello, bicep—and he grimaces a little. “Wade’s actually the result of a drunken weekend hook-up.” At Elliot’s raised eyebrows, he asks, “Does the name Sandra Lewis ring any bells?”
Straight. Like, it isn’t as if Elliot didn’t already know, but still. Sometimes life could throw him a bone, for god’s sake.
“Minor celebrity, I guess you could say,” Mark continues, oblivious to Elliot’s inner frustration with the universe. “She’s working hard to get her name out there. Anyway…we hooked up, and nine months later…”
“Honey, we fucked up?”
“Something like that,” Mark says, smiling. “The weekend was a mistake, but I can’t say Wade is.”
“I’d have to call you an asshole if you did.”
“You and everyone else I know.”
“And you got custody?”
“We agreed,” Mark says, nodding. “I guess we’re friends, for Wade’s sake. And she’s busy trying to build a career while I’m…”
“A faded ex-sports star?”
Mark looks at him with sharp amusement. “Exactly that, yeah.”
Elliot smiles to take the sting out of his joke—something he learned to do years ago, when he realized his wicked humor didn’t always go down well—and says, “Does he see his mom at all?”
“Yeah,” says Mark, just as his phone starts ringing. He plucks it from his back pocket. “Whenever she’s in town, you know… Sorry, give me a minute.” He slips off the stool and answers the phone, starts a conversation that contains phrases like “run the copy” and “I cleared my sources” while sort of drifting around the kitchen island.
Elliot watches him a moment, the way he moves with ease and confidence, with his wide chest and broad shoulders and, yep, a whole lot of muscle. The glow of his bronzed skin, the smooth line of his jaw, the slope of his throat that rolls with his speech. Big, strong hand holding the tiny phone to his ear, the dusting of dark hair on his forearms, blue-checked shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the collar open enough to reveal a hint of that same dark hair. A narrow waist and hips poured into old, distressed jeans, thigh muscles straining the seams and the crotch, god, the crotch pulled taut across—
Mark’s watching him. Mark, listening to whoever he’s on the phone with, is watching him stare.
Elliot swallows, feels the back of his neck burn, and instantly realises that not only was he openly staring…he was also biting his lip. Wantonly.
He tries to look absolutely anywhere else while Mark rushes the end of his chat and hangs up.
“Sorry,” Elliot says immediately, contemplating how quickly he can sprint the length of the room and nosedive out of the nearest humungous window. “I just, uh…”
“Hey, it’s a compliment,” says Mark. Casual. Casually not casual, voice a little strained, because why would he be casual right now, after finding himself ogled by the local gay guy? Completely, unashamedly ogled. Perved over. Like Elliot’s fourteen again, discovering for the first time quite how appealing he finds the male form. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Right.” Elliot slips off the stool, downs the last of his beer—grimacing at how lukewarm it’s become. “I still shouldn’t—ah. I gotta go anyway. Got some work to do.” He’s heading out into the maze of Mark’s living rooms before Mark has any chance to reply, and it’s only through sheer force of embarrassment that he manages to streamline directly to the front door without getting lost.
Mark follows him, says something about driving Sammy home later.
“Yeah, sure,” Elliot says, opening the front door. Probably should be more interested in the safe return of his only son and heir, but his dignity right now is far more important than that kid. “Thanks for the beer.”
A hand closes around his wrist before he can leave and he pauses, looks back into Mark’s face.
Mark’s gazing at him hard, eyes intense, something a little pink lighting up the tops of his cheekbones. He licks his bottom lip. “There really wasn’t a problem back there,” he says, and Elliot doesn’t know what that means, or how to look into Mark’s eyes without wanting to die of humiliation, so he nods and he tries a smile and he pulls his arm away. And then he leaves.
That look on Mark’s face as he said those final confusing words stays with Elliot for the rest of the day.