Fuck. Jai could see Luke’s answer, to his assumption that Luke would one day be leaving his closeted life behind, before Luke even started to open his mouth.
“Sorry,” Jai exclaimed, embarrassment warring with distress. “Obviously I’m stupid. I thought somehow, that one day, eventually, you’d planned on being out in your life.”
The panic in Luke’s eyes was the confirmation he’d dreaded. “I told you I couldn’t be out,” Luke said.
Jai knew somewhere along the way he’d started building castles in the air, so he forced a calmer, if colder, tone into his voice. “Obviously you are right. You haven’t ever told me that you’d changed your mind. It was just…just you seemed so happy in Sydney, and here afterwards, that I began to think you might be seeing the future differently.”
What Jai didn’t add was the belief that, maybe, Luke had started to see him differently, to see him as more than the friend he shagged.
Luke’s head ducked, and Jai almost wished for the conversation to restart, so deep were the waves of shame emanating from the man. Jai sat on the sofa next to him, rubbing his own chest. There was a pain there, both in empathy for the man sitting beside him, but also his own.
Luke’s voice broke their contemplation. “I’ve been happier than I’ve ever remembered being,” he said quietly. “But you have to see all that happiness and everything else that would be put in jeopardy if our relationship got out.”
The worst thing was that while Luke looked sad and ashamed, he didn’t look doubtful. If there had been anything but conviction in his eyes, Jai might have felt some hope, but there wasn’t, and Jai knew it had to be the end. Self-protection was one of the most important skills learned by recovering addicts, and Jai knew he had to minimize his own vulnerability in order to limit the damage to his heart.
He tried to sit tall when all he wanted to do was embrace the also hurting Luke. “I don’t think it is true that your life would be ruined by you coming out.”
Jai wanted to touch Luke as he spoke to him but knew he couldn’t get the following sentence out if either of them broke. “I’m not here to out you. I’ve always known that was your choice alone, but I have just realized I can’t hide out in the closet with you.”
For a long moment, Luke’s indrawn breath was the only indication that he had heard him.
“Even the universe is telling us it’s the end,” Jai continued, needing to fill the silence. “A few days ago the hospital told me that it wouldn’t be long before they moved me into more permanent housing. I wasn’t thrilled at the time, as I wanted to stay close, but I think it’s time for my name to go on that list now.”
Jai turned toward the window as he scrunched up his face at his own crushing dumbness. He’d been the one holding the permanent hospital housing at bay, as he’d wanted to stay close enough for Luke to be able to maintain his closet door. As long as they stayed next door to each other, the risk of anyone catching on was greatly reduced. Really, he’d foreseen the end. Once he moved out, Luke wouldn’t take the risk of his visits. Dumb, dumb, dumb boy.
“I don’t want you to go.” Luke’s voice sounded as raw as it ever had, and Jai had to use all his willpower to hold himself together.
Instead, Jai gave a shrug and said, “But it’s time.”
Luke nodded and Jai knew he had made the right choice. The man wasn’t willing to put even the slightest amount of fight to keep him there. The pain was there, but Luke wasn’t hiding the fact he was treating Jai’s departure from his life as sad but inevitable. Jai just hadn’t realized before how clearly Luke had seen the expiry date on their relationship.
Knowing he needed to keep himself focused, so he didn’t submit to the tears that prickled his eyelids, Jai moved to the kitchen and started cleaning up. After he had carefully arranged the clean cups for the second time, he got up enough courage to go back to the lounge room. Luke still sat where he had left him, staring blankly at the switched off television screen.
“Do you want to spend one last night here?” Jai asked instinctively. It was stupid, but he needed to prepare to say goodbye.
“Yeah,” Luke replied, looking at him in the eye again. “I really want to do that.”
It was as if a switch had been flipped. Movement replaced Luke’s emptiness, and Jai found himself with those strong arms wrapped around him.
• • •
They didn’t speak before Luke’s mouth crushed down on his own. The kiss was more passionate, more desperate, than anything Jai had ever felt. He responded in kind; it was as if what was between them in the moment could banish all else that had gone on that evening. Their lips barely parted as Luke hustled him up the stairs. It was only when they reached Jai’s bedroom that they untangled, then they paused long enough to be able to pull at their clothes, needing to be skin to skin.
Jai felt like he needed to memorize Luke as he watched him undress. He needed to imprint all the details to his brain, because this was the last time he’d see Luke’s wide chest bared to him. The last time he’d be able to look all he wanted, at the flex of muscled arms as Luke stripped off his uniform. When Luke stepped back toward him, Jai mourned the fact it was going to be the last time he felt the heft of Luke’s body against his, felt the dominance of his size and the submission as Luke ducked his head a little for another kiss.
“Second thoughts?” Luke asked, and Jai realized he had been so caught up in watching Luke he hadn’t managed to divest himself of his own clothes.
“Definitely not,” Jai replied. He paused between kisses to yank his T-shirt over his head and pulled down his own pants with ruthless efficiency. His fully hard cock bobbed when it was released from his underwear, and he was close enough to Luke that only a small movement rewarded him with the sensation of another velvety hard-on rubbing against his.
Bodies were pressed together and Jai had to draw in his breath to steady himself from the rush of overwhelming lust. Even as he closed his eyes, the warm scent of man remained. He wasn’t going to forget that particular scent memory—the smell of man, soap, and a tinge of sex that was so Luke, so fucking sexy.
Jai went down to his knees. He was going to take his fill of everything tonight, and this was definitely something he needed. Luke’s dick knocked his cheek and Luke groaned. That sound pushed Jai even closer to the edge. They were almost jumping out of their skin with arousal. Jai swallowed Luke down and reveled in the taste of salt against his tongue, the way Luke’s thighs shook against his shoulders. It wasn’t going to take long for Luke to lose himself in Jai’s mouth, and Jai was desperate for it to happen. He relaxed his throat and took Luke all the way down, loving the pleasure-pain of Luke pushing his hips in, forcing his cock even farther. They were past the point of polite etiquette; raw need had obliterated any conscious thought. A few more thrusts and Luke came down Jai’s throat. Jai held him in his mouth for as long as possible amplifying each aftershock with his own groans. Luke pulled away. The usual languidness of Luke’s orgasm was overwhelmed with something else, and Jai found himself manhandled onto the queen bed. Luke pushed him up and then Luke’s mouth was sucking hard around the head of Jai’s cock. It took only a few pulls of hand and mouth and Jai’s bones actually shook when he looked down and saw the way his cum painted Luke’s face. Luke’s mouth and cheeks were covered in him. Yeah, that was another memory that was never going to leave him. In fact, it was so hot, Jai didn’t think he fully softened.
For the first time tonight, Luke actually cracked a smile. “I don’t think tissues are going to sort this out,” he said as he headed for the bathroom bare-assed.
“If it didn’t look so good, I’d spend a little longer boasting about how I managed to swallow every single drop,” Jai replied, stretching languidly.
“Like taking it on your face isn’t just as hard core,” Luke called from the other room. “I’m showering anyway.”
Smiling despite himself, Jai tried to focus on the memory of Luke splattered with his cum. If he could just fill his brain with that appealing image, he wouldn’t have the chance to feel sad that he would never again lie in bed like this and joke about sex with Luke.
Luckily, Luke joined him in the bedroom again and the stretch of his cock in front of him put aside any worries Jai might have had that he was going to be done for the night. If this was going to be their last night together, they were going to make some memories.
Luke obviously had the same idea as he straddled Jai where he lay back on the bed.
“This time I want you in me again,” said Luke as he looked Jai in the eye.
That gravelly comment took Jai’s dick to fully hard. They hadn’t done that again since they had gotten back from Sydney. Despite Luke’s obvious enjoyment that night, he hadn’t suggested it again, and Jai hadn’t wanted to put pressure on him by asking. The thought of being in Luke had filled enough of his fantasies that Jai’s hand shook a little when he groped through his bedside drawer for condoms and lube.
Whatever his need, the kiss between them was gentle and thorough. Jai loved the weight of Luke’s body straddling his own, those heavy muscles pressing them into the bed. Jai gave up the addictive texture of running his hands through Luke’s short hair to slick up a few fingers. He pressed up against Luke at the same time he reached around and traced his hole.
The dual sensations had Luke moaning in approval, and Jai took his time, letting Luke bask in that sensation before he started pressing in. Even one slicked up finger took some work to get past the resistance, and Jai’s cock jumped against Luke’s thigh at the idea of getting into that tight heat.
One finger became two until Luke whispered impatiently, “I want you in me now.”
I’ll definitely need a bit more room to work,” Jai told him as he guided the other man off him and onto his back. With Luke’s strength, he could have easily resisted. Watching his lust drunk submission made that even more of a thrill.
He needed to kiss him as they had sex tonight, so he put a pillow under Luke’s hips.
“Never wanted anyone quite this much,” Jai admitted as he put the condom on his dick. That wasn’t an exaggeration. Luke lying there under him meant that touching his dick as he rolled on the rubber was hot enough that he worried about even getting inside the man.
Luke had looked like replying, but Jai didn’t think he could bear to hear anything he would say, so he kissed him hard as he guided his cock in. They both knew this was going to be the last time they would be together like this, but raw need could push that back for a while.
Luke’s muscles clenched against him and then relaxed, and Jai was able to push in inch by inch. Jai moaned against his lips. He couldn’t remember his body ever singing with so much satisfaction; this felt so right. Finally, he was all the way in, and he held still for a moment to let Luke adjust to his length.
Their lips just brushed each other and the intensity of not plunging into this gorgeous man had Jai unable to breathe.
Luke attacked his mouth with a renewed hunger, and Jai knew he was able to move again. He started slowly, not wanting it to be over too soon. Each rhythmic thrust was so pleasurable that his balls were tightening, especially with the sounds that Luke made. He was sure that the big man didn’t know he was groaning so loudly as Jai hit his prostate, but each time he did Jai was closer to the edge.
“Fuck me harder,” Luke ground out, and Jai responded with an increasingly rapid movement in his hips.
Watching Luke’s eyes dilate with pure arousal made Jai realize how quickly his own orgasm was approaching. He had known he wanted to see Luke’s face as they made love this last time, but he didn’t realize how much it would affect him to see him vulnerable with pleasure at the same time as being inside him. He reached down and put his hand on Luke’s cock.
“You… have… to… come… for… me… now,” Jai pleaded, punctuating each word with a firm slide of his hand down that hard dick.
Those pumps put Luke over, and Jai felt the wet splash as Luke came hard onto his stomach.
A few more thrusts had Jai joining him, releasing with an intensity that had him collapsing onto Luke’s muscular chest. He pulled out gently, barely able to move after his second orgasm in under an hour.
For a moment there was pure happiness as they smiled at each other, fucked dumb with mutual pleasure. Then there was the dawning remembrance on the conversation that had led them to this bed.
“We do that well,” said Luke, his arms tightening around Jai.
Jai wasn’t ready to let them go somewhere sad. Crying in bed was not a good look for anyone, least of all him.
“A little too well, if you ask me.” Jai quirked an eyebrow. “I almost blacked out a minute ago there.”
He knew he should get up and clean up, but couldn’t bear to pull himself outside the protective circle of Luke’s arms. Lying there on Luke’s chest, felt so right, even with the stickiness between them. There hadn’t been another man who had ever made him feel so safe, so physically complete. After tonight, this wasn’t going to happen again, so he had to make the most of the moment.
“I think we are going to have to use one of your T-shirts to clean up though,” Luke said after a few minutes where the only movement was a gentle hand of his stroking through Jai’s hair.
“Why does it have to be one of my T-shirts sacrificed?” Jai protested lazily.
“Because getting a towel from the bathroom would require one of us to actually walk somewhere, and I don’t think either of us is capable, and I’m pretty sure it’s a criminal offense to use my uniform for sex cleanups.”
“Yeah, it definitely says that in the criminal code—any equipment bearing the police insignia must not be used in the cleaning up of jizz.” Jai smiled. His smile didn’t even disappear when Luke leaned out of bed and grabbed one of his T-shirts lying there to wipe the sticky mess between them.
“Hey, if you put things away a bit better, your clothes wouldn’t be the available option for cleanup,” Luke said. The teasing about Jai’s messiness was reassuringly familiar.
“Next time you’re tearing my clothes off me, I’ll have to remember to stop you in order to do a little hanging up.”
Fuck, Jai’s words hung between them and their previous replete bodies froze for a long moment. Jai forced his muscles to relax and tried to pretend he didn’t want to rip the words back out of the air.
Yeah, normal wasn’t here anymore.
• • •
When Jai woke up in the morning, the heavy arm around his waist felt like a mockery. It had never felt so natural, so protective, as well as so wrong. They were pretending that last night, that the ground under their relationship, hadn’t become completely unstuck, and Jai doubted any of that was going to help his peace of mind.
He should get up, pull away from Luke before he woke up. He just didn’t want to. Maybe Luke would sleep longer, and Jai could let himself be tortured by his enjoyment of the hard body protectively curled around his own. He had known he cared about the man; he just hadn’t known until last night what a feeling of loss there would be knowing that they couldn’t be together.
All too soon, he felt Luke stir.
“So that really did happen last night,” Luke murmured, voice still husky from sleep.
“It did,” said Jai, stating the obvious, even as he pulled himself from Luke’s embrace. The cold of the floor under his feet grounded him as he sat on the side of the bed. “We’ll both be good boys and go to work today and I’ll talk to HR about when I can move into hospital housing.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Luke interjected. “Even if you want to stop seeing me, I didn’t ask you to move here so I could date you. So you can keep on living here as long as you want.”
Sadly Jai knew Luke hadn’t wanted to date him, now or any time in the future. Fuck him, maybe, but date him? No. However, Jai didn’t lash out at that particular thought. This was going to hard enough as it was.
“It’s fine,” Jai said. He didn’t look Luke’s way as he said it. That lie couldn’t be said face to face. “Me living here was never meant to be anything but temporary. We’ll need our own space now, and us falling over each other every time we open our front door wouldn’t help anything.”
Jai found he couldn’t turn his head and look at Luke sprawled over his bed. Instead, he grabbed at the jeans on the floor and started heading for the shower. When he was at the door, he said, with as little inflection as possible, “I’ll text you my plans as soon as HR gives me the date for the move.”
It was a dismissal that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. Probably not the classiest of moves, but at this point Jai was past caring. He was sad and he needed the solitude right now. Luke had made his choice and was going to have to look after himself.
Jai was glad he made it to the bathroom without breaking. He turned on the hot water, stepped in, and took a shuddering breath that turned into a sob. Fuck, it was hard to cry silently, but he didn’t know if Luke was out of hearing distance yet. So Jai stood there, hot water coming down on him, trying to gulp in air between the tears, barely getting enough air into his lungs.
Finally, the hot water ran out before the tears, and the rush of the cold water was shocking enough for him to be able to pull himself together, so he could clamber out of the shower and wrap his towel around his waist. He made the mistake of looking in the mirror. Yeah, none of the men who had once called him pretty would be using that word now. Puffy eyed and a red-streaked face were not going to win any beauty contests. If he walked into work this way he’d be offered immediate medical intervention.
Jai wiped his face and concentrated on calming his breathing; all those months in the rehab’s meditation classes came in handy now. Finally, he decided he had given Luke enough time to leave, and he had to start getting ready if he was going to have to not call into work declaring a broken-hearted sick day. As far as anyone at work was concerned, he was a very single man, so short of declaring a falsely dead grandmother, and that was just terrible bloody karma, he was going to have to tough it out for the day.
As expected, Luke had gotten the hint, and the duplex echoed in the way that told Jai he was the sole occupant. He was all alone, the way he’d come to this town. This time though, the loneliness was immediate and the pain strong. He should have known no good would come out of letting the appealing man with his stubborn soul slip in under his walls. What the fuck good was connection if it just left you with a gaping wound?
• • •
A long day of work had Jai holding on to his professional demeanor by a very marginal thread. It was ultrasound day and he had been kept busy by the fact that the town and the surrounding area were going to be adding four small citizens in the next few months. But the undimmed joy that these women shared with their partners in his small ultrasound room had Jai craving a kind of oblivion that past experience would recognize as particularly dangerous.
“Hey, Kris,” Jai said as he made the phone call he knew he had to the moment he got home. “Do you have time to talk?”
Kris hadn’t been his best friend through the baby steps of sobriety for nothing. “Darling, what happened to you?” was his concerned reply.
“You might have to save ‘I told you so’ when I’m stronger, but of course you’d be right to think it,” Jai rushed out. “Closeted cop has, of course, decided that not coming out is an option, so I had to completely break it off.”
“I’m so sorry, Jai. Are you sure this is something permanent? You guys seemed to have a genuine connection.” Kris was a good friend, as he didn’t immediately ask when Luke had told him there was any possibility he would come out for Jai.
“It’s done.” Jai couldn’t help the slight crack in his voice. “I can’t go back into the closet with him permanently and pretend he is just my next-door neighbor. And he won’t see a time in the future where it is possible for him to be out.”
“Bastard,” Kris said supportively. Jai never had to question where Kris’s loyalty was going to lie.
“Sadly just confused as hell, but maybe for the purposes of the next few weeks we can go with bastard.”
“Absolutely.” Kris’s voice turned steel. “Now seeing there isn’t a meeting I can go to with you, we are going to have to do the phone version.”
• • •
“…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The two men said the familiar words on either end of the phone without self-consciousness.
Their ad hoc meeting didn’t last overly long, with only two people sharing you could get through certain things quickly, but there was a strong relief from Jai in admitting how sharp his compulsion to use had been today.
Kris’s understanding was quick and absolute. They had been there before, in terms of temptation, though neither had relapsed. However, they had been in enough meetings to see that recovery wasn’t absolute or to be taken lightly. That was why Jai wasn’t allowed off the phone until Kris had checked there was a Skype meeting available for the next day.
The end of the phone call reminded Jai it wasn’t a just a serious sober buddy on the end of the line.
“At least you proved you can get laid by a super hot guy in the country,” Kris joked, getting the first genuine laugh of the day from his best friend.
“You’ll have to come up here soon and get Tinder and Grindr happening,” Jai said with a smile. “Hopefully you can prove to me that I didn’t fuck the one hot guy in the area who is capable of man-on-man action.”
“Babe, you are hot enough that being straight doesn’t necessarily rule all candidates out.” Ouch. There was a moment’s silence, between them before the giggling at Kris’s faux pas started.
“Thanks, babe, but I think that out may be a good starting point from here on in.”
Jai got off the phone somewhat comforted by the Team Jai support that Kris didn’t even think before offering. He tried not to think about the fact that no one in Luke’s life had known about him, so there wouldn’t be anyone there to offer even one kind word. For the first time today, Jai actually hoped that Luke had only seen their relationship as a fun interval with hot sex. He didn’t want him to be alone if his emotions had been too involved.
• • •
Three weeks later and Jai still stared at his kitchen table thinking about Luke far too often. He’d been going to work, doing his job, even making stronger friendships with the other staff now that his time was no longer tied to a certain distractingly hot policeman, but he hadn’t been able to kick the habit of thinking of Luke as soon as he was alone and could obsess in peace.
Moving into the small house owned by the hospital hadn’t even given him a smile. He’d felt a sense of loss as he moved out of the police cottage. Now he didn’t even have the vivid memory of those four walls to remind of the time he had spent there with Luke. He now slept in a bedroom that Luke would never see and ate at a table that Luke would never laugh at. He’d only seen Luke from a distance, as Jai kept his commitment to give himself the space he needed to get past the hurt, but each glimpse of Luke cut away at him. Luke looked as grim as he felt, and Jai had had to admit the depth of his feelings to Kris during his daily phone calls. His best friend had started calling every evening, checking in, making sure he was okay.
Today, Kris stated what Jai had been afraid of. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“No,” came Jai’s instinctive denial, which sounded lame even to his own ears. “Okay, probably yes. Although as we don’t talk to each other anymore, no would be infinitely more convenient.” He rubbed his chest, which actually hurt with the tension it absorbed in the act of getting through the day. “No would also be presumably a whole lot less painful.”
Kris’s voice was gentle as he replied. “I’m sorry, darling. I can’t imagine he’s doing a whole lot better on his end. When he was in Sydney, I really thought the feelings between you seemed mutual. Are you still sure you can’t reach out to him?”
Jai did want to walk the two short blocks back to Luke’s house and beg for another chance to prove how good life could be for Luke if he let himself be happy, but Luke had made his decision. His shitty decision.
“No,” he said, slowly answering Kris. “That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Eventually me staying away will become easier, and my feelings will probably fade enough that we can get back to nodding as acquaintances.”
Jai didn’t think the strength of his feelings were actually going anywhere, but if Kris knew how badly he was struggling, he might come down here and drag him back to Sydney himself. There was a reason Jai had come out here to this town, and a broken love affair shouldn’t be the thing that sent him back to the city, no matter how much it might hurt.