Chaper 11
“DUDE, Ase, that was cold,” Dustin said. The slight bunching in Jase’s back convinced Ase the man had heard it. He looked at Dustin. “Good luck with that.” Dustin said the words without sarcasm, pointing toward Jase.
Fuck, why couldn’t he want this man? He was uncomplicated. And he didn’t necessarily want Jase Emery. But he wanted to talk to him. Ase didn’t follow him though, brought up short by the heavy weight of the Nikon in his hands. Shit.
Dustin patted his back. “That seemed harsh.” Dustin’s gaze went to Jase’s disappearing back. “And really fucking weird.”
Not weird. That was nothing like the Jase Ase had met. He seemed genuinely like he’d been about to cry or something before shutting down. Like a soldier. Ase had been a jerk, and Jase had taken his lashes like a man. He hadn’t appreciated the flicker of judgment he’d seen in Jase’s eyes toward Dustin, but Jase’d tried to make up for it.
And he’d looked so sad when Ase had been a jerk to him. But the last thing he needed in his mess of a life was Jase with his closet and judgment towards how perky Dustin was—rather, how gay Dustin was. God, if only Jase knew what Ase did on the weekends, the butch Army boy wouldn’t spare another heated glance for Ase’s joto ass.
Ase tried to affect a devil-may-care attitude. His usual. “Looks like drama,” he said, haughtily. Dustin looked at him evenly, but the little fucker wouldn’t be getting in Ase’s head any more. They were officially done with that portion of the program. And the fun ones, too, at that.
“Who do you think I should go for next?” Ase asked, lifting the camera to divert Dustin’s attention where it should be, not on matters that both didn’t concern him and weren’t up for discussion. Ase would deal with this in his own time, his own way.
He had the overwhelming urge to be on Matilda II at that moment, burning off his fucking bone-deep frustration on the road, though. He’d burned with jealousy when he’d seen that woman touching Jase. That’d been why he’d approached them in the middle of an obviously intimate moment. It’d been a dickhead move, but he’d gotten what he wanted right?
But the hunger he’d seen in Jase’s eyes for that brief, unguarded moment, the moment he’d looked like the young, untarnished Jase of the past. That’d made Ase want to shake him by his broad shoulders and say, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Ase didn’t miss people. Yes, he missed his mother. But other than that, they could all bugger off.
“Fuck.”
“It’s cool, big guy.” The understanding in Dustin’s eyes was frustrating.
“Shouldn’t you be more annoyed or something?” Ase asked.
Dustin gave him that even stare again. “If that grade-A dick wasn’t attacked to such a grade-A dickhead, I’d dignify that with a response.”
Ase huffed and stalked off. He put on his party face, not wanting to scare away people with his aggression. He was getting paid by Dustin’s family to help out tonight. Another hour of being polite and snapping photos. He could handle this.
Before he made it back to taking photos, though, he caught a glimpse of Jase, leaning with his forehead against the side of his truck in the parking lot.
Ase wasn’t sure what had his feet moving toward the man. He didn’t even know what he’d say without Dustin or partygoers watchful eyes on them. He might call the man an asshole, might end up in another fist fight with yet another closet-case cowboy—which would be nothing new.
“What the fuck is your problem with Dustin?” Ase heard himself snap, as he grabbed Jase and slammed him against his own truck.
Jase’s eyes narrowed when he recovered from the surprise. “Nothing, dick. Maybe my problem was with you.”
“What the-fuck-ever. I saw how you looked at him,” Ase snarled. Okay, so, fight it would be. Jase’d bowed up his shoulders which were even broader than when Ase’d held them in Jase’s youth. “You don’t like he’s a maricon? You okay a guy sticks it in your ass, so long as he’s not a sissy?”
Jase flinched at the word. “God, you don’t fucking know me at all.” Interesting. Jase hadn’t looked around like he was worried someone may overhear, though it’d be hard with the volume of the voices coming from back at the party. Ase looked up to see if anyone could catch them standing where they were.
He turned back to Jase. “Oh, but I have.” He got within an inch of Jase’s face. “I know what you feel like on my cock.” He snarled at Jase’s heavy breathing. “That turn you on?”
“What do you want?” Jase snapped, pushing Ase off. Again, he looked more like his feelings were hurt than like he wanted to punch Ase. “You want to pay me back for being shocked to see you the other day? Of course I was shocked. You stopped messaging me, Ase. You don’t get to show up and turn everything upside down and be shocked that I’m fucking shocked. So no, I’m not at my best when I met your boyfriend. Who’s my boss’s nephew!”
Ase didn’t know how to respond to any of that.
So he did what any sane person would do. He kissed Jase. He pummeled the man with his mouth. God, he’d forgotten what it was like when all that passion was pouring from Jase, and it was a magnetic pull. And the kiss… it was more open and honest than any he’d had in years, even with the man he’d lived with for a while.
Their tongues mixed, and the combination of vodka in Ase’s mouth with the rum in Jase’s was strong and heady. Ase realized they were both probably doing this because they were either tipsy or on the verge of drunk.
And, fuck. Jase had that fucking girlfriend, with her big blue eyes and her down-home charm and that annoyingly endearing laugh. And here was Ase making a mess of not only Jase’s life because he couldn’t fucking help himself, but also that girl, who didn’t deserve it.
Ase yanked from the kiss, struggling to keep his composure as he pried Jase from him, as he’d melded to Ase’s front.
“God, Jase. That closet of yours
is a wreck.” He sneered at Jase like the kiss had been his fault. “Go back to your little woman.” And with that he stalked off. At least now, Jase would leave him be. He couldn’t make a wreck of Jase’s life, too, if Jase avoided him because he was an asshole.
Ase straightened his clothes and returned to what he was being paid to do—take photos of his friend’s uncle’s party.
Luckily, though working made it a bit more like a chore, he was enjoying taking the candids. A laughing child, a wife happily leaning into her husband. Capturing those moments made Ase think about the good in the world. People weren’t all damaged and didn’t all lead fucked up lives. Some people were happy.
After doing a full loop of the party, pushing Jase and his girlfriend far to the back of his mind, Ase found Dustin cheerfully chatting with a lady he’d been introduced to earlier. Dustin’s aunt was much less… aunt-ish than any of Ase’s. When Dustin caught Ase’s gaze on him, he smiled, held up his hand in a wave, and excused himself from their hostess.
“You owe me.”
“Yeah? What for, ese?” Ase drawled.
“Oh, I love when you sound all cholo.”
Ase sighed loudly, exasperated. “That’s a little racist, gringo.”
“Come on, papi. Call me homie just once,” Dustin teased. He was probably trying to lighten Ase’s heavy mood. Tough luck this time. Even a couple stops at the fucking open bar hadn’t salvaged Ase’s mood completely.
“Okay, okay.” Dustin snatched a tart off the table they stood beside. “The deputy’s name is Jase Emery, though I’m guessing you knew that much.”
“Dustin…” Ase did not want to talk about this.
“Unless he went off to fuck his beard, he’ll be at home up at Emery Pines.”
Ase looked at Dustin, incredulous. Mostly because of that name. “That sounds like an old folks’ home.”
“Dude, I didn’t name the damn place,” Dustin said, shrugging. “It’s down old Friendly Highway—again, I didn’t name it. About a half-hour or so.”
Frowning, Ase recalled having opened Matilda II up on the rural stretch of highway late one night. He’d felt like they were on the Autobahn. He was probably going fast enough then to go to jail for reckless driving, but Matilda needed to blow off steam just like he did from time to time. And he’d not felt that fucking free in years.
Ase was suddenly horrified. “Wait. You asked your aunt about this? What if he isn’t out?”
“What do you take me for, Dr. Ramirez?” Dustin looked offended at Ase’s lack of faith. “I made it sound like I knew him. I pulled the whole ‘oh yeah, he lives over…’ routine.”
“And she just told you?” Ase shook his head, slightly amused, but still mostly horrified.
“I’m family,” Dustin said, shrugging again and popping the tart in his mouth, like that answer explained everything.
“What you are is the reason more Americans should remember not to leave their doors unlocked.”
“You don’t mind it when I sneak in,” Dustin said, waggling his brows. Ase shook his head and tried to hide his amusement at that. “Hey. Maybe you can invite him to one of your little weekend shows.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Ase groused.
“Gladly. Oh, and my aunt said after your next round of pictures you can call it a night.” Dustin pulled paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ase. Ase took it, opening it to realize it was a personal check. Who knew people still used those?
His eyes bulged, but he played it cool. “This is a bit more than we’d agreed on.” By an extra couple hundred, at that.
“They think you’re my boyfriend. They’ll give you the keys to the kingdom if you keep my mom as happy as she’s been tonight.”
Ase hmphed. “You’re getting on my nerves,” he drawled, before pocketing the payment. He wouldn’t say no to it, even if it felt ill gotten. Not that he was too hard up, but every penny helped these days, and boring as the crowd had been tonight, he’d consider it a tip.
Dustin started to leave, but turned back to Ase. “Good luck.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Dustin laughed softly. “You’re a good guy, Alessandro. I hope you two stop this stupid dance you’re doing, and it’s good.”
Ase put the camera to his eye, thinking how wrong Dustin had it. Closure was what he was after. Maintaining one sweet moment from all that darkness back then, hoping Jase would let him keep that.
Dustin wandered off. And Ase admitted out loud that he was a liar.
After Ase finished at the party, he’d jumped on Matilda II, gone home, and he’d read those damned e-mails again. The ones detailing Abernathy, Hope Springs, and Jase’s family.
He saw the brief mentions of Jase’s anxiety, but he also saw the cute crush they had on one another. And he wondered when he’d grown so fucking callous, so whiny, and so fucking infantile that he couldn’t admit to himself that he was hurt that Jase hadn’t acknowledged him. He wanted to know when he’d stopped being that boy who followed another boy in hopes he’d get an e-mail address.
Of course their e-mails had been an escape for a closeted boy in the Army, and a boy who had to pretend he was straight so his family wouldn’t hate him just long enough to get through medical school and make them proud.
He wondered when the hell Jase had been so hurt that the relaxed man, at peace in his skin, who’d been the subject of one of Ase’s favorite photos ever—the one at Neuschwanstein Castle—had turned into the tense man he’d met today, who’d lost the stars in his eyes. Of course, Ase hadn’t exactly been himself since the mess with Jase and then six months later with his family.
Mostly, Ase wanted to kick his own ass for not e-mailing Jase when he’d decided to move to Abernathy when he knew Jase was here. Because no matter what he told himself, after his nasty breakup with Anthony in medical school, when he wanted to feel some sense of home, the first place he’d thought of was here. He thought of trees and open pastures and a city where people knew each other but not everything about everyone. All those things he’d known nothing of, ever in his life, but still gambled on.
But he hadn’t taken a gamble on saying something to Jase. And he’d antagonized the man tonight when he was surrounded by coworkers and in the middle of something with someone who may very well have been his wife or girlfriend. He’d known from the very beginning Jase had been attracted to both men and women—and didn’t know now whether Jase actually still did anything with men.
And Ase had been a fool. He’d stayed away from Jase so he wouldn’t make the man’s life implode like Ase’s had, but he’d managed to do it anyway.
He couldn’t do this. He had a few months left on his residency, and now he had his closure with Jase Emery. He could leave and not look back on any part of that time in his life except the ones he was forced to face. He glared at his phone where he’d missed two calls from his mami earlier in the night. She had a knack for calling to try to guilt him on his most shit-tastic days.
And tonight he didn’t have to face any of it.
He went to his closet and changed into a deep V-neck black shirt and skinny jeans, feeling more like the old Ase than he had in a while. If he couldn’t call Dustin, he’d celebrate his closure with Jase on his own.
Grabbing up his riding jacket, he pulled it on and was out the door.