I’m a freshman congressman and so far relatively obscure in this city. I’m also lonely as fuck and too mentally ground down to think about utilizing a beard, not that I have a clue who to talk to about doing that. I don’t want my secret getting out, if I can help it.
Web searches on my personal phone keep highlighting this particular bar. I’ve visited before but didn’t talk to anyone on those occasions. Tonight, after leaving work and before I can talk myself out of it, I find myself heading this way.
Now here I sit, nursing a Jack Daniels’ on the rocks and staring into the intense brown gaze of a gorgeous man who’s parked himself in my booth and pushed a fresh drink to me from across the table.
Had he shown up five minutes later I’d already be gone. Because the familiar mental dialogue racing through my brain viciously scolds me for being here.
Tells me I should be ashamed of myself.
I usually hear these words in my father’s voice although sometimes I hear them in Stella’s.
Which, agreed, is creepy as fuck.
Then, the handsome stranger speaks. “Good evening, Mr. Woodley.”
Oh, fuck!
Icy spikes of fear gouge my stomach while a thousand terrifying possibilities hit me at once. The worst, of course, that maybe he’s a journalist for FNB, or Fox, orThe Washington Post.
I swallow before responding because my mouth’s gone dry. “H-hi.” There’s a painful irony that I’m attracted to this hunky guy and he already knows my name.
He extends his right hand. “Leo Cruz.”
“Elliot.” I force myself to shake with him because this conversation could go any number of ways. Simply being here doesn’t implicate me in anything other than wanting to have a drink by myself away from the usual DC watering holes frequented by politicos. I can claim I’m new in town and had no clue it’s a gay bar.
Then he holds up his glass, waiting, his meaning obvious.
I finally hold up mine.
He reaches across the table and gently clinks with me. “To survival.”
My pulse hammers but I can’t lie and say I’m not curious. “To survival,” I echo, praying my voice doesn’t tremble.
We drink. He doesn’t speak for the longest time so I finally do. “What did you survive?”
“A plane crash that forced me to take an early medical retirement from the Secret Service. I used to work The Shift.”
Relief floods my soul. He’s not a reporter looking for a scoop that could upend my world.
And…we talk.
The longer we talk, dancing around the obvious issue, the more I realize whatever his ask is, I’m going to accept. If I don’t I’m relatively certain I’ll hate myself for it.
Because Leo’s four years older than me, gorgeous, intelligent, fluent in several languages and, yes, he’s a survivor.
Like me.
Well, sort of like me. His airplane fell out of the sky and ripped his career from him, while a rocket fell on me, taking my leg and the lives of several other men.
Countless decisions large and small brought us together to meet in this booth tonight.
That’s why when Leo suggests decamping to his apartment I decide for once in my life to ignore my mental terror, follow my gut, and say yes.
I don’t leave his apartment all weekend and spend it, for the first time in my life, feeling like I’mperfectlywhere I belong. Leo completely owns me by the end of that weekend. I guess he falls in love with me as hard as I fall in love with him.
Then I spend the next five years desperately needing Leo while simultaneously terrified for anyone to discover our secret. I’m petrified he’ll leave me one day even as guilt eats away at me because I won’t openly date him. I beg him to date other guys because of that guilt, all while white-hot jealousy nearly consumes me at the thought of him going out with someone else.
Or doing more with them, and I don’t just mean sex.
