“I just thought, since they are your best friends—”
“Can you imagine Ash finding out? That bastard would hold it over my head for the rest of my life.” Even as he pleaded with Luke, the distaste for Ash dripped from Jordan’s voice. “I don’t want their pity or for them to worry about me. Promise you won’t say anything to them. Please, Lucas.”
As he stood contemplating the damaged man crouching on the bathroom floor, something unfamiliar rose within him. It might have been as innocuous as pity, but Luke didn’t think so. He’d never pitied anyone for the choices they made. Growing up, he’d had no choices—being placed in foster care, Ash leaving them; nothing in his life had been within his control. Until he’d been forced to make it on his own when he was abandoned by his foster family. Even then, the men who’d picked him up while hitchhiking controlled his body.
And if it had been anyone else, he’d have walked right out and never looked back. There’d never been room in his life for second chances before. But this was Jordan. Maybe it was the slight tremor in his voice as Jordan pleaded with him, or how his tousled hair fell over his eyes like a little boy’s. Or, as Luke sank down next to Jordan on the bathroom floor, it might have been the flutter of those gold-tinted lashes against his pale cheeks. Lucas didn’t want to think of what else it might be. The need to touch Jordan whenever they were together. To hold him close and feel his warmth, smell his skin. To taste him. To hear his name cried out in passion and desire as Jordan climaxed underneath him.
“Lucas, I couldn’t bear it if you left me now.”
Whatever it was holding him to this man, as he took a trembling Jordan into his arms, Luke couldn’t imagine leaving him. Ever.
And that scared him more than anything else.
Chapter Eleven
After that explosive evening, Jordan barely saw Lucas over the next month and a half. Work on overseas clients’ portfolios had him traveling to Europe and then Asia. Though he called frequently, his conversations revolved mainly around Jordan’s drug use and how he was glad Jordan was doing his best to give up the pills. There was nothing personal, no indication that Lucas thought about him or might be missing him.
Maybe as much as Jordan missed him.
Perhaps he was being too needy, too self-absorbed and foolish, but his heart was in control of his head, and he wanted Lucas to call and talk to him about, well…the two of them. Like that first breath of sweet springtime air after a miserable winter of slush and snow, Jordan wanted to embrace it and revel in the rebirth of his feelings and the reawakening of his heart.
All Lucas was concerned about, it seemed, was Jordan’s pills.
* * * *
Jordan stood in his backyard, listening to the summer breeze sigh through the leaves, and sipped his drink. Sasha snuffled through the grass, bounding this way and that, happy to be outside in the cool evening air. Every once in a while she’d come running back up to the deck, looking for a scratch or a treat.
It was one of those rare evenings when an earlier rain had washed the air clean, and even in the city he could see the stars, winking faint in the darkening sky. He tipped his head back and studied their glittering cobwebs, spreading across the night.
“What am I supposed to do?” He spoke to no one in particular, as Sasha had returned to the bushes, investigating a particularly tantalizing rustle. The iced vodka slid down his throat, cool and numbing, but did nothing to ease the ache of loneliness. These past few months had seen a change in him as he once again settled into his routine from before Keith had died. Surgery and rounds at the hospital in the morning, then Drew’s clinic three afternoons a week. Where he’d once spent his free time with Keith, Drew, or Mike, his friends now had separate lives that didn’t include him. Not that he’d even asked. Once or twice he’d thought about approaching Drew to talk, but the nausea rose, thick and powerful, to twist in his stomach, and he’d chickened out. Instead he spent hours with Sasha or, to his own surprise, working out at the gym.
And he continued to take the Xanax. His hand tightened around the liquor bottle as he poured more vodka into his surprisingly empty glass. Sure, he’d cut down, but no one realized how hard it was to wean himself off the pills. Not that anyone knew, since he chose to do it alone. The thought of telling anyone of his addiction caused panic to rise in his chest, once again making it difficult to catch his breath. He knew he was making it doubly hard by doing it alone, but pride wouldn’t allow him to reveal his weakness to his friends and colleagues.
You’re such a fucking coward.
“I am not,” he answered the taunting voice inside his head, speaking only to the wind. He gulped his drink and stroked Sasha, who, tiring of her play, came to lay at his feet. Thank God for her. She made him feel wanted and needed again. Her warm tongue bathed his bare ankle. His hand shook a bit when he raised his glass to his lips.
Have you tried to stop? And replacing pills with booze isn’t what Lucas meant.
“Fuck him…” He wondered if Lucas understood how hurt he was by the phone calls that only concentrated on the pills. Having sex with him, simply getting naked with another man had changed the dynamic of the relationship for Jordan. He’d never been one to give his body any more easily than he gave his heart. Both were sacred to him. It was why he couldn’t understand Ash and his man-whore ways before he’d met Drew. Was that all Jordan was to Lucas, a quick fuck? He’d always been a decent judge of character, and Lucas certainly behaved like a man who cared. And if he cared, why couldn’t Lucas say he missed Jordan?
So, though Jordan had cut down a pill or two, he’d replaced it with vodka, hoping to push back against the gnawing panic inside of him. While it didn’t help much for the loneliness, it numbed him to everything else. One thing he made certain was never to drink or take pills before he operated. If his hands shook a bit more lately, he’d been using the residents on his team more and more to do the actual surgery. Once or twice one of the doctors looked at him at bit strangely, but he ignored them, his normal arrogance reappearing to keep away any questions.
He felt a bit guilty, knowing he’d promised Lucas to cut down, but as the days stretched into weeks, the other man’s lack of intimate, personal conversations fed his insecurity. Maybe it was time to talk to Drew and settle things between them. Thirty years of friendship should stand for something after all. They should be able to speak to each other about anything. Before he could think too hard about it, he picked up his phone and pushed the speed-dial number he’d set for Drew.
“Jordy? What’s wrong?”
Well, what did he expect? The fact that he hadn’t called Drew in almost a year would account for the guarded and wary tone in his friend’s voice.
“Nothing. I-I wanted to talk to you and was wondering if we could meet.” The words tumbled out before he had a chance to think too carefully.
“You do? When, now? I could be there in twenty minutes.”
Jordan couldn’t help but smile into the phone. Drew could never hide his feelings. His heart shone like a beacon from everything he did and said. No wonder Ash had fallen for him. “Yeah. I do. But it can wait until tomorrow. I have rounds at seven, but can we meet for breakfast afterward, say nine thirty?”
“Sure, of course. The diner across from the hospital? Like we used to, remember?” Drew’s excitement strengthened Jordan’s resolve to make amends. Nothing positive happened while holding on to his resentment. It was killing him to be cut off from the people he loved. And deep inside, he knew his estrangement would anger Keith, who had also cared for Drew and Mike.
These were the people who made his life, not men with whispered promises who broke apart his dreams.
