“Itis, Colin,” Joshua murmured. He slid his tongue along Colin’s collarbone, then nibbled and sucked on his neck. “Feeling you like this, smelling you, tasting you. Mmm… god, it’s thebest.”
“You,” Colin muttered, holding him close and tight, “are a sensualist.”
“You bet your Irish ass I am.”
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
THE TOUR GUIDE
“D’you think weneedthe train?” Colin asked.
Joshua turned to look at him. Colin sat on the side of the bed, gazing into space. His hands idled over his socks, sliding them from his feet in a leisurely motion that seemed almost trance-like.
“What?” Joshua asked. “You don’t want to take the train?”
“Damned thing costs a fortune, and Jesus, Josh, Ireland is only about as big as West Virginia. We could drive anywhere we wanted to go in a few hours.”
“Have you figured out an itinerary yet?” Joshua gestured to the bed. Brochures promoting various tours of Ireland were strewn everywhere, and next to them lay a map of the country and Colin’s iPad.
“Well, I’m using the itinerary from the train tour, even though I don’t like it. What I don’thave is approval for my time off from Esther and Norm.” He grimaced and tossed his sock toward the hamper, missing by two feet.
“When do you figure we’ll go? How soon?”
“I’d say at least a month and a half, maybe two months. Dammit!”
“What?”
Colin picked up the brochure from Railtours Ireland. He stared at it as if thinking, wrinkled his nose, waved the brochure back and forth a few times, and then tossed it onto the bed with a quick flick of the wrist. “Fuckit! We’re ditching the train.I’mgoing to be our tour guide!”
“Oh, lord god.”
“What? You don’t trust me?” He grabbed the map of Ireland and briefly consulted it, then grabbed one of the legal pads that always lay beside the bed. “Fly to Dublin,” he muttered. He traced a route on the map, and then made several notes on the pad. “Rent a car, drive to Kilkenny,” he muttered again, then made another note. “I’ll book rooms in Kilkenny. Spend the first night there.” He paused as if thinking. “No!Twonights. We’ll be tired and jet-lagged.”
“You don’t want to do anything in Dublin?”
“There’s tons to see in Dublin,” Colin replied, then shrugged. “But we only have so much time, and there are things to see in other places that are a higher priority, at least for me.”
“Well, you’re the one creating this tour. Will you be OK driving that far on the wrong side of the road?”
Colin squinted up at him, his pen poised over the legal pad. “Anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?”
Joshua opened his mouth to speak, but Colin had turned back to his notes. He paused, stared at the map, then made another notation while muttering, “Let’s see… Dublin to Kilkenny is… about an hour and a half.” Then he peered back up at Joshua. “What makes you think I’ll be doing all the driving?”
Joshua’s eyes widened.
“Youcan drive part of it.”
Joshua’s eyes grew wider yet. “Me?”
Colin turned back to the map, his finger now tracing a route between Kilkenny and Killarney. “Sure! Why not? Davy and Nate can drive too. I mean, we canalldrive.”
Joshua looked down at his husband, who was sprawled across the bed, lost in the map, tracing various routes and then checking the mileage on his iPad.
“Somehow, I don’t see that happening.”
Colin glanced up at him. “Huh?”
“Do you want to do thisnow, babe? It’s nearly eleven.” Joshua set beside him on the bed, moving his hand slowly over Colin’s back. “I know how excited you are.” He bent and kissed Colin’s hair, his joy over their proposed trip to Ireland expanding his chest with love. “God, I love seeing you this happy.”
