“I can hear you think,” Oliver said, softly.
“Actually, I don’t know what to think,” Aberlour admitted.
“What do you mean?”
He worried his bottom lip, thinking about how to answer Oli, and looked around the room. It was all the same. He kept expecting the world to change. For the sky to be pink, the water to be blood red, the house to burn. He kept waiting, at every turn, for something to be different, and it never was.
“I want this—” Aberlour said, reaching for Oli’s hand. “But I don’t know what to change to make it—more,” he said, although it didn’t come out right. That wasn’t really what he’d wanted to say. It came out sounding odd and uncertain. It was all wrong, his head was swimming with it. With all the words he couldn’t pin down. They nagged him. Flying around his mind, tongues sticking out, baiting him into anger. He felt as if he was going crazy.
Oliver snorted and shook his head. He leaned back against Aberlour’s arm, and smiled at the ceiling, head tilted back.
“That’s exactly why it works,” Oliver said. “We’re already Darling and Dumber, so there’s nothing to change. We just—we get to fuck now,” he said, turning to Aberlour, a brilliant smile on his gorgeous face.
“We’re really good at that,” Aberlour said, unable to restrain his own smile.
“Fucking? Hell, yeah, we are!” Oliver agreed. Aberlour shook his head.
“Being Darling and Dumber,” he replied.
Oliver held his breath for a minute. Then he laughed, as only he could. Head tilted all the way back, mouth wide open, the laughter booming and unrestrained.
When he stopped, he turned to Aberlour and kissed him. It wasn’t soft and sweet this time. It was heated, passionate. He pressed against Abe’s lips and kept coming back for more.
There was heat in every nerve ending of Aberlour’s body. The smell of Oliver, intoxicating and familiar, filled his world. Aberlour reached for Oli, grabbed his leg and hoisted it up. There was nothing between them, and when Oli pulled away to smile against Abe’s lips, they were both delirious with joy.
“We’re idiots,” he whispered softly.
“Morons,” Aberlour agreed, whispering against Oli’s heated skin. He found himself trembling slightly as he lifted his hand to cup Oliver’s jaw. He couldn’t stop the tremor, nor the rapid heartbeat in his ears. They were so sudden and so foreign to him—expressions of doubt and nerves he’d never experienced before. He swallowed against them as he fought to settle his breathing. Oliver didn’t tense against him, but he held himself back from leaning into the touch, appearing to be ready to move away.
Abe had never understood the hang-up with sexuality. A body was a body. Why should it matter who you loved? But oddly enough, perhaps he understood it then for the very first time. There was something inexplicably more vulnerable about being here, like this, with Oli. Even fully clothed, touching rather innocently still—it felt a whole lot more precarious than it ever had with a woman. To be a man—God, to be a man was such an odd and tricky thing. Aberlour wondered if he'd ever truly been himself—or only ever a cloaked-and-carefully-shaped version of himself. Something thatlookedlike a man ought to. Sitting here, with Oli—losing himself in that blue gaze—didn’t feel wrong, but it didn’tfeellike something a man ought to do. Therein, he supposed, lies the issue. Not the reality of the emotions—he couldn’t deny his love for Oliver any more than he’d deny that the sky was blue. But because in this moment he was subject to a vulnerability that wasn’t considered manly—he felt like he ought to be resisting it. It was silly. Silly enough that he nearly laughed. Nothing had changed. Oliver was right. They were the same, in every way—they’d simply added a layer of caring for each other that had escaped them before. Aberlour chuckled at the idiocy of his own confusion as he shed his nerves and leaned forward to kiss Oliver once more. Letting the feeling—the almost tangible evidence of his desire—drown out the inside noise that would keep him from being happy with this man.
And God, was he ever.
With Oliver by his side, Aberlour was happy.
“You taste like fresh cat piss,” Oliver said, after a moment, the fallout from his overwhelming feelings having settled around them.
Aberlour snorted and shoved him playfully.
“That’s cause I drank some of your beer while I was waiting,” he lied quickly.
Oliver chuckled but settled against him. Not quite as close as before—but the position was more relaxed than the one before.
“Guess you probably have a point—probably don’t have good taste if I’m hanging out with the likes of you,” he said, as he snuggled against Aberlour.
“At long last you see sense—was starting to worry about you, Darling,” Aberlour answered as he draped an arm over Oliver’s shoulder, letting it dangle across his chest. Oliver toyed with Aberlour’s fingers as he mumbled an unintelligible response. This too was familiar. The way they touched each other like a cat plays with balls and milk jug caps. Lazily, but with obvious fondness.
Happy. Content. At peace and fulfilled.
It was so rare to be so aware—so enamoured with one’s life. Short of screaming it from the rooftops, Aberlour didn’t quite know what to do, so—he hummed, and tried and failed to focus on the game. How could he when he’d done it—found home and love under one roof.
Chapter 8
January 2013
They got called in on a Sunday. Highly unusual, but not unheard of.
A short mission the brass said—four days at the most. Aberlour didn’t believe them, but he also didn’t mind. He was like a rabid dog itching for a target, and he wouldn’t mind an early spin off his leash. His men—who’d been quite content canoodling with their ladies, wallowing lazily in their off days—had not been at all pleased to be yanked back to base earlier than originally planned. Aberlour couldn’t relate. Not when his own bedmate was sitting only inches away. Perhaps he should have felt differently. Maybe he ought to have wanted to keep Oliver safe—out of harm’s way. But Aberlour was the proverbial rabid dog. Sanity was a concept that had been erased long ago. To have him at his back, watching his six, reading his mind—well, that was precisely where Aberlour wanted Darling. Always and only.
