He tipped the scotch back and signalled for Scella to pour another. She tilted her head to the side, looking at him as if she wanted to ask about the demon keeping him company, but something in his expression must have told her not to. She silently poured the amber liquid into a small tumbler and slid it across the bar towards him.
His phone rang insistently, repeatedly.
He looked at the scotch that he so very much hated.
He lifted the glass to his mouth and continued to ignore the phone.
Chapter 20
June 2014
Aberlour struggled to pull up his pants and fasten his belt. Usually, when he hurried to put his clothes back on, it was because one of his guys was at the door and he was sweaty, horny, and fuelled by arousal. Now? It was another struggle altogether. It was white hot anger that made his hands tremble like an old man’s.
“Abe! Come on, let’s talk about this,” Oliver begged. He’d sat up on the bed—their bed—his chest still bare but covered here and there with red love bites. He was disheveled and beautiful, and Aberlour wanted to rip his head off.
“Fuck you, O!” he spat out, incapable of managing the buttons of his jeans. His heart was hammering away, begging him to run as far and as fast as possible from this place. This place—this place he’d foolishly thought of as his.
“Abe! Come on! My father was a minister before he became a politician, and my mother was born and raised in Alabama, and now she’s a fucking senator. Everyone there votes Republican! What did you expect?”
Yes, Aberlour, exactly what had you expected? What the fuck had you thought would happen when you fell into bed with your best friend? How could you have been so naïve as to think any of this—all of this—was more than simple lust? After all, it was them, Oliver had claimed. Darling and Dumber. Nothing more to it. How could Aberlour have been so stupid to think it had always been more? Was he that fucking blind to what had been in front of him from day one?
He didn’t reply. He couldn’t think of a single thing that would help or make him feel better, so he didn’t bother.
“It’s just a few dates to appease my mom!” Oliver said defensively, as if that made everything all better now.
The nerve of him. The fucking nerve of him to look so shocked by Aberlour’s outraged response.
What the fuck had Oli thought would happen? That he’d tell Aberlour he’d be going out on dates with a girl—after fucking Abe all night in the bed they’d been sharing for a year—and Aberlour would simply sit up, light a cigarette, and just laugh it off?
“You’re such a fucking coward,” Aberlour muttered, not quite loud enough for Oli to hear.
He pulled his t-shirt over his head, and quickly tucked it back into his pants. Marine training was his default mode, especially when he was royally pissed. He looked around for his boots, found them and quickly pulled them on, kneeling to do up the laces. He kept his back to Oli the whole time, unable to bear the sight of him now.
“It’s not real—” Oliver practically yelled. Standing a few feet away from Aberlour, carefully keeping his distance, almost as if he moved any closer, he might get beaten up. “Just a charade to help my mother out. It doesn’t have to change anything. We can keep going like we were.”
Aberlour had to laugh at that. It was so fucking ludicrous. So abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous on every goddamned level that he could hardly believe Oliver had dared to say that shit out loud.
A rough patch, Oliver had said, casually, his fingers dancing across Aberlour’s skin as they’d lounged around in the morning light. His mother had arranged for his brother to be set up with a congressman’s daughter, but since the news of his overdose had gotten out, that was no longer an option.She needs me to step in. Take one for the team.
It had taken Aberlour far too long to understand exactly what Oliver meant by that. He made it sound as if he wasgunning for a position in a finance firm. Clinical and objective. Not at all fitting the announcement that he’d be entering a courtship with a woman to please his mother while the ghost of Aberlour’s kisses still lingered on his skin.
“I’m no one’s mistress,” he growled. “When you grow balls big enough to stand up to your mommy, come and find me, otherwise, leave me the fuck alone,” he added for good measure. He stood back up, boots laced, and found Oliver standing just inches away.
Aberlour was a few inches taller than Oliver, but it gave him enough of a height advantage to be staring down at the man as they stood toe to toe.
“Please don’t,” Oliver pleaded. “I don’t wanna—I can’t lose you.” His voice trailed off into a hushed whisper. “You’re too important to me.”
How lovely those words should have sounded, but as a panicked attempt to stave off Aberlour’s anger, shame was all they ignited in him. They meant nothing. Nothing at all.
“Then don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t be a fucking coward, stand up to your mom and don’t piss us away,” Aberlour stated, laying it all out there in plain, simple terms, so Oliver would know exactly where they stood.
The sun was peeking through the drawn curtains of the bedroom. Oliver looked radiant, even then, as he bristled with anger. He had no right, Abe thought, to look so good, when Aberlour was trying to walk away. Like a work of art that turns you to stone. It was almost a relief when he spoke. His words so grotesque they turned fine art to ash.
“And then what? We get married like a bunch of fags and live happily ever after?” Oliver demanded angrily.
Aberlour was shocked into silence for a moment. Then he remembered it had always been there, lying in wait, merely requiring a spark of some sort to set it ablaze. There had alwaysbeen a deep-seated anger in Oliver. It was a permanent part of him. Bright, burning anger, that turned his heartbreaking smile into a vicious, ugly scowl.
Aberlour let the words wash over him. Whether he meant them or not wasn’t all that relevant, really. Merely stating them aloud in the first place was insult enough.
