Page 39 of Hush
Kris lifted his Martini and raised it to him, a tiny toast, and then took a sip. He never took his eyes off Tom’s, and as he drank, he winked.
“Here you go!” Mike reached over and dropped a Martini glass in front of Tom. It was filled to the tip-top, and some sloshed over the edges. “Sorry!” Mike sucked Mexican Martini off his thumb as he leaned against the table, facing Tom. Kris rolled his eyes.
“Thanks.” God, he needed this. He needed about ten.
Kris and Mike started talking, bantering about a volleyball game coming up. Tom listened and then tuned them out as he took in the bar, the people around him.
He’d done it. He’d come to a gay bar. He was back among his people. Of course, no one knew he was truly one of them. No one knew that he was home, that he felt more comfortable here than he did walking around in the mask he wore every day. Men flirted at the bar, and he watched the signs, the play of a man making a move on another man. A gentle touch to his chest, a caress. A show of wrist. A bat of the eyelashes. Sweet, coy looks. God, he remembered that, remembered having another man look at him like he was something to be desired, something that another man craved.
He jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder. “Whoa!” Mike smiled. “Just me. You okay?” Mike watched him carefully, as if trying to gauge whether Tom was about to bolt.
“I’m great.” He turned back to their table. Kris had disappeared, and Jon and Billy had their heads together. Aaron and Carlos were heading for the darts and checking out every guy they passed. They were clearly on the hunt.
Mike slouched against the table, his back to the wall, facing Tom. Tom turned toward him, and his thigh brushed Mike’s. The bar was cramped, and they were so close, closer than they’d ever been before. Well, except for when Mike had straddled him on the grass.
“Not too crazy for you?” Mike nodded to the bar, to the men, and the music.
If only you knew.A part of him clenched, knowing that he was keeping something big, somethinghugefrom Mike. Something fundamental. It wasn’t right, but… He wasn’t ready. Not yet. “It’s great. This is a wonderful place.”
It was. It was so happy, so vibrant, so full of life. So unlike the dark bars he’d known, the anonymous places where you could find anything from a dancing partner to a dark room in the back, and a silent, anonymous body to hold. Or the neon clubs, filled with enough drugs to reanimate the dead. There’d never been a place like this, where people were so plainly happy with their lives, with their place in the world. With an open patio and starlight shining down on them, and the content feeling that they had a place in the world.
He could see men eyeing Mike up. Mike was the most gorgeous man in the bar, and other men knew it.
“So, Mike.” He slid his Mexican Martini across the wooden table, leaving a wet trail behind his fingers. He had to talk to Mike, hold his attention for at least a little while. Until someone else came and stole him away. “I saw in the paper this morning that the Russian president has agreed to come to the U.S. Finalized the travel plans and everything. The great thaw is coming, apparently.”
“Yeah, it’s crazy.” Mike spun his mojito. “I thought for sure we were headed for a new cold war.”
In 1991, the Soviet Union was in its death throes, and Russia, the fledgling federation that was emerging from the USSR’s tumultuous death, was reduced to a second-rate power and a crippled empire. The world’s laughingstock. Their economy stagnated, crime flourished. The military was a husk of its former glory, best symbolized by the Russians’ only aircraft carrier needing to travel with a tug boat for its inevitable loss of power. But, the world changed, and catastrophe followed catastrophe. Oil—of which the Russians had plenty—soared.
And the great Bear was roused. First, brutal dealings with rebels in Chechnya, and the installation of a puppet government in Georgia. They took a chunk of Ukraine, strumming the strings of NATO, and watched as the finely-tuned orchestra of the European Union and NATO fell to squabbling and passive apathy of Russia’s renewed aggressions. And then, Russia tried their hand in the Middle East, picking the opposite side to the U.S. in the bloody Syrian civil war that pitted faction against faction against faction, and the lines were only ever blurred to incomprehension.
Past presidents had stirred rhetoric against Russia, playing the diplomatic game of censure and insult on the world stage. This president, President McDonough, wanted a face-to-face with his Russian counterpart, President Dimitry Vasiliev. Gossip on the Hill was that McDonough wanted to look Vasiliev in the eye when he told him to go fuck himself, and that the missile defense shield was staying right where it was in Europe.
“Are you going to be involved in any of the security for the visit? When the Russian president comes to DC?”
“No, thank God. That’s Secret Service, FBI, and Diplomatic Security Service at the State Department. They have enough giant personalities and butting heads in that mix. They don’t want any other players making a mess of things. The Secret Service will run the show and push everyone else out, be the big bully on the block. The others will piss and moan about it, but do what the Secret Service says. And then there’s the Russian security services. They’ll demand to be in on the security planning, and the Secret Service hates planning anything with foreign nationals on our soil.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“It will be. I’m glad I have nothing at all to do with that.” Mike grinned. “I’ll just read about it in the paper and watch the headlines on TV.” He squinted at Tom. “Do you think anything will come out of this meeting?”
“Well… Nixondidgo to China.” Tom sighed. “Russia locked up tight after Putin kicked the bucket. No one knows how that ended up actually happening. Heart attack, according to half the news outlets, assassination according to the other. This new guy, Vasiliev, is a mystery. But he’s not doing anything that would make me feel comfortable about Russia again. I don’t see that new Russian dawn everyone was talking about, after Putin died.”
“Me either. If anything, Russia is putting more forces on the border with Ukraine, and staging ‘training’ in Belarus. And building up in the Baltics, outside St. Petersburg, too.”
“I saw that. I hope it’s just posturing. But, whatever is coming, it’s going to be a mess.”
“You think Russia and the U.S. could ever be allies?” Mike squinted at him.
“We were once. We won World War Two together. But it would take a lot, I think, to make it work again. A total shift in Russian policy. What do you think?”
“I’m withholding judgment.” Mike spun his mojito again. “Right before Putin died, most guys I knew in the intel community said it was only a matter of time before we were in a shooting war with Russia in a proxy somewhere again. Or multiple somewheres. But everyone has been really quiet about President Vasiliev. The intel community can’t figure him out yet.”
“You have a lot of friends in the intel community?”
“A fair few.” Mike grinned. “I started in intel in the Navy. Did my four years and then got out. But I kept in touch with a bunch of people.”
“That’s great.”
