Page 94 of Hush
Mike grabbed Etta Mae’s leash and hooked it to her harness as she bounced at his feet. His giant blue eyes, telling Tom goodbye, gave Etta Mae’s puppy-dog eyes a run for their money. “I’ll be right back.” Mike squeezed his hip and kissed him, and then headed out the door.
Silence enveloped Tom. He heard his own lungs inhale, breath fill his diaphragm, heard the dust settle in corners. Heard each chamber of his heart beat, a fast, anxious rhythm.
From silence came loneliness, slamming into him like he’d taken a belly flop off an Olympic high dive. He was alone, completely and utterly alone. The sound of the door closing, the lock turning, played over in his mind, twisting until it became evil, the final act of Mike leaving him for good. He was alone, and he’d always be alone. He deserved to be alone. Out of everything, out of the botched assassination attempt, Fink trying to railroad him off his trial, Ballard being shiftier and more ruthless than usual, out of all the ways the world had tipped sideways in the past week… he was most frantic over whether anyone had let slip to the media that he’d kissed Mike in public, out in the open, and had taken one foot out of his very deep closet.
Tom sank down, crouching as he wrapped his hands behind his neck. Breathe. Just breathe. Mike would be back. And when he came back, Tom was going to be better. Be a better man, a better partner, before he really did end up alone.
He grabbed some paper plates and plastic forks and then pulled two bottles of beer from the fridge. There were a few stubby candles on Mike’s bookshelves, and he grabbed them and set them on the coffee table in front of Mike’s couch.
And then he sat, clasping his hands together, and listened to the dust settle again.
Yes, he’d kissed Mike in public at the volleyball game. And yes, then he’d gone to their gay bar again and had been introduced as “Mike’s new man”. He’d been happy at the time, thrilled. Exuberant. Being seen, and known, and having Mike pickhim, want to be withhim, out of all the gay men in DC.
Now he felt like he was hammering his closet shut from the inside, shoving towels under the door crack and blocking out every speck of light that tried to shine through.
Had anything changed between them? No, not really. He was leaning on Mike more, and maybe the sharp divide in their professional positions was highlighted today, thanks to Ballard. Mike was a marshal and he was a judge. He’d heard of marshals hooking up with AUSAs before, but that was considered scandalous. A prosecutor slumming it with a marshal? The other attorneys had looked down their noses when it happened, at the attorney reaching too low in the search for love.
He didn’t care about any of that. Mike was so much more than who he was at the courthouse. He was everything, simply everything. He was quickly becoming Tom’s home base, his tree fort, his lighthouse, and his castle. He was already Tom’s lover, and cementing himself as his best friend, too. All the little ways he cared… from taking his judge’s robe to walking Etta Mae, from encouraging him, even when Tom’s mind was a thousand miles away, to making sure he ate.
The world had changed around them, making their fledgling relationship suddenly catastrophic to both their careers. What they needed, right now, was to focus on their duties, be the best they could be professionally.
But the best Tom could be was already starting to wind through how he felt for Mike. Without Mike, he was woefully incomplete, as a man and as a human being. Humans weren’t meant to be alone, and he’d been an exile from his own people for far, far too long. How did he break apart the puzzle of his soul when he’d finally put all the pieces together? Could he ever function properly again, knowing what he was missing if he walked away from this, from Mike? Humpty Dumpty had fallen twenty-five years ago, and he was finally back together again. Could he survive another collapse?
There was something inside him that wanted him to run, though. Run from Mike’s care and his smiles, his tenderness, and everything about him. He didn’t deserve Mike’s affection.
Their relationship was too risky. Coming out was wrong. It would end in disaster, sheer, epic disaster. Everyone would know about him, that he was gay, that he’d been living a lie for his whole life. The world around him would change. Everyone around him would look at him differently, and the shame he felt within, running down his bones, sliding down the inside of his skin, would suddenly be exposed, painted across his body and shown off for the whole world to see. His soul would be flayed open, spread for the masses to excoriate.
He wasn’t ready for his world to change. His closet was safe. Dark and lonely and safe.
His toes curled inside his shoes as he tried to breathe. His whole body shook, trembled. His lungs, his breath, quaked.
Mike made him feel alive, made him come alive, made him dream again. If he went back into his closet, his soul would atomize and he’d turn into a skeleton, his life bleeding away until he was nothing more than a bereft bag of bones, constantly remembering what might have been, if only. If only he was strong enough. Brave enough. Man enough, to accept both the man he was and the man he craved.
Tom heard them before they arrived, heard Etta Mae’s nails clicking on the linoleum of Mike’s building, and Mike’s voice urging her along. She was probably tired and moving slowly. Tom stood, and his whole heart quivered.
God, he wanted this, so,somuch.
Mike burst in, straddling Etta Mae and hurrying through the door with a giant paper bag stuffed with Styrofoam containers. He spotted Tom, the plates, the candles, the beer, and broke into a beaming smile. “Honey, I’m home.” Holding out his hand, he pulled Tom in for a gentle kiss.
Tom sagged into his arms, for a moment.
They ate on the couch, Mike feeding Tom bites of everything he’d bought. He might have bought one of every item on the menu. Food crowded the coffee table, the end tables, and the floor. If Etta Mae weren’t snoring, she’d be stealing food for sure. For the first time since the shooting, they laughed together again, and when Mike gently pulled Tom on top of him, Tom went with a smile.
Kissing turned to necking, which turned into a slow—then fast—strip. Etta Mae ended up with Tom’s shirt over her head, and they stumbled half naked to Mike’s bedroom, kissing and trying to strip out of their briefs and crawl into bed at the same time. Mike sank into Tom, kissing every inch of his skin, wrapping his arms around Tom’s shoulders and thrusting deep into his center. Tom shouted as he came, right after Mike, gripping the headboard as he sucked in ragged breaths—
And Etta Mae bounded onto the bed, leaping up and shoving her face between them. Mike flew back, sputtering, and Tom gasped, his whole body vibrating. Etta Mae tackled him, pancaking him as she sat on his chest and stared at Mike, as if she was Tom’s guardian who had just saved her owner.
“Your bed is lower than mine.” Tom laughed, one hand on Etta Mae’s head. “She can’t jump up on mine. I have to lift her up.”
Mike breathed hard. “Jesus. I think I lost a year of my life.”
“She thought you were killing me.” He ruffled her ears. “He definitely wasn’t hurting me, girl. It was all good. I loved it.”
Etta Mae huffed and lay down, spreading out over Tom’s chest. She rested her head on his shoulder.Mine.
“I can get bed risers.” Mike tapped Etta Mae on her nose. “I can fix this. You may have won today, but tomorrow...” He grinned. Leaning over, he kissed Tom around his smile and gently pushed Etta Mae away when she tried to nose in-between them. Mike and Etta Mae wrestled, elbowing and headbutting and laughing, but eventually, Mike ended up back on top of Tom, and Etta Mae sat beside them, glaring. She turned her back, lay down on the other side of the bed, and curled up to go to sleep.
“She’s going to steal that half of the bed.”
