Bombora (6 page)

Like a lot of marriages with unhappy endings, mine and Emilia’s started with a surprise pregnancy. I was nineteen, she eighteen, and what was meant to be an uncomplicated weekend of athletic, no-strings-attached sex culminated in Liam nine months later. Thinking it was the right thing to do, I married her.

She’s a nice girl, is Emilia, and Liam got his grabby little hands right in there around my heart within five seconds of meeting. Hasn’t let go since. Your perspective changes when you find yourself looking down at this small human who bears obvious parts of you, whether it’s your hair or your eyes or the beginnings of the famous Fessenden smile that will go on to break a few hearts. There wasn’t really another option; I would never have forgiven myself for walking away a second time, especially not when that family made a place for me with no questions asked. Emilia even suggested Hugh live with us for a year before he went to college. It’s not often you find people willing to do that—having all but raised Hugh myself, I know that better than most. Now my kid is about to turn ten, and where the fuck am I?

I wish I could say I didn’t realize I batted for the other team until recently, but that’d be a lie. In a sense, I’ve always known my interests don’t align with those of the run-of-the-mill straight dude I project myself to be, but it took a lot of years of running before I started to come around to the idea. Admittedly, I still have a hard time not hiding it. By the time I started to accept my sexuality, I was already married, firmly entrenched in the lifestyle everyone expected of me. One I expected of myself. Despite having experimented a little before marrying Emilia—nothing more than a few blowjobs or random bar hookups—I really didn’t know who I was in that respect, who I wanted to be. I still had a healthy appreciation for a beautiful woman, but even if I found myself checking out her boyfriend at the same time, I wasn’t sure I could picture myself in a relationship with a man in the way that seemed hardwired with chicks. Then again, I hadn’t had so much luck in the relationship department with women either. Was I bi, gay, or just confused? Damned if I knew. Liam happened before I could really figure out the answer to that question.

At the time, I hadn’t quite managed to outgrow the anxiety that touching another dude’s dick established me as card-carrying member of Team Pink. For life. Marrying Emilia seemed the best solution for everyone: she’d get a husband and a father to our kid, I’d be a part of my son’s life and have someone awesome to hang out with, and hopefully my years of confusion would stay in the past where they belonged. Shit, even my father’s tough-as-nails cop’s heart seemed warmed by the sudden addition of a grandson and daughter-in-law before he died. And I was seriously going to fuck that up on a hunch that I might like cock? Hell no. I took my vows seriously. Maybe it’s no surprise I eventually cracked under the pressure of keeping that mask in place.

That weekend in Columbus, I had no plans to do so. Honest. I’d entered a bit of a rough patch in the truce with my non-heterosexually inclined urges, but promised myself I’d do nothing more than look. Looking was acceptable, I reasoned, and it was something I needed, either to confirm my straightness or… I don’t know. I guess I never really stopped to think what I would do if I showed up at a gay bar and wanted more, but maybe I figured I’d cross that bridge if and when I got to it.

I did not expect to meet
him
.

The name of the bar was Foxley’s. I found the place on the Internet after hours of searching. Columbus’s gay scene isn’t exactly hopping, but thank God I learned how to delete browser history back when Hugh and I still lived together. Last thing I needed was Liam or, God forbid, Emilia finding all that shit. I went for the quietest watering hole I could find within walking distance of my hotel, and Foxley’s promised a laid-back atmosphere free of the aggressive trolling found at most gay bars and clubs. After a day filled with client meetings and phone conferences with Craig, I was in need of a stiff drink and a few hours to unwind. Used to being approached by the fairer sex at most of the sports bars I frequented, I found the prospect of not having to make polite conversation with interested women pretty appealing, this more a byproduct of marriage than my sexuality crisis. By comparison, I thought it’d be easier to tell a guy to fuck off, if it came to that.

I don’t really know what I expected when I first walked in the door: male go-go dancers, maybe, or porn playing on the television screens, or a bunch of dudes having sex in plain sight. I was relieved to see all the customers fully clothed and grouped around the bar like civilized people, chatting, watching sports, drinking beer, and looking not at all like the rowdy club-goers you see on television shows like
Queer As Folk
. I guess you can like dick and still harbor misconceptions, huh? A giant deer head mounted on the wall set the tone of the place and, me being from Alabama, helped put me more at ease. I was still dressed for a meeting in my suit and tie, and quickly noticed others who looked like they’d also come from work. My wedding ring was tucked safely away in my suitcase back at the hotel. Feeling naked without it, I must have rubbed my ring finger a few times while I looked around.

A few eyes shifted my way as I took a deep breath and wandered closer to the bar. Their rapid-fire appraisals made me feel like a bull being measured and weighed at a fair, the looks fast turning predatory when I seemed to pass some invisible standard. Now, I’m not blind or prone to false modesty—I know I’m a good-looking guy. I take care of myself and have never hurt for attention. But this was completely different from getting checked out by a group of giggling women with martinis in hand. At least there’s an element of coyness there, shyness even, whereas how these men looked at me was pure sex. Like they wanted to eat me off the bone. To my surprise, it was a total trip, and not just a power trip.

Forget feeling up another guy’s cock, I thought,
this
is how you tendered your resignation from the heterosexual lifestyle. It was the first time I’d ever set foot in a gay bar, period, and I couldn’t claim to have gone there at the behest of a female friend or a group of buddies in search of a laugh. I was there because I wanted to be, because this was where I thought I belonged. The feeling terrified me more than the moment I said
I do
and made Emilia my wife, more than learning I had a kid.

I quickly made my way toward the back of the bar, where I felt I’d draw less notice. Luckily there was already someone attracting most of the attention, chatting to a few other men with his back to me, and I slid into a free spot a couple of seats down. Ordering a Scotch, midshelf but respectable, I settled in to take stock of the whole place, curious about the customers Foxley’s tended to attract; the crowd seemed mixed, men in their twenties to upward of forty or fifty. It was hard to get a handle on whether Foxley’s catered to a particular clientele, or if it was a locale favored by many regardless of income or social status.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed the dude beside me behaved like he was pretty high up on the food chain, ruling over the small crowd he’d attracted like a king before his court. After a few moments of polite chat, he dismissed his companions and swiveled back around to face the bar with an expression caught somewhere between boredom and melancholy. Curious and with nothing better to do, I tried to get a closer look. And, well… shit.

Damn if he wasn’t the most gorgeous person—not man,
person
—I’d ever seen in my life, wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit as easily as he wore his dark hair and incredible eyes, bright even in the dim lighting of the bar. The whole look-don’t-touch idea went bust when I let my eyes linger a moment too long on his mouth. Plenty of men have gorgeous lips, cocksucking lips, and I suppose in some circles I’m considered one of ’em. But this man… you couldn’t look at a mouth like that and think about anything but sin.

I tried so hard not to stare, but it was too late. He caught me out and turned the full force of those eyes towards me, gaze flicking up and down over my seated form in quick assessment. I couldn’t for the life of me look away, though I frantically reminded myself talking to anyone wasn’t part of the plan. When a slow smile curled those criminally full lips and he tilted his head in invitation, I was up and wandering closer before I registered my feet upon the ground. My face and neck flamed with the force of my blush. This was retarded; Hugh’s favorite joke was that I could impregnate women with a look. Nate Fessenden didn’t get embarrassed.
I
was being retarded.

Attempting to man up and bite the bullet, I smiled and said, “Hey,” throat tight. At the sound of my voice, his smirk widened and he met my gaze with a hell of a lot more gumption than I felt. “Can I buy you another drink?” I offered. We were both drinking Scotch, from the looks of it, and I was relieved he wasn’t holding an appletini or something equally embarrassing.

After that, the details were blurry. His name was Phel—Phelan. I gave a fake name, Nate Smith, which felt awkward and wrong on my tongue but marginally less terrifying than telling him my real identity. Still, intensity crackled between us like something out of the Harlequin novels Emilia read on weekends, heady and thick. It was a sharp reminder I’d never felt anything so potent toward a woman—hell, not even another man. I’d felt it from seven feet away, and the feeling was even stronger up close as I breathed in Phelan’s musky, soapy cologne and the subtle scent of whatever product he’d used in his hair.

I was shocked by his forwardness, which was nothing I hadn’t encountered before, but never with such… style. Phel seemed uninterested in mincing words about what we both wanted, choosing instead to demonstrate his interest in
me
. No question what we were going back to his apartment to do. I’m a pretty confident guy, but Phelan’s self-assuredness blew me away, left me too dumbstruck to do anything but follow him out of the bar. His arm around my waist all but anchored me to the decision I’d taken a scant thirty seconds to make. Amazing how easy it is to cheat, once you get down to it. I wanted him, pure and simple, with more force and more certainty than I’d ever wanted or known anything in my life. Gay, straight, bi… it didn’t matter. There was just this, this,
this
.

Fortunately, Phel didn’t live far. We came to an old limestone church that looked like it’d been built in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and I didn’t realize until we walked in the front door that it was a residence, not a place of worship. The interior was gorgeous and masculine, renovated with lots of glass, marble, and steel to offset carefully preserved arched doorways and stained glass windows that hinted what the building had once been. Its effect was of a pastiche palace. Located in the heart of Columbus, this building screamed wealth and status.

As we passed the concierge on our way to the elevators, we were greeted with a nod and a respectful “Good evening, gentlemen.” Phel showed no concern if the man noticed our possessive arms around each other, though to be fair we hadn’t even kissed yet. After all those flirtatious touches at the bar, Phel’s breath hot in my ear when he invited me back to his home, telling me how much he wanted to see how I looked in his bed… holy shit. I was so desperate to taste him I felt drunk with it, but he kept his hands to himself even after we stepped into the elevator, leaning against the opposite wall with this look on his face that promised way more than I could fathom at the time.

Nate Fessenden
, I thought,
you are out of your motherfucking depth
.

I tried to distract myself by studying the expert craftsmanship of our surroundings, noting that nothing was shoddy or cheap or half-assed, not like so many cookie-cutter developments these days. Occupational hazard. The building’s foyer looked like something worthy of the Pope. Not that I guessed otherwise, but it was obvious Phelan shelled out to live here, and part of me was as curious to see his apartment as I was eager to get him behind closed doors. I had no idea what I’d do once we got there, beyond taking his clothes off and making him moan. Mostly I just needed to get my hands on him.

We rode the elevator up a couple of floors, and it dinged open to reveal a dimly lit hallway. There were only two doors, one at either end, and I followed Phelan to the one on the left. He slid his key into the lock with steady hands and gestured for me to enter with a serene expression. Greeting me was a wide, artwork-lined hallway paneled in rich cherrywood, the light fixtures reflecting back at themselves from the polished marble floors. I could see where the hallway opened up to a large kitchen and dining room, and beyond, an industrial-looking staircase that led to the rest of the house. Work had brought me to some pretty fancy homes in my day, but aside from Hugh’s SoCal palace, this was the first time I’d ever been a guest someplace so lavish. I had no idea what Phel did for a living, but it definitely wasn’t construction. I glanced over at him with my eyebrows raised when he acknowledged his home with little more than a sigh, for a moment only resembling any old nine-to-fiver returning to the nest after a long day at the office. He tossed his keys into an elaborate-looking metal bowl on the hall table.

Overwhelmed, I indulged myself a moment to take it all in, leaning back against the door and pushing my shirtsleeves up above my elbows. My discarded blazer hung loose in one hand. Though the night air outside was cool, it felt over a hundred degrees inside; I was unbearably warm and growing warmer. My eyes fixed on Phelan’s back as he shrugged out of his own suit jacket, looking slim and calm and collected, the thin material of his cherry blossom-pink shirt pulling attractively tight across his shoulders.

The flash of hunger I felt when he turned to look at me must have transmitted, because he was in front of me within seconds, lips inches from mine, hands ready to fist the fabric of my button-down. Those haunting eyes of his were even more incredible up close, lashes as long and full as a girl’s, irises bluer than the plumage of one of those birds of paradise you see on the Discovery Channel.