The House on Hancock Hill (18 page)

The back door was still unlocked since I’d had my arms full of groceries when I’d come home, so I pushed the door to my apartment open a few inches to make sure I’d hear Daniel coming and went back to the kitchen to make coffee. Normal coffee did very little to keep me awake these days. Not that it mattered; the past two nights had been sleepless ones, and I doubted a shot of caffeine would cause more harm.

Half an hour later, I heard Daniel open and close the back door, then take the stairs two at a time. “Just me,” he called from the hallway, and I crossed the living room to say hi. He was hunched over, working on his shoelaces. From his crouch he said, “How long have you been back?”

“A day or two.”

Daniel lifted his head to smile at me but gasped and covered his mouth with one hand. “Oh, my God! Jason, what happened to you?” he demanded. For a second, I had no clue what he meant.

“Right, the bruises.” They’d slipped my mind and reluctantly, I laughed. “I had a bit of an accident. It’s fine.”

His eyes went wide. “Were you hurt?”

I made a dismissive noise, resisting pressing a hand to my temple. A headache was brewing. “A few battered ribs and what you see.”

“How awful. Are you sure you’re all right? You look dead tired.” Daniel had taken off his shoes and straightened, frowning at me. “You weren’t beaten up, were you?”

“No, I’m fine. It was a car accident.” I smiled at Daniel. It was good to see him. “Come on in.”

The small narrow hallway led into a wide-open living room with three large windows that gave me a lot of light during the day. After I’d bought the building, I’d had the old Brazilian cherry wood floors refurbished and all the walls painted white, apart from the one where the TV hung, which was bare brick. I waved a hand at the cream-colored sectional and asked, “Coffee?”

He shook his head, “I have an early shift tomorrow, and I need to sleep. Maybe some water, please. Any truffles, though?” He sank into the seat, tucking his legs underneath him. Daniel knew all about my insomnia-induced chocolate making habits.

“Yes, lots. Want some?”

“Please.”

I puttered about in the kitchen for a bit and then joined him on the couch. It’d been the first day since I returned that I’d stood on my feet for nearly twelve hours, and my ribs ached. It wasn’t as bad as it had been a week ago, but the pain still tired me out.

Daniel was a walking Swedish stereotype. He had very straight, very fine blond hair that always fell over his forehead no matter how much product he applied to it, a wide mouth, and a long nose that currently held up a pair of square, black-rimmed glasses. Daniel always took his contacts out if he was tired. It made me wonder why he’d come over then.

“You sure you’re okay?” Daniel asked around a mouthful of chocolate. He shifted forward and gave my knee a squeeze as he looked up at me from underneath his near-invisible eyelashes.

I suppressed the urge to pull my knee away and said, “A bit stiff, that’s all.”

“I can help you with that.” He gave me a wicked grin, blue eyes twinkling.

“I don’t know if I’d be up for that.”

He laughed at the bad pun. “No, I get it,” he said, putting his glass of water on the leather covered coffee table at our feet. “But there are other ways I can help you, you know. I am, after all, a physiotherapist.”

“Oh.” Daniel had never given me a treatment, though it wasn’t through lack of offering. “Are you sure? You worked an entire day. You don’t have to.”

“It’s no hardship to put my hands on you, Jason,” he said, dusting cacao powder off his fingers and rising to his feet. “Can you lie comfortably on your front?”

I thought I could, so I stretched out on the couch, tucking my hands underneath my cheek. Daniel settled on my backside, knees on either side of my waist, but there was nothing sexual to it. With a bit of a struggle, we wriggled off my T-shirt and then his warm hands were on my back. Maybe I’d grown used to someone caring for me after Henry, because it was nice to lie down and let Daniel ease the kinks out of my neck and shoulders. So nice in fact, I began to drift, vaguely hopeful maybe tonight I’d sleep after all. Then Daniel dug his fingers into my ass.

“All done,” he murmured into my ear. With gentle hands, Daniel turned me over and kissed me. I cupped his smooth face and kissed him back, trying not to think about Henry, but that was a futile exercise. Daniel rubbed the fragile skin underneath my left ear with his thumb, shifting to straddle my thighs. Arousal began to sweeten my blood and involuntarily, I shifted against him. “Yes,” Daniel whispered against my mouth. “You feel so nice. Will you—”

I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. Images overwhelmed me with a violence that could only be retaliation for flinching away from the thoughts for days. I saw Henry waking up Sunday morning, yawning hugely and smiling at the empty space beside him. Padding down to the kitchen in search of me, expecting another ridiculous breakfast—and I realized what I’d been doing all those days: trying to impress him with food like a caveman presenting his future mate with raw meat. I would have laughed if the rest of the revelation hadn’t been so heart-numbingly painful. No warm smells from the kitchen. An empty living room.
Where did he go off to then, Pat?
And finding Pat dead. It would’ve taken him a while to suspect me of doing such a dreadful thing. Henry would’ve searched for every possible explanation before accepting the truth and going to look for the bags I’d taken with me on my flight. And here I was barely days later, kissing another man on the couch.

As if he’d sensed my distraction, Daniel sat up. He was beautiful, he was sweet and kind, and I thought he genuinely cared about me. Just like with Henry, I couldn’t understand why he’d waste his time with someone who couldn’t offer him anything.

“Hey,” Daniel said, stroking the bruise on my cheek. “Where did you go?”

“Hm?”

“You went somewhere else for a bit.” Pushing him off me—kindly, none of this was his fault after all—I sat up. “Is something wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“No, that’s not it, I—” What was I doing? “This isn’t fair to you.”

“Ah.” Daniel straightened, moving away from me. “It’s because I called and told you I missed you.”

“No.” Wasn’t it, though? “Maybe, I—”

“Look,” Daniel folded his hands in his lap. “I’m not going to deny I want more from you. I think we could be great together, but I’m not going to try and push you into anything, Jason. Someday I want this.” He waved a hand between us. “I want to wake up with someone every morning, and I want to go to bed with that same someone. But I’d rather have you a little than not have you at all. And I can wait.”

Daniel was giving me an out, a chance to look away and pretend this conversation had never happened so we could carry on as we had. It was tempting because it was easy. I thought about Henry all by himself in his half-finished house, and the last thing I wanted was another lonely soul on my conscience. “You shouldn’t,” I managed. “You shouldn’t wait for me.”

Daniel went very still. “I see,” he said after a while, voice quavering a little. “I understand.”

“I’m s—”

“Don’t be. It’s okay. I think I always knew… anyway. Will you give me some time to get over this? I want to be friends but I need… some time.”

“Of course,” I said, following him when he got to his feet, feeling bewildered by this sudden turn the evening was taking. “Daniel—”

He spun around and put a hand on my arm. His blue eyes were shining brightly, and I could see he was trying not to cry. “I’ll be fine, I promise. Don’t beat yourself up, okay? You never strung me along, and you never made me promises you didn’t keep. I just got too attached, that’s all.” He squeezed my arm. “You take care of yourself, you hear? Don’t be alone all the time.”

And with that, he grabbed his shoes and was out the door. I hadn’t meant for this to end so permanently, but I knew it was the right thing to do for Daniel. The apartment was very quiet, and I stood for a long time, listening for something, anything at all. But nothing penetrated the veil of solitude I had slowly drawn around myself, nothing apart from my own steady breathing. Denny would leave soon to open the bakery in Detroit. I’d left Henry behind, and Daniel had walked out of my life and I’d let him. No, I’d made him. Mom was hours away by plane, Dad somewhere even more unreachable. Apart from the last one, all these absences were of my own making, so surely this must be what I wanted. Being alone had never bothered me before. I went downstairs to lock the back door.

A
LOUD
crash followed by a string of curses at 6:00 a.m. in the bakery would’ve been more worrying if I hadn’t suspected Denny was packing his things away in the office. I stuck my head through the door and grinned. He was wielding a broom and dustpan, gathering up what looked like the remains of the Buddha statue I’d bought at a Japanese garden in France.

“That was very dear to my heart, you know,” I said.

Denny jumped. “No it wasn’t.” He straightened and set the dustpan with the shards to the side. “You told me you got it at a discount because it was chipped.”

“True.” I smiled at him. Busy with the move, Denny hadn’t been around for the past few days, and now he looked at me with concern.

“Ow, buddy, your face. That must’ve been some shiner.” Denny stepped into my space and hugged me, something we didn’t do often. We usually kept it for Christmas and long absences, but there was something soothing about wrapping an arm around my oldest friend.

“It’s healing,” I told him when he stepped away. “How is it going here?”

“Good. I was just rifling through our—your desk for stuff I need, and then we’re ready to go this weekend.” A box stood at his feet, half full with papers and the Salvador Dali melting clock I’d bought for Denny three birthdays ago. “But if you need me to stick around for another week until you’re completely patched up, I’m sure I can do it.”

“Nah, I’m much better already, really. Besides, Alice is ready to take over from you and I’m sure Maddison doesn’t want to live in an empty house for a week.”

“She’d go ahead of me with the kids, Jason. I don’t mind.” Denny studied what I thought were my bruises until he said, “What else happened?”

“What?”

“You look different, and not just from the accident. What’s wrong? Everything all right at the farm?”

“It’s a total loss. As soon as the weather changes, I’ll have a crew out there to tear it down, and then it goes on the market. I’ve talked to a real estate agent, and he’s taking care of everything.”

Denny gave me a piercing look. “There’s more,” he said, not fooled for an instant.

“I ran into an old childhood friend in Hancock, and we… we hooked up.” Even calling it that left a bitter taste in my mouth and, as always, Denny knew.

“But it was more than that.”

“Yeah, and I—”

“Chickened out.” Denny gave me a wry smile. “Ah, Jason. One of these days you’re gonna have to let someone into that fortress of a heart of yours.”

“There’s something else,” I admitted. Denny waited silently for me to go on. “Daniel came by last night and told me he wanted more.”

“So you broke it off.” Shaking his head at me, Denny sighed. “You’re too decent for your own good. There’s nothing wrong with finding some comfort with another human being, you know. Daniel is a big boy, he can handle himself, and I’m sure your other friend….”

“Henry. He’s a vet,” I added with a strange pang of pride, as if I’d had anything to do with his accomplishments.

“Henry the vet can, too.” He ran a hand over his hair. “You sure you don’t want me to stick around? It’s not a bother.”

“It’s okay, really. Hard work will do me good.”

“And who’s to say Henry won’t come for you.”

“He won’t. I kind of ran off in the middle of the night.” To my surprise, this startled a laugh out of Denny.

“Only you, Jason Wood. Give him a call. You never know. He might have feelings for you still.”

He might have, I thought, but I was fairly sure he’d lost all respect he’d gained for me by now. “Maybe,” I told Denny so he’d let it go. I didn’t want to start thinking about Henry with no one there to help him say good-bye to Pat.

Denny evidently took pity and said, “Let’s go through the applications for the Detroit bakery assistant job before you have to open up. I got a few more e-mails last night.”

“All right,” I said, pulling a rickety chair out from under a pile of papers so Denny could sit next to me like we had so often in our years of working together. It was time to fold myself back into the life of safe contentment I knew. I wasn’t sure, in that moment, how I’d make myself fit.

Part 2

Chapter 11