Whatever the Cost (40 page)

Jacen bites his lip, smiling. Then he clambers off the bed, heading toward the bathroom.

The steam and strong spray from the showerhead revives Jacen. Refreshed, he returns to the bedroom for clean clothes. Once he is dressed he goes in search of Liam.

Jacen smiles broadly as he discovers him just down the hall, in the kitchen. He’s leaning bent over the counter, reading the newspaper, sipping from a bottle of water and still dressed as he was—in the kilt, boots and black tank. Shaking his head, Jacen walks past Liam toward the fridge. On the way, he quickly lifts the back of the kilt and directs a firm smack to Liam’s bare behind.

With a yelp and a squinty-eyed glance over his shoulder, Liam gives his husband a smirk.

Jacen fetches his own bottle of water and stands on the opposite side of the counter, facing Liam.

“So,” Jacen starts. “Since I’m clearly very offended by your choice of outfit today, I have to ask, why the hell are you wearing this? What happened to the guy who was perpetually in sweats and a baseball cap nearly the whole time I’ve known him?”

Liam breathes out a laugh, his smile changes. Glancing down at the counter, he sets down his bottle and says, “Well, that’s what you expected me to wear, right? So that’s what I wore. It’s all part of the game. And I guess...” he pauses, running his tongue over the ridges of his teeth. “I guess it helped me pretend that when I took off the costumes, I could leave the rest of it behind. Like I wasn’t really the same person that fucked for money. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately—what makes me happy. And I’ve decided to dress in whatever makes me happy.”

Jacen thinks about that—Liam dressing like one of the guys just to make Jacen more comfortable, just like Liam used to act like Jacen’s “friend” because he didn’t know how to really be his friend. It makes him sad, but it helps that Liam is finally seeing through his self-deceptions. “And the piercing?”

“Hell, I’ve wanted it for years,” he says, holding Jacen’s gaze with big, green eyes, the metal embedded in his cheek glinting brilliantly in the sunlight. “But I couldn’t screw with this, could I?” He draws a circle in the air, around his face. “It might scare off business.”

The sense of pervading sadness grows, threatening to weigh fledgling happiness down again, so Jacen lifts his bottle, in a toast. “To my husband, the gorgeous, sexy, kinky bitch that he is. I wouldn’t have you any other way, babydoll. The blue balls might just kill me, but what a way to go.”

Liam breaks into bright, free laughter and hops up, arms braced on the countertop, leaning over it to kiss Jacen squarely on the lips. Trying not to fixate on the way it makes Liam’s ass push out perfectly, Jacen groans and accepts the kiss. “So unfair,” he laments again. “Can I at least put a bag over your head and wrap you in a blanket until my balls and my ass stop throbbing?”

“Oh, now where’s the fun in that?” Eyes alight, he touches his bottle to Jacen’s and takes a drink.

Liam stands back and surveys his work now that the paint has mostly dried. He scans the walls, looking for any spot he missed or that will need another coat. The scrutiny is intense, but with the abundance of quiet in the vacant apartment across from his own, he can hear the approaching footsteps from a long way off, and audibly tracks them as they weave their way up the flights of steps right to the door and then through the door to him. It’s only because he refuses to let the old paranoia continue to win out that he doesn’t run to the windows to check for a black Lincoln parked out front or plot an escape route down the fire escape. He simply stands where he is, waiting.

His self-manicured fingers scratch at a stray bit of beige splattered on his forearm, where it would have gotten in his arm hair if he had any. Every time he waxes, which he does regularly and by himself now, he waxes more territory than the last. A few nights ago he had waxed most of his torso and all of his arms.

The newcomer walks up to him, and he smiles before even turning to see her, her familiar scent and the barest glimpse of her long hair an instant comfort.

“Hey, babe.”

“God, it’s good to see you,” he sighs, turning to give Valery a hug.

She notes the new piercing, which they have already spoken of over the phone. Amused at Liam’s tight purple tank top that has the word ‘flirt’ scrawled across it in big glittery script, coupled with his grungy cargos, she says, “So you let just anyone wander in here these days?”

“Pretty much,” he answers, not mentioning that by the speed and volume of her steps alone he could rule out any threat. She didn’t sound like one of The Company’s goons or match the dainty
click-clack
of Della’s cherished stilettos. “Thanks for coming.”

“My pleasure. You look good. The jewelry’s hot. What did Jacen say?”

He laughs, gathering his painting supplies into a neat pile near the sink. “It was less a verbal reaction than a physical one.”

“Wow, that good, huh?” Liam raises an eyebrow and shrugs, aligning stacked paint cans and straightening brushes laid out to dry on paper towels. Taking another step closer, she presses him with, “How are things with you two? You don’t usually like to talk about it on the phone, so....”

“I don’t like to talk about it at all,” he clarifies quietly.

“Yeah, believe me, I’ve noticed. But if you had some sort of
physical
celebration of your new accoutrement, then that means....”

He sighs, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling.

“Hey, if you really don’t want to talk about it, we can just discuss nail polish brands again. Which are you wearing anyway? It looks really good on you. It hasn’t even chipped with all the manual work you’ve done today. How many coats did you put on?”

Liam turns to face her, looking down at her, dark glasses perched on her nose, her hair fallen back over her shoulders. From the seriousness in his expression she hopes she’s finally pushed him past his barriers, until he says, “You don’t tell Yasha we talk about nail polish and all, do you?”

She breaks into a chuckle, shaking her head. “Do you tell Jacen?” she counters.

“I don’t know. Not really.” She makes a face at him and he huffs, “What? Yasha fucked my husband! A lot, I’m told. I kind of have this psychological need to be a bigger man around him.”

“Sweetheart, he’s fucked a lot of people’s husbands. You aren’t so special.”

“You know what I mean. He’s like... like my....”

“He’s not your competition.”

“Not anymore, obviously. But how do I know Jacen isn’t, like, comparing and contrasting us in his head. And they still talk all the time. If Yasha thinks I’m turning into a big sissy and he tells Jacen he made a huge mistake being with me....”

“Liam. You’re being irrational again. What do you care what Yasha thinks about you? And for the record, he loves that we talk about nail polish and he would try to buy that shirt from you if he saw it. I could take a picture with my cell of it right now and send it to him and in seconds he’d be calling to harass you with price offers. What is this really about? Talk to me. That’s why you like to hang out in person like this, right? So come on, I’m here. Spill. Give me details.”

With a sigh, he palms his keys from the counter and says, “Fine. Let’s go over to my place. I need to get cleaned up anyway. We’re meeting Clay at the diner in an hour.”

“We are?”

“Yeah. It’ll make sense once I explain.”

“Okay.”

They cross the hall after locking up the vacant apartment, unlock Liam’s door and head right back to the bedroom once the bolt’s been slid into place. Valery flops down on the bed, sitting cross-legged as Liam goes to the sink in the adjoining bathroom to wet a washcloth. He brings it back to the bed, sits and uses it to clean off paint splatters as they talk.

“The place looks great by the way. Every time I come here it looks homier.”

“Guess it just needed a sissy’s touch to make it a home, huh?” he teases. She nudges him.

“Don’t be so mean to yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s what they keep tellin’ me,” he mutters. “Um. So. What do you want to know?”

“No, uh-uh. That’s not how this works. What do you want to tell me? What’s on your mind?”

Liam shrugs.

“Okay then, let’s start back where we were before. You and Jacen were intimate recently? Was that the first time since...?” She lets it hang there, but sees he needs to hear it so she chooses to finish by saying, “Since the fight?”

“You mean, since I failed to say ‘No’ to him? Yeah. But it wasn’t—” He takes a breath and tries again, scratching nervously at his neck. “I topped him. I haven’t let him touch me that much, and we haven’t, you know, switched. I’m still working up to letting him have that much power over me again.”

“But it was something. And it went well?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was fantastic. Better than fantastic. It was the only time though. In how long?”

“It’s not a contest,” she tells him. “That’s a huge accomplishment, you know. It’s awesome that you guys have gotten that far. Are you happy? Getting along okay?”

“Yeah. To both,” he smiles at her. “It’s been better than ever, really. A lot more, um, honest?”

“So, what’s the problem?”

Liam seems to focus more on the washcloth and his cleaning, tuning out the question. Valery takes the rag from him and his hands finally become still.

“What if there was a part of myself that I still haven’t shown anyone, not even Jacen.” He remembers the nightmare, in a gut-wrenching, cutting flash that’s there and gone. It’s powerful enough to make him wince. “What if I have to make peace with that before things can finally be okay?”

He killed her. Timothy killed her. Ripping and tearing. Or did he? Maybe it was me. Maybe I killed her.

Nonsensically, tears spring to his eyes and he sniffs, hunching forward over himself.

Valery takes his hand, holding it. She gives it a squeeze. “If it’s a part of
you
,” she says. “Then he will love that part as much as the rest.”

“How do you know? How do you know it’ll be okay? What if it’s not, and it ruins everything?”

“It’s okay,” she whispers conspiratorially, like it’s a given, a fact. He just hopes she’s right.

The drive to the diner is a short one. Jacen has the truck as he’s off at work for the day, so Valery takes Liam on her motorcycle. There isn’t much time or ability for conversation, but when they get to the diner, Liam springs a random question on his companion.

They park the bike and tug off their helmets. Liam hangs his on the back and says offhandedly, “Do you ever get jealous of Yasha being with other people?”

Valery blinks at him. “Where’d this come from?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve always wondered. You guys are so committed to each other, and I really admire that. But I can’t work out how you’re okay with him doing that. I mean, hell, I
still
think about when I saw Jacen and Patrick together. It’s like this horror that’s burned in my head and won’t go away. So maybe it’s just my own hang ups.”

She stares at him, thinking this over, trying to figure out what exactly Liam is asking and why. Then she says, slowly, “It’s all about give and take. Balance. Trust. I trust him. And his clients might get to touch him, but they don’t
have
him, you know? Plus, Yasha isn’t the only one that gets to be with other people.”

Liam’s eyes pop. Valery laughs brightly.

“Pshh,” he scoffs. “I knew that. I mean, I
actually
knew that, in, um, never mind.”

Valery keeps giggling. “You don’t hold it against me that I’ve had sex with Jacen but you hold it against Yasha? Double standard, man.”

“Yeah, well....”

“It should be more of an issue with me being with people, shouldn’t it? I don’t even have the excuse of it bringing in income.”

“Hmm, I hadn’t exactly thought of it that way.”

“It’s not the lifestyle for everyone. But it works for us.” She smiles up at him and adjusts her glasses. He smiles back and pulls her in for a hug, nearly swallowing her up with his arms given their size difference.

“Yeah, I love you too. Come on, ya big softie,” she says.