Pieces Read online

  Patrick? It’s Josh. Can we talk?

  He stared at the message for several heartbeats. Almost wanting to ignore it. Pretend he didn’t see it. Was he ready to deal with Josh?

  On instant message? he typed.

  No, I just wanted to be sure you were home and I could come over to talk.

  The house phone rang.

  Patrick rose and walked the few steps to the phone. He knew who it would be, so he said, “Yeah, I’m home. You can come.”

  “I’ll be over in a few. Bye.”

  He wondered if he would need a stiff drink. After these last two weeks with silence, Patrick hadn’t thought to hear from Josh. Eddie had said he was miserable, but well, he still had no clue what to expect from Josh when he arrived. His stomach twisted in knots, he hoped it was what he wanted to hear.

  Chapter 8

  Josh took a deep breath and knocked on Patrick’s door. There’d be no going back after tonight, no matter what the end result was. He’d thought long and hard about it before asking to see Patrick. And now…here he was.

  It might be a bit dramatic, but his life would be forever changed one way or another after tonight.

  The door opened, but Patrick stood a few feet away in the hall.

  “Hi,” Patrick said, his voice so soft it could have been a whisper on a breeze.

  He looked so damn vulnerable standing there. His sandy hair tousled, his blue-green eyes haunted, dark circles smudged just under the lower lashes. Even his posture was off, hunched a little, almost like he expected Josh to kick him.

  Josh stepped inside, closed the door, and pulled Patrick into his arms in a tight, warm embrace. It was time to act, not think and rethink things.

  Patrick’s arms hung limply at his sides for several awkward heartbeats and Josh almost stepped away. Then Patrick leaned into him, his head resting on Josh’s shoulder and his arms came up to circle around Josh’s waist. Josh closed his eyes and sighed.

  He could be content to stay here holding Patrick all night, but nothing would be resolved between them and he wanted to move forward. No matter what Patrick would decide.

  “Should we go sit down?” he asked, nuzzling the soft hair on the top of Patrick’s head.

  Patrick nodded and pulled away. “Yeah. Do you want anything to drink?”

  “No.” He followed Patrick to the big green leather couch in his living room and sat close enough to Patrick so their knees touched. “How have you been?”

  “Pretty crappy, actually. Alone and sad. Feeling unloved.” Patrick smiled just a little. “I’ve had a few pity parties. I can be rather dramatic sometimes.”

  “Eddie told me he went to see you this afternoon.” Josh fidgeted, feeling unsure now that he was actually faced with talking to Patrick. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want him to bother you.”

  “I know, he told me. It wasn’t a bother. I’m glad he told me about the lawsuit. I wish you didn’t have to go through it.”

  “Yeah, me, too. There’s so much to think about when you buy your own business. It never really occurred to us when we bought the old bar we’d have to face this. I’m sorry for the victims and their families though. The situation is bad for everyone.”

  Patrick looked down at his folded hands. “I went to Andrew’s grave today.”

  Josh blinked. “You did?”

  “I think, maybe, you’re right and I should talk to someone. I’m going to call tomorrow.”

  Without really giving himself a chance to resist, Josh reached for Patrick’s hand and linked their fingers. “I think that’s great. I’d even go with you if you think it will help.”

  “You will?”

  “Yes. Patrick, these past two weeks I’ve done a lot of thinking about us. About our future and our past. I know I haven’t been very open to a real relationship with anyone, really, let alone you. I’d like to change that.”

  “Why?”

  Josh hadn’t expected that question and he just stared at Patrick. What? He didn’t know how to answer without screwing up.

  “I’ve been thinking, too. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

  Josh opened his mouth to reply, but Patrick held up his other hand.

  “Let me finish. I fell in love with you in high school. I know, probably some people would say it was just a teenaged crush or puppy love or whatever. I just know when we met in high school I never wanted to be with anyone else. That summer my dreams came true or I thought so.”

  Patrick tried to pull his hand out of Josh’s grasp, but he wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t going to get to pull away from Josh. He would have his say, too, when Patrick finished.

  “You were my first time. Did you know that?” Patrick asked softly.

  Josh swallowed the lump that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach to rise up in his throat. “I thought…maybe, but you seemed to know what you were doing, so I wasn’t sure.”

  He nodded. “It burned, but it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.” Patrick looked away. “I’d been using some toys.”

  “I’m glad I was your first,” Josh said, and he meant it. He liked the idea Patrick hadn’t given himself to some jerk in his class.

  “I wasn’t yours though, was I?”

  It was Josh’s turn to look away, unable to meet those too knowing eyes. He wasn’t proud of the way he used to be about sex. Before and after Patrick. “Keep in mind I was a year ahead of you. I’d been out of high school a year before you.”

  “I know.”

  “In my senior year there was a guy a bit older than me a few houses down. We started experimenting. When I finished high school and turned eighteen we started having full sex. He moved away long before our night together. But there were others after him and before you.”

  Patrick sighed. “Yeah, well, I knew I didn’t matter to you the way you mattered to me. We were high, I kissed you. You just weren’t with it enough to stop me or you just were horny enough not to care. I was naive, maybe, thinking too much like a girl. I don’t know. I thought it meant we were together so the next morning when you rejected me—”

  “I didn’t reject you,” Josh protested, finally releasing Patrick’s hand to run his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t know what to think. No one had ever wanted more from me than sex.”

  “I thought you made it pretty clear I wasn’t your boyfriend.” Patrick blew out a breath.

  He winced, remembering how startled he’d been when Patrick called himself Josh’s boyfriend. Josh had laughed and said he didn’t have or want a boyfriend. “I was an ass. I’m sorry.”

  “You can’t pretend to feel something you don’t feel, Josh. I know that better than anyone. That’s really my point here.”

  “What is?”

  “When you didn’t want me I turned to Andrew. He was my best friend and I needed him. But the problem was I didn’t know he loved me. The entire time I was with Andrew he loved me and I loved you. You thought I was trying to replace Andrew with you because you reminded me of him. The truth was the other way around.”

  Josh didn’t know what to say other than the truth. Something he admitted he sometimes seemed to have trouble admitting. “I know.”

  Patrick just stared at him, his eyes unfathomable and a bit watery.

  “About a year before his suicide, Andrew came to see me to tell me he was tired of competing with me. I told him he was nuts.” Josh grimaced at his own choice of words. “He said he’d never been who you wanted.”

  “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I thought he was wrong, for one thing. I just thought you were having maybe some trouble and you’d work it out. Even if he wasn’t wrong about your feelings, what could I have done? You two were together.”

  “And it wasn’t as though you felt anything for me beyond friendship.” Patrick nodded, looking so damn sure he knew what he was talking about. He had it all figured out. “I should have ended my relationship with Andrew a long time ago. Or better yet, never begun it. It was unfai
r to him. I hurt him over and over.”

  “I never realized until Andrew talked to me that things weren’t great between you,” Josh said softly. His hand moved to Patrick’s knee, closed over it, wanting even that simple contact. “I thought you two had a great relationship. Everyone did.”

  “The fight we had that last time…we were making love and I said your name. And it wasn’t the first time. I used to do it a lot when we first got together. I fought it all the time and it had gotten better. I thought…” Patrick’s eyes now filled with unshed tears. “I can’t help but think I drove him to take his life.”

  “But, honey, you didn’t.” Josh’s heart twisted, seeing Patrick in so much pain and doubt. He scooted even closer to Patrick and put his arm around the other man’s shoulder. “No one can cause someone else to take their own life. That was Andrew’s decision alone. I’m sorry he made it and no one could help him. We all have our guilt over not seeing he needed that kind of help. But you are not responsible in any way.”

  “I didn’t love him the way he needed.”

  “I know you cared about him. You wouldn’t have stayed with him as long as you did without love. Andrew made choices, too. You never forced him into the relationship and, knowing how you felt, he decided to stay. And anyway, I doubt it was any one thing that sent him over the edge. I think he was in a lot of pain and he just didn’t want to feel it anymore.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit. People that kill themselves leave nothing but messes behind and loved ones who never understand.” Patrick leaned closer still and swung his legs over Josh’s on the sofa.

  Josh nodded. “I know. I don’t understand someone killing themselves either. What I do know, is it wasn’t your fault. Or anyone’s.”

  Patrick held Josh’s hand. “I don’t want that to happen to me. I can’t let it.”

  “It won’t. God, I won’t let it.” Josh turned his face upward. “Never.”

  His eyes glistening, Patrick shook his head. “We can’t be together.”

  Josh’s heartbeat faltered. For a second, time stopped and the room went still and the only sound he heard was his blood pounding in his ears. The hurt from Patrick’s words was so piercing, he could barely force a word out. “What?”

  “I love you, Josh. I always have and I always will, but I can’t be with someone who doesn’t love me as much as I love them. I won’t put myself in a situation like that where my partner doesn’t share my feelings. If nothing else came from Andrew’s death, I now realize life is too short not to love with your whole heart and deserve it in return.”

  The pieces of his heart that had shattered at Patrick’s words reconnected. Josh smiled and cupped Patrick’s jaw in his hand. “Patrick, I love you.”

  His lover stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “I’ve loved you for a long time. I think some part of me loved you the first time I saw you in the quad at high school with that butterfly backpack slung over your shoulder. I didn’t really think about it, even when we got together that night in the summer. You shocked the hell out of me with your assumptions that we were together. I didn’t even have time to process it and I acted like an ass and you ran.” Josh sighed. “Straight into Andrew’s arms.”

  “But—”

  Josh stopped his words with a quick kiss. “My turn. I wanted to talk to you, tell you I was sorry for acting like a jerk, maybe take things a little slow, and then I saw you with your arms all over Andrew, kissing him and being with him. I couldn’t tell you anything then. I just decided you never really wanted me anyway, you wanted him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Patrick whispered.

  Josh smiled. “You were always one to act rashly. It drives me a bit crazy but I love that part of you just as much as the rest of you. These last two weeks I did a lot of thinking, and I knew I wanted to be with you and make us work. I don’t know what I was waiting for.”

  “Probably because you did believe I wanted Andrew. I don’t know why I said his name that night you brought me home. Maybe it was because of what that night represented for me.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going to waste another minute of our lives wondering about the past. Even the past of a few weeks ago. I want the future and I want it with you. Please say you still want that, too.”

  Patrick shook as he pulled back just a bit from Josh. “Yes.”

  “You do?” He needed to hear the words.

  “I do. More than anything.”

  Josh leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on his jaw and a longer one on his mouth. “I want to spend the night making love to you.”

  Patrick grinned. “The whole night? Did you take some extra stamina pills?”

  “Ha ha. Well, maybe not the entire night, but I sure as hell intend to try.” Josh stood and pulled Patrick up with him. “You go strip and get into bed. I’ll be there in a second.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Josh winked. “You’ll see. Lie on your stomach.”

  * * * *

  Patrick lay on the mattress in his bedroom waiting for his lover. He blew out a shaky breath, still stunned by the turn of events.

  Josh loves me.

  His heart, every part of him felt light. Lighter than he had in years.

  Biting his lip, he leaned up on his elbows and looked back toward the doorway. The air was chilly enough goose bumps had appeared on his bare skin. He reached for the sheet he had earlier pushed aside to cover himself.

  “Drop it,” Josh ordered coming into the room.

  “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

  “No way. Can’t you tell?”

  Patrick could indeed see Josh’s tented slacks. Since his own erection pressed painfully against the mattress beneath him, he wiggled a little in anticipation. “Get to it.”

  Josh laughed. “Bossy.” He set a wadded up wash cloth on the nightstand and shrugged out of his shirt and pants in less than a minute.

  His mouth watering, Patrick nearly swallowed his tongue as he stared at Josh’s bulging biceps and rippling abs. He reached out to touch as Josh knelt on the bed, his hard cock jutting toward him, a drop of pre-cum pearled on the tip.

  “Not so fast.” Josh moved away to snag his wash cloth.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see. Or feel. Close your eyes.”

  Patrick gazed at his lover suspiciously, but smiled and closed his eyes. He waited, feeling Josh moving behind him, toward his legs and ass. He waited to hear the rip of the condom packet or the slosh of lube.

  Instead, a drop of ice cold water fell on the crease of his ass. He shivered. “What?”

  “Shh.” Josh chuckled as another cold drop fell followed by two more.

  “Oh, my God, that’s fucking cold.”

  “It’s a melting ice cube.”

  Patrick groaned. “Bastard.”

  Josh’s wet fingers stroked along the crease where the water had recently dropped, his finger slipping inside Patrick’s hole. Then the knuckles of his other hand brushed across Patrick’s cheek before he turned to rub ice along the cheek.

  “Josh!”

  But his lover just laughed again, pressing the ice cube down his spine, the ice turning to water as the heat from his bare skin dissolved it. Patrick snuck his hand under his body and grasped his hard shaft.

  Josh’s tongue trailed down the same path as the ice, warming the cool wet skin. Patrick spread his legs, raising up just a little to stroke more of himself and to give Josh even better access to his entrance.

  Patrick trembled as the ice trailed down the crease and pushed into his hole, sliding in and out. He moaned, turning his face into the pillow. The ice disappeared to be replaced by Josh’s warm, moist tongue slipping in just past the ring of muscle. The tongue was soon joined by a finger.

  And then Josh was flipping him over onto his back, barely giving him time to breath. His lover winked and hiked Patrick’s leg far up onto his shoulders and dove into his entrance once more with his
tongue.

  He rose up, pushing himself against Josh’s probing tongue. His hand temporarily stilled on his own cock as he focused solely on the sensations Josh created with the sweetest damn tongue ever.

  Patrick used his other hand to swirl his finger around his nipples, sometimes pinching the sensitive buds. “God, Josh, please. Fuck me.”

  But Josh ignored him and continued laving at his hole, sticking a second finger inside. After several thrusts to loosen Patrick up, Josh withdrew and scooted up Patrick’s body, lowering his face next to his lover.

  “Love you,” Josh whispered pressing his lips to Patrick’s.

  “I love you, too.” Patrick closed his hand over the back of Josh’s head and drew him down for a longer, deeper kiss, joining their tongues together. His pulse racing, his hand dipped between their bodies to stroke Josh’s cock.

  “Ah, Lord, you’re killing me.” Josh tore his mouth away and reached into the nightstand next to the bed for a condom and lube. He leaned up on his haunches and rolled on the latex.

  Patrick reached for him.

  Josh pushed his hands away. “Hold on,”

  He shook his head and reached for the lube. Sloshing some all over his hand, he slid it up and down Josh’s covered cock. Patrick couldn’t wait any longer, he wanted Josh pounding away inside him.

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” Josh said, laughing. He grabbed the lube and squished out the cool liquid and spread it inside Patrick’s entrance. Bending Patrick’s legs, Josh pushed inside him.

  “Yes.” Patrick gasped, welcoming the full feeling of Josh sliding deep into him. His hard cock slapping against his abdomen, he closed his hand over it and jerked himself to the rhythm of Josh’s thrusts.

  Closing his eyes, he met each pump of Josh’s cock with a push back, harder and faster, drawing Josh in deeper. His balls drew tight as his fingers moved to roll them in his palm. His orgasm thrummed just below the surface, pulsing his erection. He rubbed it roughly.

  “Ah, Josh,” he yelled as his release poured from him.

  Josh groaned and thrust deep into him, shuddering through his own orgasm.

  A little while later, Patrick laid his head on Josh’s chest. He could barely believe this was real. Josh loved him. From now on it wouldn’t be him, but them.