Second Wind Read online

  Rush, unaware of the hateful look the operator gave us, scrambled to follow me. He was talking a mile a minute about flying like an eagle and that I was a much cooler superhero than Superman. “Hey! Wait up! Are you mad at me, Linc?”

  I was trying to get as far away from the hateful man as fast as I could, but I didn’t stop to realize how it might look to Rush. I jerked to a stop so he could catch up to me. “I could never be mad at you, Rush. I just didn’t like that creepy guy.”

  “Forget about him,” Rush said, shrugging. He threw his arms around me, hugging me tightly. He was always so giving with his affection, but never quite like that day at the carnival. I knew by the look the guy gave me that I shouldn’t like Rush hugging me, but I liked it a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days afterward and decided I would find ways to earn daily hugs to go with those smiles.

  “It sounds like you have an excellent plan, baby girl. Daddy and I approve. Right, Linc?” Ophelia asked, nudging me.

  I blinked back to the present, but the first thing I saw was Grayson and Chase Wright smiling at me from the computer screen. I hadn’t let myself think about Rush in a long time, but it seemed like what could have been flooded my brain at seeing the picture of the happy gay couple.

  “Absolutely,” I said to both of my girls. “Kennedy, I’m going to miss you like crazy, but you make Mom and me proud every single day. We love you, kitten.”

  “I love you guys too. Talk later.” I sat there looking at the phone for a minute after Kennedy disconnected.

  “Honey, are you sure you’re okay?” Phee asked, running her hand over the back of my hair. I leaned into her touch as I had been doing for more than two decades. She was my comfort zone, my safe place. She deserved so much more than I could ever give her.

  I tipped my head back and looked up at her. “Just disappointed. I’ll be fine though.”

  Phee leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. She never let on if she noticed the lack of spark between us, but how could she not? “I have some calls to make before we leave.” She looked at the watch on her slim wrist. “Give me an hour?”

  “Sure,” I said nodding.

  Sadness filled my heart as I watched her walk away. My life is good. I’m happy. We’re happy. I repeated it in my head over and over, doing my damnedest to convince myself that it was true.

  The memory of smiling green eyes and joyful laughter mocked me and called me a liar.

  I looked at my watch once more. Dammit, Travis. Where the fuck are you?

  “Mr. Holden, would you like me to pour you another glass of wine to enjoy while you wait for Mr. Dennison to arrive?”

  “Just bring me the bottle, Walter. I’m not driving.”

  “Right away, sir.” The kind, silver-haired man offered me a small smile before he left the table to retrieve the bottle of wine. Thankfully, I only saw sympathy and not pity in his smile because there was only room enough for one at my pity party.

  “And more bread,” I called after him. Why the fuck should I care if I ate too many carbs? Would Travis even notice if I gained weight? He sure as hell couldn’t find time in his busy schedule to meet me for dinner. I’d made the reservations six months in advance and had been looking forward to the night. Apparently, I was the only one.

  “Here you go,” Walter said when he returned to the table. “I’ll check back to take your order when Mr. Dennison arrives.”

  “You know what? I’m just going to order now,” I told him. “I’m starving, and I don’t feel like waiting any longer, Walter.”

  My favorite waiter looked momentarily stunned but blinked away his surprise to take my order. “Of course, sir. What will you have tonight?”

  “I’ll have the filet, medium rare, with sautéed onions, mushrooms, and risotto.”

  “Excellent choice,” Walter said. “I’ll have that out to you soon. Would you like an appetizer while you wait?”

  “Fried calamari,” I told him. Go big, or go home.

  I glanced around the restaurant and noticed how pretty the twinkling, white Christmas lights and elegant decorations looked. Christmastime in Chicago was pure magic, which was reflected in the smiling couples and laughing friends dining all around me. I instantly regretted checking out my surroundings because it made me realize just how lonely I’d become. I could’ve called Travis’s assistant, Sylvia, and asked her to remind him that he was late for our reservation, as I had done too many times to count over the past few years, but I would’ve been just as lonely if he’d shown up for dinner. I just wouldn’t have looked as pathetic.

  I glanced at the overpriced watch he bought me for my birthday last year and saw that he was forty minutes late. Fuck! I hated waiting. It gave me too much time to think, and thinking about my past was all I seemed to do since I gave Racheal the bike for her birthday the previous spring. Waiting for Travis reminded me of all the times I waited for Lincoln to finish football, basketball, or baseball practice so he could hang out with me. I waited to see his smile and hear his laughter. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  My entire life, it seemed like I’d waited for someone to arrive or something bad to happen. Growing up in eastern Tennessee in the eighties, I was at the mercy of the world around me. One slip and I would’ve lost everything I loved, including my home. There was no way in hell Butch Holden would allow a gay son to live under his roof. The words written in his precious bible were more important to him than Jules or I ever were. According to Butch, homosexuality was a sin, and he didn’t tolerate sin in our home. I shudder to think what he would’ve done to me. Homelessness would’ve been the kindest form of punishment.

  So, I waited for fate to deal me a cruel blow. I waited for my parents to reject me. I waited to be bullied in school and scoffed at by my teachers. Worst of all, I waited for Lincoln to miss me as I had missed him. I didn’t know what happened to cause the rift between us, but it was there. One minute we were best friends, and the next thing I knew, he didn’t have time for me anymore. I became a distant memory in junior high once he became king of the gridiron and discovered girls.

  I knew that Lincoln would never love me the way I loved him, but I at least wanted to be his best friend again. I missed the sleepovers where we stayed up playing video games until the wee hours of the morning and the campouts in the back yard where we read comic books by the glow or our flashlights. I hated that I was no longer the first person he told his secrets to, hell, he didn’t even acknowledge my existence once we hit high school. I wish I could’ve avoided him altogether, but he sat behind me in homeroom. Every morning, I kept my eyes on my desk and willed my body not to shake when he walked by me. I would catch a whiff of the soap he used in the shower that morning, and it was all I could do not to sniff the air. Fuck, why did he have to smell so damn good? I just wanted to nestle under his armpit and feel the weight of his arm around me again.

  I hadn’t realized how much of my happiness was built around Lincoln until he was gone. He might’ve been physically present, but he was emotionally closed off to me. The joyful gleam in his eyes was gone, and he only aimed that crooked smile at the cheerleaders. The last fond memory I had of us together was the sleepover we had at my house. My mom had made a big deal of us boys going into junior high and insisted that we celebrate the end of an era while welcoming in another. If I’d known that it would be the last time Linc would willingly spend time with me, I would’ve done things differently. I would’ve cuddled into the side of him longer because he didn’t seem to mind it. Maybe I would’ve stayed awake longer to watch him sleep while fantasizing about feeling his soft lips against mine. Did he know how I felt about him? Did he see the way he made my pulse race? Did he know that those little accidental touches weren’t an accident at all? Was he disgusted by me?

  That had to be it, but what could I do about it? How did a sixteen-year-old boy apologize to another sixteen-year-old boy for loving him? How awkward would it be that I waited four lonely years to approach him? Would he under
stand that it took that long for me to find the courage to seek him out after he shut me out of his life? Linc had always been the one to motivate me to take on the things that scared me, but this time, just talking to him was the thing that scared me. How would I even start the conversation? Did I assure him that I was just confused and it wouldn’t happen again? Lincoln wasn’t stupid; he’d see right through my bullshit apology and know the truth. He’d know that I loved him. What then? Would he tell my parents? Would he make fun of me in front of all the kids? I didn’t know, but I was desperate to have him back in my life and had to try something.

  I knew where to find him after school. I hid beneath the bleachers on the visitor’s side of the field and watched practice. Did I approach him afterward when they walked back up to the school to shower? No, that would look weird in front of the team. I sure as hell wasn’t going to approach him inside the locker room and risk my body reacting to his partially clad or naked body. I ended up waiting for him in the hallway outside the locker room.

  I slid down the wall to sit on the cold linoleum floor, but I needed the chill to keep me from getting overheated when I couldn’t stop my overactive imagination from running wild with images of Linc in the shower, soaping up his body. I tried to think of the math homework I had waiting for me or the essay I had to write for English lit, but it didn’t work. Nothing was going to stop me from popping wood right there in the hallway outside the boys’ locker room.

  I closed my eyes then begged and prayed to anyone who would listen to spare me from humiliation. My answered prayer came in the form of the two players coming out of the locker room carrying on a conversation they hadn’t intended for me to overhear.

  “Did you hear that Jana let Lincoln touch her tits beneath her bra?” Skip Hastings asked.

  “He’s so lucky,” Joey Baughman said. “How long before she lets him—Oh, hey, Rush! Didn’t know you were out here,” he said, jerking to a stop. “Are you waiting for your dad?”

  I couldn’t let on how badly the guys had hurt me with their words. How would I explain bursting into tears? “Uh, yeah. I stayed late to work on a project and needed a ride home.” I needed a ride home all right, but not because of any sanctioned after-school activity. My dad definitely wouldn’t have approved of the thoughts I’d had about Linc in the shower.

  “He won’t be too much longer,” Skip said.

  “See ya around,” Joey tossed over his shoulder as they walked away from me.

  “See ya,” I returned with a casualness I didn’t feel. Being forced to fake everything from me being straight to them being kind had its advantages. The football players didn’t like me, but they were decent to me out of respect for my dad. All of that would change if they learned the truth.

  “She’s going to give it up to him. I know it,” Skip said when he thought they were out of earshot.

  I waited long enough for them to turn the corner at the end of the hallway before I shot to my feet and ran the opposite direction toward the door that accessed the staff parking lot. I paced alongside my dad’s car while trying to calm myself down, but I couldn’t get my emotions under control before my dad came out. My ability to fake it had suddenly abandoned me, and I knew I had to get as far away from everyone as I could.

  Instead of waiting, I hitched my backpack on my shoulders and started to jog home. I knew my dad would see me once he finally left the school, but I decided to worry about an excuse then. I just needed to clear my head from all the clutter inside it and running was the only thing that helped. My inability to play football was a huge disappointment to my dad, but he had high hopes that I’d be a state champ in cross country or track and field.

  I hadn’t made it very far down the rural road before the overcast sky opened up and released a torrent of rain on top of me. I wanted to shake my fist at the universe and curse the sky, but I didn’t waste the energy. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, listening to the pounding of my heart and the slapping sounds the soles of my sneakers made against the pavement. I was so focused on those things that I didn’t hear my dad’s car approaching until it was right beside me.

  I got the shock of my young life when I stopped and turned to my dad’s Buick. Lincoln was sitting in the passenger seat staring at me with a gaping mouth and wide eyes that slowly roamed up my chest until they locked on mine. I saw a desperation and wildness in his dark eyes that I didn’t understand. The window in front of Lincoln’s mouth started to fog up from his hot breath, and the rain fell faster, distorting his image through the rain streaming over the glass.

  My dad honked the horn, snapping me out of my daydream. I jerked the rear door open and climbed in behind Lincoln. “What the hell are you doing, Rush? Are you trying to make yourself sick?”

  “I didn’t know it was going to rain. I just thought I’d treat the jog home as training for cross country.”

  “It’s November, Rush. Where in the hell is your coat? Your mama is going to kill us both.”

  Hearing about Lincoln and Jana destroyed me to the point that I didn’t realize I left the school without a jacket.

  “At least it’s unusually warm outside. Makes for some great football, right, Linc?” my dad asked.

  “Yes, Coach,” Lincoln answered in a voice barely above a whisper. Why did he sound so breathless, strangled even?

  “I’m not sure how you can be so damn book smart but completely lack common sense like putting on a jacket when it’s cold, son.” My dad chuckled like he was saying something funny instead of insulting me. “But the perfect solution came to me just now, Lincoln.”

  I was staring at the back of Linc’s head, so I saw him stiffen. “What’s that, Coach?”

  “You need serious help in math, and my son is a math whiz,” my dad said cheerfully. “Starting tonight, Rush is going to tutor you in math until you get your grades up. One more shitty grade in that class and I’ll be forced to bench you until you get your grade up. That would pretty much be the end of our season, Linc. We could kiss our dreams of a state championship goodbye.” The pressure on my former best friend was so heavy that I don’t know how he kept from bowing beneath the weight of it all.

  “Um, yeah,” Lincoln said hesitantly. “If that’s okay with Rush.”

  “Of course it’s okay with Rush,” my dad scoffed. “I think it was a blessing that your parents weren’t able to pick you up today. You can call your mom at work when we get to our house and let her know that you’re staying for dinner and studying with Rush.” He didn’t even bother to check if it was something I wanted to do. He’d made his mind up, and the two of us were to obey him without question.

  “Yes, sir,” Lincoln said.

  My father was too busy congratulating himself to notice how unhappy Linc sounded. That hurt way more than hearing about him with Jana. He couldn’t help it if he didn’t like me the way I liked him. I understood that much, but I couldn’t comprehend why Linc hated me so much.

  I chewed my bottom lip the rest of the way home to keep from crying and went straight upstairs to take a shower and warm up. Only in the privacy of the shower did I silently release the tears of sorrow, heartache, and regret, pressing a washcloth to my face to muffle the sound of me crying. I wasn’t in there long before Jules knocked on the door and told me that dinner would be ready in ten minutes.

  I shut the water off, wrapped a towel around my waist, and headed to my bedroom. At least I’d have a few more minutes of quiet in the sanctuary of my room to pull myself together before I had to go downstairs and face my family and Lincoln. When I opened my bedroom door, Lincoln rose off my bed and stared at me with wide eyes. His mouth fell open, and a soft sigh escaped his mouth.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  Not that long ago, it was his favorite place in my house. It was our little refuge from the world. Suddenly, the room didn’t seem big enough for both of us. I couldn’t understand why Lincoln kept raking his eyes over my chest and bare legs peeking out from beneath
the towel.

  “Rush,” he whispered raggedly. What I saw in his dark gaze snatched the air from my lungs. It wasn’t disgust that had kept Lincoln away from me. It was fear. The same fear of discovery that I’d battled the past few years.

  “Here you go, Mr. Holden,” Walter said, setting the deep-fried calamari on the table. “Anything else?”

  It took me a few moments before I was back in my favorite restaurant with Walter instead of my old bedroom with Lincoln. “This looks great, Walter. Thank you.”

  I savored the calamari followed by my entrée, sipped wine, and ordered dessert for one to go. It was nearly eight o’clock when the Lyft driver dropped me off in front of the home I shared with Travis. All the lights were off, which meant he hadn’t made it home yet either. A good man would worry about his partner’s safety when he was more than two hours late for a celebration dinner, but I was too angry to worry. It wasn’t the first time he’d left me high and dry and humiliated by his callousness. I just wasn’t sure what, if anything, I was going to do about it.

  I put my dessert in the refrigerator, stripped naked, and took a hot shower. As always, my cock responded to the touch of my hand, which was about the only action it had seen lately. Why deny myself pleasure? I closed my eyes and let my fantasies fly, stroking my cock fast and slow, hard and teasing until I was right on the verge of climax. Just as I was about to shoot, Travis jerked back the shower curtain. He stood there fully dressed in his five-thousand-dollar suit and his eyes zeroed in on my hands.

  I didn’t bother to stop. I closed my eyes and went back to the dark-eyed stranger in my fantasy, not caring that my partner was watching. I could feel Travis’s annoyance radiating from him, and it only made me hornier.

  “What are you doing, Rush?”

  In my head, a dark, deep voice said, “Come for me, Rush.”

  And I did. Loud and proud as I spurted cum all over the shower floor. Once the last drop fell from my slit, I turned and looked into Travis’s eyes. “That was my anniversary sex.”