Page 47 of Fire
“I’m sorry,” I say, mournfully.” I started it.”
“Evan.” Luca picks my hand up in his. “If it was anybody’s fault, it was mine. I shoulda known, the way I feel about— that, that scene could get out of control. I should have been more prepared for how it intense it became.”
“What do you mean?”
“We had no safe words set up between us. This morning, I was worried I could have hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” I hurry to assure him.
“Good.” He squeezes my hand. “But I’m not sure about that. I think afterward you were experiencing sub drop, and as your partner, it’s my job to keep that from happening.”
Two words stand out in Luca’s sentence. First of all, sub drop. I knew what it meant. As a gay man with a stash of several genres of MM romances on my Kindle, I’d read about the kink scene, but with only a bland collection of college and Grindr hookups, who I’d never trust to put me in fuzzy handcuffs; I’d never thought it would ever apply to me. And then, Luca’s use of the word partner. It made my heart clench.
“Next time?—”
“You want there to be a next time?”
Luca’s eyes smolder as he stares at my mouth, and I wonder if he’s remembering last night. “Definitely, if it’s something you would like to happen again.”
“I would,” I tell him. “But…”
“You can tell me.”
“I want that again,” I tell him, almost squirming at the idea of experiencing that again with Luca. Of giving myself so completely to him again. “But, not all the time.” Luca and I havecome together in so many different ways and different moods, I don’t want one way exclusively over any other. They’re all incredible.
Luca smiles. “I feel the same way. I just want us to be prepared next time it goes to a kinkier space so you’re protected.”
And in that sentence, my mind focuses on the word next time. If Luca isn’t careful about the way he’s throwing that word about, I’m gonna start believing we have a lot of next times between us.
Luca’s phone rings. “It’s Grave,” he announces, which is pretty normal as he usually calls every day with insider updates from Archie Hendrix on whichever new indictment is being handed down against the Reivers.
They chat for a minute, and then Luca’s face freezes. He listens a bit more then hangs up the phone.
I know what that phone call was about.
“When?” I ask, not sure if I can manage not choking on any longer of a sentence.
“Your lawyer told Hendrix you need to be in Chicago on Monday to meet with the FBI,” Luca tells me, his voice neutral.
I look at him. There’s no reaction on his face to the news either.
Of course, there’s not. For Luca, all this news means is he’ll be taking Yogi and together they’ll be finding hisnext place on the map.
I pull my hand from his and stand up. “Guess I’d better start packing,” I say.
I’d known this was coming, I remind myself. Don’t let it ruin the two days you have left with him.
But it hurts even more than I thought it would, and I’m having a really hard time acting like I’m not destroyed and heartsick in this one-room cabin that offers no place to hide.
Fortunately, Luca didn’t protest when I asked him to leave me behind for the morning walk with Delilah and Yogi. It gives me time to work on the mask I need to put on for him. I also need to do something I’m not good at.
“I pick up the phone and select a name of my short contacts list. It rings endlessly and I decide to hang up.It’s probably for the best.
“Bestie,” Dream’s voice comes over the phone, the sound of a musical playing in the background — maybe Westside Story.
“I need a friend,” I blurt into the phone, and try not to hang up with the expectation that Dream will laugh at me for having the nerve to call him my friend.
“It’s about time, Dream says. “I’ve been waiting for your call since our dinner together. “What do you need from me, love?”
