Dwayne hooded his gaze and moved so he was within kissing distance. But he didn’t kiss. He kept very still and whispered, “Relax.”

  After a moment, and having to lick his lips a few times, Eric managed a faint “Okay.” And Dwayne eased back.

  It was better after that. Marginally, because now Eric wondered about the grip and Dwayne’s almost-but-not-quite threatening demeanor and why it simultaneously turned him on and calmed him down.

  Once they’d paid for fish, vegetables Eric didn’t even recognize, and a bag of brown rice, and had walked the half block back to his apartment, he was edging back toward nervous. “So.” He drew in a deep breath. “You don’t really strike me as the Valentine’s type.”

  They were walking up the two flights of stairs to his floor because he’d noticed the way Dwayne eyed the elevator doors with the whites of his eyes showing. Eric just sauntered on past and led the way to the stairwell without saying anything.

  “I’m not.” Dwayne sounded growly, almost sullen.

  “But Angel is.” Eric knew his best friend went all out for Marianne on this romantic holiday even if he didn’t particularly pay much heed to the pressure of commercialism. Eric had never really had a partner he cared to shower with chocolate and flowers. He glanced over at Dwayne, who concentrated on his feet stomping up the concrete steps. The sight sent a jolt of concern through him. Something was bothering Dwayne enough to smother his normally vibrant personality.

  “They’re getting married,” Dwayne blurted as they arrived at the top of the second flight.

  “What?” Eric paused in his reach for the door.

  “He’s asking her tonight. That’s why he wanted me out. I mean, it was coming, right? How long have they been together? And they’re still stupid crazy about each other. He showed me the ring and everything.” Dwayne shrugged. “She’ll say yes.”

  “She will.” Eric couldn’t figure out why that would bother Dwayne. Angel making a life for himself was what Dwayne wanted, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he already proved that?

  Dwayne seemed to shake himself as he lifted his head. “Never mind. I hope it’s all terrible and romantic and fucking fantastic. She’ll cry, he’ll laugh, they’ll fumble with the ring, and then they’ll have sex on the dining room table.”

  “Eww. See? Visual I didn’t need,” Eric muttered as he pulled the door open and held it for Dwayne. He stepped through behind him and stopped cold. “Jack.”

  Dwayne stopped too, glanced back at him, and took a step closer. It almost felt like a protective gesture, and Eric flashed him a small smile.

  “Who’s Jack?”

  Halfway down the hall, seated cross-legged in front of Eric’s door, a tall man had folded himself in tightly. Sandy hair flopped down in smooth, gentle waves to hide his face. He was turning a Rubik’s cube over in his long, slender fingers. The crackling of the puzzle carried over the hum of a fluorescent light with a worn ballast. “That,” Eric said softly, “is Jack. My older brother.”

  “This a good or bad thing?” Dwayne asked. His voice held a hard edge of reservation, which made Eric glance at him again. His eyes were narrowed, his fists clenched tight around the handles of the bags he carried, making the muscles of his arms bunch and stretch out the fabric of his shirt. There were small signs of tension. His stance was slightly canted and his head on a small tilt to one side. He could pass for relaxed to someone who didn’t know him.

  Eric wasn’t fooled. “Annoying, mostly. Come on. I’ll get rid of him.”

  Dwayne pursed his lips but said nothing, just followed Eric down the hall.

  “Hey.” Eric waited until he was only a few paces away before tossing out the greeting.

  Jack’s head flew up. A brilliant smile lit his face. Because Eric knew him, he could see the smile didn’t reach the rich brown of his eyes. He couldn’t tell exactly what was in those eyes.

  “Hey! Eric! You’re finally home!”

  Eric knew he couldn’t have been sitting here that long. Dwayne had said he had come up here to see him before going to look for him at the diner. He let it go. “I’m home. Jack, this is Dwayne. Dwayne, Jack.”

  Jack scrambled to his feet, grabbing the duffle that sat next to him and slinging it over his shoulder. He held out his hand.

  Dwayne lifted his groceries. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” Jack let his hand fall.

  “What are you doing here, Jack?”

  “What?” Jack moved out of the way so Eric could unlock the door and let them all in. “I can’t come visit my little brother just because?”

  Eric smiled, sure they could both see it didn’t reach his eyes either. “You don’t do things just because,” he pointed out. He kicked off his shoes in the entrance, and Dwayne followed suit as Eric took the bags from him.

  Jack wandered into the main room and rubbernecked. “Nice place you got here, bro.”

  “Thanks. You want to keep it that way and take off your damn shoes?”

  “Oh!” Blinking as if he’d been in a trance, Jack grinned. “Sure.” He slipped them off and left them sitting on the carpet.

  Eric sighed. He wasn’t exactly subtle about kicking them toward the door. “Where’s Allison?”

  Jack stopped his examination of Eric’s tidy apartment at the console by the hallway door. He ran a finger over the tip of a wing on one of the trophies sitting there. A frown creased his smooth, tanned face. “Kenya.” He didn’t look up but squinted at the plaque on the trophy, pretending to read it, as if he hadn’t seen it a thousand times, hadn’t been at the awards ceremony when Eric had won it.

  Eric stared at him. “What?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Jack finally looked up. There was a mixture of annoyance and something—anger, maybe—in his eyes. “Big surprise, right?” He turned his attention to Dwayne. “See, Eric’s the good son. Does everything right, you know? Brings home the smart girls”—he waved at the trophies—“the bling. Me, I’m just a bum, married a socialite who talked me into running off to the third world to medicate lepers.”

  “Allison signed on with Doctors Without Borders,” Eric explained as he began rooting through the bags they’d brought home and unloading the groceries. “So. Good family? Yes. Socialite? Maybe a little more than that.” He shot Jack a glare, but since his brother had his back to him, it didn’t accomplish anything. He looked back to Dwayne, who was watching with that one pierced eyebrow raised. “Dad loved her until he realized she was a radical and was stealing his eldest son out from under him.” He leveled a look at his brother, who ignored it. “What’d you do?”

  Finally Jack met his gaze, an affronted look on his face. “What makes you think it was my fault?”

  “Usually is.”

  “She’s never coming back here,” Jack grumbled.

  Eric couldn’t tell if he was exaggerating or if he really meant she was planning on staying halfway around the world. “So?” He didn’t really see the problem either way. Their parents might not love the idea of them not carrying on the Great American Bullshit, but Jack had always seemed happy to do whatever she wanted, go where she went. Jack might not have a lot of ambition of his own—he might have dropped the family practice and expectations in Eric’s lap without so much as an “oops”—but Eric could not fault his love for his wife.

  “You can’t raise a family in Kenya,” Jack griped.

  “Millions of people do,” Dwayne spoke up. “Every day.”

  Jack just stared at him.

  Eric tensed, wondering if this was going to be one of those times Jack decided to be volatile and pick a fight.

  His brother laughed, nodded, and flopped onto the couch. “No shit.”

  “Jack—”

  Dwayne held up a hand when Eric made a move to approach the lounging man. “Leave him be.”

  “You and I were—”

  Again, Dwayne held up a hand. “He’s family.”

  “Oh no.” Eric pushed Dwayne’s hand down. “He can damn well afford a fucking motel. Jack!”

  “I can cook for three just as easily as two.” Dwayne’s voice remained calm, placid even, as he took over putting the groceries away.

  Eric stood there, a brick of butter in his hand. “But—” It wasn’t exactly the dinner he thought his brother would be hampering.

  The warmth of Dwayne’s fingers soothed over his as he reached for the butter. He didn’t take it right away, and Eric’s gaze shifted from the annoying view of the back of Jack’s head to his friend’s eyes. He had been thinking well beyond dinner, but he couldn’t say it with Jack sitting there, probably listening to every word while he channel surfed.

  Dwayne’s other hand came up and gripped Eric’s wrist as he pried the butter free. “It’s just a number on the calendar,” he said, his voice low. “He’s your brother.”

  This from the man who’d spent so many years behind bars protecting his family. Eric sighed, nodded, and relinquished the butter.

  Dwayne rewarded him with a brilliant smile. “See? Not so bad.”

  Not compared to what he’d done. “Fine.” Eric opened the fridge, stood behind the door while Dwayne leaned in to deposit the butter and a sack of baby carrots. “But after dinner, he goes to a hotel, not you.”

  Another brilliant smile, this one backed by a glitter of promise in Dwayne’s eyes. “Sounds fair to me.”

  Over dinner they got the whole story out of Jack. It amounted to him wanting kids and Allison not being ready. He’d complained he’d left his whole family, everything, behind to be with her. He just wanted to start his own family. And then he’d gone into an almost breathless tirade of their entire argument, which amounted to her saying he wanted kids and a dog and to buy back into the bullshit to prove to his parents he didn’t need their blessing to live the exact life they thought he should live anyway. She said he saw their life panning out as rootless wanderers, delivering medicine to people who had nothing, going places sane people wouldn’t, helping people doctors like their fathers wanted to pretend didn’t exist. So he’d come back. Ostensibly to visit. He wasn’t sure for how long.

  “She’s right,” Dwayne said quietly. He was picking up the dirty plates from the table and carrying them to the kitchen.

  “Well.” Jack grabbed his glass, downed the last of his wine, and went to the kitchen, where he hitched up onto the counter and grabbed a towel. “Thanks for your insight, there, dude, but—”

  “She is.” Eric couldn’t quite believe he was saying it. It would be nice to have Jack back, to take some of the pressure off. First Mom would fold him back into the family, coddle his broken heart. Then Dad would hire expensive lawyers to make sure Allison stayed in Kenya for life, and eventually they’d fix him up with some nice, respectable girl, and he’d have the family he wanted. The dog, the house, the nice stable life he sounded like he craved.

  Eric could beg off the whole doctor thing, could gear his education toward sports medicine and open a physiotherapy clinic, or coach, or do a dozen other things he’d much rather do than wipe privileged kids’ snotty noses and listen to people who should know better complain of slow death by overindulgence.

  But Allison was right. Jack was scared. Following her over there on a whim was one thing. It had been almost three years now, and she wasn’t showing any signs of slowing or wanting anything else. He was frightened. He wanted her and he wanted the nice, stable, fake life they’d grown up with. Eric could see it in his eyes.

  He glanced over at Dwayne, elbow-deep in dishwater. How was Eric any different? He was pretending too. He was afraid of the consequences of speaking out, of taking what he wanted and being proud of who he was. He wanted approval, just like Jack. Now here was Dwayne offering him something else, and for the very first time in his life, he realized he wasn’t sure which he wanted more.

  Jack handed him a dry plate, and he took it, but Jack didn’t let it go. Their eyes met, and Eric flushed. “You going to tell me I’m the only one who’s scared?” Jack asked. His gaze flicked to Dwayne.

  “That’s different.”

  “How, exactly?” Jack let go of the plate and retrieved another from the drainer.

  “Allison is your wife….” Lame.

  Jack snorted.

  Dwayne glanced at him, dark eyes unreadable.

  “It’s not like….” Eric closed his mouth.

  “Not like what, Ekkie?”

  Eric curled his lip. “Don’t call me that.” But the curl turned into a grin and was answered by Jack’s identical one.

  “So, what?” Eric asked. “I should bring home a tattooed, pierced, black boyfriend for Easter dinner and tell them I dropped out of med school to teach underprivileged kids how to dribble a basketball?”

  “Ex-con,” Dwayne said quietly. “You forgot ex-con.”

  Jack’s eyes went wide, his grin wider. “Fuck me, no. You should do it while I’m still in town so I can see their faces!” He sobered almost immediately, though. “And anyway, Eric, teaching less advantaged kids something that keeps them off the streets is a lot more worthwhile than that overpriced practice of Dad’s. I love the guy, but his medicine isn’t exactly what the Hippocratic oath is made of. For that matter, stay in med school. Open your own practice and do something. Something that matters.”

  “A good basketball coach isn’t the only thing those kids need,” Dwayne agreed.

  Eric looked from one to the other of them. Two weeks ago he’d felt himself squeezing into his father’s mold. He’d felt the pinch of the bits that didn’t fit and tried to exorcise them, ignore them, even bad-mouth them in hopes he could banish the sick feeling he was losing himself. His gaze fell on Dwayne. The mold had exploded around him and he was free-floating without a single thing to ground him. Until Dwayne reached over, pulled on his shirt, and kissed him to breathlessness.

  “And on that note….” Jack tossed the towel at them.

  Dwayne caught it without even breaking the lip-lock and used it to wrap around Eric’s waist and pull him closer.

  “Yeah. I’m way out of here.”

  “Mphff!” Eric tried to pull away, but Dwayne gripped the towel in one hand and wrapped the other around the back of his head. Briefly, he got lost in the kiss again, until he heard the door open and he managed to push Dwayne away. “Jack!”

  Dwayne let him go with a grin and a snap of the towel on his ass that made him jump.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Oh. Yes.” Jack gave an exaggerated shudder. “I do. Before the boot-knocking starts.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Not back to Kenya tonight, bro.” He pulled something out of his breast pocket and held it up. “Not to worry. Daddy might be pissed, but he’s still Daddy, gold card and all. I can afford a hotel. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He glanced past Eric to Dwayne. “Afternoon.”

  Chapter Six

  ERIC CLOSED the door after his brother but didn’t turn to face his houseguest right away. He was conscious of the clatter of dishes behind him, the sound of Dwayne humming deep in his chest, and the tingle that remained on his lips from that kiss.

  “Why’d you do that in front of him?” Eric asked. Not that he was really mad. Just a little bit in shock.

  “Got rid of him, didn’t it?” Dwayne continued to wash the dishes and stack them in the drainer.

  Eric turned to watch him work. He was hunched over the sink set in the too low counter, and the thought that if they lived together, they’d need higher counters flashed through his head. Heat washed up through him. Two kisses. Two fantastic, mind-blowing, toe-curling kisses, sure, but he was shacking up with the guy in his head already. That was fast, even for him.

  “Why’d you tell him I was your boyfriend?” Dwayne asked after another quiet minute.

  Why had he said any of that? “I’m sorry. That was pretty insensitive.”

  “Actually”—Dwayne turned, wiping his hands on the towel as the water drained from the sink behind him—“I was more worried you weren’t going to acknowledge me at all.” He met Eric’s gaze, his eyes, for once, not dark and brooding, not flashing sparks of defiance, but a warm brown, clear and open. “I wondered what your brother thought, me here cooking dinner on Valentine’s Day. I wondered what was going through his head. He didn’t comment. I figured either he knew about you and was being polite, or he didn’t and was pretending it wasn’t obvious. I thought you were going to just let it slide. Let the whole thing just be invisible.”

  Eric wandered over to him, pushed his ass back against the edge of the sink, and touched the barbell piercing in the center of Dwayne’s lower lip with one index finger. “You are about the furthest thing from invisible I can imagine, Dwayne Sayer.”

  Dwayne lifted his chin, wrapped his arms around Eric’s waist. “That so?”

  Eric nodded.

  “So….” Dwayne shrugged one shoulder. “What? You just figured he noticed and decided to put it all out there?”

  “I’m sorry.” Eric studied him. “You mad?”

  Dwayne pulled in a deep breath and let it out, a long sigh Eric couldn’t decipher. “Don’t know. Seems like I should be.” He looked into Eric’s eyes. “But then… if it’s true, no harm saying it, right?”

  There was something in his gaze. Some need Eric could only guess at, because he sensed Dwayne was never going to outright ask for whatever it was he wanted.

  Eric nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure you are black somewhere under all that ink,” he said after a minute. He traced a finger over Dwayne’s left eyebrow, feeling the faint ridge of the barbell underneath. “And you’re positively covered in hardware.” He couldn’t resist a little grind of his hips and a glance down at Dwayne’s crotch.

  “Oh, wouldn’t you just like to know, sweetcheeks?”

  “Actually….” This time Eric kissed him, hard, hungrily, feeling with his tongue for the hard, unyielding tongue piercing. Dwayne groaned, pushed his tongue deep, and ran the smooth head of his barbell along the roof of Eric’s mouth. Eric sucked, tasted the odd, metallic tang that made kissing Dwayne unlike kissing anyone he’d ever known before. He pulled away to admire the shine in his partner’s eyes. “Yes. I’m dying to find out.”

 

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