(Blue Notes 2)The Melody Thief (30 page)

“So how’s Massi doing?”

“Great. He’s been teaching me baseball.” Antonio laughed. “I’m terrible at it, but I found a league for him. There are only a few kids, but they play on Sunday afternoons a few miles from the apartment. Some Americans, mostly Italians who like the sport. They’re looking for coaches—Massi’s already volunteered you.”

“I can’t wait. I thought I’d pick up another mitt while I’m here, maybe another bat. Looks like I need to get a mitt for you too.”

“I think you need to teach me to catch first.”

“I miss you,” Cary said in a soft voice.

“It’s only a few more weeks, and we’ll be there with you.”

“It’s what’s keeping me going. That, and my hand.”

“Your…
hand
?” There was a moment of silence, then a chuckle and “Ah, I understand. What do you imagine when you use your hand?”

Cary closed his eyes. “You. Running my hands on your silk shirt, taking your nipples in between my fingers and rolling them around until I hear you moan.” Christ, was he getting hard just saying it? He bit his lower lip as he slid his hand under the waistband of his sweatpants. “I could put my mouth on the fabric and bite at them, get your shirt wet.”

Antonio’s breath was audible through the phone. “And then what?” His voice was huskier than before, and Cary knew he was getting turned on as well.

“Then, when they’re really hard, I’d unbutton your shirt. But I’d leave it on—I like the way the silk feels against my skin. And I’d lick and suck until you begged me for more.”

“More. I like that.”

Cary grasped his cock at the base and pulled up on it until his breath stuttered. “Then I’d unbutton your pants, and I’d scrape your ass with my fingernails. Then I’d take my finger and I’d tease you. I’d wet it and I’d rub it over your hole, not putting it inside.”

“Do I have to beg you?”

“Beg me.”
Oh fuck!
He could imagine Antonio’s skin, imagine that tight opening.

“Put your finger inside of me. Please.”

“I’d put my finger inside of you while I took your beautiful cock in my hand. I’d make it wet, and I’d slide my fist up and down, over the top. I’d tease your slit with my thumb.”

“What then?”

Cary wondered if Antonio was stroking himself the same way he was. “I’d stick another finger in and stretch you so it hurt, just a little. But it’d feel so good you’d beg me to put another in.”

“Please. Put another inside of me. Please.”

“I’d put another in and keep stretching you, making you open to me. Then I’d make you lie down so I could see your ass better. And then I’d spread you wide so I could lick you.”

“Oh God, Cary,” Antonio growled. “You’re going to make me come like this!”

Cary continued to rub and pull at himself. After nearly two years together, he still found few things sexier than hearing Antonio speak Italian. And
this
Italian—it didn’t get better than this. “I’m going to lick your hole and suck until you can’t stand it anymore. Then I’m going to stick my tongue inside of you and taste you. And when I do, I’m going to rub myself. Not too much. I don’t want to come yet, because when I finish, I’m going to fuck you.”

“Fuck me. Oh, caro, I want you to fuck me.”

It wasn’t often Antonio bottomed, mostly because Cary preferred it that way, but Cary could hear the raw need in Antonio’s voice. Damn, but he wished he were there!

“I’m lubing you up. Now I’m pressing against you, inside of you, and—oh fuck—it feels so tight inside. Like you’re swallowing me whole, and I could just stay there forever.” He was close now, he could feel it, but he held back and imagined the way Antonio’s muscular ass felt beneath his hands when he squeezed. “I’m squeezing hard. Can you feel my fingernails digging into your skin?”

“Yes. It hurts, and it feels so good.” He heard Antonio breathe through the receiver.

“I want to hear you come first. I’m reaching around and grabbing your cock in my hand. It’s wet now, and my hand is sliding up and down and squeezing it hard. And you’re groaning.” Antonio
was
groaning now, and Cary was sure he, too, had his hand on his erection and was stroking himself. It was so fucking sexy, he wasn’t sure if he really
could
hold off until Antonio came. “Come on, baby,” he whispered into the phone. “Come for me. Let me hear you come.”

Antonio’s response was an incomprehensible growl and then a loud “Oh! Oh God, yes!”

Cary lost it, spurting all over his stomach and his hand, bucking up into his palm and crying, “Oh fuck!” He closed his eyes and imagined the look on Antonio’s face—the peaceful, sated look Antonio got right after an orgasm. Cary grinned and sucked in a long, stuttering breath. “God, Tonino,” he managed after a full minute had elapsed. “That was so fucking amazing.”

“You could say that,” came the response, a half chuckle, half gasp.

“I’ve never done that before.”

“Could have fooled me. Not that I wouldn’t rather have you in person, but I’m looking forward to your next trip now.”

Cary laughed. “Damn, I love you. I miss the hell out of you.”

“I miss you too.”

“I’m coming home soon. Promise. John’s ready to be back on his own again. The doctor says he’s up to it, and I’ve hired a housekeeper to help for the next few months.”

“We’ll be here, waiting.”

“I know.”

And it means everything to me.

Chapter 26

R
EALITY
B
ITES

T
HE apartment door opened and closed, waking Cary from his light sleep. He had fallen asleep on the couch, fully dressed. He sat up and the mattress springs creaked.

“Sorry I’m late.” John glanced over at the couch. “We talked longer than I thought.”

Cary reached over to turn on the small table lamp, which cast fuzzy shadows in the darkened apartment. Even from twenty feet away, he could smell the cigarettes and booze. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Last time I checked,” John answered, his words slurred, “it was legal to drink.”

“But you know what the doctor said about—”

“Fuck the doctor. He’s not the one who had tubes shoved into every goddamn orifice. Besides, a few drinks are good for the heart.”

Cary wanted to protest, but he knew there was nothing he could say that would matter right now.
He’s drunk, for shit’s sake. You can’t argue with a drunk.

“You all judge me. You, your mother, that fucking ass-pirate you live with—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Cary balled his hands into fists at his side. “Don’t you
dare
call him that!”

Cary knew the drill. He had done his reading. It was the alcohol talking. And John
wanted
him to argue with him. He had done it enough for himself—getting other people angry at him so he didn’t have to feel angry with himself. He knew all of it, but to hear John call Antonio that….
Breathe. Just breathe.

“I won’t shut up, not in
my
house.” John tossed his jacket onto a nearby chair, and it slipped off, onto the floor. He made no attempt to retrieve it but stumbled into the apartment, toward his bedroom.

“John… I know you’re scared, but—”

“Don’t you fucking lecture me about what I’m feeling! I had enough of that bullshit with your mother. Why do you fucking think I left her? Always nagging me, telling me she was worried and crap.”

“John, you were doing so well. What happened tonight?” Cary tried to keep the strain from his voice with moderate success.

“Nothing
happened
. I told you, there’s no law against drinking.” John stormed over to the couch and glared at him. “Why don’t you call him? The high and mighty Signor Bianchi? Why don’t you tell him what a piece of shit I am, and you two fags can gloat over how you were right.”

Cary grabbed John by his arm and turned him around. “Look at me, you bastard,” he snapped. “You can do whatever the fuck you want with your own life. Go drink yourself to death if you want. But don’t you
ever
call me or Antonio that.
Ever!
”

I can’t stay here.
It was all he could do to stop himself from punching John. He took a deep breath and got up from the couch, avoiding John. He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his coat from off the rack.

“Where are you going?” John demanded, grabbing Cary’s shirt and twisting the fabric. His face was red and bloated from the alcohol, and there was fury in his eyes.

“Out.” Cary peeled John’s hand off of him and pushed him away. He didn’t owe a drunk any explanations. “Go sleep it off,” he added as he stepped through the doorway. “Don’t bother waiting up for me.”

“Like I’d even bother for a piece of shit like—” The slamming door drowned out the rest of the tirade.

Cary wasn’t sure how he had ended up in front of the bar. All he knew was that he had walked for a good hour into Brooklyn, and he had stopped here. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the place before; of course he had. For as long as he had traveled on his own, he’d always made sure he knew where they were—those dark places that, in the daylight, retreated back into lines of brick and stucco buildings, waiting to come alive once evening fell.

But
he
noticed them. Even in the sunlight. Even now that he hadn’t given in to that urge for more than two years.

He had passed the bar when he’d taken his morning run the day before. But until tonight, it had been just another gay bar on another dirty street. Now, he felt its call as surely as he still felt the anger that knotted his gut.

A pair of young men walked out the entrance, heads down, unspeaking. Headed where? The quiet alley a half a block away? An apartment? One of the warehouses or run-down parks near the waterfront?

Cary’s feet were rooted to the ground, even as a voice in the back of his mind urged him onward. He wanted to forget the pain of his confrontation with John and escape into the dark, familiar warmth of the sex. It didn’t seem to matter that, hours before, he had gotten off to the sound of Antonio’s voice over the phone. In that moment, Cary realized that the thief—the undeserving usurper and the hallmark of his childhood—still lived and breathed beneath the adult man he had become.

He had known he couldn’t change John, hadn’t he? Or had he really believed that he could? No, he decided, he had
known
the truth, he just hadn’t
believed
it. He twisted the ring on his right hand absentmindedly.

And how are you better than him?
How is this different, really? Don’t you need this—don’t you want this—the way he craves his booze?

The realization hit him hard, and the chill accompanying it reached his bones and clawed at him.

You’re standing here, wanting this so badly that you’d risk the only happiness you’ve ever known? The man who loves you? The sweet little kid who calls you his “Cary Papà?”

He looked down at the ring. His eyes burned with tears and the thief retreated.

“No,” he whispered into the darkness. “I don’t need this anymore.”

He walked back the way he had come with hot tears on his cheeks.

His face was dry as he reached the bay a few minutes later and stopped to feel the icy wind against his face. The moon illuminated the water, and he could smell the salt on the air. The drone of traffic from the avenue mingled with the sound of the surf as the water lapped at the rocks. In summer, there had always been people walking on the paths by the water, but it was too cold now; even the homeless people who lived in the park were taking refuge in the subways and shelters. Still, the cold did Cary’s mind good. It helped him to focus, to sort out the events of the day.

He walked over to the Ocean Avenue Bridge, then paused halfway across to lean on the railing and take a few deep breaths.
It’s time to go home.
He’d known it for a few days now, and tonight had clinched it for him. Staying here was doing nothing for either of them.

He thought about his mother.
She was doing the best she could for us.
It was all anyone could do, right?
That’s all you can do about John.
What other choice was there? Stay here, with him?
And leave behind the two most important people in your life? Nothing’s really changed since you decided to stay in Milan.

“Damn him.” Something
had
changed. Somewhere along the line, he had come to love his father. In spite of everything. And it hurt like hell knowing he couldn’t do anything more to help him.

Except be his son.

His anger would fade, and John would still be his father. Deeply flawed, like his son, but his father nonetheless.

Time to grow up, Cary Taylor Redding. Time to be a man and forgive.

“I’
M
SORRY
,”
John Redding said as he sat and stared at his coffee the next morning. “I wish to hell I didn’t remember what I said last night. I was a complete asshole.”

Cary pressed his lips together in an effort to hide his emotional turmoil. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”