Cherry Pie (12 page)

Connor put his beat-up duffle on the floor next to John’s. “All right.”

John opened the blinds and was treated to a beautiful view of the ocean. It was a dark green color, and the beach beside it had quite a few people walking or lying around, enjoying the heat. “We picked a good time to come. This is perfect beach weather.”

Connor had walked over to stand beside him. “Yep. Unusual this time of year.”

The inanity of the conversation struck John. He’d brought Connor here to enjoy some serious sex and fun in the sun, and they were standing here chatting about the weather. He turned and looked up the stairs. “Let’s find the bedroom, fuck, and then go out to the beach.”

Connor stood there and continued to look out the window while John got his bag and hit the stairs. John stopped and looked down. “What are you waiting for? I thought we came here to have fun.”

“Is that why?” Connor asked lightly. He went and got his bag and started up the stairs without looking at John.

John mentally shrugged. “I want you to ride me,” John told him as he stopped and looked in the rooms on the second floor. Connor waited for him to choose a room, and then followed him when he continued up to the third floor. He wanted an ocean view. “I drove here. Now you get to be in the driver’s seat.” He turned and waggled his brows at Connor.

Connor gave him a small smile. “Whatever you want. It’s your dime.”

Conn stood in the shower, leaning his head against the wall, and let the hot water beat out the tightness in his back. At least the place had good water pressure. You couldn’t find that in a hotel.

Other positives of renting a house included not having to run into any of his old tricks while he was playing boy toy to a new one. He turned and scrubbed his face roughly under the water. He hated it here. He hated this house, and right now he hated John. But mostly he hated himself.

His ass was sore. John had fucked him hard yesterday afternoon and again last night. He’d been a machine.
Wham bam, let’s hit the beach. Wham bam, how about dinner? Wham bam, I’ll sleep in the other room
. Conn got what John had meant a few weeks ago when he’d said no to a blowjob. “
Not if you don’t mean it
,” he’d said. If his goal had been to teach Conn a lesson, well, he’d fucking hit the mark and more.

Conn started to punch the tile wall but stopped himself just in time. It was his own fault. He’d let John treat him that way. He’d been too afraid to say how he really felt or ask for what he really wanted because he didn’t want to push John away. John had said several times yesterday that the sex with Conn was the best he’d ever had. The way he said it… Conn knew it was his way of saying all he wanted was sex.

But that wasn’t what Conn wanted. And if he hoped to get what he did want, he’d have to assert himself and make it happen. John had said it himself. He’d said that when they were together, Conn couldn’t make it all about John.

He put his head under the water and turned his face up, enjoying the pounding wetness against the throbbing headache between his eyes.

“What are you doing?” John called out. Conn wiped his eyes to see John looking at him through the shower door. “You’ve been in there for ages.”

Conn grabbed the soap off the shelf. “I’m sore.”

John whipped open the shower door. “Did I hurt you? Jesus, Connor, you should have said something. Can I get you something? A painkiller?”

His concern was genuine and went a little way to soothing Conn’s bruises. “Yeah, thanks.”

John looked down at his feet, and Conn followed his gaze. John waggled his bare toes on the shower mat. “I guess I’m not used to being, you know, in charge,” he said, and he sounded so forlorn Conn almost laughed. “I just…” He looked directly at Conn. “I just wanted you so much. Sometimes it scares me. That I can’t get enough of you.”

Conn blinked at him.
Wow
. He hadn’t expected that confession. Just when he’d accepted that his feelings weren’t returned, John yanked him back to this side of hope. Before he could answer, John shut the shower door.

A minute later he was back, and he knocked on the door. Conn opened it to find John holding out a glass and a couple of pills.

“No one knocks on a shower door, John,” he said as he took the pills from him. He popped both in his mouth and chewed. He knew from experience it was the best way to get it into his system. He chased them with the whole glass of water and handed it back to John. “Thanks,” he said before he closed the door again.

He was in no hurry. He took his time washing up. When he stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel, John was still in the bathroom, leaning against the counter with his ankles and arms crossed.

“If it helps,” John told him with a sheepish look, “I’m sore too.”

Conn let out a bark of laughter. “It helps.” John smiled back at him and watched him dry himself off.

“We can go home if you want to,” John offered tentatively.

Conn shook his head. “No.” He wrapped the towel around his waist. “I want to take you somewhere first.”

Chapter Sixteen

“I love the houses here,” John said as they drove down the main street at Kure Beach. He watched the bright blues, purples, greens, and yellows of the houses flash by. “They’re like boxy Easter eggs basking in the sun.”

Conn snorted. “Thank God they don’t smell like eggs in the sun.”

John laughed and turned slightly in his seat to face Conn. “I like it here. It’s a great beach. That pier and the little amusement park reminded me of Santa Monica.” He peered out the windshield. “Whoa, what happened to the houses? Tell me again where we are.”

“This is Fort Fisher,” Conn explained. “It’s just at the end of Kure Beach. Some of it’s still Air Force housing, but most of Fort Fisher is a state park.” He pointed to a small building and some man-made earthen mounds as they drove past. “That’s the real Fort Fisher. It’s a Civil War historical site and museum now.” He pointed to the left. “And that’s the beach. It’s part of the park here.” He pointed straight down the road. “And at the end is the aquarium.”

“It’s been years since I went to an aquarium,” John said.

“I used to go with my mom every few months,” Conn said. He pulled into the parking lot. It was pretty full, but they found a spot.

Conn loved the aquarium. Some of his favorite memories were those trips with his mom. Days when he had her all to himself and she didn’t have to work at all.

He got almost as much pleasure from John’s enjoyment of the touch tank, where they stroked the rough surfaces of live starfish and sea urchins, as he did from just being there. The place had grown a bit since he’d been here last. He liked that. He liked that something in his past had improved with age.

They had their picture taken together. John started to say no, but Conn pulled him over to the little picture station. For some stupid reason he wanted a picture of them. He wanted to remember sharing this with John.

When they left, John looked happier and more relaxed than he had in days. More like he’d been before they’d had sex the first time. Maybe Conn had pushed too far too fast? He was the one who’d gone to John, after all. Maybe John wasn’t ready for that. With him or anyone. He sighed as they got into the car.

“Where to now?” John asked. “The museum?”

“If you like,” Conn said.

“Why do you do that?”

Conn looked at John in surprise. “Do what?”

“Defer to someone else all the time. Whenever I ask what you want, you always say whatever I want, or some variation of it anyway. Why?” John was frowning. Jesus, Conn could piss him off without even trying.

“I don’t do it to everyone. I do it to you. And I do it because I mean it. Making you happy makes me happy.” Conn glanced at him over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space. “And I only told you that because I know you won’t be happy until I answer the question.”

John laughed. “You’re right, of course.” He put on his sunglasses. “It didn’t take long for you to figure me out, did it?”

“Shit, Johnny, I ain’t got you figured out yet. I don’t think I ever will.”

John gave him an inscrutable look through his dark glasses. “Take me where you want to go,” John told him finally, and he turned to face the front of the car.

“You got it,” Conn answered.

They didn’t have far to go. Connor pulled the car into the parking lot for the museum.

“So I get a Civil War lesson?” John asked lightly. He didn’t really care where they went. He had shut off his paranoid inner voice and was just enjoying the day with Connor. He was getting to see a side of Connor he hadn’t seen before. He was lighter here. Still didn’t say much, but he smiled a lot more. John liked that.

He couldn’t believe how different things were with Connor than they’d been with Steve. When he and Steve had done the sightseeing thing, it had been almost as if they were there separately. Once or twice Steve had run into people he knew from the military, and John had to disappear. So most of their relationship had been conducted at John’s house. Ten years of having a partner yet leading separate lives. But none of that with Connor. He’d been right by John’s side the whole way through the aquarium. Even in Mercury, around his friends, he didn’t distance himself.

“Not unless you want one,” Connor responded to his comment about a history lesson. When they exited the car, Connor went around and opened up the little trunk. He’d shoved two beach chairs in there when they’d left this morning.

“So we’re going to the beach?”

“If you want.” Connor carefully closed the trunk. He was so careful with everything of John’s. He was careful with John too.

That didn’t prevent John from getting impatient with him, however. Hadn’t he just told him not to defer to him all the time? “Connor…” he growled.

Connor grinned at him. “Grab your chair and follow me.”

John took the bright orange chair from Connor. They’d borrowed them from the rental house. “Why is everything here so brightly colored?” He looked around at the parking lot and museum, which were not. “Well, not here. But at Kure Beach.”

Connor shrugged. “They like it that way, I suppose.”

Connor was leading him across the road to a stand of tall trees in a small area between the road and a parking lot for the beach. It was shady under the trees, with a thin blanket of green on the ground. John could feel the ocean breeze.

When they got to the middle of the green area, right there under the trees, Connor suddenly stopped and opened his chair and sat down. John looked around. There wasn’t much to see here. The big rock border lining the beach, the parking lots, the ocean just visible over the rock break. It was cool, though, and there wasn’t much traffic at all. John could hear the leaves on the trees rustling in the breeze. He opened his chair and sat down next to Connor.

“Why are we here?” he asked tentatively a few minutes later when Connor just settled back in his chair and stared at the blue sky with big puffy clouds over the ocean.

“This.”

John rolled his eyes. “And ‘this’ is?”

“Sitting. Relaxing.”

“Oh-kay,” John said. He tried to relax like Connor. Hmm, well, that wasn’t as hard as he’d thought it would be.

Just as he was settling in and his eyelids began to droop, lulled by the slowly moving clouds and the soft breeze and the rustle of leaves, Connor asked, “Why are you here, John?”

John looked at Connor askance out of the corner of his eye. “I thought I was relaxing?”

Connor shook his head, not looking at John. “Not here. North Carolina. Mercury.”

“Ahh,” John said, hedging. Connor didn’t push. He just sat there waiting. But John felt his determination in the air. Connor would wait as long as it took, and he’d keep asking until John answered. John had learned a few things about Connor too.

“Steve was stationed here, right before he died. At Fort Bragg.” He really, really, really did not want to get into this with Connor right now, during their day together away from everyone and everything.

Connor just waited. John ground his teeth. “Fine.” He readjusted himself in the chair, sitting up. He didn’t look at Connor, but it didn’t matter. Connor wasn’t looking at him either. “I told you I’d been to Myrtle Beach? I went with Steve, the one time I came to visit him. We drove through Mercury.”

He didn’t say anything more. Finally, after several silent, tense minutes, Connor looked at him. “And?”

John sighed.
What the hell
. “He mentioned, driving through, that it would be a great place to settle down. Maybe not Mercury, but a place just like it. He went on and on about the two of us buying a house and fixing it up, retiring.”

“So you came to fulfill his dream?”

John snorted in disgust at Connor’s question. “It was a lie, Connor. Everything with Steve was a lie. Not just because he was in the army and we had to live that way. But because he wanted me to believe there was more waiting for us in the future. He lied so I wouldn’t get sick of his long absences and his fickle libido.” John leaned down and picked up a stick from the ground and started peeling the bark off with his thumb. “So I came to Mercury. Because I did want that dream. He knew it. He knew just what lie to tell me. So I came to remember both the dream and the lie.”

Connor sighed. “Sometimes, John, the lies we tell ourselves are the only thing that make the truth bearable.”

John tossed the stick aside and turned to look at Connor. “What does that mean?”

Connor ran both hands through his hair and then laced his fingers behind his head, leaning back and staring at the sky. “It means maybe the lies weren’t for you. Maybe the lies were for him because he hated the way he was living. Maybe the only way he could get through one more day was to tell himself those lies and dream those dreams. Even if on the really bad days he knew them for the lies they were.”

John collapsed back in his chair, overwhelmed at what Connor had said. Was it true? Was dreaming of that future with John what had gotten Steve through each day? Connor wasn’t looking at him, but he could see his face and the sad expression on it. Connor was speaking from experience.