Ollie Always (27 page)

Ollie stumbled after the retreating couple and all three of them ended up in the kitchen. With a brittle smile, Ronnie Fitzroy emptied the room of guests.

By this time, Tom seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock, or perhaps, Ollie reflected, he understandably didn’t want to face another embarrassing scene with Ronnie Fitzroy. Ollie didn’t know what conversations they’d shared after he’d done his flit to England and Tom had so spectacularly failed in his mission, but he suspected they hadn’t been pretty. Or printable.

Ollie therefore watched in complete confusion as his mother, without any audience for her theatrics, hugged Tom once more. “I never got the chance to thank you—or, more to the point, pay you. Silly boy.” She straightened and unbelievably had the flair to straighten Tom out a little too, adjusting and brushing at a smudge on his cheek. “So, eighteen months, one-hundred percent success and what did we agree upon? Oh, yes, the house. Well, you’ll need some furniture, so we’ll say, what? Another twenty thousand on top of that? Call it a bonus.” She held out her hand.

Tom looked down at it.

Ollie was gazing at it too. Because no one was taking any notice of him and that was relatively unusual, he asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Be quiet, Oliver. This has nothing to do with you.”

Ollie’s mouth dropped open.

Tom frowned. “I don’t understand either. What are you talking about? I…failed…I—everything went wrong. I’m trying to—”

“Wrong?” Ronnie began to laugh, not her light, brittle public amusement but genuine delight that Ollie only ever heard when they were alone. She actually ruffled Tom’s hair. Then she turned to stare at Ollie, which became extremely uncomfortable when Tom was rather forced to follow her gaze. “Tom, I hired you to help my son. To get him mentally and physically healthy after a terrible accident. Not only is he as you see him now, he’s written a novel and…well, we won’t mention the degree, will we, darling? So, what you’ve done for me is in fact worth a great deal more than I am giving you.” She suddenly slapped Tom lightly on the chest. “So, now, I’ll leave you two to discuss Luke’s little faux pas. I just wanted to even up the odds a little. Battling Ollie isn’t easy. You need to go into the fight well armed. Good luck.”

With that, she sailed out as only someone who wore draping multi-coloured silk with an eye to its effect on imaginary cameras could do.

She shut the door to the kitchen firmly as she departed, and Ollie got the distinct impression that she might have set guards on the other side.

“I’m not going to accept it.”

“No, of course not.”

“You lied to me.”

“Did I?”

Tom hesitated, clearly thrown. “You said—”

“I don’t think I did.”

“I told you—”

“Why are you here?”

“What?”

“You said you weren’t coming tonight.”

“I—”

“Tom?” Ollie edged a little closer.

Tom didn’t back away but his gaze was extremely wary. “What?”

“Think very carefully about why you came here tonight and then give even deeper consideration to what Luke actually said.” Tom’s brow began to wrinkle. Ollie closed the gap a little more. There was about three feet between them when Ollie added, “You’ve been searching for something your whole life, using fractured shards of other people’s lives to try and make something good and whole. Well all those pieces have come together here tonight. It’s all yours if you have the wherewithal to put it together.” He deliberately avoided using the word courage. He suspected he and Tom had very different definitions of that word. As slowly as he’d advanced on Tom, he backed away. At a safe distance, he turned and left, closing the door softly behind him. His mother wasn’t stretched decoratively but boldly across the doorway, though she was watching from her resumed position with her guests.

Ollie went and joined her, and they stood side by side, their backs to the kitchen.

Ollie didn’t hear a word of the conversation around him, but, as usual, this didn’t stop him from actually joining it. He was deep in thought when he felt a hand seeking his and then his fingers were held.

He heard his mother say, “Tom, what was that chap called you knew at Headly Court? You know—the one who was related to whatshisname? Oh, darling, you haven’t met everyone yet, have you? How rude of me. Everyone, this is Tom, Ollie’s boyfriend.”

§§§

They didn’t find the space to be alone until the early hours of the morning. Ollie suspected both he and Tom were grimly hanging in there with the guests deliberately so they wouldn’t have to face the much more daunting task of actually speaking to each other.

Ollie went to escort one of the older guests to her car and as he turned to go back into the house, Tom was behind him, silently waiting in the dark. Ollie swerved away from him and walked across the lawn. He went so slowly that only a dullard wouldn’t have got he wanted to be followed. Tom was many things, but not, apparently, stupid.

Tom pulled him into a hug when they reached their favourite shrubs. All the tenseness and slight sick feeling of anxiety of the last few hours slewed off Ollie from the strength and warmth of the hold. He thought he might have been shivering, but now his body stilled and relaxed, and he felt confident enough to say, “I was desperate, Tom. It’s not my fault I’m rich. I shouldn’t be punished for it.”

Tom murmured inaudibly into Ollie’s neck.

“I only wanted to—” Ollie could do many things and talk at the same time, but not kiss, he was pleased to discover. They’d kissed before, but Ollie was a romantic and was therefore utterly convinced that the kisses were more intense, more searing now that they were
boyfriends
. He had never—

“Ollie?”

“Hmm?”

“Stop thinking and stay here with me.” Tom straightened and caught Ollie’s gaze then his hand caught something else and Ollie hissed in pleasure. Tom squeezed it again. “Still with me?”

Ollie nodded, trying not to think how much fun it would be if someone could switch bodies and, if this were possible, what it would be like to be in a woman’s body with a man. Then he recalled Letty and shivered. Tom gave him a very suspicious look, possibly suspecting it wasn’t him holding Ollie’s cock that had brought the shudder on. He drew Ollie closer so his hand working Ollie was hidden between them, even though they were sheltered by darkness and distance from the activity of the party. Tom eased him into a kiss and timed each one to a stroke or twist from below. Ollie’s fingers slid into Tom’s hair with their own volition, which amused him and he smiled into the kiss, thinking about hands with a life of their own and the choices they might make. He got a slightly painful tug for his troubles. “What do I need to do to make you stay, Ollie?”

Before he’d thought it through, Ollie replied, “Tell me that you’ll always be here if I do.”

Tom slowed to a soft holding pattern on Ollie’s cock below and just brushed their lips together above, his dark eyes thoughtful. “I think I’ve been telling you that since we met…Ollie-
Always
.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ollie wanted to finish a chapter before he got interrupted. The dog—who had no name in the book because the entire story was written from the dog’s POV, and as everyone knows, dogs refuse to acknowledge the names humans give them—had at that moment met his scruffy mutt would-be companion for the first time. It wasn’t an auspicious meeting, for the mutt was in the cage next to Dog, in the pen where they’d been taken as strays.

But it was nearly time. With a flourish, he inserted a page break, headed the next chapter and then saved everything, before craning his neck to the road to see if the runner was appearing.

Ollie rather set his watch to the runner’s appearances, and other things now that he came to think about it. Which he still did a lot, despite trying very hard to stay more in the moment.

The tiny yellow speck materialised. Ollie didn’t need to stay and watch it now. It would expect to be fed, among other things, and Ollie didn’t have time for procrastination.

Tom burst into the kitchen as Ollie was putting some tea on the table. They came together hard and fast, Tom sweating, hot, pushing Ollie back against the counter and Ollie lifting and sliding onto it so their cocks came together as fiercely as their mouths.

It was only morning tea, the natural twenty minute break all Kiwis took in the middle of their morning labours, so if they wanted to get any more work done that day, kissing was all they could afford. It was always a bit of a battle of wills.

But then everything with Tom was a bit of a battle—although Ollie was fairly sure that if Tom ever wrote a book about them he would deny this vehemently. But then, Ollie reflected, Tom’s version of their entire history would probably be very different to his. His was the right version, however. It was very right. After all, look where they were now…

They eased apart, both knowing that nothing more would progress unless they did. They’d both agreed to work until lunchtime, faithfully, and then the rest of the day was theirs to do as they pleased, as long as they did it together. Given their favourite pastime, this wasn’t difficult to decide on, as it was a great deal more fun done together than alone, which they’d had plenty of practice of before.

They sat at the table, and Tom played with Bartleby’s ears as they caught up on all the vital things they’d missed in each other’s lives since breakfast. That night they’d both stayed at Tom’s house. Ollie had run over to his crib earlier that morning to write. Tom had stayed in his workshop, turning out his gorgeous chairs. Tonight they’d probably stay at Ollie’s. These distinctions didn’t mean much to them. Friends found it hard to fathom and saw only cracks and differences instead of dovetailed joints that required asymmetry to work.

“How’s the book going?”

“Dog has just met Mutt.”

“You should give them better names.”

“They have cool names: the names dogs give themselves.”

“I wonder what Bartleby’s name is.”

“Probably He Who Seeks The Leg Thief.”

Tom snorted. “You should write books.”

Ollie passed him the plate of biscuits—almond flour and no sugar, of course. Sex with Tom Collins, he’d discovered, was the best motivator ever to put up with an endless number of Day Ones. “Did you read Mother’s letter?”

Tom shuddered theatrically. “I’m going to pretend she’s joking.”

Ollie gave him a hard-luck smirk. “Nope. She’s already got an advance for it.”

“We should buy her a laptop for Christmas.”

“But she doesn’t use computers. Oh. Funny.”

Tom hung his head.

“She’s not calling him Tom, by the way.” There was a spark of relief until Ollie added, timed to perfection, “It’s going to be Thomas.”

“Oh, God.”

“It’s such a good story…army veteran, discovering he’s gay…”

“Oh, God.”

“…meets flamboyant gay author…”

“I don’t know what flamboyant means.”

“It means…successful…mature…responsible.”

“Huh. I thought the book was about us.”

Ollie laughed, and then he was straddling Tom’s lap, and they both knew further work was off the day’s agenda. But then they’d both secretly known this anyway.

Perhaps, Ollie reflected, as he kissed Tom and peeled off his sweaty running kit, they would mature into the people they could be—successful craftsman and famous author. Perhaps. Ollie didn’t really care all that much one way or the other. As someone—who was more in his good graces now than she ever had been in the past—had once told him, sometimes you have to simply lie back and observe the stars. Only then, could courses be set and voyages of discovery undertaken.

Ollie was more than happy with his journey, not least because finally, finally, Oliver was dead. He’d had to go, his mother had told him. Cosy domesticity, even with David Gandy, didn’t sell books. He’d had a tragic, but heroic end, sailing into a furious storm in the Mediterranean. Fitting, Ollie agreed. Drown the bastard, he’d been thinking. But then she’d created Thomas Collingwood, emphasis on wood, who was busy helping wounded veterans discover a great deal more than their heroism.

Later, as he and Tom lay tangled in Ollie’s bed, coming down from their high, content for the occasional stroke of a finger over cooling flesh or murmur of pleasure, Ollie began plotting Dog and Mutt’s escape from the dog warden Ron. He smirked and amended it to Ronnie. He wanted her to get the joke, after all.

He knew he should be concentrating on Tom’s occasional loving murmurs, and he was, in his own way.

But he was also busy freeing Mutt from his cage and recognising his pedigree.

And he had a lifetime to listen to Tom—Tom wasn’t going anywhere.

Cages weren’t always made of metal or unwanted. Sometimes, if you tried hard enough and had enough imagination, Ollie knew they resembled something called home.

The End

About the Author

John Wiltshire also left the army and decided he’d give New Zealand a go. He also writes books. Thereafter the resemblance between him and Ollie or Tom becomes less obvious. He does own a BMW Z3, however. His mother, with any luck, should recognise herself very easily…

Trademarks Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Twitter: Twitter, Inc.

Converse: Converse, Inc.

Skype: Skype Technologies S.A.

BMW Z3: Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

Toyota: Toyota Motor Corporation

My 600lb Life: Discovery Communications, Inc.

Norman Bates: Psycho: Paramount Pictures Corporation

Word: Microsoft Corporation

The Guardian: Guardian Media Group plc

Maltesers: Mars, Inc.

Mick Dundee: Crocodile Dundee: Paramount Pictures Corporation

Querelle: Gaumont Film Company

Freshmen: Specialty Publications

Tomorrow Belongs to Me: Allied Artists Pictures Corporation

X-Files: Twentieth Century Fox Television

Jack Reacher: Paramount Pictures Corporation