Restoration 01 - Getting It Right Read online

  The smell hit him first—sour wine and salsa and liquor that had been sitting in a closed-up space all night. Remnants of the party were strewn around the apartment, and empty bottles littered the island. Streamers were falling off the walls, and a few balloons rolled around the floor in the breeze created by the opening and shutting of the front door. And for the first time, Nate noticed that James was only wearing a pair of boxers. Boxers he’d put on backward.

  “Looks like I missed quite the party,” Nate said.

  James blanched.

  “Hey, Jay, who was at—Nate?” Elliott stood in James’s bedroom doorway, a sheet

  wrapped around his slim hips, his hair askew. His face went comically surprised, with bug eyes and a wide-open mouth. “Oh my God, you’re here.”

  Something dark slithered in Nate’s gut at the sight of them, both practically naked, at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning. His heart slammed into his ribs. Heat rushed into his cheeks.

  He’d interrupted something. Getting his ribs kicked in had hurt less. “I’m here,” he ground out.

  “I can’t believe you’re back!” Elliott sprang across the room and flung his arms around Nate. Nate tried not to tense up, but his body tightened like a wire. He let Elliott hug him, unable to get his arms to move in order to return the gesture. He missed the days when hugs were easy.

  “I’m back.”

  “Give him room to breathe, for fuck’s sake.” James peeled Elliott off, a question in his big hazel eyes.

  Nate nodded.

  James enveloped him in the kind of hug that Nate had missed. Muscled arms, broad chest, a sense of safety and certainty in the embrace. Nate didn’t care that his insides were burning with jealousy over the fact that James and Elliott had slept together. He’d missed this thing he’d once taken for granted. Missed James.

  “I’m, um, going to go get dressed,” Elliott said. A moment later, the bedroom door shut.

  “Tell me this is happening,” James said, his voice a pleasant rumble in Nate’s ear. “Tell me this isn’t some hangover-induced hallucination, and that you aren’t going to disappear if I let you go.”

  “This is real, Jay.” Tears tightened his throat and he fought them off. He’d shed enough tears these past few months, damn it. “I’m here, I swear, and I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For what?” Nate mourned the loss of James’s full embrace, but he had to see his friend’s face. Look him in the eye. “For shutting you out for four months, how’s that to start?”

  “Something horrible happened to you, Nate. You dealt with it the best you could, and I understand that.”

  His insides churned. “I shouldn’t have ignored you, and I’m sorry.”

  “Fine, you’re forgiven.”

  He hugged Nate again, and Nate didn’t protest. He stood there, existing in the warmth and security until his feet ached from being still for so long and his ribs gave an uncomfortable throb. The broken ones had healed, but they would be sensitive to strain for a while longer yet.

  “I missed you,” Nate said. “Every single day.”

  “I wish you’d called me. Or texted or something. I wanted to be there for you. I’d have moved you in with me and hired a nurse to help out, if your parents hadn’t spirited you away.”

  “That was my call. I needed to be away from here for a while.”

  “I get that.”

  “But it still hurts that I didn’t let you help?”

  A burst of air gusted across Nate’s hair as James sighed. “Yeah, it hurts. Understanding a thing doesn’t make it hurt less.”

  “That the friend talking or the therapist?”

  “Both. I have so much I need to say.”

  “Then maybe we should sit down. You’re shaking.”

  They both were, but James was in minor shock and hungover, so it was up to Nate to be the adult. He deposited James on the sofa, then fetched him a bottle of Gatorade someone had kindly stocked in his fridge.

  James cracked the cap and sipped. “Thanks.”

  “You want toast? Something to settle your stomach so you can take some ibuprofen?”

  “Sure. I can fix that myself.”

  “Forget it. Last thing I need is you yakking on the kitchen floor.”

  Nate made himself at home in the kitchen, preparing toast and shoving empties into garbage bags for the recycling center. Elliott appeared right as the toast popped, his green-tipped hair combed flat, shoulders hunched.

  “I should go,” Elliott said. “Thanks for the party.”

  “No problem,” James said.

  Nate allowed another stiff hug from Elliott. “Happy birthday, Ell. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “It’s okay, honey, you’re home now. Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won’t.”

  He locked the door behind Elliott, not really thinking about the instinctive action. Not as if he could really lock out the past. He handed James the plate of toast with a side of ibuprofen caplets, then started collecting paper plates from the coffee table. James ate slowly, neither of them talking, even though words were burning a hole in Nate’s gut. So many words.

  Tossing trash from last night’s wild party was easier.

  He about had the place set to right, and he no longer noticed the smell, when James said,

  “When Kate Alden called me and said you were in the emergency room, I nearly died on the spot.”

  Nate froze next to the TV console, his heart wrenching from the emotion in James’s words. He faced James, unsurprised to see his eyes glittering. James put the empty toast plate down on the coffee table and clasped his hands in his lap. Nate waited.

  “When it hit me that I could have spent the rest of my life without you in it, I saw things clearer than I ever have before.”

  “What things?”

  “Us. I told you in my first email that I hated that the last thing I ever said to you was a lie, and I wanted to make it right. Did you get my emails?”

  “I got every single one. I loved getting them.”

  James’s lips quirked. “You never responded.”

  “No. I didn’t trust my emotions. I didn’t know if what I’d say would be the truth.”

  “But you trust them now?”

  “For the most part I do trust mine. I’m not sure I trust yours.”

  James jerked a little, as though he’d been slapped. “What?”

  “The emotional distress of nearly losing a loved one easily fucks with one’s ability to think clearly and make rational choices.” He couldn’t believe he was explaining the psychological nature of trauma to a therapist. But this was also one of the reasons he’d left town.

  “You didn’t want me before I was assaulted, so I have no reason to believe you’ve truly changed your mind.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind, Nate.”

  Nate flinched. “Oh.” Embarrassment heated his cheeks.

  “I haven’t changed my mind because I’ve always wanted you.”

  He stared, not understanding.

  James stood up, his perfectly defined abs rippling. “I didn’t change my mind because what I told you on that roof was a lie. When I told you I didn’t want you, I lied because I’ve wanted it for so long that I was scared to believe it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re everything to me, Nate. You always have been. You’re my best friend, my

  conscience. You’re who I’ve always gone to when my mother’s being dramatic, or I need to vent about a patient. I fell in love with you in college, but I put that in a box and buried it deep because you’re straight, and it was never going to happen. I’d accepted it. And then we kissed and you said you had feelings, and it meant everything, but you were still you and my heart was still in that box, and I was terrified that the possibility of us wasn’t actually real.”

  James was babbling, and he never babbled.

  I fell in love with you in college.

  Four months ag
o, Nate might have been overjoyed to hear those words. To hear them when he’d have an easier time believing them. Nate closed the distance and grabbed James’s shoulders. Squeezed. Grounding him.

  James blinked hard, eyes still wet, then coughed out a harsh sound. “I hated lying to you like that. Hated myself for hurting you so badly when you’d just said the thing I wanted to hear most in the world. That you felt something when we kissed. What kind of a fucking psycho does that make me?”

  “It doesn’t make you a psycho. A controlling asshole, maybe, but not a psycho.”

  James snorted. “I am definitely a controlling asshole. I made a choice for both of us that night, and I’m so sorry.”

  Nate sucked in a deep breath. Held it. Released it slowly, but it did nothing to calm his galloping heart. “I believe you’re sorry. I do.”

  “But you don’t believe my feelings for you.”

  “Would you? If you were me, would you trust it? How am I supposed to trust that when you were fucking Elliott last night?” Anger seeped into that final question, and Nate took a step back. And then another, until he was by the console again.

  As far as he could get without leaving the room completely.

  James was absolutely sick to his stomach, and not only because of the massive quantities of liquor he’d consumed last night. He was sick over everything Nathan was saying, because Nathan wasn’t wrong. If their roles were reversed, he’d have a hard time believing him too.

  Believing that James changing his mind about wanting him didn’t stem from the trauma of Nathan nearly dying. Believing that James wanted him when he wasn’t even being faithful to the possibility.

  Wasn’t he being faithful, though? Until last night, he hadn’t actually been with anyone else since before the attack. He’d gone out, yes. He’d gotten hard, and he’d been tempted, but he hadn’t brought anyone home. Hadn’t fucked anyone. A four-month dry spell. That had to mean something, right?

  He sat back down and dropped his forehead into his palm and tried to think back.

  Everything after those first few shots with Elliott and Boxer was a blank. He didn’t remember fucking Elliott, but he sure as hell remembered waking up naked in bed, with a very naked Elliott curled around him from behind. He’d stumbled over a torn condom wrapper in his haste to answer the insistent ringing at his door.

  I fucked up. I royally fucked up.

  “I didn’t mean to sleep with Elliott.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to know that.” Sarcasm: check.

  “Look, I fucked up.” He sat up straight but Nathan was staring at the far wall. “I kept looking for you to come to the party, and then you never showed, so I got hammered. Really hammered. I don’t remember sleeping with Elliott. Shit.” This was the second time in four months that he’d drank himself into a blackout, and then not remembered doing something with someone else. Something sexual and potentially hurtful.

  I have a serious problem. Or is it really a problem if I know it’s a problem?

  Nathan turned a steady, intense stare on him. “You blacked that out too?”

  Guilt twisted James’s insides into knots. “Yes. I need a fucking keeper.”

  “You need to stop drinking your emotions away, that’s what you need. Something awful happens, and you drink, and you hurt someone. And this isn’t a new pattern, Jay. It’s been you since I’ve known you.”

  “At least I’m a consistent asshole.”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “I wasn’t joking. I am an asshole. I was an asshole to you on that roof, and I was an asshole to Elliott for using him because I would never have slept with him if I was in my right mind. I’d never do that to him or to you.”

  Nathan made a noise of disbelief.

  James bristled as irritation rippled down his spine. He stood, back rigid, needing to make Nathan understand this. “I haven’t fucked anyone else since you were hurt, Nate.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “Why not?”

  “Because I want you, you idiot! Maybe I ended things before they got started, but knowing you had feelings for me…fuck, it changed everything. Being with someone else seemed too much like…I don’t know.”

  “Cheating?”

  The tentative word punched James in the throat. “Yeah.” His reply was hoarse because that was the exact right word. He and Nathan weren’t a couple, but something had changed between them when Nathan confessed his feelings. And then fate stepped in and kept them apart, unable to figure out what they were.

  “But we aren’t together, Jay.”

  “We should have been, but I made a decision for both of us when I lied, and I should not have done that. I love you.”

  Nathan flinched.

  The subtle motion broke James’s heart a little bit. Nathan still didn’t trust him. James had thrown that trust away with his lie, and now he had to earn it back. “I miss you, Nate. I miss the way you call me on my bullshit. I miss the way you rib me. I miss the way you bite your nails during intense scenes in movies. I miss being able to call you when I’m having a shitty day with a patient, and you listen without asking for more because you know I can’t dump the actual problem on you to solve. I miss your smile. I miss seeing you.”

  Nathan’s left hand rose, fingers brushing over the scars on his left cheek, an action that seemed completely unconscious. James had seen the scars, though he’d done his best not to stare.

  The dark beard that made Nathan twice as sexy as he’d been before. Not even the obvious weight loss had put him off. No amount of scars would ever make Nathan ugly. Not to him.

  Nathan didn’t respond. He’d gone distant, his attention on something that wasn’t even in the room with them. Fingers still stroked the long scar beneath his eye.

  “Nate?”

  Nothing.

  “Nathan?”

  James approached slowly. Nathan didn’t react to his proximity—not until James reached out and touched his left shoulder. Nathan’s hand jerked and slammed into his nose. Pain flashed hot and bright, and then he was on his stomach, a knee in his back and an arm across the side of his neck. Instead of fighting back, James went limp because his nose hurt like a son of a bitch and he had no idea what the fuck had just happened.

  “Oh shit. Fuck, Jay.”

  The weight on top of James scrambled away. He rolled onto his back. His nose throbbed and something wet tickled his upper lip. Nathan knelt next to him with a kitchen towel, his skin pale, mouth twisted in horror.

  “What the hell?” James said.

  “I am so sorry.” Nathan held out the towel with trembling fingers. “You’re bleeding.”

  James pressed the towel against his nose to stanch the blood. Nathan slid an arm beneath his shoulders and helped him sit up. His nose pulsed, sore, but he’d broken it once before in college and it didn’t feel broken.

  “I can’t believe I did that.” Nathan scooted back, putting a few feet between them, his entire body hunched. Miserable. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. No harm done.”

  “I broke your nose.”

  “No, you didn’t. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have touched you when you weren’t paying attention.” He’d seen it before. Patients lashing out when startled, trying to protect themselves from a sudden threat. He fucking knew better, and he’d gone up to Nathan as though nothing had changed.

  “It’s not fine. I took you down like you were some kind of criminal.”

  “You didn’t know it was me.” He wiped at his nose, which had already stopped bleeding.

  Nathan kept threading his fingers through his hair, combing the long strands as though he was trying to tug out handfuls. “I did that to my dad twice. Didn’t give him a bloody nose, but I knocked him down. It scared the hell out of him both times.”

  “You’re dealing with trauma, Nate. I’m sure he understands.”

  “He says he does. Most days I don’t even understand.”

  James tried to keep a lid on the therapist
in him, but the friend was just as curious.

  “Where were you? I said your name and you didn’t even blink.”

  Nathan leaned against the TV console and drew his knees to his chest like a shield. He spoke to his lap. “How many details did Carey give you?”

  “Not much.” James had only been able to hound the senior detective so much before he’d become a pest and a hindrance to the investigation. “He told me you were attacked elsewhere and dumped in the alley later. How many times you were stabbed.”

  “Seven.” He touched his bearded neck once, then let his hand drop. “I was stabbed seven times. He did that after he beat the shit out of me and broke my ribs and wrist.”

  James shivered. “Will you tell me about it?”

  “I have a therapist.”

  “Then tell your best friend.”

  Nathan met his gaze for a moment, dark brown eyes shining with sadness. Away again. “I was upset about how we left things on the garage roof, so I went back to work. I had a hunch, based on his file, that Spokes was a prostitute, so I put on non-cop clothes and went out to see if any of the other working boys knew him. Talked to a few, even talked to a few johns who tried to pick me up. No one seemed to know Spokes.” He paused, his mind sifting through something before he continued. “I finally gave up and was walking down Fourth to where I’d left my truck.

  It was really late, quiet. Then someone pressed a cloth against my mouth and nose. It smelled funny and I resisted hard. Probably caught whoever it was off guard, because he sent me headfirst into a parked car. I went down.

  “Looking back I’m pretty pissed about that. I always pay attention to my surroundings, but I didn’t see the guy until he was on me. He was wearing a ski mask so I never saw his face.

  He kept hitting me until I couldn’t breathe. I don’t remember much about how I got in the van, only that I was in one. Some kind of empty work van with no windows. I remember the cold metal floor. Movement. Pain. Light reflecting on the knife once. Then I woke up in the hospital.”

  James digested the additional information while working to keep his expression

  somewhat neutral. He didn’t want Nathan to see the horror he felt deep inside—or the rage. Rage directed at the nameless, faceless coward who’d attacked the most important person in his life.