Page 141 of Hush

It was a look that saidyou’re next.

Chapter 35

Tom poured another glass of wine as he sat on the balcony off his hotel suite. He squinted over the city, as if that would help the pounding in his head. Sighing, he slouched back in the deck chair. His shirt was undone, tie gone. His undershirt was untucked from his suit pants, and his shoes were in a pile by the foot of his bed. Etta Mae snored beneath his feet. Once a day, a marshal picked her up and took her to a park, walking her around for at least an hour. She was bone-tired every evening when he got back.

He heard his suite door click open, and then slowly close. Behind him, the sliding glass door was open, curtains twitching in the breeze. “I’m out here.”

Footsteps. He closed his eyes. A hand landed on his head, ruffled his hair. He tried to smile.

“Hey.” Mike’s soft voice floated past his ear, right before Mike dropped a kiss to his cheek.

Dangerous. Marshals in the rooms on either side could possibly see them. But… Tom couldn’t work up the anxiety over it.

Months ago, he’d have frozen in fear if anyone knew that the thing he wanted most in the world was Mike’s kiss on his cheek, and Mike’s hand held in his own. Now, all he wanted was the world to shut up and go away, and let him and Mike sit together and enjoy the evening. Maybe let the evening turn into something a lot better than the day had been. He couldn’t even summon the phantom of his old professor anymore. That cackling skeleton that had haunted him for decades had seemingly turned to dust, while he wasn’t even looking.

Was this how acceptance happened? He just gave up caring about other people’s reactions, their raised eyebrows and sidelong stares? He stopped fussing about who thought what, and why? Was self-acceptance more about giving up everyone else’s attitudes and reactions, instead of worrying about his own?

He’d lived with the blinding terror of coming out for twenty-five years, of having to endure the soul-stripping agony of exposing his wants, his desires, his needs to a world that assumed he was wrong, different, broken. But why did he have to correct anyone’s assumptions? People had assumed “straight” for decades, and they were wrong. There was no statute of limitations on his identity, no expiration date on his desires.

What would it be like to come out and no longer care about everyone else? Society was still trapped in his mind like a snow globe of 1991. The haters and the baseball bats.

Once, he hadn’t cared about the world. He wanted to fight it, live his life, turn his very existence into a form of protest. Live with Peter, loving him in that eternally optimistic way young men viewed the world. They were going to move to New York together, and Tom was going to be an attorney while Peter kept chasing his dreams. What would his life have been like if his soul hadn’t been shattered?

Dreams crumbled in the face of hatred. His professor had torpedoed his life with Peter in a few sentences. He realized that day, that the world, and how the world viewed him,mattered.

Had the world changed, or had he? Was the soul of a forty-six-year-old man different than that of a twenty-one-year-old man? Had he wanted too much too soon, or should he have had everything he wanted from that very first summer, have been given the life where he could love Peter and pursue his dreams?

He couldn’t second-guess the winding path of his existence. Couldn’t get lost in what-might-have-been and if-only. He was here, now.

And he was, for the most part, happy. Not with the trial, and his career that seemed to teeter on the edge of shambles. But with Mike, and his decision. He was counting down the days until he came out of his closet completely. For the first time in a long, long, long time, the thought of standing up and saying he was gay—that he wanted the world to know that he loved a man,thisman—didn’t make his skin shrivel up off his bones.

Tom grabbed Mike’s hand as Mike pulled the other deck chair close. He let their hands hang in the space between their chairs. Tom held out his glass of wine. Mike shook his head.

“I went with the team taking Kryukov back to the hospital. They were perfect gentlemen.” Mike stretched and rolled his neck. “He’s back in his hospital room.”

“Good.”

They sat in silence, fingers laced together. Mike relaxed back in his seat, closing his eyes as Tom sipped his wine. He stroked his thumb over Mike’s palm, trying to read the future in the lines and calluses of his skin. Those hands could touch him for all the rest of his days. He’d be just fine with that.

“What ever happened with your volleyball tournament? You were going to the finals.”

Mike shook his head. “Kris is gone, and the trial happened. We forfeited.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s always next season.” Mike grinned, glancing sideways to Tom. “And, I’ll have my own personal cheerleader. Right?”

“Of course.” Tom winked. “Every single game.”

Mike sighed. “Crazy day in court.”

“It’s only day two.”

“What’s going on with the U.S. Attorney? What’s Ballard’s problem?”

If he told Mike, what would Mike do? Was the real threat not from Kryukov or the protestors, but from someone much closer? What about Ballard’s threat that morning? “He’s… convinced I’m leading the world to the apocalypse, through this trial.”

“What?” Mike twisted, skepticism coloring his tone. “How?”