He felt a hundred years old, and he’d never seen his husband look so tired.
Once he was in bed again he kissed Victor’s cheek. “Going to sleep now?”
“Mmm. Did you actually bite me?” A faint smile.
Andy checked the damage. The answer was yes. “Didn’t break the skin.”
He touched the marks on Victor’s chest, collarbone, neck, mouth. “Melissa’s not going to be in much doubt what you were up to tonight.”
“What I was up to.” Victor turned his face into the curve of Andy’s neck, pulling their bodies close together again. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Go to sleep.”
The day of catnaps didn’t keep Andy from sleeping. He woke before Victor. Hmm, how to get out of this situation. They were very tangled up.
That didn’t happen often, but after the past forty-eight hours it wasn’t too surprising. He managed to extract himself without waking his husband. Went to the bathroom, placed a quiet call for room service, got more or less dressed. Left a note, and went to take Molly out. When he brought her back, Victor was up and moving. Molly acted like she hadn’t seen him for weeks.
“This dog,” he said, amused. “You are why people love dogs.” He got down on the floor with her for a minute. “Always so happy to see me. Best girl.”
Still hugging Molly, he looked up at Andy. “I wish I could stay here with you today.”
“You have to go be a movie star.” He touched Victor’s bruised mouth. “I really did a number on you last night.”
“I wanted it.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Someone knocked on the door. Andy went to answer it, and let their breakfast come in. Once that was managed, Victor stood up and went to wash his hands.
While they ate, they talked about the schedule for the last four weeks of filming. Victor was hoping Andy would stay for the entire time. They had two weeks more in the Poconos, then two weeks in the Catskills. “It should get easier pretty much by the day,” he said hopefully. “Most of the action stuff is done.”
“Well, you’ve got plenty of sneaking around to do.” Andy thought about the shooting script. “Car chase, right? Some business in the lake.”
“Always with the water on this series.” The first movie had required action scenes in and around Long Beach. The second had extensive action out on the water around Miami. This time it was lakes. “At least this lake shouldn’t be as cold as Michigan.”
“Or Superior. Did I show you the face Molly made when she stepped into it?” Victor shook his head. That had been one of Andy’s side trips, a ‘see every Great Lake’ thing. Andy went to get his phone. He pulled up the picture of a very shocked and betrayed dog. Victor stifled a laugh. “I sent this to Niall and Geoffrey. They got in touch after their book came in.”
“That was nice of you, to put that together and send it. I don’t know where you found the time.”
“Well, my red-hot lover was out of town,” Andy said lightly. “All I had was the Swan Dive to keep me busy.” Victor rolled his eyes. Andy checked the time. “They have a contact there in the art business. He’s also in the porn business, but on the legit side he says he wants to bring the Shakespeare show to London whenever it’s done.”
Victor sat back, surprised. “Well, wow. That’s kind of cool.”
“That’s what I thought. Those guys showed him their book and
apparently he said some nice things.”
“I’m sure he did.” Victor tilted his head. “Porn, huh.”
Andy read his mind. “I’ll show you his website when you get back tonight. It’s amazingly classy.” Victor laughed. Then there was another knock, and it was time for him to go. Andy said, projecting it to the hall,
“He’ll be right out.”
Victor stood up, ran a hand through Andy’s hair, bent and kissed him. “I love you. Thank you for last night. Thanks for staying.”
Andy caught his wrist. “Hey. We are married. We stay, okay? That’s what that means. I love you.” Victor kissed him again. “And don’t worry, I’m here for the duration. Go do your thing.”
Andy didn’t try to talk about things any more that night. Neither did Victor. Instead they looked at the porn site, liked it enough to subscribe, got inspired, and wore each other out. It was two days later when Victor said, “I owe you such a huge apology.”
“You’ve been apologizing.”
“I don’t even know how to. I don’t want to justify that awful shit I said.
Vicky told me not to.”
“What did she say?” Victor didn’t answer, only got his phone and pulled up the whole exchange. Andy read it, thought oh crap, and said, “Now I feel like a dick for not answering your texts. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you. I’m sorry I did.”
“I deserved it.”
“No,” Andy said, handing the phone back and getting Victor’s full attention. “No, you did not. You said stuff, you regretted it, you apologized.
Me not answering was a dick move. By the time you sent that first text I’d been thinking all night and I thought I knew what set you off and I thought I knew how to solve it. But you were working, and it wasn’t something we could solve via text, and I’m basically a bitch. So I didn’t send back even a simple, you know, thanks for the apology we’ll talk later.”
Victor looked away. “I was so scared.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. Look, I was hurt. I wanted you to suffer a little. But not like that, so I’m sorry. Come on, let’s do this.” He gestured to the couch. Victor sat down. “There is a thing I thought of saying to you way
back on that first vacation, when we went up the coast. When we got these.”
He lifted his left hand, the one with the stylized eagle-feather
