Remy and Lane Complete Series Box Set

Chapter 2-2

Then he met Remy.

Later, Remy admitted that a spark seemed to pass between them when they first shook hands, but if it did, Lane didn’t feel it. He was too distracted by Remy’s rugged good looks—dark blonde hair beginning to streak with gray, sharp cheekbones and a proud nose, and a sly, almost shy smile that seemed rare and almost precious. His hazel eyes were blue one minute, green the next, and flecked through with streaks of gold like a gemstone. Remy was broad-shouldered, built much like Reggie had been, and Lane would be lying if he said that wasn’t the type of guy who turned him on.

Throughout their meeting, Lane was all too aware of Remy staring at him. He accidentally “on purpose” brushed his foot against Remy’s under the table, and was treated to seeing those chameleon eyes widen. Though the two barely spoke—the bulk of the meeting was run by one of Remy’s associates, who was going to take the lead position on the project—Lane felt the air around them crackling with s****l tension. It had to be, because he himself was already hard as steel, and he couldn’t imagine Remy was not.

The first chance they had alone, he took the plunge. His own associates went back to their desks, and the men in Remy’s group were already out the door when Remy approached the threshold. Lane half-closed the door, blocking the rest of the opening with his body. If there were something between them, he had to know.

To his delight, Remy accepted his offer of getting together after work. Ostensibly, it was for drinks only, but Lane knew how quickly things could move between two like-minded men. He already had visions of waking up beside Remy, and was wondering just what to say or do to make that vision come true, when Remy blindsided him. “Look,” he said, wiping the condensation off his bottle of beer, then meeting Lane’s steady gaze across the small table in the back room of O’Malley’s bar, “before things go any further between us, you should know I have a son.”

A son. Which, by necessity, meant that, at least somewhere in his past, Remy had been with a woman.

Which meant Lane couldn’t trust him to be faithful. Or could he?

“A son,” Lane said, his voice even. He laughed and shook his head. “And here I thought maybe you might be interested in me.”

“I am,” Remy assured him.

Lane pressed his lips together in an annoyed smirk. “Yeah, right. You’re interested in the project we’re on together. I was thinking along the lines of something completely different.”

Reaching across the table, Remy covered Lane’s hand with his. “Oh, I know exactly what you’re thinking about, because I’m pretty sure I’m thinking the same thing.” His fingers rubbed Lane’s knuckles gently, a tender touch. “It involves condoms and lots of lube and the two of us in your bed or mine, doesn’t matter which. I’m totally there, dude. Same wavelength and everything.”

“But you have a son,” Lane pointed out. “And—let me guess—a wife at home who thinks you’re working late.”

“An ex-wife,” Remy corrected, “who doesn’t care what I’m doing or where I am as long as I show up on time every other Saturday to take Braden off her hands for the weekend.”

Lane rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the last guy I was with liked women, too. Only I didn’t realize it until I caught him cheating—”

“No, listen,” Remy said, his hand tightening around Lane’s.

His touch was warm and heavy, and only spurred on Lane’s interest. What would that hand feel like on his chest, his belly, lower? His d**k and balls and ass? God, I want to find out, I do, he thought, but he wouldn’t let himself be played for a fool again. Not after Reggie.

Still, he surprised himself by not pulling away, and was even more surprised to hear himself say, “Listen to what?”

Remy sighed. “Kate was a mistake. We were friends, we were young, we were both fooling around with anyone interested and, one night, we both got a little too drunk for our own good. We slept together once, thought hey, that wasn’t bad, so whenever we didn’t have anyone else lined up to party with, we called each other. It wasn’t even booty calls, really. Just two friends hanging out, having fun, and getting too s**t-faced to realize what we were doing. It wasn’t love, that’s for sure.”

“You called her your ex-wife,” Lane pointed out.

With a nod, Remy admitted, “When she got pregnant, I stepped up. Got married, had the baby, the whole nine yards. Too late, we realized that while we might be really good friends drunk off our asses, we had squat in common when we were sober. I don’t even think we waited for Braden to come along before we were at each other’s throats. I put up with it for six years, for his sake.”

Lane couldn’t help himself—he was interested to find out more. Remy’s thumb rubbed a circular pattern onto a tender spot on the back of Lane’s hand. It was hypnotizing, that motion, and soothing, as well. Tender. It hinted at what might come of a night spent together. Despite his own self-imposed moratorium on dating bisexual men, he couldn’t deny the feelings he was developing for Remy. Could he?

“And then what?” Lane asked. “You just called it quits?”

“We were older, more mature,” Remy said, then one of his slow grins crept across his face, belying his words. “We went at it like a pair of wildcats. I don’t even really remember what started it. I came in late from work and she was at the stove, and she made some comment about me sleeping around. And, out of nowhere, I told her if I did sleep around, it’d be with men and not women because she ruined my taste for them.”

Lane smirked. “How’d she take that?”

“Turned and threw a pot of hot pasta at me,” Remy said with a chuckle. “I can laugh now, but only because most of the water and noodles missed me. Otherwise I’d have spent the night in the ER with third-degree burns.”

Lane laughed. “Yeah, I can see how she’d turn you off from women.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Remy told him. “Kate’s a really nice girl. A wonderful mother. But we were like oil and water. We just didn’t mix. It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did, I was out of there. I didn’t contest the divorce, just signed the papers where they told me to and pay her each month for Braden. I get him every other weekend, and both Kate and I have agreed not to b***h about each other in his presence.”

“And she’s okay with you being gay?” Lane asked.

Remy drank down a hearty swig of his beer. “Hell, one of the things she liked most about me was that I’d been with guys before. She’s one of those women who gets off on gay porn. When we moved in together, I was almost ashamed that her collection was larger than mine.”

After a few more drinks, Lane confided in Remy about his last lover, and the way he had found out about Reggie’s indiscretions. By the end of the evening, they had moved their chairs around to the same side of the small table they shared, and Remy’s hot hand rested high up on Lane’s thigh. With the baggage Remy was carrying, Lane knew if they just rolled into bed together so soon, anything building between them would be over before it even really got a chance to get started. So when Lane drove Remy back to the garage at his office building to get his car, they settled for heavy petting and lingering kisses, and the whispered promise of more.

“When we’re both a bit more sober,” Lane said, only half-joking. “I don’t want to make the same mistake with you that Kate did.”

Remy pressed his lips to Lane’s, tasting vaguely of beer and pretzels. “Can we do this again tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Lane murmured into Remy’s mouth.

“And the next night?” Remy persisted. “And again after that?”

Lane snickered and sat back in the driver’s seat. “If you aren’t careful, one of those nights I’m going to wind up taking you home with me.”

Remy opened the passenger side door, and in the light cast by the overhead lamp, his lips looked swollen and damp. “I’m holding you to that,” he promised. “Tomorrow, then?”

With one final kiss before Remy exited the car, Lane said, “I can’t wait.”

* * * *

In the two years they had been together, Lane had not yet had a chance to meet Braden. Remy talked about his son often, and there were plenty of photographs in his office and home—candid shots of playful rough housing between father and son, posed pictures of Braden in his baseball uniform or a Halloween costume, the obligatory school portrait taken every year. But whenever Remy had Braden for a weekend, Lane wouldn’t see him until after his son had returned home to Kate.

“Why is that?” Lane asked at one point over the summer. They’d been together a little more than a year and a half by that point; he thought it high time he met the other man in Remy’s life. Over glasses of wine on Lane’s balcony, which overlooked the rapids on the James River, Lane wanted to know, “Is it that you’re ashamed of me, or something? Of us?”

Remy had reached across the span between their Adirondack chairs and rubbed Lane’s bare forearm. “Laney, no. It isn’t that at all and you know it.”

“So, well, what then?” Lane wanted to meet Braden, and felt as if a part of Remy was closed to him until he did.

Remy stared out over the river and didn’t answer immediately. Then he sighed, a lonesome sound, and downed the rest of his wine in one swallow. “I remember being his age,” he said softly. “I remember how cruel other kids can be. The word gay was something derogatory, something bad. I don’t want Braden to think that about us. About me.”

Covering Remy’s hand with his, Lane assured him, “He won’t. You’re his father.”

Remy turned his hand over and clasped Lane’s in it. “I know, but I have to do this my way. Please. Trust me.”

Lane did. He knew Remy liked to plan things out in advance, and he agreed to go along with Remy’s plan on how and when he would be introduced to Braden. He wasn’t sure another few months would make much of a difference, but if it meant that much to Remy, he could wait.

* * * *

First and foremost, Remy was a planner. Not only in work but in every aspect of his life. Once Lane realized Remy left nothing to chance, he didn’t let it bother him. There were no spontaneous day trips to fun, quirky places, no out-of-the-blue phone calls, no unexpected surprises. Everything was mapped out and orderly, planned down to the last second. Lane wasn’t quite that organized, but he was happy to let Remy take charge. He loved the man, plain and simple.

That wasn’t to say Remy didn’t ask Lane for his input—far from it. Many times they stayed up late hashing out details. How many times Lane had listened to Remy go over and over their planned Christmas getaway, he didn’t know. But part of the fun was seeing how excited Remy could get when he had his planning hat on. They would leave Friday right after work in Lane’s Jeep Cherokee, which had been packed the evening before. They would stop for dinner halfway to the mountains at a cozy little family restaurant Remy had found on his travels. They would stop again in the last town before the foothills began and stock up on supplies at a local grocery store. Remy already had a list. Then they would drive to the cabin and spend a full two weeks away from the rest of the world. They would only have each other, and that was the part of the plan Lane liked the most.

But now it seemed as if they weren’t going to be on their own after all.