Refuge

Chapter 3

Chapter 3An hour later, feeling sore and a little humiliated, Henley carefully sat up in bed and looked around for his wrinkled shirt. With it, he wiped the c*m off his face. He hated when Gabriel did that. Hated it. Heart in mouth, he slipped his underwear on. Again, Gabriel had been too rough with him tonight. It seems it was happening more and more these days. Sometimes Gabriel joked about not having time to go to the gym and s*x with Henley was his only work-out. Very funny.

Henley leaned back against the bed’s oak wood headboard and held back a sigh. What was he doing still giving Gabriel what he wanted, when he never received what he needed? This wasn’t going anywhere. Why did he still put up with it? For a moment, he was transfixed, staring out of his bedroom window at the breathtaking view the city offered him. He remembered how as a kid, he would follow a street with his finger and imagine the people who lived on that particular black vein in the city’s heart. He’d spend hours in his bed, observing neighborhoods, counting church towers in each, or watching the traffic flow downtown. The city would become a model to him. Something unreal. His only source of distraction, while Mom and Dad had cried and fought all night about Lucy and what to do about her.

Well, his sister had decided that for all of them, hadn’t she? She’d swallowed forty Valiums before going to bed. One way ticket to nowhere. She’d left him to be Daddy and Mommy’s only and perfect child.

“Oh, man,” Gabriel said, walking out of the steamy bathroom that connected to the bedroom. “It’s going to be October soon. And then snow.” He’d dressed in his suit again, tie and everything, but his dark brown hair was wet around the ears and he smelled of Henley’s shea butter soap. He lit up a cigarette and walked to the window, cracking it open to blow the smoke out. “I hate winter.” Gabriel stared at the city ahead, his profile bathed in silver blue light, smoking what he called his last freedom. His precious and only daily cigarette. After a moment, he turned to look at Henley, his fierce brown eyes narrowing a little. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”

The words flew around Henley’s head. He wanted to stand up, walk to Gabriel and say, “It’s over. I can’t do this with you anymore. Six years, I’ve been your side dish. It’s destroyed my life. I’m a shadow of what I used to be. I need to let you go.”

But instead, he held Gabriel’s intense gaze and said, “Nothing. It’s just been a hard week, that’s all.”

Gabriel nodded and blew a puff of his cigarette through the crack in the window. He went to the washroom and there was the sound of flushing. When he walked back into the bedroom, Henley knew Gabriel would say good night and be out the door in a matter of seconds. He probably had a girlfriend waiting for him somewhere down there. A new romance to keep him alive and away from his truth.

Whatever that truth was, Henley didn’t know anymore. God, he’d probably end up being Gabriel’s best man at his wedding. Forever invisible.

“Well,” Gabriel said, a little uneasily, as predicted, “I have to get going.” He grabbed his jacket from off the upholstered divan. “My new client is a real pain in the ass. She sent me, like, five years’ worth of emails I have to sift through.” Gabriel was a divorce lawyer. Not any divorce lawyer. He handled only very VIP people. The elite. Mostly politicians. City officials. Everyone in town who had any kind of pull knew and feared him, because he had all their dirty little secrets. He received so many bribes in a year, that he sometimes ran a lottery between his close friends and gave out some of these under-the-table gifts. He was also the most cynical man Henley had ever known. Even more cynical than he was.

In the door, Gabriel stopped to look at him. He was a stunning man. Tall, confident, with chiselled features and sexy dark eyes that watched everyone and everything with scrutiny and skepticism. Maybe he was going to miss Gabriel’s face. But nonetheless, it was time to end this thing. And it was happening now.

“Are you going to Ottawa this weekend?” Gabriel asked, in an expectant tone.

“No. Why would I go there?” Henley tried to conceal his annoyance. Of course Gabriel was hoping he’d go to Ottawa, that way Gabriel wouldn’t have to feel guilty over not spending any time with him.

“I’m sure your father is pretty worried. And little Johnny, too.”

“Worried about me?” Henley scoffed, tipping his head, watching Gabriel’s expression go from tender to tense. “What could possibly happen to me?”

Yes, what could happen to him?

In the door, Gabriel blew out a sharp breath. “Why do you insist on living in this f*****g haunted house? Why?”

“It’s my home.”

“It’s not. Home isn’t about memories. Home is about making them.”

“With you?” he snapped, without thinking, his temper flaring up.

“Ha! I knew you were pissed at me.”

“Oh, yeah? Hmm, did you know it when you were ramming me into the mattress or after you came on my face?”

“Oh, Jesus, Henley.” Gabriel frowned and shook his head. “What the hell? Maybe we should take a break, you know? Maybe you need some time off from me, huh? I mean, God knows, all my ex-girlfriends seem to fare better after I get out of their hair.”

Henley gripped the sheet, his cheeks flaming up. “In all of these years, no bullshit, did you ever once think we’d be a couple?”

Gabriel scowled again. “Did you?”

The two words punctured his heart like two rusty nails.

“Henley.” Gabriel carefully made his way over to the bed and sat on the edge, putting his hand over his. “I never lied to you. If you lied to yourself, that’s not on me. What we have is what it is, and you’ve always known it. You’ve been hiding in it for a long time.”

“You used me,” Henley whispered. “And the worst part is, I let you,” he added, his voice dimming. “I let you. Because it felt safe. Familiar.”

Safe, yes. There had been no challenge.

For a moment, Gabriel stared at him. Then he rose, took a few steps, and turned around. “You know, you used me, too. In the last years, I’m the only thing that’s kept you from turning into a ghost. I come here, in this house on the hill every other week to quicken you. Give you a little taste of life.”

“You really think that, don’t you?” Henley pushed the covers off and stood, walking up to Gabriel. “Every time you leave me in that bed alone, week after week, every time you walk out that door, you take a little piece of my life with you. You’re the vampire, Gabriel. Not me.”

“Let’s agree to disagree.” Gabriel took a deep breath. “Maybe I’ll call you next week and will work this out.”

Henley hugged himself, trying to keep it together. “I don’t think so…”

“Ah, come on, man, you’re just going through a tough—”

“Gabe. Please just go.” Henley raised his chin, the blood pounding through his veins. “I mean it. I really mean it this time.”

Gabriel hesitated. “Why didn’t you tell me you don’t like it when I come on your face?”

For some reason, Henley couldn’t hold back a dry, desperate chuckle. He’d loved this man? Had he really? Or had he been deluding himself all these years? How could he have mistaken this joke for love? What the f**k was wrong with him? “Oh, my God,” he said, widening his eyes and looking around at the room, the disarray of blankets on the bed, everything so crystal clear, like that day he’d had corrective laser surgery and seen the world with twenty-twenty vision for the first time.

“What?” Gabriel asked, stepping back as though he’d caught the new look in his eye. “What’s going on?”

“Just go,” he whispered. “I’m sorry…Just leave.” Henley turned around, and with his heel, slammed the bedroom door in Gabriel’s shocked face.

“You’re f*****g crazy, man,” Gabriel growled from the hall. There was the sound of his steps in the stairs and then the front door being shut hard.

“Maybe I am…” Henley crawled back into bed.

That night, he slept better that he had in a long time.