Unholy Desire: Sinful Natures 3

3. Ezra

3

EZRA

Phillip had always been a strapping man, brutish in strength and thick through the chest. The man slumped in the wheelchair who greeted me with a half-smile and slurred words of welcome was nothing more than a mere shell of my memory.

Regret like I’d never known slammed into me. Sofiy had stolen years from me—from us, and a feeling of heaviness settled over my shoulders beyond what her death had caused.

“I’m sorry I left.” I struggled to apologize without shedding a tear.

“You gained your place in glory,” Phillip slowly got the words out, but his smile remained.

Throat tight, I bent to hug him, taking care of the frail bones beneath sagging skin. He didn’t smell of the outdoors and Old Spice like I remembered but of age and sickness.

Or perhaps my senses betrayed me in recognizing my oldest and best friend didn’t have much time left.

My stomach knotted from a swell of emotions that I couldn’t begin to number. I should have been there for Phillip, been available for him to vent or console when he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

I’d failed him, same as I’d failed Sofiy.

The note burned through to my skin, but I forced the previous couple of weeks from my mind and focused on the reality of my life.

The here and now.

I would make up for all we’d lost out on and redeem myself with the second chance God had given me.

Glenda, the neighbor lady who’d stayed with Phillip while Aaron retrieved me from the airport, declined the invitation to join for dinner, so the three of us sat down to dine on fried chicken and the instant potatoes and gravy I hadn’t tasted in fifteen years.

And the warm biscuits…smothered in melted butter.

“So good,” I said and licked crumbs off my fingers.

Phillip made a grunt of agreement, but my face burned.

I glanced at Aaron to find his focus on my mouth rather than the half-eaten chicken thigh in his fingers.

Swallowing hard, I turned my attention back to my plate.

Whatever strangeness had come to life between us at the airport remained, and I couldn’t figure out my thoughts. I seemed to be…drawn to him in unhealthy ways, but I didn’t sense conviction from the Holy Spirit over such feelings.

Exhaustion had to weigh in on my tumbling emotions. Chances were, his hug had opened a floodgate of longing for all I’d been denied for ten years from my frigid wife.

Clinging to that hope, I pushed against the memory of his hand on my knee before entering the house. I’d wanted to pull his touch higher to the part of me that hadn’t known a loving caress from another human for much too long.

Forced celibacy due to Sofiy’s issues should have given me an opportunity to somehow glorify God, but I’d never found how. Our lack of intimacy had only intensified my bitterness toward her.

And now she’s dead because of me. Better I’d never left Phillip and went on the mission field.

My appetite waned, and I pushed the plastic spork through the coleslaw rather than eating it, fighting off the demons in my head.

“You must be tired.” Phillip’s slow words escaped as barely more than a mumble.

I forced a half-smile. “I am.”

The sun had begun to sink in the window behind him. Not late enough to go to bed, and it had been too long since I’d spent time with my friend.

“But I’m not ready to sleep just yet,” I added.

“Why don’t you wheel Dad into the living room,” Aaron suggested what I’d been thinking, “and I’ll clean up our mess.”

Unable to look at Aaron’s face, I nodded. “Phillip?”

My friend grunted an affirmative, and I pushed up from the table.

Backside tingling, I wheeled Phillip from the kitchen, and the sense of being watched ceased the second we turned the corner, away from the kitchen and Aaron’s view.

Aaron had taken down a few walls to open up the space for his dad’s wheelchair and cleared a spot alongside the couch for Phillip. I parked him beside the end table, angled a bit toward the couch.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked.

“No.”

I settled on the couch cushion closest to him, sitting somewhat sideways to make discussion easier. “How are you?” I asked quietly, giving him the opportunity to open up without his son hearing.

“Dying,” he bit out.

Gathering his wrinkled hand in mine, I studied the veins along the back…the thinness of his wrist, the lack of muscle beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. “God blessed us with a lot of good memories, my friend.”

“Not enough.”

Pale and sunken, his face was void of expression even though his words suggested anger and regret. His hand shook slightly in mine.

My fault. “Well, I’m here now,” I managed to whisper, “and we’re going to make the best of our time together.” Since I hadn’t done so with Sofiy.

Another hard swallow had me shifting my attention toward the TV on its stand.

“Grief is for the birds,” Phillip muttered, “and not my favorite chirping ones.”

He’d lost his wife too—but because she’d run off with another man, leaving him and Aaron alone. Death of a different sort but hurt all the same, and I’d been there to help him pick up the pieces.

My heart longed to pour out my shame to Phillip, my fingers to pull the note from my back pocket. Of all the people in my life, he was the only one I could trust with my deepest secret.

But my friend faced a depression of his own, and I wouldn’t add to his burden by unveiling mine.

Forcing another smile, I turned my focus back on him. “You’re blessed to have Aaron.”

Phillip’s body twitched as though annoyed even though his expression stayed neutral. “He’s a good boy.”

Not a boy.

A shiver rippled through me as the image of him striding toward me in the airport flashed through my memory, and I closed my eyes, wanting to bask in the strange desire he’d roused—and rid it from my mind.

“Okay?” Phillip asked me, and I nodded. “Time will lessen the hurt,” he murmured, taking care to form each word.

But it wasn’t the pain of loss I dealt with at that moment. The feeling shifting over my skin, through my body was desire, plain and simple.

For affection, I assured myself. Nothing s****l.

I squeezed Phillip’s hand gently, hoping to alleviate my wayward state of dealing with the lack of physical touch.

No strange vibe filled me from the thin hand in mine. No shiver of need. No prickling awareness like the one causing the hair on the nape of my neck to rise.

I turned to find Aaron in the living room’s doorway. Our eyes locked on one another, and for the first time since I’d caught sight of Sofiy all those years ago, my lungs refused to pull in oxygen.

Aaron’s gaze flitted over my face but not as though tracking how I’d changed from the man he’d known before. No, his focus seemed on taking me in, on memorizing the newer version—and the soft smile lifting his lips made me think he appreciated what he saw.

In more ways than was proper for a man and his father’s best friend.

My body tightened, but Aaron shifted his attention toward Phillip, allowing me to breathe again. “You okay, Dad?” he asked, noting our clasped hands.

Phillip grunted an affirmative, and Aaron rounded the couch to sit beside me. He sprawled rather than perching on the cushion, angling toward me. Inches separated his pulled-up knee from my thigh, and I stared at the distance, wishing to lessen it.

Knowing I shouldn’t.

“Remember our last camping trip?” Aaron asked, his tone happier than I’d heard all afternoon. “That black bear that got into our cooler?”

“He stole the bacon,” Phillip mumbled.

“And you chased him off by banging two pots together and howling like a banshee,” I tacked on, chuckling at the memory I hadn’t thought on in years. “In your boxers—and you woke up the neighboring campers.”

“I swear they fried up bacon and ate it in front of us on purpose that morning to get me back for waking them up.” Phillip’s long sentence took a while to make it past his lips, but his blue eyes Aaron had inherited twinkled with a bit of life.

“The bastards,” I murmured, leaning toward him like we shared in our unkind, ungodly thoughts toward those folks.

If Phillip could have laughed, I knew he would have with the deep rumble that used to give me such a sense of camaraderie.

My smile faded as I realized again all the years Sofiy had stolen from me—time I had allowed her to take.

Heaviness settled over my chest and lingered as the three of us continued to reminisce even though neither of them seemed to hold any bitterness over my having left them with silence for so many years. Still, I smiled rather than revealing my regrets outwardly, soaking in the feeling of home, of belonging I’d always felt with Phillip and his son.

But the sense of more rested in the back of my head that I couldn’t shake, and it kept me on edge. Tense and unsettled inside.

Eventually, darkness claimed the windows, and Aaron wheeled Phillip back to the dining room he’d converted into a first-floor bedroom to settle him into bed for the night.

Given the reprieve of privacy, I filled my lungs fully and climbed the stairs, focusing on what needed to be done rather than the unrest inside my soul.

I’d been once again gifted my old bedroom on the second floor and set to unpacking my things into the bureau and bookshelf Aaron had emptied for me. I shoved the two suitcases through the pull-down into the attic, and a quick shower washed the weariness of travel from my body. Although exhaustion weighed my shoulders, I knew I wouldn’t sleep.

Aaron sat watching TV when I meandered back downstairs against my better judgement.

“Did you have any problems getting him into bed?” I asked, collapsing in the seat I’d vacated an hour earlier.

“No. We have a pretty set routine.” Aaron shifted on the couch, once more turning my way. He lifted his knee up onto the cushion beside me again, stretching his shorts tight over bulging thighs. Dark hair on sculpted calves—

I tore my wandering focus off him to fiddle with the edge of my T-shirt.

“And he’s on an emotional high after all those memories and laughter,” Aaron continued on as though he hadn’t noticed me looking at his legs.

“He seems well, all things considered,” I agreed, glancing up at his face.

“Because you’re here.” Aaron’s smile warmed my heart. “Once that newness wears off, you’ll see him in all his negative, complaining glory. For someone who claims to love the Lord as much as he does, you’d think he would be a little more filled with the Spirit.” His lips clamped closed as though he’d said too much

I noted the hint of bitterness in Aaron’s voice that crept in at the end of his vocalized observance but wasn’t about to admonish him. Not having lived in his shoes, I couldn’t begin to imagine his thoughts and feelings.

It didn’t appear as though he’d be forthcoming with them either, but perhaps he needed a little encouragement to release some of his bottled-up emotions.

“How are you really doing, Aaron?” I asked, allowing myself to look him full in the face. Last I’d done so was when I’d turned to find him behind me while Phillip and I had our quiet time together, my body zapping like a live wire.

“Good.” He lied to some extent, but his smile didn’t.

“I can imagine you feel as though you’re missing out on life right now. At your age, it must be tough to be in the situation you’re in.”

“I have my moments.” Aaron’s gaze slid down over my face, lingering on my beard, my neck, and my shoulders.

I turned my focus on my hands rather than dealing with the strangeness the want in his eyes inspired. Tingles raced down my spine, settling in my balls, but I refused to allow a foothold to such desires.

“You’re lucky to still have your loved one,” I stated quietly, and suddenly I needed to feel his arms again—compassion and comfort.

The affirmation of being loved that came from physical touch.

But I feared I wouldn’t be able to keep from taking advantage of what I expected Aaron wished to give.