Chase in Shadow Page 14

  “Crap, Tommy. It’s a good thing you were leaving the neighborhood anyway.”

  Tommy laughed and rested his forehead against Chase’s neck.

  “Yeah. Well, he was a prick anyway. I’m glad he’s fuckin’ gone.” Tommy rubbed his cheek on Chase’s shoulder, a strangely vulnerable gesture that belied the tough words, and Chase backed up and kissed him on the forehead.

  “All the better to spend the next three nights in a hotel,” he said. Why the hell not? He’d already committed to another scene with some guy named Kane; why should he not spend some of that money on Tommy, who didn’t expect anything at all from him, not even fidelity?

  Tommy looked up, such a sense of grateful wonder on his expression that Chase’s knees almost went weak. God—what he would not do for Tommy to earn an expression like that? It made him ashamed he hadn’t thought of it earlier. Hell, they could have spent the entire week in a hotel room and saved Tommy the painful, rusty walk down memory lane.

  “Can we do that?” he asked, and Chase nodded.

  “Why not? The stuff is packed up—we can come in tomorrow and get it to the post office or drop it off at the thrift store, whatever. In the meantime, I pushed back my ticket because you couldn’t move yours up. Why don’t we… I don’t know. Just spend some time….” His voice trailed off as he realized what this was, and then firmed up as he committed to it like he couldn’t commit to leaving Mercy or being faithful or anything else that would make this situation easier on Tommy. “Just some time alone,” he finished with conviction, and Tommy’s kiss was so pure, so grateful, that Chase thought he would fuck a hundred guys for the money to earn him that.

  The hotel was nice, but it was background. What mattered was that their first few steps into it, Chase watched Tommy relax completely, watched him go boneless on the bed. He kicked off his shoes, stretched out, and smiled like he was going to crack wise, and then those dark-bright Loki eyes closed and he fell fast asleep.

  It might have been the first real sleep Tommy got since he came out here to this godforsaken icehole and found his mother was dying. (Chase knew that there were supposed to be really spifftacular American history landmarks and shit in Massachusetts, and he had a vague memory of pilgrims and Pocahontas happening here somewhere, but so far all he’d seen had been Tommy’s South Boston neighborhood and snow. He wondered if he should vow to come back and see the place in a better light or something, but so far, he hadn’t seen anything to make him think Sacramento wasn’t just as good as any other place in the world, no matter how much he’d hated it as a kid.) Chase sighed and sat down on the bed next to him and thought restlessly about sleep, but he couldn’t. He was just thinking about hunting out the promised gym when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He sighed and picked it up.

  “Hey, Mercy,” he said, smiling a little when he heard her voice. No matter who she was to him, and who she should have been, they had started out as friends, and her voice was warm and friendly when he was emotionally stripped. She sounded like home, and he needed home.

  “Chase—how you doin’, baby? More importantly what are you doing? Have you seen your check in the bank? It’s huge. Are you fixing roads naked in the dark, or what?”

  Chase laughed a little. “If I was out there naked in the dark, the light off my bare ass would scare people off, Merce. No worries. But yeah, it’s a little dangerous. In fact,” and here he had an inspiration of genius, since he professed not to be that great at lying, “in fact, me and some of the guys are renting a hotel instead of sleeping in the dorms, right? Figure we might as well come back some place that’s gonna pamper us, yanno?”

  She didn’t even give him time to see if the lie was plausible or not. “Yeah, baby. You take a Jacuzzi and all that shit. If you can bring home this sort of bacon, I’d say you’ve earned it, you know?”

  Chase had never felt such a rush of guilt and triumph at the same time. It almost opened the door, and he couldn’t afford to do that right now. Not right now, when he had to be strong for Tommy and solid for Mercy and….

  “Thanks,” he said softly. “You going out on New Year’s?”

  “Yeah. Me and Kerry, her husband Jeff. She’s got a whole round of clubs—you’d like it!”

  Chase, in fact, did not like clubbing. He’d gone to impress Mercy at first, but then he’d discovered that bodies of all types, all shapes, all sizes were grinding up against his while he was dancing.

  The torture was exquisite. Even if it was a woman behind him, the uncertainty was the turn on. It could be anybody. It could be someone who wanted him. It could be a man who wanted him. Every time they went, he came home ready to hump the carpeting, and Mercy had enjoyed the attention. But the guilt….

  I’d rather drag my dick through carpet tacks and soak it in lemon juice than feel any worse about myself than I do at this moment.

  “Sounds great, babe. You’ll have to give me highlights!”

  “Yeah.”

  “So how was return day?” She’d been working the day after Christmas when he’d left—it was always so hard on her. He’d seen the crowds, and it had always worried him, because she was so tiny and those people always seemed so angry.

  He could almost hear her rolled eyes on the other end of the line. “It was a big, giant pain in the ass. My feet hurt and you weren’t there to rub them. Any other questions?”

  Chase laughed a little. “Not a one. Sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “That’s okay. You were off doing something for us. It’s all good.”

  I was off fucking one guy for money and falling hopelessly in love with another guy for no other reason than that he seems to have the key to the door in my soul.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, though. I didn’t like leaving you over the holidays.”

  “You were here for Christmas—that was plenty.”

  “Yeah, but babe… that thing with my dad….”

  “Yeah, well….” Her sigh was puzzled. “Chase, I get that he wasn’t father of the year. But I’ve never seen you hate anybody the way you hate him.”

  He’s called me a faggot since I was two. Imagine how fun it was when I realized I was one.

  “Lots of history there,” he said softly, and he felt a hand on his calf. He was surprised when he saw Tommy’s dark eyes open, and he grimaced and covered the phone mouthpiece. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I should have taken this outside.”

  “You ever think it’s strange that you haven’t told me what all that history is?”

  You don’t have the key to the red door in my soul, sweetheart. I’m sorry. You never will.

  “I don’t want to bother you with it,” he said, and thank God, his phone beeped because it was almost out of juice. Apparently the adultery gods were smiling on him, right?

  “Babe, that’s my phone….”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “I’ve got lunch with my mom anyway.”

  “Take care.”

  “Love you.”

  “You too.”

  And then they signed off, leaving Chase looking into Tommy’s black eyes.

  “Does she notice?” Tommy asked seriously.

  “Notice what?”

  “You never actually say the words?”

  Crumbling door, wedge shoulder, brace feet.

  “No. Not if I can help it.”

  Tommy’s hand caressed his calf through his jeans, before he pushed himself up on the bed, scooting until his shoulders were propped up on the bed next to Chase’s stomach, and it would only take a little roll to rest his chin on Chase’s stomach.

  “I love you, Chase Summers.”

  Chase’s whole body went cold, and for a moment that door bulged, the weight of the pain behind it almost too huge to manage.

  “I love you,” he said, surprised that the words slipped through. His hand went up to Tommy’s hair, which was growing out of its cut and flopping into his eyes a little. “I love you, Tommy Matthew Halloran.”

  Tommy nodded and put his cheek on Chase�
�s stomach. “You got a middle name, Chase?”

  “It’s my dad’s name. I don’t like to use it.”

  Tommy’s mouth twisted. “You got a name you like?” he asked, and Chase laughed a little, thinking about it.

  “I like my porn name,’ he said seriously, “but that wouldn’t sound right. Chase Chance Summers? No. Doesn’t work on the tongue.”

  Tommy pushed his sweatshirt up and started running his fingers around Chase’s now-hairless navel. “Chase Andrew Summers?”

  Chase shrugged. “Mmm… I always liked fancy names, you know?”

  “Like what?”

  Chase smiled a little and played with Tommy’s hair. “Like Julian, or Sebastian, or Jude or Horace or Malachi.”

  Tommy laughed a little. “Okay, so, how about Julian. You can be Chase Julian Summers. And when you’re with me, and we’re together and alone, you’ll be Chase Julian Summers, and I love you, Chase Julian Summers, like I don’t know if I can love another human being ever.”

  Chase nodded, and suddenly the door was smooth and even in his chest, and nothing was threatening to bulge out of it or escape.

  “I love you, Tommy Matthew Halloran, like I don’t know if I can love another human being ever.”

  It wasn’t a promise. Chase swore it wasn’t a promise. But it sounded like a vow.

  Tommy moved up to kiss him, and Chase Julian Summers kissed him back, a complete and whole person, invented on the spot so that Chase could function in this strange double life. Tommy breathed and ground against him, and Chase slid down the bed, kicking his shoes off and feeling his body start to buzz pleasantly with arousal without the least amount of guilt or remorse for this act, in spite of the lie that his life had become.

  Sunlight and Shadow

  ON THE screen, Kane’s back muscles rippled with his effort to come off the bed, to throw Chance off and out of him, and to take over the scene. Chance grunted and threw his upstage hand hard onto the small of Kane’s back, pinning him, even as his hips kept pistoning back and forth, keeping a steady, rocking-hard rhythm of his cock pounding away in Kane’s ass. Chance’s eyes half closed; he was obviously, totally, completely immersed in the sensation, and subtly, smoothly, he shifted his body so his camera-side shoulder dropped back and his chest and hips opened up a little. The camera zoomed in on where the action was, and Kane’s voice sounded disembodied as he groaned. His ass stopped quivering as he stopped fighting and gave himself up to being fucked.

  “Fuck me!” he commanded, grunting and stroking his huge, uncut cock furiously. “Just fuck me, dammit!”

  “I’m fucking you,” Chance’s voice came back, smug and breathless.

  “Faster, harder, deeper!”

  “I’ll fuck ya like I want ya!” Chance barked, and then, using his upstage hand again so it wouldn’t block the shot, he reached down and grabbed Kane’s thick, dark hair. Kane’s back arched and he screamed with arousal, and his fist kept up its action on his cock.

  “You like that?” Chance hissed, and Kane growled, “Don’t fuckin’ stop!” just as he shuddered and yelped and came all over the plain blue bedspread.

  IN THE viewing room John sighed, and Chase looked at him nervously over the giant cup of mocha latte Kane had greeted him with. It turned out that, off screen, Kane was as sweet as a paperboy and as eager to please as a Boston terrier puppy. Chase was both glad and humbled by the difference. Kane was a real porn actor—he knew how to make his porn person different from his real person—and Chase thought he should take a few notes.

  “What’s wrong?” Chase asked, fearing something irreparable. He’d already put himself on the shooting schedule for three more shots in the next few months. He’d had to schedule one scene right before spring training, which meant he was going to be a wreck during training week, but at least Mercy wouldn’t need to ask about the bruises or worry why he was too tired to put out.

  “Nothing,” John said sincerely. He looked up at Chase and smiled. “You’re great, kid. This one’s going to be your first five-star video, mark my words.”

  “Then why the sigh?” Kane asked over his own coffee. “My man here fucks like a god!”

  Chase smiled that lazy, “hit this pitch now, asshole!” grin. “Right backatcha.”

  John rolled his eyes. “It’s just that bit, where you dropped your shoulder back. It was perfect.”

  “And that was bad?” Chase asked, puzzled.

  “No, kid. It’s just the first time I ever saw you realize this was a job.”

  Chase pulled the corner of his mouth up in a lopsided grin.

  “Well, it may be, but I love my job!”

  Kane cracked up, and although he was a good six inches shorter than Chase, propped his elbow on Chase’s shoulder and leaned into him. It was something Kevin or Donnie would do, and Chase found he was totally comfortable with it. It wasn’t the touch of a lover, in spite of what they’d just seen on screen. It was the touch of a coworker, or a friend. It was Dex’s touch, or Cameron’s, or Mercy’s, or John’s.

  It wasn’t the touch of Tommy Halloran.

  “Yeah, but you’ll love your job even more when it’s my turn on top!”

  Tommy needs to be my first.

  For a minute Chase was going to object, even though he knew that, eventually, being on the bottom was in the cards. People expected that—you couldn’t be on top all the time, and everybody liked cherry-popping scenes, especially from an established top.

  But those three days in a hotel room in Boston were only four weeks in Chase’s rearview, and although Tommy had bottomed the whole time—without even questioning or asking or even trying to reverse their position—and Chase’s ass was fine and dandy, but his heart was a little bit raw.

  He’d caught a cab to the airport and left Tommy at the hotel, the room paid through until Tommy left. Chase had made sure that every last scrap of business had been taken care of, and that all Tommy had to do was work out and eat and sleep. Tommy, for his part, kissed Chase with an open mouth and a pure soul. For the last three days he’d tasted like chocolate sometimes and strawberries sometimes, sometimes steak or chicken salad, and sometimes beer—but not once like cigarettes.

  Chase had texted him that he got home safely, and Tommy had texted him when he was back in town. They’d texted each other regularly after that—at least a half an hour a day, and sometimes the dumbest shit too. Chase would say he was getting his classes and Tommy would tell him he had to reapply for school. Chase would tell him the hours and Tommy would ask him if he’d gotten blown recently.

  No, you moron. I haven’t shot any scenes!

  Not your only source of blow jobs.

  Yeah, but I don’t let her do that.

  What kind of idiot are you?

  The kind who makes her come and hope she falls

  asleep.

  God, I almost wish the sex was good!

  It was good. With you.

  Need to see you again.

  Once my classes get settled. I swear.

  And that had been a week ago. Chase had seen Tango around the shop when he’d come in to talk about his scene with Kane. They’d looked at each other and waved and smiled, but they hadn’t touched, not even the way he and Kane were touching now. Chase knew Tango had shot two scenes of his own, one of them with Cam and Ethan, and other than that, it was like just another guy from work.

  But that one time, from across the room, Tango’s eyes had caught his, hot and dark, and Chase had blushed and turned away just as Tango disappeared down the hallway that led to the sets.

  Good scene?

  Ethan’s hung like a fucking elephant.

  Won’t be able to walk for a week.

  Yeah, THAT makes me want to bottom.

  You’ve never bottomed off-camera?

  Until you I’d never topped off-camera either.

  I told you that.

  No. You expected me to put shit together.

  I’m not that bright.

  Liar.


  No, man. I just don’t think that far. It’s why

  I’m so good in porn!

  Jesus, Tommy. The only dumb thing you’ve ever

  Done is hook up with me.

  Need to see you. Now. I will fucking stalk you.

  Scene with Kane in two days. Day after

  That, told Mercy I’d be out of town for a bit.

  Make it a week. You can stay with me.

  God, I thought you’d never ask.

  AND now, he was looking at the rushes of his scene with Kane, and Kane was leering at him, promising him a good ride.

  And the only one Chase trusted to ride him was Tommy.

  “Mm, I don’t know,” John said, thinking. “Kane, you guys were pretty hot together. We may want to milk this. We need a tag team here before we put Chase on bottom. Who would be good in the middle of a tag team?”

  “Cameron?” Kane suggested, and John shrugged.

  “Too passive—he takes more initiative as a solitary bottom,” John mused. “Tango?”

  And Chase’s heart stopped.

  Please God, not Tango. Please God, not Tango. Please. I don’t want us to do that for money. Please God.

  Then John answered his own question. “No, never mind. Tango just did a tag team. He wants to top in his next vid, anyway.”

  “Scott?” Kane suggested doubtfully, and John wrinkled his nose.

  “No. Scott’s a diva. He wants to be the prettiest, the bestest, and the most hung. We put the two of you in with Scott, he’ll get his feathers ruffled.”

  They went back and forth for a little while without coming to much of a conclusion, and Chase felt a buzz in his pocket.

  I’m outside—you parked around back?