“Thank you,” Tierney said against Dalton’s neck, whiskers scraping his skin. “For telling me.”
Dalton had to swallow to speak. “That’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone that much.” He reached up and touched Tierney’s jaw, letting the beginnings of the man’s beard prick his fingertips.
“You don’t laugh enough.” Tierney had come into the living room, where Dalton had gone to put on his shoes, and found him sitting on the couch, frowning into midair, and holding a black oxford in his hand. Had talking about his past upset him?
Someone like Dalton should be happy more often.
The dude shook off whatever was occupying his thoughts, and lifted his foot. “We haven’t had a lot of things to laugh about. I haven’t seen you laugh much, either.” He looked over his shoulder, tying his laces.
Tierney came around and sat next to him. “Yeah, but I know I laugh. Right now we’re talking about you.”
A smile was flirting with the corners of Dalton’s mouth. “I was talking about you.”
“Uh-uh. My house, my conversation. We’re talking about you.”
Dalton was grinning now, all done with his laces. He turned to Tierney. “Maybe you just aren’t funny.”
“Ooooh,” Tierney said softly, shaking his head. “Now you’ve done it. I’ll give you something to laugh about.”
He jumped, digging his fingers into Dalton’s sides, because everyone was ticklish there, right? Dalton definitely was—that earthy laugh spilled out of him, and he scooted back, trying to escape. Tierney pursued him until they were both half-lying on the cushions, in danger of falling off if he didn’t stop making Dalton squirm. The laugh was addictive, though. He needed to hear more of it. Just a little, to help get him through the day.
“Stop,” Dalton begged between gasping, giggling breaths. “T-Tierney, please s-s-stop.”
He did, because Dalton’s face was totally flushed and both their chests were heaving, working to get more air in. Grinning down at him, Tierney mentally patted himself on the back. “See? Made ya laugh.”
Dalton laughed again, which effectively hog-tied Tierney, making it impossible for him to move away. Such a sexy sound. Tierney wanted to lay his palm on Dalton’s chest and feel it vibrate through him.
So he did.
It just seemed so possible, touching Dalton like this. Maybe it was the blue of his eyes or how happy he seemed right now, or just the way he looked at Tierney, as if Tierney had given him a gift. The perfect gift.
Some tangible connection pulled him toward Dalton, like an elastic band, to the point of no return, where Tierney had to kiss him.
Just the press of Dalton’s lips made him hard; he didn’t need tongue. Dalton gave it to him, though, opening up and offering Tierney free rein inside his mouth. At first it was wild and desperate, but Dalton’s hand in his hair focused Tierney. Dalton arching up into him made it a full-body experience that left them both gasping when it was over, staring at each other.
Dalton licked his lip. “Was that just a friend thing?”
Tierney’s heart thumped extra hard in his chest. “If you want it to be.”
For a second, he really thought Dalton would kiss him back. His eyes searched Tierney’s like he could read a message there.
But then, Dalton slid his hand out of Tierney’s hair, until his fingers rested along Tierney’s cheekbone. “Then I guess that’s what it was.”
Pretending was a useful skill—at his first few days back to work, Tierney had pretended to be a normal guy (who’d completely humiliated himself, then disappeared for a couple weeks to have a minor personality reconstruction procedure) coming in for a normal day at the office. When he walked through the front doors of Metropolitan Ambulance the first morning, the receptionist had actually gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth. That’s something he bet Dalton would never do. Raise an eyebrow or maybe blank his expression, but not gasp loudly.
Tierney had walked past her with a wave and smile. Well, hopefully it’d looked like a smile.
Gina, though, deserved whatever future raises Chase wanted to give her, because she was fantastic about the whole thing. Sympathetic, but not cloyingly so, and that first day, when he’d asked her how she felt about him being gay, she’d only snorted and said, “It explains a lot of things.”
The rest of that week—only three days, thank all that was unholy—was complete pretense as well. He played deaf whenever he walked into a room and overheard the last few words of a conversation that was clearly about him. He faked stupid when people asked him how his vacation had gone, and if he’d “straightened everything out.” He spent every fucking day affecting the demeanor of a guy who didn’t care what anyone thought.
Total lie. He’d died inside a few thousand times, worrying what people thought.
All those years of playing Tierney Terrebonne, Sleazeball Extraordinaire should have made it easier to fake it now, but it didn’t. Then he’d been acting out of self-preservation. This felt like he was forcing himself to walk into traffic every second of the day.
By the time Friday rolled around, he was exhausted. He wanted to stay home in bed—no more pretending to be oblivious, no Star Trek, no porn. Nothing. Just sleep.
Except he couldn’t rest, because the worst was yet to come.
That afternoon, he had a meeting.
When he walked in and Gina reminded him, “Don’t forget, you have that tri-county emergency services thingy at the hospital today,” he froze for a second, waiting for the “dun-dun-duuuuun” tone that signaled impending doom on sitcoms.
“Tierney?” Gina prodded. “Hellooooo.” She stood and leaned over her desk to wave a palm in Tierney’s face.
He started. “I remember.”
She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go instead?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I gotta get the first one over with.” He had to deal with those guys who’d been in that meeting at Ian’s office. Well, not all of them, because Ian and a few others wouldn’t be there, but a majority of them. Like Aspell and Chief Fowler . . . “I’ll just be sitting at my desk until it’s time to go, puking my guts out into my trash can.”
She handed him a plastic garbage pail as he passed by. “Yours is made of wire mesh. Too many holes.”
Christ, this was going to suck.
And it did. Oh, it started out all right, everyone greeted him like always, and no one made any obvious jokes at his expense, but halfway through, he realized they weren’t texting him.