Page 61 of Sapphire Storm

By the time he reached the Shelter Island Marina, lateafternoon had turned the sky overhead a dusty rose. To the west, the Point Lomapeninsula rose in a wooded, rooftop-studded swell that would soon obscure thesunset. To the east, and a good ways beyond the rounded hangars of the NorthIsland Naval Air Station, downtown San Diego’s skyscrapers tossed the sunlightback at them in little blinding coins. Gathering his thoughts, trying to pullthe coherent threads from his confusing tangle of anger and frustration, Ethanpaced the lot close to his parked car until he saw the gleaming Bentley pullinto the lot.

Roman’s sunglasses hid his eyes as he approached. There wasa tense, angry set to his jaw, but his walk was a shuffle without any of hisusual strut.

“Have fun?” Ethan asked.

Roman shook his head. “No, not really. Guess I’m not cut outfor it.”

Ethan nodded. A tense silence fell, interrupted by the cawsof wheeling seagulls overhead.

“Donnie says you’re really mad.”

“I am.”

Roman huffed and sneered. “Why?”

“Why?Okay, well, take your pick. There’s the factthat you wasted my good friend’s time and used his legitimate business as somesort of tool in whatever this game was. There’s the fact that you set up asituation where I’d be forced to see you naked against my will. Then there’sthe fact that a trip that was supposed to be about thanking my good friend forhelping me get the job of my dreams is now about you and whatever stalkerish mindgame you’re playing now. Should I keep going?”

Roman shook his head at the pavement, but a silence settled.Finally, he broke it and his voice sounded winded and weak. “When you told meyou were coming down here, I saw you in a Jacuzzi making boy soup with a bunch ofporn hotties and I thought that’s what I needed to be to get you to see me assomebody other than little Ronnie Burton.”

“If you’re worried about me seeing some other version ofyou, you should worry about the one I saw on Saturday night at the hotel. Becausethat’s what today felt like.”

Roman threw his hands wide. “You’re just not going to sayanything about the fact that I have feelings for you?”

“If someone would like me to recognize their feelings forme, they should also try respecting me.”

“Is that why you keep rejecting me? Because I don’t—”

“Rejectingyou?” Ethan barked. “Roman, you have akey to my house. I was up at the crack of dawn making you a refrigerator fullof food. I risked my job to set up that meeting with you and Rachel, notknowing how it would go. Do you have any idea what it meant to let you stay inmy place when I’m not around? After Saturday? I sat there for hours this morningwondering if I should lock up my personal papers just in case you got a littletaste for revenge again.”

“I would never do that,” he whispered. “Not after thisweek.”

“A week in which you have acted like everything I’ve donefor you means nothing, all because I won’t treat you with the same slobbering,blind sexual attention as the strangers who follow you online.”

“That’s not what I want from you.”

“No, you want validation and distraction instead of actualhelp. And forgive me if that seems as one-sided as what I used to give yourfather.”

Roman bowed his head as if he’d been slapped. Ethan didn’tregret the words. But maybe they could have used a bit more varnish. The youngman held his ground, jaw quivering, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry if today crossed a boundary orwhatever.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said quietly. “Because it did.”

Because deep down,he thought,whether I wantedto admit it or not, I wanted to see you naked someday, but not in that studio,not under those hot lights. And now it feels like that special moment has beenstolen from me forever.

For a while, neither of them spoke, and with each passingsecond, Ethan wasn’t sure if he was afraid Roman was about to leave or hopingfor the young man’s quick exit.

But after a while, Roman lifted his chin and spoke again.His voice was ragged but steady. “And I’m sorry that I’m not as smart as youare and that I don’t have the words to say how you make me feel. Because thetruth is no man has ever made me feel the way you do, Ethan. And maybe that’sjust ’cause I’m young and inexperienced or whatever. But I could feel it when wewere texting last week, when I was lying to you about who I was, and it fuckedwith my head because I didn’t know the real story and I thought I was seeinghow my dad fell for you. And I could relate, to be blunt. And it’s why I was socrazy by the time I got to the hotel.

“Then we met for real, and there was this…strength in you.This quiet. And it quieted me too for the first time in I don’t know how long.I couldn’t believe it when you came walking out of the dark on the trail thatnight. At first I thought I was imagining it. You, there. Opening your heart tome after I went for your throat.”

Run,Ethan thought. But it was his mother’s ghostlyvoice who said it, his mother who’d once lectured him on how two men couldnever truly love each other. Pleasure each other in sinful ways, but not loveeach other.Run. He’s too young, too fragile. Maybe he believes all thisnow, but he’ll change his mind tomorrow, and you’ll be humiliated and alone.Better to just be alone. So run.

But Roman wasn’t finished. “There’s always been a storminside of me for as long as I can remember, but I feel like no matter how bigit gets it would never blow a man like you off course. You’re so strong. You’reso steady. All I want to do every time I’m with you is sink into your arms. AndI feel like if I’m with you, I won’t just get better. I’llbebetter.Because when you talk to me, you see me. You seemeand not the thingsthat I have to put on or take off to get attention. And it scares me and itmakes me excited. And I guess it makes me desperate and crazy too. And I’msorry if I haven’t figured out the right way to throw myself at you, but youshould know the only reason I’m doing it is because I never wanted to leaveyour arms on Sunday morning.”

“Roman…” But he couldn’t finish the sentence. Everythinginside of him wanted to lean into Roman’s words the same way Roman wanted tolean into his embrace. Inside of him was a war between decades’ worth ofdefenses and precautions and decades’ worth of longing for a man who would surrenderto his protection and his care the way Roman had just described.

Send him home,he thought.Send him away. He’sright. He is a storm, and he’ll drag you under.

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