Resilience Read online

  “Love you. Tell Evil Genius I love him, too, when he finally comes up for air from his edits.”

  “Will do. Love you, too.” He ended the call and stared at the lock screen on his phone. A picture of all of them, including Andrew and Peggy, taken just a month before the stroke that had killed her.

  Maybe it’s time I finally change that.

  The twins were young women, almost adults. They weren’t the grinning little girls who’d been barely up to Adam’s waist when the picture was taken.

  Another couple of years, and they’d have an empty house to rattle around in. Not that he wanted to get rid of it, because he didn’t. He wanted their home to be there for their kids—and eventually their kids’ families—to return to for holidays and big occasions.

  Just like his momma’s home had always been, and had continued to be with Andrew.

  He put his phone on the charger on the bedside table, switched off the lamp, and got comfortable. As comfortable as he could without his guy in bed with him.

  He didn’t know how Nevvie had done it all those years ago, when Ty had his heart attack and he’d been in the motorcycle accident. The weeks alone in bed at night, unable to be with either of them.

  Then again, she’d barely slept that entire time, until Tyler had been able to come home. Before that, she’d usually spent her nights there at the hospital, taking care of Tom while he was in a medically induced coma, reading to him.

  And here I am, whining that Ty’s working in the next room instead of in bed with me.

  Light from the hallway, spilling in from the lamps in the office, cast enough illumination Tom could clearly see the urn on the dresser.

  They weren’t exactly young anymore, even though he didn’t feel “old” except on the worst days when his leg didn’t want to cooperate with him.

  But they weren’t getting any younger.

  He knew life was one hundred percent fatal, and both he and Tyler had cheated Death already, Tyler once by surviving his heart attack, and himself twice, if one also counted the attack by Alex.

  Sure, they had paperwork in place, stuff they’d done as responsible adults and with Bob’s loving harassment as their friend and attorney to protect themselves and their kids.

  But…

  The three of them had never really had the talk.

  As Nevvie had painfully driven into Tom not long after Tyler’s heart attack, she’d watched Tyler die in front of her. Had Momma not been there to do CPR until the EMTs arrived, he would have stayed dead.

  Had his own motorcycle accident not happened literally in front of the hospital ER, he might have died from his injuries.

  Watching someone die hadn’t been on his bucket list. He’d been fortunate he’d been in Florida when his father’s accident happened, and had been in town with Tyler, shopping for parts for their pool pump, when he’d received Nevvie’s frantic call about Momma.

  It was a tad ironic that the first person he’d actually watched die and gently helped usher in their death—not counting Alex, because Tom had been nearly unconscious when Tyler had shot Alex, and they’d wanted Alex dead—had been the one man Tom had despised for decades.

  Don’t spit in the face of good fortune.

  He didn’t know what Tyler planned to do with the urns. Tyler had mentioned wanting to go by the bank and get something from the safe deposit box. Tom didn’t ask him what, but after seeing Tyler had read the note that had been in the sealed envelope Tom had grabbed from the box, he suspected it would be the men’s wedding bands.

  That would be so Tyler, sentimental and romantic and empathetic to a fault.

  Maybe the urns would find a place on a shelf in Tyler’s office, with a picture of the two men and their rings. Maybe Tyler would one day want to go for a walk or a drive or take a trip with the urns and come back without them.

  Maybe Tyler would pack them in a box and keep them in his office closet and try to pretend they weren’t there because he couldn’t decide what to do.

  It didn’t matter to Tom. All that mattered was his guy’s beautiful heart and soul, the very thing that had attracted him to Tyler in the first place.

  Besides his killer blue eyes.

  Tom didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he felt the bed dip next to him and Tyler’s comforting warmth spooned around him from behind. Tom used his foot to tuck Tyler’s leg between his, and he felt for and found Tyler’s hand, lacing fingers with him, before falling asleep again.

  This time without any of the sad dreams about funerals and loss that’d plagued him.

  * * * *

  Tyler lay awake long after Tom had gone right back to sleep. Nearly five in the morning, and Tyler still felt wide awake despite how blurry his vision had grown and how much he’d been yawning just before quitting for the night.

  He’d peeked.

  Again.

  The last twenty minutes he’d spent not working on edits, but reading through another of Marcus’ files on his laptop.

  And it was every bit as good as the others he’d read thus far.

  Why am I doing this to myself?

  He stared at the urn, dimly visible in the dark room. They couldn’t leave Brussels until he had Marcus back. That much he knew. He didn’t want to risk losing Marcus’ remains in the post, and it felt too impersonal to have him shipped to the States.

  What he’d do with Marcus and Jean-Claude once they returned home…he still wasn’t sure.

  He knew Tommy and Nevvie wouldn’t pressure him, either.

  He felt it was important to honor that one request, though, that the men travel together to the US. To take Jean-Claude somewhere he’d never been before.

  The one thing that irritated him was that he already had an unshakable plot bunny to use this in a future book.

  How can I be so insensitive that I can even think about turning this into fiction?

  Except…he knew it would be the perfect, bittersweet touch that particular book had been lacking to balance some of the other scenes he’d taken notes about.

  Is there nothing I won’t mine from life for my fiction?

  He certainly could use the feeling of loneliness and longing from being away from his family for a month.

  Feeling like a failure as a father and husband for not being home.

  And, after reading Marcus’ files, he didn’t even feel like much of a writer anymore.

  * * * *

  Monday afternoon, the apartment’s phone buzzed. Tom answered, because Tyler was still napping in the bedroom. While Tom dreaded having to possibly tell someone Marcus had died, he couldn’t let it keep ringing and wake Tyler, or pick it up and hang up again without saying anything.

  That would be rude.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, it is Nicolas Goossens.”

  Tom relaxed. “Hi, this is Tom. What’s up?”

  “I…eh…Marcus. The funeral home notified me his remains are ready to be picked up. Or I can have them delivered to you there, if you’d prefer.”

  Tom rubbed at his forehead and tried to decide which would be less traumatic on Tyler. “Who would deliver them?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean, they wouldn’t like, mail them, right? Someone would physically bring them here?”

  “Oh, yes. Someone from the funeral home would bring them.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, if we let them know soon.”

  “Okay. Please have them do that. And thank you.”

  “How is Mr. Paulson doing?”

  “Asleep right now. Overwhelmed and processing. So about as good as can be expected.”

  “I understand.” He hesitated. “Do you have any idea how long you will remain in Brussels? I am not trying to rush you, but so I know when paperwork is ready if I should deliver it to you here or FedEx it to you in the States.”

  “I don’t know. I have a feeling we’ll be flying back by this weekend.” He glanced at the TV, which he’d muted when the
phone rang. On it, the BBC was doing a segment on the weather, including Hurricane Gladys, which had blown up overnight into a Cat 3.

  “Oh?”

  “There’s a hurricane they think might hit the Georgia coast. If we wait too long, we might not be able to get a direct flight back to Atlanta. Makes travel a nightmare.”

  “Ah. I understand. Is your house there near the coast?”

  “Not in a flood zone, no, but last time we weren’t with our wife when a hurricane hit, she was terrified for our safety. I prefer not to leave our family alone with weather coming in.”

  “Understood. I shall let you go. I will call the funeral home and let them know to deliver…him tonight.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tom hung up and rubbed at the back of his neck. He was coming due for a haircut and didn’t want to have to deal with it there in Brussels.

  It felt in a way like his life had hit a temporary stasis. The world continuing around them, but he and Ty were caught up in this little bubble of time and space outside of it all. A bubble marked by pictures on the walls of two men who were now dead, and an urn in the bedroom, and Tyler’s head and heart full of memories and feelings and heartache.

  Tom felt like he was being held hostage by Marcus, and he couldn’t say a word to Ty about it.

  When Tyler finally crawled out of bed around two, Tommy opted to tell him then, while handing over a mug of hot, black coffee.

  “Goossens called me earlier. The funeral home will bring Marcus by this afternoon.”

  Tyler froze, the mug halfway to his lips. He slowly lowered it, setting it on the counter. “I see.”

  Tom sighed and reached over, laying a hand on Ty’s. “It’s okay to grieve, buddy. I don’t expect you to be a robot about this. I know you had feelings for him, but I also know you’ve loved and lived with and put up with me for all these years. It’s all right.”

  “I should probably start looking at flights.”

  “Are you done with your edits?”

  “I will be by Wednesday, at the latest.”

  Tom didn’t like his quiet, almost flat tone of voice.

  “Don’t rush it just because you want to get home.”

  “I’m not. I’m on the second read-through. The next should be the final. There’s still a proofing round after this one. This was rewrites and to correct a few inconsistencies between earlier books. I believe we’ve fixed all of those.”

  He stepped in and pulled Tyler against him. “Can I make you something to eat?”

  “Yes, please.” He rested his head against Tom’s chest and was about to say something when a bell rang. Tom wasn’t sure what it meant, but from the way Tyler’s body stiffened, it finally clicked home.

  “I’ll get it. Stay here.” Tom left him at the kitchen counter and walked over to the door, where a button on the small intercom on the wall was now lit. He hit it. “Yes?”

  A man with a thick accent spoke. “I am with Funérailles Gerard et Compier. I have a…delivery for Mr. Tyler Paulson.”

  Tom hit a button next to the intercom button, which had a small icon of a key impressed on it. A buzzing sound filled the intercom, and then stopped once the man obviously opened the building’s front door downstairs.

  Tom opened the door and stood waiting for the older man, who wore an impeccable black suit and a comforting, somber expression. “Mr. Paulson?”

  “He’s inside. I’ll take it for him.” Tom held out his hands for the urn, identical to the one on the dresser.

  “Mr. Kinsey, then?”

  “That’s me.”

  After passing it to him, the man reached into his pocket and produced a thick envelope with the funeral home’s logo printed on it and Tyler and Tommy’s names typed on it. “We are so very sorry for your loss. If you have any questions or any other needs from us, please do not hesitate to let us know.”

  “Thank you.”

  He waited until the man headed back downstairs to turn and lock himself inside. Tyler stood in the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest and hugging himself, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “Oh, buddy.” He walked over, Tyler’s gaze remaining fixed on the urn the entire time. “Do you want to take him into the bedroom with Jean-Claude?”

  Fuck you, Marcus. Fuck you sideways with a goddamned rusty chainsaw for putting him through this.

  His poor guy nodded harder even as he cried, finally uncurling his arms from around himself and reaching for the urn. Tom made sure Tyler had a good grip on it before relinquishing it. He left the envelope on the counter and walked with Tyler, an arm around his shoulders, all the way down to the bedroom.

  Tyler first set the urn down to the right of Jean-Claude’s, then seemed to catch himself and moved it to the left. “Master on the left,” he softly said. “Slave on the right.”

  Tom’s hand came to rest between Tyler’s shoulders as Ty braced his arms on the dresser and sobbed. Tom felt helpless, clueless.

  Impotent to do anything to take his guy’s pain away or help him through this.

  The only way through hell was through it, and Tom damn well knew that.

  Didn’t make it any easier on him watching Ty go through it.

  Finally Tyler turned to him, flinging his arms around him and crying against his chest. This, at least, felt like helping. Tommy wrapped his arms around Ty and buried his face in his hair, tightly holding him.

  “I want to go home,” Ty whispered. “I want to go home now.”

  “You need to finish your edits, buddy.”

  “Please book the tickets for no later than this weekend. A direct flight to Atlanta. Even if it means we need to hire a car to drive us to Savannah, I don’t care.”

  Tom rubbed his chin along the top of Ty’s head. “I’ll take care of it, buddy. I promise.” That Ty was now handing it off to him meant he’d finally hit his emotional wall. At least it was one more tangible thing Tom could do for him.

  After a few more minutes, Tyler finally pulled himself together and headed to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Tom gave him privacy and returned to the kitchen. Tyler’s coffee was now lukewarm, so Tom nuked it for a couple of minutes.

  But when Tyler emerged a few minutes later, he was fully dressed and looked like a man on a mission.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the bank. I should be able to get there before they close for the day. I’ve already booked an Uber.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Tyler, his eyes still red from crying, walked over and kissed him. “I need to do this alone,” he softly said. “It’s the only way I’ll get it out of my system for good. I’m sorry. I’ll text you when I get there. I love you.”

  Tom caught his arm and pulled him in for another kiss. “I love you, too. Safe trip. Come back to me.”

  Tyler laid a palm along Tom’s cheek. “Always, love.”

  And like that, he was gone.

  Tom’s gaze fell on the envelope. He opened it, and inside found not only information about Marcus’ cremation and his death certificate, but one for Jean-Claude, too. Tom was trying to puzzle why that was when he found more papers, certifications from the funeral home, and realized it was to make getting the urns through customs easier.

  Yeah, a direct flight, then. No reason to have to fight customs in London and then again in the US. He knew there were online forms they could fill out through an app to make re-entry faster, and started researching all of that, including booking their tickets.

  In fact, he had his laptop on the dining room table and was making flight comparisons when Ty texted him.

  Here. Asked car to wait. Will return soon. Love you.

  Relief filled Tommy. Of course he’d be in and out. Tyler already had a plan, and knew exactly what he’d wanted to take.

  Love you, too, EG. Be safe.

  At least Tyler’s reply of a smiling emoji was a positive thing.

  Tommy hoped.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tyler
sat in the backseat as the driver weaved his way through Brussels traffic to return him to the apartment. He stared at the two matching wedding bands he’d slipped onto his right hand, onto his ring and middle fingers.

  More as a way to make sure he didn’t lose them than any deeper emotional reason.

  He didn’t try them on his left hand. He wouldn’t do that.

  Even he had his limits.

  He’d also brought one of the necklaces, one he knew from Marcus’ note was one of Jean-Claude’s day collars. It lay in the pocket of his slacks. Only right that they had that as well. Sure, this was absolutely for his own benefit since the two men in question were dead and no longer gave a piss, but it felt like the right thing to do.

  For that reason alone he’d do it.

  Traffic was a little slower on the return trip, due to rush hour, no doubt. Upon arrival, he let himself into the building. It felt…strange to unlock the front door and let himself in. By the time he’d climbed the stairs and reached their apartment, he smelled dinner cooking.

  Tom stood in the kitchen, his back to the front door as he worked at the stove. He’d bumped up the thermostat a little and stood there shirtless, barefoot, and wearing pajama bottoms.

  “That smells lovely.”

  Tom tossed him a smile over his shoulder, and Tyler spotted the grad student who’d often had dinner ready for him when he got home from teaching, frequently cooking nekkid, as Tommy liked to say.

  Tyler slipped the rings off his finger and tucked them into the pocket of his slacks with the necklace before slipping off his overcoat and hanging it on the same hook with Tom’s. Then he kicked off his shoes and crossed the space, wrapping his arms around Tom from behind and tightly squeezing.

  Tom wiggled his ass against Tyler. “Mmm. You keep that up, sugar, I’m gonna want to skip dinner and go straight to dessert.”

  Tyler slid a hand over the front of Tom’s pants, covering his cock, and cupped his hand around it. Without any underwear to get in the way, he felt it when Tom hardened immediately.

  “Perhaps someone should be cooking dinner properly attired.”