Crazy From the Heat (23 page)

They
came and took Paul from him and walked him out to a police cruiser while
someone read him his rights. Grey didn’t notice the cold clasp of metal around
his wrists. He shivered despite the heat of the night in late summer as the
life he’d built here disintegrated, all because he'd lost his heart in the God
damned Alabama heat.

Epilogue

The
window above the antiques shop was sparkling clean and gleaming in the mid-day
sun, a For Rent sign taking up most of the glass.

Paul
tried his key in the door but it didn’t work. The landlord would have finally
changed the locks after Grey had left.

They
wouldn’t tell him where he’d been sent. He was safe, that was all Paul knew.
Safe from Vinnie, and from Paul.

Vinnie’s
crew was more organized than anyone had even imagined when they put him inside
the New Orleans police department. Rumors of Valmont Gautreau being alive and
kicking just wouldn’t die, and his younger brother had somehow managed to not
only make his way through the academy, but had somehow lucked up on a
detective’s shield barely a year later.

Something
stank. But it was never Vinnie. He always came out smelling like roses.

The
professor was the collateral damage in this one. He thought Paul was dead.
They’d told him as much before they packed him up and moved him some place Paul
would never find him.

Fuckers.
They could have at least told the man the truth.

A
cool breeze blew in from the northwest. Paul pulled his collar up and shivered.
He couldn’t get warm now, no matter how hard he tried, or how much he wore.
Halloween was only days away and he was freezing and so fucking homesick.

“You
won’t find him there.” The pretty young woman from the second floor apartment
had somehow managed to slip up beside him without him noticing.

“I
know,” he said not offering her a hand with her groceries. He only had the one
now.

“Would
you like to come upstairs for a cup of coffee? You look like you could use
one,” she offered as she rummaged through her purse for her keys. He didn’t
want to tell her how unsafe she was just standing here on the street. She
should have her keys ready. She shouldn’t stop to talk to strange men.
Especially strange men who looked like they’d just come down from a month long
drug bender.

“Thank
you. But I have a plane to catch. I’d hoped to say good-bye but…” He shrugged
letting the thought go. Grey was gone. He’d been gone for weeks now. The Marshals
had him, and that was all Paul would ever know.

“Oh,
okay,” she nodded and reached for his hand. “I was here when he left. I’m not
sure if he was supposed to, but he gave me this.” She slipped something into
his hand. The hand he had no feeling in. Paul gripped it tight for fear of
losing the last thing Grey had touched. “Anyway it might not even work, but I
knew he meant for you to have it.”

Paul
stood watch while she let herself into the building. He tried the door to make
sure it had locked behind her. He didn’t even know her name.

Did
he really ever know anyone, anyway?

The
cabbie waited just up the street like Paul asked him. He waited until he was
halfway to the airport to pull the paper from his clenched fist.

She
was right. It might not work, but it was all he had. He took out his new phone,
punched in the numbers, and waited for what seemed like hours for the other end
to ring.

* * * * *

The
drinks were cold. The water blue. The air held a hint of a breeze. He wondered
if winter ever came to the islands.

Locals
bustled by without giving him a second look. Just another tourist taking in the
sunset.

“It’s
hot as fuck here.” The blond sat down across from him. “What’s good to drink?”

Grey
flipped his sunglasses up and waited for his tablemate to do the same.

“Anything
you want, Spicoli. Make it two. And you’re buying.” He couldn’t help devouring
the man with one glance. Pale, thin, almost gaunt, he wore a pair of khaki
cargo shorts and a pink t-shirt with the name of a local restaurant on the
pocket. The sunglasses the pushed his long blond hair back from his face cost
more than Grey would make in a month selling sunset paintings to tourists.

Paul
smiled, and the years that seemed to cling to him like a heavy burden lifted
away. “Or we could skip the drinks and just go to your place.”

“We
could,” Grey nodded.

“I
have a new tattoo. I want you to be the first to see it.”

“That’s
tempting.” Grey dropped a twenty on the table and left his unfinished canvas
behind.

“Don’t
you want to bring that?" Paul followed him down the sidewalk to the first
white house on the right.

“I
have a thousand more just like it,” he said, as he pushed the man against the
door and pulled the pink shirt over his head. He pretended not to notice the
new scar just below his shoulder. He pretended that he didn’t notice that Paul
didn’t lift that arm when Grey pulled him in for a kiss.

“What
does your tat say?” He knew it would complete the set running down Paul’s
spine.

 Paul’s
eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. “Take me to bed, Grey.”

“It’s
hot and I don’t have air.” Grey walked him toward the bedroom in his little
house near the beach.

“I
don’t care. Make me crazy. Make me sweat.”

Grey
could do that.

“When
will you leave?” He had to ask. The past didn’t matter anymore. He had no
future. There was only now and Paul was here now. He should just shut up and
take what he could for as long as he could.

“I’m
in the wind. A day? A lifetime? You tell me.” Paul fumbled with the button on Grey’s
jeans. Grey took his hands and held them in his. He pretended not to notice
that five fingers didn’t clasp his in return.

“I
can do a lifetime. If you’re here to spend it with me.”

Paul’s
smile made Grey sweat. Just like that day back in August when he first walked
into Grey’s classroom.

“As
long as you are sure you can handle the heat.”

“Shouldn’t
be a problem. Clothing being optional, I hope?” Grey shoved Paul’s shorts down
his legs and toppled him into bed. He crawled up his body kissing every scar he
could find until he found the one that hadn't been there before. He couldn’t
stop the prickle that began behind his eyes. “They told me you were dead.”

“But
you didn’t believe them.” Paul dragged him up for a kiss. Grey gazed down upon
the man he’d fallen in love with.

“No,”
he said ignoring the pain that nearly destroyed him those terrible days after.
“I never believed. I would have known.”

“I
tried to find you. They wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. Or if you’d made it.
I remember a second…I though he shot you. God, Grey, I’m so sorry.”

“It
doesn’t matter.” He closed his mouth over Paul’s. “You’re here. I love you.
That’s all that matters now.”

“It
says home," Paul finally answered Grey's original question. "I’m home
Grey.”

Paul
wrapped him in his arms and held him tight. He didn’t need to ask what Paul
meant. He knew. Love and home were the same to him.

“So
am I,” he breathed against his lips. “So am I.”

About
Mercy Celeste:

Mercy
Celeste is the pen name and super hero persona of mild mannered MJ
Colbert....which is bull, I'm not mild mannered. I was, in fact, raised in a
barn--or several. We even had grain silos. My motto growing up, anything a boy
can do, I'm right behind him doing it just as well or better. I've broken too
many bones to begin to count. Scraped, skinned or scarred pretty much
everything that can be scraped, skinned or scarred. How I'm still walking and
talking is a miracle.

So
about the writing, well, I don't really consider myself to be a writer. I'm a
storyteller, and when I have a story to tell, it won't rest until it's twisted
me up and purged itself. The result is at times comical or tragic, depending on
the people who live in my head and what they have to say. Most days that's not
a lot of anything. Others I can't shut them up. They especially love when I'm
driving, oh, yeah, a drive across town is a lesson in how not to get myself
killed or be pulled over for reckless driving. And those are the good days.

Welcome
to my crazy world, if it's boring now, wait five minutes, and don't blink.
Things have a tendency to get interesting around me.

Other
Books by Mercy Celeste

Available
from Liquid Silver Books

Let it
Go

Available
from Total E Bound Books

Behind
Iron Lace

Under
a Crescent Moon

Available
from MJC Press

The 51
^st
Thursday

In
from the Cold (book one in The Cold Series)

Beyond
Complicated

Six
Ways from Sunday (book one in the Southern Scrimmage series)

Sidelined
(book two in the Southern Scrimmage series)

Offside
Chance (book three in the Southern Scrimmage series)

Two
Point Conversion

Double
Coverage

Coming
Soon

Wicked
Game