The Unforgiving Minute (14 page)

Ryan obediently followed Josh through where he was pretty sure a wall should have been and into the backyard. It took him a moment to work out just why one side of the kitchen was missing its wall, and then he saw that the floor-to-ceiling windows had been rolled back, giving access to a stone terrace and a lawn that ran down a slight slope away from the house. What Ryan could see of the rest of the extensive backyard looked like a country club, with lawns and trees and outhouses and tennis courts. For the first time in weeks, Ryan felt out of his depth and uncertain with Josh. He’d somehow forgotten just who Josh Andrews was. This was a rude reminder.

He trailed Josh across the gardens and through a gate in a tall hedge, beyond which he found a large swimming pool surrounded by a patio, and a substantial-looking pool house. It made sense that he’d be put here to sleep, being the poor relation. Actually, he welcomed it; the main house had left him scared to breathe in case he messed something up. Or got lost. He reckoned he could spend months trying to find his way back to the front door.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Josh said, turning to him as he opened the door, rubbing the back of his neck in a move that Ryan had come to recognize as uncertainty. “This is kind of where I live when I’m here.”

As Ryan followed him in and dumped his cases in the hallway, he felt a sudden sense of relief. There were no marble walls and no furniture that looked as if it was out of some film set. There was a big-ass flat screen TV in the lounge, with a state-of-the-art games console, but paperback books and CDs and the usual sort of crap that went along with
life
were scattered around the place. The coffee table had ring marks on it, and both the dark brown leather couches had seen better days.

“It looks awesome,” he said, and he meant it.

Josh smiled shyly, leaving Ryan to try and work out just when Josh Andrews had reverted to a shy teenager, so uncertain of himself, as he got the guided tour. There was a spare bedroom, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and that was it. And really, what more could anybody want?

Josh offered to show him around outside, but Ryan insisted he rest his leg instead. Although he was genuinely concerned about Josh’s knee, it would also give them time to reconnect, and for Ryan to get his head back around the fact that Josh was still Josh, no matter how rich he might be.

“So if you live here,” he said, once Josh was established on one couch with an ice pack on his knee, with Ryan sitting on the other couch, “who lives in the house?”

“Everyone else,” Josh said. It might have meant something to him but didn’t really clarify things for Ryan. “It’s more like a hotel than a house, I guess. We all eat there, though,” he added. “Danny does most of the cooking.”

“Your physio cooks?”

“Fantastically.”

Ryan deduced that Danny was probably one of “everyone else,” which meant the rest of the house was filled by Josh’s army of tennis minions. So much for them having a private couple of weeks together, as Ryan had envisaged when Josh had invited him. That brought something else to mind.

“If everyone else is around, what have you told them about why I’m visiting?”

“I said I’d invited you so we could have lots of hot sex, of course.”

Ryan sighed long-sufferingly.

Josh got his subtle hint. “They all know I’m gay, so they’ve probably made assumptions, but I haven’t told them anything because it’s nobody’s business but ours. Officially, we’re just friends.”

Ryan was
not
going to confess to the warm feeling it gave him to hear it said out loud that Josh considered them to be friends, let alone that he evidently thought they were more than that.

“That reminds me, a gardener comes in every Friday, there’s a maid service at the house each day between ten and one, and I have a maid service in here every Monday at about midday, so we’ll need to make it look like you’re staying in the spare room to avoid any gossip column crap. The rest of the time, nobody’s here but us, and the CCTV feeds only go to a monitoring center if I’m away, so we can do what we want.”

“Okay,” Ryan said, trying not to sound as appalled as he felt. It must be such a depressing way to live, always having to be careful and at any point subject to scrutiny and gossip simply for being good at tennis. He began to get an inkling of why Josh surrounded himself with his army. His army whose names Ryan had better learn if he was going to spend time with them.

He got his opportunity to do just that at suppertime.

“You should stay off that leg,” Ryan told Josh when he got to his feet, ready to walk across to the house. “I can bring supper back here for you.”

“That sounds like a good idea for the next few days, but I should introduce you to everyone first.”

On being introduced to everyone, Ryan was thankful that Josh was there to act as a buffer. Danny, the physio and impromptu chef, brown hair tied back in a short, thick ponytail, was welcoming. Carlos, Josh’s coach, a dark-haired mountain of a man in his late forties, was polite. Rob, Josh’s physical trainer, who had a shaved head and looked as if he snapped redwoods in half for fun, seemed completely uninterested. Roger Andrews, however, was none of those things. His eyes—a washed-out version of Josh’s blue—were watchful, intelligent, and hostile. Ryan felt as if he had been summed up in one perceptive glance, and found wanting.

“Betancourt,” Roger said when Josh introduced them. “Won one Tour title at Delray Beach, Semi-Western grip, highest career ranking to date of twenty-two.”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said. And with a huge effort didn’t add,
Roger Andrews, greatest tennis achievement reaching the Wimbledon final on one occasion, and currently in the running for crappiest father of the year award.

“You shouldn’t be walking,” Roger said to Josh, his attention finally off Ryan.

“I’m just showing Ryan around a bit. We’ll grab something and take it back, if that’s okay with you, Danny?”

“Sure,” Danny said, putting two plates out. “Chicken and potatoes good with you, Ryan?”

“Great, thanks.”

Danny plated up two big portions and then handed them over with silverware to Ryan. “Come and find me tomorrow and we’ll go through your nutrition requirements,” he said. “I don’t want to be feeding you the wrong things.”

Ryan blinked in surprise. “Uh, thank you.”

“See you tomorrow,” Josh said to the room at large and, leaning on his cane, led Ryan out of the kitchen and toward the sanctuary of the pool house.

They got settled on their respective couches, and God, Danny was not only a decent human being but the most sublime cook. “Chicken and potatoes” turned out to be a tender chicken breast fillet, baked with herbs that Ryan couldn’t identify but which tasted fantastic, together with dry-roasted sweet potatoes and a mound of fresh vegetables, cooked to absolute perfection—not too hard, but crunchy enough to know they’d retained most of their goodness.

“Good, huh?” Josh asked with a grin as he saw the way Ryan’s eyes kept fluttering closed in ecstasy as he chewed.

“Reckon he’ll marry me?”

“No way. I’m first in line if he ever renounces his heterosexuality.”

“Damn,” Ryan said, shoveling another forkful into his mouth, manners forgotten in the light of food this good. “This is
awesome
.”

After they’d finished, Ryan offered, somewhat unenthusiastically, to take the plates back to the kitchen in the main house.

“They can wait till tomorrow,” Josh said. “If you go now, Dad’ll only talk your ear off about tennis.”

Ryan doubted that. He figured Roger Andrews had dismissed him as a nonentity so far as tennis was concerned. Which was ironic, given his own not terribly successful career. Apparently, sailing along on his son’s coattails didn’t count as the same thing at all.

“He’s a bit single-minded, isn’t he?” he ventured.

Josh snorted and adjusted the ice pack on his knee. “If you mean that the same way the Grand Canyon’s a bit large, then yeah.”

“Isn’t it weird always having him round like this? I mean, he’s your dad, and he’s always there. Doesn’t that feel a bit… I don’t know, weird?” Ryan, for once, managed to cut himself off before he blundered on too far. What he really wanted to ask was whether Josh found it smothering or controlling, but it didn’t seem too tactful to come right out with it.

“It’s the way it’s always been,” Josh said. “After he and my mom split, he came out to Spain to oversee my training, and when I started traveling to tournaments, he came with me. It’s just what we do, I guess. He knows what he’s doing as a manager, too; I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

“Sorry to hear about your parents,” Ryan said awkwardly.

Josh was fiddling with his ice pack again. “Dad got me, and Mom got my sister, Maggie, so I guess it worked out as they both wanted.”

“How long did you train in Spain for?” Ryan asked, the edge of bitterness in Josh’s tone causing him to seek a safer subject.

“A few years,” Josh said, finally leaving his ice pack alone and glancing at Ryan. “I went out there when I was thirteen and stayed until I was playing full time. Dad sent me over to one of their academies when I wasn’t doing so well, because back then they seemed to know more about producing good players than anyone else in the world.” He grinned suddenly. “They didn’t take it so well when he came over a year later and tried to dictate my training.
He
didn’t take it so well when they didn’t listen to him.”

Ryan could imagine.

“But he could see I was improving, so he kept paying the fees, despite what he said about them. He and Carlos ended up enjoying their fights enough that Carlos signed on with me as coach once I started playing full time.”

Ryan’s head was spinning at how different Josh’s life and route into tennis had been from his. He understood now just why his father had the central place in Josh’s life that he did. No wonder Josh seemed to have no life outside that which Roger Andrews prescribed for him. He probably didn’t know he had any other option.

Determined not to let his feelings about Roger color things with Josh, Ryan changed the subject again. “What are we doing tomorrow, then?”

“I’ve got a session in the gym, time with Carlos looking at upcoming tournaments, and doubtless Danny will want to get his hands on my knee,” Josh said. “But you’re on vacation, so you should do whatever you want. Take one of my cars if you want to go anywhere.”

One
of Josh’s cars? Ryan’s parents had only had one car between them for most of their married life. “Thanks,” he said, “but I came here to hang out with you. It kind of defeats the purpose if I disappear for the day.”

That earned him a warm smile from Josh. “Come with me to the gym tomorrow morning and I’ll give you the guided tour. Xavier will be around for a game if you’d like, and there’s plenty of trails for running or biking up into the hills for a change of scene.”

“Xavier being your hitting partner?” Ryan hazarded.

“He’s a cool guy,” Josh said. “You’ll like him.”

Ryan hoped so. So far, only Danny out of all of Josh’s army had impressed him.

“Which leaves us having to decide what we’re going to do tonight,” Ryan pointed out, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I thought I might do macramé,” Josh said. “You?”

“I thought I might spread you out on the bed naked, slide into you, and fuck you till you beg.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess that might just beat macramé,” Josh confessed, sudden color rising in his cheeks.

While it turned out to be a little less abandoned than Ryan had envisaged, due to having to be careful about Josh’s knee, they did indeed end up with Josh spread out, naked and writhing as Ryan’s fingers worked him open, until he sobbed Ryan’s name and came, ropes of white glistening on his skin. Then Ryan knelt astride Josh and pushed his cock into Josh’s willing mouth and promptly lost it at the sight of Josh’s full lips stretched tight around him.

“You know, I always heard tennis pros had great stamina,” Josh said as Ryan settled under the covers next to him.

“Shut up,” Ryan growled.

“Oh, masterful. I
like.”

“You’re only saying that because you know I can’t do a thing about it while you’ve got that damn knee.”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed smugly. “Now come here. I want to go to sleep.”

Which he did, holding Ryan close. Ryan decided that this was the best vacation
ever.

Chapter 15

R
YAN
’
S
notion that Josh’s place was the best vacation resort in the whole world
was reinforced over the next few days. He couldn’t believe how awesome it was to have a private pool outside his front door, let alone a fully equipped gym and four tennis courts—two hard, one clay and one grass—out there for him to play on whenever he wanted. And that was without taking into consideration Danny’s amazing cooking.

“Seriously, I’ve had this conversation with him so many times,” Josh had said after Ryan had expressed his concerns about putting Danny to extra trouble. “He knows he doesn’t have to, but he loves to cook. He often makes me something different from what everyone else is having, so I’m sure he won’t mind doing the same for you.”