NICK moved through the museum, turning down the lights and checking to make sure doors were locked. Galen was up in his tower office, going over the account books for the day. He’d enjoyed helping Galen out with the museum while Suzane had been gone, even if there wasn’t much left to do by the time he got off work in the evenings.
Galen really did need more permanent help. He rarely took a day off that Nick could tell, and often he was juggling both running the place as well as staffing it if Heather couldn’t come in. It was like the museum had become his whole life. Nick knew he had family nearby, but he wasn’t sure how often Galen saw them, and he wondered what Galen had done for fun and relaxation before they’d started dating.
Suzane was returning tomorrow, and Nick hoped that Galen wouldn’t mind him continuing to insinuate himself into the day-to-day activities of the museum. The thought of coming here after work got him through the daily grind even more than dreaming of his vacations had. And damned if it didn’t wake up other dreams that he’d thought had died and been buried.
The work he did was practical, stable, and not at all what he’d wanted when he started college. But it was either change his major from Art History to something more marketable or quit school to come back and work for his dad. Nick winced. He hated that there was a little part of himself that still resented the ultimatum. He understood why his dad had pushed for the change. College had cost a lot of money that they couldn’t really afford, and Nick hadn’t had a plan for his life after he graduated.
Nick walked into Dexios’s exhibit and was struck by how uncluttered it seemed with all of Ella’s equipment moved out. Her finished mural was draped in shadows now, but he’d had the pleasure of being present at her very nervous unveiling earlier. Soon Galen would start bringing in the final pieces, and Nick couldn’t wait to see how it all looked together.
Nick wanted his dad to see it too. He closed his eyes, stuck his hand in his pocket, and traced the hard outline of his phone. It was a little crazy. Ever since he’d left home he’d been sure that this Collection was his ticket back into his family. His dad would see that there was some merit in having a dream, no matter how improbable it seemed.
He could just hear his dad now, telling him that he was wasting his time with the statues, that they couldn’t afford the insurance on them, and a hundred other practical details his dad would latch onto instead of seeing the wonder of having found something that had been lost to their family for decades. His dad wouldn’t see those things, and his brothers would take his side, because once again Nick was causing trouble. He just wished they could understand that he needed some space to be himself and that leaving San Francisco wasn’t a personal betrayal.
Was this what it had been like for his mom after she’d left? Maybe she had wanted to make amends and be a part of their lives only to feel too guilty, too afraid, until it just became easier to move on.
Nick did not want to move on. He didn’t want to destroy those last ties, yet he was letting it happen without even a token protest. What the hell was wrong with him? If he didn’t try he could forget about being godfather to Jason and Sophia’s baby. He could count on Stefan and Damian never talking to him again. And worst of all, knowing he hurt them, hurt his dad.
“Why do you look so mournful?”
Nick turned to look at Galen, only it wasn’t his boyfriend who stood at the entrance. The accent was wrong, the set of his shoulders not quite right. Lykon, not Galen, and it was Galen who he longed to confide in. “You shouldn’t take control without his permission. He doesn’t like it. It isn’t right.”
“You are hurting.” Lykon stepped closer and reached out as if to touch him, and Nick stepped away.
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing you can do to help.” Nick pulled out his phone. Galen had urged him to call his dad several times since they’d last talked about it. He had asked Nick what was the worst that could happen. And each time Nick had brushed him off. He didn’t even want to voice the worst.
He looked at Lykon, and all the frustration and anger at himself leapt up and turned on him. “Leave Galen alone. He is not your toy. He is not yours to use to get what you want. And we’ll both fight you on that. I swear to God, if you keep grabbing at him like you have been, I’ll make sure the curse never gets broken.”
Lykon’s eyes widened, and he took a step back. “You would not do something so evil.” His expression became bewildered, and he shook his head. “I cannot believe you would have changed so much, Dexios.”
“Let’s get this straight. I am not Dexios.” Nick stabbed his finger toward the statue. “Dexios is trapped in there, just as you are trapped in Galen. We may be parts of you reborn, but we are our own persons, and we do not need you pushing and shoving us around. Have you ever thought that maybe that’s why every generation fucks this up? Next time you want to talk to me, you’d better ask Galen for permission first.”
He turned his back on Lykon, his heart aching even more. He’d always dreamed of finding the statues, and this wasn’t at all what he’d expected. It was supposed to be a triumph, but now that he had dived so deep into the mysteries surrounding the statues, he didn’t know where the surface was or how to get to it before he ran out of air.
Nick called his dad before he could change his mind, his stomach clenching into a knot almost as hard as his fist, which hung at his side. It couldn’t be too late. He had to find a way to fix this, because if he couldn’t fix his relationship with his family, how could he hope to build anything with Galen?
“Nick, you worry an old man when you shut me out.” Nick closed his eyes again at the sound of his dad’s voice. He did sound old. The realization struck him hard. Old and tired and sad. He loved his dad’s voice, and the sound of it brought a thousand memories, most of them good. “Have I done something that offended you? Have I hurt you in some way?”
How like his dad. Damian and Stefan accused Nick of being selfish, of being like their mom. And his dad blamed himself for Nick’s silence, just as he’d blamed himself for Nick’s mom leaving. “It’s not you, Dad, it’s all me. I’m sorry.”
The silence on the other end of the line weighed on his soul, had him scrambling for some excuse to hang up before he heard what he didn’t want to hear. Nick sat down on the edge of the dais that lifted up the first statue. He could sense Dexios behind him, and he wondered if Lykon remained in the room, lurking. He didn’t want to turn around and see him watching out of Galen’s eyes. He had to find a way to put a stop to Lykon taking over Galen before it got ugly.
“Explain it to me, because I’ve been trying to understand.” His dad broke the silence, and Nick’s heart contracted. “I thought maybe you needed to go explore yourself, so I tried not to resist when you moved out of state. I thought giving you space to breathe would bring you back, so I tried not to pressure you, and now I keep thinking that you’re slipping away even more.”
Nick traced his finger over Lykon’s sandaled foot, the metal in the statue cool and textured against his skin. “I don’t feel a part of the family anymore,” he finally said, the words forcing their way out of his throat. “I’ve felt like I’ve been on the outside looking in for a very long time now.”
The scuff of a foot against the floor alerted him, and he looked up to see Galen, his face lost in shadow. At first he wasn’t sure it really was Galen at all until he came closer and Nick saw the concern in his eyes, a familiar expression, not one slightly foreign.
There was a question on his face, and Nick answered it by scooting over and patting the bare spot next to him. Nick didn’t want him to leave. Galen sat down and offered Nick his hand, and after a long moment he took it with a grateful squeeze.
“Whose fault is that? You don’t answer when I call. You don’t return calls except for on a rare occasion, and when you do, you don’t talk about what is going on with your life. You haven’t been home for a holiday in years, and your brothers have little confidence that you’ll be here this year. What else can I do to make you feel welcome?”
Nick looked down at his hand clasped with Galen’s. It scared him. Close relationships had scared him for a long time. Only now he thought that maybe the longing to not be so lonely anymore, to not survive off superficial connections, outweighed the fear. And instead of pulling away and searching for privacy he clung to Galen’s sure grip. Oddly enough, it seemed like he and Galen were battling the same issues, only he was sure Galen had a better grip on his than Nick did.
Nick wanted reassurance that his dad accepted him for who he was and not just Nick the dreamer. The subject of him being gay had not really been brought up since he came out to his family. It was like the huge elephant in the room that everybody danced around and nobody acknowledged. Not even Nick. He was afraid to bring it up again only to find more silence.
“Hey, Dad, remember those statues Uncle Stavros was so obsessed over?” Nick glanced behind him, and his breath caught as he found both Dexios and Lykon watching him from their embrace. Galen glanced up too, and shook his head with a wry expression on his lips.
“I don’t understand. What do the statues have to do with anything? I’m talking about your family, and you’re bringing up legends.” His dad never raised his voice, but Nick could hear the palpable frustration in his voice. “Call me when you’re ready to let me in. I don’t want to talk about Uncle Stavros. I want to talk about you. I want to know about your job, whether you’re seeing someone. I want to know if you’re happy in Seattle.”
“I am seeing someone,” Nick blurted out, scrambling to find some way of keeping the connection before his dad hung up. And as soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. What if his dad was still disappointed that he was gay, just as he’d been disappointed when Nick went off to college, or decided that he wanted to move, or a dozen other things that Nick could name?
“You are?” Cautious pleasure replaced frustration, and Nick braced himself for his dad’s next words. “Who is it? Is he special? Do you care about him?”
He, not she. The tension that Nick had been carrying for years cracked at that one little word. He glanced at Galen, who watched him with the kind of support in his eyes that Nick had never imagined he could have from him. Galen made him feel like he was a whole person, not a shadow. And all those feelings he’d been fighting clicked inside of him. Nick loved him, maybe he’d never stopped. Only this time, there seemed to be a lot more of Galen to love.
“Yeah, I think he’s pretty special.” Galen smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’m at his museum right now, and we’re in the middle of shutting it down for the night. Then we’re grabbing something to eat.”
“You do not know how happy that makes me.” His dad hesitated. “I’ll let you get back to him, but you’ll call again right?” Doubt crept into his dad’s voice. “I want to hear all about him and you. You’ll call?”
Guilt made him want to squirm in shame. He really had let it get this bad. “Yeah, I’ll call you this week. I promise.”
Nick hung up the phone and stared at it for a long minute, trying to work through all the complex emotions and thoughts that crowded his brain. On the one hand, he wished his dad had let him tell him about the statues, but to know that he’d been so wrong about his dad’s feelings over him being gay… that lifted the worst of the weight.
“Could have gone better?” Galen asked, leaning into him.
“Actually no, I think it could’ve gone a lot worse.” Nick looked over at him as a hope that he hadn’t dared to believe in surged to the surface. “I think maybe things might be okay.”
Galen smiled and kissed him. “That’s what I was wishing for, for you.”
Nick twisted toward Galen and cupped the side of his neck. “You feel okay? Lykon didn’t screw you up, make you dizzy?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about him for a while. You scared him pretty good.” Galen kissed him again and smiled against his lips. “Come on, I think we’ve both earned a drink.”
“CLOSE your eyes,” Galen insisted to Suzane as they stopped just before the new exhibit.
“Please tell me you didn’t find some more mysterious statues while I was gone,” Suzane said as she closed her eyes and extended her hand for Galen to guide her. “We’re well into April, and the opening is only two months off. If you add anything new it’s going to make the whole exhibit seem cluttered.”
“Nope, nothing like that.”
“And nothing else weird has happened? You can tell me. I prepared myself.”
“I’ve gotten used to the weird,” Galen said with a chuckle. “And nothing else has happened to freak me out. We’re good, I swear.”
Galen steadied her as he led her toward the first part of Ella’s finished mural. It stretched from the entrance down the entire length of the next wall on either side, the colors vibrant, the scenes flowing from one to the next against a mountainous background. Ella had outdone herself. The robed women showed sisterhood and intimacy in the clasp of hands, a head bent toward another with smiles as secrets were shared. It wasn’t as blatantly erotic as some of the other pieces in the room, but there was a cupped breast there, a flash of thigh in another place. It was simply beautiful.
“Okay, ready? You’re going to swoon.”
“Get on with it, you. I’m not getting any younger.” The comment struck Galen with a bittersweet blow. The last chemo treatment had laid her low for days. And he’d missed her fiercely while she’d been gone with her sister. At least the time off had done her some good. Her color was back, and her attitude was all there.
“You’re still my lady of the spring,” Galen teased, moving to the side so he could see her face. “You can look now.”
Suzane’s eyes popped open and delight suffused her face. “Oh, it’s perfect. So much more than I imagined.” She moved closer, studying all the little details, and then slowly walked down the length of the wall and back. “You could stare at this for hours and keep finding something new to look at. Where’s Ella? I have to congratulate her.”
“She and her girlfriend took off for parts unknown for a bit. You know how Ella is. Besides, she put in weeks of work. She needs to recharge.”
“She’ll be back for the opening, won’t she?” Suzane cast him a look of appeal. “You can’t let her duck out. She deserves every bit of the praise she’s going to get.”
“Ella assured me that she and Nicole will be here,” Galen replied with a smile. Ella had balked at the idea of attending the opening until Galen reminded her she was more than welcome to bring Nicole.
“I can’t wait.” Suzane turned around, taking in the room that was coming together piece by piece. By the look in her eye, Galen knew she was picturing how it would look the night of the reception, and he had to grin. If there was anyone more excited than he was about the opening, it was Suzane. “So who are you bringing?” Suzane said with a sly smile. “Don’t count on me being your date. My son finagled that invite. And I swear if you say you’re going alone, I’ll kick you.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a date,” Galen said, then lifted an eyebrow as Suzane’s expression turned to surprise. “What? You didn’t expect that, did you?”
“I knew it!” Suzane tapped him on the arm with her fist. “Knox told me that you actually left on time almost every night while I was gone and that a guy was hanging around, though he didn’t say who. You haven’t done that in months. I look forward to meeting whoever has dragged you out of your self-imposed isolation.” She paused and narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s Nick, isn’t it?”
Galen grinned and polished his nails on his shirt, delighted by the way she started tapping her foot. He’d really missed her. “Maybe.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.” She threw up her hands and headed for the door. “I’m sparing you the indignity of me digging for details. I have a ton of e-mails and paperwork to catch up on.”
“You do that, and I’ll go see if Heather needs anything up front before I get started on my own work. It’s about time we opened our doors for the day. Hey, Suzane,” he called as she reached the entranceway, striding briskly in her impossible heels. “It’s damn good to have you back.”
Suzane laughed, the sound rich and warm despite the lingering circles under her eyes. “Darling, I’m too ornery to go anywhere.”
Galen smiled and waited until the sound of her heels faded before he turned toward the second unfinished statue of Dexios. There were times, like now, when he could almost see a mirage of Lykon kneeling before him, still clad in his armor, leaning to take Dexios’s cock in his mouth.
The echo of Lykon stirred inside of him, but at least this time he didn’t struggle to come out. Not since Nick had made his threat. Almost a month had passed, and nothing had changed, except for those momentary glimpses of what the statue could be like if it was whole.
Well, nothing had changed with the statues anyway. He’d had weeks of nightly evenings with Nick, really getting to know him this time instead of being afraid to look past the surface, weekends filled with him. And if Galen was afraid he was falling when he left Nick all those months ago, that was nothing compared to how he felt now. Nick made him believe in second chances. He made Galen feel like he wasn’t so broken anymore.
Nick had loved him once, maybe did again, and Galen still couldn’t say what he felt for Nick in return. The words caught on his tongue, froze his throat. And maybe the remaining hesitance was why neither one of them had pushed that hard for sex. Galen wanted him without a doubt. There were nights when he left Nick’s place, or when he walked Nick to the door of the apartment, where the sexual tension had him about to come out of his skin. He needed to get over this last hurdle, this fear of losing someone else he loved. It wasn’t fair to Nick.
Galen needed to tell Nick about the night that Bryan died. He deserved to know why Galen had been in such a bad place for so long. Because apparently, the fear of loss still had a hard hold of him. He’d talk to him tonight. Galen smiled and touched Dexios’s elbow. Maybe the conversation would help them both. He wanted to unburden himself to someone he trusted and to show Nick he could open up to him the way he wanted. The statue in front of him shimmered, and the image of Lykon became a little sharper, a little stronger.
“Galen! Galen!”
Galen was startled out of his reverie by Heather’s frantic voice, and the mirage in front of him faded away. He bolted for the hallway and caught Heather’s shoulders just before she barreled into him. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Suzane. She collapsed.” Heather’s blue eyes were wide with panic, and all the color had left her face. “She’s unconscious. What do we do?”
A chill seized Galen’s heart. “She just left me and she was fine. What the hell happened? Where is she?” He took off down the hallway with Heather right behind him.
“I stopped by her office to welcome her back, and she was on the floor. There’s blood. What do we do?”
“Is she breathing? Did you call 911?” Galen yanked out his phone as Heather stammered behind him, fumbling for an answer.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t know what to do. I can’t handle dead people. I go all to pieces when someone’s hurt. And blood… I can’t do it, I just can’t.”
Galen spun on her and stopped her babbling with a stern look as fury and terror seized hold of him. She’d left Suzane on the floor and didn’t call an ambulance. She was just a scared part-time college student who’d gone for the first help she’d thought of. “Calm down, take a deep breath. Now, go around the back to meet the ambulance. You’re going to have to direct them to her office.”
He didn’t wait for her answer and continued on. The 911 operator answered the phone as he reached her office. To his profound relief, Suzane was pushing herself up to a sitting position, her wig askew and dark curls straggling in her face. Oh thank God. He steadied himself with his hand on the rail before moving toward her.
Galen dropped to his knees to steady her and winced at the sight of a lump on her brow and the blood that oozed from the cut there. “Hey, take it easy. Don’t try to get up. I think you whacked your hard head pretty good.” He answered the 911 operator’s questions and hung up after she said help was on the way.
“I don’t need a damn ambulance,” Suzane muttered, attempting to straighten her hair. “I’m fine, got a little dizzy. See, all better now.”
“That’s too bad,” Galen replied, taking in her slightly unfocused look and the icy chill in her hands, “’cause they’re already on their way. Looks like you might have a concussion.”
Suzane groaned and pushed him, but it lacked her usual strength. “Call them back and cancel it.”
“Nope. And you’re going with them too, if they recommend it, or else I’ll call your son,” Galen said with false cheer, trying to hide how worried he was. Was it just a dizzy spell or was it something worse?
“You wouldn’t.” In the distance he heard the ambulance, and it brought back memories he’d rather forget, waiting for another ambulance, holding someone else he loved in his arms. This time it would end much differently.
“Try me, sunshine. Just try me.”