WHEN SULLY woke up, Chaz was next to him. He was still fully clothed, as if he dropped Sully in bed and fell alongside him without thinking. Sully traced a hand along the bedspread and realized it wasn’t the same diamond pattern he’d grown used to at Artie’s. The last few hours before sleep washed over him. Each time he blinked, he saw Declan’s face spewing blood on the floor. Sully shook his head, trying to push it away. He focused on Chaz in the bed next to him and the strange new sheets that were remarkably comfortable.
The window across from them showed a dark sky, as if Sully had slept through the day and into the night. The CN Tower glowed bright in rainbow colors from the center of the city. The hotel notepad was next to the bed, and Sully read off the address for the Nightingale Hotel and Bar. He knew this place, though he’d never stayed here. Across the street was St. Mike’s Theater, one of the last stops in the saint and arrow system Sully had traveled in. The theater had been built in the 1900s and had a million different trap doors and compartments for props, costumes, and scene changes. Sully and nine other workers had hidden underneath the stage area before Tom arrived, looking exactly like a gentleman caller from The Glass Menagerie, and guided them to Artie’s.
Pieces of last night’s conversations came back to Sully. The good conversations. Ones with Trina and Artie and Imogen. He settled back into the large duvet with a sigh.
The hotel wasn’t quite home, but the people he needed were here. That should be enough.
He curled up against Chaz’s back, creating a jetpack. When Chaz moved, Sully nuzzled into his neck. “You didn’t shower.”
“I’m sorry. Do I smell awful? The vampire blood?”
“No, it’s fine. You just… smell like you.”
“And what is that?”
“Cigarettes and rain. Maybe something sweet. Like cake?”
Chaz thought for a moment. “Imogen and I had pie before I realized everything.”
Sully nodded. He didn’t want to think about that past anymore. He wanted to be here, with Chaz, because he wasn’t sure how much time they’d have before he was carted off to jail or something went wrong. Sure, Athena was a good lawyer and Artie was one of the smartest people he’d ever met, but… there was still that nagging, looming doubt in his mind. What if none of this plan gets off the ground? What if something happens and Chaz is arrested anyway for something much worse than fraud? Will he have to cop a deal again and go to that shitty therapy place? Will I? Now that Sully had something to lose, he didn’t want it to be taken from him.
Chaz turned to face Sully and cupped a hand along his jaw. “Are you hungry?”
Sully laughed. “I really didn’t think that was what you were going to ask me.”
“What did you think?”
“Something way heavier. Something about the future.”
“We can talk about that. But later if you want.”
“That sounds good because I think I’m starving. I want pancakes. A lot of them.”
“Coming right up.” Chaz sat up in bed and dialed the hotel phone, his other hand never leaving Sully’s.
Twenty minutes later room service was brought up. Chaz gave the number to a credit card that Sully was sure was part of his own funds, not anything associated with the police getting everyone rooms for the night.
They shared the large plate of pancakes in relative silence, Chaz only eating maybe a quarter of what Sully did. They ate on the bed, cross-legged and only half-clothed. Sully blinked when he thought he saw a spot of blood on Chaz’s shirt, only to remember that the police had taken both of their clothing as evidence the night before.
“You should take off your shirt.”
“Should I now?” Chaz said, smiling. He followed Sully’s gaze to his shirt and seemed to understand what he saw. “Shit. I feel like it’ll never come off. And like I have to burn everything I own.”
“Yeah, but if you do, make sure to buy the exact ridiculously formal and stiff-collared shirt you used to have.”
“Really? Even if I’m not on the police force anymore?”
“Yes. It’s a lot more fun to take off.”
“Good point. See? I need you.” Chaz shucked off his shirt and pants, sitting back on the bed in his boxers. Sully replayed the words in his mind over and over again.
“Do you?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you need me?” Sully asked. “Or was that a joke? Are we…?”
“I’m in love with you, Michael Sullivan. It’s very, very bad. A dire situation, really.”
“Don’t tease me,” Sully said. “I’m normally all for kidding around but please. Just answer me. Do you need me?”
Chaz licked his lips. Sully recognized the action; he’d done it before when he talked about serious things. His tell—not that he was lying, but that he was being so honest he needed to cover his vulnerabilities. Sully knew before the words came out of his mouth that it was all real.
“I love you and I need you. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six or seven months, probably more like a year, because it will take at least that long for me to go through a trial and then for this law to change, but there are three things I know for sure. I was counting before I fell asleep.”
“And you stopped at three?”
“Yes, that was as far as I got. Very tired, you see.”
Sully sighed, exasperated. “Just tell me. What are they?”
“One: My name is Chaz Solomon. I am never, ever giving that name up again. Even if it has a bad history and unsure future. It is who I am. Two, I love you, Michael Sullivan. I will never stop, no matter what happens between us or what the future holds.”
Tension seized Sully’s stomach. “And three?”
“And three,” Chaz repeated, “I want a home. I need a home. I have no idea where that is yet, but it’s my end goal. And maybe, if you’re up for it, I’d like that home to have you in it. With me.”
Sully swallowed hard and wiped a tear that fell down his cheek. He pushed another one away like it was a foreign object. When more came, and he couldn’t fight it anymore, he slumped on the bed in a ball. He wanted to cry about everything bad that had ever happened to him, but he never did. He always froze up thinking of his past. It was always the good things, like someone who loved him promising to find a home with him, that made him break down into tears.
And he was doing so much crying lately. It was just ridiculous.
“Goddammit,” Sully said, trying to push away his tears but failing. “I hate everything.”
“No, you don’t.” Chaz took the plate and set it on the floor, then closed the space between their bodies. He rubbed Sully’s back until he calmed down, whispering and humming.
“That’s my song,” Sully said.
“It is. Should I stop?”
“No. I like it. That song is like home.”
“If only we could live in an opera.”
Sully laughed. His tears stopped, but it was hard to speak. His throat felt as if he’d swallowed a baseball, and the feeling only got worse when he thought about the final scene in the opera. All the men and women come to the center. They hold up flowers and sing the final number. Then they stay paused, in a perpetual tableau, as the curtains close.
Sully always thought the ending was cheap. They never allowed the characters to finish, thereby leaving the audience hanging about what happened next. He realized now, sitting in bed with Chaz, that was the point. You freeze the happy moments like you freeze trauma—but they’re stronger than you realize. When you revisit the happy frozen moment, it reminds you that life can be good again and the bad things can’t hold you down as much. When Sully got the novel, he’d been shocked that the ending scene of the opera was in the middle of the book. And the original ending of the book was a tragic one. The opera had moved things around so the audience could be left with that feeling of fleeting happiness because that was what mattered far more than anything else. Everything about his favorite opera, like everything about Chaz, was as beautiful as it was tragic. But he knew the way he wanted things to end.
Sully took a deep, deep breath. He leaned against Chaz’s shoulder. It was a while before he spoke, but Chaz seemed content to wait. “You know, we kind of already do live in an opera. A soap opera. I could write my own series about this hotel.”
“I know you could. In both languages too. You’re a good translator.”
Sully nodded. He sniffed. When no more tears came, he knew he was ready to list the things he knew for sure. “I won’t stop working.”
“Hmm?”
“If we do this, whatever this is, I won’t stop working. I’m good at my job.”
“I know you are. I will love you no matter what.”
“You will?”
“I will.”
“I know I can’t do this forever,” Sully said. “Not all sex work is sex, though. I do this because I like it, but maybe there will come a day when I don’t meet with people one on one anymore. I’m still going to work with Artie. Trina. Tom. Tabby. Lisa, though she’s rude. Lexie, the new one. And Stacey, the vamp. Cecil too. I can’t leave them.”
“I know. I’d never take you away from them. Maybe you have a home with me and go there during the nights or days. Maybe you work another ten more years and become a translator. Maybe, maybe, maybe. There are so many options, Sully. I just want to have them with you.”
Sully swallowed. Nothing here was a trade. A quid pro quo deal. Chaz was letting him do what he wanted, as long as they got to be beside each other like this. Sully loved him more than he ever thought possible. All he could think of was the stupid idiom it had taken him so long to understand.
“Hovoriť piate cez deviate,” he said.
“What?”
“Hovoriť piate cez deviate. It means speak from five over nines, which is an idiom for when someone tells a story but they ramble too much and jump from topic to topic. I was translating something and I couldn’t understand what it was about until I understood what was happening around it, through context. It made me think of you and it was what I was going to write in my letter. How translation is the art of forgiveness, because it means understanding the context.”
“That’s neat. See? You’re a great translator. You’re good at everything you do. And I just want to be around.”
Sully kissed him, hard and fast. Chaz placed his hand on Sully’s chin as if he was holding him together. Or us together. Or both. Sully shuddered into the kiss, and soon he kissed down to Chaz’s neck, his chest, and his thighs. The pulse points. Where his blood and heartbeat were the strongest.
“That was my way of saying yes,” Sully said. “I want a home with you.”
Chaz’s smile was weak, but it was there. “Good. Come here.”
Sully straddled him. He shucked off his shirt and worked on removing both of their boxers. His moments were fast, frantic, as if the moment would slip through both of their fingers. He needed to preserve it like the final ending sequence so he could keep it forever. When Chaz’s hands met his own, he seemed to understand the need but slowed him down. Each touch was a promise that Sully thought he heard whispered in his dreams the night before.
I’m here, I’m here. I will stay. I love you more each day.
When Sully brought his lips to Chaz, he was softer. Sweetness bloomed between them. Sully grasped the back of Chaz’s neck and tasted all of him. When that wasn’t enough, Sully rubbed their erections together in his hands. Their breath became choppy. Skin flushed. Soon Sully traced his tongue over Chaz’s ear.
“Bite me,” Sully whispered.
“What?”
“Bite me. Not to turn—please don’t turn me. But I want you to taste me.”
Chaz nodded, seeming to understand. But he didn’t move to bite him. Sully picked up his fingers and dragged them across his neck. He held them over his jugular, where the heartbeat was the strongest. “I trust you to stop when you’re done. I trust you not to bite your mouth and turn me.”
Chaz nodded again, swallowing hard. “You trust me?”
“Yeah. Do you trust yourself?”
Chaz considered it a long, long time. When he moved to speak again, his teeth were crowning. The action didn’t fill Sully with fear anymore. Declan had been a fiend, the kind that tore in and did whatever he wanted. For once, the bad person died in the end of the story. The other monster, Chaz, wasn’t a monster at all. And Sully would let Chaz inside him, close enough to kill.
Because Chaz would never, ever hurt him.
“Lie down,” Chaz said. “I can work better that way.”
Sully turned onto his back, the chill of the room making his nipples hard as he did. Chaz flicked his gaze over his body, assessing all of him. They were both half-hard from making out, but they ignored their desire. This was about tenderness more than anything. Chaz straddled Sully’s thighs. He asked a dozen questions, making sure Sully could still breathe and that he was comfortable.
“Just go,” Sully said. “Go.”
Chaz tilted Sully’s head to expose his neck. He breathed over the spot under Sully’s ear near his jawline. When Chaz licked the skin, a tingle rushed through Sully. Numbing agent, disinfectant. When Chaz pricked him, it was sharp. Not painful but sudden. Sully let out a gasp but remained still. He became so aware of every last cell in his body, shaping and changing and flowing out of him. He thought of the charts he’d seen all night, the science that never made sense. He could feel it now. The words and jargon had new meaning.
Seconds later, Chaz pulled away. He looked back down at Sully, his teeth and lips a hue darker. He licked them once and they were all clean. His teeth were normal.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sully said. A little woozy but okay. “How much did you take? That was fast, right?”
“Not a lot. Like two swallows.”
“Is that enough?”
Chaz smiled and nodded. “More than enough. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Good.” Sully propped himself up on his elbows, his wooziness disappearing. Nothing changed inside him. He didn’t feel sick. He knew he wasn’t a vampire now; he was just missing some blood, something his body would soon replace. He’d be as good as new in no time.
“That’s it, huh?”
“Well, I can close the wound on your neck. I didn’t quite get it all before.”
When Sully nodded, Chaz kissed his skin. At least it felt like kissing. His mouth and tongue were soft and sweet. There was some pressure, and then Chaz pulled away.
“And that’s it.”
“Huh.” Sully touched the side of his neck. It was soft and tender, basically like a hickey. Not life altering but good. “I think I liked that.”
“Me too. You won’t be a vampire. You won’t even show up on my blood screen since you’re human. Our blood doesn’t mesh.”
“But Trinity is, right? On your blood screen thing?”
“Yes.”
“And Nat is?”
“Yes,” Chaz said, though he seemed sad. “Why?”
“I’m just thinking it all over. Unless you turn me into a vampire, I’ll never be a part of your blood that way.”
“You are, though. You are a part of me.” Chaz brought Sully’s hand to his mouth, kissing every fingertip. “You’re all of me. You’re my home.”
“Don’t oversell it now,” Sully said, chuckling. But he felt the words like a punch to his gut. They were real. They were a part of each other. “I think it’s better this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not going to stay together because our blood tells us to. We choose. Each and every day, we choose to be together.”
Chaz smiled. “I choose you.”
“I choose you.” Sully’s smile matched Chaz’s until they were kissing again. Longer and deeper than before. He tastes like me, he tastes like me, Sully repeated, then followed up with He is mine, he is mine, he is mine. Sully wanted to laugh. The operas he read rotted his brain. Like the sun-sickness did to Chaz. Sully was in a loving relationship with a vampire. It was so, so strange.
But he liked it. That was the final thing he knew for sure. He wouldn’t trade this strangeness for the world.
Sully spread his legs as their lips crashed together. Chaz sank between them and peppered Sully with kiss after long kiss. When he reached Sully’s hip bones, Sully tangled his hands in Chaz’s hair. Chaz found his cock, hard and aching, and traced his tongue along the crown before taking all of him inside. Sully shuddered and moaned. It didn’t even occur to Sully that they weren’t using protection until Chaz scrambled for condoms across the bed, moaning and touching his cock as he looked for them.
“Check my jeans. I always have one.”
Chaz laughed as he found it and pulled it out. He kissed Sully’s neck and whispered, “Always prepared.”
Sully pulled him back down for another hard kiss, biting his bottom lip. He spread his legs again as Chaz put on the condom. Sully grabbed a bottle of lotion from the hotel’s nightstand and used to it to finger himself. This was good. Very good. Sully knew his body and how to get it to perform well. But he also knew the language of Chaz’s body, how particular he was and how he licked his lips when he was serious. Sully had a job, but he also knew what he loved. And that was Chaz. In any language, it was going to be Chaz.
“You ready?” Chaz asked. He hovered beside Sully, waiting and watching for him to give a sign to go forward.
Sully wrapped his legs tighter around Chaz, bringing him into his body and their lips together again. There was no past or present. The balance of the future hung on the edge of something unspoken, like an unconjugated verb.
“Yes,” Sully answered. “For everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything,” he confirmed and kissed Chaz again.