Текст книги "Because of The Brave"
Автор книги: ZA Maxfield
Соавторы: Laura Baumbach,Josh lanyon
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 10 страниц)
“Yes but I’m planning to make an afternoon of it, you probably have to get back, and—”
“Perfect.” Robin took off back around the truck and got in on the passenger side. “I have the afternoon off and I intend to unwind.”
Shit. Peter pulled the truck out onto the street and headed for the highway.
“Don’t look so glum. It won’t rub off on you, whatever you imagine.”
Peter slowed the car to a stop. “What won’t rub off?”
Robin shook his head and his braids did a little dance. “The gay, the black. Whatever has you frowning. Everyone in town knows I care for your mama at Lyndee’s place, so you’re safe from awkward assumptions.”
Peter brought the truck up to speed again and ignored the urge to set the record straight. He wouldn’t be drawn out. “Where do you need to go?”
“Pharmacy.” Robin pulled a paper out of his bag. “For starters, then I have to get a couple of things from the market and a book from the library.”
“That’s what you do to unwind?”
“No,” Robin laughed. “After all that I’m going to get a beer and play some pool. Maybe eat something that doesn’t taste of the tin. Would you care to join me?”
“Me?” Peter didn’t know why he was surprised.
“If you’d rather not.” Robin pressed his lips together. “I can surely—”
“No, I would.” When had that happened? That he decided he wanted to spend time with this man. As soon as he’d smiled. “I’d like to get a beer. I just…”
“I thought my rainbow dog tags were clashing with your uniform, soldier boy,” Robin teased.
The moment came when Peter knew he could tell Robin that he wasn’t exactly limited to what he seemed to be on the surface.
“Surely Don’t ask don’t tell doesn’t preclude a beer with the nurse taking care of your mama?”
“No, of course not,” Peter said, and the moment was lost.
Probably not for long. Peter stole a glance sideways at Robin’s fine features in profile. His work probably made him fit and strong, Peter thought, taking in the way the man’s shirt caressed his biceps and pecs. Maybe he worked out to keep fit enough to lift patients. He wore his button front jeans loose around his hips and thighs so they hung low, but they’d been worn enough that they outlined all the good parts, and the good parts were very good indeed. Robin was busying himself with his cigarettes or Peter thought he’d surely have noticed the interest he was generating.
Peter shifted his attention back to the road. “I’d like to buy you a beer.”
“Really?” Robin smiled. He lit a cigarette, and then offered it to Peter. “Thanks man, I could really use a drink, it’s been a hell of a week.”
“My mom?”
“Yes and no.” Robin lit his own cigarette and rolled down his window. “She’s been in pain and the medication doesn’t always help. I have a new prescription from hospice. A patch to provide a baseline of pain relief. There are several layers of pain meds she’s on now. I hate to see it because they make her spacey and she refuses food and sometimes even water.”
“Spacey is bad. She prides herself on doing the daily crossword in pen.”
“Don’t I know it?” Robin closed his eyes. “When she’s angry and frustrated that she can’t figure out the words or the letters she knows that she’s lost something important. It would be easier if she didn’t know.”
Peter took a chance and placed his hand on Robin’s forearm, finding it strong and corded with muscles that moved under his touch. He’d startled the man, he could tell, but he didn’t take his hand away.
“It’s hard.” Peter said simply. “I can tell you care and I’m really…I’m very grateful.” He let his hand slide just a little and knew that most men wouldn’t see it for the caress it was. Robin wasn’t most men. And again he caught that speculative look.
“I’ll drop you at the pharmacy and when you’re done, you can meet me… where?”
“Let me think.” Robin’s eyes sparkled. “There are so many choices.”
“Buzzy’s or Frank’s.” At the very least Peter still knew where to go for a drink in the place he’d privately called the town-that-time-forgot.
“Buzzy’s, the pool tables have better felt and I plan to win some money.”
“Not from me I hope.” Peter slowed the car and parked in a diagonal space in front of the town’s only drugstore.
“Yeah, now you ought to run, soldier man because you will lose money to me if we play.” Robin smiled. “I’ll be about an hour, maybe, give or take.”
“See you at Buzzy’s.”
“See you.” Robin waved a hand.
Peter probably shouldn’t have been looking in his rearview as he pulled out but Robin turned to enter the store and from where Peter sat in the car he had the perfect view of Robin’s tight ass. A car honked and he pulled the wheel sharply to stay in his lane.
“Sorry.” He waved the other driver off, then headed to the tire center driving sedately within the speed limit.
No one knew why the tavern on the highway was called Buzzy’s but over the years the speculation had been that its owner and founder, Trig Thompson, had a wife who called him her honeybee and he’d named the place Buzzy’s to tease her. It hadn’t changed much since he’d put the first coat of varnish on the wooden bar and now his grandson Tim ran the place.
During the sexual revolution they’d added a condom machine to the men’s room, and sometime in the late eighties they’d installed a Bunn automatic coffee brewer with two pots, one for regular and one for decaf at the request of the snowmobile set.
When Peter entered the dimly lit space the only thing different from the last time he’d been there was that Minnesota had finally enacted a ban on smoking indoors, and the air, while certainly as unpleasant as he remembered it, was clear enough to see through. And the first thing he saw was Robin’s very fine ass as he bent over a pool table lining up a shot.
“Well, shit.” Peter strolled to the bar and ordered a Moosehead lager. He wondered whether he should order one for Robin when he saw that Robin had completed his shot and was bringing a beer bottle to his lips while he waited for
Because of the Brave
his opponent to take his turn. Peter sat down at a tall stool, his arm draped over the bar as he sipped his drink, watching.
Robin tipped his head back and drank, his Adam’s apple working, his lips caressing the lip of the bottle and everything tightened in Peter’s body, including the muscles in his chest where they wrapped around his heart. His mouth went dry. He’d never been interested in anyone this close to home, having preferred, even in high school, to find his fun in the cities. He’d never been anything in Hadleyburg but the son of the hometown hero, a cop who’d lost his life rescuing three children from a fall through the ice on the lake before losing his own life attempting to rescue a fourth.
Peter had spent the night before boot camp in this same bar, being toasted by his mother’s friends and his father’s fellow officers, men who looked to him to be the next Hsu hero, and he’d fled and taken his secret with him. He wondered if he could keep his secret with Robin standing right in front of him presenting the greatest temptation Peter had ever seen. And why that should be so, even Peter couldn’t say.
Peter lifted his bottle to take a sip as he looked at the man, who was setting up another shot, this time thankfully on the opposite side of the table. The cue slipped between fingers on that fabulous dark hand and right as Peter thought for sure it would strike the ball Robin stopped what he was doing and looked up as if he sensed he was being watched.
A slow smile bloomed on Robin’s face and transformed it while Peter held his breath. He put his beer down on the bar with a clatter and headed for the men’s room. It didn’t surprise him when—only a moment later—Robin entered behind him. He saw in the mirror that when Robin didn’t find him immediately, he frowned and turned back to exit the way he’d come. Peter moved from behind the door and leaned against it after it closed.
Once again the silence stretched out between them. Robin stepped boldly into Peter’s space. With the advantage of his height he forced Peter to look up to meet his eyes. “Say it,” Robin commanded.
Peter caught a handful of Robin’s braids and brought his mouth down for a dirty kiss, hungry and wet, running his tongue across those luscious lips, imagining how they’d feel on his dick, imagining how his own lips could savor the secret places on this hot, hot man’s body. For a moment it sparked between them, threatening to turn into a full-fledged inferno. Peter shifted his legs so if Robin even inched forward a hair he’d be ready to grind against the man’s well-muscled thigh. Robin didn’t move.
“I smell mothballs.” Robin said when he could finally pull his lips away.
“My job—” Peter pulled him back. “You know I can’t—”
Robin stepped away. “You said your mother doesn’t know who you are. I say neither do you.” He went to the sink and splashed some cold water onto his face. When he stood to pull a paper towel from the dispenser he met Peter’s eyes in the mirror. “I don’t’ want to be your dirty secret. I hate that shit.”
“I’m not going to have a secret for long.”
Robin paused in the act of throwing the paper towel into the bin. “What do you mean?”
Peter slumped back against the door. “I’m being blackmailed. I’m due to re-enlist, but if I do I’ll be blackmailed and if I don’t pay and he follows through with his threat, I get discharged.”
“Your word against someone else’s?”
Peter shook his head. “Videotapes.”
Robin hissed out a laugh. “Stupid fuck.”
“I didn’t know, all right? Who the fuck does that? I didn’t know! Hidden camera. For blackmail not for giggles, right?”
“I’m sorry.” Robin’s eyes traveled over Peter’s body in an assessing way. “Was he hot? I’d pay good money to see you getting fucked by someone like me.”
“I can assure you he was nothing like you,” Peter said grimly. He turned to leave and gripped the door handle. “He was a pity fuck. Shit, even I hate myself. I deserve everything I get.”
Robin’s hand came around Peter’s waist to pull him back against a solid chest and Peter felt the hair on his neck rise as Robin’s breath teased at the skin there. Peter sagged against him and let himself be held, like that, for a moment.
“I want you,” Robin told him, pressing his erection into Peter’s ass even as he pressed Peter against the door. “But I won’t be some straight boy’s ‘down low’ toy.” He slid his hands down into the pockets of Peter’s jeans, rubbing the hollows of his pelvis maddening millimeters away from his cock.
Peter’s mouth hung open as he panted. “Fuck, don’t tease me. You know it’s going to be the other way around.”
“Did you fuck someone on that tape, Peter?” Robin asked. “Or did someone fuck you. What did you do? Did you kneel at a man’s feet and take his cock into your mouth?”
Peter shuddered and reached his hands back to grip Robin’s ass, pulling him closer as the man made several short jabs to accent the filthy talk that he must have known was making Peter burn inside.
“You like that?” Robin asked him. “Have you seen the video? Have you seen yourself get fucked by a man?
Peter nodded against the door, his mouth still slack from trying to drag air into his lungs.
“You saw it?”
“In a mirror.” Peter twisted his body around and cupped Robin’s face with his hands. Their lips met and they kissed urgently until Peter finally pulled back to breathe. “I haven’t seen the—”
“I want to fuck you, soldier man.” Robin pushed his whole body against Peter’s, and Peter molded himself to its contours, surrendered himself to the insistence of his attraction.
“Hell, yes,” he whispered into Robin’s mouth. “Fuck, now, yes.”
Peter felt a subtle change in Robin’s body. Robin pressed his forehead against Peter’s and let out a sigh. “I don’t think I want to fuck the hometown hero’s baby soldier boy in the bathroom of a redneck bar.”
Peter blew out a tense breath and almost laughed. “Now that you put it that way….”
Robin lifted his arm and Peter ducked under it, walking to the basin, giving himself time to think. He waited for a minute after Robin left before following him out into the near empty bar. Robin was talking to the guy he’d played pool with while he picked up his bag and the sacks from his errands. Peter exited and waited for Robin in the truck. Neither man spoke when Robin got in, but Peter keyed the ignition and soon they were on their way.
Peter hurled himself at the back door of his mother’s house, barely turning the key in the lock before Robin’s body hit his hard and they went down just inside on linoleum floor of the service porch.
Robin kicked the door closed with his foot as he settled on Peter’s body. He held himself up with his forearms as he ground his hips down into Peter’s cock. Peter dug his hands into Robin’s hair, pulling handfuls of his braids to bring his head in for a kiss.
He loved the weight of Robin’s big, hard body as it pinned him to the floor. Loved the feel and the smell of Robin’s skin. Peter pressed his lips to Robin’s and found them to be soft and mobile, ready to part for a questing tongue yet at the same time seconds away from smiling.
Robin stroked a finger along Peter’s face, softly tracing his cheekbones to his jaw, “I saw your picture a thousand times right here in this house.”
Peter opened his legs and wrapped them around Robin’s, straining against him, trying to line up their cocks for some quality friction even though his body was demanding more. He shoved his hands down the waistband of Robin’s jeans and found perfect ass cheeks to squeeze. Robin’s hips snapped against his and he let out a groan.
“Robin.” Peter clung to Robin as they ground their hips together, each wave pushing him backwards across the slick floor into the kitchen.
Robin stopped what he was doing to toe his shoes and socks off, using his feet to try to rid Peter of his, but they were boots and required untying.
“I’ve got it.” Robin crawled to Peter’s feet and undid the laces, pulling each boot and sock off and then tugging on his trousers. Peter unbuckled his belt and unfastened them and soon Robin was sliding them down his legs while he pulled his T-shirt off over his head. Robin was shucking his clothes and it was only moments before he sat before Peter magnificently naked.
“You’re beautiful,” Peter whispered, not taking his eyes off of Robin’s even though he wanted very badly to look at everything at once. He put his hand on Robin’s chest and scraped a nail carefully over a dark nipple.
Robin sucked in a breath and his body responded by tightening as his eyes half closed. He cupped Peter’s cock through his shorts. “You have what I need soldier man?” He placed a kiss on Peter’s lips then, leaving them there for a breath, and Peter felt its tenderness to his toes. “You have what I want?”
“I hope so.” From the rough way they’d tumbled through the door to the sweetness of that kiss Peter knew he was deep into something he didn’t entirely understand. But he wanted more. “How do you want me?” he asked on a hoarse whisper.
Robin’s expression said he liked the question, but that he wasn’t exactly ready to answer it. He rocked his hips suggestively against Peter’s. “I want to see you,” Robin told him. “Us.”
Peter’s grin faded. His mother’s bedroom had full-length mirrored closet doors, and it wasn’t like it would be the first time he’d ever gotten busy in there. But with his mother’s tenuous health, somehow it seemed wrong to him, and he gave the thought a mental shake.
“Bathroom?” he asked. Robin probably knew the house better than he did anymore. He’d know the bedroom was perfect, yet maybe he’d understand why Peter couldn’t go there. “If that’s—”
“Perfect,” Robin stood and helped him up, slipping his hands from Peter’s waist down beneath the fabric of his underwear and sweeping it down to the ground. Peter stepped out of it naked and shy. His cock bobbed against his stomach as he followed Robin into the bathroom. “Let me look at you?”
Peter nodded and Robin turned him toward the mirror. Robin stood behind him, the light from the hall all they had until he switched on the little nightlight that his mother kept in the room so she could find her way in the dark. In that half light Peter’s creamy skin-so much lighter than Robin’s-shone and Robin’s form disappeared behind him. Robin slid his hands around Peter’s ribcage and moved them slowly down and up his abs to his chest, creating dark swaths across the light skin. They looked like a candlelit black and white photograph.
Robin’s lips caressed the skin just below his ear. It made Peter shiver, but he said nothing, content to remain quiet. The thing he liked best about Robin was the stillness he could maintain even in a conversation. Robin listened to silence as well as words.
Robin’s elegant hands smoothed over Peter’s back and shoulders, gently pushing him down, bending him at the waist until he rested on his forearms over the marble countertop. His hands moved down over Peter’s skin, then his mouth, marking a cool, wet path. He kneeled without a word and his tongue began to dance along the curve of Peter’s ass. It dipped into the dimples on either side of his spine and—at last—played in the dark cleft between Peter’s ass cheeks. Robin’s
soft breath cooled the kisses he left on Peter’s skin. His hands kneaded the muscles beneath the flesh that he tasted and bit with his teeth.
Peter melted into those caring hands, giving in, pressing toward the pleasure that Robin kept just out of reach. His dick tightened and bobbed and dripped with each sensation, until at last Robin breached his hole and tongue fucked him, making Peter’s knees grow weak and shaky.
“Shit Robin, I—”
Robin’s hand, slick with spit, found Peter’s hole and he slipped a finger inside, giving Peter something to push back against. Peter gasped in a breath and shuddered when Robin brushed a knuckle across his prostate.
“You come apart in my hands,” Robin remarked into the skin on Peter’s back. He cupped Peter’s cock with his free hand. “I knew you would be like that. That I could play with you and make you beg for me.”
“Oh… oh…” Peter pressed his cheek against the cold tile and just rode the feeling of Robin’s hands stroking him from the inside and the outside. “Uhn.” His hands gripped the edge of the marble where it hung over the cabinet, the cool felt erotic and slightly painful against his skin, but Robin was warmth and breath and life. Even love—maybe from the way Robin touched him—and he gave himself completely into Robin’s hands.
A drawer opened behind him and cold lube dripped down the crack of his ass. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Robin open a condom packet with his teeth, one hand rolling it onto his cock while the other stroked slickly in and out of Peter’s ass.
“Talk for me,” Robin said tightly as he put his hand on Peter’s shoulder to hold him in place. “Tell me what you want.” Robin nudged at his entrance and Peter reached back to pull him forward.
“I want to know why my mom has lube and condoms in the bathroom—”
Robin laughed. “No you don’t.”
“Shit,” Peter turned to look at Robin.
“They’re mine, you idiot, I lived here too.”
“But—”
“Can this wait?” Robin’s brown eyes hid his annoyance.
“Go,” Peter said, but the word caught in his throat when he felt the first push of Robin’s cock and no sound came out.
He turned his head and watched in the mirror as Robin’s face changed. Soft hands smoothed over Peter’s back. From where he rested, Peter could see every nuance of emotion as it came over his lover’s face. He could read the hunger there, the need, and the satisfaction that joining their bodies brought him. He watched as Robin’s hips snapped, hard and fast, saw when he closed his eyes and tilted his head back and fucked him savagely because he lost himself in the act.
Robin’s hips undulated as Peter pressed back, wishing he could tell Robin how good it felt. That this was everything he could want. He wished the man being fucked in the mirror could speak for him, that he didn’t look so fucking surprised, so stupid lying there, taking it and not giving back. Peter pushed his hand between them to signal he needed a time out and lifted his eyes to Robin’s in the mirror. He found tenderness there, as well as concern. Robin leaned over far enough to kiss him on the mouth, gently at first but with all the passion he’d shared earlier, all the sweetness that Peter usually didn’t find in another man’s casual embrace. It was that very thing that made Peter’s freeze up.
Robin gently pulled out and lifted Peter into his arms, cupping his buttocks and parting his ass cheeks even as he pressed Peter into the wall, joining their bodies again and continuing their rhythm standing up. Robin pressed his lips to Peter’s and murmured nonsense and soft words until he was gasping for breath. Peter climaxed from the pressure between their bodies and even as he lost control he wanted to cling to Robin and rock with him for a while.
Robin’s hips snapped when the first splash of cum hit his skin. He growled and pinned Peter so hard his back scraped against wood trim and he knew there’d be bruising.
Peter ran his hands over Robin’s high sharp cheekbones, cupping them and framing his face as he pressed his cheek against the stubble on Robin’s neck. Robin pulled out, his grip on the condom. His softening cock slapped against Peter’s thigh. They stood like that long after their breathing settled back to normal.
Since Robin couldn’t be described as uncharacteristically silent the ride back to Hopewald House went well. Peter glanced over at his profile a couple of times, wondering what he was thinking. He tapped the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio with the hand that wasn’t busy holding a cigarette and realized that he’d well and truly taken up the habit again.
“Thanks for the smokes, man, I promise I’ll buy the next pack.”
Robin grinned and maybe his cheeks warmed a little under all that velvety skin. “I’m sorry if you started smoking again because of me, your mother hates it.”
“I don’t think she was ever aware I smoked in the first place, maybe I can blame it on you when she tells me how bad it stinks; say you were smoking in the truck or something.”
Robin gave a mirthless laugh. “Are you going to tell her you accidentally took my cock up your ass too? Second hand gay?”
“What?” Peter almost stopped the car, but kept on because there was a truck behind his and they were almost to the driveway of Hopewald House anyway. When he got there he pulled in and parked. “What?”
“Are you still going pretend?” Robin turned so he was facing the passenger window. “Like it rubbed off on you?”
Peter tried for the joke. “You did rub off on me, if you recall. Or very nearly.”
Robin reached for the door handle but Peter caught his shoulder and held him still. He turned his face back around and Peter tried to read what he found there but he didn’t have a clue.
“Are you going to out me to my mom, Robin? Is that what this has been about?”
“Of course not,” Robin jerked his shoulder out of Peter’s hand. “But I told you, I’m no one’s dirty secret. That was an exception. It was good. You were hot.” Robin flashed him a dazzling smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Robin, I—”
“No worries, soldier man.” Robin gathered his bags and left the truck. He walked to the kitchen door of the big house with a catlike stride that did nothing to calm the racing of Peter’s heart. He did have worries; he couldn’t help it.
At the very least, he was being forced to give up his job. He’d planned to reenlist and his unit was probably going to be deployed again soon. The compassionate leave he was on to see his mother was only even possible because he’d been stateside in the first place when it became time critical to go home.
If he went back, he was certain to be the object of a determined blackmail scheme or face separation proceedings. Maybe he could survive that, maybe not. Peter had no way of knowing how chain of command would react to the situation, and frankly he hadn’t even begun to test the waters. He was as likely to get discharged because of his stupidity in getting himself into the situation as he was for being gay.
Yet usually the emotional crap didn’t matter to him. Not really. Life was hard work and discipline and putting it all on the line, and he’d done that. He’d hidden the parts of himself that didn’t fall in line with the world he wanted to play in. It had never seemed duplicitous to him. It was just another hard choice like did he want to smoke even though it caused cancer. It was his business what he chose to do.
At his father’s funeral there had been a picture of his dad in his police uniform on an easel next to the flag-draped coffin. There had been flowers and
pipers and many, many men and women who mourned the hero of an entire town.
Peter’s mother pulled him by the hand to his father’s picture and said, “See that? Always think of him, your father, before you make a decision and I will never be afraid for you.”
That picture sat on the fireplace mantle in his mother’s home and scarred his brain like a brand.
Jonathon Hsu was a good man, but Peter had never had a chance to know him. Never had the chance to ask him the hard questions any boy needed to ask his dad when he was growing up. So when the time came, and Peter at last realized that there was one way in which he would always be different from the man he thought his father had been, he’d disconnected himself from it emotionally.
From that point on he left his physical needs to rest in a safe place, a separate place like the garage where his mom’s Road Runner waited to be taken out and savored, but only when the weather was fine and the time was right.
Peter didn’t understand Robin’s insistence that keeping his private life a secret was wrong, anymore than he understood why people might want to know about it.
Peter got the battery from the truck and took it to the barn. While he dropped it into its place under the hood and connected up the terminals, he thought of a million different reasons he didn’t need any complications in his life. His mother was almost gone. He’d never have to look her in the eye and tell her he wasn’t the man she wanted him to be. The man his father had been. He’d never have to live in Hadleyburg again if he didn’t choose to. If he didn’t reenlist, he could make a comfortable living teaching skydiving or working on planes. He could go back to school and get a degree. His mother wasn’t going to leave him a pauper; with the sale of the house he’d have enough money to do any number of things, if he chose.
The untarnished image of the hometown hero and his son, the soldier—the fantasy that people seemed to need him to fulfill—was something that could remain in tact as long as he didn’t fuck it up now. He realized he’d been staring stupidly into the engine compartment of his mom’s car when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Robin standing there, back in his scrubs and smelling a little like disinfectant hand soap. He chewed his lip thoughtfully.
“I think I may have been—”
“Forget it,” Peter told him. “You were right and I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to be any guy’s dirty secret.” He wiped his hands on a rag and closed the hood. “You’re too fine a man for that.” Years of conditioning kept him from leaning against the front end of the car and possibly ruining the finish.
“You don’t know what kind of man I am,” Robin crossed his arms; that ready smile –the mask– back in place.
“I know that I’m comfortable with you. I’ve seen your kindness toward my mother. I know that you’re the only person in Hadleyburg who knows everything there is to know about me.”
“Surely not everything.” Robin stepped forward.
“Everything worth knowing.”
“I’d have to disagree.” Robin didn’t touch him, but still Peter felt his regard like a warm breeze. “But only because I want to know more.”
Peter put his hands in his pockets because he wanted to put them on Robin. “It’s not that simple. If I keep my mouth shut just a little longer my mother never has to find out I’m not the man she wanted me to be. No one in town finds out I’ve let my father’s memory down.”
“What about you? Haven’t you let yourself down? Did you never want something more than just pity fucks who blackmail you or jumping out of an airplane?”
Peter took a step back. “What the fuck makes you think that’s all I have?” He turned away and got into the driver’s seat of the Road Runner. He pumped the
gas once and said a silent prayer that it would work now that it had a new battery as he keyed the ignition. The engine turned over, a little weakly, but it caught and ran, idling a little slower than he liked. It reminded him of his drill sergeant at boot camp, phlegmy and growling in the morning, but then picking up speed and smoothing out as the day went on.
Robin leaned down and spoke through the window. “You’re right. I don’t know what you have. But you could have a family that loves the real you and not just the fantasy. You could have a life where who you are isn’t in conflict with what you do.”
Peter stared for a minute while he processed what Robin said. Did he want that? It might be desirable but was it necessary to integrate all the parts of his life? He was just a soldier. If he didn’t have that—
“I am what I do. A soldier. When you’re a soldier that’s what you do and who you are.”
“At least think about talking to your mother. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” Robin said grimly.
Peter leaned his head out the window. “Tell Lyndee I’ve gone into town for a while. I need to get new tires. And smokes.”
As Peter pulled onto the highway he resisted the urge to push the gas pedal to the floor and let the Road Runner soar. He had no idea how long the tires had been on the car. He would be lucky to get it to the tire store before one of them blew. As he drove the familiar roads his mind raced. Just the thought of Robin’s smiling mouth, velvety and warm on his lips made Peter’s body tighten with an all-too-familiar longing.
The boys who worked at the tire center spilled out of the service bays to get a look at his mom’s car the minute he pulled in again. Everyone wanted to check the Road Runner out. With a move like a magician, he opened the hood and displayed the Hemi. A mint muscle car that wasn’t beefy; she had slimmed down lines and was more aerodynamic than the boxy long rectangular cars of the sixties.
