Crossing the Line

“I just want you to know I’m over you.”

A faint thump as a clumsy hand fumbled the receiver was followed by a sleepy voice. “Huh?”

“I’m totally over you. I hope you and the twink are happy, you selfish fuck.”

Silence. Then, “Hold on.” The sounds were fainter now and muffled. “Ben, I think it’s for you. I think it’s Jamie.”

Shit. The background noise in the nightclub kept Jamie from noticing that it wasn’t Ben who’d picked up. Didn’t it just fucking figure it would be Kevin who answered? In the middle of the night. Twist the God damn knife some more.

“Jamie?”

God damn it, it wasn’t fair.

After all this time, just the sound of Ben’s voice shouldn’t still do this to him. Shouldn’t wash over him and make him feel like he’d been wrapped in the biggest, warmest blanket ever made. Jesus, why couldn’t he just let go and move on?

“Yeah.” Jamie couldn’t hide the bitterness he felt. “I just called to say--”

Ben cut him off. “Yeah, I know. It’s one o’clock. Jamie, are you drunk?”

“No.” It wasn’t a lie. A pale, off-white shade of the truth, maybe, but not an outright lie. Because the truth was, he couldn’t drink enough to make him forget how he’d felt for those few amazing months when he’d had Ben in his life. “I only had a couple martinis.”

“Jamie, you’re drunk. If you want to talk, call me when you’re sober.”

The band finished its number and the applause from the club-goers drowned out whatever Ben said next. “Ben, could we just...” The applause died away and Jamie could hear the dial tone now. The fucker had hung up on him.

Fuck.

The vodka he’d drunk swirled as Jamie’s stomach rolled over. The same sick feeling he got whenever he let himself think about Ben for too long settled over him.

What a dumbass. Why had he come to a jazz club, anyway, if not to torture himself with memories of better times? Times when he and Ben had been together. At the time, Jamie hadn’t recognized the feeling for what it was. He’d been too crazy for Ben, and all it had taken was one look from those warm, hazel eyes for Jamie to be hard and ready for him.

His hand hurt and Jamie opened his clenched fist to find the cell phone he still clutched digging into his palm. He shoved it into a pocket and leaned his head back against the wall outside the men’s room door. Closing his eyes, Jamie banged it against the wall behind him. He didn’t worry about hurting it. It was too thick for that, too thick to get much of anything through it. How else could he explain calling Ben in the middle of the night?

That fucker Kevin had answered.

Pretty little bastard.

Jamie still carried a picture in his mind of the night Kevin and Ben had gotten together. He’d been there and watched it happen, seen the rapt interest in Ben’s eyes that he’d been unable to disguise. Impossible, too, to miss the matching fascination in Kevin’s. And there hadn’t been a damn thing Jamie could do about any of it, only watch with a sick dread building in his gut that told him Ben wasn’t just taking a breather -- he was never coming back.

When the hallway leading to the restrooms began to fill with bodies intent on a single mission, Jamie put it together with the rising tide of voices and realized the band must be taking a break. Feeling like a salmon pushing upstream, he fought the flow of traffic and headed back to his table.

He still had time for at least one more drink. Maybe then he could bear to let one of the cute young things he’d caught eyeing his Rolex come over and sit down. Hell, he might even let one of them follow him home. With enough Armadale in him, it wouldn’t matter what color the eyes were looking up at him from behind a mouth full of his cock. So long as he could close his own and pretend, the details weren’t really important.