Friends and Lovers Read online

  “It’ll just be for the one night,” he had promised.

  And Jack had agreed. He’d sucked him, fucked him, and afterwards, instead of leaving as all Tom’s conquests would, Jack had cuddled up with him, and Tom had been too blissed out to object.

  There would be time enough in the morning to send Jack home, he thought muzzily before succumbing to much-needed sleep.

  However, in the morning, he’d awakened to coffee-flavored kisses before being hustled into the shower, which really wasn’t big enough for the two of them, especially considering what a big man Jack was.

  “I think I’ll have to build you a larger bathroom, buddy,” Jack whispered as he nuzzled Tom’s ear and jerked him off with a soap-slicked hand, all the while humping the crevice of his ass.

  “Y’know, for a… a straight boy,” he panted after they had both come, and he turned in his best friend’s arms to lean bonelessly into him, “you’re… really taking to… to this, Jack.”

  Jack flushed, but then he laughed. “I’ve had a good teacher.” And he ran his hand down Tom’s back from his shoulder to the curve of his ass, giving a little squeeze.

  Tom liked hearing that, and he’d been smiling as he tucked his head under his friend’s chin.

  You miserable, candy-assed excuse for a… a voice screamed in the back of his mind, shocking him out of the haze of pleasure. What are you fucking doing??

  Stunned, he dropped his arms and stepped back. The voice was right. What was he doing?

  Tom steeled himself to tell Jack it was time for him to go, and then Jack knocked him for a loop without half-trying. He gave him a shy smile and said, “I’ve made you breakfast, babe.”

  He hand-fed him, and between kisses and shared sips of coffee, Tom decided there was time enough to tell him to go home after breakfast.

  Only, after breakfast… “Get dressed, babe. We’re heading out for the Depot.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Home Depot, Tommy.”

  “I know what the Depot is.” Testiness evident in his voice. “Why are we going there at the crack of dawn?”

  “It’s not the crack of dawn. It’s almost 9 AM. The store’s been open a couple of hours already!” Was he laughing at Tom?

  “You still haven’t told me why we have to go there.”

  “I need to pick up some supplies. I’ll fix the drip in your kitchen faucet, and the window in your backdoor need to be caulked, and … C’mon, buddy, Get a wiggle on, would you? I want to get a good parking spot.” Jack smiled at him.

  Tom could have said ‘no’. He was a grown man, after all, who’d been looking out for himself for longer than most people realized, but this was Jack, and he wasn’t proof against that hopeful, cajoling smile. He told the voice in his head to shut the fuck up, everything was under control, and went back to his bedroom to pull on jeans and a tee shirt.

  When he went outside, it was to find the nosy biddy who lived next door standing near the tiny patch of green that was her front lawn, holding a hose, and eyeing Jack’s pick-up truck with avid interest. She was wearing a housecoat, her hair still in curlers and a smear of cold cream high on her cheekbone. The woman lived to spread gossip; she also never watered her lawn at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning.

  And Jack was charming the bloomers off her.

  “Ah’m Tom’s cousin,” he heard Jack drawl, his voice like thick honey. “Ah’m gettin’ divorced, an’ he’s puttin’ me up for a bit.”

  “Oh, we’ll have to find a nice young lady for you!” And she fluttered her lashes at him.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Wiggins,” Tom gritted, refusing to consider the uncomfortable feeling in his gut might be jealousy. He was never jealous. He hadn’t been jealous when Jack had married, so why should he… He wasn’t jealous. He offered the sharp-featured woman a saccharine smile. “I see you’ve met the black sheep of the Hansom family. Come on, Cousin Jack. Home Depot is a-waitin’.” And they climbed into Jack’s truck because Tom’s Jeep was blocked by that big-ass Ford pick-up. “Jesus, Jack,” Tom rounded on him in the truck. “I half expected you to ask her to come a-swimmin’ in the cee-ment pond after vittles!”

  But Jack just smiled. “It’ll keep her off your back, buddy. That’s all I was trying to do.”

  And Tom surrendered to that reasoning. He spent the day with Jack, and the night and the next day and night.

  Because of that smile, because Jack was his best friend, because he’d wanted to…

  … because he was a candy-assed wimp, he castigated himself in the harsh light of this Monday morning as he glared at his reflection in the mirror.

  “Okay.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s gonna be okay. Nobody owns you. Nobody controls you. The weekend’s over, you got your itch scratched…” He squashed the small voice that hinted it wouldn’t object to having that itch scratched over and over again. “… and Jack’s gone to work. He’s got his own life to live, and so do you. Now shave, shower, and go to work.”

  Monday morning couldn’t guarantee that Monday evening you would still be here with me… The Mamas and The Papas

  Tom had been in a mood all morning, and his students – even the ones who were pretty certain he liked them – backed off and gave him plenty of room.

  One of the reasons he had been so pissed to be woken at 6:30 was that his first class didn’t start until 10 – he arranged his classes around his life and not the other way around – and that had shot his schedule to shit. He’d had breakfast early, and as a result, his stomach started rumbling in the middle of a chem lab.

  “Another good reason why you won’t be having that redneck construction worker in your bed again,” he groused to himself as he entered the faculty dining room. “Your blood sugar is probably bottoming out. Not to mention the fact that you didn’t get any sleep.”

  The woman ahead of him turned to gaze at him. “Ah. Professor Hansom.”

  “Excuse me, Doctor Lytle. This is a private conversation,” he informed her.

  “Of course.” Her lips twitched in amusement. She picked up a tray and proceeded to make her selections.

  Tom picked up a tray as well and went to see what there was. He stared at the stainless steel bin that held slices of pot roast nestled in thick gravy, along with little pearl onions, baby carrots, and celery. Usually, by the time he got to the dining room, whatever was left looked dried and shriveled. The string beans in the next bin were bright green instead of gray and soggy, and he was willing to swear the rolls, which in a couple of hours could be used for hockey pucks, were fresh from the oven.

  “You’ve been holding out on me, Essie!”

  “You’re here early!” The white-hatted food preparer behind the counter gave him a toothy grin, revealing the gold-capped tooth of which she was inordinately proud. She had worked in the student cafeteria when he’d been at P and J as a student, and he’d been pleased to see she’d moved on to the faculty cafeteria; she’d more or less adopted him when he’d come back to teach chemistry. “I do believe hell done froze over!”

  He smiled at her, hoping it wasn’t as feeble as it felt.

  “Professor Tom, you okay?”

  Tom just nodded and put a helping of everything on the plate on his tray. He started to reach for a slice of cheesecake, but it was too reminiscent of the dessert Jack had brought on Friday. He settled for a tangerine and two cans of Coke, gave Essie a farewell nod, then waited in line to pay the cashier.

  Something dug lightly into his back, and he looked over his shoulder. “Hello, James.”

  “Hi, Tom. Early lunch?” Dr. James Rochester, associate professor of Pulaski and Jasper’s pre-med program, remarked casually.

  “As you see.” He didn’t let James feel the edge of his tongue as he might have another of the faculty. The man had been his friend since he’d returned to P and J, after all.

  “I’m just surprised to see you here at this hour. Will you join me?”

  “Sure.”

  There was no
thing more than idle chitchat until they’d paid for their meals and settled at a table away from the other faculty members who were starting to crowd into the dining room.

  “You look like you’ve had a rough weekend.”

  Great. Just what he wanted to talk about. “It was… a weekend.”

  “Oh ho!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Usually you’re disgustingly chipper on Mondays, unlike we poor mortals who don’t get laid on a regular basis. The only time I see you like this is…” The look in Tom’s eyes made him change his mind about what he’d been going to say. “Never mind. You want to tell Uncle James all about it?”

  “No.”

  “Oookay.”

  “Sorry. It was just an ordinary weekend, nothing special.” He refused to wince at that lie.

  “All right, then.” James studied the bite of meat on his fork before putting it in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “Suppose I regale you with tales of my phenomenal weekend?”

  Tom raised a can of Coke to his lips. “Knock yourself out.”

  Before James could open his mouth with some purely apocryphal story that Tom had no doubt would lighten his mood, someone entered the dining room and stood there, arms akimbo, glowering.

  “Oh, great. Dean Blake.”

  “Looks like he’s got a bug up his ass.”

  “So what else is new?”

  The Dean of Undergraduates stormed across the room and scowled down at them.

  “Hansom!”

  “Have a seat.” Tom tore the peel from the tangerine and separated the fruit into segments.

  The Dean sat, obviously disgruntled when he realized what he had done. His expression darkened. “Hansom.”

  “Want a piece?”

  “No, I do not want a piece!” The man hissed like a tea kettle. “I thought I warned you, Hansom!”

  “You’ve warned me any number of times, Dean. What’s it about this time?”

  “About playing with the students.”

  “I took your words to heart.”

  “Well, Lane Hamilton is saying otherwise.”

  Tom’s expression became cold. “Then he’s a liar.”

  Earlier in the semester, the frat boy had come onto him, quite blatantly. In a moment of aberration he’d let himself succumb.

  “He isn’t in any of my classes, and I’m not his advisor. And if he’s saying I seduced and abandoned him… Listen, you know me. I don’t seduce anyone.” He pushed thoughts of his best friend out of his mind. “I lay it on the line: one night, and one night only.”

  And it hadn’t even been the entire night. He wouldn’t admit to Dean Blake that he’d no sooner said ‘yes’ than he’d started having second thoughts. There had been something in Hamilton’s eyes… He’d had enough sense not to take him home, however. They’d gone to a motel that rented rooms by the hour, and that hour was all Tom gave him.

  “You’re just lucky you have tenure, Hansom, otherwise these allegations would have you out on your ass.”

  Talk about melodramatic.

  James had been listening, tearing apart his roll. “You should know, Dean Blake, that Hamilton had been placing bets that he could seduce Tom, and that he’d be the one walking away.”

  Tom hadn’t heard those rumors, and he raised an eyebrow at his friend, who shrugged.

  “I know you, Tom. No one gets to you.”

  Except Jack.

  Once again he had to push thoughts of his best friend and the weekend he’d spent under him out of his mind, and instead studied the Dean. From his expression at that little tidbit, it was obvious he’d been unaware of the student’s actions.

  Tom prevented his mouth from curling in a grin, but it was touch and go.

  The Dean harrumphed. “Needless to say, I will have a talk with the young man.”

  “Do that, Dean. Rest assured, he won’t be happy if I have that talk with him.”

  Dean Blake stiffened and frowned at him. “That won’t be necessary, I assure you.”

  From time to time Tom worked out in the gymnasium at Clarke Hall, and whenever he did, a small crowd of students and instructors would gather to watch. Stripped down to gym shorts and pumping iron with single-minded intensity, Tom was all sleek, glistening muscle.

  Rumor had it that in his years at Florida State University, where he’d completed his degree and taught for a short time, he’d had a run-in with the leader of a particularly vicious motorcycle gang, and he had won.

  “I’ll… er… I’ll just let you two gentlemen get back to your lunch.”

  Tom dismissed the man as soon as he was out of the room. “So, James. You were going to tell me about your weekend?” He put the final segment of tangerine into his mouth.

  “You’re going to push him too far one day, Tom.”

  “And then what? He’ll make me write on the blackboard a thousand times, ‘Must play nice with others’? He said it himself – I have tenure. Besides, I’m the only openly gay faculty member P and J has. The ACLU would be down on his ass so fast…”

  “He can make your life miserable.”

  “More so than my life can be made miserable teaching chemistry to kids who take it because they have to and not because they want to?”

  “Someone wants to take chem?” James grinned, but when Tom didn’t respond, he sighed and shook his head. “I worry about you, Tom.”

  “Don’t. I can take care of myself.” He wouldn’t allow himself to think of Jack. “Now, are you going to tell me about your weekend, or will I be left to assume it was just a figment of your overactive imagination?”

  As Tom had hoped, James allowed the change of subject.

  “I met the cutest nurse at the clinic…”

  Blue Monday, how I hate blue Monday… Fats Domino

  For a few hours after class on Monday afternoons, Tom was available to any of his students who needed to consult with him.

  Most times it had to do with grades or a lab – “H2O is not to be confused with H2SO4!” – or an extension on work that was supposed to be turned in within the foreseeable future.

  Sometimes, though, the student who waited to speak to him was gay, and either was the object of harassment, was terrified of being outed, or was nervously excited about outing him or herself.

  On this Monday, when he would have been – not grateful, of course not grateful, but simply willing to accept the distraction, there was no one waiting in the outer office.

  He raised an eyebrow at Margaret Nordstrom, the secretary he shared with his colleagues in the chemistry department.

  “Has the student body been kidnapped en masse?”

  She shrugged. “Cheerleader practice, baseball practice, track and field practice. Not to mention Dr. Costello was watching The Music Man again and decided he wanted a marching band with seventy-six trombones. He’s auditioning anyone who can tell him what a spit valve is.”

  “Again?” In spite of himself, Tom had to smile. “He does that every spring.”

  “Things are going to be quiet for a few days. I’d suggest taking advantage of it.”

  “And do what?” Obsess over this past weekend?

  “You’ve been meaning to reorganize the files since Dr. Myers dumped them on you.” She was an outspoken woman who considered the department hers. She’d been there since before Tom had been a student at P and J. “You could do that.”

  Which ranked right up there with giving himself a paper cut and then squeezing lemon juice on it. He spared a scowl for Dr. Myers, whose office had been bequeathed to Tom when a midlife crisis had the former chair of the chemistry department deciding he wanted to find himself with his daughter’s sorority sister.

  “Tom, what’s wrong?”

  Was it written on his forehead, ‘I was screwed’? “Long weekend.”

  “Oh?” She shook her head. “One of these days, Thomas, you’re going to go up against someone who’s going to knock you for a loop.”

  Tom ran into her a
fter he’d returned to Savannah and a position at P and J.

  “Ms. Nordstrom?” Tom was stunned.

  “Professor Hansom?” She looked only looked mildly surprised.

  They were in a leather bar.

  “Introduce us, Margaret,” a statuesque woman dressed in black leather and red, spike-heeled boots ordered.

  “Dr. Jessamyn Scott, Dean of Girls at Broughton Prep.” A prestigious girls’ school just outside of Savannah. “Thomas Hansom, our newest professor of chemistry at Pulaski and Jasper.”

  “Doctor.”

  “Professor. What Margaret neglected to mention is that we’ve been partners for the last twenty years.” She put a possessive arm around the other woman’s waist.

  “Congratulations, ma’am.”

  They shook hands, Tom bought a round of drinks, and they chatted a bit.

  “My doctorate is in social science; I’m here…” She waved her hand to indicate the leather bar. “… in an attempt to find a correlation between the subculture of leather and motorcycles.”

  The corner of Tom’s mouth curled up. “I’m here to…” And then he spotted a young man dressed in chaps, a silver-studded vest, and a smile. “If you ladies will excuse me?”

  A few minutes later, on his way out, with his hand on the bare butt of the young man clinging to him, Tom glanced back to give Margaret a farewell salute. She and her partner stared after him, open-mouthed.

  And wouldn’t Margaret laugh herself silly if she knew he’d already fallen into the oldest trap in the book: promising himself things wouldn’t get weird between him and his best friend, and then finding that they had?

  “Why don’t you go home for the day, Margaret? I think I can handle the ravening horde.”

  “If you’re sure? There’s something on the History Channel I was meaning to tape for Jessamyn…”

  “Sure.” Tom followed her to the door.

  “I’ll just leave the door open in case anyone shows up.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow, Margaret.”