Jilted Page 6

  “You seem to know what you’re doing,” Carter says, trying to make peace.

  Link coyly lifts one shoulder. “I do make a pretty passable gumbo.”

  Together they mince the veggies and add them to the roux, and then the big pot goes back on the burner. “Do you like to cook?” Carter asks.

  Link nods, glancing up and then away. Steam twists and climbs, flushing Link’s cheeks and lips a deep red. “Sometimes. When I was a kid, I’d stay with my granny for a few weeks in the summer. She loved to cook, like classic Louisiana cuisine: jambalaya, red beans and rice, shrimp and grits, gumbo. You?”

  “Sometimes,” Carter echoes. “I didn’t really have anyone willing to teach me. I love to bake, though. The second it hits fall weather, I haul out the mini-cupcake tins and festive sprinkles.”

  Link’s mouth curls into a gentle smile, reaching out with a soft touch to Carter’s bent elbow, and says, “Just when I think you can’t get any cuter.” Which is funny, because Carter was thinking the same thing. Then Link moves closer and grabs the handle of the knife Carter is still using. “Okay, you have clearly never properly prepared okra; let me help.”

  Eleven

  On the itinerary for the next day is a ride on the St. Charles streetcar, where the tracks lead beyond the French Quarter into uptown and around the Riverbend in the most historic parts of the city. Link is quiet at breakfast and on the walk to the trolley and as they sit next to Carter on a small wooden trolley bench. Quiet, but not sad. Contemplative, Carter thinks. Carter himself has no desire to contemplate anything, having successfully stomped all of his feelings away again. He’s distracted by all the sights as the little green trolley slowly chugs along on the tracks. Several large mansions with a delightful mix of sprawling European splendor and traditional Southern antebellum symmetry pass by. Carter yammers on about the hallmarks of antebellum neoclassical architecture from Jackson Avenue to all the way to the end of the line.

  Before taking the streetcar back, they stop for po’boys and crawfish étouffée and beers at a restaurant in the Riverbend neighborhood, sitting on the deck outside even though it’s a little too chilly. It’s nowhere near as chilly as Aurora will be, though. Carter’s time in New Orleans and with Link is coming to an end, and, though “vibrant” was never really a word he would have used to describe Aurora, after being here he can only imagine his world back home painted in various shades of lifeless beige.

  Link takes him to the aquarium, then the Audubon garden, and then they make a stop at the Spanish fountain with its colorful tiles and a picturesque view of the river. Link pauses in front of the fountain to check something on their phone. Their scarf and hair are gently tousled by the wind; they’re dressed casually today in striped blue pants and a loose white button-up. The sun sets, orange and pink, behind them; the fountain sparkles jewels. Nothing can capture how Link looks in this instant, nothing can make it last longer than a few beats of Carter’s heart. Carter’s hand twitches toward his phone to take a picture, but instead he tries to mentally snap this perfect moment. Link’s head turns to direct a wide smile Carter’s way, and that moment is better still.

  At the French Market, a vendor fast-talks Carter into buying a Mardi Gras mask and beads and a New Orleans snow globe with a plastic gator, riverboat, and Bourbon Street signpost inside. Link judges him appropriately for his tacky souvenirs, then hands him a bag as they wait together on the corner for a ride back to the hotel. Then they’ll head on to a jazz club for the night’s agenda. “Got you something.”

  Carter opens the bag to find a birdhouse made in the style of a New Orleans cottage home. It’s pastel yellow with pale green shutters and a bright blue door.

  “It even has a little fleur-de-lis gable on the porch,” Link points out. “The vintage house you always wanted.”

  Carter is so touched, he can’t do more than nod and run his finger over all the perfect little details on the perfect little house.

  Then it’s a stop at the hotel, just long enough to drop stuff off and change clothes. Carter switches from one plaid button-down and sweater to a different plaid button-down and sweater and Link changes from the simple white shirt and blue pants to—

  “Wow.”

  With a grin, Link spins in place, wearing a skintight, midriff-baring black T-shirt, virtually painted-on leather pants, and heavy black eyeliner. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Wow,” Carter repeats. “I feel a little…” He looks at his slacks and dress shirt and frowns. “Boring,” he decides.

  Suddenly peppy and once again bright, Link waves him off, slips on heeled black boots, says, “You look as cute as always,” pats Carter’s cheek, and leads the way out of the room.

  “I look like a JC Penney catalogue model,” Carter says as they cross the ornate lobby and head outside. “Not in a good way. In a boring, bland-looking-so-everyone-notices-the jeans-on-sale-for-$12.99-instead-of-the-model sort of way.”

  Link snaps their fingers and says, teasing, “Oh my—that’s it! Was driving me crazy.” They open the car door and gesture for Carter to get in. After climbing in next to him, Link pats Carter’s knee and bumps their shoulder against Carter’s. “I like that about you.”

  “That I’m boring?”

  “No.” Link laughs. “That you’re so much more than what you seem on the outside. I think you’re one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever known.”

  Carter shakes his head. “Me?” Link must not know very many people.

  “Yes, you,” Link says. It’s not a very long drive, and soon the car is pulling into a busy street with lights flashing all colors of the rainbow and music pumping. “Thanks to you, what should have been the worst week of my life has been pretty wonderful. You have been wonderful.” The car stops, and Link turns with an impossibly fond smile. Rainbow lights sweep across the car’s interior; Link’s hand is still on Carter’s knee. “And now I’m over it. Jamie, the wedding, all of it.”

  Carter stares at Link’s hand, fingers curved on his kneecap, thumb just a little higher on his thigh. Over it. “Just like that?”

  Link’s head tilts. “Just like that. I felt what I need to feel, maybe you should—”

  Link doesn’t finish saying what Carter should maybe do; instead, they step out of the car and walk around to hold Carter’s door open. “What should I do?” Carter says, but the street party engulfs him, and his question is swallowed up in the celebratory vortex. Carter has to lean right next to Link’s ear to be heard over the commotion. “I thought Mardi Gras was next week?”

  “Consider it pregaming!” Link shouts back. “Only with more alcohol and more nudity.”

  Up and down Bourbon Street, the pre-Mardi Gras party rages with an abundance of drinking and dancing and skin. Carter is gobsmacked; he’s been to parties, but nothing like this. It’s alive and intoxicating and, as he stands next to Link who is just as electrifying, a charge zaps up his spine, seeps into his blood, and hums along his skin. The next time the crowd wooos, Carter wooos along. Link disappears, then reappears with a hurricane in a plastic cup as tall as Carter’s arm is long. Someone flings beads into the crowd from a balcony, and everyone screams. A string of glittery gold beads lands next to Carter’s shoe. The street party’s ebullience is intoxicating.

  “Carter!” Link shouts, close to Carter’s face. “You should feel whatever you need to feel! Stop holding back!”

  Carter blinks. “Okay.” He presses a hard, closed-mouth kiss to Link’s lips. Around them, the crowd erupts into cheers while shining beads clatter down like rain. He’s leaving and he may never see Link again. It’s now or never.

  The wildest party Carter has ever witnessed rages on around them, but right now all that exists is his mouth on Link’s mouth. Nothing else matters. No one else matters.

  Twelve

  Carter pulls back from the kiss. The taste of strawberry lip gloss is still sweet on his lips. His mouth i
s tingly, and his heart pounds. The kiss felt like an exhale. Link stares, frozen, fingers raised to their mouth, trembling across their open lips.

  Carter starts to form an apology, to say he was caught up in a moment. But never has a moment felt so right. Unless Link didn’t—

  Link grabs Carter by the back of the head and crashes their mouths together. It’s nothing like the first kiss. It’s hungry and open and biting and they only pull away, gasping for air, when the crowd moves and Link is shoved accidentally, moving them bodily away. Carter reaches for them and has a sudden flash of that first night, the first time they were both drunk and partying. Something is so familiar about this moment:

  The strawberry lip gloss.

  Link’s sweetly curved mouth.

  Carter reaching, so sure of the rightness of it.

  The world spinning around Carter as if everything had shifted.

  Link hooks an arm around Carter’s shoulders to keep him close, then says, pressed chest to chest and cheek to cheek, “Fuck, finally.” Together they dance, draping beads over each other’s necks, and kiss and kiss, lips sweet and skin hot and hands daring. Back at the hotel, pressed against the door, Carter skirts his fingertips along Link’s warm sides and up beneath their shirt, dragging along curving hips and flat belly and angled ribs and the dip of their lower back.

  “Is this okay?” Carter asks in a whisper, running his fingers just over the top of Link’s pants, just at the edge of seeking more.

  “Yes,” Link asks, smiling against Carter’s tender lips. “So polite.”

  Carter curves his hands over Link’s ass, kneading and rubbing but not pulling in, letting Link decide what to do. Link kisses down Carter’s neck and jaw, shoves a leg between Carter’s. Carter groans, pleasure unspooling through his body, nothing urgent, like the lazy roll of the Mississippi. Carter is buzzed but not drunk, not like the first night he met Link, just enough to take the edge off and not think, not so much that he won’t remember. Link takes Carter’s hands, walking backward and tugging Carter along.

  Falling into bed together is something they have done every night for the past week as strangers pretending to be lovers. No more pretending. Carter shoves away the wall of pillows that kept him barricaded from Link and feels no embarrassment when he presses the length of his body against Link’s, touching Link in a way he’d only allowed himself to imagine in dreams.

  “Is this okay?” Carter asks again. It’s been so long since he learned someone’s body for the first time: what makes them gasp and squirm in pleasure, what their limits are. Carter grinds down on Link’s thigh, slides his own leg between Link’s.

  “Yes,” Link says, on a gasp into Carter’s mouth, rubbing against him and clutching Carter’s shoulders.

  It’s perfect—kissing and grinding and touching without holding anything back—until it isn’t; the slow-burning pleasure turns into urgent need. Link pulls back first, breathing out, “Wait,” then struggling out of the tiny, sexy, skintight shirt.

  Link’s skin is soft and smells faintly of coconuts. Carter tastes Link’s neck and shoulders, those gorgeously curved collarbones and the soft hollow between. Link’s gasps turn into soft moans; their hips twist sideways to pin Carter’s leg. Link’s back arches. The new position puts Carter’s lips closer to the center of their chest, right at one dusky nipple. It seems to be a silent request, but just to be sure Carter bends slowly, looking up at Link’s blissed-out face. “Please,” Link says, then cups the back of Carter’s head and nudges it forward.

  Carter licks flat across one nipple, then the other, circles both until a hard nub forms, and then flicks the tip of his tongue against them. Link gasps, hips rubbing down hard, back bowing even farther. When Carter sets his lips around one nipple, sucks and flicks his tongue against the nub while pinching and rubbing the other, Link’s thrusting grows erratic; their deep groans turn into sweet, high whines. The hand on Carter’s head grips his hair, keeping Carter in place and his mouth and tongue and fingers in motion until Link goes quiet, grinds down one more time, and then goes still and rigid.

  Link tips Carter’s face up, bends to kiss him messily, and trembles with weak full-body spasms and a smile that curves against Carter’s lips. Ridiculously turned on after feeling and watching Link come, Carter shifts to rub himself to completion. Dry-humping, Link called it, and which Carter has been under-appreciating as mere foreplay.

  But Link squirms out from beneath him and off the bed, then struggles out of the tight, tight leather pants, down to only bright red briefs. Carter opens his pants and shoves his underwear down, pulling at himself just to get a little relief.

  Link puts their hair into a messy topknot; a condom packet is clenched between their front teeth. Hair satisfactorily up, Link plucks the condom out and holds it up, cocking one hip and saying, “I’d like to go down on you, or would you rather just do that? I’m happy to watch.” They nod to Carter’s hand on himself.

  Carter can’t imagine a scenario in which he’d say no to Link’s gorgeous, pouty lips around him and wants to ask how Link could ask such a dumb question. He also wants to be respectful, so he stops touching himself, pushes up onto his elbows, and politely requests, “I’d like for you to go down on me, please.”

  Link laughs, beckoning Carter forward to the edge of the bed before dropping between Carter’s bent legs. “Only you could politely request oral sex and still be cute.”

  Only Link could call me cute while putting a condom on me, Carter thinks, but does not say. He’s having trouble saying much besides “yes,” over and over. He doesn’t want to dwell too much on the newness of Link’s mouth on him, that it’s someone else, someone different, but it’s impossible not to. Link isn’t particularly methodical, which is new, and is very enthusiastic, which is new and nice. Method hardly matters, though. It feels amazing, and Carter is so wound up that he comes without warning, before he can get a word out about being close.

  After showers and tidying up and climbing into bed, Carter rests his cheek against Link’s shoulder and drapes his arm over Link’s torso with a hand splayed on the curve of their belly. Carter soon becomes so comfortable and content he’s barely clinging to consciousness. And then Link says his name as though it’s a question.

  “Mmph?” Carter manages.

  Link huffs a little laugh and shifts to kiss the top of Carter’s head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” Carter yawns, shifts, and scoots even closer. As he’s dropping off to sleep, Link mumbles something; their voice slides into Carter’s hazy mind like a subliminal message as he hovers between awareness and dreaming. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

  Thirteen

  Carter stretches out on his back, still naked, after a very satisfying night’s sleep. He’s alone, woken by the sound of a door closing. Link must have gone to the bathroom. It’s Carter’s last day here, there’s still so much of New Orleans that he wants to see and experience, and now that he and Link have gone from pretend lovers to real lovers, he can only imagine the extra infusion of joy and excitement the day will have. Maybe he’ll hold Link’s hand and walk the river, then finally do that Garden District tour where he can ramble on about double gallery houses and center-hall cottages and how to spot the telltale architectural differences between Italianate, Greek Revival, and Queen Anne mansion styles.

  Carter pulls clothes for the day from his suitcase, noticing that the bathroom is dark and empty. Link must have gone out for one last beignet run, then. Maybe Carter can kiss the powdered sugar off their lips, taste the sweet chicory-coffee flavor of café au lait on Link’s tongue. But after Carter showers and dresses and shaves, Link still isn’t back. Café Du Monde isn’t far from the hotel. Maybe there’s a line. Link knows a locals-only shortcut to the checkout. It’s never taken this long.

  He sits on the balcony to people-watch and soak up the city for a
little longer, but it makes him too sad about leaving, so he goes back inside. His home has become a cross to bear and a city he’s spent a week in has become the only source of light in his life: New Orleans and Link. Carter shakes himself out of the thought. One more day. He doesn’t have to think about Matthew, or the condo he’ll find emptied of Matthew’s things, or going back to work and everyone’s questions, or his dead-end life or his soul-sucking family. He turns on the TV, but finds nothing of interest.

  Where the hell is Link?

  Someone knocks on the door, and Carter hops up in relief, then deflates when he realizes that Link has a key and wouldn’t need to knock, then gets his hopes up again when he reasons that they could have forgotten it. It’s room service with the last honeymoon-special breakfast.

  “Have you happened to see my…” Carter cranes his neck to look past the concierge, glancing left and right down the hallway. “Partner? Anywhere?”

  “No, sorry.” The concierge holds a hand out for their tip.

  Carter doesn’t want to eat alone, but he’s hungry and really starting to worry, so he stress-eats a mini quiche and four toast points. It’s only after he puts the tray in the hall outside the room, after the food has long gone cold, that it finally dawns on him: Link’s many toiletries are cleared off the counter; shampoo and conditioner and coconut body wash are gone from the shower. No black sharp-heeled boots or heavy combat boots or purple high-top sneakers sit at the bottom of the closet. He opens the stupid armoire that takes up nearly half the tiny room and—empty.

  Carter stands in place until the room spins and sways too much for him to stay on his feet. The bed is still messily undone on both sides, but Link’s pillow is against the headboard where they must have sat propped up after waking. Carter’s breakfast turns bitter in his stomach. He stands again, smooths the sheets, and puts the pillows in place. On Link’s side of the bed, a notepad has been removed from the bedside drawer and a pen set beside it. One word is written beneath the hotel’s logo: