When Tony Met Adam (Short Story) by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online

this is freaking you out, and I’m sorry. And I also know it’s stupid, because we only had one night, and I know that he hasn’t been faithful, and … That it doesn’t matter—we didn’t make any promises. But I was going to show him. I was going to just keep coming back. I was going to be there, and now I’m not going to be—”
    “Yes, you are.” Danny wouldn’t stop pretending, and that was okay with Tony, too.
    He knew that they both knew better.
    “His name’s Adam Wyndham,” Tony whispered, and even though Dan was pretending to check his bandage again, he was listening. “And I just want him to know—to believe—that I was being honest when I told him that night meant everything to me. I want him to know that I was going to come back. That I wanted to come back. Will you tell him that for me?”
    Dan was silent, so Tony added, “Otherwise he’ll just never know, you know? No one will notify him. He’ll just think I moved on.”
    “You can tell him yourself.”
    “But if I can’t …”
    Dan looked up at that, finally meeting Tony’s gaze. “If you can’t, then … You don’t have to worry. You can count on me.”
Monday, March 3, 2008
    Adam’s new apartment wasn’t half as nice as his old one.
    But when he’d called his landlord, a generally clueless man named Connor, to give notice, Con had let Adam know it was okay if he left early. Apparently he had a new tenant already on a waiting list for the place. So they’d come to an agreement that Adam would move at the end of February.
    Of course, he’d then immediately gotten cast in a movie, but that was really just a handy excuse. In truth, his shooting schedule was light and mostly at night, and he’d had plenty of time to go apartment hunting in the earlyafternoons.
    But he hadn’t. Not until the very last minute, when he’d had to settle for something less-than.
    But he’d done it. He’d finally moved away from the place that was filled with too many memories. Except, he
still
couldn’t go into his bathroom, even this new one, without thinking about Tony. Which was beyond stupid. The kid had been just another one-night hookup. A faded memory to pull out and sharpen if he needed inspiration while alone in his shower. Which was the full extent of Adam’s sex life these days.
    He’d been keeping himself to himself ever since the fiasco with the fallen angel in the back room at Big’s. He’d closed his eyes as the other man had unfastened Adam’s jeans and dropped to his knees, and maybe he could’ve enjoyed it if he’d leaned his head back and not looked down—and pretended the blond was Tony.
    But his touch was unfamiliar, which was usually a turn-on—new hands, new mouth, new man—except this time it wasn’t.
    And for the first time in his life, Adam didn’t want this.
    It was such a disconcerting thought that he almost stayed to see it through. But he was afraid that if he did, he was going to start to cry, so he pulled himself out of the angel’s hands and, without a word of explanation, he’d left.
    He was in such a hurry, he was still refastening his button fly as he came out of the back room which, of course, was the exact moment some asshole snapped his photo with a cell phone.
    Adam Wyndham spotted at a West Hollywood hot spot late last night, up to his old tricks
was the caption when the photo was published online, on a high-visibility celebrity gossip website.
    And he suspected Tony must’ve seen it and made note of the date—the night after they’d hooked up—because he never sent another email. No
Hey, how’re you doing
. No
I’m busy but safe
. No
I’ll be home in a month, so let’s connect
.
    Which was a good thing. Or so Adam tried to tell himself.
    He went through various phases even as he continued to check his email, scanning for that dot-mil address, three or sometimes even four times a day. Most of the time, he felt self-disgust.
Well, what did he expect from a star collector?
Sometimes