Stranded Page 8

  “Dad can out-stubborn a mule,” Johnny told him flatly. Then he began eating again, and Kendall figured Johnny might not want to talk about it.

  “I didn’t come out of the closet, I tap-danced, belted show tunes, and kick-turned my way out of the closet,” he said.

  Johnny chuckled, and his smile reached his eyes.

  Kendall momentarily lost his train of thought when he saw that smile. “There was never much doubt, and my parents accepted me and encouraged me and my talent. They’re pretty amazing, and I’ll spend the holidays with Mom and Dad out on Long Island.”

  “What does your dad do?” Johnny asked.

  “He was an investment banker turned hedge-fund manager. He made more money than he and Mom need, so now he and Mom do volunteer work with children’s charities and travel. After Christmas, they’ll head to Florida for the rest of the winter. When they’re down there, Dad helps build houses for Habitat for Humanity and stuff like that.” Kendall took a bite of his salad. “He likes to keep busy, but now he can do what he loves to do.”

  “Sounds ideal,” Johnny said softly. They continued eating, the conversation shifting to books and then on to art and other topics. When they were done eating, Kendall cleared the table and set the dishes in the sink.

  “It sounds to me like you’re doing what you want to do,” Kendall said from the sink. “You’re passionate about history and the lessons it has for us today.” He walked back to the table and picked up the rest of the dishes, leaving the wineglasses. “That’s plain in the way you talk. I saw that the first time I met you.”

  “But what if my dad’s right and I’m never able to get a job?” Johnny said, and Kendall watched as he picked up his wine glass.

  “Then make your own job,” Kendall suggested. “Take the skills you have and carve out a niche for yourself. Other people get a history degree to teach, right?” Kendall ran the water to start the dishes. “So find a way to teach people other than in a classroom.”

  “Sure,” Johnny said indulgently.

  Kendall rolled his eyes. “My dad told me that he hated working on Wall Street. He was good at it, so he and his clients made a lot of money, but after he’d done the deal of his life and made a ton of money, he left, and now he’s happier than I can ever remember him being when I was a kid. He said if he had it to do over again, he’d skip the whole Wall Street thing entirely and he’d build houses for a living.” Kendall began washing the dishes, and Johnny stood up, then carried his wineglass to where Kendall was working. “And I think I can agree with him. There are few things more important than loving what you do.”

  “Do you really mean that?” Johnny asked with a touch of skepticism.

  “Of course I do. I love what I do and hope to grow old and one day, after my performance, go back to my dressing room after the bow and die… at a ripe old age, of course.” Johnny laughed. “It’s been done,” Kendall added. “Irene Ryan had a stroke during a performance of Pippin and died a few days later. That’s the way I want to go—doing something I love.” Kendall put the last dish in the drainer and let out the water. “If you could die happy doing something, what would it be?”

  Johnny thought for a few seconds and then set his glass next to the dish drainer. He pulled Kendall into his arms and kissed him hard and full on the mouth. “You did ask,” Johnny whispered when they came up for air, before kissing him once again.

  Kendall couldn’t think much after that, not that he particularly cared. Thinking was definitely overrated when being held and kissed like that.

  Johnny gently guided him out of the kitchen area, and soon they fell and bounced on the bed in the corner. It was only a twin, but Johnny held him so close they only used part of it. “You’re very special,” Johnny whispered, kissing him again.

  Johnny stroked his hands along Kendall’s side and tentatively slipped under his shirt like he was waiting for Kendall to object. Instead, he moaned softly as soon as Johnny touched his skin. “You’re pretty special too.” Kendall groaned when Johnny lightly plucked at one of his nipples. He loved being touched like that, and Johnny kept it up. With each gentle pluck, Kendall moaned a little bit louder, pleasure building with each touch.

  “Dang, you’re responsive,” Johnny whispered.

  “You have no idea,” Kendall came back, a bit breathlessly.

  “But I fully intend to find out,” Johnny retorted, and Kendall stilled as Johnny tugged on the tail of his shirt, lifting his weight off and pulling the shirt over Kendall’s head. Johnny tugged off his own shirt as well and then pressed him back into the mattress. Skin to skin, Johnny’s heat set him on fire.

  “You do?” Kendall pressed, and Johnny kissed him hard, erasing both the ability to speak and to think. After that Kendall had no thought of teasing. Johnny divested him of his shoes and the rest of his clothes with kisses and touches that left Kendall tingling. He would have begged for more, but his mouth was otherwise engaged, so he simply held on and returned Johnny’s kisses until they were both naked. Chest to chest, lips to lips, hip to hip, sliding his straining cock along Johnny’s skin, each movement brought a new round of cock-throbbing joy. He’d had sex, plenty of it, but none of those experiences had felt like this, and no one had taken the care Johnny was. “Johnny, please,” Kendall begged. The pressure inside had built to the point that little flashes of light twinkled behind his eyes, and yet he didn’t want it to stop.

  Johnny broke their kiss and slowly slid down Kendall’s body, laying kisses along his skin as he went. Johnny stroked Kendall’s chest and belly, trailing his lips after his hands, adding warmth to warmth. There was no sex talk, no swearing or cursing. It wasn’t needed; none of it was. Johnny’s touch and taste said a hell of a lot more than words could ever express. And when Johnny ran his lips along Kendall’s length, Kendall nearly thought his time had come. Shortness of breath, tightening of the chest, tingling in his arms—Kendall figured he must be having a heart attack until Johnny swallowed him deep, sucking hard, and then he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered except the warm heat around his cock and Johnny’s gentle caresses of his leg.

  THE insistent dinging of the microwave pulled Kendall out of his daydream. He blinked and looked around, expecting to see Johnny sitting on the sofa, bent over his computer, but he was alone, very much alone. Kendall opened the door on the microwave and pulled out the pasta with meat sauce he’d been heating up and sat at the table. He opened his copy of the script and tried to review the scenes for the following day, but he could hardly concentrate. He closed it and pushed it back, unable to stop thinking about that first Christmas together.

  Johnny got into an argument with his parents three or four days before Christmas, and they basically told him not to come home. At least that was what Johnny had told him. He’d been so upset he could barely speak. Johnny had called to tell him, and Kendall had told him to come over right away. He had hot chocolate waiting and ended up adding some additional fortification. “If I can’t live according to their expectations, then I’m not welcome under their roof,” Johnny had told him and then broken down in tears. Kendall had held him and let him cry. Then he’d taken him to bed and continued holding Johnny all night long.

  In the morning, Kendall had called his mother and told her there would be one more for Christmas. Johnny had tried to stop him, but Kendall wouldn’t hear of it, and as soon as he hung up with his mother, she apparently went shopping, because she called him four more times that day asking all kinds of questions, including sweater sizes. On Christmas morning there had been tears in Johnny’s eyes when he realized some of the presents under the tree were for him.

  Kendall’s mother still went all-out each Christmas for both of them. He simply wished they’d remembered to continue to go all-out for each other. He ate the rest of his meal and then took care of the dishes. Once he was done, he grabbed the script off the table and sat in the one comfortable chair in the apartment, attempting to concentrate.

  People occasionally passed
his door as they walked down the hall, and Kendall barely noticed them until he thought he heard someone stop. Kendall paused and tensed, listening, and sure enough, a few seconds later he heard footsteps move away from his door. Kendall got up and hurried to the door. He pulled it open and saw two pink roses just outside the door. Kendall leaped over them and raced down the hallway toward the elevator. The elevator was heading down already, and Kendall ran back down the hall to the stairs and took them two at a time as he hurried toward the lobby. Whoever it was would have to go out that way, and Kendall was determined to find out who in the hell was stalking him and, more importantly, why. He banged through the door, charging into the empty lobby, but there was no one there.

  Kendall moved out of sight, leaned against the wall, and watched the elevator display as the car descended. The door opened and an older lady he’d seen in the hallway multiple times gingerly stepped out. “Hello,” she said with a smile. “Waiting for someone?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “Did you happen to see anyone in the hall as you were getting on the elevator?”

  “I think a young man passed me as I was getting in, but I didn’t see which way he went. Was he a friend of yours?” she asked with a smile. “I heard you were making a movie. You’re definitely handsome enough for it.”

  “Thank you,” Kendall said, smiling back. “And yes, I’m making my first movie. I’ve done shows on Broadway since I was a teenager, but this is my very first film.”

  “I was in films when I was younger and worked with Bette Davis on a film. She was incredible. But that was a long time ago, and things have changed so much with all the special effects and computer graphics stuff. Now you don’t know what’s real and what was dreamed up on some computer screen. In my day, actors had to really act or the film was flat. Today, the people sometimes seem like wood, and they fill in around them with all that fancy stuff so no one notices.”

  Kendall smiled. “I suppose you’re right. The movie I’m working on doesn’t have much in the way of special effects.”

  “Well, good,” she said and began walking toward the front door. “Let me know when you’re done, and I’ll be sure to go see it.”

  “I will,” Kendall promised and pushed the elevator call button. The doors slid open and Kendall rode back up to his floor. When the doors opened again, he stepped out and strode down to the apartment. The flowers still sat on the floor, and Kendall noticed a piece of paper under them. Kendall picked up the flowers and the paper and carried them inside. Then he shut the door and locked it, listening for anything unusual, but heard nothing. After taking and releasing a slow, deep breath, he carried the flowers into the kitchen and dumped them in the trash before opening the folded piece of computer paper.

  I saw you gave my flowers to Barbara the Bitch, so I thought I’d replace them.

  That was all the computer-printed note said, and Kendall shivered. Whoever this was, he wished they’d either come forward so he could talk to the person, or simply leave him alone. Kendall reached for his phone and called Johnny, not giving a damn what time it was. “Johnny, I need to talk to you,” Kendall began when the call went to voice mail. “Please call me back when you get this. I need your advice and I want to talk about when you can come to see me.” He’d feel a lot better when he wasn’t alone. Kendall carried his phone with him to his chair and set it next to him so he could grab it when Johnny called back. He still had plenty of work to do before tomorrow, and he forced himself to concentrate on the script.

  An hour later, his phone rang and Kendall snatched it up. “Johnny,” Kendall said as he answered it and then checked the time.

  “Sorry I didn’t call earlier, I’m just getting home,” Johnny explained. It was after midnight in New York. “I lost track of time at the university library and then stopped to get something to eat on the way home. Is something wrong? You sounded a bit frazzled when you left the message.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to come out for a visit.”

  Johnny paused, and then Kendall heard a sigh. “Will you even have time to spend with me?”

  “I’m going to be busy, but there’s only a few weeks until we go on location and it probably won’t be practical then. I was hoping you could come out the week after next. I’m only scheduled to be on set for three days that week, and the rest of the time we could do things together.” Kendall’s excitement ramped up. He was looking forward to seeing Johnny and having the chance to rekindle their relationship.

  “That’s a long way to travel for just a few days,” Johnny said slowly.

  “If you don’t want to come, then just say so,” Kendall snapped.

  “It isn’t that,” Johnny told him. “I do want to see you and I miss you every day. But the book I’m working on is coming together faster and better than I ever imagined, and I can’t take a break or I’ll lose the train of thought.”

  “It must be flowing, what with all the research you’re doing,” Kendall observed, trying to keep the skepticism out of his voice.

  “For this book I have all the research I need. I’m working with a student at Columbia to research some ideas for my next book. He’s been a huge help in a lot of ways.”

  “I’ll bet,” Kendall muttered very softly.

  “It isn’t a really good time right now, and you’re not going to have time for me anyway. Your schedule will change, and I’ll be sitting alone while you’re working all day. I can sit alone here and work.”

  “Fine. Whatever you want to do is fine,” Kendall said quietly. “I just miss you.” God, he sounded needy. If Johnny didn’t care enough to come out and see him, then there was nothing he could do about it.

  “I know, and I miss you too. But I need to get this done, and you need to get your work done,” Johnny told him, repeating the same thing he’d said all along.

  “Johnny, I didn’t know how hard it was going to be to be out here alone,” he admitted. “You’re there in New York, where all our friends are. I really don’t know anyone out here, and….” Kendall swallowed. “I think I may have a stalker.”

  Johnny laughed. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic? You haven’t finished the movie yet. How can you have a stalker?”

  “Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kendall shot back.

  “You’re serious,” Johnny said, the mirth disappearing from his voice. “What’s been going on? Have you been followed or threatened?” At least Johnny seemed to care. Kendall had been beginning to wonder.

  “I keep getting flowers, roses, delivered. At first I thought they might have been from you.” When he’d gotten the first ones, he’d actually smiled and gotten warm all over because of Johnny’s thoughtfulness. “I was about to call you and thank you, but the next ones I got were left inside my car, which I knew I’d locked. Now I hide stuff or keep everything locked up. The flowers keep showing up in my dressing area, and tonight someone left flowers and a note outside my apartment door. It’s beginning to freak me out,” Kendall said.

  “Maybe it’s just an admirer or something,” Johnny said. “They haven’t threatened you, have they?”

  “Not really, I guess. But I feel like someone’s watching me all the time and like no place is safe,” Kendall said.

  “Have you told anyone?” Johnny asked, sounding more concerned but still not convinced of the threat.

  “Only you, so far,” Kendall admitted. “At first it seemed so innocuous and innocent, but it’s like whoever they are is telling me that they can get to me no matter where I am.” Kendall paused. “I know you think I’m being stupid, but I’m not. And I’ve been afraid to tell people in case they think I’m just causing trouble and stuff. I’m finally beginning to earn people’s respect, and I don’t want to blow that. After all, you laughed when I told you,” he said indignantly. “Why would they believe me when you didn’t?” Kendall huffed a bit through his nose and waited for Johnny to say something.

  “I’m sorry,” Johnny said softly. “I know you
’re upset, and you should take this seriously, but I don’t have any advice for you.” Johnny paused. “Except maybe you should tell the studio. They must have dealt with this kind of thing before. I mean, they have huge stars and famous people working there all the time. They have to have seen this before. Maybe they can help.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it,” Kendall said and sat quietly. “I’ll let you get to bed. Talk to you tomorrow.” Kendall hung up and set the phone aside. At least Johnny hadn’t said he was crazy, but he’d come damned close. Kendall shook his head and went back to his script. It was looking more and more likely that once this movie was over, there might not be as much to go back to New York for as he’d always thought there would be.

  Chapter 5

  GUY did call, and by Sunday afternoon Kendall was looking for something to do. He got directions to a small bar off Colorado Boulevard. Kendall met Guy there, and to his surprise, it seemed that Sunday afternoons were for karaoke. Kendall slid into the booth across from Guy and looked around the place. It was brighter than he expected a bar to be, and cleaner. “This is nice,” Kendall said as a server walked over. They each ordered a beer.

  “It’s sort of a hangout place, and the owner decided years ago that he didn’t want to own a dingy bar. So he spruced up the place, and the drunks disappeared, but the locals began to come,” Guy said as he lifted his glass. People began taking turns on the small stage singing along with the recorded music. Kendall tried his best to keep from grimacing at some of the clunky notes. They finished their beers and ordered another round. “Go on and have a go,” Guy told him.

  “I don’t think so,” Kendall said, but Guy urged him on, so he got up and looked through the book to see what they had. He found the old standard “New York, New York” and couldn’t resist. When his turn came, he cued up the song. Every head turned as soon as he began to sing. Mostly people had been polite, but the room seemed to stop as he sang. When he was done, people applauded, and Kendall smiled and sat back down.