Read Online Murder in Pastel by Josh Lanyon - Free Book Online Page A

Brett. “I didn’t like the way he handled the break-up between Josh and Henry.”
    “Hey, I cried at the end of The Hidden Law .”
    “I cried too. So what? If the point is that marriage for us is the same as marriage for straights, then I think their relationship should have illustrated commitment and responsibility and compromise.”
    “It’s a story, Brain Guy.”
    “It’s a story that confirms stereotypes about gays.”
    He yawned hugely. Adam, who had paused in the doorway, came out and joined us once more.
    “How would you know?” Brett asked me. “You’re not married. Hell, you haven’t had a real fuck in over a decade.”
    I was careful not to look at Adam. “I know what I’d expect if I was. I know what I’d want. And I know what I’d be willing to give to make it work.”
    Brett giggled. “Do you sometimes smell orange blossom when those around you do not? Are you always a bridesmaid and never a bride?”
    Stupid to let him get to me, but I felt my face growing hot. I reached for my glass.
    “You’re never going to meet Mr. Right holed up in this backwater, mooning over What Might Have Been with Adam.”
    “You are an asshole, Brett,” Adam said in a low voice.
    “But I’m your asshole,” Brett reminded him. He turned his gaze toward me, bright and challenging.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Joel came to see me the day after he returned from Andover.
    “I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this.” He looked like hell. There were dark circles under his almond eyes. His skin looked sallow, his face drawn. He’d lost weight over the past weeks, I could see now.
    “Put up with what?” I asked, bringing him a glass of lime-flavored mineral water and sitting down across from him.
    Joel gulped the mineral water down. He was flushed and sweating as though he had a fever. “With this situation. It’s intolerable!”
    “Which situation?” It wasn’t like Joel to be incoherent.
    “This situation between Brett and myself.”
    I said carefully, “I didn’t know there was one.”
    “Of course there is!” Joel drank more water and pressed the cool glass to his forehead. “He was waiting for me last night when I got home from the airport. He—he deliberately let me think he would stay with me, that he wanted to spend the night. Then when I—when I had revealed myself to him, he left. He simply walked out. He was testing me. Making sure I still wanted him.”
    There were tears in Joel’s eyes, I realized with a jolt. It was like watching a parent cry. I felt horrified and helpless.
    I felt anger at Brett for doing this to Joel—and anger at Adam for letting Brett do it.
    I couldn’t think of anything I could say that would comfort Joel. The clock on the mantle chimed softly. It was late. It’s later than you think . Finally I queried, “You know what he’s like. How can you still care for him?”
    “I don’t know!” Joel cried. “I simply do.” He wiped his eyes. Took out an immaculate hanky, unfolded it, and blew his nose. “I simply do,” he repeated muffledly.
    I said at last, “I don’t think he has any intention of leaving Adam.”
    “I know that.”
    “Then why do you—”
    “Adam might leave him.”
    That went through my system like a jump-start on a dead battery. Even my fingers tingled. “Why do you say that?”
    Joel shook his head. “Because I hope it’s true.”
    I hoped it was true too. Not because I believed Adam would turn to me; Adam kept a friendly but cautious distance between us. I knew he would never be able to stop thinking of me as that sickly adolescent “mooning” over him. And I knew it wasn’t anything to do with our ages because at twenty-one, Brett was six years younger than me.
    I told myself it was for Adam’s sake that I hoped he unloaded Brett. Brett was not good for Adam. He was not good for anyone, as evidenced by the effect on our colony in little more than a month. Like a cat among the pigeons, he had set a snowstorm of feathers