Read Online Passing Time by Ash Penn - Free Book Online

me.” Louis pulled the robe tighter around his body and opened the door.
     
    “Where are you going?”
     
    “I need a drink.”
     
    “At four in the morning?”
     
    “Why not? It’s as good a time as any.” He shut the door firmly behind him, crossed the lounge to the kitchen and reached for the bourbon in the cupboard. He took the bottle, along with a glass and his cigarettes, out onto the balcony. The early-morning air nipped at his cheeks and shins as he sat at the little wrought-iron circular table and poured himself a large shot.
     
    Leaning back in his chair, he took a deep breath of crisp predawn air and listened to the vague rumble of traffic and the occasional boat passing below. Whatever else this town was, he’d always consider it home. When he was young he and his parents often spent Sunday afternoons walking alongside this river, albeit farther downstream where the buildings thinned to countryside and the swans spent their summers preening on the bank. He’d fed the birds scraps of bread while his parent sat on the grass, his mother dangling her legs in the cool water. Good memories. The kind that were few and far between. He’d take more of them back with him. These past three weeks, Jake had become the equivalent of a coal fire in December. It wasn’t love or anything close but something almost as pleasant. Or rather, had been pleasant until Jake threw his tantrum. There could be no final week for them now.
     
    Despite the fact that he sat shivering in the cold, he had little desire to return to the warmth of the apartment. Instead, he lit up a cigarette, exhaled a thin wisp of smoke, and passed it along to the seated figure across the table.
     
    “Have I stopped thinking of you?” he asked as Carter accepted the cigarette. “Is that why you’ve stayed away so long?”
     
    “I was giving you time.”
     
    “To miss you?”
     
    Carter tilted his head back and puffed a perfect smoke ring into the night air. “I was giving you space to fall in love with our delectable Mr. Harvey.”
     
    Louis snorted. “I fucked up with your Mr. Harvey. Big time.”
     
    Carter waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
     
    “Who says I want it fixed?”
     
    “Why else would you be out here, brooding?”
     
    “I’m not brooding.”
     
    “We were together a long time, my love. I know a good brood when I see one.”
     
    Louis took a sip of bourbon.
     
    “If it makes a difference,” Carter said, tossing the cigarette over the balcony, “I don’t think he planned on falling for you either.”
     
    “I haven’t fal—” He could deny his feelings all day, and Cart still wouldn’t listen. “What do you think I should do?”
     
    “Go back in and apologize for being an arse. Then take his arse. In the morning, while he’s keeping your bed warm, get into town and buy him something. Something memorable. Something sickeningly expensive.”
     
    “What do you suggest? A platinum-and-diamond cock ring?” Louis reached for another cigarette. “Whatever we had is over, Cart. The only thing I’m going to be buying anytime soon is a plane ticket home.”
     
    Carter fixed him with a steady gaze. “You could always make right here your home.”
     
    Louis shook his head. “My life is in New York.”
     
    “What life is this? Selling envelopes over the phone? Shooting the breeze with a dead man? You can do that here. You’re doing it now.”
     
    “I’d be happier doing it in New York.” Louis sighed. “We do okay, don’t we? You’ll probably get me locked up in a padded cell one day, but apart from us not having sex, nothing much has changed.”
     
    “Celibacy depresses me.” Carter scowled. “God knows what it does for you.”
     
    “You do me fine.” Louis copied Carter’s example and flicked his cigarette over the balcony into the water below. “In the meantime, I’ll go and apologize to Jake.” He downed the rest of his bourbon and stood. “I’ll try