Black Mahogany by Carrington Emily

Author:Carrington, Emily [Carrington, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: LGBT, Contemporary
Publisher: Loose Id LLC
Published: 2013-06-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

May twentieth dawned cloudless, but a sharp-tongued wind snapped at the trees to bow their branches at its passing. The grass and flowers obeyed this command with no trouble, and many birds were frisked as they tried to dart from one shelter to another, but the proud pines, maples, and especially the oaks denied there was such a thing as wind.

Mike sat under his and Aidan’s oak tree on the day of Aidan’s departure. He’d been here since before dawn, seeking the strength Aidan swore lurked in the heartwood of every tree. “But especially our sentinel,” Aidan had said as they stood under this oak after one of Mike’s particularly bad nightmares. “You are my seaimpín, Mike. You fight against memories, and those are challenging enemies. But when you need strength and I’m not here, let this tree be your strength.”

Well, Aidan was about to leave now. Mike stared up through the barely moving branches and the trembling leaves. He watched as the sky did the wind’s bidding. Cloudless, innocent blue gave way before trundles of roiling thunderheads.

The sky isn’t giving way though. Saying that implies the sky backs off to allow the clouds. It’s just…hiding itself. He got to his feet. Like I’ve been.

Not that he didn’t have a good reason. Aidan was still leaving.

He’d tried talking to Aidan twice in the last week. Both times had ended in sex but no real solution. Aidan was going.

And Mike might have started the relationship with Rick Hanlon.

He shivered when the wind skittered around the sacred oak and pierced his T-shirt. Fuck. Had Hanlon’s creeping hands really been a relationship? Those three and a half months had been nothing like these last eight with Aidan, but the last eight hadn’t been perfect either. Aidan had drifted further and further away.

Or maybe it’s me. Shaking his head, Mike jogged toward the Kelly house. He’d come to their special oak tree at dawn so he could think. Aidan would be leaving at nine. He needed to say good-bye.

Sprinting through the narrow band of pines and maples that separated the sentinel oak from the rest of the Kelly property, Mike did his best to push all doubts out of his mind. He could deal with thoughts of Hanlon later. In his sleep. As he had been since October.

Right now, only Aidan mattered.

He burst out into the clearing where Scott and the others had forced him and Aidan to sit on the boulder. A flicker of lightning shoved the shadows aside briefly, and Mike swore he saw the two of them sitting there still. Their lips met.

Shadows reclaimed the world, and he left the clearing behind, counting the seconds between the lightning flash and the answering crack of thunder.

Five seconds later, the thunder roared like distant cannon fire.

The storm was five miles off. If Aidan and his family hurried, they could beat the rain out of Marisburg. But Mike needed a minute first.

He pelted across the Kelly backyard proper, practically flew around the house, and pulled up short at the edge of the empty driveway.

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