When Tony Met Adam (Short Story) Read Online Free PDF Page B

his phone was still in the pocket of his jeans, where he’d dropped them on the bathroom floor hours ago. He slipped out of bed and went to find them.
    Light was coming in around the edges of the window shade, and he didn’t have to turn on the overhead to locate his jeans. But by the time he fished his phone from his pocket, the soft ringing had stopped.
    The time was 0608, and he had a missed call from …
    “Shit.”
    There was only one reason Chief Karmody would be calling him at this hour, and it wasn’t a good one. And sure enough, he’d left a message, short and sweet: “Ollie, ollie ox in free! Get your ass to base, T.V.”
    Tony pressed TALK to call the SEAL chief back, to let him know he had to make the drive not merely from his apartment in San Diego, but from West Hollywood, and that he was going to hit traffic at this time of morning, but then Adam appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, his hair standing up.
    So Tony flipped his phone shut.
    “Let me guess,” Adam said, staggering over to the john and lifting the seat. “It’s your mommy. You missed your curfew and she’s pissed.”
    Tony laughed as he moved to stand beside him, as they relieved themselves together. He shifted slightly so that their shoulders were touching. “Yeah, you just
think
I’m that young, old man.”
    “Fuck you,” Adam said, but he laughed when he said it, and he didn’t move away. In fact, he leaned into Tony a little bit more.
    God damn it. The timing of this phone call couldn’t be worse. It would totally undermine everything he’d done here tonight.
    God, you’re good
, Adam had breathed after they’d gotten out of the shower, after they’d gone into the kitchen for a snack and those glasses of wine. Tony purposely hadn’t spent much of that time talking—although if he’d known he’d be getting this call so much earlier than he’d anticipated, he would have recited his entire flipping life’s story, going nonstop, until he’d had to shut up because he was using his mouth for other things.
    Like he’d done when he’d pulled Adam back with him onto his big bed …
    You can stay the night if you have to
, Adam had told him,
but you can’t sleep in my bed with me. I don’t do that with star collectors …
    Except he’d fallen asleep with Tony’s arms still around him, after they’d made love for the third time.
    Not that Tony was intending to give in to Adam’s arbitrary rules anyway, not at this uncertain stage of the game. Not when Adam had whispered, just after they’d both climaxed again, just before he’d closed his eyes and slept,
This doesn’t mean anything
.
    Even though they both knew that it did.
    “I have to go,” Tony said quietly now. “And it’s a have to, it’s not a want to.”
    “Whatever.” Adam walked away from him, back out into the bedroom. “Make sure the door locks behind you when you leave.”
    Tony flushed then followed, scooping up his jeans and carrying them with him, slapping on the switch for the fixture over the bathroom mirror so that it would light the bedroom without being too bright. But Adam had already climbed back into bed, purposely burrowing under the covers.
    As if he actually thought Tony would just walk away without another word.
    On the other hand, maybe he
did
think that.
    “It’s my job,” Tony told the back of Adam’s head as he pulled on his jeans and did a mental inventory of the rest of his things. T-shirt and sandals, both in the front hall. That was all he brought inside with him. “I get the call and I go. That’s the way it works in the teams.”
    “What part of
whatever
did you not understand?” Adam turned only slightly to gaze at him over his shoulder, with that same bored and jaded look that he’d been wearing when Tony had first arrived.
    So Tony climbed on the bed and muscled Adam onto his back, easily putting both of the actor’s hands into a wrist lock over his head and straddling him to keep him from flipping