Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (best time to read books txt) 📕

this man. Colin wanted a future here and already spent part of every day worrying about what would happen when it was time for him to leave. It nagged at him more and more every hour they were together, but he'd already pushed Marek so hard, so fast, he feared what broaching the subject of staying would do to what they were building. This state of limbo rubbed right against Colin's every instinct to pursue answers and have order in his life, and it constantly kept him on edge. Shit shit shit.

“You've suddenly become awfully quiet.” Marek's focus narrowed, penetrating right through Colin, leaving him hot first with a fast chaser of cold. “What kind of things did your friends want to know?”

“Like why you're living in Fiji.” Lifting himself onto the edge of the desk, Colin dangled his legs, feeling a bit like an insecure kid. He looked at Marek, and just bit the bullet. “How did you end up here?”

Staring beyond Colin to the open window, Marek's eyes changed, softened, and it looked like he drifted far away. “Payton always wanted to come to Fiji for a vacation, but he never made it,” he shared. “I think he wanted to visit with me, as a couple, but I always shot him down before he could offer me details. I wasn't willing to be open anywhere, inside the US or abroad.” Marek suddenly blinked, his gaze cleared, and he put it back on Colin. “I had to get out of Pittsburgh after he died, but I wasn't ready to let go of him yet. I came here, where he wanted to be, and just lived with his memory while I worked past his death.”

“You gave him the vacation he always wished for.”

Marek cleared his throat, and Colin suspected he swallowed down signs of emotion that wanted out. “Not in the way I wish I could have, in hindsight, but yes.”

A twinge of jealousy nicked Colin in the chest, but a bigger piece of his heart squeezed with seeing and hearing Marek's capacity to love. It reminded him that the unfathomable pain in the man from his dreams had been very real; but this person before him was very close to finding peace…and was capable of falling in love with someone else one day. Hopefully.

Don't get ahead of yourself, Baxter. Tread carefully.

“What about Pittsburgh?” Colin suddenly wondered, forcing the conversation in a less intimate direction. He reached his leg out and hooked the arm of Marek's chair with his foot. Dragging it and the man closer, he used Marek's thigh for a footrest. “What made you leave Henderson and head there? Did your uncle call you and offer you a job in his business?”

“No. I just…I just”—Marek's face turned stony—“I had to get out of Henderson. I couldn't be there anymore. My uncle George didn't have contact with the family; they had booted him out long ago. In fact, I'd only heard stories about him; we'd never met face-to-face. I researched where he lived, showed up at his business out of the blue, introduced myself, and begged for a job, no matter how small.”

“Why wasn't he a part of your family anymore?”

“When he was a young man, he stunned my mother's family by announcing he was going to marry a black woman.” Marek's face hardened even more, his lip twitched, and Colin suspected he experienced shame for the bigotry of his family. “No way was an interracial marriage acceptable in my mom's family back then, any more than me being gay today is. No way was George walking away from the woman of his dreams though, so he walked away from Texas with her instead.”

Colin's heart went out to Marek and the stifling, close-minded home he'd grown up in. He couldn't imagine the constant fear of hiding homosexuality in an environment like that. “A person has to do what they feel is right,” Colin murmured. “I hope your uncle and his wife were very happy together.”

“From what he told me, they were, for a time,” Marek answered. “He lost his wife and only son a good ten years before I showed up in Pittsburgh. Automobile accident on an icy road when she was taking the boy to school one morning.”

Trembling, Colin rubbed his arms. “How terrible.”

With a nod, Marek grimaced. “It wrecked me when Pay died. I can't imagine losing a spouse and child, both on the same day.” He wrapped his hands around Colin's feet, held them close to his stomach, and absently started rubbing the arches. “Some police officer stepping into your office and ripping apart your world with one conversation…” Marek glanced up from his massage of Colin's feet. “Uncle George never remarried.”

Another shiver cut down the center of Colin's back. “I guess for some people they feel there's just one right person for them in the world.” Colin spoke that aloud, but inside, he prayed his gut feeling that Marek wasn't one of those people was correct. “Maybe for some of them, it's true. I don't know.”

“Maybe.” Marek's eyes grew cloudy once more. His fingers stopped kneading Colin's feet, and Colin wondered—worried—if Marek looked backward and pictured the future he might have had with Payton if the man hadn't died.

Marek suddenly drew in a sharp breath, pulled his attention off the World Map screen saver on his computer, and put his focus on Colin. “Anyway, what about Austin for you?” he asked. “Was that where you went after…?” His Adam's apple bobbed hard and he wiped his hand across his mouth. “Jesus Christ, I can barely even think about it. Did your family move you to Austin because of the assault?”

Marek visibly worked with every fiber in his being to keep his emotions under control, and Colin was certain he relived his guilt at not being there when Payton suffered the same hatred Colin had. Colin's heart tore for this man, and he swallowed hard to keep the tears and tremor out of his own voice.

“We