Campus Cravings: Hershie's Kiss

Excerpt from: Hershie's Kiss

“Dammit!” Charlie cursed as his knee came into contact with the pointed edge of a table. “Michael!” he yelled.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. “Yeah?”

“Did you move this table?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I thought it would look better there.”

Charlie ran his hands over his closely cropped hair. “Let’s go through this again. I’m blind. Therefore I can’t see when you move something. I have this place totally mapped out in my head and when you fuck with that map, I get hurt, and then I get pissed. Got it?”

“Sorry,” Michael said. “I’m just so bored. When will the other students start moving in?”

“A week from now. Please, in the future, don’t move anything unless you tell me about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Michael said.

He could hear the young man’s tread as he went back up the stairs to his room. He felt bad for the twenty-three year old, but he wasn’t a damn playmate. Wasn’t it enough that he’d procured a scholarship for him after his parents kicked him out and disowned him?

Trying to visualise the new placement of the table, Charlie committed it to memory. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. The cool air against his skin felt so good he stood for several moments.

“What are you looking for?” a deep voice asked from the doorway.

Charlie’s jaws tensed as he gripped the refrigerator handle. He’d know that rough voice anywhere. “What the hell are you doing back here?”

“I thought I lived here,” Jack Hershie said.

Charlie heard him walk further into the room. He didn’t dare turn around. Jack had broken his heart and he wasn’t about to welcome the man with open arms.

“I’d like the chance to apologise.”

“Won’t help,” Charlie said. He shut the fridge and walked to the kitchen island. As he ran his fingertips over the smooth granite, he thought of the first time Jack had taken him there. They’d been at each other’s throats for months, until their passion got the better of them. What would he have done if one of the students had walked in? The thought still shamed him. “You left me high and dry without so much as an explanation,” Charlie added.

“I know. That’s what I want to talk to you about.” Charlie shook his head. “I thought what we did meant something to you.” He’d been torn apart when Jack received that phone call and shot out of his life. “But obviously I was wrong.”

“It did,” Jack murmured.

“Not enough evidently.” He would not give in. No matter how sad and defeated Jack sounded.

“My ex-wife was killed.” Jack said. Charlie stiffened. Hell. He didn’t even know Jack had been married. “And that was such an emergency that you couldn’t take ten minutes to say goodbye? I’m not even going to get into the fact that you haven’t called.”

“I have a son,” Jack stated.

Double Hell. Who the fuck had he slept with? Did he know anything about this man? “Why didn’t I know any of this?”

He knew he sounded pissy, but damn. He’d really liked this man. He’d fought his attraction tooth and nail, afraid he’d be hurt. He’d had lovers in the past, plenty of them, but they never stuck around. His body was fine to fuck in the dark, but everyday life with a blind man was always too much of a hassle for them. He’d thought Jack would be different. Hah! The joke had been on him.

Charlie heard Jack shuffle his feet. “Can we go to your apartment and talk about this? I know from the parking lot there aren’t many people here, but I’d rather no one interrupted us.”

Without a word, Charlie walked across the kitchen and pushed his way through the swinging door. He was so upset he forgot the newly revised map in his head and ran smack dab into that damned end table, again. “Fuck!”

“Are you okay?” Jack asked as he placed a hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

He jerked away and nodded. He knew it was a sympathetic question. He could tell by the tone of Jack’s voice, but it drove home his disadvantage. Something he never allowed.

After side-stepping the table, he continued on to his apartment on the first floor of the dormitory. He opened the door and gestured for Jack to take a seat. “Talk,” he said, sitting in his favourite chair.

He could hear the hesitation in Jack’s voice as he began. “In the home I grew up in, being gay wasn’t an option, so I tried my best to do what so called ‘normal’ guys did. I was one of the popular kids, into everything the school had to offer.”

Jack stopped and Charlie could hear him fidgeting around on the leather sofa. “I didn’t date much, mostly just one or two times per girl. That way I wasn’t expected to get physically intimate other than the obligatory goodnight kiss. After graduation I joined the Marines, knowing I could hide my sexuality.

“I served my country for eighteen-years without anyone even questioning my preferences. That all changed when I stupidly allowed myself to get caught up in an affair with a fellow officer. People started whispering about the two of us around the base and I was called in to my commanding officer’s office and questioned. I denied it of course, so did Rodney. We’d both worked too damn hard to get to our ranks. We weren’t in love or anything, more like fuck-buddies.”

Charlie ran his hand over the back of his neck. How could the mention of one of Jack’s past conquests make him jealous? It was absolutely ridiculous.

“After that I made it my mission to assure my fellow Marines that I was just as butch as they were. I started flirting with a civilian who worked on the base. Becka and I began dating. I always tried to make sure we were seen on base together and around town. I found the physical part of our relationship distasteful at best, but knew it was required. Of course, as my luck goes, Becka ended up pregnant. I did the right thing and married her.”

Charlie hadn’t realised he’d gasped until Jack stopped talking. “I’m sorry if this is upsetting for you,” Jack said.

Charlie shook his head. “Please, go on.”

“Brian was born and I tried my best to be the kind of husband and father they both deserved. After about a year, Becka began to suspect the earlier rumours about me were true. I just could no longer pretend our love making was anything but work. She gave me an ultimatum. I could keep my position in the Marines if I allowed her to take Brian away. I was to have absolutely no contact with either of them except the monthly cheque I was to send.”

“Fuck,” Charlie whispered. He couldn’t imagine being in the position Jack had been put in. His life was far from perfect, but Jack’s read more like a soap opera.

“The stupidest thing I ever did was to agree to the arrangement. I gave up my only son for my career.”

Charlie could hear the catch in Jack’s voice and knew the other man was getting choked up. He knew he should go to him, but the hurt was still too strong.

“I remained in the Marines until my retirement last year. I thought I’d accepted the loss of Brian over the years until I received that phone call telling me Becka had been killed. Suddenly my world was turned upside down and I knew I had a chance to once again be a father. I’m sorry that I hurt you when I ran out like that.

The moment I heard, all I could think about was getting to my fifteen-year old son. I found out once I got there that Becka had told Brian I was killed in the line of duty.”

“Oh, Jack,” Charlie whispered.