Free Hoaley Ill-Manored by Declan Sands

his beer and sipped
it. “Did you want me to leave, Ads?”
    “God no!”
    Dirk turned at his exclamation and Adam
forced himself to meet the anger and hurt in his lover’s gaze. “I’m
so sorry, babe. I was totally wrong. I feel like a complete ass.
You deserve better.”
    Dirk gave a derisive snort and turned back
to the lake, taking another sip of his beer.
    Silence enveloped them again. Adam
understood that there was more distance between them than the eight
feet between their chairs. Much more. Adam would have given
anything…anything at all…to know what Dirk was thinking. When Adam
couldn’t take it any longer he asked, “Can you forgive me?”
    Dirk’s long fingers plucked at the label on
the beer bottle, scraping it away in moist chunks. “I’m not sure.”
Finally, he stood up and turned toward the house. “Good night,
Adam.”
    As his lover walked away, every soft thump
of Dirk’s shoes against the marble floor was like a jolt to Adam’s
nervous system. He had no idea what Dirk was going to do. If it
were him and Dirk had treated him the way Adam had treated Dirk
that night, Adam knew he would probably have left.
    Adam was good at running away. What he
wasn’t good at was standing still. And, at least for tonight, it
appeared Dirk was asking him to stand still. To wait. Adam thought
that, maybe, the waiting would kill him. But it was all he could
do. He’d wait. And try to make it up to Dirk in the future.
    With a sigh, he settled back in his chair
and tipped the bottle, sucking down a major portion of his beer.
Maybe if he drank enough he’d pass out and it would allow him to
get through the night. With that thought he climbed wearily to his
feet. He thought there was a six pack of beer in the fridge.
Hopefully it would be enough.
    DS
    Adam’s dreams were horrible. He envisioned
strange men and women from another time who wore strange,
voluminous clothing and fired jewel-handled derringers at him.
Dirk’s cold, angry face kept getting superimposed over the
strangers’ faces. In fact, it was his finger that pulled the finger
on the derringer the last time.
    As the little gun spat death in his
direction, Adam jolted awake. His eyes were gritty and stinging,
and his nose twitched under the assault from an acrid scent. He sat
slumped in the chair on the veranda, where he’d finally fallen
asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Groaning, he pushed himself
upright, rubbing his aching neck.
    The eerie sound of coyotes yipping in the
distance made him shudder.
    A strange, orange light danced across the
veranda floor and Adam realized he must have left the lights on
inside the ballroom. But why was the light dancing? Mike’s familiar
squawk tore the last bit of grogginess from Adam’s brain and his
gaze slid toward the lake.
    Fire lit the night sky. Dense, gray smoke
climbed upward as a soft breeze fed the fire, urging its hungry
consumption of the gazebo. Even as Adam jumped to his feet he knew
he would be too late. The fire was too far along…too hot…and the
beautiful structure he’d built with his own hands was already
little more than a charred skeleton.
    As Adam started down the steps, he heard
Dirk calling his name from inside the house and stopped, turning to
find the other man, wearing only a pair of sexy silk boxers, coming
through the ballroom doors and running toward him. “I called
9-1-1.”
    Even as he said the words, sirens split the
night. They sounded far away but were moving rapidly closer. A
cracking sound preceded the collapse of the structure’s roof into
the frame as it folded into itself. Adam realized in that moment
that there was no point running toward the fire. The gazebo was
gone.
    Dirk stopped beside him and grabbed his
hand, squeezing his fingers. “I’m sorry, Ads. I know you loved that
gazebo.”
    Adam’s eyes filled with tears at Dirk’s
kindness. He didn’t deserve it. Shaking his head he turned to face
the other man. “I’d burn down the house too if it