Heat Stroke (Beach Kingdom, #2)(58)

A message from Joey. Picture attachment.

Nothing new. He’d been getting ridiculous memes from his brother for over a week in an attempt to cheer Marcus up. When would he just give up?

Marcus sighed and opened the text, purely because he was going to have to rely on Joey soon to come over and write out the checks to pay his bills. Also he was running out of toilet paper and basic supplies, but since he was never leaving this apartment ever again, Joey would have to bring him groceries. Unless the universe finally accommodated him and let him die. Supplies would be irrelevant then.

It took Marcus a full minute for his delirious, malnourished self to realize what—no, who—he was looking at on the screen.

As if he’d been slapped by shock paddles, Marcus’s entire body jolted and he whacked his head on the metal slat of the bed frame. Not that he felt it. Not that he felt anything but joy and agony, because Jamie was on his phone. Where had Joey gotten a picture of Jamie?

Marcus started breathing like he’d just run a marathon, his brain searching for details, soaking them in like a sponge. In the picture, Jamie wasn’t looking at the camera. No, he was on his phone and pacing, one hand on his hip.

Fuck. Fuck, Jamie was so hot. That guy had really been his boyfriend?

Apparently Marcus’s dick was still working despite the fact that he was half dead, because it filled with pressure as he perused the picture. His tongue craved the taste of Jamie’s shoulder blades, his neck, his mouth. God. His jeans. Those fucking jeans made his ass look like Sunday dinner and with all that sunshine surrounding him, a halo formed on his dark hair…

“Wait a minute,” Marcus muttered, trying to sit up and ramming his head into the bedframe again. “He’s at the Main Squeeze? Yeah…that’s our shop.”

Marcus army-crawled out from under the bed, the phone cradled in one hand. He stood up and immediately stumbled into a wall, stars winking in front of his eyes, dizziness refusing to loosen its grip. His stomach roared, loud enough that Marcus looked around to make sure there wasn’t a ghost tiger in his apartment. And oh my God, there was one.

Ghost tiger. Twelve o’clock.

“You’re hallucinating.”

Marcus looked down at the phone in his hand again, sighing like a schoolboy over the sight of Jamie. Was he at the shop with Joey? No. No, that was impossible.

Maybe so, but he had to find out. He had to go there.

Which meant, he had to fucking pull himself together.

Jamie. He might get to see Jamie.

Swallowing hard, Marcus edged past the ghost tiger and backed slowly into the kitchen, keeping one eye on the beast. He grabbed a box of cereal out of the cabinet and shoveled several handfuls down his throat, chasing it with water from the tap. And thank God, the ghost tiger started to fade around handful number four.

He dropped the cereal box and started to jog for the front door, only to catch a whiff of himself, turn on a heel and sprint back to the bathroom.

It was too much to hope that Jamie was in the Main Squeeze because he still loved Marcus. Way too much to hope. But suddenly there was a one percent chance that something extraordinary was taking place and that was way more than Marcus had ten minutes ago. If he had one percent to work with, he would work the hell out of it. At the beginning of the summer, Marcus thought he’d had a zero percent chance with Jamie Prince and look what happened. He’d won him, even if it was just for a little while.

It was proof that miracles happened.

Marcus sped through his shower and dove into his clothing, finger combing his wet hair on the way out the door. Instead of turning in the direction of the Main Squeeze, though, he paused in the middle of the street, chest heaving…and he walked in the direction of his father’s building. His pulse boomed in his ears, but he was grateful for the fear this time. It meant possibilities. It meant he was doing the right thing. The only thing.

He was owning himself.

Even though he had keys, Marcus buzzed his father’s bell and climbed the stairs once he was let inside. His father stood at the door with a shaggy eyebrow quirked, raising it higher when Marcus walked straight past him into the apartment.

“Did Joey tell you?”

He shook his head, visibly confused. “Tell me about what?

“That’s definitely a no.” Marcus’s mouth dried up. “Dad, I have to tell you something important and I don’t want you to say anything. Just listen and think about it and come find me later. Can you do that? You might say the wrong thing and I don’t want that between us.”

Marcus’s father went to the dining room table and lowered himself into a chair.

God, what he wouldn’t have given to have Jamie standing there with him. He would just give him that constant eye contact that said I see you.

“I’m in love, Dad. With a man named Jamie.” The buckles that had been strapped across his chest for years loosened, one by one. “Being with girls never felt right to me. Never, not once. But I didn’t know—I had no idea that I was gay until I met Jamie. And then a lot of things started to make sense. I’ve only ever wanted him like this. With my whole self. No one else. My heart doesn’t care if he’s a man or a woman, he’s just Jamie.” Marcus stopped to gather himself. “It might be too late for him and me…but it’s never too late to be honest. This is who I am. I’m your same son. I just love someone you weren’t expecting.