Facade

the house, but then concluded it was probably his imagination and continued reading. His gut feeling wouldn’t go away, though, so he got up and walked inside, hesitantly climbing the few steps toward his kitchen. Everything was still how he’d left it but he found himself treading cautiously around his own house.
    Twice this past week he’d noticed a metallic RAV-4 with darkened windows parked near the corner of his street and that morning he’d seen movement near the shrubs at the back wall. He’d attributed it to the fat tabby his neighbor liked to overfeed. That cat didn’t climb walls, though. He shook his head, thinking he was becoming paranoid in his old age. Maybe this was his mind telling him he didn’t want to live alone anymore. Or maybe he was enjoying it too much.
    He smiled and poured himself a cup of coffee.
    “Guero.”
    Jonas’s whole body tensed and his arm jerked up, splashing some drops of coffee out of the cup and onto his wrist. A few expletives later, the cup set down on a safe surface and his mind working again, he stopped resisting the arms wrapped tightly around his middle.
    “Uardo, you bastard, I could have burned both of us!” The soft hair of his ex-lover’s beard tickled the back of Jonas’s neck as smooth lips kissed the exposed skin. “I learned a long time Façade
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    ago not to do this with you holding a knife, mi amor,” the darker man replied in a heavy Spanish accent.
    “I’m not your amor any more,” Jonas said sternly, extricating himself from the other man’s grasp and turning around. “What are you doing here?”
    “You know me: I’m like one of those ugly dogs who smell blood. When you arrive here I’m always drawn to this house.” Jonas smiled wistfully. “I thought we’d agreed—” Eduardo moved back into Jonas’s personal space and tried to kiss him but Jonas turned his head at the last moment and his ex-lover’s lips landed on his cheek. The body leaning against his felt good, though, and since Eduardo didn’t seem eager to pull away either, they stood there, intimately close for a long few moments.
    “We agreed to stop living together, Jonas,” the Spaniard whispered, pronouncing the older man’s first name with a soft Y
    instead of a hard J. “We never agreed to stop seeing each other.”
    “Uardo,” Jonas pleaded. It would be so easy to give into the familiar touch, spend his passion with a man he knew would make him feel good, at least physically. He contemplated it for a moment and then pushed Eduardo away. “I can’t, I’m sorry. We have to stop doing this, Eduardo. This isn’t good for either of us.”
    “I told you I would leave her if you come back, and I will,” Eduardo repeated what he’d told Jonas on the phone weeks earlier.
    “And you know better than to give me an ultimatum,” Jonas replied sternly. “You tried that when we split up and it didn’t work then. You’re no good for me, Uardo.”
    The Spaniard’s look went cold. “I don’t see how bad it is for you if you are begging me to fuck you harder until you come.” Jonas closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t give in now. The incessant phone calls were one thing, but Eduardo showing up at his house all the time had to stop. If he let his body take over, he’d never be able to break it off and now that his resolve was still strong he needed to take a stand. It wasn’t like Eduardo was a client, so he could set his conscience at ease.

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    Zahra
    Owens
    “No more,” Jonas whispered.
    Eduardo looked like he hadn’t understood him, but then Jonas’s cell phone started ringing. “That’s right. Let a client fuck you, but oh no, not me.” The dark Spaniard threw up his hands and furiously walked out of the kitchen, leaving Jonas standing with the noisy cell in his hands.
    “Yes,” he said into the handset, a little annoyed at the intrusion.
    “Jonas?”
    He immediately recognized the voice. “Hi, Tanna, how are you? Life back to normal?”
    She giggled. “You could say that. Then again, what is normal around here?”
    Jonas waited for a moment. The question didn’t need an answer and the one thing he wanted to ask—when Nicky wanted him—felt too presumptuous.
    “How fast can you get here?”
    Tanna’s voice sounded less cheerful all of a sudden, and Jonas had visions of Nicky turning back into the morose, depressed young man he’d met that first time.
    “Is he okay?” he asked her, surprised by the worry