AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As Austin reached the showers and turned on the water, it was pretty much checkmate for Matty. Stunned out of his mind, he watched as water cascaded down Austin’s chest and further down his glorious six-pack. Swallowing back what was obviously drool, Matty momentarily felt jealous at the water licking along the smooth, tanned skin. As Austin pulled off his board shorts and stood in a pair of tight navy-blue briefs, an inappropriate, desperate moan escaped Matty’s lips. At first, he didn’t realize that the weird, strangled sound had come from his mouth—hell, it sounded more like a seagull choking on an old French fry or some weird mating call. When he finally did, he felt his cheeks heat up while at the same time goosebumps covered his entire body.
“Matty!” Will’s voice boomed through the hot, stale air, and when he turned around, Will looked at him questioningly.
“Sorry, what?” Matty managed to force out, surprised that drool didn’t spurt from his lips as well.
“Are you alright there, son? You’re not having a heatstroke, are ya? I must have called your name three times already?” A worried frown appeared between Will’s bushy, gray brows.
“Sorry… Nah, I’m good. I’m great.” Matty rubbed his eyes, slowly waking from his stupor.
“You done, son? You ready to call it a day?”
“Yeah, I’m done, Will.”
“Let’s go then,” Will smiled, nodding briefly at Ray who was pulling a beer out of a cooler. “See ya around, Ray.”
“Sure thing, Will. See ya around, Matty,” Ray nodded, eyes crinkling at the corners, his prematurely wrinkled face bearing witness to years and years out at sea. Matty wondered if he stayed long enough in Grant’s Harbor if his own face would look like that one day. He kinda hoped so. It would mean that he’d lead a long and happy life, doing what he loved the most.
“See ya around, Mr. O’Neil,” Matty smiled before he turned around, trailing after Will to the truck. As they passed the communal showers, they were once again empty, without a trace of Austin and if it hadn’t been for a pool of water seeping into the sandy ground, Matty could have explained away his momentary lust-induced meltdown as just a heat-provoked mirage.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Avery – Then
“CONGRATULATIONS PROF. LAPORTE.We are looking forward to having you as part of our esteemed faculty in September. I know that you will be a great addition to ourInternational Sand Club.” The dean, Mrs. Levin, shook his hand eagerly. “One of my all-time favorite movies,The English Patient,” she whispered conspiratorially at Avery while blushing like a schoolgirl on homecoming night. “But don’t tell Prof. Levin. He’ll only get jealous.”
TMI.Wasn’t that what the cool kids said these days? Too much fucking information, Dean Levin. Avery had no interest whatsoever in learning what rocked his future boss’s boat—or bed—and if her hubby, who also happened to be one of his future colleagues, got jealous or not.
Sure, Ralph Fiennes also rocked Avery’s world any day of the week. Not in the almost mummified burn victim version but more so in the hunky, heavily tanned archaeologist type. Wouldn’t Avery have loved to be Kristin Scott Thomas in that bathtub scene? Or up against the wall at the 1940s Christmas party being fucked into oblivion while sucking on Ralph Fiennes’ date-covered thumb? Yes. The British actor was the embodiment of male hotness but unfortunately so far from any real-life archeologists Avery had ever encountered.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m excited to start.” Avery swallowed behind the lump building with increasing speed at the back of his throat.Liar.That’s what he was. A fucking liar and a fake.
“When are you headed back to Big Bend, Prof. LaPorte? Do you have time for a quick luncheon with some of the other members of our faculty?” The dean corrected her tan suit jacket before gesturing at the large wooden door to her office.
Luncheon.How many fucking times had he sat through one of his parents’ dead-boring luncheons as a child, a teenager and even as a grown-up. A gathering of old, dusty professors belonging to the so-called intellectual elite in Boston and some younger, aspiring ones too, who were so far up their older colleagues’ asses that they were surely coughing up moth balls. Avery’s mother mingling around the dining room in her way too little black dress with a double dry martini clasped between her red-painted fingernails while at the same timeimpulsively, of coursequoting Proust andcompulsivelyflirting with her husband’s MIT colleagues.
Fucking Proust. When Avery was eleven, his mother, Doctor Ursula LaPorte, had dragged him to a two-hour lecture ofÀ la Recherche du Temps Perduby a Proust scholar visiting from France. Yes, those had been two fucking hours which Avery had been looking for ever since along with the ninety minutes he’d spent in the hotel lobby waiting for his mother to return from doing God knows what in a hotel room with the French scholar. So no, Avery had no intention of going to any fucking luncheon anytime soon.
“I would have loved to join you; however, I have promised to be back by the day after tomorrow at the very latest to lead an excavation.”Liar.They weren’t counting on him to lead the group of colleagues flying in from Greece for at least a couple of weeks.
Avery was there to record the Comanche drawings solely and he was mostly done with that. However, the thought of sitting through aluncheonwith his esteemed, future colleagues held the same allure right now as burning your hands on a pot of scalding hot water or poking your eyes out with a rusty fork.
“Oh, how unfortunate,” the dean crooned. “But we can’t keep our heritage waiting, can we now? It’s good to know that our newest member of our faculty has his priorities straight. When it comes to our culture and history, we are but mere servants, aren’t we Prof. LaPorte?”
Shit!This was his life now and he had no one to blame but himself. If he heard the wordfacultyone more time, he was going to scream.
“Indeed, ma’am.” Avery didn’t feel like going into a longish discussion on how it wasn’t reallytheirshared cultural history since his family originated from France and he suspected that Dean Levin, too, had European roots. No, those who could in fact show a direct line of DNA back to the Comanches had either fallen victim to numerous genocides a long time ago or had by now been forced into a waspy, contemporary society.
“Well, have fun Prof. LaPorte. I’ll be excited to see the fruits of your hard labor once you return to our little corner of the academic world.”
Can’t wait.
“I can’t wait, Dean Levin. I hope you have a nice summer and I’m looking forward to joining you in September.” Avery reached for the doorknob, adjusting his leather bag on his left shoulder.
“Well, thank you, Prof. LaPorte. Prof. Levin and I are joining a couple of friends from France in Provence shortly.” The dean’s face glowed with anticipation while she handed her secretary a portfolio.
“Amy, will you be so kind as to send Prof. LaPorte all the necessary passwords and documentation? He’ll be joining our staff in September and will require housing?” The dean looked at Avery questioningly.
“Yes, please. That would be lovely.” There was no way in hell that he was moving back in with his parents even though they owned a large brownstone in the city. Their marriage was a farce only held together by identical ambitions and a mutual pursuit of academic acclaim. He’d rather be buried alive next to Tut Ankh Amon before he’d move back in with them. That house hadn’t resembled a home since his little sister Mattie left it so abruptly when he was eleven. Nothing really had if Avery was being honest with himself. He’d felt lost ever since losing the one thing which had made sense to him in a world that was, at its best, shallow and dull, and at its worst, suffocating and depressing.
