Unlawfully Wed

Twenty minutes after Alex hung up the phone, there was a banging on his door. At first, he was baffled at how quickly his friends made it over, but then he remembered how John worked: if Alex had a problem, John started to make it way over before Alex even had time to say yes. Half the time he made it all the way to Alex's door before even telling Alex he was on his way over.

With Alex's mind so foggy, a lack of warning might have been welcome tonight.

Regardless, Alex paused the documentary he had begun to watch and made his way over to the door. He pulled it open, unsurprised to see his three best friends standing there with bottles of liquor.

"Hey, guys," he greeted, taking a step back and holding the door all the way open so that his friends could enter.

Hercules Mulligan, Alex's college roommate, entered the house first. He was carrying a bottle of Tequila in one hand and a twelve-pack of beer in the other, a shit-eating grin on his face that only grew when he made fist and "lightly" punched Alex in the arm, although his strength made the tap shock Alex down to the bone. He was six feet of pure muscle, and the thickness of his waist and of his beard was enough to fill lesser beings with fear.

Next came Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette, or Gil, for short. Alex had known him since boot camp. They shared a barracks for nearly three months, they were sent to the same bases for the three years after that, and moved back to the city together when their service was up. Unlike Hercules, his figure was more lithe and slender, although his height more than made up for the lack of girth. He didn't have a bottle of liquor, but he was carrying a six pack of hard pink lemonade. Alex used to make fun of him for drinking fruity drinks, but tonight, it actually sounded better than the Tequila.

Finally, John came through the door with his curly brown hair in a low ponytail at the base of his neck. He had a two-liter bottle of Grape soda (he didn't drink) and a bag of cinnamon-sugar Cheetos in his hand. He was still dressed like he had been at the office in dark-wash jeans and a blue sweater, pulled over a green plaid button down.

Yeah, Alex definitely found John the most attractive of his friends.

Alex cleared his throat and pulled his eyes away from the way that John's jeans clung to his muscled thighs before shaking his head and making his way into his living room, where Hercules had already made himself comfortable with Alex's remote and the bottle of vodka, Alex's soft gray blanket wrapped around his legs and tucked neatly into the couch cushions. Gil sat down beside him and sprawled out, as well.

"Go ahead, make yourself at home," Alex said sarcastically, rolling his eyes as Gil made a face. Alex moved to sit in his favorite well-worn chair that was adjacent to the couch, John sitting down at his feet and kicking his legs haphazardly on the floor. Alex took one of Gil's lemonades, popping off the top and taking a long sip of it.

For several moments, the men were silent, each just sipping at their drinks and enjoying being in one another's company. It had been far too long since they had had a gathering, but in between John and Alex running a successful law firm, Hercules managing a tailor shop downtown, and Gil teaching eight French classes at a local university, it was difficult to make time to see one another. It had been easy when they were young and unfocused, their significant others joining the group and changing the dynamics: Gil's and Hercules's wives teasing the men in playful jest and discussing their own gossip, John's flings getting in-between the women and, more often than not, causing fights between the two of them, and George, getting along with Gil, Hercules, and John like he had always been part of the group.

Alex clenched his jaw. Being with his friends was supposed to make him /forget/ George, not bring back even more painful memories of him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, making sure to open them before it would raise any suspicion, and let out another breath through his nose. He snapped the bottle cap off the lemonade and flipped it onto his coffee table, turning the bottle bottom-side up and downing the liquid. He drained the entire bottle before he flipped it back over.

When Alex placed the bottle on the table and stood to get his own stash of Smirnoff Ices from the refrigerator, Hercules and Gil looked at him with eyebrows raised.

"Going hard tonight?" Hercules asked, pulling a stack of shot glasses out of his pocket (Alex wasn't quite sure how he had fit those in) and pouring three tumblers full of tequila. He handed one to Gil and Alex before pushing an empty one John's way and taking the last one for himself. He waited for John to fill his tumbler up with soda before holding his own up above his head. "To the four of us," he said, nodding at his friends and smirking before lowering the shot and taking it. The other three followed suit.

Alex grimaced at the way that the tequila burned his throat, the bitter liquid coating his taste buds and making him queasy until he took a hefty gulp of his Smirnoff.

Hercules took another shot before capping the tequila and moving on to his beer. He took the remote and started to scroll through the movies for something for them to watch.

Before Hercules could find a movie, however, Gil drew attention to the elephant in the room. He leaned forward on the couch and put his hands between his knees, turning his eyes to Alex. "So," he began, his French accent drawling, "what is this emergency that John spoke of? All he said is that you needed us all here, immediately."

"My bet is on a giant orgy," Hercules interluded. "John said to bring alcohol, like it was something that we weren't going to do anyway, but hey, a little hornyness and liquid courage have made people do crazier things." He winked and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "Elizabeth asked for pictures."

Alex snorted. He wasn't surprised that's where Elizabeth and Hercules Mulligans' minds went; they had propositioned Alex more than once during the course of their friendship. "That wasn't on my mind, exactly," he said, choking back a laugh when he saw the appalled expression on Hercules' face, the man raising a hand to his chest in mock shock.

Gil watched the exchange with a look of amusement on his face, his eyebrow raised. "As lovely as that would be . . . I do not believe that Adrienne would approve of sharing me with you three. Just Alex, maybe, but not all three." He winked at Alex and settled down further into the couch, shifting his position and crossing his left ankle over his right knee. He took a sip of his drink and looked back at Alex. "In all seriousness, what happened? Case go wrong?"

John cleared his throat and moved from the floor to the arm of the couch, putting his arm around Alex's shoulders in support. Before he could say anything, though, Hercules began to laugh hard enough for tears of mirth to come to his eyes.

"Oh my, God, you two got back together. I knew you would; you sleep together enough," he exclaimed, taking a long gulp of his beer before holding the bottle up. "Cheers to th--"

He cut off at a look from John, lowering his bottle back down and holding his free hand up defensively. He took another drink and put the bottle on the ground while he waited for Alex to answer. Gil stared at Alex expectedly.

At first, Alex wasn't able to tell his friends what the problem was. John rubbed his shoulder encouragingly, telling him without words that he didn't have to say anything, if he didn't want to.

Regardless, Alex knew that he needed his friends support. "I got a letter from George today."

Gil, who had been taking a drink, choked and sputtered. "Washington? Wrote you a letter?"

"Yeah. It showed up at the office this morning." He looked down at the floor and crossed his ankles, interlacing his fingers and sucking in his lower lip.

"An actual letter?" Hercules added, picking his drink back up and taking another long drink. "Damn, Alex, I knew he was old fashioned, but an actual letter? Why couldn't he have just sent you a Howler from Hell, where he belongs?” He shook his head. “The fuck does he need you for anyway? He knows better than to try and get back with you.”

Alex shrugged, the heavy feeling in his stomach that had gone away when his friends showed up slinking back in like a weight dropped into a bucket of water. "I don't know."

Hercules shook his head before asking, "Well, what did the letter say?" He glared at Gil when the Frenchman punched him in his arm, hard enough to leave a mark. "What? Am I not allowed to ask that?"

"Hercules, if Alex wanted to tell us what was in the letter, he would have told us," Gil scolded, reaching out and tapping Hercules on the nose before turning back to Alex. "I'm sorry, Alex, you don't have to tell us anything that you don't want to."

John's thumbs pressed harder against Alex's shoulder in warning. Hercules and Gil might have been their friends, but John had always been overprotective of Alex, no matter what the situation or who the "opposition" was.

Alex shrugged John's hand off and moved in the chair, pulling his legs up under him and leaning his weight onto his left side. His ponytail fell over one shoulder, and he pursed his lips. "I don't know what it says. I haven't opened it yet."

"And you aren't going to open it, at least not tonight." This time it was John who spoke. He looked at Alex before looking back at Hercules and Gil. "I invited you two and myself over here to help Alex forget old what's-his-name and to celebrate another winning case, not to pry about some letter that he received. Okay?"

"All right."

"Yes sir."

"Good." John slid off the arm of the couch and onto the cushion besides Alex, wiggling around until he was pressed against Alex's side and beneath his arm.

Alex squeezed John's shoulder and leaned his cheek against the top of John's head, smiling contentedly as Hercules picked the remote back up and started a random movie. Having John like this was something that Alex had missed greatly over the course of the trial. The men did not have romantic feelings for one another any longer (nor had they in the last decade, in fact), but it was still nice to have hold someone and to be held by someone without there being any strings attached. They had slept together many times during the periods where both of them had been single, either out of loneliness or for a desire to be comforted. They would spend the entire evening in one of their beds, and once they were both sated and satisfied, they would wrap around one another and sleep. If it was a Friday or Saturday evening (like it was that very evening, as they sat cuddled in the chair), they would likely spend the whole night in one another's arms and then make breakfast together come morning.

It was an unconventional relationship, but it worked for them.

In regards to the unconventional . . .

Alex's mind wandered back to George as the unconventional start to their relationship came to the forefront of his mind. George was quite a bit older than Alex, as well as the General of Alex's unit in the army. That had been how they had met, at least, but it wasn't for another two years after Alex left the service that they found each other again and fell in love.

As the movie scene changed, Alex couldn't help but remember the first time he and George had seen each other again. Alex had been working for that other firm, and George had just opened his own produce stand, selling goods that he had grown in his own back yard. He had claimed that Antire Inc., the company that loaned him money for the stand, was ripping him off and pocketing his money. (He was right).

Alex was meant to defend Antire, but once he and George began to talk again . . . the attraction was almost immediate, and once they had started dating, falling in love had been inevitable. George was still an Army general at heart, though, always thinking of his view in front of his soldiers, and when things got too serious . . .

Alex swallowed around lump that had taken up residence in his throat. He could feel a prickling sensation in the corners of his eyes, and he was sure that if he brushed his fingers across his lashes, there would be a telltale wetness found there. His heart was pounding in the base of his throat, and his hands were beginning to grow slick at their place on John’s shoulder and on the adjacent arm of the chair.

John looked at Alex in concern when he felt Alex’s thigh begin to tremble from the effort of holding back his emotions. He leaned back and angled his face toward Alex, moving forward until his mouth was only an inch or so away from Alex’s ear. “You okay?”

Alex shrugged, moving John’s head up and down before settling in one position. His chest was still feeling tight, and his breath felt more like he was sucking in air through a coffee stirred than it did normal inhalations and exhalations. He pulled his arm away from John’s shoulders and patted him on the knee before standing, attracting the attention of Hercules and Gil. “Got to piss,” he mumbled in the way of excuses, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweats and shuffling his feet out of the room.

Alex walked down his sparsely-decorated hallway towards his bathroom, stopping only to look at a picture at the end of the hallway. He stared at the plain, minimalistic watercolor image of a black and white tree on a swirled gray background for a seconds before hooking the tip of his right index finger beneath the lower left corner of the painting and flipping it up. Beneath the painting was s photograph that Alex couldn’t stand looking at, but he couldn’t bear to take down. It was of their whole group only a few weeks before the end of Alex and George’s relationship.

In the foreground of the image, Gil and Adrienne were sitting cross-legged with their daughter, Amelie, and their son, Georges. Behind them, Hercules and John were sitting on the couch wearing ugly Christmas sweaters with wine glasses in their hands and “2008” New Year’s glasses balancing on their noses. Elizabeth and Eliza were standing behind the couch, in addition to Phillip, Angelica, George, and Alex. Phillip and Angelica still had youthful features on their faces, but Phillip was almost as tall as Eliza, and Angelica looked as though she had begun to fill out physically. Alex was glowing with George’s arm around him, and George looked more relaxed and happy than Alex could remember him ever being.

With a sigh, Alex reached out and traced the tips of his fingers over his ex-lover’s face. George’s smooth ebony skin made Alex’s deep tan complexion look nearly white, and the shape of his cheekbones were still carved so deeply into Alex’s mind that he could almost feel them beneath his hand. George had been wearing a wine-colored cable knit sweater, a favorite of Alex’s, that brought out his light-grey eyes and made them shine through the glass.

He was beautiful.

With a heavy heart, Alex let his hand drop back down, causing the watercolor painting to fall forward and cover up the happy faces. He felt dumb for still being so invested in George after all these years, but he couldn’t help it. George was still the love of his life, even if he didn’t matter in the least bit to George. He had thought that he did, that George loved him too, but one single lapse of Alex’s judgement had been enough to shatter the delicate balance of their relationship that Alex had thought to be so strong.

He had asked George to marry him, and George had said no.

They tried to stay together for a few months after that, but things had grown tense, and they started to argue over the silliest things. Alex still didn’t understand why, if George loved him as much as he said he did, George wouldn’t marry him. The only reason George would give was that his fellow retired officers “wouldn’t take it well” that he was gay, and that he wanted to continue that aspect of their relationship in secret. Part of Alex understood (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had kept him and Eliza as beards for another while he was in the service, for Pete’s sake), but the bigger part wondered why it mattered when neither of them were serving any longer. He had asked George to explain, which led to them fighting . . . which led to Alex coming home to an empty house the next day.

Neither man had contacted the other since that day. Alex deleted George’s number, he blocked him on Facebook, cut their social ties—until today. Until George, it seemed, decided to change the game.

It just wasn’t fair