A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

I tried so hard,in the end......

Getting up, he added wood to both fireplaces, put the phone back in the closet, then went into the kitchen and spent the next hour cleaning it up and then making homemade stew to warm his patient when he awoke. He was cutting up potatoes when he realized that if Zayn knew he'd made a phone call, he'd have a difficult, if not impossible, time convincing Zayn that his family and his former sister-in-law were trustworthy and wouldn't tell the authorities he'd called. Since he already had enough to worry about, Harry decided not to tell him.

Finished, he wandered into the living room and sat down on the sofa, the radio still on in the kitchen so that he could hear if there was more news that would interest Zayn.

It was funny, in an awful ironic sort of way, he thought with a rueful smile as he stretched out on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, all the years he'd spent behaving like Mary Poppins and never, ever straying from the straight and narrow path, only to come to this.

Harry loved attention. He always dreamed of being courted by the most handsome men. His inner desires surfaced only at night time. Although its true many girls hoped Harry would ask them out for dances and dinner dates, but Harry was never attracted to any woman. He only had a minor crush on the most handsome boy in his school. How he wished he was asked to the dance by him. But Harry's dreams rarely came true. He ended up going to the dance with his friends and just stood staring longingly at the boy who had his heart and saw him flirt with the filthiest of girls in his school. Although no one thought what next happened would be true, the girl got pregnant that night and had to stop coming to school.

Harry felt irrationally responsible for the entire nightmare. The experience also caused him to reinforce his resolve to avoid trouble and scandal at all costs. In college, he steadfastly refused dates with Steve Baxter, even though he had a crush on him, because the handsome football player was a notorious flirt with a reputation for scoring in the bedroom even more often than he did on the football field. Steve, for reasons he never understood, spent almost two years pursuing him, appearing alone at social functions if he knew Harry was going to be there, staying at his side, and doing his sincere and charming best to convince Harry that he really was special to him. They laughed together, they talked for hours, but only in groups, because Harry adamantly refused to start dating him.

Now, as Harry compared his said past to his chaotic present and uncertain future, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry: In all these years, he hadn't stepped out of line once because he didn't want his family and the people in Keaton to think badly of him. Now that he was about to stray from the "straight and narrow path," however, he wasn't going to settle for some minor infraction of moral and social rules that would stir up a little gossip in Keaton. No indeed, not him, Harry thought wryly. What he was going to do was violate not only moral precepts, but probably the laws of the United States of America, and while he was doing that, the entire news media would be providing gossip about it for the entire world—just as they were already doing!

The moment of humor vanished and Harry looked somberly at his hands. From the time he went to live with the Mathisons, he'd chosen to make certain "sacrifices," up to and including his decision to become a teacher, rather than pursuing another career that would have paid much more. And yet, each sacrifice invariably brought him such rich rewards that he always felt as if he received much more than he gave.

Now, he had the distinct feeling that fate was calling in his debts for a lifetime of unearned rewards. Zayn Malik was as innocent of cold-blooded murder as he was, and Harry couldn't shake the feeling that he was expected to do something about it.

Rolling over onto his side, he tucked his arm beneath the throw pillows, watching the flames leaping in the grate. Until the real murderer was discovered, no one in the world, including his parents, was going to condone anything he did from now on. Of course, once his family realized that Zayn was innocent, they'd approve completely of everything he'd done and might yet have to do. Well, probably not everything, Harry thought. They wouldn't approve of him falling in lov with a man that too so quickly, if what Harry felt for him was actually love, and they definitely wouldn't approve of him sleeping with Zayn. With a mixture of quiet acceptance and nervous anticipation, Harry realized that loving him was actually out of his hands; sleeping with him was virtually a foregone conclusion unless he'd drastically changed his wishes since last night. Although, he rather hoped Zayn had give him a few days to know him better.

Beyond that, all he could do was try to guard his heart from needless pain and to refrain from doing or saying anything that would make him even more vulnerable to being hurt by Zayn than he already was. He wasn't an utter fool, after all. Long before Zayn Malik had gone to prison, he'd lived in an elite world of luxury populated by glamorous, sophisticated people with notoriously loose morals and no code of personal conduct or ethics. He'd read enough about him in magazines before he went to prison to know that the man he was with in this secluded mountain retreat had once possessed fabulous homes and villas of his own, where he gave lavish parties attended not only by famous movie stars, but by international business tycoons, European royalty, and even the president of the United States

He was not a comfortable, genial assistant pastor of a small town church.

Compared to him, Harry knew he was as naive and unsophisticated as the proverbial newborn babe.