Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (89 page)

All things being equal, he looked like a thief who had broken in and was prepared to trash the

place on the hunt for sterling silver, jewelry, and portable electronics.

The irony was that the Goth bullcrap wasn’t actually the most offensive part of his appearance to

his fam. In fact, he could have stripped down, hung a light fixture off his ass, and run around the first floor playing Jose Canseco with the art and antiques and not come close to how much the real

problem pissed off his parents.

It was his eyes.

One blue. One green.

Oopsy. His bad.

The
glymera
didn’t like defects. Not in their porcelain or their rose gardens. Not in their wallpaper or their carpets or their countertops. Not in the silk of their underwear or the wool of their blazers or the chiffon of their gowns.

And certainly not
ever
in their children.

Sister was okay—well, except for the “little weight problem” that didn’t actually exist, and a lisp that her transition hadn’t cured —oh, and the fact that she had the personality of their mother. And there was no fixing that shit. Brother, on the other hand, was the real fucking star, a physically perfect, firstborn son prepared to carry forth the family bloodline by reproducing in a very genteel, non-moaning, no-sweat situation with a female chosen for him by the family.

Hell, his sperm recipient had already been lined up. He was going to mate her as soon as he went

through his transition—

“How are you feeling, my son?” his father asked with hesitation.

“Tired, sir,” a deep voice answered. “But this is going to help.”

A chill frog-marched up Qhuinn’s spine. That didn’t sound like his brother. Way too much bass.

Far too masculine. Too…

Holy shit, the guy had gone through his transition.

Now Qhuinn’s Ed Hardys got with the program, taking him forward until he could see into the

dining room. Father was in his seat at the head of the table. Check. Mother was in her seat at the foot of the table opposite the kitchen’s flap door. Check. Sister was facing out of the room, all but licking the gold rim off her plate from hunger. Check.

The male whose back was to Qhuinn was not part of the SOP.

Luchas was twice the size he’d been when Qhuinn had been approached by a
doggen
and told to get his things and go to Blay’s.

Well, that explained the vacay. He’d assumed his father had finally relented and given in to the

request Qhuinn had filed weeks before. But nope, the guy had just wanted Qhuinn out of the house

because the change had come to the gene pool’s golden child.

Had his brother laid the chick? Who had they used for blood—

His father, never the demonstrative type, reached out a hand and gave Luchas an awkward pat on

the forearm. “We’re so proud of you. You look…perfect.”

“You do,” Qhuinn’s mother piped up. “Just perfect. Doesn’t your brother look perfect, Solange?”

“Yes, he does. Perfect.”

“And I have something for you,” Lohstrong said.

The male reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and took out a black velvet box the size

of a baseball.

Qhuinn’s mother started to tear up and dabbed under her eyes.

“This is for you, my precious son.”

The box was slid across the white damask tablecloth, and his brother’s now-big hands shook as

he took the thing and popped the lid.

Qhuinn caught the flash of gold all the way out in the foyer.

As everyone at the table went silent, his brother stared at the signet ring, clearly overwhelmed, as their mother kept up with the dab-dab, and even their father grew misty. And his sister sneaked a roll from the bread basket.

“Thank you, sir,” Luchas said as he put the heavy gold ring on his forefinger.

“It fits, does it not?” Lohstrong asked.

“Yes, sir. Perfectly.”

“We wear the same size, then.”

Of course they did.

At that moment, their father glanced away, like he was hoping the movement of his eyeballs would

take care of the sheen of tears that had come over his vision.

He caught Qhuinn lurking outside the dining room.

There was a brief flash of recognition. Not the hi-how’re-ya kind, or the oh-good-my-other-son’s-

home. More like when you were walking through the grass and noticed a pile of dog shit too late to

stop your foot from landing in it.

The male went back to staring at his family, locking Qhuinn out.

Clearly, the last thing Lohstrong wanted was such a historic moment to be ruined—and that was

probably why he didn’t do the hand signals that warded off the evil eye. Usually everyone in the

household performed the ritual when they saw Qhuinn. Not tonight. Daddio didn’t want the others to

know.

Qhuinn went over to his duffel. Slinging the weight onto his shoulder, he took the front stairs to his room. Usually his mother preferred him to use the servants’ set, but that would mean he’d have to cut through all the love in there.

His room was as far away from the others’ as you could get, all the way over to the right. He’d

often wondered why they didn’t take the leap completely and put him in with the
doggen
—but then the staff would probably quit.

Closing himself in, he dumped his duds on the bare floor and sat on his bed. Staring at his only

piece of luggage, he figured he had better do that laundry soon, as there was a wet bathing suit in there.

The maids refused to touch his clothes—like the evil in him lingered in the fibers of his jeans and his T-shirts. The upside was, he was never welcome at formal events, so his wardrobe was just

wash-’n’-wear, baby—

He discovered he was crying when he looked down at his Ed Hardys and realized that there were

a couple of drops of water right in the middle of the laces.

Qhuinn was never getting a ring.

Ah, hell…this hurt.

He was scrubbing his face with his palms when his phone rang. Taking the thing out of his biker

jacket, he had to blink a couple of times to focus.

He hit
send
to accept the call, but he didn’t answer.

“I just heard,” Blay said across the connection. “How are you doing?”

Qhuinn opened his mouth to reply, his brain coughing up all kinds of responses: “Peachy fucking

jim-dandy.” “At least I’m not ‘fat’ like my sister.” “No, I don’t know if my brother got laid.”

Instead, he said, “They got me out of the house. They didn’t want me to curse the transition. Guess it worked, because the guy looks like he came through it okay.”

Blay swore softly.

“Oh, and he got his ring just now. My father gave him…his ring.”

The signet ring with the family crest on it, the symbol that all males of good bloodlines wore to

attest to the value of their lineage.

“I watched Luchas put it on his finger,” Qhuinn said, feeling as if he were taking a sharp knife and drawing it up the insides of his arms. “Fit perfectly. Looked great. You know, though…like, how

could it not—”

He began weeping at that point.

Just fucking lost it.

The awful truth was that under his counterculture fuck-you, he wanted his family to love him. As

prissy as his sister was, as scholar-geek as his brother was, as reserved as his parents were, he saw the love among the four of them. He
felt
the love among them. It was the tie that bound those individuals together, the invisible string from one heart to the another, the commitment of caring about everything from the mundane shit to any true, mortal drama. And the only thing more powerful than

that connection…was what it was like to get shut out from it.

Every fucking day of your life.

Blay’s voice cut in through the heaving. “I’m here for you. And I’m so damned sorry….I’m here

for you….Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Let me come over—”

Leave it to Blay to know that he was thinking about things that involved ropes and showerheads.

In fact, his free hand had already gone down to the makeshift belt he’d fashioned out of a nice,

strong weave of nylon—because his parents didn’t give him much money for clothes, and the proper

one he’d owned had broken years ago.

Pulling the length free, he glanced across to the closed door of his bath. All he needed to do was

tie the thing to the fixture in his shower—God knew those water pipes had been run in the good old

days, when things were strong enough to hold some weight. He even had a chair he could stand up on

and then kick out from underneath him.

“I gotta go—”

“Qhuinn? Don’t you hang up on me—don’t you dare hang up on me—”

“Listen, man, I gotta go—”

“I’m coming over right now.” Lot of flapping in the background, like Blay was getting his clothes

on. “Qhuinn! Do not hang up the phone—
Qhuinn…!
”

ONE

PRESENT DAY

“Now,
that
a muthafuckn’ whip rite chur.”

Jonsey looked over at the idiot who was hunkered down next to him in the bus stop. The

pair of them had been parked in the Plexiglas gerbil cage for three hours. At least. Although comments like that had made it seem a matter of days.

And were going to make shit justifiable homicide.

“You a white boy, you know that?” Jonsey pointed out.

“Say whaaaaat?”

Okay, make that three years of waiting. “Caucasian, dude. As in you need fuckin’ sunblock in the

summer. As in not like m’self—”

“Whatever, man, check out that ride—”

“As in why you gotta talk like you from the ’hood? You act a fool, yo.”

At this point, he just wanted to get the night over. It was cold, it was snowing, and he had to

wonder who he’d pissed off to get stuck with Vanilla Ice over here.

Matter of fact, he was thinking about pulling out of this bullshit altogether. He was making good

paper dealing in Caldwell; he was two months out of prison for those murders he’d done as a juvie;

the last thing he was interested in was hanging with some white bitch determined to get street cred through vocabulary.

Oh, and then there was the Richie Rich neighborhood they were in. For all he knew, there was an

ordinance out here that you weren’t allowed on the streets after ten p.m.

Why the
hell
had he agreed to this?

“Will. You. Please. Look. At. That. Fine. Automobile.”

Just to shut the guy up, Jonsey turned his head and leaned out of the shelter. As blowing snow got

into his eyes, he cursed. Fucking upstate New York in the winter. Cold enough to ice-cube your balls

—

Well…hello, there.

Across a shallow parking lot, sitting right in front of a sparkling-clean, no-graffiti’d, twenty-four-hour CVS, there was, in fact, a sweet-ass fucking whip. The Hummer was totally blacked out, no

chrome anywhere—not on the wheels, not around the windows, not even on the grille. And it was the

big-body—and, going by all that trim, no doubt had the big engine in it.

The ride was the kind of thing you’d see on the streets where he was from, the vehicle of a major

dealer. Except they were far from the inner city out here, so it was just some cracker trying to look like he had a dick.

Vanilla-man hiked up his backpack, one-strapping it. “I’ma check it out.”

“Bus is coming soon.” Jonsey checked his watch, and did some wishful thinking. “Five, maybe ten

minutes.”

“Come on—”

“Bye, asshole.”

“You scared or some shit?” The SOB lifted his hands and started going
Paranormal Activity
.

“Oh, scurrrrrry—”

Jonsey outted his gun and punched the muzzle right into that dumb-ass face. “I got no problem

killin’ you right here. I done it before. I do it again. Now back the fuck off and do y’self a favor. Shut the fuck up.”

As Jonsey met the guy’s eyes, he didn’t particularly care what the outcome was. Shoot the bitch.

Don’t shoot him. Whatever.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Mr. Chatty backed away and left the bus stop.

Thank. Fuck.

Jonesy put his gat away, crossed his arms, and stared in the direction the bus was going to come

out of—like that might help.

Stupid fucking idiot.

He looked at his watch again. Man, enough with this shit. If a bus heading back into downtown got

here first, he was just going to get on and fuck it all.

Shifting the backpack he’d been told to get, he felt the hard contour of the jar inside. The pack he understood. If he was going to transport product from the sticks into the ’hood, then yeah. But the jar?

What the hell you need that for?

Unless it was loose powder?

The fact that he’d been chosen by C-Rider, the man himself, for this had been pretty fucking cool.

Until he’d met White Boy—and then the idea he was special lost some juice. The boss man’s

instructions had been clear: Hook up with the dude at the Fourth Street stop. Take the last bus out to the ’burbs and wait. Transfer to the rural line when service resumed near dawn. Get off at the Warren County stop. Hoof it one mile to a farm property.

C-Rider would meet them and a bunch of other dudes out there for the business. And after that?

Jonsey would be part of a new crew set to dominate the scene in Caldie.

He liked that shit. And full respect to C-Rider—that motherfucker was tight: high up in the ’hood;

strung.

But if the rest of them were like Vanilla—

The roar of an engine made him assume something, anything from the Caldwell Transit Authority

had finally shown, and he got to his feet—

“No fuckin’ way,” he breathed.

The blacked-out Hummer had pulled up right in front of the bus stop, and as the window went

down, White Boy was full-on insane-in-the-membrane behind the wheel—and not just because

Cypress Hill was, in fact, blaring.