Forever Promised (31 page)

Three years ago, before Collin, Jeff would have been out here smoking his one cigarette per day. But he’d given up even that vice with Collin and was instead warming his hands and bouncing on his toes and gazing out to the pasturelands under the gray light from the dense storm clouds overhead. A wicked wind was pulling Jeff’s hair from its carefully arranged product ’do, and it was cold enough to make Shane’s balls shrivel.

Shane dropped Jeff’s coat on his shoulders and was rewarded with a scowl.

“God, man-mountain, sneak up on a guy!”

Shane shrugged. “I’m like Mumford’s gas. Silent but deadly.”

Jeff guffawed so loud he clapped his hand over his mouth, probably in surprise. “Omigod!
Shane
! That was good, and almost completely socially acceptable. You
have
improved.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “What’re the gray hairs for if we don’t get better with age?”

“Speak for yourself, big bear man. I’m going Grecian Formula all the way.”

“That’s
way
too much trouble. I’d rather just grow old with dignity—”

“That would be a first,” Jeff snarked, and Shane let him. “Since when has dignity been your strong point?”

“It hasn’t, but if I’m growing older, I’d like to try new things.”

Some of the snark went out of Jeff’s sails. “I hate new things,” he said, and Shane could hear bitterness.

“Tell me about it,” he said, but he was totally, completely sincere.

He leaned out against the porch railing and looked at the sky, and in spite of the chill, the sailing-ship clouds mesmerized him in a tumultuous, perilous way. The sun was going down behind them, and the billows were bruise colored but tinged with transcendent gray, and there was something cleansing about the rain-laden wind.

Jeff joined him against the railing, inhaling deeply. “Mom hated winter,” he said. “She loved the heat and the sunshine and sweating and gardening. Every morning she wakes up and asks me when it’s going to be summer. Even in July.”

“It’s a cruel disease,” Shane said truthfully. “I haven’t met one survivor who hasn’t been pissed off.”

Jeff turned to him appreciatively. “Thank you! Seriously—
thank you.
No ‘I’m sorry!’, no ‘sucks for both of you!’—just ‘dude, be pissed off!’. God, you totally get shit, don’t you?”

The twelve-year-old giggle caught him off guard. “I get
some
,” he said, “I don’t know if I get
shit
.”

Jeff’s chortle surprised him too. “And damn, it’s not like getting some doesn’t make getting shit any easier, right?”

Shane couldn’t even follow the sentence, but he could follow the sentiment. “Hell yes. Getting some makes taking shit a
hell
of a lot easier. You getting some, Jeffy?”

“As often as I can.”

“He’s wearing you out, isn’t he?”

“As. If.” Jeff’s sniff was intentionally haughty, but even in the dark twilight, Shane could see his sweet brown eyes crinkling in the corners. “It’s sort of a dead heat right now,” he confided, and Shane’s laugh boomed across the porch.

The laughter faded and they both resumed their sentinel watch of the wrestling clouds. Shane leaned sideways and bumped Jeff’s shoulder.

“You know you can talk to me about it any time, right?”

“I just did, big man. You made me feel a shit ton better, and then we told sex jokes. Best. Shrink. Ever.”

Shane’s self-deprecating laugh hurt. “It’s going to get worse, you know.” Jeff was a tough nut to crack. Three years ago, he’d been holding on to himself with both hands, and he’d still almost disintegrated under pressure. Three years of love and the picket fence he’d wanted for his entire life had made him a little less brittle and a little easier to shape.

“The worst thing,” Jeff said, sighing and sagging a little against the railing, “is my father. He keeps thinking I’m going to come back and head the family again, meet a nice girl and settle down.”

“Didn’t you just marry a guy?”

“Yup. Dad pretended he didn’t get the invite.”

Shane pursed his lips. He’d known Jeff’s father hadn’t shown up, but he hadn’t known how bad it was. “Well, you want to make a visit up to Coloma, you don’t just have to take Collin, you know. Me and Deacon, we make an impression.”

Jeff grinned. “Yup. You’re so butch, he couldn’t miss the gay when he sees me!”

Shane grinned back, knowing that’s not what Jeff needed. Jeff’s sigh indicated he knew it too.

“I was so happy,” he said. “Dad talked to me. I mean, we were still arguing, but it was communication, right? But it’s still the same communication: ‘Dad, I’m gay.’ ‘No, son, you’re not, because that would mean you’re going to Hell.’ ‘Dad, I’m still gay, but I don’t think I’m going to Hell.’ ‘No, son, you’re not gay, because I said so, and my word goes.’” Jeff snorted.

Shane threw an arm over his shoulders and hugged. God, of all the things—when he’d first started counseling, he’d tried so very hard to maintain a personal distance. But the first time a kid had felt comfortable enough to just throw her arms around his neck and hug him, he’d had his own little breakthrough.

Sometimes, a little personal contact was really all someone needed to get through the day.

“You know,” Shane said, making his voice deliberately portentous, “sometimes, when a person isn’t going to see you for what you are, you have to limit the relationship to what he knows.”

“Sounds wise, oh mountain-on-the-Lama-Dalai, but what the fuck does it mean?”

This was going to sound cold-blooded, there was no two ways about it. “It means you have a full life. You have a husband, you have a job, you have a family—if I recall, you made that more than clear to him. If he can’t invite you and your husband to a family meeting, you give your apologies and don’t go.”

“Well
duh—
”

“But you let it end there,” Shane told him gently. “You don’t argue, you don’t try to change him, you just don’t see him on his terms. In short, you let him go.”

The fact that Jeff didn’t even pay attention to his hairstyle when he ran his fingers through his hair meant he was well and truly thinking about it.

“I let it go,” he said, waving his chin like it was just that easy.

“Yup.”

“What do I do then? I mean, it sounds like what I’m doing now except—”

“Except now you keep thinking about how to change his mind. You’re not going to do that, Jeffy. Think about it. Martin had to do this when he went home. He goes home, he says, ‘I have friends who are gay, don’t be disrespectful’, and then he walks away. If he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t have made it through high school, you know that, right?”

Jeff sighed. Shane knew Martin was coming for Christmas, because Sweetie had told him, half-shy, half-afraid. She’d been trying to figure out a present for him, and Shane had told her he’d set Kimmy on that, because she was good at that. He also knew Jeff lived for the boy’s visits. Shane, Mickey, Kimmy, and Lucas—they had the kids at Promise House. Jeff had Martin. The fact that his old lover’s little brother wanted to be a part of Jeff and Collin’s family was something Jeff took a lot of pride in—and he should. He’d had to work damned hard to forge that relationship, and Shane never forgot it.

“Well, we all know that kid is emotionally more mature than I am anyway, right?”

Shane nodded soberly. “Think about it, Jeffy. I hate to see you hurting.”

Jeff sighed. “Yeah—but don’t worry. Jon’s going to leave and we’re all going to be so busy watching after Deacon, you won’t hardly notice me.”

Shane felt a certain pride. “We’re still running together. He talks when he runs.”

“Wonderful. He talks when he runs. Excellent. Crick will be thrilled—he’ll take up jogging.”

Shane chuckled. “He talks more now—you know it.”

“Yes, yes, I do. But we’re all getting so fucking grown-up now. How am I going to give anybody shit when they keep outgrowing their flaws?”

“I still don’t wax my chest—how’s that?”

“Awesome, Cousin It. Let’s go inside before you weave a cloak for me out of your chest hair, okay?”

It was officially dark and officially cold, and Shane had no problem with that.

P
EOPLE
with heads for details and better minds than his put together Thanksgiving—Shane’s job was to relay the schedule and the cooking agenda. Which meant that being a touchstone to his family was not over by a long shot.

“Kim?”

Kimmy was in the TV room, watching
The Walking Dead
with a really bloodthirsty group of teenagers. She grimaced at him, annoyed—this was one of her favorite shows. “Now?”

“Don’t whine—it’s the commercial. Give me three minutes, you can watch zombies blow up again, okay?”

She pouted and turned to one of the boys who had just arrived. “Tony, do me a favor and pause that if I’m not back, okay?”

Tony let out a whine that actually made Shane proud—that was a kid’s whine. That meant he was happy. “But—”

“Three minutes, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it!” Tony was Hispanic and slightly built, but he could grumble like a pro. “Jesus, woman, don’t you want to see if the cute guy gets blown up?”

“I do,” Kimmy muttered to Shane. “Now hurry up! Lucas is coming to get me as soon as this show’s over.”

“It’s Thanksgiving, okay? You said you wanted me to give you the deets, here they are!”

Kimmy grimaced and smacked her forehead with her palm. “Dammit. I was going to go over there with you tonight. God—Benny—she’s going to think I hate her.”

“Well, she’s confused, yes”—because Shane hadn’t missed the look of disappointment when he and Mickey walked through the door without Kimmy—“but she knows something is up. Why don’t you just tell her?”

Kimmy grunted. “Yeah, well, I think I’m ready to do that
now,
but… but
now
she’ll be so hurt and—”

“So you’re going to just let a perfectly good friendship lapse because you’re afraid to talk about it? Jesus Christ, Kimmy!”

Kimmy narrowed her eyes. “Patient much, big brother?”

They were twins. “Yeah,” he said, scowling. “I’m plenty patient. But this? You are fucking loved. Jesus—we see kids all the time who are afraid of not being loved, and you are
loved
and you’re blowing it off for your pride, and I just want to… to….”

“To yank my hair and steal my yarn?”

Well, yeah. He’d had more mature moments. Shane ducked his head. “
I
love you. Isn’t that enough?”

Kimmy’s expression softened. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“She’s going to need a girlfriend. I can be a lot of things, sweetheart, but I don’t have the ovaries for that job.”

Kimmy stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, reminding the both of them that they might be twins, but they were about as alike as chocolate and cheese.

“You do your best,” she said. “Now my show’s starting, and Mikhail is fidgeting in the kitchen. He’s going to start making them clean the corners of the stainless steel, and we almost had a rebellion the last time he did that. Take him home, okay?”

Shane looked up and met Mikhail’s eyes. That vulpine, moody face lightened up fondly, and Shane took a deep, cleansing breath. Family and friends, children and grown-ups—he could be there for everyone he needed to be as long as Mickey was his home.

“Will do.”

Mikhail’s hand slid into his as they walked out of Promise House, both of them glad that their shift was the next day.

“That was a big sigh,” Mikhail assessed as they walked out to the car.

“I was letting the weight of the world off my shoulders,” Shane said, smiling a little.

“Good.” Mikhail nodded sharply. “It will be there in the morning, and I cannot give you a back rub when it’s there.”

Shane laughed and squinted into the fog. He was glad home was less than two miles away. Right now it was the only place he wanted to be.

Jon and Deacon
:
Brothers Against the Wind

J
ON
walked through Deacon’s house, and it was ringingly empty. The old plaid couches were thick with dust, and the ratty carpet was soiled with too many boots and no broom. Booze bottles sat everywhere.

Patrick, Deacon’s hired man, had told him that Deacon was sick and in the house, and that he was being stubborn about help. Bring Valium, he’d said—Deacon had told him to have Jon bring Valium. Jon hadn’t seen Deacon since the night Deacon had gotten back from seeing Crick in Georgia. It had been a good night—a big bottle of vodka, lots of talking about high school, a debrief about the wedding, how’s married life, that sort of thing. Jon had seen Deacon relax a little, let go, had thought vodka agreed with him. Hoped they’d have some more.

But Jon had been busy setting up business, and Deacon—well, he’d sort of dropped off the map. Jon had been a little relieved, actually. It hurt to see the guy missing Crick so badly when Jon himself wanted to beat the living shit out of the kid. Kid who’d run off and do a thing like that—he didn’t deserve Deacon.