Left on St. Truth-Be-Well (13 page)

He spotted the stairwell, and room 245, and saw the room next to it, open and with the light on. By the time he got up the stairs, he realized the safest place for Stassy to be when this whole thing went down was right there, where everything began.

Goddammit, here he was, back in another broom closet.

Carson slammed the door behind him as he entered and looked around.

“Well, this is a little nicer than the last time we did this,” he said, and Stassy and the young man holding the duffel next to him looked up in shock. They were both a little messed and stubble burnt, and the place smelled like a quick hand job, so maybe Stassy had learned the value of a good broom closet after all, which could explain why they’d been so late. But that didn’t help any of them
now
,
did it?

“Carson, what the hell?”

“Stassy, Toby.” Carson nodded congenially. Toby had dark hair like his brother, but his was cut short so it stuck up in front. The brown eyes were the same, but Toby’s features were rounder, less pointy, and he had a whole lot fewer tattoos.

“Carson?” Toby asked, still holding on to Stassy’s duffel. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Do you guys know how many dead bodies are in this fucking place?” Carson asked. He looked around—the space was around six-by-four, and the shelves were mostly full of cleaning supplies and quicklime. A stack of boxes sat near the boys’ end, but all things considered, his best bet to make himself comfortable was to cop a squat.

“Sit down.” He gestured, sinking to his haunches. “Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll tell you all about it. Just don’t go outside until the cops come get us, okay?”

His hand throbbed, and it was still bleeding, and Carson sighed. The plain blue T-shirt he wore fit his shoulders well and not much did. Oh hell. He hauled the shirt over his head and wrapped the fabric around his hand, hoping he didn’t go septic or something stupid before he even had a chance to wash it.

While he was doing that, they all heard a sudden sound, muffled and distant but very distinctive.

“Carson, was that a gunshot?”

Oh please, let Dale be okay. Please let him do what I said this once, oh please oh please oh please.

“Probably. Who wants to know where that came from?”

Eyes huge and mouths open, they nodded, and he sat them down and had him a little story time. He told them about Beatrice and the dead bodies and the drugged parrots and the brothel on the side, and how the whole shebang was melting down in the lobby as they sat there and shot the shit.

Stassy was a little mind-blown, but Toby was unsurprised.

“Man, Beatrice has been off her cracker since her mama died. I always thought she pushed the ol’ bitch down the stairs herself. Mama Bates was not a nice person.”

“There’s bodies on this floor?” Stassy asked, back about three steps behind Toby. Suddenly Carson was reassured. Toby was to Stassy what Dale was to Carson. Toby would take care of him, and Stassy needed that.

“Yup.”

Then they heard sirens, and for the first time in his life, that sound set Carson’s mind at ease. “And now there’s cops on the scene.”

A horrible pause ensued and Carson wished like hell for his phone. But Dale had his phone, and Carson had to hope he was okay. This had been the right call, right? Keeping Stassy and Toby out of the fray, that was good, right? And Dale could talk to his brother and tell him to be careful, right?

God, he hated being a grown-up. He wanted Dale to tell him it was okay, and that shoving your lover in a bush and telling him to hide was not the end of a beautiful relationship.

He couldn’t even worry about it, because Stassy and Toby were looking paler and more wide-eyed by the second. Part of it was the space, he was sure. With him on his ass and those two on boxes, they were practically touching knees. He could smell Stassy’s aftershave—which he never particularly liked; it was why he’d waited until most of it was sweated off before he’d made his move—and Toby’s deodorant, which was actually a lot less irritating; and the musk of whatever had been going on before he burst in. He could also track the droplets of sweat sliding down their faces, when it really was more cold than hot in the stupid little closet. Whoa, shit, were they nervous!

“We’re not gonna get in trouble, are we, Carson?” Toby was petting Stassy’s hand like he’d pet a skittish cat, probably for good reason.

“Seriously, Stassy, what’d you do? I think your biggest crime at this point is escaping the crazy lady’s iron, and they can’t arrest you for that. No, I’m pretty sure once this blows over, you and me can go back to Chicago and leave Florida to the alligators and the fuckin’ lizards on the wall.”

Toby laughed a little, but Stassy’s lower lip came out. “Yeah, I don’t think I could live here,” he said apologetically, and Toby shrugged.

“I’d like to live somewhere else,” he said. “Carson wasn’t shitting around about the wildlife.”

“It’s not the wildlife that scares me so much as the crazy bird lady with the iron,” Carson said, effectively stopping that conversation before he could dump on the two kids he came here to keep safe. It worked as a redirect too. Toby and Stassy were in the middle of asking him a buttload of questions he barely knew something about when the police came knocking on the door to the room, and they were saved.

Dale was right behind the cops, shaking his head like he was pissed off, especially when he saw Carson without his shirt. But he got a good look at Carson coming out of the broom closet alone and Stassy coming out clinging to Toby’s hand, and he relaxed a little. He wiggled his way through a couple of state troopers who had apparently been called in to help sort the shit, and raised his eyebrows.

In that minute, Carson didn’t give a shit who knew his sexual history. He was never going to get that T-shirt that said “This is the only guy I fucked in a bed instead of a broom closet” or “Normally, I like girls.”

“I’m sorry I shoved you in the bushes,” he said as they got close enough to talk. Dale had some scratches on his bare arms and his knees, but then, Carson was still dripping blood through his T-shirt from the rip on his hand. “I didn’t want you to get shot, but I figured you could manage the cavalry, right?”

“I don’t give a damn about the bushes. But next time you get locked in a broom closet, dammit, I want to be along for the ride!” Dale opened his arms then, and Carson went into them, and for a little while, they were an island in the chaos.

W
HEN
all was said and done, he and Stassy had to stay for another two weeks. Stassy stayed at Toby’s place, Carson stayed at Dale’s, and they cleaned their shit out of the little motel across from the Bates Parrot Hotel on the night Beatrice Bates made history as the Dorothea Puente By The Sea.

Carson, Dale, Stassy, and even Toby were all questioned and deposed until Carson was pretty sure his tongue was going to fall out, but when that was over, they were told not to leave town for a little while and left the fuck alone.

Carson got really good at surfing. He helped Dale strip and paint his house. He learned to shine the light beam in all the corners so the critters would never, ever scare him.

But after two weeks of making love almost every day, he never did get a chance to top.

So the day Glen drove to Dale’s, they had a dinner of grilled burgers and a few beers on the back porch, and he told Carson he could go home, that seemed to be the time to do it, right?

Glen left—still a prick, but a little friendlier toward Carson, at any rate—and the two of them waved good-bye as the squad car rumbled off into the sunset. Carson leaned into Dale’s body a little, and Dale kissed his temple.

“So, you’re leaving tomorrow, are you?”

Carson made an affirmative sound. Ivan had been calling twice a day, asking when Carson was going to do his goddamned job and bring Stassy back. Carson had told him, repeatedly, that the cops wouldn’t let Stassy go until they were ready to let Carson go, and Ivan had to be content with that because he was not ready to have the cops nosing about his affairs.

But Glen had just come and told them they’d probably be called in to testify on the state’s dime in a year or two, and until then, they had an obligation to let the DA in Florida know where they lived, but they did not need to stay in the state.

It was time.

Dale wrapped an arm around Carson’s waist and Carson leaned into it, thinking he’d never been so comfortable with another human being in his life, ever.

“So, you ready to top, Chicago? Part of your last hurrah?”

Carson looked at him quickly and saw the telltale tightening around his mouth and eyes. It was the same expression he’d worn when Glen had said something over dinner about Carson at least using his degree when he did stand-up, and after two weeks, Carson knew that expression now for what it was.

It was hurt.

“No,” he said quietly, then turned and leaned on the doorjamb. He hooked his thumbs in the cutoffs Dale was wearing and dragged him close so they stood groin to groin, their silence sober in the fading orange light.

“No?”

“No. I think I’ll leave some mystery before I go. New places to explore when I come back, you think?”

Dale’s eyes brightened. “And when’s that going to be?”

But Carson had to look away. “I don’t know. I’ve got to find someone to take up my apartment lease, and make things square with Ivan, and get a line on a job down here.” He looked back, though, found those bright, lazy blue eyes, and tried to give a promise he could make good on. “I’ll come back. I will. But I’ve lived in that city all my life. I need to go say good-bye.”

Dale nodded, and Carson’s heart gave a slightly softer beat in his chest. He could do this, right? He could go back to Chicago and make plans to come back? He could leave everything he knew behind and move here, where he could surf every day and do gigs for the snowbirds. (He’d already looked. The city sported a couple of dinner theaters always looking for talent. He could be doing lame stand-up for the rest of his life, and no one would think the worse of him for it.)

There was hope. He’d be back. He just had to figure out the rest, right?

But Dale must have known he had his doubts. That night, they didn’t play in bed. They didn’t banter. Dale turned out all the lights and kissed him like good-bye wasn’t even a word. He moved inside Carson deep and hard, and when Carson clutched himself and cried out, Dale must have lost his way for a moment, and instead of pushing into Carson harder and faster, just buried his face in Carson’s neck and shivered, still thrusting, but not with purpose.

“C’mon, baby,” Carson muttered brokenly. “You gotta finish this thing out.”

Dale pushed himself up again and rocked forward some more, but when he finally came, it was so slowly, so powerfully, that his back arched and his head was thrown back, and he seemed to spill more than come into Carson’s body.

As Carson held him, pushed back his sweaty hair, kissed the side of his neck, his jaw, his temple, he was pretty sure he was wearing Dale’s soul on his insides and he’d be running away with it in the morning.

He was terrified. Nobody had ever trusted him with something that important before.

L
EAVE
-
TAKING
was simple.

Toby dropped Stassy off at Dale’s place, and Carson threw his stuff into Ivan’s car while the two of them said broken, melodramatic good-byes to each other.

Carson tried to feel very superior that he and Dale were too old and too sensible for that bullshit. They’d kiss, and they’d say good-bye, and Carson would try to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. It would be that easy. No melodrama. Just two sensible people saying good-bye.

He straightened up and felt Dale’s heat at his back. He leaned into Dale’s chest, knowing it was going to be right there, holding him up, and a part of him wondered if he had ever felt that safe in his life. Not since his father had been alive. Not since he’d been a little kid and the old man had been able to pick him up and carry him. His mom had been sort of background noise. When she’d taken off, he’d missed her a little, but he’d had his dad. But Dad—he’d been safe.

Dale, over his back, smelling of sea and sand and a little like sweat—that was safe too.

Dale clasped his hands around Carson’s waist and Carson petted them a little as they stood there, then tilted his head so Dale could nuzzle his jaw.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Dale said, and Carson closed his eyes. Jesus, you’d think a guy could be a little less emotionally honest, right?

“No you won’t. You’ll let the alligator move in. Except for the sex, it’ll be the best roommate you ever had.”

“Stupidest joke ever.”

“Well, you’ve heard all my best material. The new stuff needs work.”

Dale kissed his temple. “Come back and we’ll work on it.”

Carson turned in Dale’s arms and thought,
I am the stupidest asshole on the planet. I should put Stassy on a plane and just stay here.
But Ivan would kill him, and Carson knew better than to ditch stuff he was supposed to do.

He framed Dale’s face with his hands and pulled him down for a kiss, closing his eyes and hoping he’d remember what Dale tasted like. In the kiss, Carson had it down: simple animal taste, some milk and cereal from the morning, the smell of sweat and sand.

They pulled back and it was gone, and Carson felt a sudden pang of fear that they could lose this, lose each other so easily.

“I’m a fuckup,” he confessed suddenly. “I’m a washed-up comedian and a shitty waiter, and what if I can’t get my shit together and come back here? It’s as happy as I’ve ever been in my life.”

Dale reached into Carson’s pocket, his hand warm and intimate and invading, even doing something that small. He came back with Carson’s phone, held it between them, and smiled.

“I’m a simple guy, Carson. I don’t need much. You made the cut. You get your ass back here or I’ll come get you.”

That was actually reassuring. “Yeah?”

“You doubt that you matter?”