Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) (17 page)

“What are you mad about?” Martin asked into the quiet. “Kid….” Jeff couldn't look at him. It sounded so pathetic. “Your brother promised me a happy-ever-after. He did. I mean, I knew where he was going, and I knew it was dangerous, but….” He shook his head, looking absently at the spiffy new linoleum. It was actually a saturated

pastel-purple. Mikhail or Kimmy must have picked it out—Shane would have gone for green or brown. “It didn't seem to matter. I trusted him. My family had sort of ditched me, and I'd been… so alone, through college, you know? And he said he'd get back and we'd have a house and a picket fence and… and I believed him. So even before his fucking letter….”
Fuck.
“Even before that. I was pissed. I….” His voice was breaking.

“I mean, what sort of fucking world is this, kid? They don't let you see your mother, they don't let you go to your boyfriend's funeral… and it's all so faceless. It's „they'. There doesn't seem to be a person involved, or someone you can talk to, right, to make this shit better, it's just your whole world is controlled by „they', and… it's just „you'. „You' and your cats and your memories of when you hoped for something more.” He was rambling. Wandering. But he didn't seem to be able to divorce Jeffy from the pain in his chest anymore. Maybe a day like this one did that to you.

His self-distraction ended abruptly when Martin took a few hesitant steps forward. Jeff looked up, and Martin was suddenly human-distance close.

“I'm sorry about the funeral,” he said quietly. “I am. You're right—„they' wouldn't have let you come. But I wish you could have seen that, at least, you know?” Martin's voice got wobbly now, and Jeff wondered if there was any way to get a karmic cleansing of this particular room. Did rooms like this one, pleasant and soothing, did they ever get so saturated with tears that the tears just came? “They….” The kid caught himself, and his shoulders were shaking, and Jeff took two steps in to see if the kid was going to repel him. When he didn't, Jeff took two more steps and put his hands on Martin's arms, hesitantly.

The kid almost fell into him, with relief maybe, at not carrying this burden alone.
“They burnt his flag,” he finished on a sob. “Before I left, I asked my dad what happened to Kevin's flag, and he said he'd burnt it.”
Oh Jesus. Jeff wrapped his arms around Kevin's little brother and let the kid cry on him, like maybe he hadn't cried since he'd seen his brother's memory torched and flared in ashes.
It seemed to go on forever, but Jeff didn't mind. This was Kevin's little brother, a part of Kevin, and for this moment, the kid seemed to need him. God, it felt good to be needed.
Eventually the storm eased up, and Martin backed away, sniffling, wiping his face with the back of his hands and looking away. They stood there (awkwardly) for a minute, and then Jeff shuffled his feet.
“Look, kid, do you like it here?”
Martin shrugged. “Yeah, it's all right.”
“Because I don't have anything for you to do in the day, so I'd have to drop you off here in the morning or something, but… if you want… I've got a spare bedroom. It's….” Jeff smiled and remembered Collin's words from that day at The Pulpit. “It's so gay it makes a gay pride parade look like a Baptist revival, but… but it's a home. I've got two cats, and a Wii, and Netflix, and every DVD known to man, and books—”

That got Martin's attention.
“Books?”
“Yeah. Books. Thrillers, mysteries, true crime….” Jeff resisted the

urge to cackle. “I've sort of got this fetish for grisly murder-mysteries. Do you like to read?”

Martin's animation deflated politely. “I'm sort of into fantasy and science fiction—
The Wheel of Time, The Hunger Games—
”
“I've got the last one,” Jeff offered. “It was really good.”
Martin perked up again. “Yeah?” He looked around for a minute, like he was afraid someone would hear him. “I, uhm… I mean, I like this place. I want to come back. Did you know they take you next door to let you clean up after the horses? The guy there—”
“Deacon?”
“Yeah—you know him? He's awesome! He doesn't talk, right, so he's like all mysterious and shit, but you should
see
him on the horses. It's fuck… frickin' amazing. Anyway.” Martin looked around again. “The people here are nice,” he said quietly. “And I was lucky. And I never said thank you, because I guess you called your people in big time to take care of me. But….” His mouth worked, and he started to bounce the way that normally active teenagers did when they would rather be moving or talking. “I… I want to spend a day shooting hoops by myself, or reading a whole book, or… just being in my own head. But they don't let you do that here. I mean, I understand why.” Martin looked around again and shuddered and dropped his voice.
“That boy, Alec, the one in the kitchen?”

Jeff nodded.
“He was doing
meth
on the streets. And he's totally committed to rehab and everything, but… but… if he doesn't have something to do,

like,
every second of the day
, he's thinking about drugs. And he keeps sneaking outside to smoke, and I think Kimmy and Shane let him, because they know he's trying really hard, but Mikhail came and caught him, and he just went off on a rant about how bad that shit was for you, and then Alec was in tears and….”

Martin's look was miserable. “The people here are really nice, man, but there is
way
too much drama. You know, my folks, what they did to Kevin's memory wasn't right, and I don't think I can face them, not right now, but….”

“You don't belong here,” Jeff said, saving him from the embarrassment of saying it. “You're a good kid. You get good grades— Kevin was so proud of you, even in, what? The fourth grade? You have a family.” Jeff stopped his chin from quivering with ruthless determination. “Even if you never talk to your parents again, you have a family, you understand? You're Kevin's family, and I can't leave you here another night, not when you don't want to stay.”

Martin nodded and wiped his eyes again, then frowned. “I… you don't have a boyfriend or anything? Because… I mean, I'm still not great with it, you know? And that shit would just creep me the fuck out.”

Jeff thought of the way his lips still tingled from that kiss in the car, the way Collin had been a stand-up guy for a shit-kicker of a day, and he felt his heart shrivel a little, when he hadn't realized how full it had been. “I've got a candidate for the position,” Jeff said, remembering how hot Collin's eyes had been. “And I haven't… not since Kevin. But don't worry. Don't worry. I'll… he'll understand.”

Martin looked relieved, and Jeff closed his eyes and begged Collin's forgiveness. Or maybe, he begged for Collin to be true to his twenty-four-year-old heart and take off for the hills—it had been a long day. He wasn't really sure where his prayers were supposed to go.

F
OUR
days later, he still wasn't sure, but he had decided that having a roommate wasn't so bad.

Martin was neat and courteous, although Shane cautioned Jeff not to expect that to last. “A comfortable kid is a sloppy kid. Just like grownups.”

Jeff figured he could deal with nasty sweat socks in his living room and unwashed dishes in the sink when he came home, but so far, it hadn't happened. It helped that of the four days, Martin had spent two at the shelter for runaways, helping the other kids with their chores and enjoying going next door to The Pulpit or playing with Shane's dogs or playing videos with friends. Jeff thought that maybe having an escape valve from all of the intense unhappiness that went in to making a runaway kid helped. Martin
had
been living a happy life. His world had shifted, in the blink of an eye, and just like Jeff had, he needed time to readjust, to shift his thinking, to decide if the world was really a happy place or not.

Jeff had been lucky—he'd had the dorms, he'd had school, and he'd had the club scene and the dancing and being around people just like him who were out, proud (and, let's face it, hellaciously horny), and, on the dance floor, free. Martin was fourteen. He didn't need to go clubbing; he wasn't ready to be living in a dorm room by himself. He needed a family, and Jeff was pleased that the boy had decided Jeff would pass, at least until he was ready to go home. They'd talked about that, or rather,
not
talked about it.

“I did call my folks,” Martin had said, “and they won't let me come home if I'm going to talk about Kevin. I'm not ready to go home and pretend I never had a brother.”

Kevin had been fourteen years older than Martin, with three kids in between them. Jeff remembered that, Kevin talking about his little brothers and their sister and how proud he'd been. How much he thought Martin was going to be the best of all of them, maybe because Kevin himself had done most of the raising. Apparently Martin hadn't forgotten help with homework, and Kevin picking him up from school or taking him to the park. Jeff found that that pain, that pain of Kevin being gone from the world, was a little less sharp, knowing that Jeff wasn't the only one who missed him, who'd known everything that he was.

They discussed it on the way to Sunday dinner—but not before Jeff had his own little discussion in his own pointy little head.

Oh God, is Collin really going to be there? Really? How would Jeff tell him? Would he understand? Maybe they will just… date. That would be good. They would date, but no sleepovers. There. That was a plan. Jeff would run with that.

Please, please, please, Collin….

Oh Jesus, Jeff, you moron, this is the perfect excuse to push him away!

But he kisses like a fucking god. I don't want to push him away! Yes, yes you do because—
Shut up. I don't want to talk about that. I had five minutes of

happiness, and we're going to pretend the big black bird in my chest is, like, a starling. And it's dead. And thinking about love doesn't hurt. Oh God. It does. It does, it does, it does.

So what are we going to do?
We're going to date!
We. Are. So. Fucking. Stupid.
About that point in his little conversation with himself, Martin

reminded Jeff about Lucas, and Jeff suggested that maybe they should invite Lucas over, or maybe ask the guy if he wanted to take Martin to the movies.

“Should I ask him to bring Kimmy?” Martin asked slyly, and Jeff grinned, holding up a clenched fist for Martin to bump. Martin did, and they had another thing to bond over—their complete willingness to mess with Kimmy's love life. Because, as Martin said, “She's a really nice lady, and I think Lucas would treat her good.”

And Jeff would get to dish with her about it, and that would be win/win too.
Jeff pulled into the driveway at The Pulpit with mixed feelings, and Martin obviously had them too.
“Wait a minute—I thought you said we were having dinner with Crick!”
“Yeah,” Jeff muttered absently, seeing Collin's car.
“Then why are we at Deacon's?”

Jeff pulled up next to that big-dick car and did a double take at Martin, who looked obviously puzzled. He'd been to The Pulpit on several occasions—Shane took the kids over to help Deacon with the work, and the kids liked being with the horses, and Martin had this idea of Deacon as a mystery man and horse god, and Jeff had just assumed….

Well, he knew what they said about assumptions.
“Crick is Deacon's husband—you didn't know that?”

Martin's jaw literally fell open, and of all the emotions Jeff had expected to feel this night, this particular level of irony had not been among them.

“Well, Martin, honey, you do realize that not all gay men have my fabulous sense of style, right?”
Martin scowled at him before his face lit with some evil triumph. “
That's
a stereotype! We spent two hours yesterday talking about gay people and stereotypes, man, you can't
tell
me that you talking about how being gay gives you style isn't a stereotype!”
Jeff had to laugh. God, he liked this kid. “Martin, are you good at basketball?”

Ooooh… that was tough. He was—Jeff had seen him at the shared condo basketball hoop, and he'd been good. “Yeah.”

“Is that because you're black, or because you're tall and like to practice?”
Martin grinned. “Because I'm tall and like to practice.”
Jeff nodded, and Martin started nodding too. “Maybe, sweetcheeks, I have a good sense of style because I'm gay, and I like to practice. The „gay' gives me permission, that's all.”
Martin shook his head and got out of the car. And then, without being asked, he pushed the front seat forward and reached into the back and got out the extremely intricate casserole that he and Jeff had spent the morning assembling and cooking. Jeff usually brought bread or dessert, but Martin had been interested in cooking, and Jeff didn't get a lot of chances to cook for more than one.
“Hey,” Martin said as they were walking up the porch, “Deacon and Andrew are out in the stables—do you think I can go visit?”
Jeff shrugged. “Why not? You're here as a guest tonight, not an employee. Can you deal with Deacon's new identity?” Oooh… crucial question. Martin had idolized Kevin too.
But it seemed to take Martin by surprise. “I guess,” he said thoughtfully. “I mean… it's not like… it's not like he's going to be anything other than Deacon, right?”
Jeff raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
“Jesus, just shut up!” Martin shoved the casserole at him, and Jeff took it with an “Oof!” and a ginger effort not to touch the warm glass under the insulating towel.
He balanced the dish in one arm, turned the knob on the front door, and walked practically right into Collin's arms.
He had to do some quick dodging with his hips to not end up wearing that casserole—or dumping it all over Collin's lap, either. Good thing, too, because if he'd dumped it, they might have both ended up naked in the mudroom again, and wouldn't that be a shame?
“Whoa!” Collin laughed, wrapping one arm around Jeff's waist and reaching out with the other to steady the heavy dish. “Food is our friend!”
“And not on our clothes,” Jeff said breathlessly. The world stopped spinning, and he got the casserole under control, but Collin's arm was still wrapped around his waist, and Jesus, was it solid! Jeff looked up almost shyly and saw that that angel's face, with the high cheekbones and narrow cheeks and pouty lips and gold-brown eyes, was smiling at him, asking him to share the joke, and he found that, oh my God, was he blushing? He was. He was staring at this boy, silly-stupid, and
blushing.
He cleared his throat and backed up, and Collin let him with little more than a raised eyebrow. “Good to see you, Jeffy—did you think I wouldn't show?”
Jeff shook his head. The thought honestly hadn't occurred to him. “It's good to see you too. Uhm….” Oh shit—Martin! “You may have noticed that I did something stupid since the last time we saw each other.”
Collin covered it quickly, but Jeff caught the hurt that flashed across his face and cursed. No. No, this man (man!) was not going to take the suggestion of just “dating” to satisfy Martin's carefully indoctrinated homophobia, oh no he wasn't.
“I'm sorry, Collin,” Jeff said quietly. “It's not… ideal, not for you and me, anyway. I….” Oh, apologies did not sit well on him, not when he was doing as much right as he possibly could. “You know, you may want to ask a boy out on a real date before you get all pissy about his prior commitments, you think?” He thrust out his chin and cocked his hips, and Collin's lips curved up reluctantly in a warm, almost breathtaking smile.
“You are awfully damned high maintenance, you know that?”