Storm Season

by Elle Keaton

  “I should quit being such a hard-ass. Weir’s a good guy. He doesn’t fuck up like the rest of them.”

  “I kind of think that might be the attitude Mohammad was talking about.”

  Adam grinned, his face lighting up, the little lines around his eyes making him even more handsome. A smile made him look like an entirely different person. A person Micah was growing very attached to. He was a stupid romantic at heart; he had to turn his face so Adam wouldn’t see what was very clearly written across his face.

  “Yeah, I know. I think Weir can handle it, though. And I’m not going easy on somebody who makes mistakes. I only get burned once.”

  “In the spirit of all this honesty we are throwing around, I should also tell you—”

  “Oh my fucking God, you told him about Seth!” Adam struggled to get up, but he was trapped between Micah and the arm of the couch. Micah grabbed Adam’s face between his palms, almost immediately distracted by the soft day-old stubble Adam had going. Something about something was what he’d planned on saying, but instead he pressed his mouth to Adam’s. Adam played hard to get for about two seconds before his lips opened and let Micah in.

  The heat of his mouth, the roughness of his tongue, the heady scent that was entirely Adam…Micah licked inside, holding Adam’s face still, and bit his full bottom lip, feeling Adam’s hot breath across his own cheek. His hands slid up into Adam’s hair. Adam’s hands had snuck down and begun pulling Micah’s shirt up to get to his sensitive nipples. He’d only been semi-aroused before; now his dick was throbbing in time with his heart.

  Adam had the advantage now. He pushed Micah back onto the plush cushions, pulling his shirt off at the same time. The hoodie Adam had been wearing was gone like magic. Micah couldn’t see that magnificent chest and not make a fool of himself. Adam lowered himself onto Micah, his weight delicious, warmth touching his own hot, tight skin. The rough hair on Adam’s chest caught his nipples, and Micah gasped and moaned. He was so needy, but he needed more.

  Adam sucked Micah’s top lip into his warm, wet mouth. He slid his hands into the elastic waist of Micah’s ratty sweatpants, pulling them down enough to expose the tip of his cock, which was throbbing in time with his heart. Adam’s pants were down, too, and he lined them up so they were touching and wrapped his large hand around both of them. His other hand was pinching Micah’s nipple. Two strokes had Micah grinding so hard against him they were both going to have blisters, but he couldn’t stop, there was no way. His balls tightened and everything he knew disappeared when Adam pressed back down against him. Micah could feel hot streams of come pulsing onto his belly. His, or Adam’s? That thought made him tighten up and, God knew how, he shot again. He couldn’t move his limbs.

  Adam rolled against the back of the couch, throwing his arm across his eyes. Neither moved to get a washcloth. Micah reached over his shoulder to try to reach the tissues he thought were there.

  “Did you distract me with sex?” Adam’s tone was teasing.

  “Not on purpose. Did it work?”

  Adam snorted. “We both need a shower now, I’m not angry, and I guess I have to be a big boy and behave myself. Is there anything else I should know, or do you and Mohammad have it all worked out?”

  What Micah wanted to do was to lie around the rest of the evening naked under blankets with a fire roaring in the huge fireplace. And to have sex. More sex. Again. His body felt so alive and aware. He wasn’t allowed call it “making love,” though, not even in his head. If he did, it would mess this fragile thing up. Adam was still X factor, intentions unknown; Micah couldn’t expect him to stay in Skagit, even if he did suspect Adam might feel something for Micah as well. Something more than casual.

  Micah had told Mohammad how Adam had basically broken down that morning; how he’d learned about Seth, his supposed but probable younger half-brother. He and Mohammad had talked for quite a while. It had been clear that Adam had already mentioned Micah to his boss. Mohammad had expressed his sorrow about the loss of Micah’s family. Mostly it had been Micah worrying about Adam. Mohammad had finished the phone call with, “You’re good for him. He never lets anyone care for him. Ida, my wife, has come closest, but even she…well, keep doing whatever you are doing.”

  “I did tell Mohammad about Seth. I was, am, worried about you. And, look, we haven’t known each other that long. I figured your boss might know something.”

  Adam sighed. “Come on, let’s go take a shower.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah—heh, Mohammad hates it when I say that. Yeah, I’m okay. Right now, I want a shower. Later I want you again. In between that I need to figure some shit out.”

  Forty

  The reality of calling Seth Culver proved to be more difficult than Adam anticipated. He ended up putting it off, claiming he needed to think about what he wanted to say. Micah wasn’t fooled, but he didn’t call Adam out on his avoidance tactic.

  Really, what was he going to say? The lawyers had confirmed his identity and verified the father’s name on his birth certificate was Gerald Klay. It was freaking him out to think that all the time he had considered himself alone, he’d had a brother only a few years younger than himself. He wondered if he would remember Seth’s mother.

  The person to talk to would be Ed, Adam didn’t think he was ready for that either. He sighed, tightening his grip on Micah, who had tucked himself into Adam’s side and fallen asleep with remarkable ease. Morning light was starting to peek around the bedroom curtains. He could hear the rain pounding on the roof and gurgling down the rainspouts.

  “I can hear you thinking,” Micah murmured, his voice raspy with sleep.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you.” Adam couldn’t help rubbing circles on Micah’s back, still awed it was his to touch and caress. Micah stretched, resembling his evil cat’s liquid movement. Frankenstein did not like Adam. Before they’d gone back to bed last night, he had tried to shred Adam’s ankles at every chance. When he was thwarted from that activity, he lay splayed out on the couch and hissed when Adam went to move him so he and Micah could sit there.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  No, not really, he kind of wanted to hide in Micah’s bedroom, away from prying eyes and loose tongues.

  “I guess I’m trying to find my new normal. Ugh, I cannot believe I used that phrase, but I feel a little off balance with,” he waved a hand around, “everything. In a way, I’m not who I thought I was.”

  Micah sat up next to Adam against the headboard, pulling the covers up with him.

  “It’s a lot of change. Um, are you okay with us? I mean, I don’t want to come between you and your long-lost brother, or the other stuff you have to do here. I don’t want to assume anything.”

  Micah was looking at him intently, as if by looking he could see inside Adam’s brain and figure out what the hell was going on in there. Adam kind of wished he could, because even Adam didn’t know what was going on in there.

  “So far the best thing to happen to me in Skagit has been meeting you.” Adam wasn’t good at this kind of stuff. Fuck, he’d never wanted to pursue a serious relationship with anyone before. Too complicated, too many factors, more effort than he was willing to put in.

  Looking into those complex green eyes, full of trust and something probably pretty close to love, Adam took a deep breath.

  “Look, I’m not good at this. I’m gonna mess up; I admit I’m a little overloaded right now. But the one thing I do know is that you are the best thing that has happened to me in years.” He was trying to figure out how to articulate what he was thinking. “You know, when I came up here I put all my stuff in storage and let my apartment go. At the time my reasoning was, coming to Skagit was going to take a while and I was tired of wasting money on an apartment. In the last few months I don’t know if I’d even spent an entire week there, what with all the travel I do. I still don’t know where I’m going to end up. I think I want to sell Gerald’s place, but I’ve also found a family h
ere in Skagit that I didn’t know I had, and now that I do I want to be here as much as I can. I think. I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

  Micah tugged Adam closer, his hand on the back of his neck. He pressed their lips together, a promise and an invitation. Adam accepted.

  Forty-One

  Micah eyed the ruined house skulking amongst the evergreens on the unkempt five-acre lot outside of town. Adam hadn’t been joking when he said it wasn’t a pretty sight. It had been a gorgeous log home at one point. Adam said that most of the logs had come from trees on the property. Now the roof was enveloped in a thick coat of clinging moss, and the logs making up the north and east walls were dark and streaked with water damage. Log houses needed to be treated with oil regularly to keep them from rotting, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Clearly that had not happened for a while.

  He kind of couldn’t believe that Adam had brought him out here. When they had left the house after their very separate showers, Micah thought they were going to the lawyers’ offices. When Adam had pointed his little SUV toward the outskirts of town, Micah guessed they were going to Gerald’s but was still surprised. Adam had been quiet during the drive but hadn’t seemed pensive, but quiet because there wasn’t much to say.

  Micah didn’t know too much about Gerald Klay, but it was hard to live in Skagit and know nothing. His artwork was everywhere. The shops that couldn’t afford the real thing sold every print available; the few fine-art galleries showcased anything they could get their hands on. Aside from tulips, Gerald Klay’s art was the biggest tourist attraction Skagit had.

  “Let’s go inside. Ed told me not much trash is left. Even though I dropped the ball, Ed, Don, Tim, and a couple others have been working on it.”

  “You trust them?” Micah knew that Klay hadn’t done much in recent years, but buyers would pay for anything, any scrap from his scandalous life.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. Come on.”

  The house smelled like cleaning solution. Micah could not see any trash or stacks of ephemera like Adam had told him about, but there was an underlying scent of mold, dust, and rot. The guys had left the things they thought Adam needed to decide on. Stacks of canvases leaned against any free space along the walls, two, three, even four deep. Many of them seemed to be half started or rejects. Even the rejects demonstrated Klay’s talent. Landscapes of the Skagit Valley in all its majesty, depicted in all seasons and weather. He’d been painting for so many years that some of the views had been destroyed or swallowed by urban sprawl long before Micah was born. Klay had been a master of the ethereal, a flowing Asian-influenced style. The art was hard to look at, knowing what he did about Adam.

  They were there to pick up things Adam might want for himself. Adam had arranged for one of the gallery owners he trusted to come to the house with Ed and give estimates on pieces that still hung on the walls. Apparently, some of those had been there as long as Adam remembered and he figured they would be worth more. The ones on the floor were evidence of Gerald’s slow slide into despair.

  “I’ll have Paige look at these, too, I guess.”

  They’d brought several moving boxes for what Adam would keep, and worked in separate rooms to save time. Adam was in his childhood room packing up a ridiculously tattered comic-book collection and had directed Micah to “take care of the shit in the living room.” There wasn’t much; a few delicate wood carvings in the native Northwest style. They were dusty and the wood under the paint was cracked and stained. Into the box they went. Adam didn’t want any furniture, but Micah checked all the cabinets and shelves just in case.

  The bottom drawer of a built-in piece that looked like it was supposed to hold china and crystal was packed with ratty dime paperbacks from the ’40s and ’50s (into the box they went) and random decks of cards from tourist spots around the world. Adam had never said anything about travel. Coasters from defunct restaurants and bars; the Moose Crossing had been closed since before Micah could recall. It wasn’t until the recent economic boom that someone took the plunge, tearing it down and putting in a quick-mart or something.

  The bottom drawer also held three battered photo albums, a shoe box stuffed with snapshots, and two yellowed envelopes with what looked like documents.

  All thoughts of packing gone, Micah pulled the first album out and began flipping through it. The black-and-white photos were taken in maybe the late 1940s and into the ’50s, judging from the clothing. Gerald Klay as a young man in a natty suit, his arm around the shoulders of another equally sharp young man whom Micah recognized as George Franklin before his own fame as a preeminent Northwest artist. Another one of Klay standing on a steep street in what had to be Chinatown in San Francisco. Leaning casually against a lamppost, a cigarette dangling from his lip. The photographer’s shadow stretched out behind Gerald’s, the two mingling.

  It was the third album where he hit pay dirt. Adam as a baby, toddler, and young boy. Always surrounded by grubby artists, shadows of people standing behind him in the snapshots. Weirdly amateurish for a bunch of professional artists. In only one was Gerald holding Adam. For the most part he, Gerald, looked on as his son played, built sand castles, and ate apples; a voyeur into his young son’s life.

  There were a few with Ed in them. He had a cocky grin and usually had his arm around a pretty girl. Never the same one twice. Lots of cigarettes and empty bottles featured, too. The never-ending party for real. Micah didn’t find any more pictures after Adam was about seven years old. Nothing. Not even hideously posed school pictures. The shoe box might have more, but he simply stuck it in the bigger box with the envelopes. Taking a glance at the papers, they didn’t seem too important; Adam’s birth certificate (May 4) and some vaccination records. He stuck them in the box as Adam came around the corner carrying his boxes.

  “I’m done. Let’s go.” His eyes flicked down to the albums in the box. “Oh man, baby pictures?” Micah’s cheeks heated because, yep, he had been caught red-handed.

  “Come on, Mr. Nostalgia, you can pump me for information later.”

  Pulling up at home, Micah noticed that Mrs. Andersen’s recycling bins had been knocked over by the recent windstorm. He braved the elements to pick them up for her. One of the things he loved best about his neighborhood was that there were still old Skagit families represented.

  Lots of neighborhoods in Skagit had history, but most of the people who were a part of it had moved away or died. Other neighborhoods were unrecognizable because the tiny post-WWII cottages had been torn down and replaced by monstrosities. Micah’s neighborhood, Elizabeth Park, was kind of protected by old Skagit money—soon enough, though, he figured people like Mrs. Andersen would die and their children or grandchildren would sell instead of maintaining the huge old houses. She peeked out the window while he was there and gave him a wave.

  Adam was waiting at the front door holding an armload of boxes. His form made Micah’s own body tighten in response. Micah would never get tired of seeing him, as cliché as that sounded in his head. He had to stop for a minute; he knew his face was an open book. Adam wasn’t here to stay. He had a life and it wasn’t here. It was all over the United States, going wherever he was sent to investigate to try to bring closure to grieving families. The man in question motioned for him to hurry up, and Micah plastered a smile on his face and obeyed.

  Micah was amazed at how much the professional restorers had done on his house in a few days. Micah would be taking care of the cosmetic work himself. Maybe he would finally paint the kitchen a different color than the one his mother had chosen so many years before. Prints and photographs hanging on the living-room walls had been destroyed, and Micah was kind of looking forward to putting up a few of his own choices.

  They’d only barely finished bringing the boxes in from the car when Adam’s cell phone chimed. Micah could hear Jack Summers’s obnoxious voice from ten feet away. He couldn’t quite make out all the words, but whatever he said to Adam, his face reverted to the grim no-expression one he h
ad on when Micah first saw him at the Booking Room.

  Micah heard Adam end the call and his soft footsteps as he padded into the kitchen where Micah was trying to make something to eat and pretend not to be eavesdropping. Adam was wearing his trademark hard expression, but when he reached Micah he pulled him into a mind-melting embrace. Adam’s warm breath clung to Micah’s neck. After a long moment, he stepped back.

  “I have to go. Weir, my partner for now, is meeting me at SkPD headquarters. Jack Summers, of all people, is on to something.” He grinned. “I totally forgot Weir was coming today. I’ll be back as soon as I can. But it’s probably going to be hours.”

  Forty-Two

  The house felt cold and empty with Adam gone. Even Frankenstein rubbing against his legs and trying to kill him in the kitchen couldn’t push the gloom away. Too much time to think.

  Jack Summers was a loud asshole. He did not appear to have a volume lower than 9, and Micah had heard something on the call that sparked a distant memory. For the first time in many years he voluntarily went into his father’s study and unlocked the closet where the enormous gunmetal-gray filing cabinet lurked menacingly.

  His dad had brought the thing home from the university when they remodeled the library. His mother had been horrified by it. It had taken two huge college guys to move it in (Micah had enjoyed every minute). There it still was, holding whatever files and notes his father had thought fit to store at home and not in his office at the courthouse.

  Everyone has a superpower. Micah’s was a good memory. It wasn’t exactly photographic, but he could flip to a page where information was and find it by recognizing the pattern of the words. He remembered faces, even if he hadn’t seen them for many years. He remembered names.

  Summers had been using his uncontrollable outside voice while talking with Adam. Micah had plainly heard the name Matveev. It was a Russian name. One Micah remembered his dad saying.