by Rachel Kane
"Is this about the store?" Alex said, his voice small and tired and hopeless. "Is he not really going to help me set up a new store?"
Bastian's head tilted. "What? No. No, the store is yours, wherever you want. Or, rather, wherever he wants. Which is the problem."
"You think he wants to control things. He'll have a say in the business. Not be a silent partner."
This was dreadful, not least because Judah's mind was racing ahead. Get on with it! he wanted to say to Bastian, get on with the news so I can start planning how to fix things, but that would be a mistake now, the fixing had been the problem, the fixing was always the problem. So he listened, and tried to pay attention to how Alex felt.
"Alex, he has manipulated the entire situation. That's what I'm saying. The scene out there with the Mulgrew woman? That's all his doing. Who do you think invited her? Who do you think..." Bastian sighed, and now the worry made it past all the cosmetic treatments, the wraps and peels and shots that gave him his statuesque charm, and he brought a pale hand to his face, rubbing the immobile skin between his eyes.
"Maybe you had better start at the beginning," Alex said.
No, thought Judah, that'll take too long, the signing won't last forever, and any minute Ian will be back in here checking on things! But he could not say that. Alex was in charge.
"The beginning? The very beginning. Fine. I have hated you the entire time I've known you existed," said Bastian. "Because Ian would never stop talking about you. And as I said, for the longest time, I assumed he was still attracted. When he announced we were coming here, after our trip to LA to sign papers and meet producers, I was devastated. You have to understand, he'd promised me two weeks in LA. He had promised parties and invitations and meetings with important people. I have my own career to consider, you know? I'm trying to branch out. But instead, he whisked me to this place.
"And then, when I meet you, I see you're clearly no threat. No, don't take that the wrong way," he said, as Alex bristled.
It's cute bristling, thought Judah. He does righteous anger pretty well. Some small part of him wanted to taunt Alex, make him angrier, just because it did such interesting things to his beautiful face. Kissing his angry mouth would have been exciting, and an imperceptible shiver shook Judah's shoulders.
"Yet Ian was obsessed with helping you. I didn't see that you needed any help. You had your little business here. You clearly have a life, and friends, and... I'm sorry, I don't know, are you two together?"
Judah dared not answer. There had been so little time to talk, things hadn't been completely firmed up, there were negotiations to make, aspects to consider—
"We're together," said Alex, and he pulled Judah closer. "We're very, very together."
It was how Judah imagined a flower might feel on its first blossoming in the spring. This was different from those anxious confessions to his brother and friends. This was an admission of love, and it opened him up inside in a way he had never been opened before. Even here, even just with a stranger—a stranger who awakened some sense of insecurity, jealousy, insufficiency—even with Bastian, Judah suddenly felt generous and light, as though the entire world were suddenly his.
Bastian nodded, accepting all of this in an instant. "Then you understand why I didn't see any need for Ian to come rushing to the rescue. You didn't need rescuing. You were set up at Superbia Springs, you had someone helping here at the store...you didn't need us at all. Yet Ian insisted. I couldn't see why. Then it slowly began to make sense, as he started telling me how you were too good for this town. Because I know Ian, and he didn't mean you were too good. He meant he had some other plans for you, and was trying to think them through. And then the other day, everything clicked into place. I should tell you, if you don't already know, that Ian is a genius."
Finally Judah spoke. "That's not the way he strikes me."
Bastian pressed his lips together. "All the dears and darlings, right? He seems fluttery. Extravagant, flamboyant, but not particularly intelligent. But that's part of his disguise. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Alex? Behind all that bonhomie lurks a powerful mind."
Alex had to concede it was true, although Judah wished he wouldn't. What he wanted Alex to say was, No, Ian's always been a bit of a moron.
"It's how he writes those mysteries," Alex said. "He sees everything, notices everything, remembers everything."
"Exactly," said Bastian. "And the other day, I saw him thinking. I knew there was going to be trouble. He saw that boy leaving your store, saw the book he'd been reading."
Judah didn't know why Alex blanched just then. He knew better than to interrupt to ask what Alex was feeling; Alex might not have known, himself, what his emotions were doing in that moment, with that mix of horror, anger, and understanding.
"You are kidding me," Alex said. "You are fucking kidding me. How—"
"Because he's smart," Bastian insisted. "Smarter than I will ever be. After we left the store, he started searching every other store and business, until he found the kid...and it was pretty evident, with that hair, who his father was. Ian confronted him, asked if he knew that you had been selling his son homosexual pornography."
"Jesus Christ!" said Judah. "He what?"
It didn't seem possible for Alex to grow any more pale. A thin sheen of sweat was on his brow, making him look sickly, but also somehow angelic, as though he might pass away this instant, and hover between heaven and hell, his journey depending on the next event in this story Bastian was telling.
Alex's voice was shaky as he said, "Ian confronted Harry Norris to work him up. To make him furious. But how did he know Harry would talk to Violet?"
"He wasn't going to leave that to chance. He slipped a note to Violet, an anonymous one, urging her to call Harry to discuss it. It was all very neat, very clean. Very Ian."
"That motherfucker," said Alex. "He knew what would happen next. He knew what a homophobe like Violet would do."
"He tried to get you evicted?" said Judah.
"He didn't try, he succeeded. So that I'd have no other choice but to take him up on his offer."
"Oh, that does it," said Judah, loosening his tie. "I'm going to kick his ass."
"Judah—"
"No. I'm done. This is awful. He has caused you nothing but trouble, from the minute you met him. Bastian, stand aside."
"It's not going to help anything," said Alex weakly. He gestured at the walls around them. "I've lost it all. I don't know what to do. I thought, even if I lost this place, at least I'd be giving it up for somewhere better, you know?"
Feelings, not fixing. Adrenaline surged in Judah's body. That primal protective instinct told him to get out there right now, to tear Ian apart, to let everyone know what he'd done.
Yet Alex needed a different kind of help right now. He needed emotional support.
"Thank you, Bastian," Judah said to him. "I need to talk to Alex now. Privately."
"I'm very sorry," said Bastian. "I didn't know what was happening until it was too late. I wish I could've prevented this. I don't even know what to do with myself, any more than you do, Alex. Do I break up with Ian? For all his manipulation, some part of me still loves him."
The fate of Bastian's relationship was the furthest thing from Judah's mind, as he closed the door behind the model and turned back to his friend...his boyfriend.
"Tell me what you need," he said. "Do you want a glass of champagne for your nerves? Something stronger? Your pills?"
"I don't know," said Alex. "I don't... I don't know. I'm lost, suddenly."
Judah knelt in front of him. Looking up into Alex's tortured face, there were two sides battling within him, the angry side that knew what needed to be done to repair everything...and the side that simply hurt for Alex.
He knew which side needed to win tonight. He reached forward, slid his arms around Alex's waist, and put his head against Alex's thigh. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I hate that this has happened to you."
And he kne
w, somehow, that for right now, that was enough, this closeness, this touching. Listening wasn't only hearing someone speak, in some ways it didn't require speaking at all. It meant an openness, a listening-for rather than a listening-to. His face against the soft fabric covering Alex's thigh, the weight of Alex's fingers on his head, it was all part of a receptiveness, taking in all the pain Alex was giving off right now, the dread, the disappointment, the anger and fear. Judah found he could take it all, found that no matter what Alex felt, there was room for it in his heart.
35
Alex
Henry James was never specific about his unnameable hurt. Part of the mystery of the man was that he never said what it was, what limb or part of him was injured. If you can't say it, point to it.
Alex could point to all his hurts. He could point to his ankle, where bone ground against bone. Fee fi fo fum. He could point out there where Ian cozily signed books, basking in the adoration of people who had no idea what a monster he was. He could point to the store itself, snatched from him.
Yet he found himself pointing instead to Judah. Judah, who seemed to be absorbing all the pain in the world, a magic trauma sponge, with his head in Alex's lap. Judah, whom he had treated badly, dragging him into this friends-with-benefits thing, dragging him right back out of it when things got stressful with Ian.
"I'm a terrible person," Alex said. "I'm sorry."
"Shut up," suggested Judah reasonably.
"All I ever seem to do is hurt you."
"Do I look hurt? You're the one with the broken leg."
"Someone has put an astonishing amount of gel in your hair. Were you aware of that? I'm poking it. It's immobile."
Judah turned his head and smiled a tentative smile up at Alex, as though he weren't sure which emotion it was proper to express. Alex touched his cheek, the softness of the skin over the bone, leading down to the rougher jawline where the stubble had begun to make an appearance. "That was Noah's doing. He insisted I look good for tonight. So I could impress you and win you back."
"Oh, is that what you're up to? White knight coming to rescue me?"
"You do seem to need rescuing."
"My biography is just a series of accidents," he said. "If you intend to save me from all of them, you're going to stay busy."
"I'm out of the saving game," said Judah. "No more rescues. You can be as self-reliant as you like, I promise."
"Okay, but I'm saying that maybe my self-reliance hasn't gotten me anywhere. Look at me. Jobless. Homeless. Thousands of books and nowhere to put them."
"You'll figure something out," Judah insisted. "No, you will, stop shaking your head. You're so smart, and resourceful, and good, and handsome, and sexy, and—"
"I fail to see how my dazzling sexuality is going to help here. Unless there's a market for male strippers in casts? Could I do a pole dance with this thing on my foot, do you suppose?"
"That's a very niche kind of kink."
"I appreciate what you're doing right now."
"Rubbing your thigh?"
"Well, that too. No, don't stop. You can move your hand a little higher."
"There are a lot of people out there right now. They could knock, any minute."
"Exhibitionism isn't a very niche kink. It's very widely enjoyed. Very common. Totally respectable. But what I meant was, I appreciate that you're not jumping in with suggestions. I know you're trying to think of them."
"One or two."
A quiet laugh, more through the nose than the throat. Matching the other quiet sounds of the room, Judah's soft breathing, the sound of his hand stroking closer and closer, his skin over the fabric a light hiss, hiss. For all the pain he was in—emotional, physical—Alex could not help but be laser-focused on that hand and what it was doing, and what he wanted it to do. Wouldn't it make perfect sense to take a little break from the world, and let Judah slip Alex's pants down, just a little, and take that hand—
The knock on the door ruined everything.
"If that's Ian, I'm going to murder him. Just so you know." Judah rose to his feet, and Alex felt such a disappointment and loss, having him moving a couple of feet away like that. Stay closer to me, forever.
"Everything all right in here?" Liam asked, poking his head through the door. "Ian's wrapping things up, Bastian's staring at everybody like he wants to set the place on fire..."
Alex had a brother, and he recognized brother-looks. He knew exactly what was going through Liam's mind as he studied the two of them, knew what it meant when he looked over at Judah with satisfaction in his eyes. "I guess everything is all right in here," he said.
"We're getting there," said Judah.
"We'll start packing it in once Ian is all done," Liam said. "We need to get the van loaded, and..."
Judah looked back at Alex. He could see that something had changed yet again in Judah's face, some resolution having taken hold.
"I can fix this," he said.
Liam scowled. "Fix what?"
Judah gestured at Alex. "He's losing the store."
"I know, it's terrible. Alex, it's a loss, such a loss, I can't believe it. But they're saying Ian is starting a store for you somewhere else, are you going to—"
"No," said Alex. "Ian isn't doing a fucking thing for me. I'm doomed."
"That's just it," said Judah. "You're not doomed. I can fix it. Will you let me? Just once, can I make everything okay?"
Even now, even with what had passed between them, Alex felt a moment of resistance. Let someone else handle things? Even as badly as he felt at the moment, when his instinct was to cling tight to every decision, every choice, after the disaster of trusting Ian?
You either love him or you don't, he thought, looking at Judah, standing so tall and determined. You either trust him or you don't.
And for the first time in his life, he realized, he did trust someone else. Not in that passive way that Ian inspired, where you would be steamrollered into doing whatever Ian liked, for whatever secret purposes Ian wouldn't tell you about.
This was different. Trust wasn't conceded. Trust wasn't simply giving in to someone else's wishes.
Trust meant you were willing to work with them.
Liam was still scowling in that big brotherly way. "Dude, we talked about this. You have to—"
"Go for it," said Alex. "Fix the world."
Judah grinned. "Get Noah and Mason in here, please," he told his brother.
Now Liam looked at him sidelong. "All of us? What is this plan of yours?" But he didn't hesitate. In just a moment the room was hugely crowded.
"Guys, we have a problem," said Judah. "Two problems. Okay, three, and I am about to solve them. Problem one: Ian. He is out, as of tonight."
Liam opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. "Something bad?"
"Really bad. He's no longer a welcome guest at Superbia Springs. He's out."
Mason, the biggest man in the room, nodded at this. "I never liked that guy. Explain what he did, once I've thrown him out, just so I don't feel guilty, okay?"
"Don't worry, we'll explain everything. Part two: Alex has lost his store, thanks to that scene out there with Violet."
"Do you want me to call Dalton?" Noah said. "He has all those lawyers just sitting around waiting to do his bidding."
Watching Judah work was something else. Alex was fascinated by it. He could almost hear Judah's brain clicking away, making connections, finding pathways. "Yes, we do want that, because Violet needs to pay—financially and socially—for what she did to Alex. But Alex also needs a safer place to put his store. Someplace where he won't be at the mercy of people like Violet, ever again."
"Wait," said Alex, but nobody was waiting. The men were thinking it through, considering the implications of what Judah had just said.
"We could convert the game room into a bookstore," suggested Mason.
"Or the front parlor," said Noah. "I've thought for a while now that we should've put a gift shop out front."
"Would you
be willing to sell newspapers as well?" asked Liam. "What if, in addition to books, there were a selection of international papers every morning?"
"Magazines too," said Noah. "If there's one thing Superbia lacks, it's good access to Italian Vogue."
"Wait, wait," said Alex, "you can't offer me part of your resort! It's a mansion! It's too much, it's too fancy—"
"It's ours, and we're offering it. I am offering it. And, part three..." But now Judah looked nervous. He seemed to flinch away from what he was thinking, as though it were too much, too drastic. Alex couldn't imagine what it was. Perhaps some scheme to throw Ian and Violet in jail for a thousand years...or to throw them in the river. Either way would be good.
"Part three?" Alex whispered, unsure.
"You're homeless," Judah said. "She hasn't just taken away your store. She's taken the little apartment upstairs."
"Yes, the tiny, tiny apartment. The death-trap."
"Come live with me."
"Judah."
"I'm serious. We have room. We have tons of room. Liam, I'm sorry for not checking with you on this first, I know it means one less room to rent to guests—"
Liam shook his head, and put his hand on Judah's shoulder. "Like I said before, Mason and I wouldn't be together today, if it weren't for Alex. We owe him our lives together. If Alex needs a place to stay—"
"Come on," Alex protested. "Setting me up for a couple weeks while my foot recovered is one thing, but I can't live in Superbia Springs!"
"Can't...or don't want to?" asked Judah, and there was a slight tremble in his voice that betrayed a much larger question, one that Alex knew Judah dare not ask in front of his brother and friends. He could feel Judah's uncertainty from here. Have I gone too far? his eyes seemed to ask of Alex.
