Ash pushed himself off the kitchen doorframe. He took a step forward just as a soft breeze drifted down the corridor. Warm Chicago air touched Ash, ruffled his hair and the thin T-shirt that did nothing to hide how frail he’d become. “I can smell the tattoo shop.”
What the fuck? I covered my confusion with a grin. “Yeah? Want to stop by? Say hi to your friends?”
Ash flinched. “No.”
I suppressed a sigh. I knew some of the guys he worked with, and they all missed him to death. Said the place wasn’t the same without his shy fucking grin and silent ways. I knew the feeling. I was with him every moment Pete had to work, but I felt like I hadn’t seen him in years. Perhaps I hadn’t. Now that Pete had told me Ash’s story, perhaps I’d never really seen him at all.
“Joe?”
I blinked. Somehow I’d missed Ash ghosting across the foyer and right into my personal space. “Yeah?”
“Did Pete tell you to take me out?”
“No. He did tell me to feed you, though, and he didn’t say anything about being healthy. Do they still do that deep-fried cheesecake on that green cart by the volleyball court?”
Ash looked at me like I was the one who’d lost my mind. “Deep-fried cheesecake?”
“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
Silence. Ash chewed on his lip and scratched his palms with his nails, hard. I wanted to stop him, protect him from himself, but I didn’t. It was the most animation I’d seen from him since he’d had a freakin’ nervous breakdown. Good or bad, I’d take what I could get.
Ash touched my shoulder. “I don’t like the beach with the volleyball courts. It’s dirty. Can we go to the other one?”
THE BEACH Ash wanted to go to was two miles away. He didn’t look up to walking, but he seemed even less inclined to get on a train. I just had to hope I got him there and back before Pete came home and kicked my ass. Pete was scary when he got pissy.
Ash stamped into his battered sneakers. He started for the open door. Then he stopped, as if he’d hit a wall I couldn’t see. Like always, I waited for him to tell me what was wrong, and like always, he didn’t. He didn’t tell me anything—he just stood there, silent, unmoving, and so utterly fucking broken I wanted to cry.
I steeled myself for rejection and touched his shoulder. He didn’t flinch. Progress. I shoved him gently toward the door. “Come on. What’s the worst that could happen?”
It was a fair question. Ash had already been through the most horrible shit imaginable, and he was still in a hole he couldn’t seem to escape. How much worse could it get?
I stepped around Ash so I could see his face. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak or blink. Nothing. To an outside observer, he probably looked stoned and even content with his antipsychotic drug-glazed eyes, but I knew better. For Ash, an epic meltdown was often silent… dangerous. The dude could turn blue before anyone noticed he’d forgotten to breathe.
I put my hand on his back. Despite the bright sun streaming through the apartment door, he felt chilled, and I could see gooseflesh on his neck. “Listen, I’ll be with you the whole way, okay? If you freak out, we’ll just come home.”
Ash shuddered. It was slight, but it felt like the warning tremor before an earthquake. My hand was still on his shoulder. I chanced a quick one-armed hug and tucked his shaggy hair behind his ears the way I used to do with my kid brother before we took our gypsy asses into junior high. Ash didn’t seem to mind me touching him, so Pete had told me to keep doing it. He didn’t say why, but I had a crackpot theory of my own. Pete never looked back when he left the apartment, so he didn’t see Ash shrink with every step he took, didn’t see him sink into his bones until there was nothing left but a blank, terrified set of crazy-blue eyes, but I figured he saw it in his own mind well enough. I guess he knew if Ash was left alone long enough, he’d sink so far he’d never come back. I’d never seen love like the magic between Pete and Ash, but sometimes it wasn’t enough.
Touching Ash, making a physical connection with him, was so fucking simple. He smiled now, sort of, and mussed his hair up again. He looked like the walking dead, but the gesture meant the world.
ASH SAT down on the warm sand. “Just get the cheesecake. You’ve been talking about it all damned day.”
I hesitated. The cart—a different one than I’d been dreaming about, but, hey, cheesecake was cheesecake, right?—was thirty feet away. Ash caught my thoughts and huffed out an irritated puff of air. “Go on. What do you think I’m going to do? Drown myself?”
Maybe. “Sure you don’t want anything?”
In answer, Ash turned away and fixed his gaze on the calm, still water of Lake Michigan. I took my dismissal and left him to it.
The line at the cart was long. I spent most of it facing the wrong way, watching Ash draw pictures in the sand with a stick, but when I got to the front, I had to turn my back on him. Suddenly, deep-fried cheesecake didn’t seem so important, but I bought it anyway and some chocolate donuts for Ash—you know, in case he decided he was hungry after all.
I paid the vendor and turned back to the water, searching for Ash’s wild blond hair. I was halfway back to him before I realized something wasn’t quite as I’d left it. Had he moved? I scanned the beach around him. No, that wasn’t it. Oh crap, he was in the same spot, all right, but he wasn’t alone. Some crazy-looking old guy had appeared from nowhere and seemed to be talking his ear off.
Dammit.
I jogged across the sand, ready to put myself between Ash and the stinky old man who’d taken up residence beside him, but as I got closer, something stopped me. Fuck. Ash was talking… engaging. How did that happen? I should’ve been surprised, but I wasn’t. I’d noticed that about Ash even before he got sick; he’d be silent for hours, not talking unless someone asked him a direct question, and then he’d suddenly connect with the person you’d least expect him to.
I stopped walking and sat down on the sand a few feet away, too far to eavesdrop, but close enough to intervene if the need arose. Distracted, I made short work of my sugar-laden lunch and pondered what Ash could be drawing in the damp sand in front of him. The cheesecake slid down like a dream, but my speculation was more convoluted. Ash drew some weird shit, and all of it seemed to mean something.
“Do you bring him here a lot?”
I squinted into the afternoon sun. The silhouette of a woman shielded my eyes until she took a seat beside me. “Huh?”
The woman gestured toward the long-haired old man with Ash. “I bring Reg here a few times a week, even in winter. He loves it, the water, the wind, and the people. He goes stir-crazy stuck in the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is he sick?”
“Sometimes. He’s a long-term resident at St. Victor’s.”
The nuthouse. I didn’t know what to say. My assumption of the old man’s mental status had been based on his appearance and my own narrow-minded judgment. I hadn’t considered that he was actually ill. Do you bring him here a lot? Oh God. The woman had looked at Ash and thought the same thing. She doesn’t even know him, and she thinks he’s crazy. “He’s my friend.” As if that explained it all.
The woman shot me a quizzical look. I couldn’t work out her age. She was one of those chicks who’d hit forty-five and stayed there forever. My mom was like that, though her eyes often gave her away. “Um,” I tried again. “He’s going through a hard time right now.”
The woman smiled. “Life can be like that. Some of us live on a fault line, always worrying, never enjoying life’s simple experiences. Sometimes a cliff edge is the best place for a soul who’s lost.”
I stared at her. How did she know Ash was lost? From a distance he just looked like a weirdo drawing faces in the sand. “I think he’s always been like this. I mean, not this bad, but he’s never been… happy, and I don’t know if he’ll ever know how.”
My voice caught in my chest as I realized I’d probably never spoken a truer word. I’d known Ash only a year, maybe more, but though I’d see
n him smile and laugh, there’d always been something missing, like he didn’t quite understand what he was doing. My eyes stung. I stared at the neglected box of cooled donuts. Pete carried enough guilt for the whole world over, but my own burden weighed on me, pressing me down into the sun-warmed sand. I’d known from the moment I met Ash that something was wrong. I should’ve fucking done something.
The woman laughed. From her downtrodden appearance, I expected the sound to be dusty and tired, but it wasn’t. Her laugh was bright and new, light, like the breeze. “Anyone can change, honey, and they do. Ten years ago, I was ready to drown my disabled daughter in the bath and swallow a pharmacy. I nearly did. Then I changed my mind and threw bricks through my ex-husband’s windows instead. I’d done most of the windows at the front of his new mansion before the police took me away.”
I felt my eyes bug out, and a nervous chuckle bubbled in my chest. I cast an anxious gaze at Ash. What the fuck had I gotten myself into? The woman seemed so ordinary, but she was clearly insane. Or was she? Her gaze was sure, her smile steady. And her words… though I couldn’t make sense of them, they felt right. “What happened to you?”
“I pleaded insanity. They believed me and locked me up until I convinced them otherwise. Then I met someone… someone who loved me and taught me to see the world through new eyes. My life was a disaster, but then I woke up one day and it wasn’t. Some things in life are permanent, but others are deceptive. You think you can’t change them, but you can. You just have to keep trying.”
The woman got to her feet. She looked kind of startled, like she’d never meant to deliver a sermon to a stranger on a Wednesday afternoon. I watched her call the old guy in her care back to her side, gather her things, and prepare to leave. She was turning away when I impulsively held out my hand.
“I’m Joe. Thanks for the pep talk.”
The woman grinned and linked her free arm through the old man’s. “Esme, and you’re welcome, Joe. Keep watch over that young man. I see something familiar in him.”
She walked away before I could tell her she didn’t know the half of it, and she disappeared into the crowd like she’d never been there at all. I blinked and refocused on Ash. He was staring at me, but I couldn’t tell if he was upset or simply curious.
I hauled myself off my ass and wandered over to him, proffering the donuts. “Hungry yet?”
Ash made a face. I took it as progress and studied the image he’d carved into the sand. “Is that a baby?”
“No.” Ash erased the drawing with his feet, wiping it from the sand in the blink of an eye. “Can we go home now?”
Who was I to argue? I helped him up, and together we drifted over the beach and back to civilization. I let Ash lead the way, lost in my head. It took me a while to notice he’d steered us to the L station. “You want to get the train?”
“I’m beat.”
Okay. I shook myself free of my daze and guided him onto a busy train. Somehow I found a seat. Ash dropped into it and immediately fell fast asleep while I stood guard over him, daring someone to even look his way. It was a consuming task, and the short journey passed in a flash.
I nudged Ash with my foot. He came awake slowly, dazed, confused, and unhappy. I felt my heart sink. The sunny beach seemed a lifetime ago—then the woman’s voice echoed in my head. Anyone can change, and they do. I forced a smile, a smile that became genuine as Ash’s irritation grew. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Ash followed me off the train and out onto the bustling streets of Lincoln Park. “What’s up with you?”
I punched his shoulder, unable to repress the inexplicable spring in my step. “Nothin’.”
Ash let it go, his expression telling of how little he cared, but I didn’t let it bother me. Whether he saw it or not, there was light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, it could be a train coming, but something told me it wasn’t.
It couldn’t be, because Ash was special, and one day the whole world would know it.
Object of Care
ZAHRA OWENS
To Eric’s smile, for making this angst-bunny write fluff.
To TJ’s courage, for standing by his man just like Flynn did for Gable.
“GABLE. GABE, wake up.”
“Wha—”
“Listen.”
Gable scratched his head and turned toward Flynn, next to him in bed. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Sst.”
“Okay, the kids are awake. Just go back to sleep. They’ll settle down.”
“I need to go look.”
Flynn got out of bed, and Gable groaned. He loved Flynn—really he did—but when he got all clucky and felt the need to check up on the kids when their mother was sleeping in the room right next to them, Gable drew the line. He turned around and stuck his head under his pillow in the idle hope he’d fall asleep again.
He’d almost made it, and then the main light switched on and he blinked against the invasion.
Flynn was standing in the doorway, pajama pants balancing precariously on his narrow hips and his chest naked, but he was holding something. Gable waited for the glaring light to stop bothering him so much and squinted at his partner. “What is that?”
“It’s a cat. This one was trying to keep it from us that we now have a house pet.”
Only now did Gable notice that Noah was standing next to Flynn, and he didn’t even look sleepy despite the fact it was—Gable looked at the clock next to his bed—2:30 a.m. “Put it on the porch, go to sleep, and we’ll deal with it in the morning.” He crawled back under the covers.
“But it’s freezing outside. He’ll die!” Noah protested, loud enough to wake up the rest of the house.
“Ssst!” both men cautioned. “Go back to bed, Noah. I’ll deal with this,” Flynn said more softly.
“Don’t kill him!”
“Who said anything about killing it?” Gable said, exasperated. “We’re putting it in the bathroom until the morning. I’m not arguing about this at this hour.”
Noah pouted as Flynn made him turn around to go downstairs to his room.
When he returned, it was without Noah and, more importantly, without the cat.
“So how did you find the cat?” Gable asked.
“I heard meowing. First time was a few nights ago, but I figured the kids were playing around. Then again last night and now tonight. And you may have noticed that Andy’s been grumpy all week.”
“I thought he was coming down with something,” Gable said with a shrug. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; it was just not something he wanted to deal with right then.
Flynn shook his head. “He’s your son. If he doesn’t get enough sleep, he gets cranky. If he were sick, he’d be clingy.”
Gable had to admit Flynn was right, which was always the case when it had to do with the kids.
“I was pretty sure something was keeping him from sleeping through the night. Now we know,” Flynn said with clear finality.
“So where did they get the cat?”
Flynn got under the covers and turned his back on Gable. “Like you said, we’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Within a minute, Flynn was sound asleep, but Gable wasn’t.
GABLE NEVER slept in a day in his life, not even after a sleepless night. And it was winter, which meant most of his early morning chores were done by sunrise. Content that the horses had made it through the icy night and had food and drinkable water, he returned to his expanded homestead to help Flynn out getting the kids ready for school. He could see the busy chaos of the morning kitchen through the frosted windows, so he took a deep breath before venturing inside.
As soon as he opened the door, he practically tripped. When he looked around to find the culprit, he spotted a skinny tabby skidding away and out of sight. Gable hit the door with his fist to stop himself from taking it out on the first person in his line of sight, which happened to be Tucker, the youngest addition to the family and the only one who was absolutely innocent in the whole cat
adventure, given he was only two. Judging from the looks he got, though, the whole family knew exactly what foot Gable had crawled out of bed with that morning. The older kids were uncharacteristically silent, and Flynn was smiling at him as he poured him a mug of coffee.
“Looks cold outside,” Flynn stated more than asked.
“No more than usual,” Gable growled. He eyed Noah, who immediately vacated his chair, since it was the place Gable usually used when he was sitting down for breakfast.
“I’ll go get ready for school,” Noah said on his way to the annex.
“Not so fast,” Gable said as he grabbed Noah’s arm. “Sit.”
Noah dutifully sat down in the chair closest to him, his gaze directed at his shoes.
“So spill. Where did the cat come from?”
“I found him,” Noah mumbled.
“Speak up. I’m an old guy and a little hard of hearing.”
Gable threw Flynn a cautioning look over a giggle that had escaped the younger man’s mouth and then returned to look at Noah.
“I found him near the truck stop. He was dirty and hungry, so I took him home. Vicky helped me give him a bath. Aaw!” Noah rubbed his leg underneath the table and Gable shook his head at his daughter, who had clearly kicked her foster brother. “We have plenty of milk here, and Mom said I could keep him if I took care of him,” Noah continued.
“She did, now, did she?”
Noah nodded frantically.
“Okay, get ready for school. We’re leaving in about five minutes.”
As if given a command, everyone but Tucker fled the room to the annex to get their school stuff.
“You don’t believe him,” Flynn stated.
“I believe him in as far as the cat might have been dirty and hungry, but that tabby is wearing a collar, Flynn. That cat belongs to someone.”
Grand Adventures Page 6
