by Riley Knight
“Yeah, well, there’s a damn good reason for that,” Ben admitted, not looking over at Isaac, just starting the car and then taking off. Isaac didn’t quite get the hurry. It was still only four in the afternoon, and Ben had to be at work at eight. There was more than enough time for them to get back, but Ben seemed to be in some sort of hurry.
“You didn’t know,” Isaac guessed. “When Bobbie told you, that was the first you’d heard of it.”
Isaac didn’t take his eyes from Ben, and it was only because of that that he saw the flicker of acknowledgment in the other man’s eyes. Isaac had guessed right, and he smiled a little to himself as he thought about that.
“I always wanted a sibling, a brother or sister. You must be excited.”
“I never really thought about it.” Ben’s voice was repressive, but Isaac didn’t let himself be put off. Something was going on behind the mask that this man was putting on, something that he could catch little glimpses of in those remarkable jade eyes of his.
Still, there didn’t seem to be much point in pressing him about it right now. So Isaac stayed quiet until they were about an hour into the drive, and then he pulled his gaze away from the window and to Ben, who was still sitting there, still and tense, one hand locked around the steering wheel like he might throttle it.
“Are you going to go see him?” Isaac asked, and Ben shook his head and finally shot just the tiniest look, one which lasted a fraction of a second, toward Isaac.
“My brother?” Ben’s voice was just slightly defiant, in a way that Isaac didn’t understand. So he just restrained himself to a slight nod, and kept his eyes on Ben, alert for any flicker of reaction from him. He got the sense that Ben didn’t exactly show a lot of what he was feeling and thinking.
“Yeah.”
Ben shook his head.
“Nah. I mean, why bother? He doesn’t even know me. I doubt he even knows I exist. I didn’t know about him.” Ben’s jaw clenched as he stared at the road which stretched out in front of them to infinity, and Isaac watched him, seeing more and more of the torment which was just behind that mask which was slipping.
Isaac would be willing to bet that this meant way more to Ben than he was trying to let on. Or maybe that was just how Isaac would feel, so he didn’t see how Ben could be any different.
“Your mother may be going to jail,” Isaac told him, picking his words carefully. “What’s going to happen to your brother? Is he going to have to go live with strangers?”
To Isaac, who had been raised in a very loving, if repressive, household, that sounded like pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. He looked plaintively at Ben because even though he didn’t even know this child, and had only found out about him today, he still cared.
“Where do you live? I’ll drop you off before work,” Ben answered, utterly avoiding the answer. Frustration rose in the back of Isaac’s throat, but he supposed that he couldn’t make the man talk about it if he didn’t want to.
Sighing softly, he gave Ben directions to the house beside the old farmhouse where he lived with his parents. It was probably not the best thing for them to see him getting out of some stranger’s car. He’d never hear the end of it.
He probably should have known better than to think he would get away with it.
* * *
“Who was that boy, Isaac?”
His mother was putting down the phone as she spoke, and Isaac groaned softly. She had spies. That was one of the things she had always been good at, enlisting the help of all of the various people around, of making sure that she was surrounded by good members of the church who could keep an eye on him.
One of them had certainly seen him in the car with Ben and had rushed to call her. It had always been just the way that it was, but for some reason, as he looked into his mother’s prematurely lined face, as he saw the worry in her gray eyes, and the anger, he felt like a prisoner.
Ben had said this sort of thing wasn’t normal for someone Isaac’s age. For the first time, he considered that it might be true. He met his mother’s eyes evenly, saw the surprise on her face when he didn’t shy away from it.
“He’s a local man. A bartender.” Isaac spoke confidently, even if it made him feel strange and twitchy inside to be speaking to his mother like this. But he had nothing to hide, really, nothing that was any of her business.
“Isaac, really? A bartender? Oh my word,” his mother said, her hand pressed against her heart as though to settle it down. What would she say if she knew that Isaac had been in Ben’s arms all night, that they’d shared some intense kisses which, even now, seemed to burn through Isaac’s whole body like fire?
“What about a bartender?” Isaac stiffened, his shoulders tensing, his back automatically straightening when he heard his father’s voice. His mother, he could handle. She had never been much of the disciplinarian. His father, though, was a different story.
“Apparently Isaac has made a new friend. A local bartender,” his mother said, her voice filled with disbelief. As well it might be. When had the last time been that Isaac had had a friend who hadn’t been directly involved in the church? He was actually pretty sure that the answer to that was never, and he’d certainly never done anything like this before.
“Oh, Isaac.” His father came out, shaking his head, a small, tired looking man with dark circles under his eyes. But his eyes, the same shade of blue that Isaac saw peering out of the mirror at himself every day, they shone and glimmered with a fanatic energy, one which had always impressed Isaac greatly.
The truth was, his father believed in something, and Isaac never had. Not really. He had the things which he’d been taught, of course, but it hadn’t captured him, held him completely hostage, made him willing to do anything for it. Not like it had his father.
“You have to think about what the church will think, the pastor’s son running around with a wild boy like that,” Isaac heard his mother say, and he struggled, and mostly succeeded, in keeping a smirk from his face. A wild boy. Ben was not a boy, he was a fully grown man, living on his own and everything, but Isaac wasn’t sure he could actually deny the wild part.
Maybe that was the attraction or at least some of it.
“You won’t be allowed to see him again,” Isaac’s father clasped his hands in front of himself and put on what Isaac thought of as his preacher’s voice, solemn and sonorous, like a big, deep bell pealing slowly. He was good at sounding like he was someone who should be listened to, and for a moment, Isaac found something inside himself, something weak and cowardly and rabbity, wanting to submit, like his parents so obviously wanted him to do.
But something about that bothered him. He wouldn’t be allowed to see Ben? Allowed? Like he was some sort of child? He’d never truly questioned that before, but Ben’s words rang in his head, too, in direct contradiction to his father’s, and he saw the other man’s green eyes and smug smirk superimposed over his parent’s well known and well-loved faces.
Not allowed. It was hard trying to imagine anyone telling Ben that he wasn’t allowed to do something. There was a good chance, Isaac thought, that Ben would do it anyway, just because he’d been told not to.
“Would one of you give me a ride to the church?” Isaac changed the subject, knowing very well that his parents would assume that he was falling in with their views, “I have to pick up my car.”
“Already taken care of, Son,” Isaac’s father said, and a grim smile showed on his face. “Got someone looking at it now. It should be ready in a day or two. Until then, you can come in to church with me.”
Isaac nodded, then made his escape as soon as he could, his breath struggling to move evenly in and out of his lungs. Why did he feel like he was suffocating? Why, after all these years of perfect obedience to his family, was he suddenly stifling under it?
He knew why, though, if he were honest with himself. It was Ben. Isaac hadn’t known anything different until he’d seen Ben, until he’d tasted the freedom which
seemed to surround the other man like a cloud. That freedom had fallen on him like cool rain, and he’d liked the taste of it.
The movie they’d seen together, the look in Ben’s eyes when he’d found out that he had a younger brother, they all mattered as much to him as the night they’d spent wrapped up in each other, kissing and touching.
It all mattered, and now that he’d tasted it, Isaac wasn’t sure that he could go back to being how it had been before. He’d outgrown this old role, and once something was outgrown, he wasn’t sure how it was possible to fit back into it. His old habits had been safe and comforting and familiar, and he hadn’t even known how repressive they really were, but they wouldn’t suit him anymore.
The question was, what was he going to do about it? That was a much more difficult thing to decide.
NINE
“Ben MacPherson?”
There was something about a social worker’s voice which Ben would know from a thousand miles away. Some sort of official tone, not unkind, but overworked. This woman had it in spades, and Ben felt a sort of terror grip him, something that was entirely unconscious.
Was he going to be taken away yet again? Was he going to be shuffled off to a foster home where they were overworked and underpaid and resented the hell out of him for existing? Would they hide their alcohol, their prescription medication, because everyone knew that every foster child was just waiting to steal everything they had?
Sharply, he called himself back to himself, forcing a deep, calming breath, making the woman on the other end of the line wait for a moment as he pulled himself together. He was a twenty-eight-year-old man, almost twenty-nine. This woman was not going to be able to do anything to him. He hadn’t lived with his mother in over ten years.
She had no power over him, and just thinking that had his shoulders relaxing a little bit. He was safe. She couldn’t through some sort of benevolent misunderstanding pick him up and force him to move, not anymore.
“Ben, are you there?” the voice came through the receiver, and Ben came back to himself, letting out the breath which he’d been holding without fully realizing it.
“Yeah, I’m here. What do you want?” Ben was a little bit rude, and he even knew it wasn’t entirely fair. It hadn’t been this actual literal woman who had put him in and out of foster homes, but she sounded the same, and a sort of instinctive defensiveness crept into his tone without his knowledge.
“Ben, my name is Sylvia Quinn, and I’m the social worker who has been assigned to the case of your little brother, Sammy. Do you have a moment to speak to me right now?”
The temptation to spit out a sharp no and then hang up was almost overwhelming. For a moment, he almost wished that he had an actual old school phone that he could slam down, but he pulled himself together. For some reason, Isaac’s sweet face came into his mind, and he remembered the careful, hesitant way in which Isaac had strung together his words, so careful but so earnest.
Shouldn’t he at least listen to this woman? She would have more up to date information than Bobbie would, after all, and this kid, this Sammy, was his family. So was his mother, no matter how much he resented her. He could at least listen.
“I got time,” Ben drawled. “So talk.”
Idly, he wondered how she’d gotten his cell number. His guess was Bobbie. No one else back in Austin had it, but he’d given it to Bobbie when he’d run into her. It had been good to see her, and he’d had a moment of weakness.
“I don’t know how much you’re aware of about what’s been going on,” Sylvia the social worker said, “But your mother has been accused of several criminal charges, which, if she’s found guilty, could have her facing some jail time. Up to ten years, I understand.”
Ben closed his eyes and just listened to the words coming at him from his phone. He’d already known this, of course, but hearing it from some sort of official source instead of from Bobbie’s benevolent, but gossipy, mouth, made a difference. It was being laid all out for him, and for a moment, his stomach churned, and he thought he might actually throw up.
“Okay,” he managed, which Sylvia seemed to take as a sign that she could go on.
“Her court date is in one week, Ben. If she is convicted, there will have to be arrangements made for her youngest son, your brother. I understand that his father isn’t in the picture?”
Ben snorted softly.
“I really doubt Mom even knows who his father is.” She hadn’t with Ben, after all.
“Well, in situations like this, obviously we would prefer to have Sammy with a member of his family, if possible. Do you know of anyone that would be willing to take him?” Sylvia’s voice had taken on the tone of a predator. A genteel predator, of course, but Ben understood what she was asking, even though she didn’t actually say the words.
She knew very well that there was no family. Only Ben. He opened his eyes and rubbed at his temple with his free hand, all of the tension which had left him flooding back in.
Had he really thought that there was nothing this woman could do to threaten him, his way of life? It seemed that he was wrong. With one smoothly worded question, she turned his life upside down, and he fought back a groan as he fell back onto his couch, lying on his back, staring up at the unremarkable white ceiling as if it held answers.
If it did, though, it was keeping them to himself.
“There’s just me,” Ben muttered, each word being drawn out from between his lips with great reluctance.
“And are you in a position to take him?” Sylvia asked, blunter this time. Ben realized his mistake almost immediately. He should have said that there was no one, not tacitly offered himself. She was a shark, and she’d smelled blood, and she was circling him, looking for signs of weakness.
Which he’d given her. Damn it.
“I don’t know,” Ben said honestly. “I don’t even know the kid.”
“You could meet him.” Despite her best efforts to stay professional, Ben heard the eagerness in her voice. “I would be glad to set that meeting up, Ben. No obligation, of course.”
Ben stayed silent because so far, everything that had come out of his mouth had somehow given her the impression that he was open to this. So there was a long, long silence which stretched between them, and Sylvia was forced to break it because Ben sure the hell wasn’t going to do it.
“Ben, I know you must have some conflicted feelings toward your family, but that’s not Sammy’s fault. He’s already been in and out of foster care for most of his life.” There was concern, wasn’t there, in Sylvia’s voice? For the first time, Ben found himself looking at a social worker as a person, with emotions. A person doing their best. He wasn’t sure that he liked it.
She and her kind had been the boogeymen of his childhood. Was he so ready to give that up? They had been the bad guys, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to think of his childhood villains as human beings.
And then there was the kid himself. This Sammy. His brother. A kid who had no one, just like Ben. A kid who was facing another foster care situation, only this time, it could potentially be for much longer than a few months, if their mother went to jail.
Could he really, in good conscience, just doom the poor kid to that? Without even meeting him? Once more, Isaac’s face appeared in front of his eyes, cast against the plain white ceiling, and Ben knew without a doubt what the man would want him to do. Sure, he’d really only just met the guy, but he still knew somehow.
Isaac would tell him to go, and truthfully, that was what he was telling himself, deep down inside, past all the fear and the defensiveness. He knew what the right thing to do was, and he found that he couldn’t quite make himself ignore it.
What if he’d had an older brother, and that brother had just let him be in and out of those foster home nightmares? He knew that he would have hated such a brother forever. Of course, as an adult, he knew that the situation was more complicated than that.
Or was it? Ben sighed and closed his eyes, but Isaac’s
face, those wide, beautiful blue eyes, didn’t fade away. No. It wasn’t complicated at all. He might want it to be, because then maybe he wouldn’t have to do what he knew needed to be done.
“Okay,” he said suddenly. “I’ll meet him. When?”
A smile stretched Isaac’s lips, and Ben couldn’t help but smile back, even if the guy was only in his head. Still, it felt good to have given in even this much. Family had been important to him. He had taken care of his mother for years until the day he had finally had enough and left. Even then, if she’d asked him to stay, he probably would have, but she’d been far too out of it even to notice that he was gone.
“Tomorrow? If that works with your schedule,” Sylvia offered, and Ben arched an eyebrow. Wow. She really was eager to get this all settled, wasn’t she? Of course, if his mother’s court date was in a week, there wasn’t exactly a ton of time for her to work in.
“Tomorrow during the day is fine.” Ben paused and then shook his head. There was something that he needed to make perfectly clear. “I don’t want to see her, though. Only the kid.”
“I understand,” Sylvia told him, and Ben actually got the strange idea that she really did, at least as much as she could. “We can meet at the office, or in a more public place, if you like, a coffee shop or something of the sort.”
“Coffee shop.” Ben picked on impulse. Poor Sammy would probably enjoy something like that more than the sterile office, which he probably hated as much as Ben had as a child. “Say around noon?”
With the arrangements made, they said their goodbyes, and Ben hung up. He checked the time on his phone and groaned softly.
Ten minutes had passed since his phone had rung. Ten short minutes, and they might have changed his life forever.
Still, it didn’t feel bad. Overwhelming and terrifying, yes, but something in him thought it was the right thing to do. And he knew that Isaac would agree.
He should tell him. As strange as it was, his first impulse was to want Isaac to know, and he wasn’t going to look at that too closely. He knew where Isaac lived, and he still had hours left before he had to work. He would go to Isaac, and tell him all about it, and …
