by Riley Knight
Not his father. Not even close. Not that Sam knew who his father was, but it wasn’t this man, that was for sure. Nor even this man’s husband, Sam’s big brother, Ben. Sure, Sam had been raised from the age of eight by them, but that didn’t make them his fathers.
“Isaac,” Sam said and then turned to look at the little girl, who looked at him with a solemn face and eyes that danced and giggled with mischief. There was a strong family resemblance between her and the man by her side, as there should be. He was, after all, her older brother. “Hey, Ruby. What’s up, kiddo?”
Ruby’s vivid little face mobilized and she poked out her tongue at him. She might be almost a teenager, and older than Sam had been when he’d left Austin to come to live with his big brother, but she still seemed like such a child to him.
“Don’t call me kiddo,” she grumbled, and Sam couldn’t even help the fond smile that crossed his face. He really liked her. She was a pain in the ass, but she was still sort of nice to have around, even if she wasn’t really his little sister.
God, his family was fucked up.
“Hello, Sam,” Isaac greeted him, and Sam fought back a sigh. Isaac was a good man. He couldn’t deny that, and he wouldn’t try. But there was no doubt that the relationship between Isaac and Ben had caused some problems for Sam while he was growing up. As much as he reluctantly liked Isaac, he would have much rather seen his big brother hook up with some nice, socially acceptable girl.
This was Texas. And even if, over the years, the small town where they all lived had come to accept the open secret of Ben and Isaac’s marriage, even if the fiction which had once protected them had worn away and people had more or less accepted it, that didn’t mean it was really okay. Not in this part of the world.
Or that’s the way Sam had always felt, and he’d certainly always found people to agree with him on that. He’d never quite been able to get around the strange feeling when he saw Isaac and Ben together, though he knew very well that they were blissfully happy and he couldn’t begrudge them that.
“Hey, Isaac,” Sam returned, and arched an eyebrow at the other man, waiting. He hadn’t just dropped by for no reason. He was pretty sure about that. “Uh, what’s up?”
Ruby wandered around, poking at things, and Sam watched her warily. When she was younger, she had been a big one for making messes, but she was twelve now, right? She probably wasn’t going to be too much of a pain in the butt. He hoped, considering he was very aware that his boss was still there. Sure, Mike was on the phone, having lapsed into a language of mechanics that Sam had no real idea how to decipher, but Sam knew very well that he was watching everything that happened like a hawk.
“The car needs an oil change, I think. It’s been awhile,” Isaac admitted, and Sam looked at him suspiciously. The way the guy avoided his eye, there was definitely something more going on there. Isaac had never been very good at hiding things.
“Okay. An oil change. I can do that,” Sam said, relieved. Behind him, he heard Mike drop the phone back into the cradle, and the humiliating sound of his snort of derision.
“Yeah. At least you can do that, even if you can’t do nothing else,” Mike grumbled, and Sam’s cheeks burned. To be spoken to like that at all was bad enough, but for it to happen in front of Isaac, that was a bit much to take.
“Sam can do a lot,” Isaac loyally defended, as Sam had half known that he would. That was, maybe, the worst part about being belittled. Isaac was such a good person, and all of the resentment Sam held toward him seemed unfair in the face of that. Hearing Isaac stand up for him made Sam feel about twelve inches tall.
“Then he should show me,” Mike grumped, but at least he laid off. For the moment. Still, Sam would take it, even as small a mercy as it was. He shot Isaac a little bit of a look, and the older man shrugged.
They’d talked about this before. It was nice that Isaac cared so much, but he wasn’t really a member of Sam’s family. Not when it came down to it. He was just some guy married to Sam’s older brother.
“Dad!” Ruby came over and started to tug insistently on Isaac’s arm, while Sam tried not to roll his eyes. It was her choice what she called Isaac, but of course, Isaac wasn’t really her father. For a while, the town had thought that he was, but that fiction had fallen by the wayside a long time ago. “I’m bored. C’mon, let’s go.”
“We have to wait for Ben,” Isaac explained, his voice so damn patient and kind with the girl that it made Sam’s teeth want to grit into tight little walls. It was just how Isaac was, but it came across as so fake to Sam sometimes. “He’s going to bring the other car.”
“I’ll take yours,” Sam offered, more to get out of there than anything else. Isaac handed over the keys as Ruby wandered off, poking at things idly, her face discontent.
She was bored. Well, Sam could definitely sympathize with that. He went to Isaac’s car, a basic sedan which was saved from complete ugliness by its bright, shimmering blue color.
It took only a second to park the car, but Sam honestly considered just staying right where he was. It was getting hot outside, but in the garage, with the remnants of the air conditioning still lingering in the dim interior, he was cool and comfortable, and there were no children, no angry bosses, no ringing phones.
Maybe he could get away with it. Do the oil change and stretch it way, way out. That might work. Although Mike would know very well how long it would take to do the change, Sam figured that his own lack of knowledge could work out in his favor in this case. Mike would assume that he was taking so long because he didn’t really know what he was doing.
“Sam! Get your ass in here,” a bellow met his ears, a sound loud enough to make it through a wall and a car to get to him. Mike was not just irritated now, and Sam swallowed down a surge of sickness which threatened to overtake him as he stepped out of the car.
No, definitely not just irritated, but actually actively pissed off. The small space still seemed to echo with the sound of it, the fury. No matter what happened, Sam did not want to take the few steps toward the door which separated the front of the shop, where the customers would wait, from the back, where the work actually happened.
Reminding himself of his bank account balance, and of the cost of tuition at Harvard, Sam took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. What was Mike going to do to him, anyway? Nothing. Or so he tried to reassure himself as he opened the door.
Isaac was still there, speaking earnestly with Mike. Sam didn’t have to hear the words to know that Isaac was speaking on his behalf once more. Damn it. Sam could take care of himself. He didn’t need to be babysat.
Though it might be sort of nice if it calmed Mike down, even he had to admit that.
“Sammy.” Isaac corrected himself before Sam could even say anything. “Sorry. Sam. Are you going to be home for dinner tonight?”
It was a reasonable question, but Sam wanted to growl back something incredibly unreasonable. Or better yet, leave the room, make some sort of excuse—the oil change, that would do nicely. But Isaac was so damned nice, and Sam had always, even in the depths of his teenage rebellion, found it hard to be mean to him. It was like kicking a puppy or something.
“Probably not.” Sam shrugged as he took his place behind the desk, willing the phone to ring. It would be amazing to be pulled away from this awkward scene, but when he actually wanted the distraction, the phone stayed stubbornly silent, mocking him. “I’ll probably just hit the bar and then come home late, so don’t wait for me.”
Sam held his breath, and he tried to reach out into Isaac’s mind, tried to make him accept that without making some big deal about it. Oh, Isaac would be disappointed. He liked it when the whole family, however strange that family might be, was around, and that included Sam.
“What? No!” Ruby ran over to him, her small body practically plowing Mike right out of the way, utterly heedless of his presence. Mike’s face was starting to glow red, and Sam honestly started to wonder if he might see smoke start to pour fr
om his ears like in an old cartoon.
“Ruby! You can’t be behind the counter,” Sam scolded because he knew that he would be nicer about it than Mike was.
“You’re never around, Sammy,” Ruby complained, and Sam recoiled, just a little bit, from the honest sadness in her big blue eyes. The same shade as the other set of eyes that were fixed on him, Isaac’s, both of them pleading with him. “Won’t you come home tonight? Ben’s making beef stew!”
There was really no graceful way out of this, and Isaac, he might have been able to put off. But Ruby had had him wrapped around her little finger from pretty much the first moment he’d seen her, just a tiny little baby, dwarfed even by his slender child’s arms.
Well, he wasn’t a child anymore, but she could still make him do things, even against his best judgment. It wasn’t actually pleasant for anyone when he was around, no matter how much they claimed to want him there, but it looked like he was going to have to bow to necessity here as gracefully as he could.
Before he had to answer, a loud rattle started outside. It was just a drone at first, but it grew until, even blocks away, they could all hear the vehicle approaching. And not a healthy vehicle, either. Even Sam, with his limited knowledge, could tell that much.
A motorcycle pulled up outside, and a stocky figure in a leather jacket pulled off a dusty black helmet. While everyone was distracted by that, since it wasn’t just every day that a new person pulled up into town, Ruby flung herself at Sam and hugged him tightly, apparently deciding he wasn’t taking her urgent request seriously enough.
As she did, her arm hooked through the telephone cord, which was still one of those old-fashioned, curly ones because Mike was cheap and had never seen the point in replacing what was working just fine for him. Her sudden movement knocked not only the old phone but also stacks of receipts, right off of the desk into a tangled mess on the floor.
“Get out of here!” Mike had clearly had it. He didn’t quite snarl at Ruby, maybe because he knew that Isaac would never allow it. But he was speaking quite emphatically, and she scrambled away, genuine horror on her face as she looked at the huge mess she’d made.
“I’m sorry!” She gripped Isaac’s arm, clinging to him, but before Mike could reply, Isaac was leading her away. They held the door open for the newcomer, who had been riding the dirtiest, dustiest motorcycle that Sam had ever seen, and luckily, Ben’s car had pulled up outside, so they wouldn’t be stranded in the heat.
“Damn it, Sam,” Mike grumbled, and Sam fell down to his knees immediately, cleaning up the mess that Ruby had made. What choice did he have? At least Mike seemed to have calmed down a little, maybe stunned by how close he’d come to snapping at a kid.
Truthfully, Sam didn’t pay a lot of attention as Mike turned to the new guy, other than to notice that he had beautiful, round hazel eyes and that his face was dirty from the road. Mostly, he was just focused on cleaning up the mess and then slinking down into his chair to snag his book again.
It would be better to leave Mike alone for a while. The guy had a temper. He would just finish this one issue and then go do the oil change, unless Mike got to it first, of course.
TWO
The sound had been buzzing around in his engine since he’d crossed the border into Texas from Oklahoma, but Gunner had ignored it. He’d rolled through Dallas because he couldn’t afford to stop. There wasn’t time for that. He had to get to Austin, and he could worry about his bike then.
He knew better, of course. He might pretend that the little sound would go away, and it was even possible that it would, but as the miles rolled smoothly away under his worn wheels, the sound didn’t even out. If anything, it got louder, and Gunner knew that he’d made a mistake.
But what could he do? He was in a hurry, and he had no money to speak of. Enough to keep his bike gassed up, and some small amount of food in his stomach, but that was about it, and even that was running low. Austin. He repeated the name of the city over and over again in his head as the wind whipped past his helmet. Austin, Austin, Austin. Where he would be safe, and where he had a job waiting for him.
Not that it was the most glamorous job, just working in some dive bar, but he would be lucky even to get that, and he knew it. Not too many people wanted someone like him working for them.
If he could get there, it would be fine. He held that mantra loud and clear in his head, focusing on it above all else. Bugs flew past his face, and some of them actually splatted right against the visor of his helmet, but he kept on rolling because Austin was the answer to all of his problems.
It was clear to him that he wasn’t going to make it to Austin, though. It became a game, almost, passing through the towns and deciding to push on just once more, to the next one. One after the other, they fell behind him, and he recklessly let it happen.
The noise worsened with every mile that he passed, but Gunner set his jaw and never faltered. Not until the bike actually started to shake, and the noise became a cacophony, roaring like an injured beast at him and threatening to shake right apart if he wasn’t careful.
He was so close. He would guess that he was an hour, give or take a bit, outside of Austin, but that wasn’t going to do him a bit of good if his bike fell to pieces right on the blistering hot summer-heated asphalt.
Still, he wasn’t sure what choice he had, until the sign came up, informing him in cheerful, reflective green metal that there was a town up ahead. Serenada. Well, he’d never heard of it, but his bike gave a shudder and a belch, and he had to face facts.
He would be lucky to make the last few miles into town. Making it to Austin was nothing but a pipe dream. How infuriating, to make it almost all of the way and then to have to stop a little more than a stone’s throw away from his goal.
Story of his life, really. Glumly, he let the bike roll on into town, his eyes peeled for a mechanic. He just really, really hoped that a town this small would even have one. Or he’d have to try to get someone to let him borrow their phone, call a tow truck to get him to the nearest city with a mechanic. His own phone was dead, and it had been for days. He didn’t have money for hotels, or even motels, not anymore.
He didn’t have money for a tow truck, either. Or to pay for the repairs which his bike was inevitably going to need. He hadn’t had the time, or the tools, to poke around much, but whatever was wrong with it, he wasn’t sure he could fix it. Not without parts and tools.
His eyes stung, and he gritted his teeth so hard that he could almost swear that he heard them crack, even over the rumble and growl of his poor wounded bike. She deserved better than this, being ridden right into the ground. He’d just have to find a way to make it work.
First things first. His heart leaped when he saw the sign up ahead, announcing itself in plain, dusty letters as Mike’s Autobody. He’d made it. He might have to throw himself on someone’s mercy, but he had made it, and it was with relief that he let his bike limp on into the parking lot.
It was a small place, and it looked a little run down to him, but it also looked like heaven. A safe refuge, at least for now, though he cautioned himself against feeling too safe.
Hadn’t he learned that there was really no place to feel truly safe, not in the whole world? Hadn’t he searched and searched for freedom, and never found it? The fear was always there, and so was his past, and he couldn’t outrun it.
He’d certainly tried hard enough.
* * *
Inside, the little shop was air-conditioned, but that couldn’t make up for the blistering heat outside. Texas in the summer, even the early summer, was not a fun place for a boy from the Northern states to be. Gunner knew that he had to look like a complete and total disaster, face sticky with sweat and the dust which had caked there, but he wasn’t there to win any fashion shows.
A beautiful man, maybe ten years or so older than Gunner’s twenty-four years, nodded at Gunner as he walked past him, an arm slung around a young woman just short of her teenage years. Gunner nodded back,
watching him go. He wasn’t usually into guys with kids, but that one was something else. The man had a ring on his finger, though. Obviously taken. Oh well.
Inside the building, along with the fresh, cool air which dried some of the sweat on his face, there were two men, one of them older and stained with grease, the other the cleanest man that Gunner had ever seen. There was also a mess, like a cyclone had hit the place, concentrated entirely on this small waiting room.
What exactly had he walked into?
“Can I help you?” the older man said, and Gunner took a deep breath. There wasn’t a lot that he hated more in the world than having to ask for help, but over the last couple of years, he’d had to do it pretty much every time he ran out of money, which was to say, quite a lot.
About half of the time, he got told to beat it. But he never would have made it as far as he had if not for the other half of the people, the ones who helped him even when they had no reason to do so. People were generally good, in his experience. Or far more often than he would have thought, anyway.
What would this guy be? One of the ones who would do his best to get in Gunner’s way? Looking into his eyes, Gunner knew it was too hard to tell. There seemed to be something wrong, a sort of tension hanging in the air, but Gunner really had no choice but to try.
“My bike is crapping out,” Gunner admitted. “I think it might be the connecting rod.” He’d had time to think about it, and it seemed to be the most likely cause.
“Yeah?” The guy narrowed his eyes at him, and Gunner glanced over at the other man in the room. The one who really didn’t seem to belong there, as neat and tidy as he was. He had his nose buried in a book and seemed completely uninterested in anything that was going on.
Too bad. The man was cute, with high, sharp cheekbones, a pointed chin, and shaggy golden brown hair falling into his face. Gunner might have been interested if he hadn’t been so sweaty and exhausted and worried. Even as he thought that, though, his eyes were pulled back toward him, not that it mattered, because the pretty man was far too wrapped up in his book even to notice.
