by Riley Knight
Sam’s legs gave out, luckily right when he was standing by a comfortably overstuffed, faded loveseat, one which Sam had sat in for more than half of his life. It didn’t give him a lot of comfort now, but some was better than none.
Gunner sat beside him, and Sam shook his head in disbelief which slowly turned into horror as he saw the look that his boyfriend—if that’s what Gunner even was—was giving him. The cops had asked where Gunner was two nights ago.
Sam could have answered that for him if he’d been brave enough. Two nights ago, Gunner had been dragging Sam into bed, wrapping his arms around him and kissing him until neither of them could breathe. Gunner had been making Sam come, and Sam had been doing the same to Gunner, over and over again until they’d both passed out together.
Without a word, Gunner’s eyes begged Sam to understand, but Sam shook his head. He had never thought he would be in a situation where he would be pretty much demanding that someone lie to the feds, but that was exactly what was going on.
It was hard enough for Sam to deal with his own brother knowing that Sam was with another man. Complete, full on strangers? And strangers who were sort of officious jerks, too? That was just not something he could tolerate.
Gunner looked away from Sam, then sighed and reached over to touch Sam’s leg.
“I was with him.” Gunner didn’t even look at Sam as he twisted the knife just a little bit deeper. “In bed. All night.”
Just in case there could be any doubt what their relationship was, Gunner blasted it out of the water. Sam closed his eyes briefly, his cheeks flaming, and lowered his head. All of his life, fighting against himself. Trying to deny that there was even a reason to hide.
It was so much work, and it had all been for nothing. His stomach roiled, and the room spun, and he sincerely wondered if he was going to be sick all over the worn, well-loved coffee table.
“Is that true?” the loud agent asked, and Sam drew in a breath that felt like needles, sharp and stabbing deep into his lungs. For all that he had been silently willing Gunner to lie to the cops when it came down to it, he couldn’t do the same himself.
“Yeah. It’s true,” Sam said, and he forced himself to look right into the eyes of the agent. Not the loud one, the blustery one, but the quiet one who seemed to see everything. Hoping that, no matter how angry Sam was at Gunner, this cop would see that Sam was telling the truth and that they didn’t have to take Gunner away.
“What’s this about?” Gunner finally spoke, his hand still on Sam’s leg. Part of Sam wanted to take it in his own. Part of him wanted to push it away. In the end, he did neither, just did his best to ignore it.
“There was a robbery. A liquor store, just on the other side of the Texas/Oklahoma border. Your former boyfriend and partner, Chad Stevens, was seen on the scene of the crime.”
Talkative agent slapped down a photo onto the table, and Sam leaned in. Even with all of the emotions swirling through his mind, he found himself curious about who this man was. This man who had saved Gunner but who had apparently gotten him into a fair bit of trouble, too.
Sam had heard very little, really, but none of it was good. He gazed at the photo and saw a man, a very handsome, rugged man, with wild dark eyes and careless brown hair and thick, masculine scruff on his face. A man who was older than he would have thought.
He was with another man, one who had a mask on. Gunner’s ex, though, made no effort to hide who he was, not in the slightest. It was like he was asking the world to know that it was him.
“That’s not me.” Gunner tapped his finger on the image of the man with the mask. “I’ve been here for weeks now. You can ask my boss, Mike. Sam’s already told you.”
“We already spoke with Mike,” the agent said, “How did you think we knew where to find you?”
The other one, the one who had stayed silent the entire time, finally spoke up.
“We believe you,” he said, though Agent Talkative didn’t seem to be so convinced. “But if you hear from him, we’re going to need you to promise that you will contact us right away. We have reason to believe that he’s looking for you. You seem like a good kid, don’t let him get you into trouble again.”
“Believe me, if I see him, getting back together with him is going to be the last thing on my mind,” Gunner spoke fervently, and he reached for Sam’s hand and took it in his own, but Sam wasn’t sure if he could believe anything that Gunner said. How much had Gunner held back? That question and others filled his brain and made it difficult to think about anything else.
It hadn’t actually occurred to Sam before that that he might have to worry about Gunner leaving him for his ex. It was a touch of anxiety that he really could have done without, actually.
The less talkative agent handed over his business card to Gunner, who accepted it without letting go of Sam’s hand with his other. Was it because he actually wanted to hold his hand? Or because he was playing up this relationship so that they’d believe him?
The two agents showed themselves out, and Sam slowly turned his gaze toward Gunner. He pulled his fingers out of Gunner’s grasp, searching his face, trying to figure out what to say, and where to start.
“I’m going to go have a shower,” Gunner stated and then shot him a little smirk like he knew full well just how damn sexy he was. “Do you wanna come?”
Doubtless, it would have been fun to let Gunner distract him with sex, just as he had done after the incident with Mike’s car. Sam even knew that it would be good, really good, with the simmering tension which flowed between them stronger than ever.
But he couldn’t let that happen. Not this time. So he reached out and grabbed Gunner by the hand, forcing him back down onto the loveseat before he could do more than start to stand up.
“No. I want you to tell me everything.”
EIGHTEEN
It had happened. Probably, if not the very worst thing that could, it had to be pretty close. Sam had found out about most of it, and there was no way that Gunner was going to be able to worm out of telling him the rest.
“Hey! Why are you guys looking so serious?” Ruby’s voice called as she came in through the kitchen door. Gunner gulped, looking nervously at Sam, wondering how much of a scene he was going to make. Was this a reprieve?
Neither of them answered, but Ruby didn’t seem to notice. She walked in, licking at a bright popsicle, probably orange flavored but no orange in the history of the world would be that brilliant, almost toxic, a color.
“I saw a fancy car pulling out. Who was it?” Ruby continued, flopping down on the couch, draping herself over it with the ease of the very young. She almost looked like she didn’t have bones at all, and Gunner, for a moment, actually couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat.
He cared about this kid. He cared about the whole family. And he’d potentially brought danger here. What if Ruby had been here when the agents had been there speaking to them? Gunner had been lucky so far.
Or had he? Mike had ratted him out to the cops. Not that Gunner could blame them, the FBI sort of had ways of making it seem like it was best for you to cooperate. But it did mean that Mike, at the very least, knew that the FBI was looking for him.
It was all crashing down, and maybe that’s why Gunner found his eyes stinging as he looked at Ruby, so innocent as she sat on the couch. His hand still tingled from holding Sam’s in his own, but Sam had taken that hand away. How long before he took everything else, too?
“Come on,” Sam muttered under his breath, directing the order right to Gunner so that Ruby probably didn’t hear anything at all. Sam grabbed Gunner’s wrist, but it didn’t feel friendly or loving. There was a threat there, ominous and looming over them both, and Gunner would suddenly rather be anywhere in the world than with Sam and his cold, dull eyes.
“See ya, kiddo,” Gunner said to Ruby, who looked at them both with big blue eyes that suddenly made Gunner question how much she might know. A look of worry crossed her face, and Gunner felt, at
that moment, that she was wondering just as much as he was if he was telling the truth with those three words.
Those enormous blue eyes followed them out, and Gunner refused to let himself look back. Despite his fears, he had to let himself think that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the last time that he saw the inside of the farmhouse, or her, or Isaac, or Ben, or any of the other people that lived there.
As soon as they were outside, Sam dropped Gunner’s arm, and there was a look on the other man’s face that hadn’t been there for a while now. A look that Gunner had hoped never to see directed his way again—like Gunner was dirt beneath the rubber soles of Sam’s shoes. Like Gunner was nothing but a hot mess.
It had bugged him back then—when they had first met—but now it was devastating. Or would be, if Gunner let it be. This man had looked at him with love, with real caring, and it seemed like that might just be gone forever.
“Tell me everything this time,” Sam’s voice was low and urgent, and fury shimmered in his eyes and hung in the air over his head, almost as visible as a thunderhead. It was a demand, and Gunner didn’t make the mistake of thinking otherwise.
With a sigh, Gunner let his weight settle down onto the patio stairs, right near the bottom, feeling the worn, splintered wood against his ass and upper legs. He looked up at Sam, who didn’t choose to sit, and shook his head a little before he started to speak.
“I don’t talk about it much,” Gunner admitted, only that wasn’t entirely accurate. A better way to put it was that he didn’t talk about it ever. “But a couple of years ago, I did some time.” He paused and then looked up at Sam, barely able to see his face since it was lit by the bright sky behind him. “In jail.”
There was no surprise in Sam’s face, but there was disappointment. Crushing, pushing down on Gunner, threatening to shove him right down through the old wood of the steps, Sam looked at him, and even with the aura of sunlight around him, Gunner could see that his lips were set in a firm, uncompromising line.
“For what?” Sam asked, and Gunner supposed—what with everything—that the man had earned himself an answer, an honest answer to this. After all, Sam already knew the worst. Was it even possible that Gunner could piss him off more than he already had?
“Armed robbery,” Gunner said, the bluntness of the words making Sam wince a little. At least, Gunner thought he saw that, though it was sort of hard to tell. “I was nineteen. It was my first offense. The judge gave me three years.”
Gunner could still remember his trial. They had asked him to sell out the rest of the gang, but he’d refused. The judge could have been a real dick about it, but she’d been sympathetic. Three years for armed robbery was a pretty light sentence, and he knew it.
That light sentence, though, had been what had ended up screwing Gunner over, in the end. His ex had been sure that Gunner must have sold him out, or at least, that’s what their friends had told him. When Gunner had gotten out, he’d seen the writing on the wall, and that’s why he had been running ever since.
How to try to explain all of this to Sam? Sam, who was looking down at him, who had clearly never had even a thought of doing what Gunner had done. Sam, who had gotten himself into trouble by dropping out of college, not by hitting up a liquor store.
“You didn’t tell me,” Sam spoke slowly, his voice measured, and someone who wasn’t paying attention could probably be forgiven for making the mistake of thinking that he was calm. Gunner knew better. Sam was actually shaking, trembling with rage. “You came into my town, into my house, into my bed. You put me at risk. You put my family at risk.”
Sam’s voice got softer and quieter the more he spoke, but Gunner knew that it wasn’t because he was calming down. Quite the opposite. Sam was barely holding it together, and if he were a different sort of man, he would be screaming enough that the whole little town would be able to hear him.
What was there for Gunner to say? It was the truth, and they both knew it. Gunner had had those thoughts himself, but it had never occurred to him, it really hadn’t, how bad it would get. It had never occurred to him that he could play by the rules, keep his nose clean, and still have the cops come for him.
Did it matter that he hadn’t known? Looking up at Sam, Gunner had to think that it probably didn’t, not to Sam, anyway. And what about Isaac, so sweet and trusting, and Ben, who acted world-weary but who would protect his family as viciously as a mother bear protecting her cubs?
It was a mess and a mess that he had caused without meaning to. His actions from years ago, meant only to keep his lover at the time happy with him, had screwed him over to the point where he wasn’t sure that he could ever win forgiveness. He had paid for what he’d done, but not enough. Maybe never enough.
“And you told the cops that we were together,” Sam continued, his arms crossing over his chest, a condemning angel glaring down at Gunner, telling him that there was no, and could not be, forgiveness for him. “You didn’t even check with me. You know I feel weird about people knowing, but you told them anyway.”
The armed robbery, yes, Gunner would have to admit that that was his bad. But that seemed a little bit unfair for him, Sam telling him off for doing nothing more than what any American was supposed to do.
“They asked what I was doing. Should I have lied to the feds, Sammy? Is that what you really think I should have done? Would that have made you any happier than you are now?”
There was a struggle on that face, obvious even as shrouded by shadow as it was, and for a moment, just a split second, Gunner hoped to think that he might have gotten through to Sam. But then Sam shook his head, and he took a step back away from Gunner, who rose to his feet on legs that wanted to shake so much that he had to lock his knees to keep from falling over.
“Get out,” Sam finally managed, his voice coming out in a low hiss. “Get the fuck off of my property, Gunner. I never want to see you again.”
It wasn’t Sam’s property, and Gunner knew that. It was Ben’s, and Isaac’s, but Sam certainly lived there. Anyway, once Sam told Ben and Isaac about everything that Gunner had done, surely they would agree with him anyway. Surely they would be waiting right there in line behind Sam to condemn him. They had welcomed him in, and he had betrayed them. Put their way of life at risk.
So Gunner couldn’t do anything but nod his acceptance. Where he was going to go, he had no idea. With numb, cold, barely responsive fingers, Gunner packed up his few things from the place which had been his home for less than a month, but which he had allowed himself to hope might be longer.
In a depressingly short time, he had it back to how it had been when he’d first collapsed into bed that very first day when Ben had extended his hospitality. Gunner looked around, felt the sting in the very back of his eyes, one that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he blinked.
After a while, he wasn’t even sure how long, he stepped away. Moved out of the barn and then had to admit that, on some level, he’d been stalling. Part of him had hoped that Sam would take it back, that Sam would remember that they had promised each other more, that they would be together.
But Sam had judged him. It was over. Sam, proud, headstrong Sam, would never take back the words once he had said them. It was over, really and truly over, and Gunner walked off of the property with his heart so heavy it felt almost like his boots tread on it over and over again.
Only once did he look back. Only once did he allow himself to have some hope, glancing back over his shoulder to see if Sam was on the patio, or maybe glancing through a window at him. But the patio mocked him with its emptiness, and the windows shone too brightly with the reflected sun for him to tell if Sam watched.
But why would he? It was probably just a relief for Sam to get Gunner out of there. Gunner, who had wanted too much that Sam could never give. And maybe that was for the best, given how many secrets had been kept between them.
Well, now there were none, and maybe that was more honest, but it had certainly led to exactly wh
at Gunner had known would happen. He turned back around, turned his face to the sun, and walked.
He thought about walking right to Mike’s, but what point would there be in that? His bike wasn’t ready, and Gunner had no place to stay. No real desire to stay, now that he had lost everything.
So where to go? And then he remembered. Austin, less than an hour’s drive outside of the town boundaries. Austin, where a new life beckoned, called him to it. Austin, where he had been searching out a fresh, clean start.
There was no reason that he couldn’t have that fresh start. And at the bar, where he had a job waiting for him, there wouldn’t be any judgemental eyes. No one who worked in such a shady place would be any better than he was, nor would they pretend to be.
Such a place was where he belonged. He had dirtied his hands when he’d taken up that knife and walked into the liquor store—when he had followed that path. Once, he had thought he might be able to walk away, but he knew better now.
He was tainted, and maybe it was better this way. Without his bike, without love, all alone, Gunner walked and walked until the sun was starting to hang heavy in the sky. He walked, and whenever a car came along, he poked out his thumb at it.
Eventually, someone stopped, and Gunner didn’t let himself look back at the town which had so briefly offered him respite. He didn’t look back, because if he did, he was sure that he would never be able to make himself leave.
NINETEEN
It was the middle of the summer, only a month until Sam had been hoping to go back to school. The sun was up most of the day, shedding heat and light all over the place, warming everything until the ground was baked and hard and there was not even a hint of moisture in the air.
So then why did Sam feel so cold?
It had been more than a week, closer to two, since Sam had ordered Gunner off of the property. He had meant it, too. There was no way to fix what had gone wrong between them, and Sam wasn’t going to try. He and Gunner were both too different.
