by Cate Ashwood
Chloe laughed as she propped her feet on the edge of the bricks around the fire. “You remember that time we went campin’ out on the ridge?”
“Shit,” John muttered as he poked the fire. “That was the worst.” He laughed softly and glanced at Matt. “Me and Chloe thought it’d be fun to sneak away for a weekend, not tell our folks or anything, just run off together.”
“I was only seventeen or so. John had just graduated,” Chloe said as she opened a beer for herself.
“I told my folks I was gonna go fishin’, and Chloe told her folks she was goin’ to some… somethin’.”
“Fair over in Byron,” she filled in. “Too stupid to realize there wasn’t a fair in Byron that weekend, or anywhere near it.”
“Her folks figured it out, got all riled up, called my folks lookin’ for me….”
Chloe’s eyes flashed in the light of the fire, a strange sort of heaviness in them. Despite her laughter, Matt wanted to reach out and take her hand, comfort her. “Billy found us, in the middle of a damn downpour, soaked to our skins, tryin’ to start a fire with wet wood, in the wind.” She paused for a moment, looking at John. “I thought he was gonna kill you.”
“He damn near did. If he’d had a gun on him, I’d be dead and gone.”
“True,” Chloe said, her smile there, albeit a little ragged around the edges. “We had a good laugh about it after it was over, though.”
“You never told me that,” John said, setting the stick aside, leaving the fire alone for the moment. “I thought he hated me for years.”
“He forgave ya by the time I graduated.”
“Big brother?” Matt asked, more for the sake of saying something. Andy had told him a bit about Chloe’s brother.
With a nod, Chloe said, “Best big brother.” She glanced at John and added, “One of the best.”
“Nah,” John said, lifting his beer to Chloe. “He gets that title. Hands down.”
Chloe bit her lip and looked at John. “Asshole,” she said with a wet laugh. “Quit gettin’ all sentimental on me.”
“Hey, that one’s on you, woman.”
“Fair enough,” Chloe said, swiping at her eyes, maybe to catch a tear before it fell. She looked at Matt and asked, “What’s the dumbest thing you ever did as a kid?”
There were only so many things to choose from. For the most part, Matt had been a good kid. Being an only child, he didn’t have any older siblings to get him into trouble, or any younger ones to corrupt. “Well,” he said slowly, a little embarrassed to admit this one, “when I was young, maybe ten or so—old enough to be out in the neighborhood on my own for stretches at a time—I got it in my head that it’d be easier to make money if I could just get people to give it to me rather than do chores.”
“You panhandled when you were ten?” Chloe asked, sounding impressed and shocked at the same time.
Matt took a sip of his beer before going on. “No, this was much worse,” he said with a laugh. “I’d seen little donation things in stores or whatever, so I kind of made up my own charity for myself.”
John howled with laughter. “Does Andy know? I bet that’s grounds for removal.”
“What’d your mother do? Did she find out?” Chloe actually giggled.
Even now, almost twenty years later, Matt’s face flushed with the memory. “She found out all right. Saw one of my donation bottles with please help child in need written all over it in my handwriting.” Matt shook his head, as if he could shake the memory away. “She made me give the money to an actual charity since we couldn’t track down all the people who’d donated, and then she made me collect money door-to-door for foster kids in our area for the entire summer, on top of my regular chores.”
“Man, my momma woulda tore me up if I’d done that.” John laughed again, the sound bright and endearing. “How much money had you made by the time she caught you?”
“Nearly six hundred dollars.”
“Damn. That’s pretty good.” John picked through another container and pulled out two cookies, passed one to Matt.
Chloe leaned in and grabbed a cookie too. “See, around here, ya woulda gone out and cut your own switch off a sapling, been whooped good for that.”
“I think I would’ve preferred that, actually,” Matt said honestly.
“Depends on the switch,” Chloe said.
John nodded in agreement. “And who’s doin’ the whoopin’. My granddaddy damn near took the skin off me once.”
Matt hoped he was exaggerating but couldn’t be sure. “How’d your mother handle that?” Ilene struck him as the sort who would rather dole out her own punishments.
John leaned in, a little closer to Matt, his face warm and relaxed in the glow of the fire. “She told me I shoulda been more careful and that I owed Mawmaw an apology for breakin’ her crystal vase, that it’d been in the family for three generations and couldn’t be replaced.” He paused and took a deep breath, then laughed. “But when we went home that night, she told Daddy to get me and Mel into the car. Daddy waited on the porch with us, though. I think he wanted me to hear what Momma had to say. She told Granddaddy that she didn’t mean any disrespect but that anything he ever did to me or Mel, she was gonna do to him and that he’d be smart to remember that we were her babies and not his.”
“Momma bear,” Matt said with a soft laugh. John’s family dynamic was odd at best, but there was no doubt they all loved each other.
“Yeah, well, her daddy was a drunk, real bad one. Used to beat her for no reason when she were little.”
“Dry Sundays for a reason, then?”
John only nodded in agreement.
Chloe sat up a little in her chair. “You’d think she’d be more… I don’t know, vigilant about Mel and Charles, then.”
Matt had wondered why exactly John hated his brother-in-law so badly, but now he had an answer.
“People who are abused sometimes don’t….” Matt wasn’t sure how to put it. “Well, it’s just not weird to them, ya know?”
“Yeah, I can see that,” John said with a sigh, sounding resigned. “Might could be she sees a little of her daddy in Charles, too. Maybe doesn’t realize it’s just the bad parts.”
Chloe furrowed her brow and said, “And he’s always on best behavior around the family.”
“Truth,” John said before throwing another log onto the fire. “We sure got depressing fast.”
Chloe took John’s beer from him. “You’re gonna get all weepy if ya don’t stop now.”
“You just didn’t wanna get up and get yourself another beer.”
“That too.”
Midnight neared by the time Chloe headed home. John and Matt watched her pull out of the driveway as the last embers of the fire died down into coal.
“She’s trouble,” Matt said, a smile lingering on his face.
“And then some.” John spread the coals out and looked at Matt for a long minute.
There were so many things Matt wanted to say, but every time he was alone with John, it all flew from his mind. In the end, all he wanted to do was touch John, kiss him all over. “You sure she’s good to drive home?”
“Chloe?” John asked, laughing. “She’s fine. She stopped drinkin’ over an hour ago.”
Had she? Matt liked her, no doubt, but she didn’t hold his attention the same way John did.
“What about you?” John asked. “You okay to drive home, Officer?”
John teased him and Matt grinned, secretly loving the way the title sounded on John’s tongue.
“I’ll be just fine. I appreciate the concern, though.” Matt stood, feeling the stiffness in his legs from sitting in one position too long. He watched John pick up the beer cans from the grass next to his chair, balancing them in his arms. “I’ll grab the food stuff,” Matt offered.
He stacked the empty containers and carried them up onto the porch, John just a few steps ahead of him. He followed John into the kitchen, knowing he should go but not wanting to leave either
.
John tossed the cans into his recycle bin one at a time. In a handful of steps, Matt crossed the kitchen to where John stood. He lingered there, relishing the moment of anticipation before taking one small step forward and lining his front up against John’s back. John flinched and then froze, as if he were trying to force himself to stand still, to relax. After a long moment, John leaned into him, soundlessly granting Matt permission to touch him.
“This ain’t easy for me,” John said, his words barely audible.
Matt wrapped his arm around John’s waist and splayed his hand across John’s chest, feeling the subtle movement of his breaths and the warmth of John’s skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. “I know,” Matt whispered, leaning close, ghosting his mouth over the curve of John’s neck. “It’s just us, though,” he added, “Just you and me.” He dragged his lips over the pulse point under John’s skin, tasted him. He could feel John’s heart race under his palm.
“I wish you could stay,” John said, his voice only a breath. “I wish….”
Matt thought he could guess the rest of that sentence. I wish things were different. “I do too,” he whispered. “But I need to get some sleep before shift anyway.” That was a lie, and they probably both knew it. If he thought for one second John would let him stay, Matt would be undressed and in his bed before John could turn off the lights. But he didn’t want to push things. John was still skittish, still ready to run. “I just needed to touch you.”
And with those words, John heaved a deep breath, let his head drop back onto Matt’s shoulder. “Been killin’ me all day,” he admitted. “Bein’ around you, so close, not touchin’ you.”
Matt slipped his hand lower, tucked it under the edge of John’s shirt, just wanting to feel his skin. “Me too.”
“Shit,” John said as he pulled away in one swift motion.
For one heartbeat, Matt wondered if he’d done something wrong, gone a toe over the line, but John simply went to his door and flipped the switch, locking it. He pulled the curtain closed and went back to Matt.
Neither of them said a word. Instead, John pulled him into a hard, deep kiss. They both groaned into it, their sounds full of longing, full of need. Full of that wish for a different life. John slid his tongue across Matt’s, ground his hips close to Matt’s body, as if they could fuck each other right there, standing fully clothed in John’s kitchen.
When John pulled back, they were both breathless. “You best get on outta here, I think.”
Matt didn’t know what to say to that, his mind racing, his body skyrocketing to the stars. “Probably.”
He didn’t look back, but Matt was sure, as he walked to his truck, that John watched him go.
MATT WAS still riding high on the day with John when his phone rang. He grinned like a fool as he pulled it from his pocket, expecting it to be John.
It wasn’t.
“Oh, hey,” Matt said as he answered.
“Holy shit, dude.” Santiago’s smooth voice sounded over the line. “You sound that fucking excited to hear from me, I’m gonna think you’re in love with me.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to bruise your delicate feelings.”
“You should be. I’m gonna need a minute to recover from the wound in my heart.”
Matt hadn’t heard from Santiago in a couple of weeks. He’d been so preoccupied with everything that’d been going on in Magnolia Ridge, he almost hadn’t noticed. Even though he knew Santiago wasn’t actually hurt, it didn’t make him feel like any less of a dick. He needed to be better about keeping in contact with people back in California, or he was going to lose touch.
“How are things? Anything new there? How’s the new partner?”
“Saunders? He’s a fucking idiot, but he’s got more sense than my old partner.”
Matt laughed. He could hear the affection in Santiago’s voice, and a momentary pang of sadness pierced him. Matt missed his partner, missed the easy banter and near-constant ribbing. “So happy you guys are getting along.”
“Oh, yeah. We’re gonna be best friends forever. How’s your new partner. Andy, was it?”
“He’s a nice guy. Good cop. I got lucky.”
“The other guys at the station dickbags?” There was an edge of protectiveness to his voice that made Matt grin.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. Just, you know how some cops can be about the new guy.”
“You mean like having someone hide in one of the drawers in the morgue to scare the shit out of you?”
“I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”
“So wet behind the ears, little Matty. It’s amazing you made it past the first week.”
“Only reason I did was to prove you wrong.”
Santiago chuckled. “So if it wasn’t me you were expecting a call from tonight, who was it?”
“Guy I’ve been seeing.”
Matt tried to sound casual, like he wasn’t rapidly falling for the guy he’d been seeing, but Santiago knew him better than that. “You sounded awfully disappointed not to be hearing from him. You guys still in the early my-balls-have-never-been-so-empty stages?”
“Something like that. Keeping things sorta casual for now, though. He’s not out.”
“Fuck, seriously? You’re going there?”
Matt hadn’t wanted to get into this discussion with him. Santiago knew the struggle to claw his way out of the closet, and admitting that not only was Matt involved with someone who kept their sexuality a closely guarded secret, but that he’d been camping out in the closet right next to him was going to be a sore subject with him. The concern came from a place of love, but Matt didn’t need Santiago’s concern.
“Yep,” Matt said defiantly. “I’m going there.”
“All right. As long as you know what you’re doing.” Santiago didn’t sound convinced.
“I do.”
Matt steered the conversation to a less contentious topic. They chatted for a few more minutes before a call came on the other line for Santiago, and he said goodbye. Matt tucked the phone back into his pocket and flopped down on the sofa.
Things with John were bound to get complicated, but it was a complication Matt didn’t mind working through. Growing up in California gave Matt a different perspective, but even a city as liberal as San Francisco was home to people with as narrow a worldview as some of the people in Magnolia Ridge.
Matt understood John’s reasons for not broadcasting his sexuality to the world, and he’d seen firsthand what could happen when a secret like that got out to the wrong people.
He was willing to be patient for now, or forever. In the overall scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Having to be careful about who knew of their relationship was a small price to pay to be with him.
Chapter Eleven
SOMETIME LATER, the muffled sound of Melonie’s ringtone pulled John from a dead sleep. When he finally managed to open his eyes, his bedroom was dark. The only light came from the screen of his phone, soft and hazy from under the sheet he’d tangled himself in. At first he thought he’d slept an entire day away, but no. The sun hadn’t quite come up yet. Matt had left a few hours earlier. The call must have gone to voicemail, because the song ended. John contemplated falling back against his pillows and seeing if he could keep Matt from his mind for a while longer, but his phone rang again.
Something about the urgency of a second call made him sit up in his bed, his gut tightening as he prepared himself for bad news. He shook the sheet out and his phone nearly smacked him in the face as it flew from the fabric.
He didn’t even get a word out before his sister was speaking.
“John?” Melonie sounded shaken. John could hear her sniffling, could hear noise in the background, glass breaking, someone—probably Shitbag—yelling up a storm.
He was already tearing his covers back, shaking his head to wake himself. “What’s wrong, Mel?”
“Could you come get us?” she asked, the sound of a screen door shutting, the vio
lent cacophony from before fading. “My car won’t start, and I gotta get outta here.”
He’d already found a pair of jeans and pulled them on. Now he searched for his keys as he stepped into his boots. “Where’s Birdy?”
“She’s in my car,” Melonie said, her words breaking on a small sob. “She’s scared as hell, John.”
“I’m on my way,” he said as he ducked into the cab of his truck, not even sure if he’d bothered to close his front door on the way out, let alone lock it. “What happened?” he asked as he started the engine.
There was a long silence before Melonie said, “He’s just in one of his moods, but I’m done with it. I can’t let him—Birdy deserves better.”
She was right about that, no matter what had gone on already. Birdy had always deserved more than Shitbag Thompson as a father. “Did he hit you again?”
They’d never discussed Thompson’s abuse before, but Melonie’s pointed silence told him everything he needed to know. Well. Almost everything.
“Did he hit Birdy?”
When Melonie didn’t answer, cold rage coiled in John’s guts. He wanted to tear Thompson apart, wanted to feel his bones break, wanted to taste his blood.
“Just get here quick as you can, okay?” Melonie whispered, sounding panicked, breathless.
John could hear her footsteps on the gravel. She was moving fast.
Then, suddenly, Thompson’s voice rang out like a shot. “Where do you think you’re gonna go, you whore?”
“Charles, listen to me,” Melonie pleaded. There was a scuffle, and then the call dropped.
John put his foot down on the gas and floored it through the country roads between him and Melonie. He kicked up dirt with every turn, tires screeching as they tried for purchase. The only thing holding John back was knowing he needed to get to Melonie alive. He couldn’t run off the road or plow himself into a tree. If he did, well, God only knew what would happen to Melonie and Birdy.
