by Mari Carr
That was as long as she managed to stay awake before joining them in dreamland.
Chapter Seven
“You okay?” Doug asked, walking up to him. TJ was looking at the crescent moon through the trees. It was a beautiful, clear night, all traces of the earlier storm completely gone.
TJ nodded, but didn’t say more.
Doug had woken up a few minutes earlier, surprised to find just Rosalia asleep in the bed. She was the picture of peace and contentment, so he’d left her there, quietly slipping on his jeans and shoes to go in search of TJ.
Doug looked at his friend, worried. Had he misread what happened in that RV? Because if he had to pick his top three best nights ever, tonight would be at the very top.
“TJ? What’s wrong?”
TJ glanced down at the cell phone in his hand. “Got a call from Sawyer. Came out here to take it so I wouldn’t wake you all up. Thorn hit a telephone pole tonight, totaled his car. He’s in the hospital.”
“Jesus,” Doug said. “Is he okay?”
“Yeah. Bump on the head, just a minor concussion. He was drunk as a skunk and Sawyer said that probably saved him from getting hurt any worse. He was most likely passed out when he struck the pole, so he didn’t tense up.”
“How long is he going to be in the hospital?” Doug tried to temper his tone, but right now, he couldn’t feel anything but anger toward TJ’s father. Tonight had been one of the best nights of his life. If TJ had to leave now…
“Sawyer talked to the doctor. They’re going to hold him for a few days. Try to dry him out. If that’s even possible. There’s a rehab center over in Clarke. Sawyer offered him a deal. Check into the center or he’ll make sure the judge gives him the maximum punishment, which would include a year of jail time.”
“What did Thorn pick?”
“Didn’t yet. Told Sawyer his head hurt too bad. Asked if he could think about it until morning.”
Doug was grateful to his uncle for stepping in, for offering Thorn a shot at straightening out his life. Plus, it bought him time. Time to focus on what they’d started tonight with Rosalia.
“He’ll pick the rehab. He’d be a fool not to, right?”
TJ grimaced. “Never known my dad to pick the easy way. Or the smart way. Doug, listen—”
“No,” he interrupted. “You listen. You’re not leaving.”
The sound of TJ’s determined, defeated sigh told him that was exactly what he’d been planning to do.
“I need to get home, need to sort out all this mess with my dad.”
Doug crossed his arms. “Sounds to me like it’s been sorted. He’s going to be laid up in the hospital for a few more days. After that, he goes to rehab or jail. Might surprise you, Third, but you can’t go to either of those places with him. Stay here. This is where you need to be.”
TJ looked away from him, his gaze traveling back to the sliver of moon. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that, TJ. Don’t try to make what happened tonight wrong in your head. No part of that was wrong.”
“I’m not like you and Rosalia, Doug. I don’t look at the world through rose-colored glasses. You can’t always get what you want.”
“Thanks, Mick Jagger. I’ll tuck that wisdom away for later, maybe pull it out for something it actually applies to. It doesn’t work here.”
“Fine. You don’t like that song? I’ll quote another…from Sesame Street. One of these things is not like the other. Rosalia is a doctor. She’s got her whole life figured out. She’s smart, driven, passionate about her work. And you’re the same…except for the doctor part.” TJ flashed him a ghost of a smile at the harmless dig before it vanished again. “You know who you are and where you’re going. You have a path and you’re walking it. In the meantime, I’m nowhere. I’m nothing.”
Doug recalled saying something similar to Jake after he broke his leg. He’d always defined himself by just one thing—his future with the rodeo. Jake had shown him a man was made of a hell of a lot more. That it was a man’s failures, his losses, that determined who he was as much as the shit he got right.
Jake had been an expert on loss. He’d spent the majority of his life without the woman who held his heart. Misunderstandings and bad decisions had kept Jake’s only son away from him for well over half of Viho’s life.
“You’re wrong, TJ. You’re somebody. Hell, you’re one of the most important people in my life.” Losing Jake had opened his eyes to those who really mattered in his life. Doug didn’t intend to take one second with them for granted, wouldn’t fail to show the people he loved how much they meant to him.
“I had a bottle of whiskey in my hands,” TJ said.
Doug frowned, utterly confused. “What?”
“That day you came by the house and told me to pack a bag. Told me about this job. I was sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey in my hands. I planned to drink it. The whole damn thing. Been thinking about this name of mine. My grandfather was a drunk, too. Did you know that?”
Doug shook his head. Apart from TJ talking about his grandfather being absent throughout Thorn’s life, Doug didn’t know a thing about the man.
“Yeah. He was an alcoholic. My mother told me. Said that it was in my dad’s genes. Pretty sure she said that in hopes of getting me to understand, maybe even excuse my dad when he fell off the wagon. ‘It’s in his genes,’ she would say. Like he couldn’t control the impulse to drink because it was chemical, deeply ingrained in his physical makeup.”
Doug wasn’t sure how to reply to that. Mainly because he thought there might be some accuracy in that assessment. “I’m not sure that’s a thing, but I suppose we could ask Rosie. She’s the science mind.”
TJ shook his head quickly. “I don’t want Rosalia to know about Thorn. I pray to God she never meets him.”
While he knew TJ meant his words in another manner, they went through Doug like a knife to the heart. Doug had gone to sleep a few hours earlier, dreaming of a real future with TJ and Rosalia. In his mind, their first night was going to stretch into forever.
TJ obviously didn’t feel the same way, and Doug was reminded of the realization he’d come to back in high school. TJ never dreamed. Never let himself hope.
Now, like then, Doug refused to accept that. TJ was a good man, honorable, honest, caring, but he wasn’t perfect. He had too much pride. And the inability to see a happy ending for himself. Doug was going to have to work overtime to start flashing what was really possible in front of him.
“You don’t have that gene, TJ.”
TJ lifted one shoulder, clearly unconvinced. “I would have drunk it, Doug. And I’m pretty sure once I started, I wouldn’t have stopped. Spent too many years watching my dad fall into the stupor that comes from the booze. It makes him forget. I’ve got some things I’d like to forget.”
“You’re not a coward like him. You don’t need to forget anything. It’s the memories that make you strong.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if I’m a lot more like Thorn than you realize? What if it’s in my genes too?”
Doug shook his head. TJ was nothing like his father, but TJ didn’t give him a chance to argue the point.
“Did you know it was love at first sight for him and my mom?”
Doug walked over to the nearest picnic table, sinking down on the bench seat. He’d been best friends with TJ since they were five. And tonight, TJ was dropping bomb after bomb, revealing things he’d never shared. Doug hated knowing his friend had kept all this bottled up for so many years.
“No. I didn’t know that,” he admitted.
TJ came over and leaned against the table, looking out across the playground.
“My mom told me. She told me all kinds of things after she finished the chemo and the doctor told her it hadn’t worked, that there was nothing else to do. It was like she had to squeeze a lifetime of revelations into a few short months. She wanted me to know her history, her story, wanted me to understand
who she really was, so I’d have something to hold on to after she passed.”
Doug swallowed against the lump forming in his throat and actually felt a little jealous of TJ. There were so many things he wished he’d taken the time to ask Jake. Questions he’d never have answered because he’d always assumed there would be plenty of time later.
“I’m glad she did that. Glad she told you so much.”
TJ nodded. “Yeah. Me too. Mom told me about meeting my dad at a community dance. Her family had just moved to town and they had attended, hoping to meet their new neighbors and make some friends. Even though they’d only been in Compton Pass a short time, they’d apparently heard all about Thorn Nicholas, the town bad boy. He was always in trouble for smoking in the bathroom at school, driving his car too fast, stealing beer from the convenience store, cussing and fighting. She had been warned to give him a wide berth. My mom laughed when she told me that.”
TJ’s eyes were faraway and Doug suspected he was recalling that time, sitting next to her bed, holding her hand as she talked.
“She said Thorn took one look at her, asked her to dance, she said yes—and that was all it took. He cleaned up his act, desperate to win her heart. Which she said he’d had, the second she’d looked into those big baby blues of his.”
Doug had never realized Thorn had blue eyes like his son.
“Anyway. They got married, had me, had a lot of happy years. Dad had a few bad episodes, fell off the wagon occasionally, but she always got him back on. It’s funny. I get the feeling my dad was always kind of a dick, but for her, he hid it as best he could. He tried to change for her, for love, to be a better man.”
Doug tried to make this description of Thorn match the man he’d grown up knowing. Like TJ, he had memories of Thorn being sober when they were in elementary school, holding down a job at the same lumberyard where TJ just quit. But he wouldn’t say Thorn was ever a good guy. Even sober, he was strict, stern, always sort of angry. It was one reason they’d always played at Compass Ranch as kids, only hanging out at TJ’s house when his dad was at work.
“I’ve never been to her grave,” TJ murmured.
After so many years as friends, Doug really didn’t think there was anything TJ could say that surprised him. That did. “Why not?”
TJ shrugged. “We never had any money for a headstone. I swore I wouldn’t go back until I could afford to get rid of whatever marker the cemetery had placed there. She deserves better than that. Now…it’s been so long…too long.”
Thorn drank away the money he made, which meant TJ’s paycheck went for mortgage and utilities and food, so there wasn’t any left for the gravestone.
“You’re not like your dad. Not even close.”
“Think about it, Doug. The job at the lumberyard, the falling too fast, the,” TJ swallowed hard, “the temptation of the liquor.”
“You didn’t drink it.”
“I would have. I wanted it. Bad. What if I can’t keep holding back this beast inside me? What if, in the end, I stop trying to fight nature and I just let it go?”
“There’s no beast inside.”
“The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you and Rosalia. I’m pretty sure Thorn was Prince Charming to my mom in the beginning. But as the years went by, he disappointed her more times than I can count. She forgave him because she loved him, because she always saw a better man. I won’t do that to anyone. Won’t let anyone down.”
And suddenly Doug understood TJ’s reluctance to date, the reason he had very few friends. Hell, Doug was his only real friend, and he knew why. Because Doug was as tenacious as a bulldog and he’d never let TJ push him away. Never.
“Did you know Rosalia’s grandfather was killed by a drunk driver?”
Doug reared back. Jesus. Where was all of this coming from? “No. I didn’t.”
“My dad is always going to be in my life. Not sure there’s any way around that. Which means, if we let this go any further, Thorn becomes a part of her life, a constant reminder of what she lost at the hands of someone just like him.”
“Why don’t you tell her about your dad? Give her the chance to make the decision of what she can handle and what she can’t.”
“You keep talking about this thing like it’s a done deal. Forever.”
“And you keep pretending it’s not. You’re not leaving, TJ. We’re only just getting started with something real, something amazing. I won’t let you walk away from that.”
TJ snorted sadly. “Yeah, well, maybe you better wait to make any hard and fast decisions until I finish speaking my peace.”
Doug pushed himself up and walked around until he faced TJ. He was tired of his friend looking away. He wanted him to see him, see his eyes, see how serious he was about every word he’d said. “Fine. Say the rest and then we’re going back to that RV, back to bed with our woman.”
TJ met his eyes and held his gaze. “If I stick around, this is going to be a little more complicated than we thought.”
There wasn’t a damn thing complicated about the three of them together in that bed, and Doug was ready to fight to the death to convince his friend of that. “Why?”
Something in TJ shifted—and that was when Doug saw it, understood, knew what came next.
Even before TJ said, “Because I won’t just be touching her next time.”
Doug wasn’t so sure that was true of last time, but he let it pass. He hadn’t had time to think about or process his feelings about TJ wrapping his hand around his dick and stroking him. Granted, Rosalia’s hand had been in between, but the intimacy was still there. God, Doug hadn’t expected to come a second time, let alone as hard as he had. TJ’s grip had shoved him right over the edge Rosalia had driven him to.
Then, TJ had washed him off.
Doug had considered grabbing the washcloth from his friend, taking over the ablutions himself, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“You wanted to kiss me all those years ago, didn’t you?”
TJ gave him a confused look, so Doug explained. “That day in my folks’ living room. I tried to stand up, but the cast on my leg threw me off-balance. You caught me and…”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
TJ rubbed his temple as if warding off a headache. “Seriously, man? For one thing, you aren’t Bryant. Neither one of us is…”
“Gay,” Doug said, when TJ appeared to struggle with the word. “Maybe not, but I think there’s definitely some bi in both of us.”
“You’re the only guy I’ve ever wanted to kiss. Period. So I’m not even sure how bisexual I am. You ever been with a man?”
Doug shook his head. “Nope, but I didn’t hate it when you jerked me off in there with Rosie.”
“There’s a big difference between not hating something and enjoying it.”
Doug snorted. “I went off like a bottle rocket, so I’ll let you decide which one describes me. You know you’ve got that Dom vibe going in the bedroom.”
TJ gave him a lopsided grin. “Fuck, man. I just stood here and told you I’m afraid I’m like my drunk asshole of a father and I want to have sex with you, and you’re all-in without blinking an eye. You Comptons are weird, unshakable.”
“Do those two things go together?”
TJ shrugged. “Fuck if I know. They just seem to fit whenever I’m around your family. You see things different than most folks. And you roll with it. Let it be. Thorn…” His words faded away, but Doug didn’t need to hear any more. He knew how TJ’s dad felt about “faggots,” as he so lovingly called them.
The first time Thorn had called Bryant that in front of him, Doug had shoved the drunk fucker across the living room. TJ had held him back, kept him from doing any real damage. Not because he was defending Thorn, but because the man was blackout drunk, unable to defend himself, and because TJ knew Doug would feel guilty about beating him up in that condition…eventually.
He wouldn’t deny it would have felt damn go
od at the time though.
“TJ, if you think that revelation is going to change my mind about you leaving, you’re nuts. I want to have sex with you, too.”
“Think it through, Doug. All the way to the end. What do we tell Rosalia?” TJ asked.
Doug sighed. It was one thing to invite a woman to join them for a threesome. It was another to start getting it on with the other guy at the same time. Rosalia was innocent when it came to sexual affairs—damn innocent.
“I think you should tell her the truth.”
Doug and TJ turned in unison, both of them shocked to discover Rosalia standing at the edge of the shelter.
“How long have you been there?”
Doug understood the sudden tone of panic in TJ’s voice as he asked the question. He was bound and determined to keep his family skeletons in the closet.
She shrugged. “I just walked up. Just heard Doug admit he wanted you. I might have been a virgin a few hours ago, but I’m not blind and I’m not stupid. I caught the vibes between the two of you.”
TJ looked heavenward as if praying, then his shoulders slumped. “And that doesn’t bother you? Freak you out? Piss you off? Anything?”
She gave them both an adorable grin accompanied by her sweet blush. “I think it’s kind of hot, actually.”
Doug laughed as he walked over and wrapped her up in a huge bear hug. He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re adorable.”
“So adorable you both left me alone in that bed.” There was no anger behind her words, just teasing.
“Hey, don’t look at me. I was warm and cozy and happily naked next you. It was TJ who skipped out on us.”
“This is crazy,” TJ muttered.
“You want to stop?” Rosalia asked.
Doug tucked her close. “He doesn’t.”
TJ gave him a hard look, but he didn’t refute his assertion. After a quiet, tense minute, his gaze drifted to Rosalia.
“I don’t,” he said.
Chapter Eight
TJ threw some water on the fire pit, dousing the flames. After last night’s confessions, he’d followed Doug and Rosalia back into the RV. The three of them had undressed and, through some tacit agreement, gone back to sleep.
