All Wheel Drive

by Z. A. Maxfield

  After a few uncomfortable seconds, he saw the best way to tell the twins apart, even if they were dressed alike and wearing hats. Nash smiled more—warm happiness seemed to exude from him. In comparison, Healey radiated a kind of curious intensity. Energy Diego could feel in his chest like the vibration of a low-flying plane.

  “I didn’t expect you back, except to pick up your cash.” He pulled a fat envelope from the bag on his wheelchair and slid it across the table.

  Healey half stood to shove it in his back pocket. “You didn’t think I’d keep my word?”

  “No. That’s not— Are you really here to move boxes because I might need that apartment someday?”

  “That, and—” Nash took a long pull on his travel mug “—Healey’s always gotta have a project.”

  “Are you saying I’m a project?” Diego put his sandwich down carefully. A silence descended over the table. In retrospect, he was prepared to say even the birds stopped chirping.

  “Hell no.” Healey looked between him and Nash. “Moving your boxes down from the garage is a project. You are a dude I’m trying to make friends with.”

  “Why?”

  The twins looked at each other and then back at him.

  “What do you mean why?” Healey asked.

  “Why do we gotta be friends?” he asked. “Because I bought the house you used to live in? If you want to have some kind of old-home week, have at. You want to clean out my garage? I’d have to be an idiot to stop you, so I’m down. But you don’t have to bring me breakfast. I don’t need your help.”

  He’d backed his chair up and turned. Behind him, he felt tension build. Healey followed him inside. “Can I talk to you a minute, Diego?”

  “Sure.” Oh, Jesus. Now he wanted to talk too. Great.

  Next you’ll be calling social services on my behalf.

  Motherfucking busybody.

  Maybe another time he could deal with this. But with his dad and Rachel breathing down his neck and no work to speak of, he was ready to climb the walls. He so did not need do-gooders, church folk, or even well-meaning friends on his doorstep.

  Eyes on the floor, Healey said, “First of all, I apologize again for any inconvenience we’ve caused you.”

  Oh, man. That again. Diego mumbled, “You weren’t an inconvenience.”

  Healey sat across from him. “I’m no good at this kind of thing. I was in an accident. I came to Bluewater Bay more from instinct than any real desire to be here. I came to your house, and that was intrusive, and I apologize. My brother’s here now, and I’ll be okay. I guess I needed my family all along. But you know what?”

  Diego didn’t want to play a stupid guessing game. He lifted an eyebrow and waited for Healey to get on with it. After an excruciating few seconds he snapped, “What?”

  “I keep getting this vibe here, between us.” Healey gestured. “You don’t seem to mind having the company. You don’t seem to mind me personally, but then you’re all like, Fuck off one minute later. What am I doing wrong here?”

  Diego paused. The man was willing to communicate.

  He was even . . . good at it.

  “I’m not a project.” Diego’s brain couldn’t move past that word.

  “Of course you’re not.” Healey wrinkled his nose. “I think I might be, though.”

  Diego concurred. “Not my problem. In case you didn’t notice, I have problems of my own.”

  Healey took a breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah. I get that. I’m sorry we bothered you. We’ll move those boxes like we said, and then we’ll get out of your hair, okay?”

  Healey held his hand out for a shake, like a sandlot ball player agreeing to pay for a broken window.

  Now Diego felt like an ass.

  “You don’t have to do that. Next time my stepdad is here, he’ll move them for me. If I need anything before that, I’ll just hire some kids from the high school to bring it down.”

  “Stubborn ass.” Healey sighed. Stood to leave. “But just so you know, it’d be a piece of cake with the trap door. I’m sorry we bothered—”

  “Wait. I have a trap door?” Diego glanced up.

  “You never noticed? It’s a rectangle in the ceiling with a folding ladder?”

  “Oh, that.” Diego swallowed his disappointment. “I never thought of that as a trap door, is all. Secret trap doors are much more interesting.”

  “I guess. But we rigged up a pulley system when Nash moved in. That was awesome. We can do that again, and have your boxes down and stacked in no time.”

  “I am not a project.”

  Healey’s smile was a pathetic, momentary baring of teeth. He sighed. “Then we’ll get out of your hair. Sorry to bother you.”

  Aw, dang. Now he’d kicked an American Staffordshire puppy.

  “No. I’m the one who’s—”

  “Don’t let him play you,” Nash yelled from the other side of the slider. “When he gets all mopey like that, people give him candy. Plus, you gotta watch out for that pout. And his choir boy act.”

  “Don’t give up all my secrets.” Healey turned and flipped his brother off.

  “Oh. And also he’s into you.” Nash double flipped him off right back.

  “Right.” Diego stiffened his spine so fast—the upper half anyway—it hurt. “I’m very sure.”

  “I’m not into you?” Healey’s scorching blue gaze pinned him to his chair. “News to me.”

  “Don’t you dare fuck with me.” Diego’s voice broke. “You and your evil twin.”

  “I—” Healey’s hurt was etched in the lines on face. “We would never.”

  That singular spark—the gut-punch of wild attraction that would have made his cock lurch before the accident—now made his chest flutter instead.

  Dude might be serious.

  But why now?

  Why did this sudden, inexplicable chemistry have to happen with Healey Holly—that chipper, entitled wreck of a man—now?

  Diego didn’t let himself look away. “You don’t know shit about me.”

  “That’s right. I don’t,” Healey agreed with a dazzling smile. “I’d like to, though. And it’s weird, because I just broke up with someone, but that was a long time coming. Still I—I was pretty convinced I’d never meet anyone I dug that much again. And here you are. I can’t stop looking at your mouth. I should probably shut up now.”

  “Probably.” Diego whispered the word.

  Healey nodded. “I didn’t think this through, but I’ll say this: I believe in chemistry. I thought you were hot when we first met, so maybe I’ve been gum you can’t get off your shoe, but at least now you know why.”

  Tension knotted behind Diego’s breastbone. “You don’t even know if my junk works.”

  “That’s none of my business until you make it my business.” Bastard tried to hide his grin. “Full disclosure. Mine’s, uh. You know. Pretty standard.”

  While that hung between them, Diego’s heart got struck by lightning, and thunder echoed in his belly. The moment went on and on and on. He couldn’t think of a thing to say to that. Well, he could think of one.

  Yes.

  If he met Healey in a bar, at work, at school, and if Healey wanted to hook up? He’d say yes. He’d say, Take me home and let me suck you and come all over me, and fuck me hard and . . .

  Oh. By the way.

  My dick works, thanks, just not the way it used to and not the way you’d think, and I’m not really comfortable talking about that with strangers.

  Before Diego could say any of that, the words got caught in his pride. They disappeared, along with an apology for acting like an asshat when all the Holly twins had done was bring him breakfast.

  “You okay?” Healey asked.

  “Fine.” Goddamn it. Why couldn’t he just ask for what he wanted?

  Why was it always so fucking hard?

  “Anyway.” Thoroughly red now, Healey offered a second suggestion before Diego could make himself talk. “Come eat something and think about it
while we work.”

  The garage was quantifiably different, but still Healey’s chest hurt when the door rolled up to reveal . . . obviously not his pop, with his glasses on his head and his usual bewildered, yet fiercely joyous expression on his face.

  Healey had known what he’d find, or what he wouldn’t find, but it rankled to see the changes Diego’d made to what was once his home.

  Diego had painted the garage floor with slick speckled paint and installed pristine white cabinets and peg boards to hold his tools. There was a refrigerator freezer out here, and shelves of sports equipment and free weights.

  Gone was the cozy chaos. The tinkerer’s workshop. The place where, together, he and Nash had found everything they’d needed for a thousand stupid, reckless adventures. He missed it. It hurt, because he didn’t know if he’d ever feel that way about anyplace again.

  They rigged another pulley system, and in very little time, Nash had lowered all the boxes down to Diego and Healey. After the upstairs room was cleared out, Healey cleaned it while Diego told Nash how to arrange things against an empty wall. Nash obviously got the worst part of that deal, being the designated muscle. But he and Diego made a decent team.

  Diego had a dry, dark wit Healey liked a lot. He had a slim little smile sometimes, like the barest crescent moon behind a thick layer of cloud. How he wished Diego’s figurative sky would clear so he could see Diego’s full moon smile—but maybe once wouldn’t be enough and why take a chance like that?

  “Why not?” he asked himself. Why not take a chance on something that could be really, really good?

  Jesus. Now I am my own evil twin.

  Upstairs with Nash in his old apartment, he gave the place a final once-over.

  “Miss it?” he asked.

  “The apartment? No.” Nash ran some water into the tiny sink and used a paper towel to wipe the counters down. “I miss you and Pop and Shelby and knowing all I have to do to see my family is walk down those stairs.”

  The apartment was guest ready. They’d accomplished what they’d come here to do. But it was harder to leave than he’d thought it would be.

  Healey picked up the broom. “When Pop asked if I was okay with selling the house, I said sure. I mean . . . why not sell it, right?”

  “You want to move back here?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Nash shook his head. “Well, we gotta get out of Diego’s hair while you decide. So what’s next?”

  “Hell if I know.” Healey went to the window and looked outside. The view of the street was peaceful. “Nothing’s the same—”

  “I meant today. You know what? You should get with hot dude down there. Did you see the way he looked at you?”

  “I was too busy looking at him. But I swear. I am not ready to start anything new with—”

  “Who’s talking about starting anything? I’m talking about getting busy. Hot dude is hot.”

  “Nope.”

  “C’mon. I know you,” Nash said firmly. “You make a plan, and boom. You’re done. You’re sixteen moves ahead of everyone else. That’s what happened with Ford. When things didn’t go your way, you lost your shit.”

  “I did not. Where are you getting this from?”

  “When you love someone, you’ll do anything for them, even if it isn’t in your best interest,” he said, grimly. “Or theirs.”

  “This is all so not true.”

  “It is. But I’m here to look out for you,” Nash told him. “You’re a mad scientist, like Pop. Guys like you can’t do it for yourselves.”

  Pfeh. “At least I’m not some actor’s fancy man.”

  Nash preened. “I look fancy to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I do this?” Nash put a gentle headlock on Healey, and ruffled his hair. “I still look fancy to you?”

  “Fuck. Off.”

  “Imma call Shelby and tell her you don’t know how to talk to a boy you like,” Nash threatened.

  “No. She’ll start sending me all those slash fic links again.”

  “Maybe you need a little fluffing.” Nash let go and stepped back. “You’re not filling me with confidence here.”

  Healey raked his good hand through his hair before winding it back up and resettling the wooden pin holding it. He capitulated under his brother’s gentle prodding. “I like him.”

  “What’s not to like? The man is hot. And he digs you, even if you’re both being idiots.”

  “Shh,” Healey hushed him. “He’ll hear you.”

  “He went back inside the house to get something. Did you tell him you think he’s hot?” Healey nodded. “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. He stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind.”

  “When we go back down, why don’t you invite him out? Or maybe you should stay here and talk to him. Watch a movie together. Canoodle.”

  “I’ll try, but you saw how receptive he’s been.”

  “You just gotta get through all the armor with guys like that. He reminds me of Spencer. He needs an outlet.”

  Healey groaned. “According to you, everybody needs an outlet.”

  Nash frowned at him. “They do.”

  “Not everyone is a seething mass of unvented passions.”

  “Must just be everybody I meet, then. Anyway, you can’t be saying Diego doesn’t have some unresolved anger issues, because—”

  “You’re right, but maybe it’s not any of our business. Out, we’re done here.”

  “Unless you ask him out.” Nash did as he was told, taking the broom, the dustpan, and half the cleaning supplies with him. “You will, won’t you?”

  “He’s such a prickly bastard.” Healey gave one last look at the place. He turned out the light and closed the door behind him.

  “That gonna stop you?” Nash waited for him on the landing and they went down together.

  “I—” Healey paused. “I’m attracted to him, all right? But it doesn’t seem mutual, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ah, jeez. You’re still such a child.”

  “And you’d do what?”

  “I would hit that like the fist of an angry god, if I was you.”

  Of course you would. “In this situation, you can see where it might be politic to go slow, though, right?”

  “Because he’s in chair? Who would be better for a guy like that than someone who has some idea of what he needs?”

  “I don’t, though. I don’t even know what I need, half the time.”

  “But you know the right questions to ask.”

  “If he doesn’t bite my head off.”

  They found Diego on the patio, waiting, with a pitcher of lemonade and more of his homemade cookies.

  Healey turned to Nash, hoping he’d provide some kind of an excuse for him to be alone with Diego—all he wanted was a plan or some subterfuge Diego wouldn’t necessarily see as manipulation. Please.

  Diego spoke first. “Your brother can take off now that the heavy lifting is done.” He met Healey’s surprised gaze with an unreadable expression. To Nash, he said, “I’ll run Healey back to the B&B later if he wants to stay here for a while.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.” Nash pulled his car keys from his pocket. “I’m out.”

  “Nash.” Healey hesitated.

  “You want to go back with me or stay?” Nash asked.

  Healey glanced at Diego, who was doing his best not to look like he cared one way or the other. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he was trying to act cool.

  Between them, somebody had to man up.

  Healey shook his head. “I’ll stay.”

  “See you later, bro.” Nash grinned and made a fist. They bumped.

  “I’ll text you.”

  After Nash left, an eternity passed before either of them spoke. Diego eyed him warily. Healey stared Diego down, feeling awkward as hell. Finally, he pulled out a chair and turned it to straddle it.

  “Hey.” He opened with a ma
jestic conversational gambit. “S’up.”

  “I get why you do that.” Diego’s smile was cautious. “You sit so I don’t have to crane my neck to look up at you.”

  “Guilty. My sister uses a wheelchair. I’ve got habits.”

  “So. I have a rental apartment now?”

  “Yep. It’s all clean. Want to see?”

  Diego shot him a sour look. “Sure, as soon as I sprout wings.”

  Healey sighed. “You’re not a very creative problem-solver, are you? I say this not because I think you’re dumb or anything. Many brilliant people can’t find their way out of a walk-in closet.”

  “Name one.” Diego’s anger winked from his dark irises like . . . something else’s eyes.

  “Caught me.” Healey looked away. “In the case of the indomitable garage stairs: One, I could carry you up there piggyback. Two, if my brother came back, I could put you and your chair in the pulley system and lift you that way. And three—” Healey’d had enough of Diego’s sarcasm. He held his phone up and gave it a little wiggle. “I might have made a video of the place with my phone so I could show it to you that way.”

  Diego looked away. “A’ight.”

  “So my question is: Do you like taking no for an answer? Because I don’t. If I want something and the answer is no, I find a better question. I’m a scientist. I can’t help myself.”

  Even before Diego’s face paled, Healey realized he’d gone way too far. Because wow. What an ableist, shit-for-brains thing to say. Too blunt, Healey. Too blunt, too soon, too everything.

  But maybe if a guy’s going to be that thin-skinned, he shouldn’t be such a dick.

  “Look, no—” Healey rubbed his temples. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so—”

  “Say that again.” Diego’s lips tightened.

  First he screwed up with the word project, and now this. Was he destined to hit Diego’s hot buttons every time? Shelby was going to kill him. She was going to laugh at him and then she was going to kill him.

  Diego was a hot man with equally hot buttons all over him.

  Diego was a human antipersonnel mine.

  “I said, ‘Do you like taking no for an answer?’” he repeated. “But I swear I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. You—”