by Amy Lane
After a moment, they were alone again in the dark, with only the light of an oversized moon through the window to see by, as clean and ready for bed as either would get. Glen took off his boots, and Cash did the same. Glen stripped down to his boxers, pulled the rough woolen cover up over his legs, and watched as Cash did the same.
No hot sex here tonight, that was for sure.
“Why?” Glen asked when the silence had gotten to be too much.
“Why what?” For the first time in forever, Cash didn’t sound angry or resentful or put out or sullen. He sounded thoughtful.
“Why am I the bad guy?”
Cash closed his eyes. “You were never the bad guy.”
“Yeah, but someone was. My dad left when I was a kid—my mom told me he was a spoiled, selfish child. That’s how I know real men stay. How do you know I’m the bad guy?”
“You’re not the—”
Glen’s temper snapped before he even knew it was wound tight. “Cash Harper, we are fifty miles from fucking nowhere. You about ran a horse to death before you gave it to a couple of gorillas, along with our other means of transportation, and we are literally right next door to the only working toilet between here and Jalisco after walking halfway to Zacatecas and back in an effort to tilt at your goddamned windmill. The least you can do is not lie to me, do you understand?”
He paused in his rant, suddenly afraid he’d gone too far. For all Cash’s toughness, Glen knew—possibly better than anyone but his missing friend—that Cash was an open nerve, a bunny ready to bolt, underneath that swagger.
Cash’s deep, shaky breath told Glen he might have fucked this up.
“Not all men leave,” Cash said gruffly. “Sometimes they stay and things are worse.”
Of course they were. Glen let out his own breath. “Did he hit you?”
“Once or twice. Mostly he was just… mean. Mom left when I was fourteen. Brought me down here, spent her alimony on Botox and alcohol. Let me run wild, I guess. But it’s funny, how when you’re doing something, anything, to piss off that mean-assed voice, it only gets louder in your ear.”
Glen thought about it, about how relieved he’d been when his father had finally left, for pretty much the same reasons. “Got to be careful, kid. You listen to that voice too much, it becomes who you are. That’s not the person I saw last night. Not the person I tracked down this morning. Ask yourself if it’s who you want to be.”
Cash’s deep breath told Glen he was taking the question seriously. His next breath, shaky and thick, told Glen he didn’t like the answer.
“Maybe,” he said, his voice small in the darkness, “when this is over, I can try to become my own man instead of that voice’s in my head.”
Glen sighed. “Kid, maybe you don’t start someday. Maybe you start now.”
“Don’t call me kid,” Cash begged weakly, but Glen heard the tears.
“Make me.”
“Fuck you.”
Glen could hear it—Cash was desperately trying to pull his shit together. He sighed, slid out of his bed, and stood over Cash’s.
“Scoot over,” he ordered. “And stay dressed.”
Cash slid against the wall, and Glen squished in next to him, Cash’s warm, lean body reminding Glen that the night before he’d taken Cash like the man he pretended to be.
Not tonight. Tonight Cash was vulnerable and defeated and young, no matter what his chronological age. Glen wasn’t going to hit that—not again. But dammit, he’d made the kid cry, and he heard his own voices in his head. In Glen’s case it was his brother’s voice and Damien’s voice, telling him not to be such a fucking asshole and to maybe show a little bit of goddamned human sympathy for once.
Preston and Damien were good men, but they could both hold their own in the swearing department.
And they gave good advice, as evidenced by the way Cash pressed his face to Glen’s chest and cried.
Present
THE water had run cold, and Glen turned the spigot off regretfully. His skin was wrinkly, and he was shivering, but he really wished he could go back into the shower and stay.
It took him a little extra time to get dressed—his back and shoulder ached, between the long horrible job he’d just completed and the cold shower. And, let’s face it, the tension in his neck. By the time he emerged, Cash had finished off the rest of the soup in the container in the fridge and was reheating Glen’s in the microwave.
“Here,” Cash said. “Sit down. You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” Glen said, shouldering his way past Cash into the kitchen. Maybe if he pretended Cash wasn’t there, Cash would go sit at the table obediently and stay.
But all evidence had shown staying anywhere wasn’t Cash’s best thing.
“You look like you’re in pain,” Cash argued. “Just let me—” He tried to worm his way under Glen’s arm, using his smaller stature like a shiv.
“I am in pain, which is why you need to let me do this by my—”
“Goddammit, do you have to be so stubborn?” Cash jostled his side, and Glen compensated by shifting his hips and his shoulders in an effort to not touch him and….
“Ouch! Goddammit. Sit the fuck down!”
Cash froze. “What did I—”
“Just sit,” Glen said, closing his eyes and trying to breathe through the back spasm. “Just….” He took a breath, and Cash ducked out from under his arm and shoved a chair behind him.
“Sit,” Cash snapped irritably. “You. Just. Sit.”
Dammit. Glen didn’t have a choice. He sat and closed his eyes, working on the isometrics that had strengthened his back and his shoulder again and allowed him to fly.
“Pain pills?” Cash asked. He sounded really close. Glen could feel his body heat through the space between them, and he kept his eyes closed on general principle.
“Flight bag,” he muttered. He didn’t take anything stronger than ibuprofen when he was flying or driving, but right now he got the good stuff.
After an interminable wait, he felt two tablets pressed into one hand and a glass of water pressed into the other. He tossed back the pills and finished off the water, grunting thanks when Cash took the glass from his hand.
“Now,” Cash said like he was talking to a child. “I’m going to help you up, and we’re going to move this chair to the table, and you’re going to eat your dinner like a grown-up so that shit doesn’t rip a hole in your stomach. Do you understand me?”
“Fuck you,” Glen said sullenly. The red was clearing from his vision, but the kid was right. He’d tried living on alcohol and painkillers for his first month out of the hospital, and the resulting stomach troubles had Damien kicking his ass back to the hospital.
“Very mature, Mr. I’m The Grown-up Here. Now do you need my help up or not?”
Glen got his feet squarely beneath him and used his leg muscles and lower back muscles to heft himself out of the chair. He was turning toward the chair itself when Cash snarled, “I’ve got it. Fucking stubborn asshole.”
Glen walked to the table instead and Cash set the chair down and told him to sit. Glen lowered himself into the chair—thankfully one of the ones Damien had bought him before he’d moved out, with lumbar and neck support—and Cash put his soup and some crackers in front of him.
Cash was making himself comfortable again when Spence ambled out of the hallway, chestnut hair mussed around his face, green eyes sleepy.
Those green eyes widened, though, when he saw Cash and Glen glowering at each other as Glen sipped a spoonful of soup.
“Spence?” Glen nodded, hoping all was well. Spence didn’t say a lot, and at first Glen had worried. Had Damien hired a serial killer in desperation since he was so snowed under with work after Glen was laid up?
But then Glen had spent a little time with the guy and realized Spencer—gruff, growly, sarcastic Spencer—was the kind of guy you had to keep from bringing home kittens.
Literally. Glen had made a deal with the local no-kill she
lter that he’d pay to have the animals Spence brought in taken care of and posted on the website, special, because their apartment didn’t allow pets, and Spencer Helmsley ached for lost things. He was also loyal as a Labrador retriever—or a pit bull—and the suspicious look he gave Cash said Cash had pinged his threat-o-meter.
Go figure.
“You,” Spence said to Cash.
“Yeah?” Cash gave him that willing puppy-dog look that Glen estimated kept him out of a lot of bar fights.
“You fucked with his heart, right? You’re the one?”
Cash’s eyes went wide and his lips parted silently, which was apparently all the “yes” Spencer needed.
“Fuck him up again, I’ll fuck you up.” Spencer turned toward the door, and Glen frowned.
“Spence, you don’t have to leave! It’s foggy out there!”
“You got two hours,” Spence said. “Going to the bar. Whatever conversation you two are gonna have, be done before I get back.”
God. No. “Spence, we’re fine. I swear, it’s no big de—”
Spencer poked his head around the hall and met Glen’s eyes, still looking grumpy and mussed. “I would rather walk in on the two of you fucking over the couch than sit down at that table with all the shit you’re not saying. I’ll be back in two hours. Fix it.”
“Don’t get drunk!” Glen snapped.
“I’m petting their fucking dog, Mom!”
Spence shut—not slammed—the door which meant he was being sarcastic and not angry. He was usually sarcastic and not angry, and Glen remembered his conversation with Cash about the voices in your head making you who you were and wondered about Spence Helmsley’s voices.
The guy had become a good friend quickly, and a friend worried.
“Wow,” Cash said, breathing out. “He’s, uh….”
“He’s a royal asshole,” Glen muttered. “It’s why we room together so well.”
Cash let out a weak laugh. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’re not sleeping with him—you’d kill each other fighting to top.”
“Can’t argue,” Glen told him, taking another bite of soup. Silence fell between them, and Cash sighed.
“We’re going to have to… you know. Talk about us sometime.”
“Nope.” Another bite of soup to keep the pain meds from roiling in Glen’s stomach. “No us. I know where your friend is. Do you?”
Cash stared at him, mouth opening and closing. Finally he got his figurative feet underneath him and replied, but Glen couldn’t stop the savage surge of satisfaction from coursing through him. Yeah, you bet Glen had been doing his fucking homework.
“I spent four months looking.”
“You been gone for five,” Glen snapped.
Cash swallowed. “I… uh… spent a month at my mom’s place in Jalisco,” he confessed baldly. “We… we worked some shit out.”
Glen took a breath. Well. Well, that was…. God. It was damned hopeful is what it was, and he’d worked so hard trying to drain all hope through the bottom of the shower.
“That was good,” he said, shoveling in another bite of soup. Cash had broken out a loaf of relatively fresh sourdough bread and was buttering a piece. Without a word, he handed it over to Glen to mop up. “Thanks,” Glen murmured.
“Brielle’s off the coast of Baja,” Cash said.
“On a small island atoll,” Glen agreed. “It’s in the area for environmental reclamation, which pretty much sucks because John Barron—”
“Who’s that?” Cash sounded sincere, and oh, Glen was going to love rubbing some of this in.
“That’s Tranquilizer Piss’s real name.” The one thing they’d managed to agree on before that final defection in the hospital was that calling the asshole who had Cash’s friend “Tranquilo Paz” was too good for him.
Cash’s mouth fell open. “No….”
“Yes. John Francis Barron, born to lower-middle-class parents in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Went AWOL from the Coast Guard with five of his drinking buddies about six years ago. Four years ago, they surfaced in Santa Fe, selling Bibles like all good beginning con men. They got out of it by claiming to be a church swindled by a fraudulent company they, themselves, created. By the time the DA figured it out, they were over the border and out of our hair. Tranquilo Paz was born about a year later, catering to the young children of the ex-pats in Jalisco looking for a way out of the party life.”
“Brielle….” Cash’s face had turned white. “I brought her there—”
“You brought her there because rehab wasn’t working,” Glen said starkly. “You’re not to blame here. And she didn’t leave when she had the chance. That’s on her, not you. I had a friend take some aerial shots, and it looks like he’s got his followers working like madmen to build a similar setup to what he had in Nayarit. It’s hard. They have to ship in lumber, and I think they’ve tapped a pipeline for fresh water. He’s literally pirating resources to despoil an environmental landmark—the place is supposed to be a refuge for seals and birds, so he’s everybody’s asshole right now. But….” Glen took a deep breath; he’d seen the pictures.
“But what?” Cash asked, apprehensive.
“Brielle’s been spotted in Baja, buying food. With guards. I had a PI scout around. She doesn’t seem unhappy, but she doesn’t seem, uhm, drug-free, either. He actually spoke to her, and he said she sounded like she’d been under for a long time. He’s not sure what she’s taking, but when he mentioned your name, she started to cry. She said, ‘God, he got away. He got away. I’m so glad he got away.’”
Cash covered his mouth. “He’s got her drugged,” he whispered. “Oh man. Oh man. All this time—”
“Kid, that earthquake was not your fault either. Neither of them.” As mad as Glen was, he knew that Cash would have been there to keep his promise if the first quake had been the only thing God had thrown at them. “We were in no shape to get her after….”
Cash shook his head and held out his hand. “Just… just… what do we do now?”
“Do?” It was so obvious. “Well, first I have to call Elsie and have her take Spencer’s runs this weekend. Then I have to have Damien fly out from Napa with some of Preston’s dogs—they can meet us in the morning. We can fly down to Baja tomorrow in the Cessna and get her out. If we keep Spencer waiting as our getaway pilot, all we have to do is make the runway and we can get her home.”
Cash stared. “You have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan,” Glen said, irritated. “I’ve known where she was for a month. I got the most recent intel last week. I was just waiting for you.”
Cash’s lower lip started to wobble, and Glen stared at him in horror. No. No. They’d done this once. Glen had held him as he’d cried, had warmed him as he shivered, rocked by the rawness of emotions Glen hadn’t plumbed yet.
And the next morning, as Glen had been texting Damien, God had destroyed what was left of Hole in the Rock and dropped the main wall of that little general store on Glen’s back. Cash had been spared by a falling counter that had kept him safe.
Damien had hauled them both out the next day, but the damage had been done. Glen’s shoulder had been crushed, and Cash’s spirit had broken. Damien could get them both to a hospital in Jalisco, but he couldn’t undo the long hours in the dark, rationing water bottles to stay alive and baring their souls to each other in a way Glen had never bared his soul to another human being.
And nobody could make Cash stay.
“Glen—” Cash choked out, but Glen had stood up and was running for his bedroom.
“I’ve got to call Damie,” he said. “He and Preston are probably planning a wedding or some bullshit. I’ve got to call him and tell Preston to bring the dogs and shit. And I need to call Elsie. I’ll… there’s blankets in the closet. You can sleep on the couch. Don’t mind Spence. He’s petting the Labrador retriever at the bar down the road. Watch television or—”
And that’s all he could do.
Because his heart was screaming
to take Cash into his arms and comfort him, and his mind was telling him that the last time he’d done that, he’d barely walked away.
But as he rounded the corner, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his sweats and starting to make plans, he was haunted by his own voice, mocking his hasty retreat.
Men stay.
Yeah, well, this one didn’t. Not tonight. Not ever again.
Voices in the Dark
CASH managed to pull himself together after a few minutes, and he hated himself—a lot—for breaking down.
God, way to convince Glen he’d grown.
He wiped his eyes on his T-shirt and started wandering around the kitchen, rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, then wiping down the counter. When he was done there, he did as Glen suggested, grabbing blankets from the closet and setting them up on the couch. He’d just settled in and was staring into the dark, thinking that this apartment was pretty nice for a mancave, when the front door opened and Spencer ambled in.
He was about to flop down on the loveseat, remote in hand, when he noticed Cash staring at him and paused.
“You’re sleeping here?” he asked, obviously surprised.
“Yes, but I’m not tired.”
“Well, duh. It’s barely nine. Why isn’t Glen out here? Or you in there? The fuck?”
Cash had to laugh. The difference between this guy and Damien, who walked and talked like a real live TV hero, was like night and day. But he suspected that besides both of them being stupid-good-looking, they were equally dead-on loyal to Glen, and that was good.
“He had some… uh, calls to make.”
Spencer’s eyes were sort of sleepy-looking, but now they sharpened. “You’ve been crying. What did that asshole say?”
