Shades of Henry (The Flophouse Book 1)

by Amy Lane

  Lance blinked slowly. “Well, that’s some fucked-up logic right there.”

  And he still couldn’t swallow the bile in his throat. In fact, it rose up and threatened to choke him. “You think? And… and I listened to him. I fucking listened to him, because the alternative was to… to just stop. And he may have thought that I was like… like a human Fleshlight he could use when my sister wasn’t there, but….” This was the worst part.

  “You loved him,” Lance said, and that made it easier.

  “I did.” Henry had to breathe then. His chest was tight, his throat was swollen, his head ached. If he could only breathe, breathe, breathe… maybe that ache could go away.

  “But being gay isn’t illegal in the military anymore,” Lance said, starting to stroke along Henry’s leg under his jeans. It helped to ease the ache a little.

  “It is not,” Henry said. “But… coercing men you’re promoted over is.”

  Lance frowned. “Did he—”

  Henry shook his head. “I got a promotion. For nine years we managed to get promoted at the same time.” Some bitterness slipped out, and it tasted like old come. “He told me I should fake my test scores because otherwise, I would have been about three ranks ahead. And we wanted to stay together, right?”

  “Of course,” Lance muttered. His eyes were shiny in the lamplight, but Henry couldn’t think about that right now. If he could get this out, tell the story, maybe he could keep the ache, the bitter, bilious ache inside.

  “But I couldn’t do it. Not one more time. Dammit, I loved the Army. I… I wanted to shine. My CO came to me one night and asked me why I was holding myself back. He told me Mal would never be more than a hometown guy, and friendship and loyalty were one thing, but Mal didn’t have the promise I did. And a part of me was angry, you know? I wanted to show him that I did do shit right and I didn’t fuck around. So I took the test, and I got the promotion, and I told Mal, hey, we had a reason not to do the thing anymore. Because it could ruin us both.”

  “What did he say?” Lance asked.

  And Henry shook his head, because he thought, hey, that should cover it, right? Things didn’t work out—obviously.

  “Henry, what did he say?”

  “He was… he was pissed. And he… you know. Always liked a rough fuck when he was pissed….”

  “He raped you?” Lance’s voice came out as a squeak. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well, seduced,” Henry said, because it had dignity. Lance’s hand clamped around his ankle then, not gentle.

  “Define seduced.”

  Seduced. Seduction was a hand over his mouth, bent over the bed of his new private barracks, cold tile hard against his knees, in pain.

  Without lube.

  “Coerced, then,” Henry managed to admit, but his face was wet, and he wasn’t sure how it happened. He tried wiping his eyes on his T-shirt, and it came back soaked.

  “Henry,” Lance murmured, and his touch grew softer again. “C’mon, man. Say it. Just to me. I won’t tell a soul.”

  Henry shook his head. “Don’t make me say the word.”

  “Henry—”

  No. “I wish that was the worst part,” Henry choked, because he couldn’t get the rest of the story out if he said the word.

  “There’s something worse?”

  “For me, yeah. He threatened me. He threatened to tell our CO, have me court-martialed, have the entire affair blow up in our faces, if I didn’t keep… doing what we’d been doing.”

  C’mon, Henry. I don’t like doing it this way. Just keep being sweet. It’ll all be okay.

  “Oh, honey—”

  “My sister has a baby, and she’s pregnant again. If it blew up, and she found out, her life would be over. But I… I thought we were doing it because we were….” God. “At least friends,” he said bitterly.

  “You were in love with him, and he betrayed your trust,” Lance said.

  “Is that what love feels like?” Henry rubbed his chest, and then shook his head. “I’m the bad guy here. I was fucking my sister’s husband. I mean, there’s no sugarcoating that.”

  “People aren’t all black and white, Henry.” Lance gave him a game smile. “I mean, my dad’s Russian and my mom’s Filipino—living proof, right?”

  “That they should bottle that gene pool?” Henry said, smiling a little. “Damned straight.” God, he was beautiful.

  “No flirting in confessional,” Lance said, and he dropped Henry’s one ankle, so Henry could bend his knee again—and then started to stroke the other one.

  “Understood,” Henry said.

  “So what did you do? I mean, you’re here.”

  “I went to my CO and confessed the whole thing,” Henry said. He closed his eyes, remembering the man’s sorrow, his disappointment. “He was… kinder than I’d expected. Told me that I had two choices. I could take the dishonorable discharge, and Malachi could keep his job, or it could come down to a court-martial, and it would be my word against his. He said….” Henry swallowed. “He said now that I had rank, it was likely they’d find in Mal’s favor.”

  “And both your careers would be ruined.”

  Henry let out a breath. “It’s… I was fucking my sister’s husband,” he said again, as if Lance hadn’t gotten the enormity of that sin. “It just seemed better for her. She and my nephew and the baby in her stomach are innocent. I thought….” He couldn’t go on.

  “How’d Mal take that?”

  “I don’t know. I took my walking papers the next day and… disappeared from his life. But he must have said something, told my sister something. Because I showed up at my parents’ house to tell them… I don’t know. I was gay. Something. And Dad was there. With his fists, I guess. Mom sat and cried and said, ‘Not another one!’”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  Henry shrugged and wiped his face on his shirt again. “But you saw that. I lived.” He wasn’t a complete pussy.

  “I’m not so sure,” Lance said with a little laugh. “When was the last time you took a day off?”

  Henry snorted, sputtered tears, and tried to get his shit together. “Jesus, Lance, when was the last time I worked?”

  “You call how you spent your day not working? You did nothing but run errands for twelve hours—and trust me, if you weren’t here, John would have tapped another porn kid and paid him a fair wage, just like he’s paying you.”

  Henry shook his head again and tried to still his breathing. “Just… just enough. Is there something on television? ’Cause God, it’s been a—”

  Lance stood up and moved over to Henry’s side of the couch. “Scoot over,” he murmured.

  Henry rolled to his side wordlessly, giving Lance enough room to lie down. Lance did, his body warm and smelling spicy and a little sweaty, but safe. Henry laid his head on Lance’s arm and said, “Why are we doing this?”

  “C’mon, Henry. Haven’t you ever needed a hug?”

  “Yeah,” Henry whispered, laying his cheek against Lance’s chest. “Yeah.”

  The apartment was so quiet, so peaceful, and for this moment, Henry was too weary to think of being anywhere else.

  It’s Not What It Looks Like

  LANCE DIDN’T get many opportunities to sleep in—and that morning was no exception. He remembered Henry rolling off the couch, and then that subtle relaxation that came when the other body with you gave you some space.

  There was a blanket, though, Lance thought, snuggling. And someone had taken his cargo shorts off, leaving him in his boxers and T-shirt. He snuggled deeper into the blankets as the morning apartment ritual started, with coffee and banter and “Hey, do we have any bacon, I might try keto.” He dimly remembered Henry asking if he could help with the shorts.

  “Sure, but don’t go,” Lance had mumbled, and Henry had crawled in next to him, on the outside this time, and they’d slept, cuddled, safe.

  A persistent buzzing interrupted Lance’s rosy glow, and someone—Cotton?—poked his arm
. “Lance, man, wake up. Your phone’s buzzing.”

  “What time is it?” he mumbled.

  “Almost eight. You said you wanted the shower after Henry, remember?”

  Oh yeah. Shit. Lance sat up and checked his phone, unsurprised when he saw six texts from Reg, asking if he was up yet.

  Gotta shower. Will be out in five.

  Okay. We’re almost there.

  Lance took that to mean “Hurry!” and grabbed his shorts and sneakers and headed to get his stuff from the bedroom.

  “Where’s Henry?” he called before ducking in to start the shower.

  “Taking out the trash. Every morning. Like clockwork!” Cotton replied, and Lance nodded before jumping in.

  Unless there was something special going on, like there had been the day before, Henry woke up at eight, took out the trash, did basic chores around the house, and then buzzed John and Dex to see what they needed him to do. Bobby had told Reg they might need someone to work construction a couple of days a week starting next week, but Henry really had been filling in his time—driving people around, buying supplies, doing odd jobs at the set. Not while there were models, of course, but Henry had gone in and fixed the plumbing in the girls’ shower and on more than one occasion repaired furniture broken in the scene rooms. In general, he’d made himself useful, Johnnies own little handyman, guy Friday to the hormonally insane in the flophouse.

  None of which could explain the swelling in Lance’s chest as he remembered the night before.

  Vulnerability didn’t come easily to Henry Worrall. Watching him come undone as he’d told that painful story…. Lance’s throat ached thinking about it. Henry had limitations—that was obvious. He didn’t roll his eyes anymore when the guys talked about scenes or boyfriends or scoring a hookup—but that sense of solid Midwestern farm-boy disapproval was never far from the surface.

  But he kept his mouth shut about it, and Lance could respect that. Lance got the sense Henry was trying to reserve judgment about things he didn’t understand—and even when he did understand, to not be like his father about things that weren’t necessarily in his life experience.

  The fact that he’d wanted to talk to Cotton and not yell at him already made Henry a better person than 70 percent of the parents Lance knew.

  Maybe eighty or ninety. Bobby’s mother was the Johnnies’ receptionist, and she mommed as much as the boys would let her—she’d started to matter more on a basic math level. She was that good 30 percent; Lance was sure of it.

  But she hadn’t been the one holding Lance during the second half of the night. Sure, they’d started out with Henry resting his cheek on Lance’s chest, crying softly, until he’d fallen asleep like a child. But after Henry had gotten up to use the bathroom, he’d spent some time making Lance more comfortable, helping him undress, getting him a blanket, and then had crawled in next to him and held him tight, even though they had a perfectly good inflatable mattress, complete with sheets and blankets, made up next to them.

  But Henry had chosen Lance instead.

  Lance wasn’t sure what it meant, but there was a pleasant tingling in his stomach, a hope. It was stupid, of course. Henry still couldn’t talk about the guys filming scenes, or porn, or even about all the hookups that happened in the bedrooms while Henry slept in the front. Lance really could sleep while Randy was going down on whoever got bored, but he wasn’t sure how Henry was taking it in his fortress of solitude on the couch. Sure, he’d laughed when Lance had talked about waving his gay penis around, but had he thought it was funny enough to date someone who was doing that?

  Still, having those arms around his shoulders, the way being held by Henry had felt like he was holding an equal, someone who would shoulder Lance’s burdens and lay his own down for Lance to carry—that had been pretty damned intoxicating.

  Lance was so lost in thought, he likely wouldn’t have caught the excitement going on downstairs if Zeppelin hadn’t stuck his head into the bathroom.

  “There’s some guy downstairs screaming at Reg. And Henry’s gonna beat the shit out of him!”

  The fucking hell?

  Lance got dressed so fast, he was halfway down the stairs before he wondered if he was wearing his own shoes. He got there just in time to catch the tableau—Johnnies guys lined up on the stairs, watching a cop thriller down by the dumpster.

  Lance wasn’t sure what had been said before he got there—all he knew was that things had devolved into a total shitshow now.

  Bobby—the sandy-haired Panzer tank Lance knew and loved—was standing in front of Reg, his face red with anger as he faced down a stringy, vaguely familiar-looking young man wearing a khaki duster.

  “C’mon, Reg, ya fuckin’ retard—don’t tell me you don’t want some! Your sister’s a fucking basket case. I’d want to get away from that too!”

  “Get the fuck away from him, Scott!” Bobby snarled. “I’ve got no beef with you—fuck!”

  Because Henry hadn’t waited for Scott to back down. As Lance watched, he dragged the guy away from Reg and Bobby and frog-marched him to the dumpster, maybe thinking to pin him there while somebody called the cops.

  “Martin Sampson, you hustling piece of shit. You should have just stolen my wallet when you had the chance!”

  “So now I’m a hustling piece of shit?” Scott snapped, but he didn’t sound surprised or even angry. Just sad.

  “What are you even doing here? Reg doesn’t want any fucking pills!”

  Scott gave a sheepish smile. “Everybody likes candy, Henry.”

  Lance had no idea who Martin Sampson was—he’d always known the guy as Scott. And even when he’d worked at Johnnies, Scott had been an asshole. John usually weeded out the guys who were violent or too self-centered to shoot good porn—often before the come had dried in their audition video. But Scott had hung around. He’d even dated Dex for a while, and then Dex had the good sense to break up with him, and Scott had moved on to Kelsey the receptionist, and from there, Lance had heard he’d gone to jail. He’d been well known as the local coke dealer, but judging from the little packets sliding from his pockets now, Scott had apparently moved on to pills.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Henry ordered, his hands fisting in Scott’s button-down shirt. “These boys don’t want what you’re selling!”

  “Lookit you, Henry,” Scott murmured, and the sorrow on his face was shockingly sincere. “Being the hero and shit. Just like your brother.”

  Henry’s fighting stance eased up a little, and he lowered his fists. “My brother?”

  Scott gave him a sheepish grin, his eyes peeking out from under his lashes, and for a moment, Lance almost saw that he could be charming. “You know… your brother?”

  Then he realized what that grin could mean.

  “Henry!” Lance called, hustling down the steps. “Henry, no!”

  “Fuck!” Henry swung and clocked Scott in the jaw before grabbing his duster again, lifting him bodily, and shoving him into the dumpster. It was pretty impressive as an act of strength, and absolutely horrifying as an act of violence. “These are my kids. Don’t you ever come back here selling your filth again!”

  “Damn,” Zeppelin muttered, following Lance down. “I was hoping he’d have some P-Top with him. All this cooking at night is making me fat.”

  “P-Top?” Henry asked, apparently hearing the most irrelevant detail in the midst of chaos.

  “Diet pills,” Lance snapped. “And they fuck up your metabolism, Zep, so back off. Jesus, Henry, are you all right?”

  “Coke keeps you skinny,” Scott mumbled, trying to push himself out of the dumpster. Henry turned to him with a snarl, and he settled back down against the trash bags and closed his eyes.

  “Fine,” Henry muttered tightly. He turned toward Bobby and Reg, making an obvious effort to relax his shoulders and his expression. “Reg, you okay?”

  Reg peeked out from behind Bobby’s shoulders. “Yeah, fine, Henry.” Reg’s arms crept around Bobby’s trim waist. �
�Thanks for doing that. Bobby was trying to keep his temper, but—”

  Bobby clasped Reg’s hands at his middle. “I’m still on probation,” he admitted grimly. “Which means we should probably get scarce. Lance?”

  Lance looked at Reg and Bobby, remembering Bobby’s misdemeanor conviction for assault. “Yeah. You guys go get in the car. I’ll be right there.” He checked his pockets for his phone and his wallet, relieved to find he’d brought them with him. “Let me go talk to Henry.”

  Henry was herding the rest of the guys up the stairs, and Lance ran by the dumpster, giving it a check inside.

  Scott—who was apparently Martin Sampson—was muttering to himself and trying to clamber out over the piles of trash. Good for him. Lance could see the little plastic baggies of pills falling out of his pockets and littering the ground in front of the dumpster. He was unimpressed by drug dealers, particularly ones who badgered guys like Reg.

  But Henry had some explaining to do.

  “Henry?” he called from the base of the stairs. “Can we talk a sec?”

  Henry nodded to Curtis, who was dragging the rear, and came back down to where he stood.

  “What?”

  “Who the hell is Martin Sampson?” Lance hissed.

  Henry grimaced. “Who the hell is Scott?”

  “Scott is your brother’s ex-boyfriend—the guy he was dating before Kane, who stalked him and tried to sell coke and… fucking Jesus, he’s a sleazeball.”

  Henry scrubbed his face with both hands. “He’s the sleazeball who was hanging around the bus station the night I got in.” His voice rose at the end, like he was wishing it wasn’t true.

  Lance groaned. “No.”

  “Dude, I hadn’t seen my brother yet, my face looked like hamburger, and….” He let out a groan. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “What are you going to tell Dex?” Lance demanded.