Shades of Henry (The Flophouse Book 1)

by Amy Lane

  He disappeared quickly, leaving a sort of numb silence in his wake.

  “Bobby still films scenes?” Henry asked, scrambling to fill the silence.

  “Sometimes.” Lance kept that arm around his chest, and Henry finally acknowledged it, rubbing the back of Lance’s hand fitfully. “He… he grew up in a hick town. I think it’s his way of being seen. Reg sort of gets off on it, so it fits them.”

  “Mm.” Henry tried to disapprove, tried to argue, find another way for them. After all, he liked Reg. One of the things in Jackson Rivers’s favor was how gentle he’d been—how nonjudgmental, actually. Fuck. “I wish I understood,” he said finally, melting against Lance and giving in. “My brain is such a muddle right now. I… I just know I’m scared and a little sad and I’m too tired to be an asshole about you guys filming porn. It was such a line in the sand, so black-and-white when I got here. Sex for money, bad. Sex for love, good, as long as it’s a boy and a girl. But… but I don’t even fit that idea.” He thought of Martin Sampson with his head bashed in, and the way he’d run out of that hotel room, without taking the money Henry was going to give him. Why? Had he recognized Henry’s name?

  Henry couldn’t put it all together.

  “Just sleep,” Lance murmured. “Fall asleep. I’ll lie down on the mattress after the movie. I won’t leave you.”

  “You feel so good,” Henry confessed. “So safe. Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

  His eyes closed, Lance’s arm locked over his chest like one of those bars on a roller coaster, and he dreamed of up and down, up and down, Lance’s arms wrapped around him, the two of them inseparable, even in the chaos.

  And in the way of dreams, their clothes disappeared, and he was kissing his way down Lance’s bare chest, but he could never get past his navel.

  “But how will I know you?” he whispered in the dream.

  “You knew me before you kissed me,” Lance whispered back.

  Henry woke up sometime in the dark of night, shivering, craving the feel of Lance’s mouth on his. He sat up on the couch, and Lance murmured, “I’m still here,” from the inflatable mattress.

  Henry grunted and stumbled to the bathroom, the shivers not easing as he relieved himself and stumbled back.

  He couldn’t make himself lie down on the couch alone again.

  “Henry?” Lance said, sitting up gingerly.

  “Can I…?” Oh God. He was an adult. He was a soldier.

  “Yeah, sure.” Lance lifted the blanket and patted the spot next to him. “You didn’t even have to ask.”

  Henry climbed in and burrowed against him. “Thanks,” he said, feeling naked.

  “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

  He fell asleep believing that and slept soundly.

  When he woke up again, the cops were pounding down the door.

  Allies and Ally Cats

  LANCE PACED around the apartment restlessly, his stomach churning. He’d thrown up once already, on purpose, and the purging seemed to have steadied his nerves a little—and made the giant breakfast he’d eaten feel a little less burdensome—but it wasn’t enough.

  He checked his phone for the thousandth time, drawing up short when it actually buzzed.

  Released from questioning. Home in fifteen.

  Lance took a deep breath and tried to still the shaking in his stomach.

  Henry had looked so alone when he’d walked out that morning. The cops had barely given him time to put on a pair of cargo shorts and some loafers, and he’d been grumpy and unshaven and….

  And dear.

  Goddammit, Henry, why did you have to be so dear, so accessible, when you have a murder rap hanging over your head?

  Lance thought that maybe he should have gone to work out, which he did on his half-days as often as possible, and then his brain quit. Just quit, and he sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs and tried to put his relief in perspective.

  He was still sitting there twenty minutes later, staring at his phone message, when Henry burst into the apartment, looking irritated and hot.

  “Henry!”

  Henry gave him a scattered smile and then really took him in. “Are you okay?”

  Lance stood up and scowled. “No! You were taken out of here this morning, and you looked terrified and—”

  Henry’s arms around his shoulders were a surprise. When had Henry become the comforter? “Hey, hey. It’s okay. I mean, I’m not off the hook yet, but Cramer and Rivers, they really do seem to have my back!”

  Lance wanted to pull away and demand what happened, but having Henry’s arms around his shoulders, it felt just amazing.

  “We texted John,” he mumbled. “John contacted your guy, I guess, and then told us that Reg and Bobby had been… I don’t know. Attacked? Someone broke into their house and was supposed to make Reg change his story but….” Lance had to pull away now. “I’m a little fuzzy on what happened next.”

  “Wait! I know this one! Bobby sat on the guy,” Henry chortled. “Like, you know he’s built like a fuckin’ tank, right?”

  “I’m surprised he fits through doors,” Lance said honestly. Between the muscles and the height, Bobby was the giant country boy of your wet dreams—or nightmares.

  “So the guy breaks into Reg and Bobby’s place and starts yelling at Reg to change his story about what happened that day at the dumpster, and Bobby sits on the guy, and Reg called Jackson.”

  Lance frowned. “Like, the PI who beat the shit out of you, Jackson?”

  Henry scrubbed at his face. “Yeah. I told you he was nice to Reg. I guess something about him said, ‘This man will protect us from housebreakers.’ Anyway, Jackson and Ellery show up and the guy kept talking about a tape. I guess yesterday they tracked down a tape of the dumpster—you know, to show I wasn’t the one who dumped the body?”

  Lance squeezed his eyes shut. “I should have thought of that. Apparently that’s why they get paid the big bucks.”

  “Yeah. Hey, is there coffee?” Henry looked at him hopefully.

  “Isn’t it broiling outside?” Lance asked, moving for the coffee maker. “Never mind. I know you. Keep going!” Maybe it was the Montana farm-boy thing, but Henry could live on coffee on the hottest day.

  Henry continued. “Well, apparently there were two different tapes—one the cops got and one Jackson and Ellery got hold of. But both of them were fake. It’s sort of driving us nuts,” he admitted. His voice dropped. “Jackson’s downstairs right now, actually. He figured the tapes came from the super’s office, so he’s going to check Sternberg’s security to see ‘film school’ as he keeps calling it. I thought….” He shrugged, and Lance saw a flush steal across his pale face.

  Lance hadn’t realized how much he needed that, had loved it, until right now, staring at Henry hungrily, gratitude and want vibrating in his stomach in a way that made lawyers and PIs superfluous.

  “So I get to meet the great man himself?” He couldn’t disguise the irritation in his voice. He was, he realized, reluctant to share Henry now that Henry was… well, his.

  “He’s my best chance,” Henry said, like he believed it. “Seriously, Lance—Ellery and I got out of the courthouse today, and he was there with information and a plan and… I told him.” He paused and glanced at Lance, as if looking for forgiveness. “I told him almost everything. Martin Sampson, Malachi. I thought… you know. I thought you forgave me because you were my friend, and Davy forgave me because he’s my brother. Like… like you were obligated. And you… you’re kind. You’re kind to everyone. My God, Lance, you didn’t even laugh when Randy told you he really did have scabs from wanking off.”

  Lance grimaced. They’d guessed, of course, but when Randy had confided in Lance because he’d been too embarrassed to tell the rest of the house, Lance had needed to tell Henry so he could keep a straight face. “What is it with that kid?” he asked now.

  “I’ve got nothing—it’s like a medical condition or something. But see? I thought… if Jackson co
uld hear the whole story and not hate me….” Henry’s voice wobbled, and Lance hated himself a little. Henry was on the line for murder. He’d been brought in for questioning because he’d seen his one-night trick dead in a dumpster. He didn’t need Lance’s sudden weird bullshit jealousy.

  “What?” Lance asked, voice neutral.

  “Then maybe it’s not just because you’re kind,” Henry admitted.

  “Wait, what’s because I’m kind?” Lance asked, some of the irritation fading.

  “The….” Henry fidgeted, and Lance realized he was looking younger, more insecure by the second. “The… the thing. The thing between us. I… I—”

  Lance’s expression softened, but at that moment Curtis burst in, looking thunderous.

  “Dude,” Lance said, distracted. “Where’d you come from? I thought you were in school!”

  “Ugh! You know what? That rent raise we got was bogus. Did you know that?”

  Lance and Henry cocked their heads. “What rent raise?”

  Curtis blinked. “The uh… never mind.” He wiped his mouth hard and chewed the gum in his teeth harder. “He didn’t tell you. It was me and Zep and—”

  Henry and Lance met eyes. “And who?” Henry asked. “Where were you?”

  “The super’s office,” Curtis snapped back.

  “Did you see Jackson? He was heading that way.”

  Curtis’s lower lip wobbled. “He… I was giving Sternberg a blowie to get two hundred off rent, okay? And this guy busts in there, and Sternberg gets all ‘It just happens,’ and the guy makes him confess that it was a scam. There was no rent raise. That was something he told some of us to get free blowjobs. So not only am I a whore, I’m a dumb whore, because I didn’t even ask, I took his word for it when Zep and I went down with the cashier’s check.” He gave another vicious chew of the gum. “Fisher was giving some too. We wanted to spread it around because that fucker is foul.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Henry said. “I’m going to go find Jackson, and we’re going to kill him.”

  “He wouldn’t let me beat the shit out of him,” Curtis muttered. “The guy—Jackson, I guess—told me that the cops would put me in jail but let him off. He’s right. But God, augh!” Curtis stomped off to his bedroom, and Lance met Henry’s furious gaze.

  “I’ll take Curtis,” Lance said.

  “And I’ll go see what’s up.” He was all the way out the door before Lance even thought to ask him what they were doing after this.

  When Henry came back—not more than ten minutes later, Lance would swear by it—it was to drag Lance to a crime scene—and to doctor the guy who was supposedly going to save Henry’s ass.

  “You need me to what?” Lance asked as Henry hauled him down the stairs.

  “He hates hospitals and he’s bleeding. I told him you were a med student—”

  “Doctor,” Lance corrected, although he’d been letting everybody else say med student for years. He’d been a student when he started at Johnnies—explanations were the suck.

  “A resident’s a doctor?” Henry asked, wrinkling his nose.

  “A sergeant is a soldier?” Lance shot back. Henry was leading him to the super’s office, and there were cops there already.

  “Fine, you win, I’m stupid—”

  “Wait! Is that the super!” They pulled short as paramedics passed by with a man on a stretcher who looked a lot like the asshole who took their money every month, only this guy was sheet white and covered in blood.

  Henry made a sound. “Yeah, but he’s being treated. Rivers isn’t. Look—there he is.”

  The man wearing worn cargo shorts and a tissue-thin T-shirt didn’t look imposing until Lance realized he was dripping blood from a wound on his shoulder and talking to the detective in front of him like it was an ordinary day.

  Lance shook his head. “Yeah, he’s going to need that treated.”

  “Rivers!” Henry called, and Jackson Rivers turned his head and nodded.

  His green eyes had a burning intensity to them, and his gaunt, square-jawed face was still pretty in a faded way. And God, he looked so tired.

  Lance realized that maybe it wasn’t just porn kids who needed a nonjudgmental medical presence in their lives. “We can do this here or we can do this upstairs,” he said, and was relieved when Rivers stopped arguing and picked the apartment instead of the crime scene.

  LANCE GRIMACED as he stared at the network of scars on Jackson Rivers’s back and plucked at the edge of his wound with the needle. The super had been carted away in an ambulance, because apparently the guy who’d sliced Rivers open had come back to silence the guy who knew why he’d been in the security booth erasing all of the video footage in the first place.

  Ugh! The whole thing made Lance itchy. He hadn’t even liked the superintendent—even less when he found out the guy had been blackmailing his kids for blowjobs. But going downstairs and seeing him hauled away in the ambulance had brought home just how close to danger they all were until whoever murdered Martin Sampson was found.

  And seeing Henry’s brand-new hero, standing at the crime scene, giving a detective shit while he dripped blood through his shirt, had made Lance even more worried for Henry. Henry seemed invigorated somehow. He’d been almost ecstatic when he’d come upstairs, more worried about Lance, about the thing blossoming between them, than he had been about proving his own innocence.

  The fact was, Lance didn’t give a good goddamn who killed Martin Sampson—as long as the guy and all his associates with knives and heavy blunt objects stayed away from the people he cared about. Lance wasn’t a mystery kind of guy. The only puzzles that interested him were the human ones who presented themselves in the hospital or who interacted with him in his daily life.

  Henry was his kind of puzzle.

  And reluctantly, looking at the puzzle of scar tissue on Rivers’s back, he had to admit that Jackson Rivers was his kind of puzzle too.

  Taller than Lance or Henry, with dark blond hair and glass-green eyes, thin in a way that said he was coming back from an injury or an illness, there was still a swagger to Jackson Rivers that suggested he’d spent a long time trying to be self-sufficient.

  The fact that he’d stood by a crime scene, bleeding, while he’d talked to the investigating officer and had needed to be cajoled into the bathroom of the apartment to get treated told Lance a lot about this man, other than that he hated hospitals.

  Jackson Rivers’s absolutely last priority was Jackson Rivers.

  Lance wasn’t excited about what that could mean for Henry. Under Lance’s hands, Jackson twitched and held up his hand, then grabbed his phone and motioned for Lance to continue.

  Lance concentrated on the stitching while listening to Jackson lie, bald-faced, to Ellery Cramer—who sounded like a boyfriend and not someone he was “boning”—about what he was doing. Jackson finished the call, and Lance went back to working on him. Lance played doctor like the pro he was—finished stitching the hurt, tried to give Jackson advice about maybe telling his boyfriend about the wound, but in the end, Jackson was distracted by the case.

  And his color didn’t look good. It was hot outside, and Rivers had bled a lot, and he looked pretty shocky, in fact. It pissed Lance off that Rivers wouldn’t sit still long enough after being treated for Lance to get a bead on him.

  Jackson ran to ask Curtis some questions, and Lance turned to Henry, frowning. “This guy? You’re trusting yourself to this guy? Did you just hear him lie to his boyfriend—”

  “Because Cramer would lock him in a cage to keep him safe,” Henry said staunchly. “Look, I know it seems dysfunctional—”

  “Not seems, Henry. That wasn’t normal. I’m stitching the guy up and he’s like, ‘No, it’s fine, everything is fine, see you tonight!’”

  Henry sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “But did you also see him freak out about the super? Take care of Curtis? And those were guys he didn’t know. I mean, me, he sort of, I dunno, feels responsible for. He fought a
guy with a knife who had the drop on him, Lance, and after he got stabbed, he still ran the guy down. I mean, I know you’ve got high standards, but even that has got to be tough enough!”

  “You’re pissed at him too!” Lance snapped, because Henry had been glaring disapprovingly as well when Jackson had done his tap dance with the truth.

  “Well, yeah. But he thinks I’m an asshole, so I can yell at him. I want him to like you.”

  Lance raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Because….” Henry bit his lip and smiled gamely and then scowled. “Whatever. Can we just not piss off the guy? We’re going to go check out Sampson’s father’s practice. Rivers has some ideas about why his old man might have been the one to bump Martin off.”

  Lance recoiled. “That’s horrible!”

  Henry nodded. “Totally. But if it keeps me out of jail, it’s worth knowing.”

  And then Lance had a terrible, terrible realization. “You like this!” he said in horror.

  “Well….” Henry shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “It’s exciting.”

  “I just put ten stitches into that man’s back!” Lance protested, a feeling of panic taking him over. “What if that was you?”

  Henry’s crooked smile almost blinded him, and he pointed to the butterfly bandage over his eyebrow and his battered knuckles. “It was me. I’m okay. You helped.”

  Lance’s eyes grew huge, but at that moment, Jackson Rivers called them both into Curtis’s room and made them promise to say Curtis had been in his room the whole time, to keep him out of the investigation.

  Lance got it right away. Curtis’s skin color had the potential of making the cops go rougher on him than they might have for, say, Cotton. Lance hadn’t had to deal with too much crap because of his Filipino coloring or the shape of his eyes, but he knew what Rivers was saying.

  After watching Henry with Rivers, Lance had a sudden realization.

  Henry had arrived on his doorstep thinking his life, his career, everything about him was over, because his biggest mistake had become the sum of his existence.