by Trina Solet
Another nightmare cut his night in two – before and after. If only Blake didn't have to suffer through it along with him. Reese saw so much pain in his eyes, but it also gave him so much comfort to wake up to Blake and see his face even if it was worried and anguished. Blake was proof that the nightmare wasn't real, that he was safe.
At the same time Reese hated feeling weak. He was under attack from his own memories. In sleep, he was helpless, afraid of ghosts of the past. It made him angry that once again brutal men had power over him even if it was only in his dreams. What bothered him most was that he wanted to show Blake his strength, not his weakness.
Physically, Blake was stronger, more muscular than the high school boy Reese remembered. But his power wasn't in his body. It was in the way he made Reese feel. Reese didn't fool himself that he was strong in the face of his desire for Blake. That had been disproved every time he failed to leave town. And long before that when he held on to his love for Blake through the hardest times of his life. When he felt like a piece of meat being skewered, he would reach for Blake and the memory of the closeness that developed so quickly between them.
Even if Blake had failed him, he was still Blake – the only guy Reese saw on his first day at Meadowview High. The moment Reese set eyes on him, it was like the universe had singled him out. "This one is for you." Seeing Blake scowling, unfriendly, confused by being stared at, Reese knew his life might be shit but there was someone set aside just for him. Out of all the people in the world, he was given one – one person, one good thing, and Blake couldn't do anything to make Reese stop believing that he was the one meant for him.
Chapter 14
Lying in bed that night, Finn was restless. Nando's touch was still fresh on his body. It made him hot even after he kicked the sheets and covers off. But it was unprecedented. Nando came to see him. All by itself that thought could have kept him up all night. The feeling of Nando's big, hard body grinding into him, his hand teasing his hole replayed over and over in his mind and on every inch of him.
That's why he got out of bed the next morning cursing Nando's name. Finn was a zombie. Knowing the reason, all through breakfast Dee was shooting slut-shaming glares his way. She knew who was responsible for Finn looking so wiped.
Finn sleepwalked through classes and focused on the plans for later. After school that day, he and Dee were going to Blake's motel. It wasn't just to hang out. They had a mission.
"How come Blake doesn't resent us?" Dee asked as they got out of the car in the motel parking lot.
"Maybe he does," Finn said with a shrug, slamming his door shut.
"He isn't nice enough to hide it. If he resented us, we'd know," Dee asserted.
Finn couldn't disagree. He didn't notice any kind of bad feeling from Blake, but maybe he had been too distracted by looking for and then finding Reese to bother begrudging them a life he didn't get to have. To Finn, his own relationship with his father was nothing to envy, but it was more than Blake had. All Blake had was Reese. That's why he was so obsessed with him.
Going up the stairs to his motel room, Finn and Dee saw that they weren't the first in line to get in. Two scary looking girls in black were already waiting in front of room 212.
Blake opened the door to them. "You still dress like this," Blake said.
"And you're still the whitest piece if white bread that ever got baked," the scarier of the two girls shot back.
"Let me guess why you're here," Blake said to both girls just as Reese appeared next to him.
"There you are! We were just going to torture white bread into telling us where you were," the blond goth chick said cheerfully as she gave Reese a hug.
"We're taking him with us," the brunette said to Blake as she grabbed hold of Reese's arm roughly.
"Maybe you shouldn't be making yourself conspicuous," Blake said to Reese while looking pointedly at the two girls, their makeup and their outfits.
"We'll keep him safe," the brunette said while putting Reese in a friendly headlock. "But first he has to answer for sneaking into town and not coming to see us."
"How did you know he was here, I mean at this motel?" Blake asked them with an edge to his voice.
"We didn't. That's why we were going to torture you," the blonde said.
"How did you know I was here?" Blake asked.
"Goth mafia knows everything," Reese told him. "You were chatting with Pietro, and he's Simone's cousin."
"Of course he is," Blake grumbled.
"Who are the prep school nerds?" the brunette asked, seeing Finn and Dee watching the spectacle.
He and Dee looked down at their school uniforms.
"My brother and sister, Finn and Dee Dee," Blake introduced them. "This is Patty and Simone. They're here to kidnap Reese."
"Just Reese, right?" Dee asked him. "Because we are here to kidnap you."
"We have no use for him." Patty pointed a thumb at Blake without bothering to look at him. Finn did get an appraising once over from the girls until Blake told them not to even think about it.
"That would be an interesting sandwich," Finn said as the girls left with Reese between them. Finn was imagining it was him. Reese could stay or go, either way.
Blake groaned. "They're all talk. I think." For the first time, he turned to Finn and Dee and gave them his full attention. When Reese was around, it was like they didn't even exist. "Why are you kidnapping me?" he wanted to know.
"Mom was all, 'Where have you been? What have you been doing?' So we had to spill some of the beans," Dee said apologetically. "Now she wants to meet you."
"Oh, God," Blake said, horrified.
"Yeah, yeah. You have our sympathy. Now move it," Finn said.
Blake grumbled, but he came along. Only his body was with them though. The whole way over to their house, Blake was preoccupied. Finn knew who was on his mind, but neither he or Dee could get him to talk about Reese. He was in a Reese haze, brooding over him, blind and deaf to everything else.
Stuck in the back seat while Dee did a bad impression of driving, Finn caught her eye in the rear view mirror. He wondered if Reese were to hurt Blake, would he have the same attitude Dee had toward Nando. Reese was cute, but Finn could definitely get his hate on if he needed to on Blake's behalf.
But he had a feeling that in this scenario, Reese wasn't Nando. He had already noticed the guilty look Blake sometimes wore around his boyfriend. Maybe Reese needed someone to be mad at Blake on his behalf. It made Finn realize he was lucky to have Dee. What a strange and alien thought. He vowed to keep it to himself at all costs. But he had Blake too now. Even with Dad being gone, Finn was so far from alone. He wasn't Reese or Blake. He didn't need Nando the way the two of them needed each other, but he fell hard for him anyway. With no real need, Finn was intensely greedy for him. He just hoped he could handle things with Nando whichever way they might go.
*
Dee Dee was driving, and she saved Blake the front seat, not that Finn gave it up without a fight. Blake would have given it to him. He wasn't a hundred percent there anyway. Still wrapped up in thoughts of Reese, he couldn't let go of what happened between them. Blake wished they could have spent all day together, but he did owe it to Finn and Dee Dee to go and meet their mother.
The day was sunny, putting an extra glow on the already shiny parts of Meadowview. With Dee Dee behind the wheel, Finn spent the whole ride criticizing her driving. As far as Blake could see, her driving was fine. Still, Finn never let up on her, but she had obviously built up an immunity from a lifetime of exposure.
Blake envied the two of them. They weren't tight just because they were twins. They were tight because they shared everything. It made him wonder what their mother was like. He was sure of one thing – she had to be the complete opposite of his own.
Though he didn't look forward to meeting the twins' mother, Blake was glad to have a distraction. It would keep him from obsessing about Reese and wondering what Patty and Simone were doing to him. When it came to
Reese, his imagination was in overdrive. He could only imagine the most explicit scenarios, but they were probably just having a late lunch.
Blake thought back to watching Reese as he slept after another restless night. Right before Patty and Simone arrived, Blake had asked him, "Do you ever sleep well?"
"Last night and the night before were the best night's sleep I ever had," Reese told him. As he said that, his eyes had the same dreamy, soft look Blake had seen both times when Reese woke up from his nightmare and finally recognized him. That's when the panicked look melted away, and Reese looked content and at peace. He touched Blake's face and went back to sleep in Blake's arms.
His nightmares were painful to witness. They hurt Blake deep inside and made him even more protective of Reese. When Patty and Simone came for him, Blake didn't want to let him go. But after everything, he was hardly in a position to take over Reese's life and tell him what to do.
A bump in the road and Finn heckling Dee Dee's driving brought him out of his thoughts. Blake looked around to try and figure out where they were. Lush greenery served as a backdrop to a riot of flowers. Blake realized that the twins' house must be in Elway Gardens.
The small community was appropriately named. Every house was surrounded by trees and plants that allowed only a glimpse of a window or a door and maybe a little bit of a roof. Spring was in full bloom in window boxes and flower beds. Every house they passed was nestled in its own peaceful, secluded space.
The front yard where they stopped was only peaceful until the twins barged through a garden gate and up the path to their house. Under the big trees in the front yard, Blake could see a white bench and a small outdoor table with four chairs. The porch was long with two sets of French doors on either end.
Sprawling and well shaded under giant trees, it was a modest house by Meadowview standards. Announcing themselves loudly, Finn and Dee Dee went through the front door. Going in, Blake saw a living room decorated in a casual, feminine style. He hardly had time to look at anything else as the twins hustled him through the house while shouting for their mother.
"He's here! We got him! He's here!" Dee Dee yelled like Blake was their prize catch.
"I haven't gone deaf, but I might if you keep shouting like that," their mother told them as she came out to meet them.
She was pretty and simply but impeccably dressed. What struck Blake was how the twins went over to hug her. She let them hang all over her while she gave Blake an uncertain smile.
"Hello, Mrs... I mean..." Blake said, flustered, not sure how to address her.
"Yu Lin will be fine," she told him with a kind smile. "And I go by Huen now."
"Yeah, she ditched the old man's last name too," Finn said.
"I've heard a lot about you," Yu Lin said to Blake with a guarded look on her face.
"Now we eat?" Finn said before his mother could elaborate.
Blake wondered if he interrupted her deliberately.
"Yes. Let's find something to feed you," Yu Lin said and led them to the kitchen.
The white kitchen had a breakfast nook on one end with a set of French doors leading out into the garden. Herbs were tied with string and hanging in bunches under the kitchen cabinets to dry. They gave the kitchen a sharp, green scent.
"Grandma did that," Dee Dee said. "She planted an herb garden in the back, and if we forget to water it, she yells at us."
"She works hard and has no patience for people who don't," Yu Lin said, pointedly looking at each of her children in turn.
"Don't you go and turn into her," Finn warned her while opening the fridge door wide.
"I want to make my specialty for Blake. Grilled cheese with pesto and ham," Dee Dee piped up and went over to stick her head in the refrigerator. After a little poking around, she exclaimed unhappily. "Oh, no. We don't have any cheese. Mom!" she complained seeing that her menu plan was ruined.
"You know where the store is, honey," her mother told her.
"That means I'm up with my famous warmed up pizza and egg drop soup?" Finn said as he saw what was in the fridge. He held up a plastic container with soup. "Grandma was here?"
"She dropped it off before going on her meals on wheels deliveries," his mother said.
"We'll warm up the pizza. And we can make a salad." Dee Dee held up a bag of lettuce.
She and Finn bustled around the kitchen, getting in each other's way and talking over each other. Their mother left the food to the kids.
Inviting Blake to come with her, she took him into what looked like a study. A fat, white cat was already in there, sunning itself on an ottoman that was set up under one window. The cat turned its head and squinted at them then went back to looking out the window.
"That's Polly," Yu Lin said. "We love her. She tolerates us."
Blake checked out the room. Bookshelves wrapped around stopping only when they hit the two windows. One window let in plenty of light while the other window was well shaded. A desk loaded down with papers faced the corner between the windows.
Yu Lin pointed to the two sides of the room. "Sun or shade?"
There was a plush armchair on each end of the room and a love seat facing them. Blake took the loveseat. He had already figured out that she wanted to have a private chat with him.
"The twins were so excited to finally meet you. And I have to admit, I was curious as well," she said while she made herself comfortable in the armchair on the sunny side.
"And worried," Blake added. Though she wasn't unwelcoming, he could tell she was uneasy about him.
"Well, yes," she admitted. The look in her eyes asked him to understand a mother's concern. "I don't even know where they've been going or what they've been up to since you became the center of their world."
"I'm a novelty. It will wear off," Blake predicted.
"Probably. But you will still be their brother." She smiled then shook her head. "Sorry. Finn and Dee Dee said they recognized you because you looked so much like Jim, the young Jim anyway. They were right. It's a little unsettling."
Blake ducked his head, feeling ashamed of his resemblance to his father. After the way she and her kids welcomed him into their house, he should have been ashamed for skulking around and sneaking away when he saw them at the funeral. "I'm sorry. I should have come to you before now or at the funeral, and introduced myself."
"Don't worry about that. All of us had a lot on our minds. You're here now. That's what matters." She smiled at him more warmly than before. "The kids would be having a much harder time of it if it wasn't for you."
"Were they close to him?" Blake asked hesitantly. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to know about that.
"Not really. They spent more time with their father after he got sick than ever before. He kept us all at a distance. When I first met him, he was so closed off. I thought he just needed some love and patience. But it turned out I didn't have enough of either." She smiled sadly and maybe a little bitterly.
"I'm sure he wasn't easy to live with," Blake said. He was surprised that she was so willing to talk about her ex husband like that. He wondered if she did it for his sake.
"Jim was so magnetic. I met him at a college fundraising banquet and fell for him hard. But being his wife, that was another thing. He was so mistrustful, paranoid even. I thought I could prove myself to him, and he would learn to trust me. But I got tired of proving myself. Finn was just starting to get rebellious. I didn't think Jim would be able to deal with him. Even Dee Dee has a stubborn streak. I thought they would be better off with more freedom. And Finn being bi – Jim was never going to accept that," she said with a shake of her head. "Finn told me you are gay. That was a nice surprise."
Blake found himself smiling at her words. It seemed like she forgot her earlier mistrust of him. She was much more refined than Finn and Dee Dee, but she was a lot like her kids. She didn't let anything bad keep its hold on her for long. No wonder she couldn't stay married to Jim Monroe.
"I know you must have a lot of mixed feelings
about your father," she said with a look of understanding. "I wish I could tell you something about him that could help you come to terms with him. If you are wondering how your father felt about you, I don't know. He refused to speak about you or your mother."
"His actions tell me everything I need to know," Blake told her.
"Try not to dwell on it," she said, echoing his thoughts. "You're your own man now. Just accept you feelings for what they are. Even if you don't miss your actual father, you can still miss the idea of him."
"You mean I miss the father I never had?"
She nodded. Yu Lin was so warm and had a confident but calm energy. As he sat with her, feeling at ease in her company, Blake couldn't help but compare her to his own mother.
His mother was always restless and on edge. Pacing their rundown house like a trapped animal, she ceaselessly seemed to be grasping for something just out of reach. Since he was little, being around her had always made Blake nervous. After so many years, it was impossible for him to imagine living with a mother who didn't fly into a rage, throw things and constantly scream about money and all the men who refused to give it to her.
While Blake was lost in unpleasant thoughts, the twins started yelling, calling him to come eat. Their mother didn't join them. Blake saw her settle into her armchair with a book.
On the way to the kitchen, Blake spotted pictures of the twins with their father on a side table. They startled him. Jim Monroe looked serious in all of them while the kids smiled next to him. In one photo, little Finn and Dee Dee were each holding one of their father's hands.
Blake closed his eyes as a sense memory overtook him. For a moment, he could remember vividly what it was like to hold his father's hand, how his small hand fit in his father's big one. He could feel the exact pressure of his father's fingers and the rougher texture of his skin. He opened his eyes, feeling unbearably sad. That's when he noticed Dee Dee standing next to him silently, a worried look on her face. Blake turned to her to reassure her, but before he could say anything, she hugged him.
