by Rhys Ford
Mace’s broad coffee table became their buffet, and a couple of wide, low noodle bowls seemed a lot easier to handle there than Mace’s stoneware plates. It also allowed Rob to sit next to Mace. They pulled their legs up onto the cushions, and their bare feet touched as they ate.
Rob recognized most of the food nearly brimming over the red-pagoda-emblazoned white takeout boxes, but there were a couple of surprises. The crispy boneless pressed duck with its tangy hoisin sauce was a luxurious delight on his tongue, slightly fatty but thick with a smoky tea flavor. Its skin nearly melted in his mouth, and the freshly made hot bao accompanying it gave a slightly sweet yeasty counterpoint to its richness. The noodles in the beef and chicken chow fun were definitely handmade, cooked just enough to grab at the savory sauce but retain enough heft to fold around the meats instead of falling apart when bitten. A container of flash-fried eggplant in black bean sauce had enough garlic in it to ward off an entire bus of vampires, but it was the crackling pork and fiddleheads Rob couldn’t seem to get enough of.
They ate in silence for about ten minutes, and then Mace asked Rob how his day went. A brief discussion of art and how Mace’s lack of color sense guaranteed he would never work the shop in any capacity other than taking money and making appointments led to Rob discovering what he figured was Mace’s biggest secret.
“You write?” Rob tried to keep the surprise out of his voice, but it flooded through. “Okay, I sound really shitty here, but I never would have thought you wrote. That’s kind of awesome. What do you write? Can I read it?”
“It’s not shitty. I don’t look like somebody who writes. I guess? I never thought about putting anything down until Ivo suggested it.” Mace picked at the food on his plate and gave Rob a quick, bashful glance. “And no, you don’t want to read it. It’s crap.”
“Okay, so let me ask you something.” He dug a sliver of duck out from under a pile of noodles. “If Gus or Ivo said that about their stuff back when they started drawing, would you let them, or would you jump on their asses?”
The flare of heat in Mace’s blue eyes was enough for Rob to know he’d hit his mark, and he sat back and chewed his duck morsel as smugly as he could.
“I… I would tell you fuck off, but that’s not something I want you to do.” Mace stretched to stab a gau gee from one of the containers, the fork wobbling slightly in his hand. His wince was nearly imperceptible, but Rob felt Mace’s legs tense up when he sat back.
“You know, if you want something, I can get it for you.” Rob gestured at the containers with his chopsticks. “You’re hurt. I don’t know why we have to keep telling you that. You would think the pain would remind you, but you keep overdoing things. And I know a lot of it’s because you don’t want to ask for help, but sometimes you’ve got to ask for help.”
“It’s kind of hard. When you’re in foster homes, you spend most of your time trying not to be seen,” Mace murmured and broke the fried dumpling in half against the flat of the bowl with his fork. “I know there are a lot of kids who—especially now—find a place with the families they’re put with, but it’s not really your place, not really your family.”
“I still don’t understand why your mom didn’t take you back,” he said as he set his bowl down on the table. “And I don’t mean to slag her, but you’re her kid. I mean, even as passive as my mother is, she would still fight for me if I’d been taken. I guess I don’t understand how she could just walk away. You’re a bit complicated, but you’re a really solid guy. And I know I’m seeing you now and not then, but shit, I guess I just don’t understand.”
“I don’t either. Can you put this down for me?” Mace let Rob take his bowl away, and he edged it into a spot between the containers. “Thanks.”
Rob moved closer, sat sideways between Mace’s parted legs, and slung his thigh over Mace’s shin. He was careful not to put any weight against Mace’s sling, and it was hard not to fold Mace into a tight embrace to chase out the pain and sorrow flickering over his face. He traced Mace’s beautiful mouth with his fingertips and let his thumb slide over Mason’s strong chin.
“I haven’t heard from her in a long time, really. I think in her mind she’d already accepted that he’d killed me or changed me so much that she wouldn’t recognize me, wouldn’t—couldn’t—love me,” Mace whispered, his breath ghosting over Rob’s palm. “She has a new family and kids who aren’t touched by my father’s craziness. You were there. You saw him. If she’d taken me back, she would’ve been stuck with him for as long as she lived. I’m the only thing that connects him to her, so I don’t know if I can blame her for cutting me out of her life. He’s violent and unpredictable. Who would want that around their family? Especially since I turned out exactly like him.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m a bit darker than you are.” Rob tugged at Mace’s lower lip and forced his mouth into a smile. “I’m a mutt, and you seem to be perfectly fine being with me. You call an older Chinese woman grandmother, and your best friend is Latino. You have a brother who likes to dress in skirts and high heels. And if I have to remind you about this, then I’m in for an uphill battle in this relationship, but your entire fucking family is made up of gay men. So, you’re going to have to explain to me exactly how you turned out like him. Because I don’t see it.
“What I think is your mother is selfish and a coward.” He expected Mace to narrow his eyes since he’d just insulted his mother, but Rob hated the resignation in Mace’s voice. “You needed her. You needed your mother to make your life normal and okay again, and instead she tossed you into a social service system that doesn’t always have a kid’s best interests in mind. The best thing to come out of that situation was you found Bear and discovered a bunch of guys you could call your brothers, which led you to me.”
“So what you’re saying is my life was the way it was just so I would be led to you?” Mace leaned his head back and eyed Rob skeptically. “It was a pretty shitty childhood. You better be really worth it.”
“I am.” Rob brushed his mouth over Mace’s. “And I’m going to enjoy showing you that you’re worth it too.”
Nineteen
“AT LEAST there was no earth-shattering kaboom,” Ivo consoled himself while Mace began wiping off the cabinets. “I mean, the lid held.”
“Yeah, good thing. It’s awesome how the steam release chittered around like a lawn sprinkler. Now we’ve got tuna-casserole juice all over the kitchen.” Mace glanced down at the sudden weight against his shin. “And the dog is licking the oven door. Earl! Get out!”
“It looks like soup. I probably put in too much liquid.” As far as Mace could see, Ivo was not making any movement toward grabbing a paper towel or sponge to help. Instead he was peering down into the tall steel insert of the combination slow/pressure cooker. “Should I dump it and start over? Or try to fix it?”
“You should pick up a sponge and wipe down the damned counter.” He could ignore the tiny ache in his shoulder, but he had to stop the dog’s slinking back into the kitchen. He would have to use the big guns, a rare command meant to warn Earl that he was one step away from being in the laundry room behind a baby gate while they finished cleaning up. “Earl, beanbag!”
At least Earl recognized Mace’s authority and stopped in his tracks before his feet touched the fish-peas-pasta water splattered over the floor. Earl met Mace’s gaze and then schlepped off to plop on the leopard-print beanbag he’d been ordered to.
The multifunction cooker should’ve only held eight quarts of anything, but judging from the milky lakes on the counters and the rivulets pouring down the front of the cabinets, Ivo seemed to have folded space and crammed a kiddies’ wading pool into the pot.
“How many of us are here tonight? And before you start yelling at me, look.” Ivo waved a slightly damp sponge under Mace’s nose. “At least I took off my boots. I got some that match the dog’s beanbag. Pretty hefty, and they’ve got a great heel, but I would’ve fallen on my ass with all thi
s water.”
“Just. Clean. The counter,” Mace ground out. Then he shook his head when Ivo flipped him off. “The shit you wear.”
Ivo shrugged, wiped down the backsplash, and then moved on to the rice cooker. “I like to wear different stuff. You know what else I like? Takeout. Or delivery. Either one.”
“I’m not getting down on you for what you wear. Just scared you’re going to break your neck on those heels.” The pot was still warm, and a quick peek confirmed Ivo’s diagnosis—their dinner was pretty much soup. “It’s just you, me, Bear, and Rob was coming over. Maybe pizza.”
“Chinese?” Ivo wrinkled his nose. “Had pizza for lunch. Or here’s an idea, why don’t you guys go out? Like someplace fancy? Where you have to shower and maybe wear pants.”
“Okay, that’s rich coming from you. How many times did I have to make you go turn around and put on leggings or something under the skirts you wanted to wear to school?” Mace reminded him.
“So they were a little short. I was experimenting.” He shrugged off Mace’s words as easily as he had when he was a teenager. “Why are you picking on what I used to wear? It’s been weeks since you were shot. Isn’t it about time you and Rob did something other than play video games and watch old movies?”
“Because you don’t learn. Now it’s the heels. Back then, it was the skirts and booty shorts. You were going to freeze your nuts off. It was the middle of winter. Short was the least of—” The doorbell rang, and Earl burst out of his exile. His booming bark rattled the walls. Tossing his sponge into the sink, Mace ordered, “Keep cleaning. I’ll go see who that is.”
And once again the dog proved to be more mindful than his little brother, because Ivo followed him down the front hall and straight to the door.
“Do you listen to anything I say?” Mace muttered at his brother. “Because I swear to God, I say turn left and you turn right.”
“The doctor just cleared you to wash your own ass with that arm. If there’s somebody at the door and you need help, what are you going to do?” Ivo grabbed Earl’s collar, and the muscles in his forearm bulged as he held the strong dog back. “You going to ask him? He’ll lick somebody to death before he ever bites them.”
“Just keep Earl inside.” Mace opened the door as the bell went off again. “And back up a bit.”
“Jesus, we have an eyehole thingy. At least check to see who’s there first. It could be….” His brother’s admonishment stuttered and then trailed off. Mace glanced back, but Ivo’s attention was pinned to the man standing on their stoop.
He was a cop. Mace had been around just as many cops as firemen. They had a blue-red sibling rivalry bolstered by one-upmanship and boasting. He worked with a floater who was the only fireman in a family of cops, and the stories that guy could tell over a beer were legendary, especially when his siblings showed up at the pub and turned the tables on him. Cops had a set stance to them—an anchor of authority when they stood and spoke—and this one was no different. He commanded attention, squared off on the cement slab at the top of the short stack of stairs that led to the sidewalk. His flinty gaze fixed on Mace for a brief moment and then settled on Ivo.
Ivo, who’d gone stiff and cautious next to him.
The plainclothes cop flashed a gold star and held his billfold up for Mace to study, but his light green eyes never left Ivo’s face. He was dressed for San Francisco’s fluctuating weather, in a long leather coat over a gray cable-knit sweater and a pair of black jeans. His cowboy boots were worn in—a dark sienna nearly the color of his slightly unkempt hair. Its silver-shot strands brushed back from his aggressively masculine face, and the ends flowed over the collar of his jacket.
At some point his nose had been victim to a couple of right hooks, but his long dark lashes and full lower lip softened his harsh features. His face looked lived-in and openly wore his years with a hint of crow’s-feet at his eyes and a two-inch-long scar running under his chin. About Mace’s height, he was lankier, mostly leg with a hint of a bow to his knees, but his hard, assessing stare would be enough to give anyone pause.
“I’m Detective Ruan Nicholls. Are you Mason Crawford?” His voice was deep—a hint of Midwest and “rolling, dark waters chased with a shot of bourbon” deep. Giving Ivo one last glance, he turned his attention to Mace and tucked his billfold away. “Is that you?”
“Yeah.” A panic hit Mace. He reached for his phone and was alarmed at the emptiness in his pocket. There were very few reasons for a cop to show up in the middle of the afternoon, and most of them would involve his brothers. Tamping down the fear rising in him, Mace blindly reached back and clasped Ivo’s forearm in case the cop was bringing trouble to their door. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I don’t know if you want to have this conversation in front of your boyfriend,” Nicholls said gruffly. “When I called your station to see if you were on shift, I spoke to a guy named Montenegro who told me you’re up here, but he didn’t tell me you had company. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but if you want this done in private—”
“My boyfriend?” Mace was confused until he caught Nicholls looking at Ivo standing behind him. “No, that’s my brother, Ivo. Do you want to come inside? Is everything okay? My other brothers are down at the shop. Well, two of them are, but Luke… shit, did something happen to Luke?”
Ivo tugged free of Mace’s wrist. “Let go. I’ll get the car keys.”
Mace moved aside to usher the detective in, but Nicholls only stepped over the threshold and stood in front of the open door. Earl slunk off, his head and shoulders down as he bumped the back of Ivo’s legs. There was no traffic on the street, but Mace couldn’t remember where he’d put his keys or even if he trusted himself to drive.
“Anything you need to say, you can say in front of Ivo too,” Mace got out.
“Your brothers are fine. This is about your father. Your case was transferred to me a couple of hours ago. I work homicide.” Nicholls’s stern face turned into a mask of professional sympathy. “I know your situation is complicated, and I wanted to reach out to you in person, a personal courtesy to someone who works the line. There’s no easy way to say this, but your father was brought in with multiple gunshot wounds last night by EMTs working Chinatown. He never regained consciousness, and by the time they ID’d him, he’d passed away. I know it’s difficult, and you’re probably experiencing a lot of emotions right now, but I wanted to tell you that face-to-face. It’s the least the SFPD can do for you… the least I can do for you. I want you to know that I’m going to continue to work the case, and we’re looking for the other man who assaulted you. Normally now I would say that I’m sorry for your loss—”
“No, it’s okay,” Mace shakily cut in. It was strange to find an emptiness opening up in his chest, and he nearly staggered with the rush of bitterness that filled it. He didn’t know what to ask or what to say, and the cop seemed to be waiting for something when all Mace could think about was how happy he was that none of his brothers were hurt or, worse, lying in a morgue waiting for him to identify them. The finality of that thought jerked Mace back to his father. “Do you need me to come down and ID him or something? I don’t think there’s anybody else. I don’t know.”
“No. We have his fingerprints and dental records from his incarceration records, so you don’t have to go down there if you don’t want to,” Nicholls said. “Someone might be contacting you about receiving his remains. Like I said, your situation is complicated, but we don’t want to assume you wouldn’t want responsibility. You don’t have to make that decision now. It’ll be a few weeks to process the body, and since it’s still an open investigation, we’ll want to gather as much evidence as possible. Someone murdered him, and it’s a good bet it’s the man who shot you. I want to make sure that guy is off the street.
“If you need anything or if you have any questions, here’s my card.” The detective held out an all-too-familiar SFPD business card embossed with the police department’s
shield and his contact information. “I doubt his partner in crime is going to stick around, but if you do see him, call me right away. I have your phone number from the report, so I’ll let you know how the case is going in a couple of days. Until then, don’t be afraid to call, and with any luck, the next time you hear from me, it’ll be because I caught him.”
THE CITY lights bleached out the night sky above their not-so-ramshackle house on the hill and whipped swirls of gold into the deep blue canopy. A hint of rosemary and lemon was in the air, evidence that their gardening attempts were at least semi-successful, the bed of herbs thickening and the citrus trees they planted at the foot of the slope in the yard bearing fruit despite Earl’s assistance in watering them. The deck’s wood railing was rough beneath Mace’s forearms, an indication that the sealant probably hadn’t taken. Behind him the house groaned and sighed as the cold evening air crept into its sun-warmed bones.
Inside, the excited shouts of his young nephew playing with an equally thrilled Earl broke the weighty silence he’d walked into a few minutes before. They’d talked around the news of his father’s death and instead had a hard spangly clatter of conversation revolving around nothing heavier than a client who’d wanted a Tasmanian Devil inked on the back of his skull. The punch line of Bear’s story came with a cockeyed Tweety Bird tattoo revealed once they shaved the guy’s head—apparently the forgotten souvenir of a misspent summer in Las Vegas. Mace laughed when he was supposed to, checked the door periodically when he heard a car drive past, and finally excused himself from the family room to get some fresh air.
He didn’t turn when he heard the screen door slam shut against the frame, thinking it was one of his brothers. But then a pair of slightly chilled hands slid up under his shirt. Rob’s cheek pressed against his back felt like heaven, and he sighed contentedly when Rob slid his arms around his waist.
