by Cole McCade
“What she’d done…?” Wally asked, voice and lips soft against Joseph’s throat.
“What she always does, to hear you tell it. Miriam was born leaving.”
“Do you blame me for Miriam disappearing?”
“No. Maybe.” Joseph shrugged. “Sometimes I thought it was how she was raised. How she was made. Both of you wild wanderers on a road I don’t know how to travel. But then you came. You stayed.”
“I did.”
“She was my wife, Wally. And I never understood her.”
“My sister was and is as dear to my heart as anyone on this earth.” Wally pushed himself up to look at Joseph, filling Joseph’s vision with those lovely, dark eyes framed by such beautifully lush, curling lashes. “But I never understood her, either. I only learned very quickly that trying to cage her was like trying to cage fire; she would only burn everything around her until she destroyed it all, or smothered herself out.”
“I know. I remember that fire.”
Wally threaded his fingers into Joseph’s hair, a touch like cobwebs, and his lips were cool and damp as dew when he kissed Joseph. Joseph leaned into that touch, that taste, and let them soothe the burn of remembered fire, let them wash the pain in the quiet balm of Wally’s love.
“I’ll ask you again,” Wally whispered. “Do you still love my sister, Joseph?”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me that. Not now. Don’t…let that stand in the way.” Shaking his head, brushing their noses together, he curled his fingers against Wally’s back, pressing the other man into him until those fine-edged shoulder blades cut against his palms through Wally’s shirt. “I want to say no, but I think I’ll always love the memory of what I thought she was. But it’s…not the same kind of love it used to be.”
Wally laughed, short and hitched. “Unknowns. The only constants with my sister have always been unknowns.” He spoke the words into the small space between them as if whispering prayers. “We spent so much time drifting from family to family that for the longest time we didn’t even know who we were. This identity that comes from family…it never imprinted on us. The first were stolid farm folk made of the dry, arid earth of the Dust Bowl like clay golems, and where they were earth, Miriam was fire…and I don’t know if I’m water or air. Perhaps I’m the horizon line between, where sky meets sea…but I digress.” Wally’s voice hesitated on wordless sounds, gradually coming together in pieces that made sense, made pictures, made a story. “Then a family that was nothing but brightness, sheer light on sunflowers, while we were shadows and blight. Then the ones of stern wooden lathes trying to bend us into shape, when we were formless and mercurial and wild.” Dark lashes drifted downward, pensive. “When you grow up changing shape to fit someone else’s world every few months, it’s easy to want to run away. I think that’s what Miriam first started running from; from the idea of putting down roots and drinking the water of someone else’s earth until she became rooted in their idea of who she was. First it was running away into the woods, as a girl. I’d follow to keep her safe, and find the tree houses and strange places she made for herself like faerie circles left behind. Then it was running off with boys. Then running away to university, and then…” He laughed. “Then she had the idea for the circus. She wanted it all for herself, but couldn’t hold still long enough to keep it together, and then…here I was. Hoping that if I gave her a home that moved on the wind just as she did, she might be able to move with it. But even then…with Miriam, you learned to be comfortable with the unknown. Where she was. When she was coming back. Sometimes, if she was even alive.”
“Who she’s married to this week,” Joseph added dryly. “She looks to have stayed with that West guy.”
“Yet has she appeared happy, any time you’ve seen her?”
“No. She’s looked almost…desperate.”
“Trapped,” Wally said. “She’s trapped.”
“You don’t think he’s…?”
“No. I don’t think anyone could force Miriam to stay where she didn’t want to. But she’s looking for something. Or…running from something. Running from her fear of becoming what we all become, eventually, as the arrows point to the end of days. Pathways leading to Elysium, or perhaps only purgatory. And everything she picks up and puts down again on her path to purgatory leaves a bit of itself behind to weigh her down.” Wally sighed. “I think she’s weighed herself in place, and doesn’t know how to run away anymore. Her fears hold her in place, where they used to chase her away. Just as her fear of loving you, of loving Willow, sent her into desperate flight.”
“Walford?”
Wally lifted his head. “Yes, darling dear?”
“Miriam’s done. For both of us. I know how she feels. I know how I feel. I’ve seen the divorce papers, and you drew your line in the sand today.” Joseph stole a breath of a kiss, then murmured, “Let’s close her chapter in our story. We aren’t even supposed to be talking about her anymore, so let’s be done with it. I only care about understanding her at this point because knowing her past means knowing yours. Understanding yours. Her…” He tucked a lock of Wally’s hair back, fingering the silvery-black strands. “Her demons are her demons. I hope she figures them out, but that’s on her. Not us. The thing with her is…she can only hurt us if we let her, Walford.”
A slow smile tugged at Wally’s lips, alight with hope. “Then we should stop letting her.”
“And we should stop hurting each other.” Joseph pressed a finger to Wally’s lips. “No more secrets?”
Wally kissed his fingertip. “I promise. No more secrets.” Then he leaned in, his smile breaking into an impish grin, eyes glittering. “I suppose I should tell you now that I’m really a Russian spy, and the circus was but a cover to escape being killed by my rivals.”
Joseph groaned. “Wally?”
“Yes, darling dear?”
“Shut up, you weirdo.”
Wally let out a laugh—a laugh filled with such sheer delight that it lifted Joseph’s heart and coaxed an answering chuckle from him. But Wally did indeed shut up, curling contentedly in Joseph’s lap even if his long, thin limbs made him fold up like a grasshopper, all sharp bits and angles everywhere. Joseph didn’t mind; to him Wally fit just right, and if he had his way he’d stay here until his body couldn’t handle it anymore, moving with the rhythm of their flesh, caught in the push and pull as they inhaled, exhaled, breathed together.
“Stay here tonight?” Wally whispered into the stillness.
“All right.” Joseph nuzzled the upper curve of Wally’s ear. “You could start keeping some things at my place, you know.”
“Would you like to keep some things here, too?”
“Yeah,” Joseph said. “Yeah. I think that works pretty well, for now.”
Wally tilted his head back to look at him with a small smile. “For now?”
“For now.” Joseph kissed that smile, printed its curvature on his mouth, then nudged Wally with a laugh. “Come on. Your couch is more comfortable than this chair. Let’s just…relax, for the rest of the night.”
* * *
MAYBE JOSEPH WAS OLD, THAT he found perfection and relief from the day’s emotional upheaval in another quiet night on the couch with Wally’s horribly overacted black-and-white films—and horribly over-exaggerated pantomimes, turning time on the couch into an obstacle course of florid gestures and swinging limbs. Until Joseph gave up and pinned Wally down to keep him still…and then pinned him because Wally wouldn’t be still at all, and there was pleasure and temptation in how the lovely man arched against Joseph’s hand, straining against the pressure holding him to the sofa.
And he suddenly didn’t feel so very old at all, as he lifted Wally up and carried him to the bedroom, to the lushness of that canopy bed, to the creamy smoothness of sheets that clung cool to skin that burned with sweat and fire as he tore their clothing away—and reminded Wally with his lips, his hands, his tongue, his body that Miriam…Miriam was the past. This was now, and now burne
d so bright that the memory of Miriam’s fire was barely a spark before the sun.
And if Wally was where sky met sea, then Joseph was the storm building between, and he crashed over and over until he drenched them both in desire and need and this thundering thing building inside him, swelling and threatening to tear his world apart with its tempest.
Wally fell asleep against him in a tangle of damp, svelte limbs within minutes, as they sank together against the plush mattress to catch their breaths. Joseph smiled to himself; for all that Wally was built like a scarecrow of glass and silk, when he fell asleep he was coltish and borderline girlish, this close-tucked sprawl of limbs and a wash of streaked hair against the pillow, all his stark ridges and edges softened into a lazy flow.
Joseph lingered on the parted line of Wally’s sleeping lips, the way he sighed.
Then he gently disengaged himself, picked up his phone, and slipped from the room.
The kitchen was dark, when he padded in barefoot, hitching his boxer-briefs up around his hips; the only light came from the street lamps filtering through the curtains. He didn’t even know what time it was; he lost track of time so easily with Wally, until hours passed in the curve of his mouth and the dark, laughing gleam of his eyes.
He fumbled for the light switch, then gave up finding it under the spice bags and posters and fabric swatches and patterned potholders hanging from the walls. The street lamps and moonlight were enough. He snagged a magnetic notepad lined with puppy pawprints from the fridge and settled at the kitchen table, the clip-on marker pen from the notepad in one hand, his phone in the other. He wasn’t quite sure what he was thinking yet, but as he’d listened to Wally an idea had crept on him—half-formed, nebulous, something that might not even be possible, but he’d like to try. He scrolled through his phone contacts, spinning past names he hadn’t thought of in years—former coworkers from his career at the textile mill, professional contacts, even a few people he’d thought of as friends before he’d dropped off the face of the earth and they’d stopped calling because he never called back, and he hadn’t known how to say wait for me.
Wait for me, while I figure out where I fit now.
He wasn’t even sure half these people still had the jobs he remembered, but it was worth a shot. A few city officials, administrators at various bureaus and zoning offices… He paused on a name here and there, jotted it down on the notepad, scribbled the phone number, then searched through to the next. Tomorrow, he’d make a few calls. No point making a plan until he was certain.
He made a list of seven names—as good a place to start as any—and was just pulling up Google in his phone’s web browser when a faint chime rang over the house. He frowned; that didn’t sound like the shop front door. It sounded like a normal doorbell; wasn’t there a back entrance? He thought so—buried in the ass end of a narrow alley he’d always warned Willow never to use, poorly lit and not exactly safe.
So who the hell was ringing at Wally’s back door at this time of night?
He thought of that man—a glimpse of tanned skin and platinum blonde hair on the surveillance videos on the news, a whisper of vigilante and killer from Wally’s confession, and if Wally knew one killer he might know twenty. There were layers to Walford he was only beginning to unravel, and some were mysterious and strange and utterly unreachable.
He searched for something he could use for a weapon, and snagged a broom. Better than nothing, and more leverage than his crutch, even if he could drop someone at the knees with a crutch if he had to. God, he felt so fucking ridiculous, creeping down the hall and the stairs in his goddamned underwear with a broom cocked like he was ready to throw down with a fucking dust bunny. He slipped through the back halls behind the shop and peered out the back door peephole.
Tawny, pale brown eyes glared at him, gleaming, snapping sharply as a wildcat’s.
“You going to open the door or not? I’m sweating like Niatha’s nutsack out here.”
“Jesus.” Joseph exhaled, shoulders drooping, and leaned the broom against the wall to open the door. “Maxi. Hey.” He stepped back to let her in. “Wally’s asleep.”
She snorted, making that noise against her teeth, and pushed inside, her ample curves swaying against him, her brown skin glistening with summer sweat. “Ain’t looking for him. Looking for you. You weren’t at your place, so I figured you had to be here. Looks like I was right.” She swept him with an up-and-down look, so knowing it bordered on derisive, her mouth twisting dryly. “Forgot your clothes at home, boy?”
Joseph fidgeted and fought the urge to cover himself. “Yeah, uh…” Heat suffused his face. “They’re, um…upstairs.”
“Shut it. Shoosh. Nope.” She crossed her hands, palms flat, and shook her head. “Don’t need to hear that shit. Thought you’d have called before now, though. Good to see you ain’t dead.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and curled it against the back of his neck. “Sorry. I…uh…I’ve been…”
“Just say ‘distracted,’ because I don’t wanna have to bleach my goddamn eyeballs picturing anything else.” She huffed through her nose, nostrils flaring, and planted her hands on her hips with a sour stare. “Thought I was gonna come back to help someone hide a body.”
“We worked things out.”
“And I didn’t even have to threaten anyone.”
He arched a brow. “You threatened me.”
“That weren’t no goddamn threat. If I was really gonna threaten you, my knuckles woulda been printed across your goddamn face.” She snorted, eyeing him and pushing past him toward the stairs. “God damn, the older men get, the dumber they get. Y’all as bad as that old coot down at the bar.”
Joseph stared after her, then laughed helplessly. Goddammit, Maxi was so…Maxi. Shaking his head, he caught up with her, then slipped past to lead her up the stairs.
“C’mon. I’ll make tea.”
He was clumsy in Wally’s kitchen, especially in the half-lit gloom, but found things quickly enough after peering into a few cabinets. Before long he’d put a kettle on and settled at the table with two steaming mugs of—he didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t read Wally’s handwriting on the little decorative tea tins, so he picked something that smelled good and was already in bags instead of loose in the can. Maxi had deposited herself at the kitchen table, and when he caught her eyeing the notepad of names and numbers, he snagged it and quickly dragged it closer before flipping it over to hide the writing.
Maxi gave him one of those looks, before shaking her head, curling her hands against one of Wally’s pretty, delicate china cups, and leaning forward to inhale, steam curling around her face. “So you been all right?”
“I’ve been dealing. Adjusting to things. Realigning my priorities.”
He cupped his mug as well; his palms had picked up that prickling, chill tingle again, and the steaming-hot ceramic soothed it away, easing his circulation into something closer to normal. Across the table, Maxi watched him, oddly quiet. In the moonlit darkness her skin was blue overlaid on rich brown, deep and reflective as night on a sheen of oil, dusted in a sheen of street-lamp gold. He hadn’t bothered with a second attempt to unearth a light switch, when some small paranoid part of him whispered if he flicked the lights on, he’d wake and disturb Wally. Just the thought of Wally, sleeping naked and tangled in cream-colored sheets, roused a powerful longing, a magnetic pull that nearly dragged him from his chair and back to the bedroom.
But Maxi watched him, expectant—as if she knew what he wouldn’t say, and was only waiting for him to confess.
He ducked his head. “What about you?”
“I got my own problems and my own worries, but they my own. Not yours.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Maxi glowered. “No.”
Joseph winced and looked down into his teacup; his reflection looked back at him, all tired lines around his eyes and a sort of puppy-eyed confusion that reminded him of the boy he used to be. But then the boy
he used to be would have noticed that something was going on with Maxi long before now; as much as he’d spent the years shutting Wally out, he’d never realized that in her own way, Maxi had kept him at a similar distance.
And he wondered if it was something he’d done wrong, or just that he’d never tried hard enough to know her, never done anything that made him worthy of her trust when all he’d done was take her for granted in the backdrop of his life.
“I…” He sighed. Fuck, this whole feelings thing was too fucking complicated, sometimes. “If you don’t trust me, I understand. Things have been one-way between us for a long time.” He looked up at her, but she only watched him with a skeptically arched brow; inside he cringed. “I’m just now realizing that. I’ve been so focused on what I needed as a single parent that while I knew so many people were giving themselves to help me, both you and Wally…” He shrugged, shoulders stiff and tense. “I never had room to think about giving back.”
That eyebrow rose higher, the dots on her skin flowing over the arch of it, her golden lynx eyes skewering—then crinkling up as she laughed, a quick swooping hoot before she lowered her voice quickly, glanced over her shoulder toward the bedroom, then turned her fierce, mocking grin back on Joseph.
