Loose Cannon

by Sidney Bell

  “I like your priorities.”

  “It sounds weird, but I’m sort of relieved you lied. Now I’m not the only idiot in this, uh, relationship.”

  Miller said it so carefully that Church wriggled around, trying for a better view of his face. “Is that what this is? A relationship?”

  “If you want it to be.”

  Church had to swallow. His heart was trying to escape his chest by leaping up his throat. “Sure,” he said, going for casual and probably missing by a mile. “We could try that.”

  “I don’t know if I can be out.”

  “I’m not asking you to be. That’s on your timetable, man. I don’t know if I can hear you say that I don’t matter—”

  “You matter.”

  “I know, it’s just that hearing it—”

  “It’ll never happen again. If we get busted, we get busted. I’ll own it, okay? I learned my lesson. I promise.”

  Church nodded. “I won’t lie to you again either.”

  “Okay.” Miller shifted, and Church let himself slip from a comforting-friend-type position to a more intimate, relaxed sort of cuddle. The last of his tension began to drain as Miller added, “I think maybe you shouldn’t trust Ghost’s opinion about what counts as a good job in the future, though.”

  Church closed his eyes. Relief and exhaustion hit him like a sledgehammer, and he sounded muzzy when he said, “Not like I’ll get another chance.”

  Miller’s hand rubbed along Church’s spine. It felt fucking awesome and sleep was starting to crowd in on him when Miller asked thoughtfully, “Why would she do that?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why would Mama send Vasily to beat you up now?”

  Church frowned, struggling to make sense of it. Fuck, his brain was tired. “I don’t know. Back when the thing with your truck happened, Ghost said Mama denied coming after us. Could’ve been bullshit. I don’t know why Mama would care about what her son does to me, though.”

  “Maybe Mama thinks Ghost wouldn’t help her if she hurt you.” Miller’s hand slowed on Church’s back. “Is she right?”

  “If you’d asked me a few months ago, I’d have said Ghost would fuck up anyone who looked at me weird. Today? I don’t know.” With a flicker of guilt, Church added quietly, “Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t think I want to know what he’d do in this situation.”

  Miller raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “Ghost is—sometimes I’m not sure he’s all there, you know? It takes a lot to make Ghost want to hurt someone, but once he does, he won’t stop until—” He almost said until someone dies, but managed to snap his mouth closed in time. It felt too much like telling a secret, and besides, he didn’t know for a fact that Ghost had ever killed anyone.

  Church had only seen Ghost lose his shit once, back in Woodbury, but that’d been enough to teach him to never lose track of Ghost’s state of mind. No one would say that Ghost hadn’t been defending himself, but he’d defended himself with terrifying overkill. When he’d finally lifted his head, blood staining the strands of his golden hair, his breathing ragged, his pupils so dilated that his eyes looked like black caverns, his pale skin turned purple-blue-red by the flashing lights of the backup alarm, he hadn’t recognized Church any more than he’d recognized the half-dozen staff members who’d had to tackle him to stop him.

  The mess on the floor had lived, but he’d never come back to Woodbury, and that was the last time Ghost had been listed only as a run threat on the list of residents on the whiteboard by the staff desk. From that day on, there’d not only been an aggression warning by his name, there’d been a star. A message to any staff who worked in the cottage.

  History of violent psychotic breaks.

  Tobias had cried later when it was just the two of them in their room. Church had snuck under Tobias’s blankets after bed check and held him as he trembled.

  No, Church did not want to know what Ghost would do about any of this.

  “I’m not sure he’d make the situation better,” Church told Miller finally.

  “Okay. Then we’ll have to figure it out ourselves.”

  We. Funny that such a tiny word could carry so much weight. Church had never considered what it meant—we—until now, when it was clear that it meant Miller was staying and none of Church’s bullshit would be able to ruin them. Even if they didn’t make it as a couple, they’d be bound for life. One way or another, Church would get to keep him, and that was everything.

  “Fuck, I love you,” Church said helplessly. Miller’s body jolted like a small electric pulse had been shot through him.

  Then Miller’s mouth was on his, and they were kissing, gently, so gently, Miller’s lips light as butterflies, and it didn’t hurt at all. He pulled back just enough to breathe “I love you, too” across Church’s sore, sensitive mouth before kissing him again. They kissed until Miller decided they had to move Church to the bed, where he’d be more comfortable, and then they kissed some more, Miller hovering protectively and carefully over him, his breathing quick, his fingers trembling where they touched Church’s cheek.

  They kissed and kissed and kissed, saying the words again and again, crowding closer and closer until the space between them disappeared entirely.

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lena sat at the wide brown table in the office she kept in LoDo. On her left was the man who ran the trains and the airport. Lena needed him to get the girls in. Across from her was the man who supplied most of Denver with black-market guns, guns that trickled out into Aurora and the surrounding suburbs as needed, and which she used to empower those who protected her various interests. To her right was the man who ensured that the three most popular drugs in the city continued to flow, and whose network of brutes kept the gangs riled up against each other to distract the police from the bigger picture.

  To these men, Lena brought land and money and the tied hands of men in power, ensuring that there was always someone official to say yes, of course, whatever you say.

  The tied hands of most of the men in power, anyway.

  One in particular had proved impossible to buy or blackmail so far.

  Still, despite that one failing, Lena had much to offer the men in this office. They hated her anyway. Partly because it was the nature of such men, and partly because they suspected that she’d taken steps to ruin them should they act against her. They would kill her in a heartbeat if their fear of her lessened. She hated them too. Would kill them and take what was theirs if they had not made plans of a similar nature.

  As a group, they were the definition of mutually assured destruction, united by little more than a common enemy.

  They met every month or so in a temporary détente of manners and polite inquiries and careful requests. They were very careful not to step on each other’s toes. Each meeting, someone was responsible for bringing tea and coffee and cookies, a ritual enacted so long ago that she couldn’t remember how it had begun. Nobody ever ate any of them. They didn’t get this far by being stupid. But there were niceties to be observed. It was what separated them from the thugs on the streets.

  They shared just enough to ensure that no part of their combined enterprises failed. There were others in the city, and some with fingers that stretched from as far away as St. Louis or Chicago, but none who had as much power or as much invested as these men or Lena. They were spiders, all of them. Their minds and words were webs.

  These men were why it was so dangerous that Vasya was suddenly shoving open the doors like a melodramatic child from a film, nostrils flared, his mouth so quick as he shouted that spittle flew.

  Kellen caught up only seconds later, arriving as if from nowhere, and had Vasya on his knees almost instantly, his wrist twisted so he shrieked his fury. Lena’s brain whirled, faster,
faster, aware of the three pairs of eyes lingering on her, searching for the source of her weakness like a burglar searched for the tumblers of a lock with his picks.

  She looked at Kellen, who knew and who sent back—silently, always silently in front of these vultures who would mock that damaged voice in their thoughts—you know I have to.

  She knew.

  “Kellen, remind my son of his manners,” Lena said, and Kellen broke Vasily’s nose.

  The crack was loud and sickening. Vasily was the only one who reacted, giving up a howl and some drool as he crumpled to the floor. Well, Vasily was the only one who showed his reaction.

  Lena thought she might vomit, but her eyes didn’t flicker.

  “Gentlemen, if you could give me a moment,” she said, and jerked a nod at Kellen, who hauled her blubbering son up and out into the vestibule. Lena followed, careful to move as if she were no more annoyed than she’d be at a glass of water spilled or a set of misplaced keys. A hiccup of trouble, that was all, and swiftly, easily controlled.

  In the vestibule, with the doors closed behind them, Kellen explained in Russian about Vasily’s unprovoked attack on Ghost’s friend.

  “Rebellion,” Lena said, stunned by the betrayal. How stupid that she had not thought to anticipate such a potent reaction. “To put me in my place, I suppose? To ruin my plans?”

  Vasily’s face was purple with humiliation and pain. The glance he threw at Kellen was wary but full of hatred. The look he turned on Lena was more conflicted. A slapped child, she thought, and one which was penitent because he’d been caught, not because he regretted his actions. “I lost my temper, Mama. Things have only gone wrong since Church interrupted my business, and—”

  Still he blamed others for his own stupidity. She sighed. “You are not a man,” she said quietly, and he jerked back, eyes wide and hurt. “You have risked us all and embarrassed me with this display. And by attacking Church, you spat in the face of something I’ve worked toward for a year.”

  “Yes, him you need,” Vasya growled, bitter and sour. His eyes burned like coals as he stared at her. He couldn’t know what it felt like to receive that glare, not as a mother, or he would never look at her that way. “Him, Ghost, he’s the answer to all our problems. If you could only have him, everything would be fine, hmm? Because he does everything right, doesn’t he? If you’d given me a chance, given my way a chance, I could’ve shown you. You’d have been so proud, Mama, and instead it’s Ghost this and Ghost that—”

  “I need Kellen here, so you’ll have to find your own way home.”

  “As if he’s your son, that filthy whore.”

  “Be at home when I get there, Vasya. Be there.”

  She closed the door to the vestibule, ignoring the way Vasily spewed his viciousness at her back, at Kellen, at the world.

  The three men were waiting, their expressionless faces still somehow hungry. Before nightfall the story of Yelena Krayeva and her uncontrolled son would be all over the city. She forced herself to smile. In Russia it would be a sign of warmth, as they saved their smiles for friends, but Americans smiled all the time, at strangers and stupidity alike. The men would simply see a lack of concern.

  “I apologize for the interruption. We continue now, yes?” She left Kellen by the door and walked around the table only to pause by her chair.

  There was a single cookie on the seat.

  It didn’t matter which of them left it. The message was the same regardless. Here, waiting, there was always the risk of poison.

  She brushed the cookie onto the floor and sat, smile in place, eyes hard.

  * * *

  “You sure you still want to come in to the workshop with me this morning?” Miller asked, and Church glanced up to find Miller gazing at him doubtfully. Church had already been to the bathroom, so he knew the bruises had fully come in now. He looked like Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat vomited all over his face.

  “You trying to say I shouldn’t?” he asked lightly.

  “Maybe you should spend your weekend actually relaxing for once. Or in traction? I don’t—I mean, I’d like you there, but I get it if you don’t want to spend Christmas Eve writhing in pain.”

  Church slurped coffee. If he were honest, yes, he felt like hammered shit. He’d woken up so stiff that he was afraid of what tomorrow would feel like if he didn’t loosen his muscles up by moving around.

  “Yeah. I mean, my main contribution for the day’s gonna be sarcasm, but sitting on the couch all day sounds horrible. Besides, we gotta talk about ads and stuff. You can’t put it off anymore, dude.”

  Miller grimaced and started making their lunches.

  Later, once they were in the car, Church asked, “Uh, so Shelby knows that we’ve been fucking, right? You came clean?”

  “She knows. She handled it pretty well, actually. It was stupid to be so worried about her finding out. I should’ve realized she wouldn’t care. Hell, I should’ve started figuring all of this out ages ago.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s been two years since the cancer took him. It’s not like I still need to protect him from the fear that his son’s gonna burn in Hell.”

  Church frowned at him. “Dude, I know firsthand that just because someone isn’t in your life anymore doesn’t mean they aren’t still in your head. You think I’d still be trying to unlearn all this shit I picked up from my dad if it all went away the day he told me to fuck off? You get used to thinking a certain way, especially when you’re a stupid kid and you think that how you feel always reflects how things really are, and yeah, that shit sticks.”

  He shifted sideways in his seat gingerly to get a better look at Miller, hissing under his breath in the process because everything hurt. “I never thought it was weird that you needed time, Miller. I get that. Only idiots and people with perfect lives think it’s easy to change your entire worldview. I never expected you to just get over it.”

  “No,” Miller said slowly, like it was only now occurring to him. “You haven’t. You’ve been really patient.”

  “Well, it’s not like you haven’t been patient with me over the years. You didn’t expect me to be better overnight, even when I fucked up.”

  “So we’re both jerks with bad social skills is what you’re saying.”

  “Yes,” Church replied darkly, putting a hand against his bruised ribs. “And if you make me laugh, I’m gonna be pissed-off.”

  Miller cleared his throat. “I don’t mean this to sound patronizing, but I’m proud of you for the way you handled what I said the other night. There were plenty of people without anger issues who would’ve lost their temper at the things you heard and you handled it.”

  “I ran.”

  “You did what you had to do to keep people safe and get yourself out of a crappy situation. You did good, Church.”

  Church had to stare out the window for a while. “Okay,” he managed eventually. “Uh, I guess I’m proud of you for coming out to Shelby?”

  Miller stopped at a stoplight. “Thanks.”

  “You want a party?” Church glanced at him slyly. “We could get you some streamers. Shiny rainbow streamers. And a cake. In the shape of a cock. With some white frosting right at the—”

  “You’re such an eight-year-old.”

  Church grinned. They’d only been at odds for one night, and he’d still managed to feel like he’d lost an organ or two. One of the ones that couldn’t just be removed, either. Miller was not a gallbladder.

  Which was kind of a weird thought, but whatever. Church meant it.

  Miller slowed to turn left, falling quiet while he concentrated on driving for a second, then said, “Okay, I need to explain something. I’m bad at this.”

  “You’re bad at a lot of things, dude.”

  “No fair being a punk when I can’t b
eat you up for it.”

  “I’m not promising anything. But you were saying? Bad at what?”

  Miller waved a hand between them. “This. I don’t know about pulling out chairs, and I won’t know how to handle it when people give me dirty looks—”

  He broke off, and after a second of tense waiting, Church looked over at him, wondering where the confusing talk about chairs and dirty looks could possibly be going, only to see that Miller had gone wide-eyed, his brow furrowed. Church followed his gaze, and then he couldn’t say anything either.

  The trees to their left, behind the big mattress warehouse store, were belching thick, black smoke.

  “It’s too close.” Church leaned forward. His whole body went tense as rebar. The car leaped forward as Miller put the gas pedal down. “It can’t be.”

  “Hang on,” Miller said grimly, swinging them around the corner too fast. Church grabbed the dash with one hand as they bounced over a low curb to go speeding down a side road. His voice was thin when he said, “God, Church, I think it is—”

  Church fumbled his phone out and dialed 911 with a shaking hand. “Fuck,” he said, because Miller was taking the last turn onto the access road, and the remaining buildings between them fell back. Now he could see their parking lot, their trees, their workshop and the flames.

  * * *

  Vasily hadn’t been home when Lena returned from her meeting.

  The phone call from Motya had only confirmed it. “My files, Mama, he just shoved past me to go through my filing cabinets. I don’t know what he wanted. His nose looked bad, Mama, what happened to Vasya’s nose?”

  “It is a matter of math, isn’t it?” she asked Kellen. “When I look at the numbers—”

  “You already know what I think.”

  Lena closed her eyes. She did know. It was the nature of life that women were forced to surrender their hearts. But in this, for family, she could not fail.

  “So we wait.”