by Jodi Payne
Thomas cut everything on his own plate into bite-sized pieces, then without a word, traded plates with Sam. “Are you interested in seeing a movie this afternoon?”
“I haven’t gone to a theater in about a million years. I’m all in.” He offered Thomas a grateful smile, a dip of the head. The man was good to him, even when he was stupid.
He got a wink in return. “Perfect. I think we both could use a distraction, don’t you?” Thomas took a bite of his breakfast, obviously enjoying it. “Mmm.”
“Totally.” Because up ’til a few minutes ago, the day had sucked, and it wouldn’t take a lot of thinking for it to start sucking again. He poured his syrup and started eating. Hell, yeah.
14
“I think in my next life, I want to come back as a stunt car driver.” Thomas hustled Sam through the movie crowd, steering him out a side door.
“Yeah? You could just do it now. Do they have classes, do you think?” That might be fun. He could handle that.
Thomas laughed. “I’m too old for that now. I’d have to at least be badass first and care less about the speed limit.”
“How old are you? James didn’t tell me anything beyond ‘hot boyfriend.’ ”
That earned him a real laugh. A big one. Enough that Thomas had to get out of people’s way on the sidewalk. “He hadn’t had a lot of them before he met me, clearly. I’m thirty-one.”
“A few.” More than him, for sure. “And that’s not old. Bowie’s older.” Not by much, but older. “When’s your birthday?”
“The twenty-third of April. You have the same birthday as James, and you’re…twenty…eight? Seven? I forget what he told me.”
“I’m twenty-six this January. James will…would have been thirty. Bowie’s gonna be thirty-three.” He was the baby. Forever. James and him had talked about going to Vegas in January, staying in one of the huge casinos and causing trouble, stripping out of his teacher uniform and being one of them. For all that he’d left home, James’s body was still built for Wranglers.
Sam had to wonder how Thomas would cowboy up. He’d looked right in the hat, after all. He could imagine him in Wranglers, a pair of chaps and all.
He stopped himself, because Jesus. This was James’s man. Thomas was good to him, more than decent, but he had to remember, if he hadn’t been James’s kin, no one would have given him the time of day. Do not be skeevy, Sam Houston O’Reilly. Do not perv on this man that’s mourning your brother. That is a direct line to hell.
“Young. I liked twenty-six. I was finishing grad school, I was making decisions for myself, I had a plan for my future. It was a good year, an optimistic year.”
He didn’t feel young. He hadn’t felt young for a long time. Then again, he didn’t have a plan, so…
They continued on their hike up to Midtown. They walked everywhere when they were together. Thomas liked the fresh air—they both did—and they were never in a hurry. And as long as they were moving, he wasn’t that cold.
His hand throbbed idly, and he worked to keep anyone from bumping into it too terrible hard. It was like a weird game he played with himself as they wandered.
Thomas reached down and grabbed hold of his right hand at a crosswalk, tugging him across the street before the light changed, and didn’t let go once they hit the sidewalk again.
It was the oddest feeling, to be holding another man’s hand in public, like it was normal, okay.
“You know what I’ve been wanting to ask you? How are you feeling about the city these days? Still disoriented? Is it better? Do you feel like you’re getting around well enough?”
“I do okay, I think. I don’t feel scared to leave the apartment or anything.” Hell, he knew how to find stores, find what he needed for the most part.
“Are you feeling less lonely? Are you starting to feel like you fit in at all?”
He wasn’t sure how he wanted to answer that. He missed having people everywhere that knew him, but he was beginning to understand where he fit in, and he obviously didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want Thomas to think he was some tittybaby either, but he worried that the best friend he’d made might just be looking for a reason to leave. Then again, what if Thomas was? He wasn’t a coward; he wasn’t a shit. “There’s some good folks, genuinely kind people.”
“More than it seems at first, right? The longer you stay, the more you’ll get to know people who are on your same routine, you know? The guy at your corner bagel place, the neighbor you run into on the way out the door every morning, someone who sits in the same section of your favorite coffee place. It’s weird. People are looking for connections.”
“We are, all of us. We need each other.” He looked down at the sidewalk as they walked. “My mom is trying to call me home, now that things are cooling off with the police.” He took a hard breath. He wasn’t going.
He didn’t want to.
God, he was a selfish motherfucker.
“Oh?”
What did that mean? Oh, it’s about time? Oh, are you really going? What kind of answer was “Oh?”
He grinned at himself. It was an answer he’d give.
“I feel bad, but I’m not going back. I don’t want to.” He firmed his jaw. He knew he was a bad son, but…
Thomas glanced at him. “No? Why not?”
He shook his head. He had a thousand reasons, and all of them were selfish and awful sounding. “I don’t know what to say that makes good sense.”
Thomas snorted. “I didn’t ask you to make sense. I just asked for your reasons. Someday you’ll believe me when I say I’m not judging you. I feel like a broken record.”
“I’m judging me, man.” He wanted to be a better man than he was.
“You do that a lot. Would it help to know that I am glad you’re staying? I think you should. I want you to stay.” Thomas gave his hand a squeeze.
“Yeah. It does. Thank you.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “She’s really pissed. I hate hurting her.” But not enough not to do it.
“She’s probably more sad than pissed. Give her some time. I bet she thought you’d never leave home.” They took the corner and headed toward the club, about halfway up the block.
“Yeah. No one did.” He wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to stay in Emory and have babies and run the ranch and die there.
“Look forward, not back.”
At this point, Thomas didn’t even ask—they just went into the club hand-in-hand as usual.
He had a few folks he nodded to, especially Scotty. The man had a decent way about him.
“Room seven is ready for you. Your things are in it, key is on the bench, Sir.”
“Thanks, Scotty.” Thomas gave Scotty a nod and looked at Sam. “Would you like to sit for a bit and relax before we head back, or are you ready to show me your ink?”
“I’m easy. Like, for real.” He wasn’t scared of showing his ink. It was beautiful—this secret that he held on his skin. But he could have a Coke and a visit if Thomas wanted.
“I’m ready to get a look at you.”
He knew Thomas was ready by the change in his tone. So strange how the man did that. He still hadn’t figured out why.
“Let’s do it.” He had one request from the powers that be—Please, God. Please don’t let me get hard in front of Thomas. Please.
“Room seven. Excellent.” Thomas led the way down the long hall. “That will do very nicely.” Thomas stopped outside the door and gestured for him to go in first. That was new; the last couple of times Thomas had gone in before him.
“Thanks.” He went in and put his hat on the hook. It was too porn movie to drop trou with your hat on.
This room was nice. It looked like a super comfy lounge or something, only with a long padded platform in the center about table height. All the seating was covered in a lush red fabric, and the walls were black with—oh. The walls and the ceiling were covered in U-bolts at various heights and distances from each other.
“I’m locking the door.
” He heard the lock click; then Thomas headed for a trunk at the far end of the room. “On the table, please. There’s a step stool at the far end.”
“Do you want me to lose the jeans? You can’t see my ink otherwise.” Did he just ask that? Out loud? That was what they were doing here, though, right?
Sam stroked his hand over the table, smiling at how it felt like a million threads touching him back.
“I was going to help you with that once you were on the table, but thank you for thinking to save me the effort, Sam. Go right ahead.”
Thomas pulled two lengths of rope out of the chest, one black and one bright white, and set them on the platform.
Sam reached out, curious to see if they were soft or rough. They felt silky on his swollen index fingers. “These aren’t tie-down ropes, for sure.”
“Surely not.”
He worked his belt open, one-handed, then looked to Thomas. “Can I ask a favor, please, sir?”
“Anything, Sam.” Thomas looked up from where he was working with a couple of shorter lengths of rope. “Oh. Of course. A little help?”
“My boots. Please?” He could do it, but it would hurt and be frustrating as all get-out, and for the first time, he felt like he vaguely understood what he was doing. He was eager to show off his ink.
Thomas looked at him for a moment, then down at his boots and back. “Certainly, sweetheart. That can’t be easy for you, can it?” Thomas knelt and wrapped a hand around the heel of his left boot.
Sweetheart? Was that a tease? Was that meant to be ugly? Sam gave it a thought, but Thomas hadn’t been ugly to him, hadn’t given him reason to believe he’d start now, so he’d let it be something fond and kind.
“You should have seen me trying to get them on. It involved a lot of tipping over like a drunken stork.” He tugged, his boot sliding off.
“It might be time to consider an alternate pair of shoes for such occasions.” Thomas chuckled and helped get his other boot off. “I’ll just set these by the door. Would you like me to get some ice for that hand? That swelling is starting to look rather ugly. Are you sure you haven’t broken anything?”
“I might could use some ice in a bit, yeah.” He was about ninety percent sure broken-something was a thing, if he was honest. He clenched it, feeling the bones creak and the torn skin pull, and his belly yanked in tight and sudden enough that his jeans hit the floor from the weight of his buckle.
Thomas pressed a button and a chime went off in the room, sounding kind of like the bells that go off in fancy elevators. “I’ll get those.” Thomas bent and picked up his jeans as he stepped out of them, folded them neatly, and set them on a low bench.
There was a knock at the door, and Thomas opened it just the tiniest bit to speak softly with whoever was there. “Ice is on the way.” Thomas closed the door. “That’s a very nice view, cowboy.”
“Didn’t he do amazing work?” Sam turned before he got up on the table, lifting his T-shirt to show off the ink that covered him from knee to the hoof print on his back. The main lines were barbed wire with torn feathers and nails, wildflowers and braided horsehair caught in the hooks. The wire was weighted at his knee with a horseshoe, caught at the top near his kidney with a knotted rope.
“Lovely.” Thomas stepped closer and lifted his shirt higher; then warm fingers were on his spine, tracing the actual scar beneath the ink. “This is brilliant. Just gorgeous.”
His eyes went wide as his brain tried to process the whole “almost numb, tingling, burning, near invisible, Jesus Christ someone’s touching” thing. “Thank you, sir. It was worth every penny.”
Thomas helped him up on the platform just as someone knocked on the door again. “How long did it take?” There was an exchange at the door, and the lock clicked into place.
“Four eight-hour sessions.” He’d been flying by the end of each one of them too.
“So you sat still for eight hours on four separate occasions. You. For that long? Endorphin high?” Thomas placed a pillow at one end of the platform. “Lie back, sweetheart.”
“We took smoke breaks, but yeah. It was…I can’t explain it.” He eased himself into the pillow, trying not to let awkwardness creep in. “My skin was puckered and raw, and this made it better.”
Thomas placed another pillow by his left hip and a large bag of ice on top of that. “Just rest your hand here. I’ll get it packed in some ice. It’s not elevated, exactly, but hopefully it’s comfortable.”
Sam eased his hand down, and Thomas began to pack it. Sweat popped out on his chest, and he panted, the shock of the cold making the world spin. He flailed with his free arm, needing to hold on to something so he didn’t fall.
Thomas twisted and caught his arm. “Easy. I’ve got you.”
“Whoa. Sorry. That was a little intense.” Sam felt his tight muscles begin to relax, and he closed his eyes for a second.
“The cold was a little shocking, hm? Sorry. There’s really no subtle with ice.” Thomas let him rest that hand on a broad bicep and finished working the ice around his hand. “I am going to let that bring down a little of the swelling, and I’m taking off that haphazard-looking bandage you have on it to see what’s going on.”
“Haphazard? Man, you ever tried to doctor your smart hand with your dumb one? This is a work of art.”
“No, I have not. You do recall that I was standing downstairs and could have come up to assist you with it? Is it really that difficult for you to ask for help?”
Wait. Wait, what? Thomas hadn’t even been there when he was bleeding. He’d texted after Sam’d got himself bandaged up. And he had asked for help with his boots.
Christ.
He was never going to not feel like he was wandering around like an idiot.
He was beginning to think that he needed to stop talking altogether and just let Thomas say what all he needed to.
“Sorry, man. I was teasing.”
“I know.” Thomas patted his shoulder. “Let’s get this back on track, shall we? I really just want to see this ink, up close. I can’t even imagine sustaining this sort of injury. Was the surgery long? How long were you off your feet?”
Thomas started touching again, curious fingers drawing the length and the outline of the scar on his thigh.
“Twelve hours from recovery to walking on it, believe it or not. Once they got the rod in, the pain was bearable. Before that, I seriously begged God to take me.” He pushed Thomas’s fingers with his own, letting him feel the hard ridge of muscles over the steel rod. “My balls swelled up like baseballs; everything turned black-and-blue down there.”
Thomas looked up at him, over his hip and the length of his torso. “That’s…terrifying. My God. But getting up that fast? That’s incredible. This is just beautiful work.” Thomas’s touch grew lighter as those long fingers started tracing over the pattern of barbed wire. “Is your riding career over?”
“It didn’t have to be, but I had to think about the pressure on my hip and my knee with each go-round. I’ve broken my pelvis, had the shoulder surgeries. At some point, your body can’t get hit by a car over and over.” He could either walk for sixty more years or ride for five.
“I can’t say I’d have done half as well with a single one of those things, let alone compounding injuries.” Thomas straightened up. “You have numerous other scars to tell me about, no doubt, and I’m interested in all of those stories. But I’m going to have to look at that hand. Or should I just assume you need urgent care?”
“I can’t afford a doctor. I got the skin glued up as best I could, but there’s no way I can swing X-rays and all.” He wasn’t being a bitch or a drama queen. It was what it was. Thomas asked for honest, right?
“Hm.” Thomas leaned a hip against the platform and looked at him. For a long time.
Without saying a word.
Finally the man shifted onto his feet. “Will you be all right if I leave the room for a few minutes? I’m not leaving the club. I just need to talk to someone.�
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“I’ll just hang here.” He was comfortable, his hand numb, and he was swinging from feeling like he was stupid to feeling almost confident.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just relax.” Thomas patted his shoulder again, and he heard the door open, the sound of club music filling the room for one second until the door closed again.
Then it was quiet. Unnaturally quiet.
Sam let his eyes close. Why on earth could he rest like this, trust that he was safe here? Strange, but wonderful.
God, he was really going to stay here.
There was a soft knock at the door, and he blinked, wondering how long it had been. It seemed like Thomas had only just left. Had he dozed off?
“Sam? I’m back.” Thomas came in, rested a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? Sorry I was gone a bit longer than I thought, but we’ve found some help. He should be here shortly.”
“Help? Did I miss something?” He felt a little dazed. “Do I need to get dressed?”
“He’s a doctor…well, a combat medic of some variety. Retired Army. I’m fairly confident he’s seen legs before.” Thomas smiled at him.
“I’m sorry, man. Seriously. I was so fucking mad this morning, and I just…popped.”
“We’re friends, Sam, aren’t we? I’m not asking you to change who you are. You know that if I can help I will. You don’t have to apologize to me.”
There was a knock at the door, and Thomas let a burly-looking guy in. “Evening, Thomas! Been a long time since I made a house call to this place.”
“Hello, Angel. Thanks for coming. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Who’s this?” Angel—was that a name or a nickname?—grinned down at him from what seemed like a hundred feet away. The guy had on a well-worn baseball cap, a gray hooded sweat shirt, and had a silver beard that stopped four or five inches below the chin. “Looks like your shaking hand is good. I’m Gabriel. Gabe, Angel. Whatever.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir. How goes?” There was something familiar in this man—he imagined in his carriage. He recognized it from his daddy, from Bowie.
