Hanging the Stars

by Rhys Ford

  They stared at one another for a moment longer. Then the boy’s shoulders lifted up in a careless shrug.

  “Only thing I want to hear out of you is yes and thank you, Deacon. Quit picking at West, and grab Zig something to take home.”

  “Sure, okay. And I already told Deacon thank you. Come on, Zig,” he mumbled at the girl. “I can get eight in a box. You can choose what you want. I’ll make ’em fit.”

  As sharp as Zig was, her uncle was much keener, and Deacon kept his eyes on West as the kids filed past him. After a quick glance over his shoulder, Deacon jerked his chin toward Angel. “You sure you guys are okay, West?”

  The question shocked West, more for the consideration than anything else. From what he could gather, Angel and Deacon were at least acquainted and probably on a heck of a lot better terms than West was with his brother-in-law. A quick nod sent Deacon on his way, but not before the two men exchanged a perplexingly assessing stare.

  “We’ve got about ten minutes before they tear back in here,” Angel said softly after Deacon closed the door behind him. “Rome has school tomorrow—well, art classes. So he’ll be gone in the afternoon—”

  “I don’t know, Angel.” West leaned on the cane, thankful for its support. His knees were weak, and his ankle ached more than he’d care to admit. The sprain’s throb nearly matched the pounding in his chest. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to—”

  The door swung open again, and Angel threw his hands up in disgust. “What?”

  “Hey now, I just came in to offer up some space,” Deacon rumbled from the door, breaking the tension West nurtured in his belly. “You guys look like you need to get some shit worked out. Ange, what do you say I take Roman over to our place and you come grab him when you guys are done?”

  “Just let me know when he graduates high school so I can drag myself to the ceremony,” Angel shot back. “No, you know what? I haven’t eaten dinner, and West can just join us for whatever I can find in the fridge.”

  “I already fed Rome,” Deacon countered. “He had half a medium pizza, a hot dog, and some fries.”

  “That’s like a predinner. He’s an eleven-year-old boy off his meds. Swarming locusts aspire to eat what he can when he’s finally hungry.” Angel shook his head. “You grab whatever he’s packing up for Zig, and I’ll cut you guys loose. I think you’ve already suffered enough with him.”

  “He’s a good kid. Just… a little rough around the edges.” Deacon laughed. “Oh, and before you ask, yeah, those books he dumped on the table are his. Stopped by at the store before we came over here, and Lang made them take the trash out for him in exchange for books. I’m thinking Lang got the short end of the deal. Kid must have taken him for about sixty bucks worth. Most expensive trash dump ever.”

  “That’s my brother.” He let out an exasperated hiss. “Take whatever you can out of someone even if you don’t need it. A Daniels to the bone. Tell Lang I’ll pay him for—”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” West interjected. Deacon and Angel looked at him like he had grown a second head between his shoulder blades. “A deal’s a deal. It’s something he agreed to with my brother. If he negotiated the price and Lang agreed to it, it should stand.” They continued to stare, and West added, “Not that I have children or anything, but it’s something my father—”

  “Perhaps not the best role model for my con artist little brother,” Angel suggested. “Deke, we’ll figure something out. Maybe it’ll be something as simple as telling Lang to stop giving away the damned store every time Roman hits him up for something. What’d he con out of him now?”

  “Dragonriders. First six books, I think. Weyrs and bards.” Deacon shrugged at Angel’s hiss. “Paperbacks, but he also scored one of the People Of in hardback Lang had in the back collecting dust. Comprehension level might be a bit out of his reach, but I wasn’t going to say anything because what the hell do I know about what he’s reading at?”

  “Nah, that’s fine. He’s read the first two from the library but couldn’t get the first bard one. He’s been wanting to finish that out for a while. We’ll do something.” A loud burst of giggles from the kitchen jerked Angel’s attention away from the conversation, and his eyes narrowed when the kids suddenly dropped to a low hushed whisper. “Can you go keep an eye on them? Just for a little bit so West and I can hammer something out?”

  “Yeah. Tell you what, you two lock up here, and we’ll be over at your place,” Deacon offered. “Your living room looks like Roman threw everything he had in his backpack across every flat surface he could find. I’ll get him started on picking it up. Head over when you’re done. Want me to grab anything out of the freezer?”

  “No, I’m good. I’ll grab some eggs from here and toss something together. Thanks, though.” Angel waited until Deacon was through the door, then crossed his arms over his chest. “So what do you say, West? Want to come over to my place for dinner?”

  “I DON’T see why spinach has to go into a perfectly good omelet.” West poked at the folded-over egg dish in front of him. There were bits and pieces of things he couldn’t identify, and other than a mushroom peeking out as if to reassure him of its normalcy, West doubted the edible nature of whatever it was Angel slid onto the plate and put down on the table.

  “It’s either that or pizza rolls.” Angel sat down next to him, their elbows jostling together.

  “I don’t even know what those are,” West said softly.

  “Kind of like microwave pizza wontons,” he replied, shaking hot sauce over his eggs. “You’d hate them.”

  “They sound disgusting.”

  “Yeah well, sometimes food’s a battle I don’t pick to fight.” He shrugged. “There’s some weeks where all Rome wants is mac and cheese, pizza rolls, and beef jerky. On the weekends he decides he wants to skip his meds, he’d eat me out of house and home if I let him. The pills they’ve got him on make him lose his appetite, not something he can afford right now.”

  “But microwave pizza wontons?”

  “Just eat your damned eggs, because no one else is going to.”

  Roman’s pissiness lasted about fifteen seconds after Angel walked through the front door and asked how Rome’s day was. Once off and running, the boy’s mouth seemed to struggle to keep up with his brain, and the torrent of information, ideas, and sounds pouring out of him was almost too much to bear, but Angel seemed to take it in stride. Any resentment or disgruntlement over finding West in the bakery seemed to have been replaced by an awestruck wonder at West being in the backseat of a car as it rolled over. Unable to defend himself from the tidal wave of questions Roman threw at him, West thanked every star he’d ever wished on when Angel declared it was time for Rome to grab a bath, then go to bed.

  The negotiations between the brothers over an extra slot of time following the bath to play a video game was like sitting at one of his own board meetings. The give and take was one-sided, with all the power in Angel’s hands, but compromise and Rome’s happiness were definitely factored in. The shower wasn’t on the table to be discussed, and the video game seemed to be a point of contention, mainly to do with time. A brief skirmish of cajoling on Rome’s part, and contemplation on Angel’s, then the brothers agreed Roman could read for half an hour before the lights were turned off.

  The kid was out and snoring before the five-minute mark, and Angel’d closed the door to let his brother sleep, then told West to sit down at the old dining room table set up near the motel room’s kitchenette.

  And as the brothers argued good-naturedly, West wandered about the room to take in the bits of their lives together.

  According to a report card on the fridge, West deduced the boy was smart, keenly smart if the notes from one Mrs. La Costa were to be believed, but he lacked interest in many of the subjects and was unwilling to pace himself with the class. His grades were up and down, but several tests with high marks were tacked to a corkboard, and a pencil sketch of a too familiar-looking pair of cats was hung on
the wall next to the television. The drawing was eerily well done, loose lines and scribbles on a piece of cream parchment, but there was no mistaking the signature on the bottom. Roman Q. Daniels certainly excelled at capturing the likenesses of cats.

  There were other signs of their days. A backpack with patches sewn onto its canvas flaps, odd detritus of games West didn’t know. Cookbooks took up a lot of space on one bookshelf, while fantasy and science fiction dominated the other two in the room. The motel apartment’s dreary walls were clean, brightened up a bit by a slap of paint, but the cinder-block front wall remained concrete blocks, and the rough hollow-core doors leading to the bathroom and tiny bedroom were pitted from years of hands and knees.

  It all seemed a bit fatigued around the edges, drooping in on itself, and West found himself lit up with envy over the life the two brothers shared. No one’d ever hung his report card anywhere, and he could count on one hand the times either of his parents spent fifteen minutes letting him ramble on about a movie featuring anthropomorphic animals and the monsters they fought. Listening to Roman, West’s heart hurt for Angel, knowing he’d burdened him with the weight of losing the home he’d built.

  At least it had until Angel slopped cooked spinach in front of him. Then any sympathy was tossed aside like yesterday’s filmed-over coffee.

  “Want some Tapatío?” Angel waggled the bottle at him.

  “No… it’s just… spinach.”

  “Eat it, and you’ll get a cupcake. There’s chili-hot chocolate, salted caramel, and brown-sugar-cinnamon curry.” Cutting into West’s omelet, Angel scooped out a layer of wilted green leaves and moved them over to his own plate. “Buttercream frosting. Might even be an ice cream sandwich in the freezer with your name on it if Rome hasn’t shoveled them all down his throat.”

  The hot sauce looked deadly, a brilliant orange-red West’d only seen used to warn people away from cliff edges or alligator ponds. He shook out a drop onto the paper plate, then dipped a tine into it to taste. The barest whisper of sauce on his tongue set his lungs on fire, and West gasped, dropping his fork to reach for his water glass.

  “God, are you trying to kill me?” he choked out past the fumes rising up from his throat. “That’s… horrific.”

  “Barely hot enough to wet the eyes,” Angel replied smoothly. “Now eat your damned food so you can have a cupcake and we can talk.”

  “Is that how you parent your brother? Very stick, stick and carrot.” The water did little to quench the fire in his mouth, only spreading the heat around his gums. Another mouthful and he swallowed, finally rinsing away enough of the hot sauce. The eggs weren’t bad. Despite the iron clench of spinach, the rest of the fillings were nice, a layer of mushrooms and cheese mingled in with minced applewood bacon. “I think I’d rather talk than have the cupcake because that curry one… kind of scares me.”

  “The hot sauce scared you.”

  “At least I’m honest about how I feel with you. Now.” Their food was getting cold, and through the motel’s crappy interior doors, West heard Rome snoring in his room. “Let me eat this… salad you’ve put in my eggs. Then… I don’t know.”

  They ate in silence until Angel pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. The shadows marbling the skin under his eyes were a dusky purple, but his gaze was as keen as ever. West finished a minute later, and when Angel reached over to grab his plate, West grabbed his hand.

  “Don’t. Just… let it sit for a bit.” He stroked at the scars across Angel’s knuckles. “Talk to me, Ange. Tell me… something… anything about what I’ve told you back in the bakery. Tell me you understand what happened and why I am so damned sorry for what happened.”

  Angel took his hand out of West’s, plunging a cold white shot of pain into West’s heart. It skipped and stuttered in the moments it took Angel to rub his knuckles over West’s lower lip.

  “I know you’re sorry. I’m sorry too. For being pissed off at you… hell, for still being pissed off, but I don’t know what to do here, man. We’ve not seen each other for… hell, long enough for me to get a baby brother that’s almost old enough to date, and you… you actually went out and became some kind of mogul. We’re further apart than we’ve ever been… and maybe that summer, we were just… I don’t know… some kind of freak happy thing.”

  “I’ve fucking missed you, Angel,” West admitted softly. “I’ve tried to forget you. Hell, I’ve gone through entire clubs of gay men looking for someone who got me like you did. I even contemplated sleeping with my college roommate because he’s your exact opposite, then hired him instead because, well, he’s straight, and while Derry looks good on paper, he’s not you. He’s not Angel fucking Daniels.”

  “Derry’s that asshole trying to fuck us over with the motel, right? That one?”

  “Can we focus on what I’m saying… the gist of it and not get too caught up in the sideshow?” West wrapped his fingers into Angel’s hair, gently pulling the man closer to him. “I’m asking you to give us a chance, Angel. To let us see if we’ll be good together. Like we’d been before. Because God knows, I still want you. And I know you still want me.”

  “Rome—”

  “I’ll do right by Rome. Even if we… don’t work, I’m not going to build up a relationship with him and just disappear. You ask Lang, I don’t throw away a broken kid. That’s not me, Angel.” He whispered a kiss across Angel’s lips, silently begging him to part them so West could taste the heat lingering there. “Just… one chance, Daniels. One.”

  A klaxon screamed outside, its shrill, terrified shriek tearing through the murmuring pleas West’d built up. Not more than a second later, someone was pounding on Angel’s door, heavy thumping blasts of a fist beating through the shaky wood. Startled, Angel got to his feet, yelling for Roman to wake up. Then he headed for the front door. The scent of burning plastic and wood hit West as soon as Angel jerked the door open, and the wild-eyed, lanky redhead stood on the stoop, naked except for a pair of sweats and perspiration on his forehead.

  Smoke whispered in, and the redhead gasped, his fingers moving quickly over his cell phone despite the tremors in his hands. West heard someone on the line ask what the emergency was, but the redhead didn’t answer. Instead he glanced back at the parking lot and grabbed Angel’s shirt, yanking him out of the apartment.

  “Justin, what?” Angel snatched the phone when it tumbled from the redhead’s grasp. “What’s going on?”

  “The bakery, Ange,” Justin cried out, trying to pull Angel with him. “Come on! It’s on fire!”

  Ten

  SMOKE BILLOWED from the front of the bakery, settling over the parking lot in an oily black sheet. The wind twisted around the buildings, catching licks of fire at the Shack’s engulfed porch and whipping the flames around the overhang’s supporting posts. A macramé planter hanging from a hook on the far corner of the porch twisted when the fire worked through its plaits, curling into a blackened coil while its plastic planter melted and cracked in the heat.

  The macramé had been a gift, a little something Violet wove together to celebrate the bakery’s opening. It wouldn’t survive the fire, but if they didn’t get the flames under control, neither would the bakery.

  “Boss, over here!” The large Italian bruiser who’d shown up nearly the moment Angel’s bare feet hit the parking lot slammed a pickaxe into the side of the porch, breaking part of the patio covering away from the main structure. “Does the hose reach?”

  In his tailored clothes, leather shoes, and expensive haircut, West Harris wasn’t someone Angel would expect to wade into a burning fire armed only with a bright yellow garden hose and a watering spigot, but there West was, shoulder to shoulder with them. Soot smeared a mockery of war paint over his sharp cheekbones, and a drop of something dark dappled his lip, probably blood from where he’d bitten it trying to break the glass enclosure surrounding an old barrel fire extinguisher in the motel’s infrequently manned front office.

  While the extinguisher was
regularly serviced, getting it out of its glass prison proved to be enough of a problem, Angel abandoned West and Justin to it and attacked the fire with a stretched-taut garden hose attached to a spigot near the long-empty, fenced in pool. A gorilla of a man pulled up in a sleek black car, panicking Angel. The man’s arrival was too much like the night of the shooting, and he’d screamed for Roman to get the hell back inside of their room and call the cops.

  He’d acted on instinct and punched the muscled, dark-suited man square in the face, then stood over him long enough to take a good look at the size of the man he’d floored, wondering if Justin was prepared to raise Roman by himself after the broken-nosed thug got up and took Angel apart.

  “Marzo! Get up off your ass!” West yelled at the hulking man sprawled out on the pavement. “Grab something and help get the fire out! There’s a shed over there. See if the gardeners left something.”

  Mumbling a brief apology, Angel surrendered his hose to Violet, leaving the nozzle on jet, then ducked the stream of water shooting from a hose West apparently found hooked up near the Shack’s left wall. Vaguely recalling a charity car wash he’d let happen in the parking lot a month or so before, Angel caught a mouthful of stale-tasting water, grabbed the heavy shovel West’s employee handed him, then proceeded to beat at the flames before they destroyed everything he’d worked for since he returned to Half Moon Bay.

  “Beat a line into the ground. Keep it from spreading.” West turned the water stream toward the bakery’s entrance.

  “Gonna see if we can get the porch off,” Marzo shouted back as he bashed at the railing. “Keep the fire off the main building.”

  The porch attack seemed reasonable to Angel, or at least it felt like something he could do. He and Frank threw it up one afternoon after a torrential storm, and he’d been more concerned about keeping his customers dry than anything elaborate.

  He hadn’t planned on Frank’s diligence and the sheer stubbornness of bolted-in wood.