by Amy Lane
Shit. “One thing at a time,” Lance told him. “Once we know you’re not going to jail, I can figure out if I’m out of porn.”
Henry nodded, so sober Lance wanted to kiss him again, but that was just going to end up with them staying up way too late. “That’s a deal,” he whispered. “Anything. I surely would like to do this some more.”
“My bed’s not bad,” Lance told him practically. “Maybe we can make Randy sleep on the couch for once.”
Henry chuckled softly. “No. No no no no. There’s not enough Febreze in the world.”
They fell asleep giggling, naked under the sheets.
That thing they’d just done? It was for real.
Dark Promises
HENRY SAT in the dark kitchen, drinking dark coffee at ten o’clock on an eighty-five degree dark night, and tried not to think about his day.
As a result, every moment of his day flashed in front of his eyes like a giant strobe light, from morning to night, until his brain jittered more from memory overload than caffeine.
FLASH! Jackson Rivers, looking exhausted but composed, sitting down for once in his partner’s office. Henry wasn’t sure exactly what had happened the night before—whether Jackson had gotten away with coming home wounded or if there’d been a helluva consequence for pulling that shit on Cramer, but Jackson was looking both better and worse. Better because there was a sort of peace on his movie-star rugged features that Henry hadn’t seen before, and worse because he was pale, like whatever illness had made him so thin in the first place was on its way back. Either way, their day of looking into Henry’s case had begun, and surprisingly, so had Jackson’s day of giving Henry some advice on how to get his PI’s license. As they both figured—dryly—if Henry didn’t get put in jail for murder, he was at least having fun tracking down who actually had done it.
FLASH! Skulking around the white-tiled corridors of UCD Med Center, looking for Martin Sampson’s father’s office. The scrubs they’d gotten that first day to view the autopsy had come in handy yet again as they’d sifted through Sampson Senior’s office, looking for proof of the drug distribution ring they’d come to believe was the motive for Martin’s murder. Henry had needed to get rid of some of his coffee right when Rivers had gotten trapped in the office’s small supply closet. While Henry had been killing time on the john, he’d gotten Rivers’s pithy texts:
Fucking Jesus, this guy’s banging this nurse like he’s ringing in the new goddamned year. Anal and no lube—what’d she do to him?
He’d been worried about getting caught, sure, but he’d also been exhilarated and sort of excited. The last three days he’d been part of an investigation, and sure, it had consequences for him because he’d be really excited about not getting arrested, going to trial, maybe going to prison, but it also had bigger consequences than that.
Martin Sampson was dead. And yeah, he’d been all about the street hustle until he’d figured out Henry was Davy’s little brother. But he’d been a person—someone real to all the people Henry knew, and he’d been murdered. And Henry was going to get a chance to set that right by figuring out who really did it.
Did that benefit Henry? Well, yes. But finding who the killer was also benefited the memory of a guy who had maybe been sabotaged from the start. His father was a crooked drug dealer, and an all-around nasty piece of work. Henry had never thought he’d be grateful his own old man was a short-sighted homophobic redneck, but damn if Robert Sampson didn’t make Paul Worrall look like a prize.
That gave him something he hadn’t had since Malachi had bent him over and forced him to break the law.
It gave him purpose.
FLASH! The curve of Lance’s throat when he’d thrown his head back while in the throes of climax.
It was the first time in his life that Henry could even say “making love” in his head.
FLASH! The sublimely uncomfortable look on everybody’s faces when Henry asked who had been purging bile in the sink and toilet.
Cotton’s game little wave. Billy’s grim eye-roll. Fisher’s embarrassed shrug. Zeppelin’s sheepish grin. Even Randy’s bashful look away.
Zeppelin had looked at Fisher and said, “Dude! Why? You’re fuckin’ perfect!”
And Billy had snapped, “So’s Lance, but he’s the one who takes the sink when the rest of us are going in the pot!”
Henry’s face went cold, as well as his fingertips and his toes.
“All of you?” he rasped, looking at them helplessly.
“Not me,” Curtis muttered. “I thought they were whacking off in the bathroom.”
“Dude,” Randy said, “I don’t need to whack off in the bathroom. I pretty much bump a table and that’s a candlelit dinner right there.”
Henry looked at Curtis helplessly. “You’re excused?” he said, because he was seriously at a loss.
But Curtis surprised him. “No,” he said, looking away. “I’m not. I knew what they were doing. I… I should have said something, at least to all of them.” He swallowed. “I was mostly just sort of jealous because I couldn’t make myself do it.”
But Lance! Henry wanted to flail his arms. How could Lance do that to himself?
But Henry knew the answer. All he had to do was ask himself what he had to be ashamed of, and he’d see the entire slideshow—every time Mal talked him into giving in, every time he closed his eyes and begged his family for forgiveness.
Lance had so much less to be ashamed of, but his body was on camera for everyone to see. The one place he could prove he had no shame was the one place he couldn’t hide any flaws.
But Henry had felt him in the dark, had tasted his kisses, willingly and freely given, and knew Lance was flawless.
FLASH! The worry in Lance’s eyes as he’d kissed Henry goodbye, while Henry was still in bed, drowsing, and Lance was off to work a twelve-hour shift.
FLASH! Jackson Rivers eating at Davy’s table, looking exhausted still, cutting Kane’s niece little shapes out of her sandwich while Ellery Cramer looked at him with that same worry.
FLASH! The worry in Kane’s eyes as Jackson and Davy had spoken quietly about Martin Sampson, because Jackson couldn’t investigate the guy’s death without investigating his life.
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!
All of it, all of it, swirled around Henry’s brain in the big frightening amalgam of the things Henry was trying to right in the present, so overwhelming he didn’t even see the scary things that had been trying to get him in the past.
And still it was all secondary to his worry about Lance, and the feel of Lance under his hands, under his body, the night before.
Click. The door opened, and Lance walked in, blinking.
“Everybody asleep?” he asked, puzzled.
Well, sort of. They’d all fled as Henry had stood there, gobsmacked, almost betrayed in a way. He’d put the sink back together, minus a heinous-smelling clog and a desperately needed uncorroded U-joint. He’d come back from the hardware store, and they’d stayed in their rooms, leaving the illusion he was alone.
“Sort of,” Henry said, standing up. It wasn’t the coffee propelling him. He just needed… needed….
He cupped the back of Lance’s head and pulled him into a kiss, needy, thirsty, because he’d wanted to do it all day.
The images in his head receded, coalesced, until there was only this moment in time, Lance’s mouth under his, minty with gum, but Henry didn’t care.
“Wow,” Lance breathed, beaming up at him. “That was….”
Henry kissed him again, and again, until Lance moaned and dropped his backpack and pushed gently at Henry’s stomach.
“I need to shower,” he confessed, grimacing. “I smell like the hospital and BO.”
“Sure,” Henry said reluctantly. He wanted to hold him. That was all. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.” Lance batted his eyelashes at Henry, and even though Henry knew it was a lie, he laughed anyway.
“I’ll make you something,” he said. “You go shower,
and then I’ll tell you about my day.”
Lance’s smile went shy. “And then…?” he asked hopefully.
What had Henry thought? That he’d want this man any less when he found out Lance was imperfect? That he’d turn down a chance to be in his bed, to hold him, in favor of lording some sort of “Thou shalt not….” over him?
“And then,” Henry told him, heart in his throat. “And then.” He smiled and rubbed noses playfully, reveling in the affection, in the kisses, in the way Lance expected banter and fun and not just a blowjob and some ass.
“Awesome!” Lance kissed him quickly on the mouth and bent to grab his backpack. “I’ll go shower and be out in a few.”
Henry watched him go with what even he knew was worry in his eyes. By the time Lance came back, Henry had managed to put together a meal of riced veggies and cubed chicken, with a little bit of teriyaki sauce. Not original, but not heavy either. He plated it up right when Lance came out from the bathroom, looking a little uncertain.
“Here you go,” Henry said, avoiding eye contact. “I hope it’s not too heavy.”
Lance nodded and sat down. “I, uh, saw the little filters on the drain.”
“To keep the stuff that clogs it from going down,” Henry said. “The sink was backing up and the pipes were corroded—the U-joint behind the toilet too. I went out and got stuff after I took everything apart. I’d just finished up when you got home.”
“Oh.” Lance pushed the food on his plate around a little, and Henry scooted close to him and grabbed the fork.
He took a bite and closed one eye. “It doesn’t suck,” he pronounced. “You don’t have to look at it like it’s poison.”
“I’m not as hungry as I thought,” Lance mumbled, and Henry sighed.
Obviously, Lance was expecting the other shoe to drop.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Henry told him, not moving back. “I was going to let it go.”
Lance put the fork down as if he was tired of the pretense.
“What would you say?”
Henry raised his eyebrows. “How about the fact that the only one who doesn’t have an eating disorder is Curtis. Did you know that?”
It felt a little bit like vindication when Lance’s mouth fell open.
“You did not,” Henry supplied. “Well, they all know that you do. And now you know.”
Lance pushed his food away and buried his head in his arms. “You never want to touch me again, do you?”
Henry draped his arm over Lance’s back and told the truth. “I want to wrap you up and protect you from anything that hurts you and never let you hurt yourself again.”
Lance shook his head. “This is my own—”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Henry’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I have no place, no right, to interfere in whatever you’re doing, however you live your life. But if you’re waiting for me not to worry, it’s not going to happen. You’re a doctor. You have got to know all the bad things—”
“Heart murmurs, permanent acid reflux, rotting teeth?” Lance let out a bitter laugh. “I am aware.”
“Yeah.” Henry dropped a kiss on his temple. “So when I’m off the hook, and you and me are still sleeping together, and we manage to find a bed of our own, I think we should have a long talk about how we can help you not hurt yourself anymore.”
Lance squeezed his eyes shut really tight, like he was trying to hold something back. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” Henry whispered, feeling Lance’s tremble against him. “I think so.”
“Can we talk about the ra—”
Henry made a harsh sound, because he still couldn’t say the word. Fucking Malachi—leaving him with this thing that had been done to him against his consent. “Then,” he croaked. “Then we can.”
“But not now.” Lance sighed.
Henry held him a little tighter. “We can’t do anything about mine,” he said helplessly. “We can do something about yours.”
“Oh, Henry—” Lance turned toward him, and Henry silenced him with a kiss. He pulled back tasting salt.
“Did the thing….” He swallowed. “The thing with Malachi make you not want to be with me?”
“No.” Lance leaned his forehead against Henry’s, and Henry got the feeling they were propping each other up.
“Bulimia doesn’t make me not want to be with you.” Henry closed his eyes. “It makes me want to shake you until you know you’re perfect, but I still want to be with you.”
Lance brought his hand up to wipe his face off. Henry grabbed a napkin from the table and started to mop up. He was so beautiful, even with his eyes puffing up.
“Can you try to eat a little for me?” he practically begged. “Stop if you think you’ll have to hurl. Just a little. So you know I made you something good.”
Lance nodded. “It was sweet of you to cook.” His voice came out rusty, and Henry moved away a smidge to give him some room. “Talk to me. Tell me about your day.”
“It wasn’t bad,” Henry said, swallowing past the lump in his throat. For once, he had good news and good stories to tell. “Rivers looks… well, I want to say sick, but mostly pale. Like his lips are a shade away from blue. He said something about heart failure back in November. I guess he was really sick and he fell into a swimming pool—”
Lance sat up and frowned. “Wait. Wait. Oh my God. His name. I never got a chance to look him up. I kept thinking Jackson Rivers and Ellery Cramer sounded really familiar. But that’s ringing some bells.”
“The swimming pool?”
“He ended up in the cardiac ward. He wasn’t my patient, or my attending’s patient, but word gets around. His doctor wrote a paper about him.”
Henry blinked. “So you actually met the guy, and nothing. But his heart condition you remember?”
Henry had turned the light on over the table, and it made it easier to track the flush across Lance’s cheeks. “Look, it doesn’t happen often. He was sick, like, if he hadn’t fallen into the pool and gotten stabbed, he would have needed to be brought in anyway. His temperature had to be around 104, 105 before the cold water hit him. Do you know why his temperature was so high?”
“Hit me.” After three days in the guy’s company, Henry could buy anything.
“He was chasing a serial killer around an empty apartment complex. The Dirty/Pretty Killer—”
“Oh my God,” Henry said. “We heard about that overseas.”
“Right? So this PI guy, the guy trying to prove you innocent, he’s the guy who caught the Dirty/Pretty Killer?”
Henry let out a gasp of laughter. “Wow. So, that figures.”
“How?” Lance’s shame, his sadness had evaporated, and Henry would do anything to keep that going.
“Well, like… just him. Like he wouldn’t mention it—wouldn’t brag. Wouldn’t say, ‘Look, Junior, I’m pretty good at this, maybe back off.’ Instead he….” Henry bit his lip, sort of excited about this, in spite of the worry. “He showed me how to get my PI license, the classes to take, the test. Gave me links. So you know, I applied to junior college. Now I have some classes to add in the fall. I’ve got like… like—assuming I’m not in jail or anything….”
“A thing,” Lance said, looking surprised. “You have a thing you want to do.” Then his expression darkened. “A dangerous thing. You have a dangerous thing to—”
Henry stopped him right there. “Lance, what exactly was I doing before I showed up here—you remember that?”
Lance closed his eyes. “But—”
“And you may not have seen me naked last night but—”
“Scars,” Lance said. “I’ve seen them—along your hip, your shoulder. Looks like road rash?”
“I got thrown by a blast. A ground missile hit the building behind me, left me concussed and skinned like a fish. But I wasn’t the worst case there. I got up, dusted myself off, and pulled people to safety.” He shrugged, uncomfortable. Just doing his fucking job, right? “I mean…
in a perfect world, we would have met when I was, I don’t know, retired military. All comfortable with myself and shit. And you’d have your own practice. And we would have been all mature and whatever. But we didn’t meet then. You met me when I should have been doing something active and promising and yeah, a little bit dangerous.”
Lance rolled his eyes. “You were in a war zone, Henry.”
Henry met his eyes. “And now I’m in an apartment with porn models, repairing corroded plumbing. We all make adjustments, Galahad.”
Lance shifted his hips. “We… we really can’t use that name a lot. You understand that, right? I… I even went by Lance in grad school.”
Henry stared at him. “Didn’t that… didn’t that sort of… I dunno. Negate the use of the name as a porn name?”
Lance stared back. “Well, uh….”
“I mean, wasn’t that a thing with Reg? He didn’t decide to go by a porn name until it was too late, and then he couldn’t answer to it, so he went back to Reg? You want a name people can’t look up on the internet, right?”
Lance turned away and looked studiously at his meal, shoving a huge bite into his mouth. “Tathe gway, ’rrnry!”
“You big coward. Aren’t you a doctor, and you literally made your porn name your real name?”
Lance swallowed with a gulp and hid his eyes with his hand. “Did we not just cover that not everybody has their shit together in this business?”
Henry chuckled. “All done eating the big scary food?”
“Fuck you.”
“Good. Now look at me. We’re getting back to the hard thing.” He waited until Lance had dropped his hand so Henry could take it in his own. “Can you deal with the PI thing? It’s looking a lot less dangerous than the ‘deployed in a war zone’ thing, but not nearly as sexy.”
Lance’s mouth quirked up at the sides and he nodded. “I—you look really happy for a guy about to be arrested. I would like to see you be happy when, you know, there’s nothing hanging over your head.”
Henry kissed Lance’s knuckles a little. “Wow. I’m a novice here. Is this what a relationship is like?”
“Sure,” Lance said, obviously surprised. “This….” He frowned. “This is actually better than my last relationship was.”