Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1

by Maxfield, Z. A.

  Was it because Ryan struck some familiar chord deep within Jack and he wanted to hear the music it promised?

  “Thanks for taping.” Jack pivoted abruptly on his good leg to start laying a paper path toward the back door. “I can’t crawl like that.”

  “Your knee?”

  “Yeah,” Jack admitted. “Among other things. I’ve gone out on plenty of jobs, but usually I drive and oversee sorting and hauling at hoarding sites, or I spray and scrub walls. I do whatever I can do standing up, mostly.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Ryan said with unmistakable sensual intent.

  Jack glanced away. Apparently Ryan’s go-to deflection was a sexual offensive. Humans always seemed to find a way to compartmentalize, even on a job like this.

  Ryan’s teasing wasn’t going to make things easier. Jack’s emotions teetered between elation and discomfort when Ryan looked at him with that warmth in his eyes.

  “Okay.” Jack’s voice cracked. “Uh. Where were we?”

  “Do you have chronic pain from your injuries?” Ryan touched Jack’s knee lightly, then pulled his hand back when Jack jerked away as if Ryan’s fingers burned.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Complaining doesn’t seem to pay the bills.”

  “Lots of guys would go on disability.”

  “I get bored easily.” Jack normally used humor to hide, but Ryan’s frank gaze kept stripping him bare. “Besides, guys dig this hazmat shit.”

  “Right. Make light.” Ryan rolled his eyes and continued his crawl along the floor. He taped down the paper sheeting until he and Jack got to the door, and trimmed it off. He sat on his butt and let his gaze drift up Jack’s body again. “And you planned to do this job all by yourself.”

  Jack set the paper aside. “I wanted to be alone with my ghosts. What about you?”

  “I never really understood what that phrase meant until last night.” Ryan shuddered. “Alone with ghosts.”

  “Stubborn,” Jack chided gently. “I told you to stay somewhere else last night.”

  “Nick ripped me off enough while he lived with me. I wasn’t about to let him take anything from me after he died.”

  “I understand.” Jack laid his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “At least you had the sense to call Kevin.”

  “Only because every other person I called was busy or gone.”

  “I wasn’t.” Jack wasn’t sure what made him say that. “I mean—”

  “No. You weren’t.” Ryan rose lithely to his feet. Jack heard his spine crackle as he stretched the kinks out. “What’s next?”

  Jack felt caught under Ryan’s pale-eyed scrutiny. “Now we put down a layer of disinfectant spray and let that kill anything we could come in contact with.”

  “Do you do this with everyone? Or just people you expect might have certain diseases? Because I’m pretty sure Nick was negative for hep C and HIV.”

  “I follow the same protocol with all biologicals, and I make sure the staff does the same. We never take chances.”

  “Good to know.” Ryan nodded.

  Jack primed the pump sprayer and took it into the bathroom. Nick’s blood had congealed into thick, dark puddles in some places, had dried to reddish-brown stains in others. The acrid copper-penny flavor of it hung in the air. Maybe that was Jack’s imagination. The smell was awful but easier to take from the inside of a respirator. He’d brought eucalyptus rub for Ryan, in case he started to look green.

  “You want to spray? You just squeeze the trigger. Lay a cover down on every surface you see with blood. While you’re doing that, I’ll take out the trash. We’ll leave for a bit to let the disinfectant do its job, come back and scrub, and that’s it.”

  “You make it sound so simple.” Ryan took the sprayer from Jack.

  “It really is.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” said Ryan, softly.

  Jack had to agree.

  Ryan took the pump and started spraying the tub and the walls. Jack stood by the sink. There was no blood on the basin or the mirror above it, but being a nosy fucker, he opened the medicine cabinet just to see what Nick kept inside it. Nothing much. Aspirin. Condoms. Antacids and standard first-aid stuff. Jack figured Ryan was probably responsible for those things rather than Nick.

  Jack threw away Nick’s toothbrush, soap, and razor. The trash, toilet paper roll, shower curtain, and towels that had been hanging up when Nick ended his life—all of it would go into red plastic medical waste bags along with bloodied cleaning rags and used masks and gloves. Even their coveralls were disposable.

  When they were done, those bags would be sealed into cartons and labeled as biological waste. Then they would have to be hauled to a designated facility.

  That would be that.

  “We’re going to throw away the shower curtain, but spray it anyway,” said Jack.

  “All right.” Ryan held the plastic liner up and hit it with the sprayer. It didn’t take long to cover the small room with disinfectant. Respirators diminished the smell but didn’t get rid of it entirely.

  Jack got a plastic drain cleaner and shot Ryan a glance. Ryan’s eyes widened behind his goggles.

  “I’ve gotta pull hair clogs from the drain, because we’re going to have to move this tub to clean behind it. This is usually pretty gross. You probably won’t want to see what I pull out of there.”

  Ryan’s eyes lit with challenge. “Bring it.”

  “No, really. I mean—”

  “Don’t baby me.” Ryan’s brows drew downward. “I can handle worse than a few hair clogs.”

  Jack started pulling hair from the drain, and there was a lot of it. A tub that old, it made sense, really. Who thinks to clean out the drains of a little-used bathroom? Most people didn’t clean drains unless they backed up. Unfortunately, along with hair, Jack pulled up unmistakable bits of bone and a couple of teeth. They must have washed along a river of blood to the lowest point in the tub and slipped into the drain.

  Ryan blanched. “Aw, shit.”

  Jack watched Ryan lurch out of the tiny room.

  A man can prepare himself for all kinds of things. He can focus his attention, steel himself, and even do a really unpleasant job with the right preparation. It was always the unexpected that caught a guy in the gut, like the first hoarder house Jack had been to where the occupant had died alone, unmourned and unmissed, and her pets had half eaten her before anyone thought to check on her.

  Life is a fucking mess. People only think they have a handle on their emotions until something weird enough comes along and they find out different.

  It was true for Jack. It was true for most everyone.

  Jack finished what he was doing so he could put it from his mind.

  The gut-wrenching reality that those were Nick’s teeth—Nick’s bones—slowed his movement until it felt like he was swimming through glue. He had to treat the situation with the respect it deserved, so he separated the human remains from the trash and labeled them, although it didn’t make much difference. They were going to the same place anyway.

  This was the best way for him to mourn. To grieve for his long-ago lover. These last, stolen moments in Nick’s physical presence, such as it was, were all he was ever going to get. He let that thought settle on his body and in his brain. Let it seep into his hands as he reverently collected what he could of someone he’d once loved.

  When Jack finished, he sought out Ryan. Jack found him hosing vomit into the planter outside the back door.

  Jack pulled his respirator off and pushed back his goggles and hood. “I should have warned you sooner.”

  Ryan didn’t turn. “You tried to tell me. I didn’t think I would react like that. It’s not like I haven’t seen all this before. Severed limbs. Gunshot wounds. People lose teeth in sports injuries and car accidents all the time, and I see it every day.”

  “This is different.” Jack took the hose from him and turned the water off. “This is someone you cared about.”

  He leaned against the house so
he could coil it back up—such a cliché, a firefighter reeling in a hose. When he was done, he motioned Ryan over to the patio chairs.

  This is going to be the slowest job ever.

  Jack gave Ryan’s shoulder a pat before he sat down. Ryan looked young to him. For the first time, he appeared uncertain. He’d been a rock, tough and determined, up until he saw the garbage coming out of his drain. Poor kid. Most everyone had something that took the wind from their sails on a job.

  “You must think I’m a joke,” said Ryan.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” On impulse, he pulled off his gloves and took Ryan’s hands in his.

  Ryan stared at their clasped hands like he didn’t know what he was looking at. “I need to do this job because it’s Nick.”

  “Me too,” Jack assured him. “It’s my way of saying a final good-bye, but it’s so hard. I’m so goddamn angry at him for taking the coward’s way out like that.”

  Ryan pulled away. “Me too.” He balled his hands into fists and covered his eyes.

  “Of course you are. Especially after you did your best to help him. But we’re also uniquely qualified to clean this scene with compassion.” Jack took Ryan’s hands from his face. “Do you still want to work alongside me? You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, but”—Ryan hesitated—“I need to tell you something.”

  “Sure.” Jack very nearly said, Shoot. God. “Anything.”

  Ryan gnawed his lower lip. The firm pink flesh looked painfully dented. “I wasn’t honest before.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not sure I can do this.” He closed his eyes. “This is so—”

  “I don’t know if I can either,” Jack admitted. “But that’s not going to stop me.”

  “I’m scared.” Ryan closed his eyes and tilted his face up toward the sun. “I can’t believe my own bathroom scares me, even though I’ve seen death a thousand times.”

  What a nice face.

  In the slanted midmorning light, Ryan only bore a vague resemblance to Nick. His coloring certainly was similar, but Ryan had a kinder face. Even though he looked young, he definitely had a wiser face. Life had etched compassion there, not selfishness.

  Ryan’s was a face a guy could pin his hopes on.

  “I don’t know why”—Ryan’s Adam’s apple bobbed—“but when I go in there, I’m afraid.”

  “Me too. There’s a purely human dread of death that catches you in the gut and twists you inside out. It takes time to learn how to work around that.”

  “But I see death every day. I don’t get why this is so hard.”

  “It’s in your home. Your sanctum sanctorum. Of course it’s hard. But Nick left us with this…job, for lack of a better word. What we’re doing matters. This is like the coda at the end of a piece of music, or an epilogue that ties off all the story lines of a book. This is something that must be done, and for whatever reason, I need to be the one to do it. You come too.”

  Ryan’s lips curved into a faint smile. “That’s a poem.”

  “What is?” Jack studied Ryan’s handsome face while his eyes were still closed.

  “Never mind.” When Ryan’s lashes lifted, he looked so tired.

  “Ready to go back to work?”

  “Yeah.” Ryan stood and stretched. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing the ceiling, the walls, and the tile. By far the most difficult and time-consuming job was disconnecting the claw-foot tub to work behind it. Once the walls and floor were spotless, they reattached the plumbing and turned the water supply back on to check for leaks.

  The work was stuffy and smelly—made ten times more difficult by the tight confines of the enclosed space, the gear they had to wear, and the weight of the goddamn tub. As the day wore on, Jack’s physical limitations enraged him. Pain that nagged became a throbbing, aching nightmare.

  A job that should have taken no longer than three or four hours ended up taking nearly seven, but finally they pulled up the paper and removed the trash, leaving the austere bedroom and bath tidy and impersonal.

  Like nothing ever happened.

  It was after four when Jack taped the last box closed, and he ached all over. For the first time in several months, he was going to have to choose between having a drink or taking a heavy-duty painkiller.

  Ryan carried boxes and gear to the van while Jack texted Gabe to say the job was finished.

  As they closed the van’s rear doors and stepped back, Ryan seemed uncertain. They hadn’t spoken much after they’d gotten things finished inside. Jack figured they were both too exhausted—physically and emotionally—for small talk.

  Ryan gestured toward his house. “You want something to drink? Coffee or—”

  “I can’t,” said Jack. “I need to get this van back to the warehouse.” He also needed a shower in the worst way. He needed to sleep, maybe for a week or two.

  Deep shadows underlined Ryan’s eyes. “Nick’s memorial service is tomorrow at Fairhaven.”

  “I—” Jack shook his head. “I won’t be there.”

  Ryan nodded. “I didn’t expect you to be. I thought I should tell you.”

  “Thanks.” Jack held out his hand. “For everything.”

  Ryan shook Jack’s hand, then pulled him in for an awkward hug. “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” When he stepped back, Jack put his hands on Ryan’s shoulders. “Despite what happened when we were kids, I’m sorry Nick ended up like this. I wish I could have helped before.”

  “Me too.” Ryan glanced back at the house.

  “You’re going to be okay, Ryan.” Jack gave Ryan’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “You’re going to be fine. You did everything you could, got it?”

  “I know.” Ryan’s voice betrayed his doubt. “I’m glad we did this.”

  “I’m glad we did this together.” Jack smiled. “You made it bearable.”

  “You too.” Ryan’s expression told a different story. He was clearly hanging on by a thread.

  “Call your friends, Ryan. Take my advice and go somewhere else for a few days. Take some time off from work. See a grief counselor. Promise me.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Ryan winced when Jack compressed his shoulder muscles again. “I’ll think about all those things. I promise.”

  “Good.” Jack got into the van and started the engine. He pulled away, keeping half an eye on Ryan as his image got smaller in the passenger side mirror. He hated to leave Ryan alone like that, but at some point every job ended. Survivors had to deal with the aftermath.

  There was nothing he could do about that.

  * * *

  When Jack pulled the van into the warehouse parking lot, Gabe and Dave were waiting for him. It looked like they’d been having a beer.

  “Hey.” Jack rolled down the driver’s side window. “Did you guys start without me?”

  “Hey, coz.” Gabe opened the van’s door. “We’ve been waiting on you. Are you okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I had you under surveillance,” Dave joked. “Mom called me when it looked like you were done.”

  Dave tried to help him, but Jack pushed his hands away. He grabbed his cane and let himself drop to the ground.

  “I’m fine,” he said curtly.

  Dave frowned at him. “All right.”

  “Paco will be here any minute to haul the trash,” said Gabe. “Leave the keys with me. I’ll restock the van in the morning.”

  “I can do it.” Jack turned to face his business partner. “Stop treating me like I can’t do shit.”

  Dave put his hand on Jack’s arm. “He’s just trying—”

  “I said stop.” Jack pulled out of Dave’s reach. “I don’t need anyone’s help to do my job.”

  “Drop the attitude, coz.” Gabe’s hands clenched into fists. “Just knock it off. I haven’t seen you move this slow since right after you got out of the hospital.”

  Jack lashed out, aiming a kick a
t the van’s tire. Real mature. He only succeeded in smashing his good foot. “I’m tired, goddamn it, but I can still do my job.”

  “Look at me, Jack.” Dave caught Jack’s arm in a tight grip. His authoritative voice turned coaxing. “You’ve had a long day. You did work you’re not used to doing. Would you let Gabe and me help you just this once?”

  Jack sagged against the van. The metal was cool and solid next to his skin, and it felt so damn good to get even a little weight off his legs and back. Off his bad knee, into which someone seemed to be jabbing iron spikes.

  “All right. Thanks.” Grabbing a hot shower and then lying down for a couple of days would be heaven. He’d accomplished what he set out to do. He didn’t have to torture himself. “I’m a dick. I’m sorry.”

  “Sometimes you don’t take care of yourself,” Gabe observed.

  The way Jack felt right then, he had to agree. “I do some idiot shit, yeah.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that.” Gabe forced the van’s keys from Jack’s clenched fist. “Go home and take a pill. Don’t come back until Monday.”

  Jack sighed. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” Dave put his arm around Jack’s shoulders. Jack let himself lean on him. They walked in silence until they reached Jack’s truck.

  “Thanks for checking on me,” said Jack.

  Dave studied him through narrowed eyes. “Thank my mom.”

  “You had your mother spy on me. That’s just low.” Jack laughed at Dave’s discomfort. “Everyone in the neighborhood was watching. The curtains and blinds twitched the whole day.”

  “I hate that.”

  “At least I know your mom wasn’t armed.”

  “She’s worried about Halloran. She likes him.”

  “What we did there… That was harder than I thought it would be,” Jack admitted. “The physical challenges ate me alive. I was an idiot to think I could do it. Especially alone.”

  “And yet you did.” Dave’s expression was indulgent.

  Jack grinned and Dave returned a lazy smile that made Jack’s groin tighten. “I guess I did, at that.”

  Chapter 9