by Rhys Ford
“If you’re here looking for Mason, he’s inside,” Gus spoke out, nearly hidden in the canopy of branches covering the tight drive. He was sitting on an old thick half wall a few feet from the street, his sneakers’ heels dug into the rough painted brick, his back against the house. “And if you’re here to give me shit, you can just turn right back around. I don’t need any of it today.”
The rawness in Gus’s voice dug deep into the shreds of Rey’s doubts. He hurt, Rey could feel it. The shoving away was a too-familiar dance he’d fallen for more than once, a biting snap to hide the fear in Gus’s heart. Or at least that’s what Rey was going to gamble on.
“I’m not here to give you shit,” Rey promised, ambling down the drive.
The gravel was loose beneath his shoes, sliding when he walked. He stopped in front of Gus, catching a whiff of something sweet on his breath, then spotted a dab of bright red at the corner of Gus’s mouth. He had his thumb on the spot before his brain caught up with the shock of touching Gus again, feeling the warmth of his skin and the slightly coarse grain of his chin where he’d missed a spot shaving. Gus flinched, and Rey’s knuckles stilled in midstroke on his cheek.
The recoil wasn’t new. Not for Gus. Moving too quickly drew a startled reaction, and in the past, Rey’d nursed a resentment when Gus’s lashes flicked down and he jerked back, ever so slightly but enough for Rey to drop his hand. He left his thumb where it was, then rubbed at the spot, smiling ruefully when it refused to be rubbed out.
“Fruit punch?” Rey kept his touch and voice to a soft burr, running his thumb pad over Gus’s lower lip. As irrationally angry as he’d been a day or so before, he’d still wanted to plunder Gus’s mouth, to suck in the breath ghosting a warmth over his palm.
“Cherry lollipop.” His chin went up, almost breaking their contact, and a defensiveness settled over his handsome face, challenging Rey. “What do you want?”
Gus hadn’t pulled away, but his pale blue-gray eyes were hooded, turning to silvery storms behind his oddly dark, long lashes. A foot or two separated them, the air turning warm from their bodies’ closeness, and Rey fought the urge to slide in between Gus’s parted legs, push him against the side of the house, and kiss the desperate sadness from his wary gaze.
“God, I fucked us up,” he whispered, cupping Gus’s face. Another flinch, smaller this time, but the wariness grew. “And I hate that I hurt you. Made you… scared of me. Scared to be touched by me. I’m sorry for… the other day. For three years ago. For fucking everything in between… I’m sorry, babe. I’m—”
“I can’t do this, Rey. Not now. Not… I’ve got a kid. A son. And I can’t have you pushing back into me, into my life, because I can’t… I’ve already got one tightrope to walk on. I can’t walk two.” Gus clamped his hand over Rey’s mouth, stopping him, then dropped his arm back to his side, pushing Rey away. Shaking his head, Gus said, his voice broken and sorrowful, “I can’t spend my time wondering what I’m going to do to piss you off, what’s the thing I’m going to not do to make you turn me out. You fucking broke me, and yeah, I didn’t help things. I screwed up too. But now? I can’t afford to fuck up my son. He’s got to come first. I’ve got to—”
“I know. I get that.” There were sacrifices Gus was going to make—ones his own mother had and Gus’s mother had not—but Rey understood those struggles. He’d seen them firsthand, his mother’s only focus for years after his father fled the fire he’d started. “I’m asking for a chance, Gus. We keep circling back to each other. Even when we try to stay out of one another’s way, we’re drawn in. I think about you when I should focus on going through a building about to fall down around my ears, and it’s all I can do, not to have you in my mind. I’m not perfect. Neither are you. We… have something real and some problems too—that’s the truth—but we also seem to need each other.”
“We tried…,” Gus reminded him, a soft, painful stab from a knife Rey’d sharpened himself years before. “You fucking broke me, Rey. You decided for us, for me, that I wasn’t good enough to be in your life. I didn’t have a say. I didn’t get a fucking choice. You just… fucking decided.”
“And I’ll pay for that for the rest of my damned life, Gus.” The frustration building in him breached, breaking the surface of Rey’s control. His hands were on Gus’s thighs, encroaching on a right he’d been given once and thrown away. “I keep reaching for you in the middle of the night, and you’re not there. I wake up missing the taste of you. Even after three years, I can feel you there inside of me. I was stupid, and I want to fix it… fix us. We can’t keep running away from each other, Gus, not when we keep coming right back to where we’d left off.”
Their mouths touched, but Rey couldn’t have sworn who’d leaned in first. The fire he’d walked through yesterday, its searing heat and deadly touch, lay in a tepid heap compared to the succulent pleasure of Gus’s tongue playing over his lips. He moaned, or maybe Gus did—he wasn’t sure, but Rey stepped into the cup of Gus’s parted legs, and he slid his hands down over his ex-lover’s waist, his fingers brushing over soft skin and hip bone.
Gus’s jeans were thin, an old, worn pair dotted with paint and wood stain, nearly white across the thighs and torn in places Rey ached to lick. His dick responded to the heavy press of Gus’s arousal when Rey deepened their kiss, his fingers worked into Gus’s flaxen-bronze hair so he could pull him closer, savoring when the flavor in Gus’s mouth shifted, going from sweet, syrupy cherry to erotic male.
There was no mistaking the desire stoked up between them, not when Gus shivered as Rey’s mouth roamed over his throat with a trailing sting of nips and suckling bites. Gus’s hands clenched Rey’s shoulders, kneading at his muscles, then cupped the back of Rey’s neck to draw him into another heart-stopping, breath-stealing kiss.
Pulled in tight with want, Rey reeled in shock when the heels of Gus’s hands dug into his chest, shoving him back. Panting, Gus swallowed, stiffening his arm to stop Rey from moving back in. A chill doused the heat they’d built up, the evening air thickening with cold, and Rey stumbled back, rocking on his heels. Disheveled, Gus ran one hand through his hair, his gaze hard and wary once again.
“What’s Ivo always tell me? ‘You can always say no, Gus.’” His voice broke, and in the faint brush of light coming from the living room’s windows, Rey spotted a shimmer on the silver in Gus’s eyes. “So… I’m going to say no, Rey. Yeah, I want to fuck you. God knows, I want to fuck you something fierce but… no.”
Ten
“WHAT DO you want from me, Rey?” Regret left a bitterness in his words; Gus could taste it at the back of his throat.
He wanted to hold on, to hook his arms around Rey’s waist and lean on him. It’d been too long since someone other than his brothers hugged him, and those were fleeting, quick embraces strong enough to suffocate then released before the warmth could reach the cold pit of darkness brewing inside of him.
Rey stepped back enough to feed the coldness, letting the evening air fill the space between them. It was easier looking at his ex-lover draped in spare light and shadows. There was something about Rey’s face, a strength he’d always been drawn to, a steadiness Gus loved to wake up next to. Rey wore his emotions openly, riding his passions and angers with a fluid grace, and when his warm brown eyes grew cold, his words would be sharp and exact, finding weaknesses in an argument with a deadly precision.
“I don’t know. Maybe just for you not to hate me. Maybe just for you to have someone to reach out to.” The admission surprised Gus, and it probably showed on his face, because Rey laughed, a short, quick self-deprecating noise he coupled with a shrug. “Everything I’ve said and felt for the past few days… hell, for the past three years… has been about me. How I feel. What I miss. You’re right. I decided for us. I was so fucking far up my own ass I couldn’t see how… I didn’t get we were supposed to fit into each other’s lives, not you fitting into mine. Yesterday was the first time I understood what I was doing back then.
/> “I wasn’t in love with you. I mean, I was,” Rey said, catching Gus before he could slide off the wall and stalk off. “Hear me out. Please. I wanted you to fit into something you weren’t. You’re not. I was in love with you, but it was on my terms. You didn’t ask me to learn how to tattoo someone. Or spend the night rolling through parties. I resented you doing those things when I wasn’t around. So yeah, I loved you, but I didn’t see you. I didn’t hear you. I didn’t listen. Not enough. Not then, but I do know you, Gus. I know right now, you hurt and you’re scared. You’ve got a lot of… crap coming into your head in a day or two, and you’re going to want to run, but you won’t. You’re stronger than that, and I’m sorry I didn’t see that strength in you then. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to work things out between us. You’re right, I threw you away. I was a fucking idiot, and I’ve regretted it ever since. You’re worth keeping. The question is, am I good enough for you to keep?”
His throat was closing in, but Gus managed to mutter, “I met my son for the first time today and you do this shit to me?”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Then I saw you and… I couldn’t not say it. I’m angry still. Hurt. It’s complicated, and at the same time, so damned simple. I did what was right for me without thinking if it was right for you. Even if… you mean that no, I owed you something more than what I gave you.”
Looking beyond Rey helped somewhat. It was a familiar landscape, one he’d watched grow and—he still winced at the divot in the tree at the end of the drive—damaged. It was home. His first home and he was now sitting under a bank of windows listening to his brothers’ muted conversation while the first man he’d loved dug into the scabs Gus wanted to leave alone.
The light was leaving the sky, folding grays into purples, with bursts of tangerine and lemon flaring up as the streetlamps came on. The hilltop park across the street was noisy, a chorus of dogs barking somewhere on the trails, and a pair of young women in yoga pants and bright sneakers jogged past, heading toward one of the walk entrances.
“They separated us, you know?” A couple and two children walked by, but he and Rey were hidden by the copse, a natural cover of shadows, curves, and leaves, and Gus smiled when the smallest girl began to hop up the cement path, bells jingling on her shoes. “I mean, not just Bear and Ivo but me and Puck. They split us all up when they took us from Mom.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rey admitted. “Why would they do that?”
“Because we were already marked as shit. There’s another designation for it. I can’t remember what politically correct words they used, but he and I were marked before we went in. We missed school. We were disruptive in class. Our mother was… our fucking mother.” He swallowed at the thickness forming in his throat, a flash of rooms and chairs going by in his mind. “I didn’t know where anyone went. They don’t tell you, you know? You just get cut off from who you come in with and no one answers any of your questions. So you just stop asking.
“I was in… four foster homes before my mother… before she got a hold of me and Puck. I hadn’t seen him in fucking forever, and when I saw him sitting in the back of the car when she pulled up in front of my school, I didn’t think twice about climbing right in.” Tears threatened, and he blinked, not wanting to break apart. “I was with my brother for almost an hour before she… well, you know.
“After that, it was harder. The social workers argue and snipe right in front of you because you’re nothing—I was nothing—it didn’t matter what I heard or who said it, I was powerless. And I was numb,” he confessed, shrugging. “See, there’s foster homes they… I don’t know the word for it but good ones. The kind of foster family you send a kid to because there’s a chance they’d be adopted or at least, cared for. And those fuckers in those rooms… man, they guard those fucking families like they’re treasure. And yeah, maybe they are. So I sat in a room—could have been the one I was in today when I met Chris—and listened to four social workers go through a list of available foster homes and eliminate the ones I didn’t deserve to go to. Because I was—how did she put it?—wasn’t going to be anything but a smear of shit on society’s ass.”
“You were eight.” Rey’s voice broke, and he reached out, only stopping when Gus shook his head. “You’re not shit—”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I wasn’t good enough to be placed in a home with people who… with an actual family. I didn’t know how to act. Didn’t know how to talk right. Didn’t go to school. Got into fights.” Gus risked touching Rey’s shoulder, needing to ground himself with Rey’s warm skin. “Those kinds of placements are for kids who… could be success stories. The ones written up in the news about how they overcame all of the crap thrown at them at an early age.
“Something happens to Jules… to her parents and that’s what Chris is going to deal with. That kind of shit. Because of me. Because of my mom.” His eyes stung too much to see past the leaves, and the night was beginning to swaddle the driveway, leaving them cloaked in darkness. “And when you… fuck… that night, you put me back in that room again, Rey. Sat me back down in that fucking chair and talked over me, making decisions about my life, putting me where you thought I belonged instead of what I needed. So right now, I’ve got to say no. Or at least, I can’t say yes because I can’t trust you not to do that to me again.”
“HE SAID no, Mace,” Rey huffed, falling back into step with his best friend. “Well, no for now. And it sucks because he’s closed up. Not just to me but… to you guys too.”
“You fucked up.” The hill was beginning to steepen, but Mason took the ascent as if it were a straightaway, eating up stretches of pavement. Mason glanced back, slowing his pace to let Rey catch up, infuriating him. “Yesterday. Day before. Back before… three years ago, you didn’t have faith in him. And well, he’s a flake. Less now, though. Jesus, Montenegro, should I get you a walker?”
“I fucking hate you right now.” His side ached, more from the stairs he’d fallen down during their early morning shift. “I can’t do this.”
“Talk about Gus?” Mason turned around, jogging backward. “Or keep up with me.”
Rey slowed to a walk, pressing his hand to his ribs. They throbbed where he’d smacked into a support beam when the stairwell gave way under his feet during an early morning call. It’d been a short drop but enough to bruise. Mason stopped, letting Rey catch up, frowning when Rey rubbed his side.
“Sure the doc cleared you?” He grabbed at Rey’s shirt to lift it, then frowned when he stepped back, holding Mace off.
“Yeah, he did. And don’t… hover.” Rey scoffed at Mason’s halfhearted snarl. His stomach growled, reminding both of them it’d been hours since they’d gulped down sandwiches at the station. “I’ve already got a mother, and yeah, I don’t want to talk about your brother while you’re kicking my ass up a hill.”
He’d not gone into the house, leaving Gus outside but taking the taste of him—the smell of him—home. Insanity or compassion drew him to Gus’s side, to touch his face when he should have given them space to talk, to breathe. The sorrow he’d seen lurking in Gus’s expression moved him, and he’d touched Gus’s mouth before he’d realized he wanted to taste the cherry on Gus’s tongue. He’d promised himself to move slowly, approach Gus only after talking to him, but one glint of silver in the shadows and a ghost-shrouded fallen angel and Rey reached out, itching to bring a smile to a mouth he wanted to fall into.
Even knowing he shouldn’t.
They didn’t talk until they got to the taco stand Mason called as the end of their run. Told to stay put, Rey laid claim to one of the short picnic tables set out on the patio, easing onto one of its benches, then hunching over to relax his too-tight muscles.
It was late, nearly ten at night, but the stand was still busy, a ten-person line wrapped around the neon-orange-painted shack. A tiny Vietnamese woman worked the order counter, shouting back at the two-man kitchen working the grills
and fryers, then slinging out completed meals with a handful of napkins and a terse suggestion to try the salsas at the condiments stand next to the end of the shack. A few feet away, an almost pretty young man who could have been her brother or even her son worked the eight-table patio, cleaning with a swipe of the wet rag he kept tucked into a loop on his cargo pants and refilling the salsas when someone complained.
Set in a mixed ethnic neighborhood, the shack’s customers were diverse but definitely hungry, judging by the five bags of food a blond frat boy hefted up off the pick up counter. Insects danced around the old-fashioned large-bulb Christmas lights strung over the patio, large winged beasts doing battle with the glowing yellow filaments. The chilly air was nice on his overheated skin, and Rey debated laying his head down on the table’s gouged-out top when Mason returned.
“You look like you feel a truck hit you.” He slid a platter of tacos in front of Rey, then lay down a disposable silver pan of well-done fries topped with carne asada, cheese, and pico de gallo next to it. “Kid’s bringing us some horchata.”
“You just went up there.” The carne asada sizzled, melting the cheese underneath it, and Rey plucked out a piece, blowing on it as it burnt his fingers. “There’s a line.”
“She likes me, and I left a really good tip.” Mace shrugged. The drinks came on the food’s heels, and Mace’s eyes followed the young man’s progress back through the crowd. “Cute.”
“Young,” Rey pointed out, unwrapping one of the forks he dug out from the pile of napkins dumped on the table. “Like maybe still in high school young.”
“College. Told me he’s majoring in biology, but yeah, way too young,” he rebutted. “Eat and we can talk about Gus. You left without coming in last night, and when he got in, he blew right past me and headed upstairs. How shitty were you to him? Or was it the other way around?”