by Rhys Ford
“You have no fucking idea.” Gus sniffled. He tried to pull back, but Rey wouldn’t let him go without one final hard hug. Wiping at his face, Gus mumbled, “I just… I can’t fucking trust them.”
“Them is Luke and Lynn now,” he reminded gently. “They’re in your corner. They’ve got influence if we need it, but we don’t even know if that’s the case. You’re reacting to fear, not to what’s really happening, so I’m going to ask you to wait and breathe. Do not forget to breathe, babe. And if you find yourself spiraling into something you can’t get out of, if your brain won’t shake loose of the crap floating up to the surface, then you come find me and I’ll hold you up until you can get your feet under you.”
“’Cause that’s what you do.” He attempted a weak smile, and it shone dimly in the watery light. “Rescue cats from trees and people from burning buildings, even when they’re the ones who set the fire.”
“Especially if they’ve set the fire.” Rey chuckled. Kissing Gus on the corner of his mouth, he grimaced at the saltiness on his lover’s skin. “No matter what happens, no matter what fires you set in your life, I’m going to be here. I’ve let you down before, and I’m not going to do it again. Do you believe me?”
“Yeah.” Gus’s admission came hot and fast, a rush of sounds and conviction. “Of course.”
“You and I have changed, realigned what our priorities are, and one of those important things in your—our—lives is Chris,” he murmured, stealing a quick kiss. “Okay, also each other, so two. Maybe three if you count the brothers. Thing is, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to fuck up… with our families, with the kid and with each other. Shit’s going to happen. We’re going to forget to pick stuff up at the store or miss an appointment, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to go forward. It doesn’t mean we don’t love each other, and it doesn’t mean Chris isn’t safe and happy. We’re going to be human and screw up, but we’ll be there. I’ll be there. Like you’ll be there for him. Like you’re here for him now.”
“Sitting outside on a bench, crying like someone kicked my cat and making out with my….” Gus stopped and studied Rey’s face. “I don’t know what to call you. Boyfriend sounds like… I’m in high school.”
“Boyfriend works.” He laughed at Gus’s disgusted face. “Look, he’s going to be okay. He’s three. He was scared and in pain because Jules grabbed his arm before he could get hit by that woman’s car. We all saw his shoe coming off and her tire running over it, but I’d rather take a yanked arm than something worse. As mistakes go, that’s nothing and sure as hell not anyone’s fault, right?”
“Yeah,” Gus agreed quietly. “I just… worry. I’m not his father yet. I don’t have… any say in anything about him. And I hate feeling that helpless. I think a lot of parenthood means wanting to puke because you’re so fucking scared.”
“Pretty sure Jules is going to agree with you. Look, what happened today doesn’t change anything,” Rey said, cupping Gus’s face, guiding him to look at Rey straight on. “You’re his dad, babe, and you’re going to be great at it. You’re already great at it. He wanted you to go home with him, because in his mind and heart, that’s where you live. And that’s where you’ll always be. For him and for me. Okay?”
Gus didn’t answer, or at least not at first. Then finally he nodded and said, “Yeah, okay.”
“Good, because we should head back. They’re probably almost done getting him checked out, and he’ll want to see you.” He took the time for another kiss, deepening it until Gus needed air.
Flushed and his mouth slightly swollen, Gus gave Rey a warm smile. “Did I ever say thank you? For today? For what you did for Chris?”
“Not yet.” He grinned back. “But your head’s been a little bit busy.”
“Then thanks. For everything. For him and, well, for me.” This time it was Gus who stole the air between them, leaving Rey hard and wanting. “And since you’re not going into work, can you stay with me tonight? I might need to thank you more.”
“Babe….” Rey stood, holding his hand out for Gus to take. “If you need me, I’m there. Even if it means just holding you until the sun comes up, I’m going to be there, right by your side, every step of the way.”
Twenty
Two Months Later
THE ALARM Gus set on his phone was some electronic dance tune Rey now heard in his nightmares. Notoriously impossible to dislodge from sleep, Gus mumbled and burrowed deeper under the mounds of pillows he’d stacked against the wall, claiming nearly three-quarters of the bed in a lanky sprawl of muscular, long limbs and fluffy feathery cushions. Rey scrambled to find the damned phone, knocking a handful of drawing pencils and a sketchpad off the nightstand in his attempt to stop the incessant thumping beat. Finally he found the right button to push, and a relative silence descended on the attic loft again.
“Like fucking punching in a Konami code to get that damned thing to shut up.” Rey slid the phone back on the stand, then lay back on the bed. “Stay here. Don’t get up. I’ll go get us some coffee. Look at that. Perfectly good sarcasm wasted on the insensible.”
The house was quiet and still. Morning hadn’t fully cracked open the sky, but it hovered on its edge, gilding the trees outside of the kitchen windows. Earl slunk down the stairs, drooling slightly when he pressed his nose to the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard. After letting the dog out to do his business, Rey shoveled a mound of coffee grounds into the machine and waited for it to brew enough for a couple of cups, rubbing at his eyes to get the sleep out of them.
It didn’t work. Neither did yawning, but his jaw popped back into place, and he realized he still had a bit of toothpaste on his lips when he licked at them.
Last night’s fire hung around his thoughts, a smoky mess of tumbling walls and soaked-through buildings. He and Mace pulled out six by themselves, all frightened, ash-smeared people who’d gone to bed not imagining they’d wake up a little after midnight to find their lives torn apart by roaring flames. They’d clocked overtime pulling down doors and shattering windows, but other than the lingering ache of well-used muscles, Rey felt like he could go another few hours more if he got some coffee in him.
“Trick’s going to be getting coffee into Gus,” he grumbled at the dog when Earl finally gamboled his way back in. The clock on the wall chimed its opinion of the time, and Rey frowned, comparing its face to the flashing alarm he’d seen on Gus’s phone. “What the hell? It’s not even six o’clock. Why the fuck did he set the alarm so early if we don’t have to be in court until eleven? Swear to God, dog, I’d kill him if I didn’t love him. Aaand…I’m talking to myself. Earl’s gone back to bed. Great.”
Juggling two cups of coffee up the stairs and through the brothers’ house was tricky, mostly around the front hall where shoes seemed to lie in reckless abandon, waiting to trip an unsuspecting fireman hoping for a couple of hours of lounge time. The door to Gus’s room was partially open, and for a brief, panicky moment he wondered if Earl beat him upstairs to take over his side of the bed, but the room was empty except for Gus, lying on his back, sheets hugging his hips and staring up at the ceiling.
“Check the time on your settings or something,” Rey grumbled playfully at his lover, handing Gus one of the cups. “You set your alarm for way too early, and that was a good half an hour ago.”
“Yeah, it’s so I actually get up for work. It’s habit.” He waited until Rey was on the bed before giving him a cinnamon-scented kiss. “Thanks for the coffee. You could have just turned the alarm off and slept.”
“Nah, by the time I got my brain fired up to turn the damned thing off, I was already too awake.” Rey sipped at his coffee, shock hitting his tongue at the sugar in it. “Wrong one. This is yours. Switch.”
“Shit, we’re up too early.” Gus turned the cup, finding the spot Rey’d drank from, then sipped at the steaming brew. “I’m squirrely. I know it’s just walking in today so the judge can see us, then sign the papers but… I’m
fucking nervous. Suppose—”
“Thought we agreed we were going to not say suppose or what-if about this?”
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” he retorted. Leaning over Rey, Gus put his cup down on the nightstand.
“That would be easier if this wasn’t against the wall.” It was a long-standing discussion, one they had again when Gus shoved the bed over in Rey’s apartment, tucking it up against the long side of the room. “We could each have a nightstand.”
“I like sleeping against a wall. ’Sides, you mind me bending across you?” The sheets shifted, exposing Gus’s naked hip. “You doing okay? You said last night was rough when you came in.”
“Yeah, I’ll check in later to see how things went. It was out by the time we left, and I think we got a firm head count of everyone who was inside, but you never know.” He took a long swig of coffee, then set his cup next to Gus’s. “Look at what happened to Jules. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Probably our biggest nightmare is clearing out a place and then finding out we’ve missed someone.”
“Well, thank you for not missing Jules.” Gus’s hands were moving, roaming over Rey’s hips. “I don’t think I’m ready to become a single parent. I mean sure, Lynn and Doug would be there but… no way I could do this without her.”
“I’m here,” he murmured. Raking his fingers into Gus’s sun-streaked dirty blond hair, Rey guided his lover closer, until their mouths were nearly touching. “Actually, I’m kind of glad you woke up early. I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Something good?” Gus’s fingers found Rey’s cock through his sweats. “Or something bad? What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m awake way too fucking early and I’m squirrely. Did you miss that part?”
“No, I didn’t.” He’d dropped his gear by the door, a knapsack full of supplies he carted to the station on every shift, as well as his wallet. Coming in at five pounds, it was something he’d grown used to carrying, but it was a white envelope his father’d given him before he’d started his shift that weighed on his mind. “I need you to be serious for a bit. Like, five minutes. I’ve got to talk to you, and I didn’t want to do it last night because I was dead tired and it was really late. Just… sit down and hear me out.”
Gus sat on the bed by Rey’s side, crossing his legs in front of him. The sun was out, or at least was making an effort to breach the tree canopy swaddling the brothers’ house. Streams of light from the dormer window picked up the gold in Gus’s hair and saturating the blue folds in his eyes. A bit of scruff dusted his chin, a hint of red in the glistening pale strands, and the sparse freckles on his shoulders were dappled brown kisses on his tanned skin. He intimately knew Gus’s mouth, plundered its fullness to the sweet darkness past his playful smile, yet Rey never grew tired of exploring, of delving into Gus’s depths to draw out soft, lingering moans from his lover.
Rey tried breathing around the punch of emotion hitting him square in the chest, but it was difficult. “Randy, my—”
“Your dad,” Gus interjected. “I know who Randy is. He’s your dad.”
Leveling a look at Gus, Rey asked, “You going to let me get through this, or are you going to MST3K your way through the conversation?”
“No, no. Go ahead. Take your time. I don’t have to be anywhere until eleven.”
“So Randy’s brother—yeah, my uncle, shut up—he buys commercial properties. Usually really shitty ones he fixes up, but there was a house over on Buena Vista that was bundled up in a foreclosure deal.” The tilt of Gus’s head worried him, as did the frown on his expressive face, but Rey forged forward. “It’s on the other side of the hill, opposite end of the park from here but… they gave it to me… to us… if we want it. Place isn’t pretty. I mean, it’s got good bones, but the inside is shit. Worse than this place was, and hell, it might be a while before we can even live in it. It’s going to be a shit-ton of work and—”
“Wait, hold up. You’re asking me to move into your house and help you fix it up?” Gus looked both incredulous and skeptical. “And they just gave you this house because what? Places around here are fucking expensive. People don’t just hand over houses, Rey.”
“They do when they’re family and after you’ve told your dad you’re going to ask your boyfriend to marry him.” Rey reached for the envelope he’d placed on the bedside stand before he’d crawled into bed the night before. It was a bit grimy from where he’d handled it after the fire, but the gold rings nestled in the cloth were as bright as Gus’s smile. “So, August Scott, will you do the one thing we should have done years ago? Marry me and go into debt fixing up a broken-down house that doesn’t have termites, air conditioning, or a working fireplace?”
“Well shit, dude.” Gus started laughing, a big, booming hearty burst loud enough to wake the birds nesting in the tree outside the attic window. “Yeah. I’d love to go fucking broke with you. Any time. Any where.”
THEY ENDED up naked, but to be fair, Gus slept that way, so other than unwrapping the bed linens, he was ready when Rey reached for him. He was struggling not to dive into the happiness welling up inside of him. It was too bright, too shiny and sharp-edged to be trusted, but when Rey’s mouth closed down on his cockhead, Gus let himself fall into the light waiting for him. Under the eaves of the first home he’d ever known, his hands on the man he loved, Gus didn’t think his heart could hold everything and everyone now in it.
He’d felt odd when Rey slid the ring onto him. It was so soon, so heavy to have on his hand. Then something in his soul shifted and the metal became a kiss from Rey wrapped around his finger. They weren’t joined, not in a church or in front of a judge, but the damned thing felt right… as right as anything ever had. As right as Rey’s slicked-up fingers around the base of his cock.
“Keep doing that and I’m going to lose it in your mouth, babe,” Gus muttered, tugging at Rey’s hair. “Shit… your tongue….”
He was losing his mind, tangled in the threads of pleasure Rey wove around him. His balls ached, and Rey’s lips traveled down his shaft to suckle at their heft. They curled in Rey’s palm, churning with a need strong enough to make Gus’s nipples ache. He reached for Rey’s hand, and the clink of metal hitting metal wrapped a stupid grin over his face. His eyes were wet, burning when he blinked, and he tried sitting up, but Rey’s weight on his hips shifted, and Gus gasped when Rey suckled him once more, then pulled off, leaving him throbbing and needy.
The sheets were a mess under his back, their folds digging into his skin when Rey climbed up his body and straddled his hips. His cock was slick with spit and lube, and Rey was staring down at him, his warm brown eyes thoughtful and soft.
“Make love to me.” Rey’s voice poured out of him, a velvet stroke over Gus’s rattled nerves.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here?” Gus lifted his head off of the pillows. “Because I sure as fuck ain’t making an omelet.”
“No, I mean….” Rey’s kiss was hesitant, as sweet and gentle as the ones they’d shared on the pier so many years ago. “I want you in me. I want to feel you… in me. I need that from you, babe. I need you to know… to be with me like I’m with you.”
“We haven’t….” Their history stretched out behind them, a path they’d trod by habit for the most part, and Rey was asking him to step away from that, needing him to be… different. “I mean we have, but that was… hell, years ago.”
“Unless there’s something you’re not… if you don’t want to, it’s okay—”
“No, that’s… I just never thought….” Gus stopped and sorted through his racing thoughts. “I guess I never thought you’d want me that way again. Isn’t that stupid? It’s like me putting Ivo into these boxes because that’s where I think he should fit, and he keeps stepping out of them because they’re my boxes, not his.”
“Boxes work.” Rey chuckled, then kissed the tip of Gus’s nose. “But let’s leave Ivo out of it. Right now, just you and me. Boxes or no boxes.”
“J
ust… tell me if I’m hurting you, okay?” His stomach clenched with new worries. He’d always been able to blow Rey’s mind. He knew his body well enough… knew Rey’s well enough to bring them both to the brink and leave them there, hovering on the sharp edge of a razor he’d forged with the heat of their bodies. “It’s just been a hell of a long time.”
They went slowly, carefully even. There was laughter and, most of all, a lot of touching. The shift in their positions brought a new awareness of Rey’s body, of how he shivered when Gus licked at his belly button and the odd noises he let out when Gus slid a finger into his entrance. He’d had to chase down the lube when it squirted out of his hand and landed somewhere in the cushions he slept in. But when he finally opened Rey up enough to make him gasp, Gus’s ardor ran high, flushing a heat through him he knew he wouldn’t be able to quench anywhere else but in Rey’s body.
The slide of Rey’s heat, of the tightness of his flesh around Gus’s cock was almost too much to stand—too unbearable—and Gus had to pull out a bit, allowing his mind to adjust to the sensations flooding him. With Rey’s calves hooked over his hips, Gus worked back in. His chest grew tight, his lungs straining with the effort of holding his breath. Rey hooked a hand around the back of his neck, drawing Gus down, and he sank in farther, nestling into Rey’s heat.
“Breathe, baby.” Rey suckled on Gus’s lower lip. “You and me? We’re going to have a fantastic life together.”
Moving was flying through a field of stars while sipping champagne, a bubbly mixture tasting of coffee and Rey. It was sweaty, caught under the sun coming through the windows, and their skin grew slick. His focus tightened around the man embracing him, his hips slowing when Rey’s gasps grew frantic. It was all Gus could do to keep from pushing deep down into Rey’s body, and when his lover’s fingers dug into his hips, Gus drove in harder, spurred on by the hint of pleasurable pain along his skin.