Tough Love

by Heidi Cullinan

“She hated everything low-brow Mexican. You’d think being half Latino I’d get a pass from racism in at least one parent, but no.”

  “Damn, that had to bite.” Randy crooked his finger at the shopkeeper, who was in the back of his booth reading an iPad. Randy asked him several questions in Spanish, something about did he have any other albums, as far as Chenco could tell. The man nodded, replied with something too swift for Chenco to translate, and rooted under a table for another box.

  Chenco grimaced. “Jesus, do all of you have better Spanish than me?”

  Randy flashed him an apologetic smile. “You can probably still beat Sam, but he’s catching up fast. It’s an asset for him to be a bilingual nurse. Maybe the two of you can learn together.”

  “I kind of suck at languages. I tried to learn in high school, sneaking CDs from the library, but it didn’t really work.”

  “You’ll get there. Mitch’ll teach you. He’s who taught me. But you have to ask.”

  He ended up buying three albums, and he seemed pleased with himself as they went on to the next booth. When they got to the shop with fancy prom dresses, Chenco beamed. “Oh man, this is where Caramela got her first costume.”

  “No shit?” Randy ducked inside, flipping through the racks. “Think we can find her anything today?”

  “She’s too refined for the flea market now.” Still, Chenco had fun window-shopping, remembering when it felt wickedly dangerous to even dream of shopping for his alter ego.

  “What color was the dress?” Randy asked as they gave up and went on to the next shop.

  “Blue sheath, full of sequins. I bought it, a pair of silver heels, a blonde wig, and a gaudy necklace and earrings set. I was seventeen. God, I thought I was so fierce.”

  “Something tells me this story doesn’t end well.”

  No, it didn’t. “Mom found it and burned it all. Cried for a week. Both of us did, actually.”

  Randy shook his head. “Ah, family. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them.” He brightened as he saw the food carts up ahead. “Shit, do they still have those slushy things?”

  They got mango slushies and tacos. Randy laughed about the live chickens a vendor sold, telling a story about how once he had Mitch buy one and they kept it as a pet until it shit on the carpet. He had a million stories about Mitch, some which involved Sam too. He talked some about his husband, though not much as he said it made him twitchy and homesick.

  It amazed Chenco how carefree Randy could be so attached to somebody, and eventually he told him so.

  Randy shrugged and took another sip of his slushy. “Everybody needs someone they can lay themselves down with. I never figured I’d get it, assumed I’d have to sort of cobble my release space out of other people, and then there was Ethan. Slick, my sexy man, the fool who wanted me, warts and all.” He stirred his straw in his drink, frowning at it. “Honestly, I’m half afraid being away from me this long will make him come to his senses.”

  Chenco elbowed him. “He married you.”

  “Yeah, well.” He ran a hand through his hair. “God, I wish he’d fucking get here.”

  Chenco smiled and jerked his head at the next aisle. “Come on. Tell me another story, and let’s go find him a present.”

  They did find one—a truly ugly coffee mug reading Welcome to Las Vegas! with a 1960s stylized faded scene plastered around the sides. Chenco was dubious, but Randy only chuckled and declared it would be perfect.

  “Yeah. He’ll love this.” He wiped sweat from his brow with his fingers. “Okay, I think I’ve had enough of this fucking heat. We still have an hour and a half. Let’s get in Steve’s air-conditioned beast, grab us some Starbucks, and soak up more RGV.”

  It was kind of fun to hear what had changed about the valley over the years—they had some overlapping memories, but Randy knew more stories of days past, most of them secondhand from Mitch, but they were still cool. “I should take this tour with Mitch sometime.”

  Randy shrugged. “He gets funny about this place. Loves and hates it at the same time.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “We need to go on a field trip with Sam before we bust out of here. He’s always going on about learning Mitch’s history, and anyway, the two of you need to bond.”

  “We could go get him now,” Chenco pointed out.

  “Nope. I want to see your home digs. Edinburg, you said, right?”

  Chenco balked. “I don’t want to go to my mom’s house.”

  “Not into it, no. Just show me the outside.”

  The very idea had Chenco’s insides churning with acid. “It’s gated. We can’t.”

  “Show me the gates, then.”

  “No.” Chenco’s chest felt so tight he thought he was having a heart attack. He was about ready to jump out of the truck.

  He couldn’t do this—he didn’t care if Steve told him he had to, he couldn’t, he had to make it stop.

  Safe word, his subconscious offered up, and he shouted, at the top of his lungs, “Red!”

  “Fine, fine. We won’t go.” Randy sank in his seat, shaking his head. “Jesus, I’m gonna go make everybody use their fucking safe word, aren’t I?”

  Chenco unclenched a fraction. “We really aren’t going?”

  “No, hon, we’re not.” Randy glanced at him, apologetic. “Sorry. I got carried away. That’s twice with you I’ve pushed too hard. I really fucking shouldn’t be let out of the state without my husband.”

  “I don’t want to go back. I don’t know what I’d do if I saw them being okay without me.”

  “She still thinks of you, no matter what she says.” Randy rubbed at his jaw as he stared out at traffic. “Sent my mom a wedding announcement when I married Ethan. She never said boo to me about it, but my cousin told me Mom keeps the letter in her dresser drawer. Sometimes they love their pride more than they love us, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love us at least a little.”

  “Your parents don’t talk to you either?”

  “Not a fucking word since I was seventeen. Last thing my dad said to me was, ‘Get the hell out of my house, you fucking faggot.’ Don’t remember what my mom said, just that she cried.” He glanced across the seat at Chenco and gave him a crooked smile. “I guess I was hoping maybe your mom wasn’t as much of a fuckhead as mine, but sounds like we both got the shit stick in that department.”

  Chenco traced his finger across the passenger window. “She’d freak if she found out about Steve. Older than me, and the BDSM thing.”

  “Yeah, well, shows what the fuck she knows, doesn’t it? Anybody looks at Monk and sees anything but a loyal, solid-as-rock man, they need their heads examined. What he does in bed doesn’t mean shit. It goes for you too with the drag thing. Hell, none of it should matter. You’re a good person. You pay your taxes, you don’t hurt anybody, and you make a hell of a lot of people happy. This is what life’s about, not how well you fit into somebody’s fucking box.” He reached over and patted Chenco’s leg. “Okay. How about instead of memory lane we find one of those drive-through convenience stores? Those seriously blow my mind.”

  Smiling, Chenco nodded to the exit coming up. “Get off here and turn left.”

  “You got it, Princess,” Randy said, easing into the right lane.

  THE FIRST FEW days of Chenco living at the ranch had gone about as Steve expected—Chenco alternated between feeling right at home and actively trying not to get attached to anything or anyone. Oddly enough, Steve struggled with the same poles. For so long it had only been him in the house, but now it wasn’t just full of people, it was full of family living life. Mitch had taken a short-range job delivering within the RGV, and Sam had looked into part-time nursing at a local care center. Randy, having appointed himself the hacienda’s personal housekeeper, kept them all fed, washed all the clothes, and hollered at people when they messed up his clean floors.

  Chenco still worked at Taco Palenque and met up with Booker to rehearse, and on the night before Ethan and Crabtree wer
e due to arrive, they all went to Caramela’s show at Club 33. It was as grand a performance as the first time Steve had seen it, but Booker and Chenco felt it could use a lot of work.

  They were relentless in their pursuit of the perfect staging, and when they weren’t on the floor at the club working through numbers, they could often be found talking through plans and schemes in the old maid’s quarters at the hacienda, which Steve had given over completely to the care and keeping of all things Caramela.

  Steve kept a close eye on Booker.

  The boy was one hell of a mess, and if it wasn’t for Chenco’s friendship with him, Steve would have happily washed his hands of the whole scenario. Brett, one of Steve’s longtime friends he’d reconnected with during Chenco’s rescue, had paid a visit to this Tristan, and he reported to Steve it hadn’t been a productive meeting.

  “Both of them are hotheads,” Brett told Steve as they sat on a crumbling loading dock one afternoon at the cannery, where they’d met to talk after seeing to a bad episode with Gordy. “This Tristan idiot thinks it’s fun to hurt people. This is about as deep as he goes.”

  Fucking amateurs. “I suppose when you tried to correct his ignorance, he told you to fuck off and mind your own business?”

  “Oh yeah, but wait—it gets better. This Booker kid? Not just a budding sub, but he’s got a clear kink for humiliation, and it’s tangled up like hell with an abusive father, a family who kicked him out, and a series of other bad relationships. When I advised him to leave Tristan, he tried to punch me out and yelled at me for getting in his business.”

  Steve swore under his breath. This was often a snarl in the lifestyle—while BDSM identification decidedly did not come out of personal trauma or abuse, the two conditions shared an unfortunate and frequent correlation. No surprise, when most men and women who realized they enjoyed receiving pain were labeled as freaks and those who took pleasure in inflicting it monsters. Sadomasochism was a complex enough state—force it into the dark and make healthy, compassionate discussion about it difficult if not impossible, and fuckery would soon follow.

  “I’m figuring the easiest thing to do is leave him under your watch, since he’s all but living at your place.” Brett said this carefully, however, and his beard lifted in a sad smile as he continued. “If you need someone else to mind Booker, given everything with Gordy, say the word.”

  Man, but Steve was tempted. Everything with Gordy that afternoon had entailed Steve checking in on the live feed to the cannery and catching his best friend carving into his skin with a piece of broken glass. Brett had come over right away, and they’d talked him into not just his medication but a trip to the doctor for some stitches—no way Steve was asking Sam to sew him up like last time.

  After they got back from the clinic, Gordy had begged them for a scene, but Brett had been firm where Steve hadn’t been able to hold his own. Brett volunteered to stand guard until the punishment time was over and get Gordy settled down.

  “I can handle the Booker kid.” He didn’t let himself dwell too long over whether or not he was fit for the job.

  Brett nodded, but the door had been opened on the conversation they’d been trying not to have, and there was no closing it now. “He’s getting worse,” Brett said, and Steve knew he meant Gordy.

  Steve kept his gaze down. “Yeah. I know.”

  “Nobody would blame you if you called mental health. Everyone understands that’s where it’s going. It’s not something we want, but it might be best at this point.”

  The knot in Steve’s gut twisted. “I would blame myself. He’ll never get better inside.”

  Brett was quiet a long time before he said, “Steve, I don’t think he’s going to get better anywhere.”

  Steve was back between his rock and a hard place, and nobody could help him, not unless they took the decision away from him, which he wouldn’t ever forgive. Which was why Brett let it drop, though Steve knew his friend didn’t like leaving things this way.

  As Steve got on his bike and headed to the house, the conversation with Brett stirred dark thoughts. How was Steve supposed to help Chenco while babysitting his mentally ill best friend who wouldn’t live in a house, would only burrow in squalor in the abandoned factory he’d played in as a kid? This was a question he didn’t have the answer to. Soon he’d be deciding between pursuing a relationship with Chenco and serving out his obligation to Gordy.

  The darkest thought of all was how, for the first time, he was considering not choosing Gordy.

  When Steve returned to the house after meeting with Brett, Booker and Chenco had taken over the dining room table with blocked maps of routines, complete with setup of lights and props. They had some for Club 33, but they were working on a mirror version for a one-sided stage instead of a theater-in-the-round. Steve lingered in the doorway from the kitchen, just out of their line of sight, listening.

  “We need to go to South Padre,” Booker kept saying. “Trist says I can go this time, for real. The guy at the club had a cancellation for spring break, and if we act now, we can take the spot.”

  Chenco frowned at the plans. “I’ve told you, I don’t have the money. We’d need a truck—not a pickup, a truck—to haul the stuff and get it back, and we’d need to buy some of the gels and things we always borrow from 33.”

  “You’re saving money now, living here. You have spare change.”

  “No. I don’t.” Chenco sounded tired. “It’s a different game now, Book, and you know it.”

  “If this is about needing permission from your new daddy,” Booker began, his voice dripping with irritation, but Chenco cut him off angrily and redirected them back to their layout of a particular routine.

  Once he was sure his lover had a handle on the situation, Steve removed himself from the doorway, drifting out to the patio. After rolling a cigarette, he smoked it leisurely as he pondered how to proceed. Chenco he knew how to work, but Booker was tricky—for as much as Chenco responded well to managing, Booker only seemed to like being told what to do when it was a bad command, when he was guaranteed a rotten outcome to reinforce the garbage he’d managed to get crammed into his head.

  The sounds of a car coming down the drive interrupted his thoughts—heading around to the front, he arrived in time to see a sleek silver Mercedes come to a stop between Mitch’s semi cab and his own truck. The driver’s door opened to reveal a tall, sandy-haired middle-aged man in a casual suit and mirrored sunglasses who came around quickly to the passenger side to assist an older man. The passenger had white hair, a trim beard, and the ragged look of someone who had been sick and recently lost a great deal of weight. The older man also wore a suit, as well-cut and expensive-looking as the younger man’s, but no amount of glamour could hide the fact that the gentleman was still very much recovering from illness.

  The front door to the hacienda opened, and Randy came bursting out of it, grinning and calling to the tall man. “Well look at you, sexypants.”

  The driver smiled at him, a wide, welcoming beacon for his lover, and once the older man had shooed him off, the sandy-haired man took Randy in a full, possessive embrace. Steve enjoyed the tableau while thick emotions battled inside him. Then he crossed the yard to welcome his guests.

  Randy had a light about him Steve hadn’t ever seen before. “Steve, this is Ethan Ellison, the hottest fuck in Vegas. Ethan, this is Steve Vance, who could crack your casino open with a smartphone and a stick of gum.”

  Ethan cast a down, boy glance at his husband before smiling and extending a lean hand to Steve. “A pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard nothing but good things.”

  “Likewise.” Steve took his hand, and they met firm grip to firm grip, steady gaze to steady gaze.

  “And this,” Randy said, extricating himself from his husband and indicating with a grand sweep the older man, who came forward with the aid of a cane, “is Crabtree.”

  This would be the gangster. Steve came forward a little more cautiously than he normally would, not hav
ing ever met a gangster before. Not much in life intimidated him, but something more than the whispered reputation of this guy made Steve’s spine straighter. Even weakened, this man had a kind of self-possession Steve envied, and he wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet.

  Steve shook hands with Crabtree and gave a curt, respectful nod.

  Crabtree’s grip was firm but with a ghost on it, as if he’d once had great strength but had recently flagged. Something in the back of Steve’s mind whispered about a heart attack possibly, but he’d have to check with the others to be certain. Whatever had felled the man, it hadn’t dulled his steely blue eyes in the slightest. They were sharp as knives, and Steve suspected knives were a running theme with Crabtree.

  “Thank you for your hospitality.” Crabtree nodded at Ethan, who accepted the prompt and returned to the car, coming back with a cloth gift bag. He handed it to Steve, who withdrew a bottle of 1974 Dalmore.

  Steve accepted it with a bow. “Thank you, sir. Please come in and make yourself at home.”

  “Well played,” Randy murmured as they followed Ethan and Crabtree inside.

  Steve watched the old man moving stiffly, clearly hating his weakness but unable to overcome it. “I’ve seen too many mobster movies.”

  “Probably for the best, since he is a mobster movie.” He nodded to the bottle in Steve’s hand. “That’s over a grand, what you’re holding there.”

  Fucking Christ. Steve slid the scotch into the bag. “Any tips on how to behave around him?”

  “Be kind, but not condescending. The heart attack was pretty fucking serious, and he’s not taking to his new lifestyle very well. He’s lost about seventy pounds in a few months, and the weight had been keeping a lot of the world at bay. Now it’s gone, and he’s weak to boot. Lots of wounded pride walking around in front of you there. Tread respectfully.”

  Steve nodded. Respect he could do.

  “Oh, and he loves cats. Like, crazy stupid loves them.”

  “I fucking hate cats.”

  “I used to too. You won’t for long.” When Steve grunted, Randy patted his arm. “Come on. Let’s go inside so I can help you drink some of your scotch.”