Frankly, so was Michael. His little apartment wasn’t much, but it was close to A.F.I. and it was home. He loved David and Jackson, and he loved the house, but he certainly hadn’t planned on moving in with them. Three men, two of whom were very fussy about their appearance, living in a house with one and a half baths wasn’t a recipe for happy cohabitation.
Michael had his laptop and his phone, but it wasn’t the same as being in his own private space, doing what he wanted, eating when he wanted. It was a bit like moving home to his parents’ house, although there he’d have had an entire floor and no one would have given a damn if he was there or not. Having to adjust to the idea that there were people who cared enough about him to be smothering was new.
When Gil was ready to leave, Michael walked him out to his truck.
“Thank you,” he said as Gil unlocked his blue Ford pickup. It was even bigger than Jackson’s truck, which he thought was frankly ridiculous. He’d heard, even made, jokes about men compensating for other possible shortcomings by buying a huge truck. Michael could attest Gil certainly didn’t have that problem.
“For what?” Gil tossed his jacket into the back seat of the cab. It was slowly beginning to warm up, although it could turn viciously cold overnight again. March coming in like a lion and all that.
“For helping me get my stuff.” Michael glanced back at the house. “I feel like I moved in with Mom and Dad.”
Gil smiled slightly. “Well, I feel like I’m moving my cranky Aunt Nancy into my spare bedroom, so I hear ya.”
A breeze picked up the front of his hair, and Michael shoved his hands into his pockets. “I really hate this,” he admitted finally. Gil closed the truck door and walked around the hood, coming to stand close.
“Which part?”
“All of it. Giving up my privacy. Seeing David so scared.” He hunched his shoulders. He felt short of breath, and his heart lurched inside his rib cage. “Being so fucking scared myself.”
Gil reached out, slipped a big hand around Michael’s nape, and pulled him in. Once he was in contact with Gil’s bulk and heat, he felt himself melt into his chest. Gil tucked Michael’s head under his chin and held on to him, simply held him, until Michael’s breathing evened out and his heart rate settled into a slow, steady beat.
“Okay now?”
His deep voice rumbled under Michael’s ear, and he nodded. Gil pressed a kiss to the top of his head, then took a step back.
“I’ll stay here until you’re in the house, okay?”
Michael nodded, reluctantly turning to go.
“Michael.” He paused and turned back. “God help anyone who would be foolish enough to hurt you.” Gil’s voice was low, rough with emotion.
Michael felt a surge of gratitude. “Right back atcha, big guy.”
Gil grinned, and Michael could feel his gaze all the way back to the porch. The truck’s engine didn’t start until he was in the house, the door closed and locked behind him.
LIVING WITH Jackson and David was… weird.
It wasn’t that they were bad roommates or interfered in his life. If anything, they bent over backward to be the exact opposite. David took him grocery shopping the first night to make sure there was food he liked in the house. He already had a key and the codes to the alarm system, so that was seamless. It was living with other people for the first time since college; it reinforced Michael’s belief that he was better off living alone.
It was little things. He was a night owl, and Jackson, because of the early hours he worked, was in bed by ten. Usually Michael retired to his room, when at his apartment, he more often than not fell asleep in front of the TV. He usually showered at night before he fell asleep, but the bathroom shared a wall with the master bedroom, and his noise disturbed Jackson’s sleep. David was very apologetic when he asked him not to shower at night, but to do so in the morning meant he was jockeying with Jackson and David for time in front of the mirror. He got to the point where he showered in the afternoon when he got home from work, but then by the next morning, his hair was impossible to get right. He knew it was a little thing, and that they were just worried about his safety. He was also a bit of a whiny prima donna; he could admit that about himself. After the first week, what he wanted more than anything was to just go home.
Living with people he worked with was also problematic. There was no “away from each other” time. He and David loved each other, but it was like they were siblings; nobody else better say something critical, but they were jabbing at each other more than normal. At one point Jackson said he was going to send them both to time out until they figured out how to get along. They’d laughed and that had cleared the air, but Michael knew it was only a matter of time before they were at each other again.
They’d been in a frustrating Skype meeting with a client who owned a midlevel hotel chain. They had lots of money and zero vision, and by the time the call ended, Michael was ready to tear his hair out. To get him out of the office so his head didn’t explode, David sent him to the O’Banyon mansion with the color chips for the exterior, so Richard could approve the final selection and Gil could order the paint. Richard had seen the colors online, but David wanted him to see the actual chips before they invested in five hundred gallons of paint.
The weather had warmed up, mid-March now more lamb than lion, and the team had decided the best way to advertise the work going on at the high-profile site, aside from the four-by-eight Delta sign in the front yard, was to renovate and upgrade the exterior. Michael thought the new color scheme—pearl gray, charcoal gray, and black—would be dramatic and make the old home look larger, grander. It also went with the river rock foundation and wouldn’t take away from any bride’s color scheme. It was something they could use as a sales point until the old mansion became the wedding destination of choice for the Inland Northwest. Michael had no doubt, once the work was done, it would be only a matter of time before every wedding from Seattle to Butte would be held in the grand old house.
When he arrived at the mansion, he parked on the street, glad the icy season was behind them. He passed Gil’s blue truck as he walked up the long drive, but he didn’t see the big man or Vernon anywhere. Knowing they had to be on-site somewhere, he climbed the long staircase that led to the porch and rang the front doorbell.
It took a couple of minutes, but Richard finally answered the door. He wore slim-fit jeans, a hoodie, and running shoes, and he made the casual wear look expensive.
“Michael!” He smiled, teeth very white against his salt-and-pepper beard and tan skin. “David rang up to tell me you were on your way over.” He stood back and invited Michael into the entryway. The scent of wallpaper paste and wet paint instantly hit him, and he could see that the walls had been finished. He admired the pale celadon paint with the dark wood. “It looks great, doesn’t it?”
“It really does.” Michael smiled in delight. There were some pieces of woodwork missing, but the floor looked as it must have when it was brand-new, and when he gazed up, he could see the peacock had been repainted. Now, instead of a childish-looking mural with a smirking bird, it was an elegant depiction of a proud animal with a tail that almost seemed to glow. “Oh,” he breathed. “Wow.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Richard said with a smile.
“Yes, it is.”
The ceiling background was soft blue fading to white, the colors of the sunrise reflected in pink- and lavender-tinted clouds. The peacock, who had seemed so ridiculous before, was now the epitome of elegance, body angled so that it was looking over its shoulder, comb picking up the glow from the rising sun. The bright blue body led down to the sweeping tail, long feathers with the distinctive iridescent eyes following the line of the wall, spreading along the curve. It was spectacular, and Michael recognized the same fine hand that had done the murals at the children’s hospital. It was whimsical without being childish, and Michael sighed.
“He did that in two weeks,” he mused aloud, shaking his head and w
alking a few steps to look at the mural from a different angle.
“Actually, he did it in about a week.” Richard studied it as well, arms folded over his chest. “He said he wanted to get it done so that Lyle and I didn’t have to live with scaffolding blocking the front door. We mostly come in through the back anyway, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He worked very long hours, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.”
Michael moved again, standing so that he could see the ceiling and brilliantly colored Tiffany windows. “When you have a photographer in to do new photos, you’ll want to make sure they get the ceiling and the stained glass windows from this angle, in one shot.”
“Oh, I agree. The way Gilbert lined it up, the bird on the ceiling looks like it was part of the window and just flew to a new perch, doesn’t it?”
He was right, and it was brilliant.
“So, David said he wanted me to check the color chips for the exterior?”
“Oh yes.” Michael dug them out of his breast pocket. Richard took them and walked into the ballroom where the light was better, and Michael followed. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows he saw scaffolding stretching across the back of the house.
“Oh yes, these are very fine. Don’t you think?”
Michael turned to find Richard studying him, dark brows raised. “I do.”
“I especially like the slight luminescence in the pearl gray. It will look like this on the house, yes?”
“Yes. We’ve used it before on corporate jobs, and it makes all the difference between the pearlescent and flat gray. The color changes with the light applied. It’s very modern-looking, particularly when banded with the black.”
“Lovely.” Richard handed the chips back. “Let’s get it ordered.”
Michael smiled. “Excellent. I’ll just take these out to Gil.”
Richard directed him to go through the kitchen, and Michael left him with a slight smile.
When Michael walked out through the back door, he could hear men talking and the sounds of laughter. Vernon was on a ladder, busily sanding the woodwork around the ballroom windows, and up one floor on scaffolding, two men were patching cracks in the stucco between the main Tudor-style beams. He searched, and farther along the back of the huge house, he saw Gil. He was up high, level with the third-floor windows, standing on a wide piece of steel-enforced wood, big legs braced. He was sanding in an area that had been patched on one of the dark beams. He’d stripped off his jacket as the day had warmed, and his broad shoulders stretched the white T-shirt he wore, his bald head gleaming in the sunlight.
“Hey, Hostess,” Vern called. He grinned at Michael, waving the sander in his hand. “How you doin’, cutie pie?”
“Hey, old fart. I’m just dandy.” Michael gave him a big fake grin. “I see they let you out of the home today.”
The two new guys hooted, laughing as Vernon flipped Michael off with a saucy grin of his own.
“Now, what kind of an example are you two setting for our client, acting like that?” Gil looked down on them, his hands on his hips, but there was a grin on his handsome face. Michael walked down to the section of scaffolding holding him, his head back as he looked up.
“Doesn’t it bother you to be up that high?” Michael called.
“Nah. I’ve been higher.”
“There’s the God’s honest truth,” Vern shouted, and the new men laughed again.
“Watch yourself, you old coot.” He gave Vern a scolding look, then turned his attention back to Michael. “What brings you out here?”
Michael held up the paint chips. “Final decisions for the exterior. David told me to get Richard’s final okay and then give them to you.”
“Excellent. I’ll be right down.”
Gil gripped the support bars of the scaffolding, and Michael couldn’t help but admire the way he moved. For someone his size, Gil was surprisingly graceful and very agile. He swung his leg over, angling his big body easily up and over the side bar so he could climb down. He’d gone down one rung when there was an ominous creaking sound, and he froze.
The three-story tower of metal and wood groaned and shuddered. Instinctively, Michael took a step forward, hands outstretched as if to hold it in place.
“Michael, get back,” Gil shouted.
Michael jerked away, tripping over his feet in his haste to follow Gil’s instructions. He almost fell, but as he steadied, the tower gave another groan and an ominous pop.
Michael turned back as the entire structure collapsed in a pile of twisted metal and wood.
CHAPTER NINE
THE GROUND beneath Michael’s feet shuddered with the force of the collapse. A cloud of dust blew up, obscuring his vision. Michael inhaled the fine particles of dirt and began to cough even as Vernon bolted off his ladder and shoved him out of the way.
“Gilbert?” Vern shouted, plowing into the cloud. “Goddammit, Gil, answer me!”
The other two men flew down their tower of scaffolding, but after that they didn’t seem to know what to do. The dust took several seconds to settle, and by then Vern was picking up the long planks and throwing them aside.
“Get your asses in here and help me,” Vern screamed, and that spurred them into motion. The tower had collapsed in on itself, and now the heavy planks were stacked like matchsticks atop the metal framework. For a moment it was almost as if Gil had simply disappeared, but then Michael saw the sole of one of his heavy work boots sticking out from beneath the rubble.
“There, Vern,” he shouted, wading in between the men and pointing. “He’s there.”
Richard came out through the back door, a cell phone to his ear, watching as between the four of them, they managed to move enough of the planks and metal rubble to reveal Gil’s upper body. His arm was up over his face, and he was covered in the fine dust. The two men Michael had yet to meet grabbed a plank and threw it aside, and Vern cursed.
“Fuck. Stop. Stop!” he yelled. “Michael, call 911.”
“I’ve got them on the line.” Richard stepped in between them, looking at Gil’s prone form. “Is he conscious?”
“No, he hasn’t moved,” Vern answered. “And we just uncovered—that.”
Michael couldn’t really see anything but the ripped leg of Gil’s khakis and blood. “Oh God.” His voice was unsteady.
Richard was talking but his voice sounded far away, and Michael just kept looking from the arm covering Gil’s face to the torn pants and the blood spreading beneath his awkwardly bent leg.
“Michael!”
Michael jerked when Richard shook his arm hard. “What?”
“Can you get to his head without jostling him at all?”
Michael blinked, then looked at the twisted metal frame and the planks around Gil’s head. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Do it, and see if he’s conscious. Don’t touch him, just talk to him.”
“Okay, yeah.”
Michael studied the twisted rubble, then began to pick his way toward Gil’s head. Vern and the other guys tossed aside anything that wasn’t directly on his still form, and that helped. When he was finally by his head, Michael knelt in the dust.
“Gil.” He leaned in close, his hands aching to touch him. “Gil, baby, can you hear me?”
Gil didn’t move, didn’t respond. And from this angle, Michael could see an ugly spreading bruise above his right eye. “He hit his head,” he told Richard. “It’s already bruising.”
Richard relayed that information into the phone, but Michael had turned back to Gil.
“Come on, Gilbert,” he said, his voice louder. “No one is impressed with this dying-swan routine. Come on, you big asshole. Wake up!”
But he didn’t, and Michael’s breath grew short, his eyes stinging with dust and threatening tears.
“Call Jackson, Michael.” Vern’s stern voice cut through his growing panic. Michael looked up at him. “Call Jackson. He has his medical power of attorney.”
Hands shaking, Michael dug his phone ou
t of his back pocket. He stared at the screen in incomprehension, then managed to pull up his contacts. He had to press the button twice, but he was finally able to get a ring on the other end.
“Hey, Michael,” Jackson answered, voice clipped. “What’s up?” A siren wailed in the distance.
“Jackson,” Michael gasped. “Jackson, it’s Gil….”
That was as far as he got before his voice failed him.
“Michael? What about Gil? Michael? Michael, answer me.”
The phone was plucked from his trembling hand.
“Jackson, this is Richard Lawrence. There’s been an accident.”
Michael listened to Richard, but he couldn’t make sense of what was being said. The siren got louder, then cut off abruptly, and moments later two men in blue uniforms appeared around the corner of the house, one carrying a large red bag, followed by three more men in bulky fireman’s jackets with reflective tape around the arms, chest, and hips. Richard went to meet them, and Vern and the two guys who’d been sanding the stucco stood off to one side, looking pale and shell-shocked.
The two paramedics arrived by Gil’s side. One of them knelt instantly by his feet and ripped the leg of the torn khakis away. Gil’s phone fell out of his pocket, and Michael bent and scooped it up, shoving it into his jacket pocket. He looked away from the wound in Gil’s leg; he didn’t consider himself squeamish, but there was so much blood.
“Sir?”
Michael looked up into the face of the other paramedic. He looked very kind, and very young.
“I need to get in there. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay.” Michael stood up, staggering a few steps. The paramedic caught his arm.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Take care of him.”
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