by Rhys Ford
The camaraderie between the five men was evident in the way they spoke to one another, touched each other as they went by, and made sure nothing was taken seriously during a day meant for fun. He’d spoken with Mace, Gus, and Bear at length over the past few hours, but Luke hovered outside of his conversations, present but not engaged. He’d caught the dark-eyed Hispanic man watching him a few times during the game and seen Luke’s expression change from wariness to bemusement when Chris asked Ruan to help him sit on the railing so he could see better.
“So I have a question for you,” Ruan asked, whispering into Ivo’s ear. “Do I approach Luke or do I let him come to me?”
“He’s already threatened to break you, so I would say let him come to you,” Ivo said with a shrug. “Luke’s just very protective, and he’s got some really good reasons to not like cops. He’s really nice when you get to know him, and he’s probably the best one of us. After Bear. No one’s better than Bear, but Luke comes close. I’ve never brought anyone home before, so they know it’s serious. He loves me and wants the best for me, and if that’s you, then he’ll be your biggest advocate.”
“And if I’m not?” he teased, giving Ivo a smile. “Then what?”
“Then he’ll probably skin you alive, roll your defleshed body in a vat of salt water, dredge you in fresh chili pepper seeds, then coat what’s left of your screaming, trembling, quivering mass in bamboo hair and pink Himalayan sea salt.” Ivo returned Ruan’s smile, looking more like a wicked angel who’d definitely fallen from the heavens than the lover who’d brought him to a peak of pleasure in the early hours of the morning. “After that, he’ll get started on hurting you.”
“Good to know. It’s nice when you have a plan already laid out for you,” Ruan mumbled, shaking his head. “You’re a little scary there, babe. Most people wouldn’t have that kind of revenge already plotted out for someone.”
“Plotted?” Ivo raised his elegant eyebrows, laughing softly. “That’s just off the top of my head. Wait till you see what we can do if we actually put some thought into it. Now go play nice with the family while I go help Bear cook. He always dries out the chicken if you don’t watch him.”
Wandering over to the soccer game to watch from the sidelines took Ruan away from the shade, but the sun and the laughter felt good, bathing him in a sense of peace and well-being he rarely found on the job. Finding a spot to sit on one of the many benches scattered through the park, he sipped at his iced tea and cheered both sides on. Five minutes into a furious battle for the ball between Chris and another little boy, a shadow fell over Ruan, and Ivo’s brother Luke stepped into view.
“Can I join you?” Luke held up a clear bag filled with what looked like deep-fried wonton chips speckled with sesame seeds and seaweed. “I’ll share.”
“Is it edible? Or more importantly, what is it?” Ruan made room on the bench, sliding over to give the other man space. Luke opened the bag, and the sweet, savory aroma of its contents was enough to make Ruan’s mouth water. “Actually I don’t care what it is. It smells great.”
“It’s wonton chips with furikake. There is kind of a bit of sugar and salt on the regular ones, but this is a variation the company makes.” Luke offered up the open bag for Ruan to dig into. “I could go through pounds of this stuff without even blinking. Once you start on it, it’s hard to stop.”
“I feel kind of that way about your brother,” he said without thinking, taking a handful of chips, then wincing. “Sorry, I know Ivo’s a tender subject with you. Well, with all of you.”
“That’s kind of the reason I came over. Bear pointed out to me that I haven’t been very fair to you.” Luke inclined his head, squinting when the sun came out from behind the clouds and drenched the field with a sharp light. “I would apologize, but I think we both know that would be a lie. I’m not sorry for being protective of him, but I am sorry if I’ve made you feel unwelcome. I’m usually better than that. I’m always telling my kids to stop and think before you speak, and that’s exactly what I haven’t done with you, so I’m sorry. I should’ve trusted Ivo’s judgment and given you more of a chance.”
“Well, there’s always going forward,” he pointed out. “I’ve got to be the first person to say I’m not perfect. I have problems with Ivo wearing heels out in public, but those are my problems, not his. And a lot of it has to do with how I always had to make sure no one thought I was gay because it was safer. It’s kind of the same thing. You had a bad experience of cops and you want Ivo to be safe, so you stepped up and said something. I understand that.”
“Bad experience. That’s the understatement of a lifetime,” Luke snorted. He took a few chips from the bag, then tucked it in between them, making sure it wouldn’t fall over. His elegant features were troubled, his dark eyes filled with concern, and he stared out at the game as if he could find answers to some unspoken question in the jubilant play on the field. “Ivo fought really hard to be with us. And he sacrificed a lot of himself because he thought that we wanted… that we wanted a perfect little brother who did everything he was told and was the best of everything we needed him to be good at. Because that’s what he did at every single foster home he was in. He had this idea that if he was the perfect little boy, he would get to stay and become a part of their family.
“But you and I both know that’s not how CPS works, and he grew up feeling like nobody in the world wanted him. He was willing to drive himself into a suicidal misery just to have a family. And he would fall in love with men who were no good for him for the same reason.” A bitter laugh escaped Luke’s pressed-together lips. “That was when he was younger. That was when he thought Ivo Rogers should be exactly like everyone else. Now he’s comfortable with always changing and trying different things because he can, but then there’s you. I know how cops are. I know how tight your world is. I know that a lot of people treat you like you’re the enemy when all you want to do is keep them safe and go home at night. I’m just scared you’re going to come home and bring some of that with you.”
“So I’m going to ask you a question and hope you won’t stab me with a knife for asking, but,” Ruan said, keeping his tone light and teasing, “is that fear of yours a lot like me being scared someone’s going to hurt Ivo because of what he wears?”
“It’s exactly like that,” Luke snorted. “Which is why Gus called me a hypocrite and Ivo told me to get my head out of my ass. That’s the one thing you’re going to find in this family. No one lets you go for very long without checking your ego. I’ve asked around about you. That’s one good thing about being a child advocate and working within the system. I can ask questions about people and no one blinks an eye.”
“Well, if you ask my boss, I’m sure Morgan would tell you I’m stubborn and I don’t play well with others.” He shrugged, helping himself to more chips. “My partner, Maite, would disagree, but that’s because I buy her lunch and I once pulled her brother out of a gunfight when he was injured and took a bullet myself, so she’s biased.”
“I got the stubborn part, but I didn’t get you didn’t play well with others. Mostly everyone said you’re driven and you dig in, looking for the truth. And that you’d probably never be upper management because you like being a detective too much.” Luke smiled at Ruan’s chuckle. “Everybody I spoke to came back with the sense that you were a nice guy and fair. That you listened and didn’t jump to conclusions. Ivo’s going to need that kind of man in his life, in his heart. Because sometimes he bites down and doesn’t let go. To be fair, none of us do, but he holds on the longest. But if he loves you, he’s going to love you forever. It’s the one thing he’s taught me. That if you love somebody, you stick with them no matter what they do to you and no matter what they say, because sometimes they’re fighting really hard to get rid of you so you don’t hurt them first.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” Ruan said, picking at the label on his bottle. “I know how he feels about you guys. He would walk through fire for
any one of you, and I’m humbled and astonished when I hear he feels that way about me too. I’ve never had anyone love me like that, and now that he does, now that he’s giving me this incredible gift, I’m never going to let him go and I’m going to do my best to keep the world from trying to hurt or change him.”
“Just don’t let him know you’re doing that,” Luke cautioned, shooting Ruan a sly grin. “He’ll get pissed off, and then he’ll get even. And trust me, he’s very imaginative in how he gets even.”
“Tell me about it.” He exhaled hard, biting down into one of the chips and chewing through its burst of salty and sweet. “Have you ever heard about his plan involving skinning someone and salting them afterward? I might have to go to bed at night with one eye open. Because your brother? Is one scary son of a bitch.”
Twenty-Two
“HOW MANY of these backyard things have we been to?” Ruan wrapped his arms around Ivo’s waist, fitting himself against his lover’s body, pulling Ivo against his chest.
“I don’t know. I didn’t count.” Ivo let go of the deck’s railing, leaning back into Ruan’s broad chest. He loved the feel of Ruan against him, the steady weight of Ruan’s arms on his sides and the tang of citrus from his soap kissing Ivo’s nose every time he took a breath. “And don’t give me any shit. I lost count with our kisses. The us-having-sex numbers went sideways when we couldn’t figure out if we were counting oral separately or a part of the whole night. So fuck you if you think I’m keeping track of how many dinners you’ve been to. I’ve been busy trying to get the new guy into the shop. Took him six months to get loose of his other place. Tomorrow, we’ll see what he’s got.”
It was one of many perfect Sundays they’d already shared, an early evening gathering of the family after a few hours at the shop or, in Ruan’s case, roaming the streets chasing after bad guys. Mace and Rey were both off duty, and the house smelled of roasted chicken, sweet potatoes, and chocolate cake, a savory promise of their dinner lingering in the air. Out on the back lawn, Gus, Luke, and Chris were playing some version of horseshoes with bean bags and a round rug woven to look like a target, their laughter at Gus’s inability to come even close to the mark nearly hysterical with glee. A few heavy-bodied bumblebees dove and dipped through the lavender and other flowers growing around the edge of the raised deck, and the garden was freshly weeded, plucked clean of predators that afternoon when Ivo and Bear went through the rows to look for green beans and tomatoes for that night’s dinner.
The house still creaked, swaying on its old bones, but it sounded happy, sighing as it held the family who’d driven up to it in a nearly broken-down Scout, looking for a home. After a lot of wrangling and swearing, the living room was stripped of its ugly wallpaper, and Ivo spent a few weekend afternoons listening to Mace, Bear, and Ruan arguing about how to refinish the built-in wood shelves and debating exactly what to do with the ancient wood-burning fireplace. In the end, the beautiful old mantlepiece had been restored to its original honey-gold glory, its broken surround and hearth brick replaced by an arabesque-patterned tile and a gas insert to prevent anyone from burning the house down.
Just as Ivo wanted it.
It was a cozy room, and Ruan often found Ivo in it, curled up in one of the wide, soft chairs, his legs under him, his nose in a book, the cat sprawled across his lap and the dog snoring on the floor in front of him. They’d spent many a night at the brothers’ house, Ivo transporting Spot in his car with the feline eager to prowl through a larger territory and cuddle up to a dog who was clearly terrified of him but at the same time, halfway in love with the monstrous feline. Going back to the apartment some nights was bittersweet now that Cranson was living with his sister in San Jose, and he realized he’d grown too used to coming home to find either the old man or Ivo waiting for him. Ivo’d listened to Ruan’s heartbreak at losing Cranson’s daily presence, his lover pouring his emotions out in halting words as they lay in bed, wrapped around one another as they shared parts of their day.
“Not that you don’t turn me on, but Bear’s already turned the hose on Gus and Rey when they were making out on the deck. Lost my shit on all of them because I reupholstered those damned couches myself.” Ivo hissed at the memory. “Sure, I put waterproofing on them, but that’s not the fucking point. So don’t get any ideas or the cat’s going to be the only one sharing my bed tonight.”
“Turns me on when you’re all bossy.” The chuckle Ruan whispered into Ivo’s ear sent a dark, delicious thrill up his spine. “Nothing I like better than to turn you into a puddle when you’ve got your feathers up.”
“Dude, we’re standing on the back deck. Luke, Gus, and the kid’s right there. Spot and Earl’s asleep on the couch. Bear’s in the kitchen chopping the shit out of some chickens, and the rest of the guys are in the living room screaming at some guy rolling a ball at a bunch of white pins at the end of a long hallway.” He rolled his eyes, more than a little disgusted his brothers were watching bowling on a Sunday afternoon. “So don’t start something you know you can’t finish.”
Ruan laughed, then kissed Ivo’s cheek. “I’d say you’re no fun, but I know that’s not true.”
The street clung to Ruan, the odd perfume of a day spent in a squad car and battling society’s evils. He’d come directly from work, leaving his gun in the locked box in his vehicle’s trunk before heading in, and while Ivo was grateful for that, it only brought attention to what he felt it was time to address. Turning around in Ruan’s arms, he braced himself against the deck’s high railing, angled his legs between Ruan’s feet so they were the same height, and stared into his lover’s smoky green eyes.
“You’re gorgeous,” Ruan murmured, kissing Ivo’s mouth before he could say anything. His embrace tightened and he moved closer, wedging Ivo against him, chasing away the slight chill in the air. “And I love you. If I haven’t already told you that today.”
“I think you did. This morning. Or at least showed me.” He smirked, loving he could bring a blush to Ruan’s cheeks. “Look at the hard murder cop going red. I love that I can do that to you.”
“Yeah, you do a lot of things to me,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder as if expecting Bear to come out the back door with a hose in his hand. “And you’re the one who said we have to behave with the kid around, so don’t start reminding me of things I won’t be able to do or get until everyone goes home. Unless we’re not staying here tonight. Then I say we grab the cat after dinner and head out.”
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about,” Ivo broached gently. He was going to take a step forward, knowing Ruan might stumble behind him. But the days were stretching out and their lives were knitting together, tightening the bond between them. “Hear me out before you say anything, okay? Because I’ve got this all worked out in my head, and if I lose track of where I am, I’m going to have to start all over.”
“Okay. Let’s hear it.” Ruan’s cop voice was back in full force, stern and decisive but with a silvery line of tenderness beneath the rumble. Ivo could hear that now, the brightness in the dark steel, and he caught a ghost of a smile on Ruan’s mouth, enough to bring out the dimple in his cheek. “And this better not be about getting another cat, because we’ve already got a five-for-one deal with the orange asshole I got off the bridge.”
“Hey, Spot’s my boy. You shall say nothing bad about the marmalade monster. He’s a fucking delight,” Ivo cautioned, tugging on Ruan’s shirt in a mock warning. It felt good to laugh, even better to share that laughter with a man who understood him, who got that he needed space when he was drawing and company during scary movies. “I don’t want to talk about the cat. I want to talk about you moving in here. Living here. With me. I talked to Bear—”
“It’s kind of his house, isn’t it?” Ruan broached gently, his hands firm on Ivo’s back. There was no pulling away, a good sign as far as Ivo was concerned. “And yeah, I know you wanted to say everything, but I’ve got to ask if you’re sure he’s okay with this. You
’re asking a lot of him.”
“He’s the one who brought it up,” Ivo confessed. “Before I could even say anything, he kind of sat me down and told me I should ask you to be here. With us. With me. And this is the part you need to listen really hard to, because all of us—the five of us—feel the same way about this. We had a family meeting—”
“God, you guys scare the shit out of me when you all get together for a family meeting. It’s like a gathering of the Borgias with beer and pretzels,” Ruan grumbled with an exaggerated moan. “What? What did you all decide?”
“Laugh now, but wait until you get pulled into one. There’s a lot of shit-talking and bickering. You wonder why Rob and Rey find other things to do when we have to decide something?” Ivo pinched Ruan’s ribs. “Shut up for a bit. I’m trying to make this a movie moment where you collapse and cry in my arms, and you’re fucking it up.”
“Sorry.” Ruan’s apology was a mocking retreat, but Ivo took what he could get. “Go on. Give me all your sugary monologue and I’ll listen. No more talking until you tell me I can.”
“Like that’s going to happen.” Ivo snorted. “The point is—before you ran all over me—I want to wake up next to you. Every day. I want to be woken up at three in the morning because you’ve got to go to a scene. And I want you to come home to someplace you know you’ve got a family waiting for you. That’s what this house is. And right now, both of us kind of need that. We both need a place we can fall apart at the end of the day, someplace where there’s a Sunday dinner with people who are too loud and sometimes scream at the TV while watching a sport no one really knows what the fuck is going on, because that’s just what we do.