Take Me Away

by Jerry Cole

  “Take Me Away”

  M/M Gay Romance

  Jerry Cole

  © 2019

  Jerry Cole

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2019.08.14)

  http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: RB, JayBee, Jim Adcock, C Mitchell, Earleen Gregg and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Prologue

  Isaac Baxter, 2006

  He would graduate from high school. He would yank himself out of his shoddy Texan town, buck up north to New York—the promised land, as far as he was concerned—and make a mockery of his father, Thomas Baxter. His father was the arrogant, simple, one-minded wannabe cowboy, who glared at him now.

  That’s what Isaac told himself now, while his father glared at him. His eyes glittering orange. He’d been caught.

  “You think ya can just freakin’ come into my house. MY house, Isaac, the house I paid for and continue to fix up, all so you can pretend to play house with—”

  The Texan drawl was something Isaac had tried to void from his own accent. But as he threw himself back, toward the far living room wall, he heard only desperation and southern twang in his own voice.

  “Daddy, it ain’t right, what you’re saying! Daddy, it’s really natural. They’re doing all these scientific studies these days, Daddy, and they’re saying… It ain’t what you and Mom think it is. Daddy, what I got for Brian, it ain’t what I feel for any girl, ya know?”

  Isaac was a spitting, angry teenager, one with gothic band posters stripped across the walls of his bedroom. He certainly wasn’t the direct link to his father, Thomas Baxter, who’d longed to be a cowboy in his youth and had never truly dropped the inclination, not even when he’d knocked up Isaac’s mama and ultimately had not one, but three children—Isaac, plus his two younger sisters, Monica and Trudy. In fact, the truth of Thomas’ opinion of Isaac had always quivered on the surface between them, ever since Isaac had been the worst hitter on his youth baseball team; since he’d been caught listening to girly pop around the age of nine; since he’d negated the “cowboy way” in nearly every capacity. `

  “I always wanted a son,” Thomas shouted now, his voice making the entire little one-story house quake. “But you’ve given me nothing but heartache, Isaac. Dammit, Isaac, I don’t see why—”

  They both heard her at the door, Isaac’s mother, Hannah, who clacked her heels across the cement and clinked her key against the lock, as usual missing the first time. Isaac’s lips sealed tight. He waited, his heart thudding near his throat. Throughout the previous few months, as he’d begun to “date” or “hook up” or whatever it was they were doing – Brian, that is – his mother and his sisters had slowly grown to understand, to look at Brian not as Isaac’s friend, but as something much greater, something linked to the heart.

  And in that respect, Hannah, Monica, and Trudy were now all liars, in Thomas Baxter’s eyes. This was because Isaac had largely escaped his father finding out the truth about his affair, up until this afternoon, when Thomas had stormed into Isaac’s bedroom, demanding to know why he hadn’t greeted him in the living room, like a man. Especially since he’d been away the previous week, yanking together some cattle with his best friend, the elusive and tight-lipped Zane, an actual cowboy who, Thomas Baxter frequently said, had "escaped the cage of family life."

  "Don’t put this on Momma,” Isaac whispered then, drawing his hands skyward. “She ain’t done nothing wrong, Papa. She ain’t the reason I am the way I am.”

  Thomas grunted. He lurched around, slipping his hands into his pockets. The door opened, bursting forth and revealing Hannah Baxter, the forty-something, still-thin, still-pretty—although sure, that beauty was fading all the time, due to the Texas sun and her affinity for cigarettes—mother of three, who frequently worked at the high school cafeteria, smearing butter on bread and stirring up stews. Often, she came home smelling like the school cafeteria, which led her to take long, steamy baths in the evening, a time she called “just for me.”

  Hannah loved Thomas Baxter a great deal. It was, perhaps, her biggest fault. She would have never confessed it, but Isaac had long suspected that she’d somehow trapped Thomas into being her baby’s daddy, perhaps slipping a needle through the condom, or telling Thomas she wasn’t ovulating, that it was all right. Even now, standing in the doorway, her eyes glowed toward Thomas, staring at him like he was her sun, her moon. Her everything.

  “What the fuck are you looking at?” Thomas demanded, taking a big, ragged step toward her.

  “Don’t you dare touch her!” Isaac cried from behind, scurrying forward. His father had certainly punched him before, and he didn’t mind if he did it again – just as long as he kept his hands off his momma. “She ain’t done nothing wrong!”

  Hannah scuttled back, looking like a crab. She drew the door between her and Thomas, still peeking from behind. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice soft. “My gosh, I can’t stand all the yelling. It’s been such a long-ass day, and…”

  “Hannah, now, come in here. Hannah, I gotta ask you a question,�
� Thomas said, coaxing her.

  This made Isaac’s heart initially black. He was reminded of a hunter, trying to approach his prey, walking through the woods with delicate steps. He wanted to yell, to tell his mother not to trust this sinister, alien man. But she brought the door open a bit more, until suddenly, the house had swallowed her up, and she stood, perched on the linoleum floor, rubbing her palms together and looking at Thomas expectantly. God, was there anything this woman wouldn’t do for Thomas Baxter?

  “What is it, Tommy?” she asked.

  Thomas clucked his tongue. He reared his fist back, making Hannah flinch. Again, Isaac rushed forward, grabbing Thomas’ arm at the last second and lurching it back. Hannah let out a whimper, moving into the further corner. She shook like a guinea pig.

  “Get off me!” Thomas cried, shaking Isaac off him. “Look at ya. You got all the strength of a man, but ya ain’t one. Ain’t ya?”

  Hannah sniffed, cranking forward and wrapping her hands around her elbows. She blinked big, doe eyes toward Isaac, whispering, “Is it that, Isaac? Is it that he knows?”

  “Dammit, Hannah, of course I know!” Thomas blurted. “No thanks to you. I don’t like bein’ lied to in my house. Did you think, when you married me, that we will live side by side without telling one another the truth? Because I’m telling ya, I didn’t think so in the slightest. And this – this has drawn a line in the freaking sand that I’m not sure we can erase.”

  Again, Hannah shook. Isaac felt his heart sinking toward his gut. He prayed for one of his sisters to arrive home just this instant, to break up the bickering. But he knew that Monica was at piano lessons, that Trudy was with her boyfriend. It was just the three of them; Hannah, Thomas, and Isaac – the three very original members of a family that was on the brink of falling apart.

  “I’m getting the fuck outta here,” Thomas blared. He kicked toward the door, narrowly missing Hannah once more with his flailing fists, and shoved his feet into cowboy boots.

  “Where are you going?” Hannah asked, her voice sharp, shrill.

  “What the hell is that to you?” Thomas demanded. “It ain’t your business what I do with my free time, Hannah. It ain’t never been.”

  “Why is it any of your business what I do with MY time, then, Daddy?” Isaac demanded, sensing, with his teenage optimism and fire, an opening here to argue his point.

  Thomas just spun round at the door, allowing his shoulders to drape forward. He looked like a skeleton, too thin, even, for his very skinny jeans. They drooped a bit at the crotch. He blinked several times at his son.

  “This has been my house, Isaac. And you, you been my son. You –” Here, he turned toward Hannah, waving his hand. “You been my wife. And maybe even for a second, I loved ya. But dammit, I can’t feel a lick of nothing for either of you just now.”

  “You have to stay here, Tommy…” Hannah whispered. She drew up the bravery to tap forward, to reach for Thomas’ upper bicep. “We need you so much more than you could possibly know.”

  It seemed that Thomas could no longer hear them, no longer hear their reasoning. He shot through the front door, yanking his keys out of his pocket. They jangled. Outside, the April heat blared upon the cement sidewalk, crackling it.

  It felt so much like the end of the world. Thomas stomped his cowboy boots down the steps. Hannah flung herself from the top stoop, reaching out for her husband. Big tears swept down her cheeks. Isaac felt frozen, gaping at the both of them from near the couch. Only an hour before, he’d been naked, wrapped in the arms of his best friend turned lover, Brian.

  When he’d heard his father come in through the front door, he’d mumbled to Brian, “Whatever. Let him find out. What’s he going to do about it? I’m gay. So, what. It’s 2006. He needs to learn to figure that shit out.”

  Now, he understood the ramifications of his father discovering the truth about him.

  His family would be torn in two.

  “Daddy, wait.” Isaac tossed himself into the crack of the door, watching as his father mounted into the driver’s side of his truck. He blinked up at Isaac, his face entirely blank. Hannah crumpled upon the first step of the little house; her cheeks splayed over her hands.

  “I ain’t gotta wait for nobody. I been waitin’ too long as it is,” Thomas returned, before cranking the truck door closed.

  The engine roared. Isaac recognized this to be an unhealthy engine, one that needed servicing. He wouldn’t have known that without Thomas’ education. He bucked down the steps of the little ranch house, into the colossal Texas heat. Thomas’ truck eased out of the driveway before chugging forward. Isaac stepped to the very bottom of the cracked driveway, with half a plan to dart out in front of the truck to ensure it couldn’t move forward.

  “Don’t even think about it, boy,” his father blurted. “Don’t even think about doing the likes of that. Because I will do it. I will run you the hell over. And I won’t regret it, neither. I put you on this earth. I put you on this earth, and you seem to be doing whatever the hell it is you want to with your time. I can take that all away in a second. Don’t you forget about it.”

  Isaac knew better than to test his father’s anger. He took several steps back, watching as his father cranked the truck back into gear and chugged it down the road. From the front stoop, his mother wailed.

  “WHY, Isaac?” she demanded, between tears. “Why couldn’t you just let well enough alone? He was fine, not knowing. We could all go on like a family, like that.”

  “Momma, come on!” Isaac demanded. He cut back to the front porch. His hands shook with apprehension. “Momma, he isn’t gonna leave for good.”

  “You don’t know him,” Hannah offered, ripping her cheeks up from her hands. She swallowed hard, her eyes searching the horizon. Black clouds formed over the plains. In the distance, they could just make out the tip-tops of the buildings in Austin, a city they had very little to do with.

  “You tellin’ me I don’t know my own father?” Isaac asked. He smacked his hands on either side of his waist, feeling close to breaking down, himself. He very rarely cried, taking what he’d learned from his father—the perhaps only thing—to ensure that he never revealed this big weakness.

  “I’m tellin’ ya that you let this happen, Isaac. And now, I don’t know what will happen,” his mother whispered.

  “Let’s get back in the house, Ma,” Isaac sighed. “I’ll make us dinner, hey? You been on your feet all day, and I dare say the minute we start tuckin’ in, Papa will be back at our door, ready to eat.”

  His mother was correct. Isaac kept his eyes to the horizon while he stirred up the spaghetti and sauce, watching and hoping for his father’s return. Trudy and Monica stumbled in sometime after seven-thirty, both ravenous. They sat at the supper table, stirring the spaghetti and gabbing. They were both beautiful blondes, both big-eyed and supple, the sort that got to do a bit of modeling for the nearby clothing store. They looked like their momma had, way back when she’d met Thomas in the first place.

  Now, Hannah sat beside them, listless, her spaghetti untouched. Isaac sat in his normal spot, turning his eye from sister to sister, wondering which of them would notice the unrest first. Monica chewed slowly, casting a bit of spaghetti sauce to her chin.

  “We got a big cheerleading session on Saturday,” Trudy offered, breaking through the silence. “We’ll be there all day long.”

  “I’ll make sure I pack you some snacks,” Hannah murmured.

  Her voice was so lackluster, as soft as a string. Isaac’s stomach clenched.

  “Momma, he’s gonna come back,” he murmured.

  This was the first sign of unrest for his sisters. They both blinked at him. Trudy took an enormous bite of pasta, then seemed to swallow it too fast, making a big bulge in her throat. She coughed twice, then continued to gape at Isaac.

  “And you’re gonna leave next,” Hannah said, shooting a glare to Isaac. “You’re gonna leave us here in Texas, and it doesn’t matter to you what happens to
any of us, just as long as you can break us all in half.”

  “Momma?” Monica mumbled, her eyebrows stitching together. “What is going on…”

  Isaac swept his head forward, gazing down at the droplets of sauce along the edge of his plate. He couldn’t imagine what hunger meant, not the way his father and mother could. They’d both come from the poorest of poor, the kind that meant scraping your plate clean and never complaining about when the next meal would come. The answer had always been – not sure. Never sure.

  “Where’s Daddy? Wasn’t he meant to come back today?” Trudy asked.

  “Yeah. He’s meant to be back. Fact, I thought I saw his truck earlier this afternoon, by the burger place,” Monica offered.

  “Reckon he’ll be back soon,” Trudy chimed in.

  “Eat your dinners, girls,” Hannah whispered, tossing a final, horrific gaze toward Isaac. “Whatever will be will be, you know?”

  They sat in silence after that. Neither Monica nor Trudy could finish their platters, and ultimately scraped their noodles back into the pot. Isaac remained in his chair, long after all three women in his life had retreated to their bedrooms. He could still feel it, the hesitation at the door, before his father finally opened the door and discovered him and Brian – their naked arms wrapped around one another.

  Had he truly known what would happen, the moment everything broke apart?

  “A gay son. What kind of thing did I do to deserve this?” his father had blared to the sky, to God, to whoever or whatever it was he believed in. “I didn’t fuckin’ do nothing. I just wanted to keep my nose to the ground. I just wanted to do my will, to live. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Ain’t nothing wrong at all.”

  Chapter One

  Isaac Baxter