Safe House

by Charley Descoteaux

  “Would you? Stay and help?”

  Kyle shrugged. “I would’ve offered.”

  “But someone wanted you to take a walk on the beach instead.” Bran’s voice sounded fond and amused at once, pulling Kyle’s attention squarely onto his face. His smile brought out a pair of dimples and made his eyes sparkle. “I wonder who that could’ve been.”

  They shared a grin.

  “I guess Paulie’s got my weekend all planned out. Not a surprise. If not him, it would’ve been Nathan.”

  “Is that why you haven’t been out here before? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  Kyle resisted shrugging again, but only with an effort. “This isn’t my first time, but I haven’t spent a lot of time out here. Just busy, I guess.”

  Bran’s raised eyebrow said he didn’t buy the excuse but wouldn’t pry. Still, Kyle didn’t want to talk about being set up any more than they just had. “Are you allowed to use tools? In the competition?”

  Bran grinned, and while he backed up, he halfheartedly pretended he wasn’t checking out Kyle’s ass. Kyle didn’t have a bubble butt, but he knew he didn’t look too bad from that angle. Maybe he wasn’t as firm as he had been a decade or two ago, and he had never been as muscular as Bran, but hopefully he was still hot enough to be desirable. Desirable to Bran. All the references Paulie and Nathan had been making to “someone nice” had sunk in far enough that Kyle was inclined to believe it of Bran, regardless of how scary he might be during his work hours.

  “Hand tools are okay, but only for building. Nothing can help support the sculpture.”

  “You don’t need support with the right planning.” Kyle had started to feel prickly under Bran’s scrutiny, so he walked around the castle, inspecting the foundation. “You have the right idea, making the base wide and tapering as you go up. Is this what you want to build for the competition?”

  Bran waited for Kyle to make a full circuit and stop just in view. “No. We usually talk about it during practice and figure something out as a team. The boys who are interested, anyway.”

  Kyle startled when Bran swore under his breath. Before he had a chance to become seriously alarmed, though, Bran pulled his phone out of his pocket. His voice when he answered sounded almost like a bark.

  “Smith.” After a few nods and a stray syllable or two, Bran stuffed his phone back into his pocket and scowled at the sand castle. “Sorry, I have to run. See you later.”

  He didn’t look in Kyle’s direction as he grabbed the bucket and shovel and jogged toward the parking lot. Kyle enjoyed the view, but once Bran disappeared, he felt shaken. He hadn’t touched any sand for decades, and it felt as though a hand was squeezing his chest as he thought about what kind of sculpture he’d make for a contest if he had a whole baseball team to work on it. The kinds of sculptures he’d made with his mother and her artist friends and their kids when he was a boy. Once he reached high school, his father had discouraged his participation, and that was one battle Dad had won—the battle he always won. School came first. Now, Kyle regretted letting that part of his relationship with his mother fall away. If he had realized sand sculpture was the only artistic talent he and his mother had shared, things might have been different.

  A few moments later, he shook his head and straightened his back.

  “That kind of thinking won’t get you anywhere but depressed.” The beach was almost deserted, and the wind carried his soft voice away so he could barely hear it himself. Kyle’s habit of talking aloud to himself seemed perfectly natural on the beach, not embarrassing like it sometimes was back home at the condo, so he kept going. “Think about the ‘someone nice’ you’re being set up with instead. That might pay off.”

  He had plenty of time before he’d have to get ready for dinner, so Kyle worked on the sand castle for a while—adding windows with soldiers and maidens looking out and ivy growing on the north side, plus detail on the dragon, and a dragon friend climbing the outside of the castle wall up toward the first one. By the time he’d finished, the tide was getting close. He snapped a few pictures with his phone, brushed himself off—which was futile, since he was covered in sand—and headed back toward Buchanan House.

  Chapter Six

  BRANDON WAS out of breath by the time he reached his mother’s front porch, but he tried to remain as steady as possible. She hadn’t sounded ill, but ever since he’d been a boy and received the news that had changed his life from normal to horrifying, getting an unexpected call from her always made his heart race. He didn’t stop to take off his shoes before entering, even knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it if he tracked sand into her little cottage. She hadn’t moved up and away from the beach because she enjoyed the trek up the hill.

  “Mom?” He continued through her neat living room and into the kitchen. It faced northeast, and on a less than sunny day it could be downright dark even in the early afternoon. “Mom, are you home?”

  “I just told you I was home, Brandon.”

  He jerked and then swung his attention toward the breakfast nook. His mother had been shrinking over the past few years, losing a total of two inches from her five-foot-four-inch frame. When she sat in the nook, on the heavy wood bench with the headrest almost too tall for her to rest her head against anymore, she looked even smaller than he knew her to be.

  “Is something wrong? Are you okay?” Bran approached with caution. She looked angry, not ill, and even though he was nearing the half-century mark and had dealt with all manner of criminals and miscreants, the mere sight of his mother when she was angry still made him nervous.

  Ha. She scares the hell out of me when she’s angry.

  “Sit.” She invited him with a gesture, and he sat across the small square table from her. Rigid in her seat, she pursed her lips as though she was working to keep from yelling at him. The expression had been all too familiar while he was growing up. As was her tendency to make him sit and squirm before telling him what was on her mind.

  “What is it?”

  “Did I pull you away from something important?”

  Bran managed not to gulp loudly enough for her to hear. “No. I have the day off.”

  “Something important like a doctor’s appointment?” Her one raised eyebrow said it all.

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. I promise. There’s nothing at all to worry about.”

  “So they biopsy nothing now?” For a split second, her facade of anger slipped, and he saw the fear beneath it. The same fear he’d seen when his father was sick. “Were you going to tell me at all, Brandon?”

  He tried but couldn’t keep the sigh inside. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t want you to worry over nothing, okay? I’m fine, honestly.” He reached across the table and took his mother’s hand in both of his. It made his stomach clench and his heart ache to feel the delicate bones, the thin, papery quality of her skin. “How did you—”

  “I have my ways. I may be an old lady, but I can still keep up.”

  “I know, Mom.” Bran slid out from his seat and joined her on her side of the table. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t want you to worry….”

  “I know, sweetheart. But I’m still your mother.” She wrapped her thin arms around his bulky one and leaned against him. “You can come to me when you need help, and not only the other way around.”

  Her tone said she knew he was stretching the truth. He hadn’t wanted to tell her because they don’t biopsy nothing. Minnie Parker Smith knew very well that he had been terrified the same cancer that had killed his father was growing inside of him, terrified that his next few months would be full of futile procedures, and that he would die painfully before he reached fifty in the fall.

  They sat in the breakfast nook in Minnie’s kitchen, her teacup collection lining the space above the cupboards and filling the small china cabinet, her prize rosebushes only sticks waiting for spring, waving like the batons of many tiny conductors in the yard beyond the window. Bra
n had needed a hug for the past week but had been afraid to visit, afraid she’d take one look into his eyes and see everything—his fear and uncertainty—and would make him talk about it. He still didn’t want to talk about it, mostly because he knew the conversation would eventually turn to when he would find another man so he wouldn’t be alone. An only child, he knew his mother worried about what would happen to him after she was gone.

  But that conversation would never be the same again. Brandon Smith had decided he wouldn’t be searching for “someone nice” anymore. And he was pretty sure she wouldn’t appreciate the fact that he wanted to have as much fun as he could—fuck as many hot young guys as he could get his hands on—before the next doctor’s visit. Because he might have gotten a clean bill of health once, but he knew that luck wouldn’t last. Once his luck ran out, he knew he’d be cut up and pumped full of chemicals and would never attract even the cautious looks he was accustomed to getting. And that was the best-case scenario. Until that day, he’d fuck and suck anyone who didn’t say no.

  Starting with Kyle Shimoda. Tonight. He’s obviously not into the whole setup deal any more than I am, and his hookup with Joey last night can’t be enough for a whole weekend.

  Nice guy, though….

  AFTER A while Bran fixed Minnie a light, early dinner and played a few rounds of cribbage until she went to bed. The whole time, she hadn’t said word one about the sand he’d tracked onto her carpet. It freaked him out a little, but maybe her eyesight was finally starting to go. After seventy-six years, many of them spent teaching and inspecting her carpets for beach sand, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

  Brandon had thought spending the afternoon with his mother might take the edge off his need, make his thoughts of Kyle and his smooth tan skin and silky hair go away, or at least tone them down, but no. As soon as Bran left his mother’s house, all he could think about was Kyle. Of sitting with him at dinner, maybe going for a drink afterward under the pretense of sand-castle building tips—

  No. Hooking up. That’s all I want to do with him. Hook up. That’s it.

  A lack of desire for a committed relationship didn’t excuse him from looking his best, though. Bran spent a little extra time to be sure he’d be as appealing as possible—as appealing as he ever could be with his bulldog’s face and stubby limbs. Nothing to be done about the gray in his hair—not within the next few minutes, anyway—but a clean and pressed shirt and khakis would be… passable. Bran watched in the bathroom mirror as he unbuttoned two and then three buttons of his deep green shirt. The moment his chest hair came into view, his gray chest hair, he hurriedly refastened the last one. He spent a short moment wondering whether waxing his chest would be worth the pain or if it would just make him look old and pathetic before turning off the light. Perilously close to chickening out, Brandon strode out of his apartment and down to his car.

  He arrived at Buchanan House to find a full parking lot and an almost full dining room. At least it sounded full from the lobby, and all the chairs visible from there were full.

  Nathan glided into the lobby before Bran could get himself past the dining-room door. “Darling, you made it!” Bran’s face heated when Nathan kissed his cheek. “We were starting to get worried about you. Kyle said you were called away earlier. Nothing serious, I hope?”

  Bran let himself be swept away by Nathan’s chatter and the hand on his elbow leading him into the dining room, where the scent of Southwestern spices filled the warm air. It was like walking into a hug, if the hug was from someone who really turned him on.

  Not surprisingly, Nathan led him to an empty chair beside Kyle. Brandon was surprised, though, to find he’d been seated at Kyle’s right. Maybe he’s a lefty too?

  Nathan introduced Bran to two men he didn’t know—Chase and Garrett, also apparently from their Portland family—and then left to see to a table full of guests. Brandon said his hellos, and as soon as he was seated, both Kyle and Paulie started talking to him at once, from either side.

  Paulie laughed. He always seemed larger-than-life to Bran, happier than almost anyone Bran had ever known and not shy about spreading it around. “Sorry. You two go ahead and chat. I need to get all the latest gossip from the city dwellers.” He abruptly turned to Chase and Garrett and asked about someone Bran didn’t know.

  Bran was happy enough to turn to Kyle and take the chance to fully appreciate how nicely he cleaned up. Kyle was wearing a silvery-gray button-down shirt, open at his throat, with the cuffs rolled halfway up his forearms. The sheen of his long black hair made the iridescent shirt look almost plain, and his sultry dark eyes captured Bran’s with an intensity he hadn’t been prepared for. Kyle smelled vaguely citrusy, and Bran wanted to lean closer and take a long, deep breath to appreciate it. Instead he nodded and asked how Kyle was doing, relieved his voice wasn’t shaking. His hands were. He clasped them in his lap and tried to focus his attention on something banal, something completely not sexy.

  Kyle’s concerned frown didn’t help. It made him even more alluring. “Everything go okay this afternoon?”

  “Um, pardon?”

  “You were called away. I hope it wasn’t anything serious.” Kyle reached out and pulled a basket with tortilla chips toward himself. He shook a few onto his plate and pushed the basket back into the center of the table. The way his hands moved, graceful and sure, mesmerized Bran, and they looked so soft….

  “Oh. No, nothing serious. Did you finish your walk?”

  “No.” Kyle leaned closer, and in the moment Bran started to sweat, he realized Kyle was digging in the pocket of his pants for his phone. “I stuck around and worked on your castle.”

  When Kyle handed his phone over, Bran was too stunned to take it at first. The picture on the screen could have been featured on an event website—an impossibly detailed sand castle, framed by Kyle’s hand. Oh God, he wanted to take that hand and press it to his—

  “Wow.” Bran took Kyle’s phone and stared at the sand castle. When he’d left, it had looked more like a large box with a couple of towers barely carved into it, but the picture was of a real castle, with windows and bricks and…. “How long did this take you?”

  “About another hour or so. The wind picked up, or I would’ve finished this—” Kyle leaned over and swiped the screen twice to reveal the side where the dragon had been. He had gotten a friend. The dragon was cool, a little cartoony but not too silly, and when Kyle paged through the pictures, he also leaned against Brandon’s arm. The silvery-gray shirt was thin, and Bran felt the lines of a muscular chest beneath it. Kyle was slender but obviously not skinny—still, Bran hadn’t expected him to have defined pecs any more than he’d expected Kyle to press them against his arm. A quick glance said Kyle knew exactly what he was doing, and the effect it had on Brandon. After a sweet, lingering moment in which Bran’s face pointed at the screen but his mind was full of the desire to run his hands over Kyle, to feel the hard body beneath what was probably a soft and touchable shirt, Kyle moved back into his chair.

  “What did you build last year?” Bran didn’t think Kyle was interested, not in sand castles, anyway, but he could be satisfied with conversation. For now.

  “A replica of Three Rivers Stadium. I thought it sounded simple enough, but it didn’t work out very well.” Kyle’s brow wrinkled in confusion, so Bran went on, a little rushed. Or maybe I’m just breathless. God, I want him. “It was the ballpark in Pittsburgh for thirty years, before they replaced it. Same shape as the Greek Colosseum.”

  “Oh, I see. Sounds like the walls might’ve been too thin and dried out. There’s a reason most sand sculptures are either low to the ground or thick and cylindrical.”

  Bran fought the urge to adjust his khakis. “Where did you learn the fine art of sand castle building?”

  “My mom. She entered the Long Sands Beach competition when I was a kid, and later Portland’s Sand in the City. My parents participated every year beginning in ’96, when it started.”

  Bran opened his
mouth, but the question he would have asked was overshadowed by a knife gently tapping a wineglass.

  Nathan stood and looked around the room, smiling. “Welcome to Guest Chef Night, everyone! Tonight our magnificent friend Derek Patton has crafted a Southwestern feast to warm us all from the inside out. First we’ll be bringing out some amazing chicken quesadillas and steaming bowls of chile verde. But save room, because for dessert we have spiced buñuelos, crispy fritters with a spicy sweet syrup, and to top it all off, a sour little drink with pineapple mescal and a few secret ingredients I can’t tell you about.”

  Nathan winked, and two servers carrying trays laden with food entered the room as though it were scripted—because it probably was. They started on the far side of the room, passing out plates and bowls to the guests seated at one of the long communal tables. A few moments later, Nathan, Alex, and Derek pitched in to serve, and it wasn’t long before conversation in the room consisted of moans and sighs of appreciation for the meal.

  When Derek and Alex had first moved to Buchanan House, Bran had been afraid for them—afraid he might have to protect them in ways he wasn’t sure he could pull off effectively—and that bothered him more than he was willing to admit even to himself. He was ashamed to even think it, but he had hoped they would end up going back to Portland, where an African American man with natural hair and white tattoos and a Korean transwoman might not be as obvious. Might not be targets of the unaccepting and small-minded. The camp was close to the easygoing and rainbow-splashed Lincoln City, but far enough away that if they needed backup it might be too late in coming. Luckily his trepidation had been without merit. Derek was the kind of man who treated everyone like a friend and got that right back in return—at least it seemed that way to Bran—and if anyone had a problem with Alex, they hadn’t mentioned it, and neither had she. As Bran watched Alex move around the room, he wondered if he would have even guessed she was trans if he hadn’t been friends with the proprietors.