Hanging the Stars

by Rhys Ford

  “You look like shit, Daniels, but the doctors say you’ll live. Mild concussion, could have been worse from how the boy tells it,” Montague drawled, taking out that damned brown notebook he seemed to carry around like a security blanket. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”

  “God, I hate you so hard right now,” he grumbled. “What do you want? Haven’t I answered enough questions? And where’s Rome? I want to see him. Now.”

  “He’s with the social worker.”

  Montague put his hand against Angel’s shoulder, pushing him down into the mattress when Angel straightened up to slide off the bed. The IV tube rattled against the metal rail at Angel’s side, and he shook the cop off.

  “Calm down, Daniels. She’s just there to keep him company until you get cut loose. Since you’re his only guardian, I’m not willing to hand him off to anyone not legally responsible for him.”

  Angel took a breath, shoving his worries down deep into his belly. “Where’s West?”

  “He’s in the waiting room… waiting. You were out for the count, remember?” Montague inched the chair closer to the bed. “So CPS was called just to ensure Roman’s safety. I need to question him about the attack, but I can’t do that without you. He’s a minor. If you’d consent, I’d like to talk to him before you get discharged. It’s important to get his reactions and answers before his memory fades or he starts to embellish things.”

  “My brother’s not a liar,” Angel replied, then grimaced, recalling all the times Rome flat out lied to his face without a shift in expression. “Well, not about the important things.”

  “I’m not saying he is.” Montague’s hard face softened a bit, and he leaned over the bed railing, resting his weight on folded arms. “Kids have a difficult time when these kinds of things happen. Their minds try to make sense of things, and that sometimes leads to odd rationalizations. A short man can become someone with dwarfism, or someone with braces suddenly has metal teeth. It’s a way for them to cope with what’s happened to them, but that makes it difficult to parse out the reality from what they’re creating to deal with the trauma.”

  “Sure.” His head hurt too much to do more than grunt, and Montague’s answering nod was curt. “How long have I been out? Doctor’s not much on the sharing.”

  “Less than half an hour. Then you were groggy, but from what I understand, your head’s pretty hard. Cracked the shovel handle we found lying next to you. It’s been taken down to the lab for fingerprinting, but I don’t know if we’ll get anything from it,” Montague replied. “Since you’ve been conscious and complaining for the past forty-five minutes, the ER doc thought you were well enough to talk to me. Give me five minutes. Then I’ll get Rome in here. If you’re up to it.”

  Every part of him wanted to tell Montague to shove off, but his face hurt where he’d been punched, and there was still grit in his hair from the dirt patch he’d been driven into. “Yeah, let’s do this. But first, see if they’ll let me have some water or something. I feel like I ate a hell of a lot of that ground he tried to punch me into.”

  “YOU’D NEVER seen him before, then?” Montague prodded Roman. “Are you sure?”

  Rome glanced at Angel, his hooded eyes heavy with doubt. His chatterbox of a little brother clammed up nearly as soon as Montague joined them in the small office they’d been left in. Roman clung to him, his arms tight around Angel’s bruised side, his dark lashes matted with dried tears. The couch they were sitting on was uncomfortable, and Rome’s body was a skinny, bony dig into seemingly every tender spot Angel had on him, but he didn’t care.

  Holding Roman against him was worth any amount of pain the world could throw at him.

  “Angel? How about you?” Montague turned in his chair, a hopeful weariness stamped on his face. He’d already taken Angel’s statement, diligently writing down what little description Angel could give him about his attacker. “Maybe if you say something that sticks out to you, Rome might remember something?”

  “It’s kind of a scary thing. Everything happened kind of quickly.” Angel kept his voice calm, a casual banter with the cop, but he could feel the tremble slinking through Rome’s body as they spoke. “I wouldn’t want to get into trouble if I got something wrong.”

  “No trouble. I get things wrong all the time,” the detective reassured him. “Just tell me what you remember.”

  It was a touchy game they were playing. Roman hovered at the edge of puberty, a time thick with delicate ego and fragile nerves. Compounded by the inherent distrust he had for authority figures, the conversation could go two ways, help him open up to the cop or shut him down to the point of dead silence.

  “He was tall, taller than me. Bigger too,” Angel started. “I think he was wearing a red shirt.”

  “Plaid,” Roman whispered into his ear, leaning in close. “It was blue plaid.”

  “Sorry, blue plaid. Dunno why I said red. I don’t know if he was wearing overalls or jeans,” he mulled. “He stank, though, didn’t he?”

  “Bad,” Roman muttered. “And he was wearing pants. Not jeans. Dark. Maybe dark blue? And he had a gold tooth, right next to his front one.”

  “What side?” The cop began writing down Roman’s description.

  “It’s turned around in my head.” Roman scowled, then tapped at a tooth. “This one, I think. His hair was greasy, like mine gets if I don’t wash it.”

  “Did you go over to the side of the building and he grabbed you?” Montague asked gently. “Or did he try to drag you over there?”

  “He told me he had puppies.” His brother made a face, probably disgusted at the scam the man tried to pull on him. “I told him to fuck off.”

  Montague looked up. “Where were you when this happened?”

  “At the end of the row,” Rome explained. “I was looking at some comic books. West gave me five bucks before we left, and some guy was selling them for a quarter each. I was going to see if I could bargain him down.”

  “Same guy who grabbed you or different guy?”

  “Different guy.” He shook his head, nearly popping Angel in the jaw with his skull. “Comic book guy was kind of young. I was going back around to see what he had on the other side of his tent when the stinky guy grabbed me. That end of the rows is pretty empty. Hardly anyone goes down there because it’s all junk.”

  “And the guy with the comics didn’t try to stop him?” The cop’s pen stilled, its tip bleeding a bit of ink into the page. “Did he see the stinky guy?”

  “Don’t think so.” Roman pursed his mouth and sighed. “His tent had sides on it. All the way to the ground, and he put tables on either side of the rows. I thought that was stupid because there was only him and he had two tables on opposite sides to watch. Someone’s going to rip him off something good that way.”

  “But not you, right?” Angel prodded.

  “Nope, not me,” his brother asserted. “I was going to tell him about it, but then the stinky guy grabbed me.”

  “How did he get to the side of the building?” Montague shifted in his chair.

  “He just picked me up and put his hand over my mouth. I couldn’t even breathe.” Roman snapped his teeth together a few times. “I bit him, but he didn’t let go until we were by where Angel found me.”

  Something shifted in Rome, and his face closed up, building a wall to hide the vulnerability in his eyes. Angel’s ribs stabbed through his bruises when Roman’s arms tightened around his torso, and he bit back the grunting complaint caught on the tip of his tongue.

  “But he found you, right? Your brother?” the cop reminded them. “What else do you remember? Anything will help.”

  “He was yelling at someone to start the car.”

  Roman brightened, sitting up quickly. His elbow unerringly gouged into Angel’s chest, deep and hard enough for Angel to resign himself to another mark on his already abused body.

  “I didn’t hear anything, but by that time, Ange got there and punched the guy in the face. Then he told me
to run, so I went looking for West.”

  “Took you long enough to listen to me,” Angel teased lightly, smirking when his brother shot him an indignant look.

  “I wasn’t scared of him,” Rome declared, thrusting his chest out. “I did what you told me to do. Except for kick him in the balls. I didn’t get a chance to. Then I couldn’t find West, but Magnus saw me. So that was cool. He’s the one who went after the guy, but he was already gone.”

  “You did great, Roman,” Montague replied.

  “He knew my name,” the boy said softly. “He called me Roman by the tent. That’s what made me stop. Because he looked like someone, you know? But I didn’t recognize him.”

  “Not at all?” the cop asked.

  “Nope.” He shook his head, then slid back down to rest against Angel’s side. “But the first time he called me? I kind of thought he sounded like Angel.”

  THE NIGHT sky was a sheet of black steel set with a million diamonds, sparkling flares coyly peeking out through a veil of rising evening fog. A cold front edged in along the coast, its brittle caress crisp enough to frost the edges of the cliff house’s windows, layering a ghostly lace over the panes. West’d never used the second-floor sitting area off the master suite and even debated tearing down the walls separating it from the main room, but tonight the space provided a bit of comfort, a cozy den dressed in muted earthy reds and soft fabrics, a perfect swaddle for a bruised and shaken lover.

  A low-slung couch sat a few feet away from the wall of glass running along the sitting area’s west end, and a few blocks of sanded-smooth wood made an obstacle course for West as he came into the room. Maneuvering around one, he carried two mugs of aromatic coffee, fragrant with liberal doses of whiskey, more concerned with accidentally burning himself than ruining the weird puffy dark blue rug the designer chose for the room. He stepped over Angel’s legs, murmuring for the man not to move. Then he held out one of the mugs.

  “Sit up, love.” West was careful not to jostle the block he’d dragged over to rest his feet on. “And careful, that coffee machine is set to brew lava. I’m surprised the cups haven’t melted.”

  Angel stared at the mug for a long moment, then took it from West, sliding upright beneath the duvet mound he’d burrowed under. West held his breath, certain the scalding liquid would end up everywhere, but when nothing happened, he sat down and promptly splashed a teaspoon’s worth of coffee into his crotch.

  “Fucking hell,” West spat out, then looked up when he heard Angel’s soft chuckle. “Sure, laugh it up, pretty boy. See how you much you laugh when my dick doesn’t work when you need it.”

  “Pretty sure your dick always works.” Angel smothered another chortle. “It’s kind of like your mouth, always going whether I need it to or not.”

  “Is this where I tell you to suck my dick?” West caught himself before he leaned on Angel. Angling his hips, he hooked his left arm over Angel’s shoulder. “Come here.”

  Angel’s weight on him felt nice. Even nicer was the lack of hesitation, just Angel’s back sliding across him, a shoulder blade resting on his chest, trapping his heartbeat against Angel’s warmth. A shuffle of the duvet covered them both, cocooning their legs and bellies in its Angel-scented cotton heaviness. His lover released a soft murmuring sigh, then went boneless in West’s loose half embrace.

  They sat in companionable silence, the sky turning around over them, a flick of clouds moving in off the water to deepen the fog’s grip on the shore. Angel’s chest shuddered occasionally, caught in a repressed gulping stutter of pain. West kissed away a tear trembling at the corner of his right eye, cradling his lover in closer when Angel drained his mug, then leaned forward to put it on the block.

  “Here, give me that.” West took Angel’s cup and placed it on the table at his end of the couch. The whiskey had been a smooth kiss of lethargy in the coffee, blunted by heavy cream and soothed over by a couple of sugar cubes. Pressing his lips against Angel’s throat, West whispered, “Do you want to talk?”

  “About today?” Angel snorted.

  “About anything.” Stroking the spot he’d kissed, West’s heart clenched when he caught sight of the bruises over Angel’s jaw. “Today. Tomorrow. Whatever you want to talk about.”

  “Tomorrow I have to go back to the farmers’ market.” Angel winced, shifting about on the couch.

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t get stuff for the bakery. I need fruit, nuts, and I get my flour from Tony,” he explained. “He sells it to me for almost cost, but I’ve got to pick it up. He’s only there on Saturday and Sunday. Then he heads back down to LA.”

  “Make a list of what you want, and I can have it taken care of, including Tony.” West brushed his thumb over Angel’s lips as they began to part. “Daniels, do both of us a favor and just take my help.”

  “I hate charity.”

  “You’ll learn to adapt. It’s not charity. It’s accepting help. This way I’ll feel like I’m being a hero, and you get to sleep in tomorrow.” West kept his voice light, but the dark circles under Angel’s eyes were nearly as dark as the sky outside. “You need the rest. You went a few rounds with some asshole who brought a kun to a fistfight.”

  Angel’s groan was enough to lift West’s worry from his chest. “Fuck, how long have you been waiting to say that?”

  “Years,” he admitted sheepishly. “How many other people know Okinawan?”

  “You don’t even know it. One word! Maybe two,” Angel reminded him. “And where was that from? Shit, the sideshow, I had a crush on that guy… the fake martial arts guy they had in for a couple of weeks. Fucking sleazeball, but he was hot.”

  They’d bonded over the lean, muscular man, jokingly lusting at his sculpted body until it dawned on both of them they were serious. It’d been the first time West admitted he liked to look at men, and Angel hadn’t even blinked. A few days later, he’d gotten his first kiss—a real, soul-shaking, ball-trembling kiss—while lying on a blanket with Angel, and since then he hadn’t been able to look at a starry sky reflected on an ocean without a rush of nostalgic emotion.

  West huffed out his cheeks, caught in a time rich with the ever-present smell of cotton candy and the taste of stolen kisses. “Remember when he found out he’d been sleeping with those twins and he didn’t know they weren’t the same woman?”

  “Remember when they found out?”

  Angel’s low, husky laugh did silly things to West’s cock, a suckle of sound digging deep into his mind to pull out every thought he’d had about Angel over the years.

  “That place had some crazy people.”

  “Hey, I was one of those crazy people.” His protest was light, just a skim of teasing below his laughter. “And yeah, carnivals draw some pretty insane weirdos, but once you’re in with them, you’re in for life.”

  “You’re the only person I know who ran away to join the carnival and ended up in a better place than where he’d come from,” West confessed. “Okay, to be fair, you’re also the only person I’ve ever known who ran away and joined a carnival.”

  “I’m glad they hired me for that contract for Half Moon,” Angel whispered. “I’m glad I met you. Even if… we fucked it up a little bit, I’m glad it all went down how it did. We’re better now, older. Old enough to know what we’re doing now.”

  “Well, I know what I’m doing now,” West confessed. “Back then, I was scared to even kiss you. Now all I want to do is roll you into bed and not let you go.”

  “Yeah, I could use that right now.” Angel leaned his head back, resting it on West’s shoulder. “Getting rolled into bed. Maybe even getting fucked until I don’t know my name anymore.”

  “Babe, I—” He caught himself, choking at a word he often tossed off casually but not… between them. “You are in no condition to—”

  “I almost lost my baby brother today, West.” Angel slid on the couch cushion, turning around until he faced West. The duvet slithered to the floor, a rush of cooler air slapping
their heated skin, and Angel’s nipples peaked under his shirt, his chest straining to hold back something West knew broke when they couldn’t find Rome. “I didn’t… I wasn’t paying attention. I should have… fuck, West. I know what shitty things people do to kids. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m so fucking scared right now.”

  “He’s here.” West cocked his head, trying for a smile, but it died on his lips before it could spread further than a twitch. “Okay, so he’s asleep in his bed, and today was not your fault. You didn’t put him in that asshole’s hands. He was taken. From some place he should have been safe to roam around in. And what you’re forgetting is in the middle of all the crap happening to him, he kept his head and did what you’d told him to do to get out of that situation.”

  “He never should have been in that situation, West,” Angel argued, biting the ends of his words. “Rome shouldn’t—”

  “I’m not going to fuck you just so you can feel punished for what happened,” West growled. “Because that’s what it feels like you’re asking me to do. You’re hurt, Angel. I shouldn’t have given you whiskey in your coffee. I shouldn’t have dragged you out here where the damned heater doesn’t seem to work.

  “And I sure as hell am not going to spread you out on my bed and fuck you into the sheets so you can ride that pain to whatever penance you feel like you need to do because of what happened to Rome.” He cupped Angel’s face, not surprised to find his palm wet with his lover’s shed tears. “You can’t ask me to hurt you like that. I can’t, love. And you shouldn’t ask me to.”

  “I’m not. I promise you I’m not,” Angel whispered into West’s curved hand. “I’m asking you to make love to me. I need to get today out of my head and get away from all the nightmares I can’t seem to shake off. I need to feel safe right now, West, and no one but you ever makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay. I need to know it’s all going to be okay, or I’m not—”