Finding Refuge

by J. P. Oliver

  “This is about that creep,” she said, “that’s been running his nose up and down North Creek, ain’t it?”

  “Edward Morris,” Curtis said. “Your turn, Zach.”

  I looked over the table and found a halfway decent shot on the felt. “That’s the one, and yes, it is. He’s been trying to—”

  “I know full well what sort of bullshit he’s been up to. He’s come by both my places trying to buy up the land. Prick didn’t even know I was the owner of both of ‘em. Idiot, right? Anyway, I’d never sell.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not just about selling,” I said. I tried for the shot, but the ball bounced off the wall instead. “Shit….”

  Curtis and Kat both laughed at me. Somewhere in the bar, a gang of truckers who pit-stopped in North Creek often crashed their mugs together heartily.

  “He’s right, though,” Curtis said. “It’d bring in more business, more traffic. There’s a lot of history in this place that people would be willing to learn about.”

  “And traveling to see The Speakeasy would mean out-of-towners, who would need a place to stay,” I led. “Good thing there’s a hotel right next door.”

  “All right, all right, I get it,” Kat said. “Good for business.”

  “And it’d make sure that when you’re older and what not,” Curtis added, “that even if someone did try to change this place, they wouldn’t be able to. Historical status would make sure nothing would happen.”

  Kat watched the game, considering it before deciding. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she confirmed. “Yeah. Get the paperwork started and help me out a bit. This place’s got too much history with me and my family to take a chance with it.”

  “Well, look at this!”

  All of us looked at The Speakeasy’s door, which was just closing behind Wyatt Cross. Kat groaned, face pinching as she let herself be drawn into a hug by her older brother.

  “Hey, man,” I greeted.

  “Hey. Thanks for asking me out. I needed a break from TV dinners alone,” Wyatt laughed, taking a seat in one of the tall bar chairs at the empty table behind us. “Looks like it’s a family reunion, don’t it?”

  “What’re you drinking?” Kat asked, rolling her eyes, expression affectionate. “You get two on the house, and after that, you’re on your own.”

  “Whatever’s on tap, Kat,” he laughed, pulling up a chair.

  “We’ve got, like, five different beers.”

  “Surprise me?”

  While Kat went off to grab some drinks for them all, Curtis and I retired from our game of pool and found a booth that’d fit the four of us. It was one of the few that lined the back wall, sturdy with plenty of cushion, but a little sticky with spilled drinks in some places. It was nice seeing family again, but we admittedly had an agenda behind inviting Wyatt to The Speakeasy tonight.

  “So, I did a little more digging on that lead you texted me,” Wyatt said, shaking a toothpick loose from the holder. “That Ricky fella that kept popping up in Martha’s journal.”

  “You found something?” I asked, surprised.

  Wyatt grinned, sharp and proud of himself. “That’s right. Your cousin is one hell of a super sleuth.”

  “Holy shit,” Curtis said, eyes alight with excitement.

  “So, obviously, Rocco Carlino needed aliases to get through the smaller towns down here when he couldn’t hide out in big cities.” Wyatt rolled the pick between his fingers. “His name was all over the papers, so he had to keep a low profile, and there’s record of him going by the alias Ricky when he was traveling through North Carolina.”

  “That’s got to be him,” I said.

  “It’s too big a coincidence not to be,” Curtis agreed. “I spent all day reading Martha’s journal. She talks about being with and breaking up with Ricky, and that was around the end of August in 1926. She doesn’t mention him again until September, saying he was hanging around and getting drunk, here, at The Speakeasy.”

  “Okay,” Wyatt drew, making space for Kat as she came back, bottles in hand. “So what does that have to do with proving it was Rocco?”

  “She talks about Ricky’s murder.”

  “Whoa.” Kat laughed, brows knitting tight. “What are we talking about here? Murder?”

  “Martha,” Wyatt said after a long sip.

  “Let’s look at the facts,” Curtis said. “The journal says Ricky was a drifter who blew into town midsummer in 1926, which—”

  “Hooks up with when he was allegedly last spotted in Nashville,” Wyatt finished.

  “Exactly.” Curtis grinned, and I felt my heart pick up a little, because he was smart and sexy and confident, retelling all this historical shit. I watched his fingers absently stroke the bottleneck—turning away before it gave me any wild ideas. “It’s a viable timeline. And, in Martha’s diary, she writes that she ‘discovered who he really was. She knew the real Ricky,’ which sounds like she just found out some shady shit about him, but what she really meant was that she knew about his identity as Rocco Carlino.”

  “I thought Grandma Martha was into the bad boys, though,” Kat said, gesturing with her bottle. “Why break it off?”

  “There’s a difference between bad boy and spree killer,” I said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “So she breaks up with him,” Curtis said, ignoring the loud but friendly argument in the both behind us. “She starts running around with John Savage. Scorned, Rocco gets probably drunk and goes to the Cross house. The journal entry is short, but it says he was making all sorts of threats about killing her and the family for rejecting him. But what Rocco didn’t know was that the Savages and the Crosses were tight, and that Isaac Savage was there that night.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Wyatt interrupted, pick pinched in his teeth. “You’re sure about that? That was never in any of the accounts.”

  “The old Cross house was east, which is where the report says he was headed. And Martha mentioned that she saw Isaac Savage kill a man without flinching.”

  “That was about that stiff they found,” Kat explained. “The one the cops found in the distillery.”

  “No,” I said, catching onto Curtis’s train of thought. “No, the book says that Isaac Savage and her father both took the body she saw into the woods and bury it. That was Ricky—I mean, Rocco. They never buried the body that was found at the distillery, so it had to have been Rocco.”

  The pause at our table was tense with thought and realization. Thunder rumbled outside, beyond the rain and music.

  Finally, Wyatt laughed, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

  “This is huge,” Kat said.

  “And the best part is,” Curtis said, grinning, “Martha gives the location of where the body was buried.”

  “The police back then were desperate to find Rocco Carlino,” Wyatt said. “You’re telling me—”

  “That the secret to where he was buried was in some girl’s diary?” I laughed. “Yeah. I know.”

  “I’ve already gotten in contact with the FBI, and they seemed like they were looking forward to seeing the journal in-person so they can start digging and finally close their case on the bastard.”

  Curtis took a sip of his drink. “We’ll have to contact the owner of the property so we can start searching.”

  “Well, that should get processed soon,” Wyatt said. “I told the FBI it was urgent. They know about the whole situation with the developer and the plans to build the hospital and strip mall and whatever other corporate evil they can fit in…”

  It was all we could really hope for, for the moment. Even if we were wrong about the whereabouts of Rocco’s remains, the FBI investigation and excavating would hold up the developers for a significant amount of time.

  “It’ll be something, at least,” I said.

  “To red tape?” Kat proposed, holding up her bottle.

  Glass crashed together in hearty cheers, all of us toasting, “To red tape.”

 
“God bless it,” Wyatt laughed.

  True to his word, Curtis took me home.

  Or, I guess, I took him home. To his home, I mean, though it was beginning to feel a little like home for me, too. I was spending a disproportionate amount of time at Curtis’s house—the past three nights, actually.

  As we let ourselves inside, Curtis stripped out of his jacket with a relaxed sigh, dropping it over the back of the couch. He wandered into the kitchen and I watched from the threshold as he went through the fridge.

  “I feel good about this,” he said, smiling over at me. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “You were just… amazing tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pleased with himself, Curtis hummed and shut the fridge, happily forgetting whatever he was about to grab from inside. Leaning against it, he wagged a finger at me, beckoning. “Come over here.”

  A slave to what he wanted, I did just that. My hands found a familiar place at his hips as he ran his hands over my chest and shoulders.

  He seemed happy. I knew I was happy, here with him.

  “Stay the night again?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Sleepover,” he hummed, before he was tipping his chin up for a kiss.

  Happily, I obliged. His lips tasted hoppy from the beer he’d had at The Speakeasy, and for the moment, it wasn’t heated or rushed. It was just… slow. Appreciative.

  “Thanks for letting me crash here.”

  Curtis snorted quietly. “Is it considered crashing if we fuck first?”

  I laughed, letting him go so he could pick back through the fridge. I took a step back, just big enough to admire the view. He must have known I was ogling him this time; he wiggled his ass a bit as he bent over to grab—

  “Strawberries?” I asked.

  “The sexiest fruit.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Kumquats are pretty hot.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Get it? Like—”

  “Cum.” Curtis shot me a look as he rinsed off some strawberries. “Yeah, I was in middle school, too, once. On second thought, that joke was just shitty enough to get you kicked out.”

  “No,” I groaned, crowding him against the counter.

  “I mean it,” he laughed, squirming a little as I pressed my lips to his neck, peppering it with kisses. “No bad jokes allowed.”

  “That was a great joke.”

  “I’d rate it two stars. Maybe.”

  “Don’t kick me out,” I pleaded quietly, knowing it was all a tease. “I’ll earn my keep. I’ll feed you strawberries, so you don’t have to lift a finger.”

  “Mm.” Curtis sighed a little as I began to kiss his neck in earnest, sucking a little mark beneath his ear. “With a promise like that… you might as well move in.”

  It was supposed to be a joke.

  It was a joke, but… there was an unspoken depth to it. Something we’d both been keeping in the back of our minds. We needed to talk.

  I drew back, hands planted on the counter on either side of Curtis. He looked up at me, unsure.

  “Zach,” he started.

  “I have to be back on-base soon,” I whispered with far less conviction than I had the first time, when I’d used the line as a way to drive him off.

  “I know.” He exhaled sharply, working it out in his head. He touched my chin, thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “What will it take to convince you to retire? To stay?”

  I thought of not reenlisting and didn’t hate the idea; my time back in North Creek with my family and Curtis was making me realize how much I missed all of this. Having a community that knew me. Having a love to crawl into bed with every night.

  “You’re my future,” I murmured.

  It wasn’t an answer, but I needed it to be, and, for the moment, Curtis accepted it, drawing me into a kiss that was heated. I felt the need in it, hot and slow, dripping like syrup between my fingers.

  My fingers threaded into his hair—just how he liked it—and he sighed at the feel of it. It was such a small sound, but it drove me. Spun the heat inside me. With a slight tug to his soft locks, he opened his mouth and let my tongue brush inside.

  I loved the taste of him: distinct and a little hoppy from the beers, and a little sweet from the strawberries.

  Making out with him made me feel… absolved somehow. For the past ten years, I was so guilty about what happened with Joe but being with Curtis was healing. Did he even know that? That he had such a profound effect on me? That every minute I spent with him here in North Creek was making it so much harder to think of returning to Virginia?

  I didn’t know how to tell him, if he didn’t already know it himself. Words weren’t my strong suit, but I could maybe show him here, like this. With actions.

  I sucked his full bottom lip softly. It snapped back with a delicate sound, and when he looked up at me, it was with a hum of approval in his throat. The brown of his eyes was dark, melting.

  “Zach….”

  “You’re my future,” I said again, firm and quiet; reassuring him, reassuring myself.

  His lips twitched into a small smile. There was a heat between us, obviously, and while I wanted to peel his clothing away and let my lips run all over him, I was okay with this: Curtis pulled me into a hug, face burying in my shoulder.

  He was warm all over.

  I felt each of his fingertips as they pressed into my back, ten little points.

  I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want this to end. If we had an expiration date, I didn’t want to think about it now. I just wanted to enjoy this with him now, while we still had it.

  “Wanna go upstairs?” he asked, mouth moving against my shoulder.

  With a chuckle, I kissed his neck. “Or we could get a little creative.”

  Curtis drew back to shoot me a dubious look.

  “What?”

  “Creative,” he murmured, eyes shutting. “Sounds messy.”

  “I’ll grab a towel,” I told him.

  As we untangled, I took his hand in mine and led him to the living room. There was a bathroom downstairs for guests and visitors. I went in to grab a spare towel, and when I came back, I found Curtis stripping out of his shirt, loosening up the buttons.

  I paused mid-step.

  “What?” he asked coyly, fingers still on his buttons.

  “Nothing,” I said. “You just… look really good.”

  Curtis snorted. “I haven’t even taken off my clothes yet.”

  I stepped up to him, draping the towel over the rounded side of his couch. Curtis eyes it questioningly, then eyed me questioningly. I laughed, brushing his hands off his buttons.

  “What’s—”

  “Don’t worry,” I hummed, our lips brushing. “I’ll show you.”

  Our hands fumbled as we got lost in our kiss, my fingers tripping on his tight buttons, until finally he breathed, hot across my mouth, “Just rip them,” which I did, happily. One of them popped off and clattered to the floor, but I didn’t care. I just wanted my hands on him.

  Curtis moaned as I brushed my hands all over him, felt and groped and undid his slacks. It was kind of adorable that he always dressed up like this, whether he was working or not.

  My hand slid into the open front of his pants, palming his cock through the thin fabric. His whine broke our kiss, and his head dropped to my shoulder, hands gripping my shirt.

  “Zach,” he breathed.

  Maybe it was selfish to want to hear my name like that, over and over, forever. In his voice and flushed with pleasure. I wanted to be the only one to make him sound like that, to give him this feeling.

  We backed up to the sofa, but instead of sitting on the cushion, Curtis sat on the arm of the chair where the towel was, braced and panting slightly as he watched me tug his pants and boxers off. I knelt between his long legs, smoothing my hands up them.

  Curtis watched with rapt attention, biting his lip as I breathed over his cock.<
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  “You drive me crazy,” I murmured, lips pressing to his inner thigh.

  He bit back on a noise.

  “You’ve always driven me crazy. I would have done anything for you when we were kids.” I grinned. “Anything to get you to notice me….”

  His fingers smoothed into my dark hair. “Funny—I always thought the same thing about you.”

  We exchanged knowing looks. There was something missing here—there probably would always be—with Joe gone, but even before Joe, it had always been just me and Curtis: tripping after each other, trying to impress or make the other happy. Ten years without him; thinking about that now seemed insane.

  When I took his cock into my mouth, I felt his thighs twitch open wider, encouraging me. Curtis was really sweet about getting sucked off. He only ever petted through my hair, and hardly ever pulled. And the noises…. I mean, in another life, Curtis could have been a phone sex operator or something. His voice was low and breathy, and when he was turned on, it sounded sort of desperate.

  I bobbed slowly, pulling off of him occasionally to mouth along the base, traveling up the thick curve of his shaft.

  “Y-yeah, just like that….”

  I groaned, laving my tongue flat against his head. Precum was beading at the tip, and as I sucked gently at it, his thigh spasmed. Curtis’s head hung, locks covering his face.

  “I wish I had that toy of yours,” I teased, my own voice deep with its arousal.

  Curtis trembled, laughing. “I think I’d come on the spot.”

  “Tempting.”

  “No—I wanna last. I want to come with you—mmh….”

  Running my tongue along the underside, I focused on the sensitive ridge, rewarded with his first loss of control. His hips jerked up into the sensation, and as he sputtered apologies, I licked the smear of precum from the corner of my mouth.

  “S-sorry, that was just—”

  I took him in, took him deep.

  “Th-that, I mean…. I… oh.”

  Curtis was always so put together and coherent, but his words were falling apart. With a breath through my nose and a push, I bottomed out for him, relaxing my throat just enough to take him deep.

  Nose pressed to his pelvis, he got a little less polite. His fingers fisted in my hair, looking for something to cling to. I swallowed around him, and he actually let out a real cry.