His dad made a kind of grunt, then tucked into his food. The rest of the meal mostly went by in strained silence. Very occasionally his dad was just fine and their evenings weren’t too bad. But most often when his father came in from the garage, it was like bringing dark storm clouds into the house, which always ended with him and his mom tiptoeing around. Especially the past few months now that all the medical bills had started stacking up.
The trip home from Conroe that afternoon had been a special kind of hell. His dad had ranted about the extra hospital bill. Like, what? He’d gone and got himself shot with a crossbow on purpose just to piss him off? He was seriously considering getting a second job, just for a few months to take the heat off—at least the financial side of things, anyway.
As soon as they were finished eating, his dad got up and pulled a beer out of the fridge, before disappearing toward the living room. The TV came on a second later, and his mom visibly relaxed in her seat.
“Can we help with the washing up, Mrs. Jones?” Jake asked, already reaching across the table to clear the plates.
His mom smiled. “That would be lovely. Your parents obviously brought you up right, Jake, unlike a lot of boys your age who haven’t got the smallest speck of manners and are into all sorts of queer things.”
Danny had been midway through drinking the last of his water and promptly choked on the last few drops. His mom looked at him in alarm while Jake came around the table and unhelpfully thumped him on the back, clearly trying to keep a grin off his face.
“Daniel, are you okay?” his mom asked in concern.
“Just went down the wrong way,” he said, voice hoarse. God he hoped his mom was so out of touch she didn’t know people had started using that word in a completely different context after the 1980s.
“Well, if you two start with the washing up, I’ve got an apple pie to put in the oven.”
“Apple pie as well?” Jake exclaimed. “This is the best I’ve eaten in years.”
His mom smiled, clearly charmed by Jake as she went to the fridge to get out the apple pie.
“Sorry,” he mouthed almost silently at Jake. The idiot just grinned and shrugged as he cleared the plates. While Danny went over and started to run a sink of water, his mom took a moment to fiddle with the radio on the corner of the bench and a second later, ABBA filled the room. Straightaway, Jake started singing along. He actually had a pretty good voice. When he shot the guy an incredulous look, Jake shrugged and simply said, “My mom loves ABBA too. I took her to see Mamma Mia, the stage musical, not the movie. Though, the movie wasn’t bad.”
The washing up didn’t take long, while his mom and Jake got into a hilarious conversation about who dated who in ABBA—apparently his mom really had been a huge fan, and Jake knew more about ABBA than he wanted to. Just as they were putting the last few plates away and the apple pie was starting to smell really good, there was a knock at the door. His mom offered to get it, then bustled out of the kitchen a second later.
“Well,” he said as soon as she’d disappeared. “If your aim tonight was to win over my mom, I think you succeeded with flying colors.”
Jake gave a too-innocent shrug. “I wasn’t trying to charm anyone. I was just being myself. I can’t help it if that person happens to be awesome and moms get charmed along the way.”
“Unbelievable.” He gave a low laugh and shook his head. More than anything he wanted to cross the kitchen and kiss the hell out of Jake. But he didn’t dare. Not with his dad in the house. The only reason he’d risked it earlier was because he’d known for sure his dad was still in the garage.
“That’s a very good word to describe me.” Jake sent him a wink and a smile that could only be described as lascivious.
“Danny!” his mom called a second before walking back into the kitchen. “You’ve got another visitor.”
Gina followed her in, carrying an oversized tote bag in one hand and a helium balloon that said Bee Well and was shaped like a bumblebee in the other. She still had on low heels and what looked to be her work clothes.
“Hi!” She hurried over and gave him a quick but hard hug. “Look at you! I couldn’t believe it when I heard about this today. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, returning the embrace and suddenly realizing he was really glad they were friends. “The sling is just for twenty-four hours. The doctor said I’ll be sore for a few days, but that’s about it. I was lucky.”
“I’ll say!” Gina handed over the balloon with an impish smile, and then her gaze slid over to Jake, who was leaning casually against the nearby bench with his arms crossed, looking too hot for words. “If you’re busy, I’ll go.”
“Not at all, Gina,” his mom answered for him as she took the apple pie out of the oven. “Stay and have some pie. The three of you can go sit out on the back porch.”
“It does smell good.” Gina clearly didn’t need any more convincing than that.
After his mom had served them all huge slices of pie each complete with whipped cream—real whipped cream, not stuff out of a can, which Jake couldn’t believe—they headed out the back door. Instead of sitting on the porch, Danny led them across the lawn to the gazebo down by the back fence, out of sight from the house and looking out over the huge, treed block behind them that’d never been built on.
He sat down on the double swing suspended from the rafters and Jake immediately squeezed in next to him with an unrepentant smile. Gina opened her tote bag and pulled out several bottles of Jack Daniel’s Country Cocktails with something pink in them.
“I felt like a teenager, smuggling these in past your parents,” she said with a laugh as she handed them one each. Even though they’d come out of her bag, they were still cold.
“Why did you?” he asked. “Not like they’d care.”
“Your mom thinks I’m a nice girl.” Gina’s grin was unrepentant.
“Don’t want to ruin her mistaken impression with the truth, huh?” he teased, making her poke her tongue out at him.
“Oh yeah, now we’re talking,” Jake said as he twisted open the lid on his. “Gina, you’re my new favorite person.”
“You sure about that?” She arched an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else as she opened her own drink.
Danny’s stomach turned over as he opened his own bottle. What did that mean? Had she figured out something about them? But how? Not that he minded Gina knowing. In fact, he wished he could tell her. But her knowing meant other people might know, which was one step away from his father knowing and unmitigated disaster as far as he was concerned.
“I wouldn’t drink any more than one of those after all the painkillers you had today,” Jake told him as he shoveled apple pie into his mouth.
He thought about making a joke or sarcastic remark back at him, but with Gina watching, in the end he only murmured, “One will be more than enough anyway.”
“So, I heard you played the hero again today,” Gina said to Jake. “Is that a thing you do?”
Jake laughed and sliced him a look. “Only for Danny. He seems accident-prone.”
“Excuse me, but until you came along, I was doing just fine.” He sent Jake a suspicious look. “How do I know you didn’t orchestrate both those things just so you could swoop in and be the hero?”
“You’re right!” Jake exclaimed, sitting up straighter. “Why didn’t I think of that before? It’s an awesome way to pick up guys.”
“God help us all,” he muttered, trying not to laugh.
Gina giggled. “You need to give me some pointers because I am desperate for a man. A girl can only entertain herself for so long.”
Jake laughed, but Danny sent her an unimpressed look. “Way too much information, Gina.”
But Gina wasn’t deterred; she simply shook her head at him. “Don’t play the sexually repressed Christian boy with me, Danny. Only God knows what you got up to while you were away at college in Houston.”
“Seriously?” he all but groaned. This conversa
tion was deteriorating fast.
“Seriously,” Gina repeated. “I’m jealous. I’m starting to think I should have gone to college just for all the sex I must have missed out on.”
Danny turned to look at Jake. “Do you think if we find her a boyfriend, it’ll stop her from talking to us about her sex life?”
“No,” both Gina and Jake said at the same time, before cracking up laughing.
Though the conversation was a little more open than he was used to, Danny couldn’t help laughing at that. By all accounts, Gina’s parents were fairly forward thinking and had been open with Gina in a way his parents had never been with him. Gina’s parents hadn’t been all that religious, so she hadn’t sat through church every Sunday or gone to Sunday school like he had. Had the sins of the flesh lectures pounded into his brain. To this day he still cringed over the one and only time his dad had tried to talk to him about sex, and he was pretty sure that was only because his mom had pestered his dad into doing his fatherly duty.
Thank God for the internet and the disconcertingly endless amount of information about gay sex he’d been able to find or he would have been totally clueless when he got to college and met Adam. As it was, he’d been almost embarrassingly inexperienced, but Adam had always laughed and told him it was cute. Now that he thought about it, there may have been an edge of derisiveness to it…. Jake had been right; Adam really had been a jerk.
They all finished up their apple pie, the conversation easy. Jake and Gina each started on a second drink, but Danny’s head felt light from just the one, so a second definitely wouldn’t be a good idea. Jake had his arm slung along the back of the swing, and Danny had relaxed into the cushions at some point without even noticing.
Though they were sitting a little way apart, Jake was lightly stroking the base of his neck as he talked to Gina. Danny was happy to just relax there, while Jake and Gina exchanged stories, getting to know each other better. He let his eyes slipped closed, and the last thought before he fell asleep—maybe it was the combination of painkillers and alcohol—was he was sitting with his two favorite people in the world and had never felt more content.
Chapter Ten
JAKE GLANCED down at Danny as his weight shifted into his side, unsurprised to see he’d fallen asleep.
“Poor guy,” Gina said with a note of affection and sympathy in her voice. “He’s had a rough couple of days.”
“Yeah, he has.” That protective feeling was burning in his chest again, and Jake wanted nothing more than to curl his arm around Danny’s shoulder and pull him closer.
“So, you and him—”
He looked up at Gina in alarm, since Danny was so desperate not to let anyone know about him. Them. Whatever was going on.
But Gina simply smiled. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not completely stupid, unlike most people in this town. I had a feeling back in high school that maybe Danny wasn’t into girls. He never showed any interest in anyone, actually. Had lots of friends, but also somehow managed to keep to himself.”
“And how did you take that and come up with the theory that he and I are a thing? Just because I’m the only gay man in this town—that you know of?”
“No.” She made a noise like she thought he was an idiot. “I have eyes. I noticed the way you were looking at him last night. And then tonight, I could tell something had shifted between the two of you. Danny was different, like more settled, or more comfortable in his own skin, or something. I’m glad you came along, Jake. I think you’re going to be really good for him.”
“I don’t know if he’d agree with that. He’s terrified of anyone finding out about him, and I think I push him out of his comfort zone.” He gave up pretending anything and lowered his arm from the back of the swing to Danny’s shoulder, shifting them both so Danny was resting more comfortably against him.
“Well, maybe he needs pushing out of his comfort zone,” she replied stubbornly. “But I can’t exactly blame him, not with his parents being the way they are.”
“His mom seems nice, but his dad is a little intense.”
“His dad is an absolute bastard and that’s putting it nicely.” There was definitely a note of bitterness or outrage on Danny’s behalf in her voice. “His mom would probably be okay with it, but I can’t even imagine what his dad would do if he found out about him. Probably disown him. And that wouldn’t even be the worst of it.”
He frowned and looked down at Danny, reaching up to brush his fingers through his hair. He’d been hoping Danny had just exaggerated or overanalyzed the extremity of his dad’s reaction if he found out the truth, and that maybe it wouldn’t really be that bad. But having Gina confirm it was making him rethink everything. His stomach twisted as a terrible thought occurred to him.
“His dad—” He had to pause and clear his throat. “His dad wouldn’t actually hurt him. Physically I mean?”
Gina shrugged, her expression concerned. “I don’t actually know. I’d like to say no, but I’ve seen Mr. Jones angry and—I don’t like to speculate, but once or twice Danny came to school with suspicious bruises he never had any explanation for.”
The seriousness of the circumstances finally sank in along with a slow wave of quiet rage at the idea Danny’s father may have hit him in the past. Danny had told him, and he’d respected Danny’s fear, but had also been a little dismissive, thinking in the long run it would all turn out, even if his parents did discover the truth. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed Danny so fast. Yes, he’d said all the right things about giving Danny time and going at his pace, but Jake also had to admit to himself that he’d gone out of his way to tempt Danny into everything that’d happened between them so far.
Clearly he needed to take this more seriously. But then the question had to be asked. If Danny planned on staying in Everness indefinitely, but didn’t ever want his dad to find out, where did that leave them? He’d told Danny he didn’t mind being a secret, and that was true in the short term. But it wasn’t something he wanted to do for years. Besides, as soon as he’d seen Leroy Hobbs brought to some kind of justice, he hadn’t planned on sticking around.
He dragged a hand through his hair and swore silently to himself. This was exactly why he kept arguing with himself over getting involved with Danny. He didn’t need this type of complication; it could only spell trouble in the long run. Unfortunately, Danny had proven to be more temptation than he could resist. Now what the hell did he do?
“Are you going to tell him you know?” he finally asked Gina, pushing the uncomfortable thoughts aside.
She tilted her head as she stared at Danny thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It’d freak him out, I think. And I don’t want to upset him.”
“On the other hand, it might be good for him to know he’s got someone else he can talk to about this.”
“I think he’s been through enough trauma this week, but if I can find the right time, I’ll bring it up.” Gina shivered, then stood and went over to a rustic wooden chest pushed up against the built-in side of the gazebo. She opened the lid and pulled out a couple of blankets, before scooching herself into the small space on the other side of Danny, leaving the three of them squished comfortably on the swing. Between them, they spread out the blankets, blocking out the slight chill that’d taken to the air now the sun had gone down.
“One more drink?” she asked, holding up the last bottles.
“Better not let them go to waste.” He took one from her with a smile. “And Gina? Thanks. I’m glad Danny has a friend like you.”
She smiled fondly down at him. “He earned it.”
“There’s a story there.” He had to say, he was intrigued by that little hint.
“But not for tonight.” Gina saluted him with her drink and settled back into the cushions.
Jake rested his chin against Danny’s head, feeling the slow and steady pace of Danny’s breathing against his side, listening to the frogs and night insects in the distance. He’d gotten a whole lot more than he’d barga
ined for when he’d decided to come to Everness.
JAKE ROUSED, sunlight cutting across his eyes. He turned his head away from the light, cheek coming up against a soft head of hair as he registered the warm weight of someone snuggled into his side. Danny.
He opened his eyes to find it was only just dawn. Danny had his head resting on his shoulder, one arm curled around his middle, the other tucked up in the sling. On Danny’s other side, Gina was leaning into him, all cocooned in the blankets.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he did remember enjoying that last drink with Gina and feeling completely relaxed.
Danny made a low noise in his sleep, almost sounding in pain. Was his shoulder hurting him? Sleeping outside in the cool night air probably hadn’t been the best thing for him. He should have made sure Danny got inside to his bed.
He ran a hand through Danny’s mussed hair and then leaned down to set his lips against his ear.
“Danny,” he said in a low voice. “Wake up.”
His breathing hitched as he shifted. Jake could tell the moment he became aware of his surroundings, because he went unnaturally still, his body tensing all over.
“Jake?” He lifted his head, pulling his arm from around him and then glancing back at Gina, who made a grumpy-sounding noise and pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
“Would you two go back to sleep? It’s too early to be awake,” she muttered in a scratchy voice.
Danny, however, was having none of it. “Gina, if my dad goes out to the garage and sees us like this—”
“He’ll think we had a threesome and be totally jealous?” she said over a yawn.
“Gina!” Danny sat upright and then inhaled sharply, pressing a hand against his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” He clamped a hand on Danny’s noninjured shoulder to stop him from going anywhere.
Take Down Page 9