Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (36 page)

“Okay?” The chestnut-haired tomboy looked at David as if he’d morphed into a spotted green alien. “Sweetie, it’s better than okay. It’s wonderful. You have to let me pay you for the work. This must have taken almost all your personal time to complete.”

Full relief washing through him like a drug, David held up his hands and shook his head. “No. This is my thank-you to you for taking a chance on me. It was the least I could do.”

Erin pushed up from her seat and rushed to David, pulling him in her arms. “No, it isn’t the least, not by a long shot.” Hugging David, she vigorously rubbed her hands up and down his back. The maternal gesture, even though Erin was probably a few years younger than him, burrowed into David and surrounded his core. “It’s incredible and amazing and perfect.” When she pulled back, she touched his cheeks, her stare misty. “And I’m so grateful you took the initiative and did this for the shelter.”

Choked up, David shared, “I need to tweak the site some more, and then I can put it live on the web whenever you want.”

“Let’s get it up as soon as we can.” After hugging him fast one more time, Erin rushed back to the table and picked up David’s laptop. “I have to go show this to everyone else. They’re going to freak. And I need to find Roy to see if he thinks we need to add some more info to the exotic animals’ page. I’ll be back with your computer in a jiff.” With that, Erin trotted out of the lunchroom and down the hall.

Holy mother. Just like Ben said would happen, that went perfectly.

Before David got a chance to fully slump against the counter, the sound of clapping pushed him back upright.

At the open door, Sam continued to clap and wore a shit-eating grin on his face. “I told you she would love it.”

Sam’s slow clap made David laugh, and he shook his head at the lanky teen. “What? Were you listening by the door the whole time?”

Sam wiggled his hand side to side. “Bits and pieces.” He moved into the room and added, “But I definitely heard the end there when she said she loved it, just like I predicted would happen.”

“I know.” Losing the steam pent up inside him, David finally leaned against the counter, feeling like a drenched man at the end of a ten-kilometer run. “I can’t believe I did it. When I was presenting everything to her, I was half-terrified I would throw up in her lap.”

Sam stood in front of David, shades of silver twinkling with sterling brightness in his eyes. “No, you’re too good for that. Congratulations, David.” Sam threw his arms around David’s shoulders and squeezed him tightly. Just as fast Sam eased back the slightest hair, his face inches from David’s, and a new skitter of bad nerves began moving up David’s spine. Sam said softly, “No one is happier than me that Erin took a chance on you.” Locked on David, Sam closed the scant distance between them and pressed his lips against David’s.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no
. Frozen in place, David could only hear Ben’s voice in his head telling him that Sam had more than friendship on his mind, and how David had scoffed at the idea. He would have to tell Ben about this right away. He would never want that good man to have a reason not to trust him or doubt the integrity of their relationship.

Sam slipped his tongue into David’s mouth—the feel and taste so very different from Ben—and David slammed out of the disconnected state he’d fallen into when Sam had pressed their mouths together.

Sam tried to nip David’s lip, but David turned his head and shoved him away. “No.” Sam tried to move in again, but David batted his arms down. “No. I like you, but not like that. You can’t kiss me.” David, breathing too wildly, wiped his mouth and rubbed his hand against his jeans, trying to get the taste of Sam off him. “I’m with someone.”

Sam’s lips pulled in a sneering frown. “I’ve seen him. Remember? He’s ugly and—”

“He’s not ugly,” David snapped, cutting Sam off. His hands suddenly tingled with new life, and he barely held back from smacking Sam across the face. “Ben is beautiful, and if you can’t see that, then it just goes to show how young and inexperienced and narrow-minded you are.”

“You’re right about part of that.” Sam took a step closer, and the passionate zeal in his stare sent another shiver down David’s spine. “I am inexperienced. I haven’t done anything with anyone yet. But I’m ready, and I want my first time to be with you.”

“No—”

Before David could finish his thought, Sam rushed him and grabbed him by the hips. “My ass is cherry, and it will be so damned tight around your cock you won’t know how to live through the pleasure.” He then boldly ran his hand down David’s cock through his jeans. “I’ve practiced giving blowjobs with a cucumber for weeks, so I know I can take this piece of meat all the way down my throat and suck you dry.”

Sam went in for another kiss, but David strong-armed him with more force than he’d ever used on another person. “Stop it, Sam.” He shook the kid, hoping to jolt him out of his single-minded plan. “Stop it now. I am your friend, but that is all. This isn’t happening. Ben is the only man I want in my life like that. Ben wouldn’t share me with anyone for all the money in the world.” Without an ounce of uncertainty, David knew what he spoke to be true. “I’m his and his alone. The reverse is true too.”

Sam flushed red, yanked himself free of David’s hold, and with a high scratch in his voice, vowed, “You’ll regret that. You’ll regret passing up on having something with me. I would have given you everything and loved doing it. That big jerk you’re letting fuck you stomps around like an animal and yells and growls at you and treats you like he owns you. You might like that for about five minutes, but you’ll get bored with him fast enough and start wishing you had something fresh and new naked next to you in bed.” Shaking like an old car about to fall apart, Sam backed away to the door but paused to point in David’s direction. “You’ll come take a second look at me soon enough, and when you do, maybe I’ll give you a shot.” He looked David over, and an awful laugh escaped. “Maybe I’ll say yes after I make you get down on your hands and knees and beg.” With that, Sam spun and disappeared from the entryway.

“Sam!” David choked on the kid’s name. He rushed into the hall and saw the guy a dozen feet away. “Sam!” When Sam stopped and looked back at him, for all the world like a twelve-year-old in the face, even though he lived in a man’s body, David’s heart broke, and he said, “Don’t be like this. You’re young and bright, and you have a kind heart. Don’t get mean and ugly just because you didn’t get the first thing you wanted. I did that, and it was the first step into a really bad place. You don’t want that for yourself.” Instances where David had behaved a thousand times worse and more dangerously than Sam had just now washed through him, and he forced himself to leave every bit of that shame exposed for this young man to see. “Trust me. You don’t want to start down a terrible road like that.”

Middle fingers cocked on both hands, Sam used them like guns in the old west and shot them at David once, twice, three times. He then put them back in their holsters, muttered, “Pathetic fucker,” and ran down the long hallway, his boots hitting the ceramic tiles, the sound bouncing off the walls, and he sprinted out of David’s sight.

Damn it. Damn it
. David hit his head back against the wall. How had this happened? He’d never led Sam on or given him any hint that they could be anything more than friends. He didn’t know how he could have been so blind to something Ben had clearly seen. Now he’d probably lost one of the few real friends he’d made since returning to Coleman.

Maybe I should go after him
. David eyed the long, empty hallway, and his heart ached. He understood pining for a man who didn’t feel the same.
Maybe if I tell him enough about my life, he’d probably decide he doesn’t want a thirty-four-year-old, living-paycheck-to-paycheck, brokedown, psychologically damaged ex-con as the star of his fantasies after all
. With luck and some real honesty, David would more than likely kill Sam’s crush before it had a chance to bloom.

David pushed away from the doorjamb, but before he could chase after Sam, Erin trotted down from the other end of the hallway with mountain-like, intense Roy in tow.

When Erin and Roy reached David, she said, “Roy had a few thoughts about the website, and I agreed with them.” She dragged in Roy, who’d hung back a handful of steps, and then looked up at David with a soft smile. “Are you ready to take some notes?”

“Absolutely.” With a nod, David gestured for them to enter the lunchroom first. “Lead the way.”

David followed after Erin and Roy, took a seat between them, and shifted back into work mode.

He would track down Sam and deal with him later.

* * * *

Hours later, after ten o’clock at night, weary to the bone, David finally fitted his key in the lock on his motel room door and stumbled inside. He’d finished work at nine, tried to find Sam, but he’d been informed that the kid had disappeared from work before the end of his shift.
Shit. Shit
. David knew why, but he’d kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t embarrass Sam in front of his coworkers for the world.

David had sent a couple of texts to Sam and tried to call him, to no avail. A bone-deep place in David told him to push some more and fix this with Sam, but he also recognized the need to make Sam understand him came from the same place his other obsessive tendencies did, and that he had to back off. David could not repair his friendship with Sam unless Sam wanted the same and, more importantly, not until the guy was ready to make the first move.

After shutting the door and putting his backpack on one of the chairs at the table, David checked his phone for new messages. He didn’t look for ones from Sam this time, but rather from Ben.
Nothing new yet
. David pocketed the phone and took a minute to kick off his shoes.

From an earlier text, David knew that Ben’s plane would touch down in Sweden soon and that his investigator friend hadn’t found Mikael yet but had confidence he would by the time Ben arrived. David just wanted to know they were both okay; the brothers would constantly take up his thoughts until he heard something good from Ben.

With Ben’s situation with Mikael starting David’s day, and then David’s usual physical workday still in play, plus making his presentation to Erin, and the situation with Sam, David’s adrenaline had put him on a roller coaster, and he yawned as the day caught up with him. He excused himself and then laughed when it hit him that he was the only one in the room.

Wait
. “Elsa?” Getting to his feet, David clicked his tongue to get her attention. “Where are you, baby?”

When the kitten didn’t trot out from under the bed, David crossed to her little corner of the motel room. Before he got there, he caught sight of the closed bathroom door in his peripheral vision, and he shook his head. “Did you shut yourself in again?” With everything that had gone down with Ben, David’s plan to buy a doorstop today had slipped his mind. “I’m sorry, sweetie.” David gently pushed open the door so as not to hit her. “It’s my fault.”

David looked up, and his heart lurched into his throat.
Oh my God
. A hint of reflection from a shaving mirror exposed a small portion of someone tucked back in the darkened bathroom.
The notes. Oh my God
. David tried to yank the door closed, but a much stronger yank back sent David flying into the bathroom headfirst. The person leaped from behind the door, came into full, Technicolor view, and David croaked, “What are you doing here?”

Instead of an answer, a white towel came at David’s face. The damp material was smashed against his mouth and nose, and a sharply sweet smell invaded David’s nostrils.

In an instant, a cry for Ben trapped in his throat, David sank into darkness and fell to the floor.

* * * *

Late into the night, Ben pulled to a stop next to a warehouse near Göteborg’s harbor in Sweden, spotted his contact in an alley, and jumped out of the car. Floodlights down the dark street highlighted the sheen of rain on concrete and asphalt, and a mist hovered over the water behind him. Tall buildings and city lights within walking distance showed a modern, bustling metropolitan area, but this part of the harbor in the dead of night might as well have been a ghost town.

Uncaring of how quickly the damp, drizzly air would sink into his bones, Ben slammed the door and strode to silver-haired, stout Ivan.

Tucked under the high eaves of the brick building to his left, Ivan spoke the moment Ben reached his side. “Your brother is in the warehouse two down, across the street. It’s abandoned but gets used as a temporary club sometimes.” With Ivan’s thick accent and the craggy, deep wrinkles in the man’s face, he made every word he uttered ominous. “People don’t understand how easy it is to track them, especially kids. He wasn’t hard to find.” Ivan coughed and glanced up and down the street before looking at Ben again. “I haven’t heard anything, but if the father hired someone, he might not be far behind.”

With a grimace, Ben studied the enormous three-level warehouse once more. “I’ll get in there and get him fast.” Mikael’s passport, clothing, and a few other personal items pushed to the forefront of Ben’s thoughts, and he asked, “Were you able to extract the other things for me?”

Ivan nodded, and his sudden grin was downright villainous. “Nobody was home. Made it easy for my girl to get in and do it. They’ll never know she was there. I’ll put the bag in your car while you’re inside.” Just as fast, Ivan sobered, and he dug his hands into the pockets of his gray rain slicker. “I’ll wait out here until I see you bring your brother out safely, and then I will go.”

In place of a handshake, Ben squeezed Ivan’s shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough. Payment has already been taken care of with your office.”

“Good luck,” Ivan answered, his tone fatalistic again. “It’s dark and ugly in there.” He looked to the building, and shadows darkened his stare. “I don’t mean only the rats and mold.”

Fuck
. When Ben had gotten on a plane fourteen hours ago, he hadn’t expected unicorns and rainbows upon his landing, but he’d been hoping to avoid a methed-out rave.
So much for that
. “Understood.”