Jacob's Ladder (26 page)

“Probably.” I wasn"t going to tell Cam my brother had come out to me. No way.

Let him find out for himself. “We"ll be sure to put it in a mug. It"s easier to drink that way wrong-handed.”

Cam shot me a look like he wondered if I was making fun of him. Since I sort of was, I thought I"d try to look innocent.

“What?” I asked when he stared at me through a green light and people behind us started to honk.

“Nothing, never mind.” He took off when the light was perfectly orange, and after that neither of us spoke until we pulled into the hospital parking lot.

I got out of the car and leaned in to say thank you. “Thanks for all the things you"ve done, Cam. You"re a good friend.”

Cam smiled briefly and turned to look behind the car, clearly indicating he was done with talking for now.

“I"ll tell Dan you said hi and that you wish him well,” I said before closing the door. His eyes found mine, and we both knew how important that was to him. He jerked a nod, and I waved.

I watched him back out of the parking space, and then I headed for the front door of the hospital.

I"d had those dreams as a kid, where you"re naked and have to stand in front of the class and recite the Gettysburg Address or something. I"d dreamed I was trying to get somewhere, and no matter what happened, something prevented me. But I"d never been the kind of guy to dream that wherever I went, everyone hated me.

Yet that"s exactly the reception I got at the hospital, from the volunteers at the registration desk to the nurses" station to the girl in scrubs taking my brother"s blood pressure when I entered his room. It was the same story. Chilly silence followed by either a murderous glare or the quickest exits I"d ever experienced outside of a bomb threat.

When the nurse left the room without responding to my cheery hello, I blinked in surprise. “What the hell?”

Laughter rumbled in Dan"s chest like a groan. “I know something you don"t know,” he sang. He looked tired but in good spirits. His arm rested immobilized in what looked like a huge baffle. His pupils were huge, and his speech slurred.

“What?”

“Closet Lad is breaking hearts all over town.” He said it like
heartsh
.

“
What
?”

“The news is spreading like wildfire, and you"re persona non grata right about now.”

I slumped into the chair next to his bed. “Just great.” 150

Z. A. Maxfield

I had to give JT points for trying, if that"s actually what was happening. “It"s probably all your imagination.”

“I understand he"s just finishing up with the As.” Dan swallowed hard and tried to smile, but I could see he was in pain.

“Should I call someone?” I asked. “Do you need something?”

“No.”

I sat still for a minute, but the urge to fidget was keen.

He shot me a speculative look and grunted. “What"s up? Out with it.”

“I guess I expected to see JT at some point. But he sent Cam to come get me.”

“He of the Camshaft.”

“Yep.”
Little do you know, Dan, that you have a ticket to ride, if you want it
. “I guess I just wanted my moment, you know? When he chose me.”

“The
Officer and a Gentleman
moment? That was one of Bree"s favorite movies.”

“Figures,” I said unfairly. “The only thing I remember is the guy who died in the closet.”

“What are you going to do if he doesn"t pick you? What if he never wants to be demonstrative in public? What if you never get that evening out, or he can"t bring himself to hold your hand when you walk down the street?” My heart tightened. “I don"t know.” But I did know. I didn"t want a guy who wasn"t out. Period. JT held my heart, but that wasn"t enough for me anymore. I wanted something real, not something convenient. Being with Sander had taught me that. I felt like I"d wasted a year. I would have been just as happy with no one as I"d been with Sander.

“I think about that a lot, you know.”

I held a cup of water out so the straw dangled in front of Dan"s dry-looking lips. “Do you?”

He took a healthy sip and swallowed. “Sometimes I wonder if I have the guts.

It"s all theory really, until you have to dance with a man in public or kiss him good-bye at the airport.”

I hadn"t thought about that. I"d never felt I had a choice, so I"d never hidden my sexuality. Even in high school. But it hadn"t been exactly easy. “It"s not a picnic.”

“I know,” Dan said grimly.

“But it gets easier.”

“Does it?”

“You get tougher,” I admitted.

“Good to know.” He looked not only tired but disheartened. I wished I could paint a better picture of what he had to look forward to. The truth was I"d always envied the ease of his existence. Well-to-do, trophy wife, temperate, intelligent, St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder

151

personable. He was socially bulletproof. While I knew he didn"t have a happy marriage, I had at least thought it suited him to be married to a beautiful woman.

Now that I knew he"d been acting all along, it hurt my heart to think of him trapped in that existence, eyeing men he was attracted to. Men he could never have.

“You don"t have to answer this. When you were married to Bree, did you ever—

were you ever with a man?”

“Yes,” Dan whispered.

“So…”

“I have a dirty little secret or ten to atone for, yes.” He looked away. “It"s different when you connect the dots.”

The dots? From Dan to some nameless, faceless guy who could have been—

probably was—exactly like me? A man who was falling in love, maybe. Attracted at least. Deserving of a lot more than a quiet hook-up in a hotel room while Dan was away from home on business. Definitely. A man who had a right to be more than someone"s midnight booty call.

Maybe Dan"s apple hadn"t fallen too far from our father"s tree after all.

“Don"t look at me like that.”

“But the infidelity clause—if you violated it first—”

“The difference is mine were tricks. Some of them I paid for. I never had a relationship outside my marriage. She did, and with someone I knew. Someone I thought was my friend. I did one-night stands, and their affair has lasted for eight months, that I know of. It"s not the same. And even if it were, I never got caught, and she did. I"m still trying to be generous and end it on a win-win.”

“I"m sorry. You cheated on her. You didn"t get caught, but in my book that doesn"t absolve you. I don"t understand how you can make the distinction.”

“I don"t either,” he said petulantly. “Maybe I was wrong. What about all those women of JT"s? They can"t have been aware he was seeing you after their dates.”

“That"s wrong too, and I know it.”

“Maybe we were all due for a karmic correction.” He turned his face away.

“Maybe I"m just tired. Can we talk about this later?”

“Sure… I"m sorry.”

I was tired too. I knew I was over being the kind of guy whose lover visited him after dark and took off before dawn. After only a week I was done with that. Both Dan and I deserved better than what we"d had and we had some atoning to do for what we"d taken. And now we had the chance for a fresh start without reservations.

“You and me? We"re going to be fine, Danilo,” I said, even though my brother was drifting off to sleep. “No more waiting for happiness to come from outside, yeah?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he growled. “As long as there"s painkillers, I"m your guy.” I pulled the sheet up a little, just fussing. There wasn"t really anything wrong with how it was, I just wanted to tuck my brother in.

152

Z. A. Maxfield

My big brother, Danilo.

“Night. I"ll be right here.”

“Night.” Hospital noises were the only sounds for a long time. “Don"t judge me too harshly.”

“How can I without taking a good long look at myself?” Maybe that wasn"t something I wanted to face either, right then.

St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder

153

Chapter Twenty-four

I slept in the chair next to my brother, and no one disturbed me until I woke up at the hour I generally slogged to work. I left the building and stood in the cold so I could use my cell phone to call Mary Catherine, who agreed to pick me up.

When she drove up, she pushed the button to unlock the passenger-side door, and I got in gratefully, rubbing my hands together against the cold of the chilly night mist.

“The first thing I"m going to need to do is get car insurance and rent a car. I don"t think Dan"s going to be driving for a while. His car is totaled.”

“I"m so sorry.”

“We"re alive.” I felt more gloomy than usual. Normally I liked the fact that my job started before the rest of the world was up and pouring its first cup of coffee. But that day, even with Mary Catherine chatting amiably in the driver"s seat next to me, instead of feeling like I was paddling ahead of a great wave, trying to catch a ride into the day, I felt like I bobbed alone in a vast becalmed lake. “Dan and I are thinking about finding a place here.”

“Yeah?” Mary Catherine looked at me at the stoplight. I could feel her studying me and wondered what she was thinking. Not enough to ask.

“Dan likes it here.”

“What about you? Do you like it here, Yasha?”

I thought about it. “I
love
it. Muse says that means St. Nacho"s wants me.” Mary Catherine chuckled. “I see you"ve heard about Minerva at Rune Nation and her seat-of-awesome-spiritual-power theory.”

“Yeah.” I laughed too. I wanted to meet Minerva; that was definitely going on my to-do list. “What"s your take on that?”

“I think the sound of the waves mellows people out,” she said. “And whatever nature doesn"t cure, Nacho"s Bar and their famous blue Adios Motherfuckers will.” By the time we got to Miss Independence Pies, the girls were already on the doorstep waiting on us. As always Candace and Bianca were bickering and Muse was looking on, waiting to jump in if it came to blows and bloodshed. Analise stood under the security lights, wearing a really attractive sparkly sweater with a matching scarf in a vivid purple color that I"d never have imagined her wearing the week before.”

“Well, well, well.” Mary Catherine sighed.

154

Z. A. Maxfield

I sensed that Mary Catherine was observing the same thing I was. At one point, fear had sucked all the color and life from Analise. Now it was like watching someone who"d drowned take a first choking breath of air, like watching the color fill her cheeks and the life return to her eyes as oxygen returned to her system.

Muse ran to the car when I got out, and wrapped both tattooed arms around me, burying her face into my solar plexus. “You are not allowed to be squished.” I tilted my head and leaned back so I could see her face. “I wasn"t.”

“See that you aren"t.” Muse growled at me, “I hate that shit. Hospitals.”

“My brother got hurt,” I said. I felt a little hollow, like if I didn"t have her to hold me up, I might not be able to stand. Maybe that"s why she did it. At that point I gave in and hugged her back hard, as if I"d known that little girl for a hundred years. “Thank you.”

Mary Catherine unlocked the door, and we all went forth to make pies. The rhythm of a bakery, the mixing of the dough, creating the fillings, the sheeting and cutting, the placement in pans, and the crimping of edges took me to the place I often go, where my hands work and my mind finds peace.

I looked around. Bianca and Candace were enjoying a brief respite from bitter conflict by the sink. They were drinking coffee and waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Muse was processing apples, and Analise was making the custard filling for the pecan pies. Mary Catherine had gone into her office to work on her business plan.

A gust of chilly wind came from the door, and I looked up to see JT standing there in his uniform. I felt every eye on me as he advanced.

“Yasha.” He stood before me with his hands behind his back, as if he were at parade rest.

“JT.” I turned off the mixer. I pulled the bandanna from my hair, because there are some moments you don"t want to experience with a food-safety head covering, even if it"s way cooler than a hairnet. I hoped this was going to be one of those. JT looked so solemn. When he pulled his hands from behind his back, he held out a single red rose. It was perfect—its velvety petals were still crisp and dewy, its long stem free of thorns. It was a big, fat, tightly closed bud, just beginning to open at the top. It looked like lips when I bowed my head to breathe in the scent.

“I came to ask you if you"d care to go out with me tonight,” JT said. I suspected he projected his voice a little so the girls could hear. “I thought we"d go for a nice dinner, maybe do some dancing?”

“Yeah?” I thought about my meager wardrobe and the fact that Dan was in the hospital, and my heart sank a little. “Maybe now"s not such a good time.” Candace hip-checked me right out of the way and stood in front of JT, grinning like a clown. “He accepts.”

“Wait, I—”

Candace fired a look at me that shut me up. “What time?”

“Uh…” JT looked from me to Candace and back to me. I shrugged. “Seven?” St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder

155

“Perfect,” she told him, taking his arm. “That will give him plenty of time to do a little shopping and then go see his brother to make certain he"s all right. You can pick him up at the hospital, okay?”

“Candace—” I implored.

“Okay, then.” JT allowed her to hustle him to the door but caught the frame before she could shove him out. “Hey, wait.
Yasha
.” I saw him when he realized he had my undivided attention. “Yeah?” His lips curved upward into a smile, and his eyes held such sincere warmth, they caught my heart on fire. He gestured to me and then to himself. “
Mizpah
.” I nodded.
Emotional bond
. It was a covenant between us. It looked like I had my
Officer and a Gentleman
moment after all.

After the door closed behind JT, everyone started talking at once. Mostly it was a chorus of surprised giggling. Muse smacked my arm with a tiny fist.

Bianca put a halt to the whole deal when she told everyone, “We have pies to make, and we"d better be quick if we want to get done in time to take Yasha shopping.”