Long Way Home by Carolyn Gray (32 page)

cheekbone and around his eye were a lovely shade of purplish green.

After a quick cleanup, Gev grabbed his duffel and set it outside the bathroom, then headed

down the stairs. Voices wafted up to him. Lee was sitting on the edge of the couch, a doughnut

and a mug of coffee on the table in front of him, as he talked animatedly to Drew, who had

curled up into one of the chairs along with the dog.

“…even China a couple of times, but Nick always hates going there.”

“Oh, why?” Drew said, one hand absently petting the dog, who was the only one who’d

noticed Gev stood at the bottom of the stairs. “I think it would be fascinating to experience a

culture so diverse from our own.”

“It is to me, though I’m hungry the entire time.”

Trish walked in then, but her attention was on their conversation. She set down some

napkins. “Why, no McDonald’s there?”

“Doesn’t taste like ours. Fortunately, Nick always brings his own chef with us, so we never

really starve. He had a hard time filling his ingredients list in South Korea, though.”

Drew looked up. “There he is.”

Lee turned and saw him. Their gazes locked for a moment, and a hot thrill sizzled through

Gev. He gathered himself and entered the den.

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“So, Gev,” Trish said as she started to sit next to Lee. Drew made a sound, and Trish

moved to the other chair. She plopped down in it and curled up much like her girlfriend had.

“Have a good shower?”

“Sounded like he did,” Drew said, unsuccessfully hiding her grin behind her coffee cup.

Gev felt his face heating as he looked at Lee, who’d sat back on the couch, doughnut in

hand. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Hope you guys left some hot water.”

“Oh shit,” Gev said. Lee’s amused gaze caught his.

Drew smirked at him. “Oh, don’t look so mortified. It’ll heat back up. Sit down.”

Lee said, “Trish tells me this house has lousy soundproofing.”

“Great.” Gev sank onto the couch next to Lee. Drew watched him, her gaze questioning.

“So, what are you guys talking about?”

“Touring,” Trish said, popping back up. “Let me get you some coffee.” She darted into the

kitchen, then called, “You like yours black, right?”

“I’ll take some milk if you have it.”

“Sure.”

Khyra hopped off the chair she’d been sharing with Drew. The dog scooted between Lee

and the coffee table, hopped up on the other side of Gev, and looked at him expectantly as Trish

returned, the box of doughnuts in her hand. She set it on the table.

“That cinnamon roll is yours,” Drew said. “I got it special for you, you know.”

“Thank you. I’ll get it in a second.” He took the mug Trish offered him, sipped, and

relished the warmth pouring down his throat. The dog eyed him—or, rather, his cinnamon roll.

He pulled it away. “Get your own, dog.”

Drew picked up a doughnut, then tossed the dog a piece on the floor. “Leave him alone,

Khyra. Sorry. She’s such a moocher.”

“That’s why she’s so fat,” Trish said.

“I told you we should put her on a diet.”

“You’re the one who feeds her crap like doughnuts!”

Drew pouted. “But she loves them. Don’t you, baby?” she said to the dog as she pinched

off another bit of doughnut and tossed it. Khyra snapped the doughnut out of midair and

swallowed it so fast, there was no way she could’ve tasted it. She whipped her head from Drew

to Gev to Lee and whined.

“Horrible manners,” Trish said, pulling Khyra away. “Go on, to the kitchen. We don’t need

the likes of you around here.”

“Meanie,” Drew muttered, but she set down the rest of the doughnut and picked up a pen

and notepad that Gev hadn’t noticed. Her expression grew serious as she looked from him to

Lee. Much as her dog had. He caught Lee’s eye and dropped his gaze to his coffee as he took

another sip.

“Okay, so,” Drew said, settling back with the notepad on her thigh. “Start telling me

everything you can remember, Gev. I’ve already got Lee’s take on a few things. I want to see

what you have.”

“You told her everything? From the start?”

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“I told her about the—”

Drew rapped her pen against the pad. “No, don’t help him.”

“Did you call the detective?” Gev asked Lee.

“She’s glad to know we’re somewhere safe. She’ll call later.”

“Was she pissed at us for leaving?”

Lee put his hand out and teetered it back and forth. “A little.”

“She yelled at him,” Trish said.

Great. “She’s been with the case from the beginning, ever since Stefan disappeared.”

“Has the case been active all this time?” asked Drew.

“No, actually it hasn’t. After Stef disappeared, nothing else happened, and then Lee lef—”

Lee remained expressionless. Gev wondered if Lee had told Drew about that. “The case went

into limbo, but she didn’t close it. She kept in touch with my parents for a while, but as usual…”

He looked at Trish then. She’d met his mother several times. “As usual, my mom went nuts and

told Detective Ramirez to leave us alone.”

“She didn’t, though, did she?” Trish said.

Drew looked like she was going to thump Trish, but a look from Trish quelled her.

“No. She came to me one day at school, told me she hadn’t given up.” He hesitated, not

really wanting to say what she had told him. This thing with Lee was still too new, too raw and

fragile, despite Lee’s conviction that they would work things out. Gev cleared his throat. “She

told me she didn’t think Stef was dead.”

Drew looked up from her notepad. “Really?”

Beside him, Lee stiffened but didn’t say anything. Gev couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare to.

“Yeah. Because they never found a body.”

“So he was never pronounced dead in absentia?”

“No. Mom wouldn’t let them.”

“So tell me about when Lee showed up, after all this started. Everything you can think of.”

“Detective Ramirez knows all this, you know,” Gev said.

Drew waved her pen. “I know, and I’m a consumer-rights attorney. But”—she pointed at

him with the pen—“you are not that much different from my usual client. You’re a good citizen

pulled into a mess not of your own making, and you’re suffering for it. You never know—fresh

eyes might help out. Besides,” she said, her gaze softening, the fierce persona he thought of as

her lawyer face pushed aside for a moment, “I care about you. And you too, Lee, because
he

cares about you. This is the strangest mess I’ve ever come across, even back when I was in

criminal law.”

“I didn’t know you were ever in criminal law,” Trish said, clearly surprised.

Drew reached for Trish’s hand and squeezed. “I know. I never told you, because it didn’t

last long.” She grimaced. “I lasted six months. Thank the stars Jason’s dad’s firm had an

opening.”

“You hate guns,” Trish pointed out.

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“Yeah. I think I just forget about that time. It was scary as hell. I always was so scared one

of the criminals we were representing would decide he didn’t like how we were doing things and

would get his buddies to off us or something.”

Gev startled when Lee shifted to drape his arm along the back of the couch, creating a

comforting weight against Gev’s shoulders. He shifted slightly, leaning more into Lee.

“So,” Drew said, “what else can you tell me?”

Gev picked up his coffee and drained it. Trish nodded questioningly at the mug in his

hand, and he gave her a smile of thanks as she took it and went to get him more.

He was damn grateful they’d run into Trish and Drew, of all the people he knew in the

gayborhood. He settled back, Lee’s hand draping over his shoulder, and dredged up everything

he could think of while the others listened.

There was one thing, though, that he didn’t mention—Stefan’s journal, how he suspected

his mom never told the police about it. He would tell Lee about it later, after he’d had a chance to

look at it himself.

After a while, he ran out of things to say. Drew tapped the notepad.

“Any ideas?” Gev asked.

“Other than you guys are in one fucked-up, bizarre mess? Not yet.” She gave Lee a

piercing look that made Gev wonder if something had come up when Lee talked to her alone,

while he was shaving. But he was too tired to figure out what it could be.

Despite the coffee—of which he’d had at least three cups—he could feel himself sinking

deeper into exhaustion. He wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Lee and sleep for twelve

hours straight. It wasn’t even noon yet. He yawned, the conversation having been taken back

over by Lee as they returned to the subject of foreign countries and touring with a band—which

was very different from what it was like to tour with a ballet company.

Gev’s eyes closed, and he let them. He felt Lee rubbing his arm as his head lolled toward

Lee’s chest.

“Gev, you should go upstairs, take a nap.”

“No, I’d rather stay here,” he mumbled, brushing his hair from his face and then letting his

hand fall. He was so tired, he barely registered that it fell onto Lee’s leg.

“I’ll get him a pillow and blanket,” Trish said.

“How much sleep have you had since Sunday, Gev?”

He opened his eyes. “I don’t know, six hours? Seven?” He closed his eyes again, heard

Drew get up. Lee pushed Gev’s head onto his shoulder. The rise and fall of Lee’s chest felt so

damn good. Gev had started to doze when a blanket fell over him.

“You sure you want to sit there with him?” Trish said, her voice hushed.

“For a little while. Yeah.” Gev liked the rumble of Lee’s voice, deep in his chest.

“We’re having friends over tonight, so we’re going to run to the store,” she said.

Keys jingled. Drew’s voice. “The dog will alert you if there’s anyone but us around. We’ll

be back in an hour or so, okay?”

“Thanks,” Lee said. “We’ll be fine.”

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Something pushed against the back of the couch. Gev twitched as hair tickled his face, and

he felt Trish’s kiss. She was always doing that; Drew never did. He opened his eyes briefly, and

she patted his cheek. “Take care of him, Lee,” she said.

“I will.”

“You’d better,” Drew said. “Trish is all rainbows and fluffy clouds, but she’ll tear apart

anyone who hurts Gev, if she can.”

Lee chuckled at that, but Gev knew she was serious. That was what he loved about his

friends. Then they were gone, locking the door behind them.

Once they were alone, Gev yawned. “I probably should go upstairs,” he mumbled against

Lee’s chest.

Lee ran his hand over Gev’s head. “If you’re sure.”

Gev sat up reluctantly. “Yeah. If I don’t get some real sleep soon, I’m not going to be of

any use to anyone.”

“Go. I’ll be down here.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“No. I’ve got some phone calls to make anyway. Then I might take a nap myself.”

“Down here?”

“Yeah, my snoring might bother you.”

Gev looked at him suspiciously. “You are kidding about the snoring, I hope.”

“Honestly? Yeah.”

Smacking his shoulder playfully, Gev left him and headed upstairs. He grabbed his duffel

and went to the spare room, which was at the opposite end of the hallway from Trish and

Drew’s. He pushed open the door and dropped the bag.

He’d always liked this room, with its giant pineapple-carved four-poster, the hand-quilted

yellow blanket spread over the top of a thick mattress, and too many pillows, most of which he

tossed onto the small couch in the corner. The room also held Drew’s bookshelves, filled to

overcapacity with law books as well as research books on all kinds of subjects from fishing to

ballet, several of which he’d given her. He’d whiled away many an hour here whenever she and

Trish needed a dog-sitter. Someday, he intended to have a collection like this, he thought as he

ran his fingertips over the spines of some of the books. Someday, when he had a home again.

With Lee?

God, he hoped so.

Drew owned every book that must exist about Shakespeare, along with an amazing

collection of Russian biographies, nonfiction, and poetry; she also spoke the language fluently.

He envied her that. She’d suggested he just take up Russian himself. “Should come easily to you.

It’s in your blood, after all.”

Spanish hadn’t, but then, that wasn’t in his blood, so who knew?

After yanking off his jeans and shirt, he closed the door, then the curtains, making the

room as dark as possible. He drew the covers back and slid between the cool, soft sheets. He

pulled them up and let himself sink into the pillows as he closed his eyes. Sleep didn’t come

immediately, though. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened between him and Lee.

He was like a lovestruck teenager all over again. It amazed him how at ease he was with Lee all

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of a sudden. It felt good. He almost—
almost
—believed it would last beyond this mess. His track