Making Promises (42 page)

They weren’t. His only tie to them ever had been through his mother, and looking at their disapproving faces, he realized that she had effectively cut that tie forever.

But Shane and Shane’s family were beaming at him, proud and happy and amazed. They were his family, if only he would take them.

His shining face dropped for a moment to the plywood beneath him, and he wondered if he could.

Come down on your own and leave your body alone…

“Can’t Find My Way Home”—Blind Faith

IT WOULD be, Ylena had told him, like when Mikhail was kicking heroin.

First he would push Shane away, and he would do it brutally and he would do it with terrible finality, sure that his pain would be all he needed to exist. And then, in the aftermath, he would be devastated from the loss and sure there was no way to undo what he had done.

“He will push you away when I am gone,
lubime
,” she’d assured him that last night, as Mikhail was otherwise occupied. “He will do it horribly, in such a way to cut your heart into little tiny pieces. I know, because I picked the pieces of my own heart up off the floor and stitched them back together and determined to love him in spite of the pain. Can you do the same?”

Shane had quailed for a moment. God. It just seemed like any lover he chose, and he was destined to have his heart stomped on by someone wearing sharp metal cleats.

“I swear,” Ylena told him softly when he hesitated, “it will be worth it.”

“Of course I can,” Shane told her. “I promise—he won’t be alone when you’re gone.”

The next morning, he’d gotten Mikhail’s frantically repressed message,
She is not breathing anymore, Shane. She is gone,
and he had known.

It had begun.

Mikhail had seemed grateful for him that week—he said “Thank you” often and sincerely, but Shane had felt it. They had not made love in the dark hours when everybody had gone home. Mikhail had lain still in his arms, staring into the night, preparing himself to separate—Shane could tell. Sometimes, when Shane was dealing with something that Mikhail didn’t understand, Shane would look up and see those blue-gray eyes on him, haunted and cold.
I want you, but I can’t have you.
Shane longed to just shake him.
Dammit, you
can
have me—you just have to try!

The day of the funeral—the final rite in the passage of such a strong, kind, amazing woman—Shane saw Mikhail looking at the family that was offering to be his and saw the terrible fear in his expression.
Oh, God—I
can’t do this. How can they possibly be mine?
Mikhail had dropped his eyes, resolution clear in his face, and Shane sighed.

Deacon looked at him, clearly puzzled. “What in the hell was that?

Not the dancing—that was just fine. What was that look he just gave you?”

Shane sighed again. “That was Mickey, getting ready to run like hell.”

Deacon grunted. “Oh yeah. You’re right. I should know that look by now.”

On his other side Crick grunted too. “Damned straight you should. I don’t know how you missed it.”

“Not missed it,” Deacon murmured sourly. “Blocked it out.” He turned back to Shane. “What’s your plan with this?”

“Well, first I let him break up with me and say all the nasty shit that he’s been backing up this last week, so he can tell himself he doesn’t deserve me and I’m better off without him.”

Deacon winced, his beautiful face sympathetic. “That sounds like fun—and after we scrape you off the floor, then what?” Shane smiled at him apologetically. “Then I call in the reserves and show him I don’t shake that easy.”

“Oh God,” Crick grumbled. “We get to babysit Shane’s boyfriend.

Won’t that be fun?”

“He likes kids’ movies,” Shane told him helpfully. “That’s a plus.” 258

Crick brightened. He had a weakness for Spongebob that had become a family legend. “Well, now—that I can do.” The funeral ended, and Shane stood dutifully behind Mikhail, but he brushed the smaller man’s shoulder once, by accident, and felt Mickey shrink from him. Very carefully, he shored up his heart then, because he’d promised Ylena, and he’d promised Mikhail, for that matter, that no sin would be too horrible for Shane to forgive.

But Mickey had a mouth on him, and Shane was not naïve.

Shane drove them back to the apartment, aware that not everybody else was going home. Deacon and Crick were behind him, finding a parking spot with Crick’s nice sedan, and he assumed they were going to hang out and make sure Shane would be all right.

Shane was pretty sure he wouldn’t be.

As soon as they walked in the door, Mikhail shrugged carelessly and said, “You do not need to hang around me like a limpet you know. I do have a life of my own. You can go now.”

Shane nodded. “Yeah, Mickey—I can. I wanted to be here for you, but it’s true. I don’t need to stay.”

Mikhail narrowed his eyes—a completely unfamiliar expression of contempt crossed his features, and Shane sighed. Here it came. “Well, it’s just pathetic, you know. Hanging on to me like a little puppy. She wasn’t even your mother.”

Ouch. “No, she wasn’t. But she was a nice lady, and I liked her. I wanted to help out her son.”

“Well, I’ve been helped. You can go now.”

“Sure I can. I’d like to make sure you’re all right first. Is that okay?” Shane moved to the refrigerator to make sure he had enough food for the next two weeks. He figured that would be about right—two weeks would do it. There were plenty of casseroles and dishes that Shane and Benny had put in plastic bags and thrown in the freezer for later, and Shane was satisfied they’d do.

“Are you going to eat? You are fat enough—you don’t need anything else.”

Shane fought the urge to roll his eyes. Yeah, like this was the first time a lover had called him fat. “You’re right about that, Mickey. I am too Making Promises

fat. I wasn’t going to eat.” He shut the refrigerator door and stepped back, hands out. “See.”

Mikhail’s face crumpled for a moment, almost in tears, as though he couldn’t stand to hear Shane malign himself but had nowhere to stand.

“What kind of man takes this abuse? You are not a man. You are a ball-less wonder. If I dropped my pants and waved my ass in the air, you probably wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Shane’s temper pricked for a second, and he took a deep breath. This was tricky, dangerous territory. Here was the place where if Shane lost it,
he
would say the unforgivable thing.

“I’d know what to do with it,” he said mildly. “I’d spank it, because its owner is behaving like a child.”

“I’m a child because I’m tired of you? Is that it? Well, the whole world must be tired of you… bringing gifts like some pathetic loser… who needs your gifts? Who needs you?”

You do, you fucking moron!
“My family does,” Shane said quietly.

“Are you done? Do you have something else nasty to say? I need to make sure you get this all out of your system before I take off and let you come to your senses.”

“Why? Because I’d have to be crazy to let go of a prize like you?” Mikhail was standing in the middle of the room, alone, vulnerable, and, if he’d known it, weeping. It was all Shane could do not to rush him, not to pin him to the ground, not to
make
him accept comfort. But Shane had his pride too. Mikhail’s mother had been right. Talking to him when he was like this—when he was determined to tell the world and the people he loved most to fuck off and die—was an exercise in futility.

“I always knew you were too good for me, Mickey.” Shane took a chance and walked close enough to wipe his cheek with a thumb. “You could have any man you wanted—why would you pick me?” Mikhail looked at him, stunned, shell-shocked, not entirely sane.

Shane bent his head to those pouty lips and kissed him—soft at first, and then when he responded, hard and angry, because words
did
hurt, and suddenly Mikhail was yanking at his own clothes and at Shane’s. With a vicious shove of his pants, he was half naked and he whirled away to bend over the back of the couch.

“Come on, big man. You want me so bad—you put up with my shit.

Come get me! Come fuck me! Be like every other fucker on the planet and just do it!”

Shane backed away from his crazy Russian lover and scrubbed his face with both hands. When he spoke he had his temper under control.

“I’ve told you before, not like this.”

And with that, he turned around and walked out. Just that simply. He couldn’t take any more, and if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to come back, he just wouldn’t.

He slammed the door so it would sound final, and there in the hallway, wearing his good slacks and funeral suit, he sank to a crouch and leaned his head against the door. On the other side, he heard Mikhail screaming into what was probably a couch cushion and sobbing loud enough to break the window frames.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but suddenly Deacon was at his elbow, pulling him up and walking him down the stairs, and he was wiping his eyes on the shoulder of his trench coat.

“Pretty bad?” Deacon asked softly, putting Shane in the passenger’s seat of his own car. Deacon reached out his hands, and Shane turned the keys over without question. Behind them, he saw Crick pulling out and had a second to wonder how hard Crick had needed to work to be able to drive again.

“Bad enough,” Shane said shortly and made another pass at his blurring eyes with the heels of his hands.

“So, what’s the plan again?”

Shane took a deep breath, one that shuddered in and out, and put his mind where it needed to be. “Send in the reserves.” THE next day found Shane taking on some long neglected tasks in his own home—and not the fun ones, either. When Benny came to visit—she took her own run to Shane’s house down the path that Deacon had cut that fall—he was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, wearing leather gloves, trimming claws and giving worm medication to the cats.

Benny sat at his little kitchen table and gulped water, shaking her head as Shane wrapped Maura Tierney in an old sheet with amazing quickness, leaving only a furious caramel-and-cream colored head sticking out, glaring at him balefully from blue eyes.

“Why are you doing this again?”

“Worming them? To keep them healthy. I’m trimming their claws to keep
me
healthy.” With that he tucked the swaddled cat under his arm and shoved a pill down her throat until she swallowed. A sound came up—a low, bee-swarm growling that threatened to do dire, terrible things to Shane’s body: If this ten-pound animal could only get him alone, Shane would know what it would feel like to be kibble.

Shane sighed. Now came the hard part. With some cursing and some struggling, he managed to adjust the cat-mummy wrappings until the cat’s head was mostly wrapped (because the fuckers could
bite
) and her front paws were out. Then he tucked her under his arm again and reached for the clippers, being very, very careful not to clip too close, because that would hurt her.

“No, not that,” Benny muttered. “I mean, why are you sending us to go watch the guy who just broke your heart into a zillion pieces?” Maura Tierney growled again, and her back leg got free. Shane swore ripely, and the cat dug that claw into his forearm through his sweatshirt and ripped right up his wrist under his glove. Still swearing—

and dripping blood—he managed to reposition the damned sheet and, since the back paw was free, worked on trimming the claws there. Benny was wisely silent until he was done, had the cat under control, and was finishing up with her.

He sighed and set Maura down, leaving her to get out of the wrapping all by herself, and Benny hissed in sympathy, standing up and heading for the cupboard.

“Here—let me dress that for you…. Don’t worry!” she said when Shane would have protested. “I’m good at this. Deacon throws his fist through a wall every so many months or so, or sometimes he dislocates his thumb or gets his foot stepped on. Trust me—he’s taught me everything he knows.”

Shane gave in and settled down to be tended to, but Benny was a sharp kid, and she hadn’t forgotten what they were talking about when the cat had tried to slice his wrist like pie.

“So, you didn’t answer my question,” she said again as he pulled off his leather glove and she dabbed at the deep scratch with cotton and some antibiotic cleaner.

“Why are you doing this for Mickey?”

“Yeah—I mean, I like the guy, but you’re ours, and he hurt you. I’m sort of obliged to be pissed off at him, you know?” Shane had to chuckle—and then wince because she
was
good at her job, and she was cleaning the scratch thoroughly. “Well, you let him know that. But you get pissed off at family all the time, and you don’t cut them out of your lives.”