Making Promises (55 page)

Mikhail’s heart sort of stuttered in his chest. Christ. What a fucking wretched man, making him go all soft like this when he was trying so assiduously to be a hard-line asshole about this entire subject.

“Anyway—I figured if I spent all the money there, my job would still be, you know, my
job.
I’d be, uhm, needed and shit.” Shane pulled himself up and gained some of his resolution back, and Mikhail cursed him even further to hell because his jaw was set with such simple pride.

“Needed?” Mikhail found some bitterness after all. “You are needed
here
, damn you. You want to be
needed
, just look at your sister! She Making Promises

needed you and you came through—”

“
You
came through!” Shane retorted. He tried to stand up with the force of his emotion, but his body was
so
not going there, and Mikhail smirked grimly when he had to sit down again. “And I’m damned grateful for it,” Shane amended, “but I’m her big brother. I’m her family, that’s what I’m
supposed
to do for her—”

“Now we both know that’s a
lie
!” Kimmy snapped. “We grew up where it didn’t have to be that way, Shaney. You grew up, and you changed your life so that it did. You wanted your life to mean something—and it does! Now you’ve got big fucking piles of money to do whatever you’ve ever wanted to do—”

“Big fucking piles of money do
not
make me a hero!” Shane roared back, angry with her as perhaps he could not be with Mikhail, and don’t think Mikhail wasn’t grateful for it, either.

“A hero?” Mikhail said now, remembering something and feeling ill again.
I didn’t want to be a fool anymore. I wanted to be a hero.
“Is
that
this is about? Being a
hero
?”

Shane turned at the fury burning through Mikhail’s voice, met his eyes, and flushed. “I don’t think I’m a hero,” he muttered, but Mikhail didn’t buy it.

“No—no you don’t. That’s the fucking problem. You’ve got this thing in your head that thinks you can only be a hero when you’re
dead
!”

“
That’s not true
!” Shane snapped. “That’s not true! I just want my life to mean something, dammit!” He looked from Kimmy to Mikhail again, his eyes puckering and a terrible, heartbreaking grimace on his broad, handsome face. “Don’t you get it? Either of you?” He shrugged and muttered to himself.

“No. Of course you don’t get it. Look at you. Both of you. You move, and it’s poetry. You stand up in a crowd of people, and you make them see something beautiful. And I… I walk into a bar fight and say

‘Everybody calm down!’ and I get shit thrown at me. I am
not
the guy that people take seriously. I am
not
the guy that gives something to the world just by being beautiful. I’m just me, and I’m awkward and fucking weird.

But if I’m just me, I want to be doing something important—don’t you get it? I want my life to
mean
something. I don’t just want to sit on my big piles of money and use up space. I don’t want to let the word roll down 342

my big piles of money onto the world below me. I want….” He stopped and dashed his eyes furiously and tried to laugh it off as he said it.

“You’re right. I want to be a hero. Preferably the live kind, though, but still.”

There was a terrible quiet in the kitchen then, as Mikhail and Kimmy both struggled with the words to tell him how wrong he was about all of it.

Kimmy was openly crying—but of course she was, Mikhail sniffed. She was a girl. She could do that. Bitch.

“I can’t talk to him,” she sniffled. “Dammit… I… I just don’t have any fucking words, Shaney. How the best guy on the fucking planet could be so wrong about something so huge….”

Shane couldn’t move, but Mikhail could. Mikhail got down on his knees and took Shane’s hands in his own, because he found he had no pride here. No pride at all.

“God… God… don’t you see,
lubime
? Don’t you see at all? You
are
a hero. You’re
our
hero. You’re Benny’s hero. You’re a hero to every poor kid you’ve ever helped on the streets. You’re my hero. You see weird and awkward? I see wonderful. I… I am damaged, God help me. I am damaged and bitchy and a pain in the ass, and you have literally re-made the world around me to keep me happy. And you have made a life from a place where there was no life. You surround yourself with joy and with love, and you try to give that gift to every lost soul or furry dragon or beat-up alley cat you meet, and you don’t think this is a miracle?” Mikhail pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and tried to stop what was blurring his vision, but it didn’t work.

“Look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me. I didn’t even cry at my mother’s funeral. The only person on the planet who can break my heart like this is you, you bastard, and you don’t even know you are doing it.

You are perfect. You are beautiful. You want to be a hero? You make that shelter, and you be a part of it.
You
be the counselor,
you
be the teacher.

I’ll help. Kimmy will help. You spend your life trying to fix the damaged and make them whole again—that is what makes you get up in the morning. That is what makes your heart beat.
That
is where you are a hero. Please… God, please,
lubime
—we need you so badly. The world needs you so badly. Please don’t go throwing away your beautiful life to be something you already are.”

Shane was looking at him—looking like he heard them, at least, if Making Promises

not like he was planning to concede—when the dogs suddenly all stood up and whuffed. There was a clanging outside—a car was on the cattle guard—and someone was undoing the unlocked chain to let themselves in.

“Shit,” Shane muttered, pressing his palm to his own eyes. “I never thought seeing Brandon would lighten up the atmosphere.” Mikhail stood up, his body suddenly tense and springy. “I will go meet him,” he said grimly. Oh yes. Just let him go meet this man who left Shane to the wolves and now wanted the flesh left over.

“No,” Shane muttered, pressing himself up on the tabletop. “I’m the one with the history, Mickey. And he’s a cop—we can’t just go assaulting the guy out of nowhere, okay?”

Shane didn’t look at him—didn’t look at
either
of them—as he made his steady, painful way toward the door. “Keep the dogs in, could ya, Kim?” he asked politely, and Kimmy muttered, “Fucking moron,” but she was standing and moving toward the door like she was going to block the furry bodies for him, so Mikhail took that as a yes.

He helped her, and after Shane got out to the porch, they both wiggled out the shut door to the sound of baying, puzzled dogs who needed to crap and to eat the stranger (probably in that exact order.) But that was okay. The dogs might have needed to be kept inside, but Mikhail and Kimmy were
damned
if they were going to miss this.

Shane had stopped at the porch railing as a very beautiful man closed the cattle guard, leaving the white Hyundai two-door idling outside of it.

Kurt was at the wheel, looking like shit, and Shane saluted him smartly, leaving only a crucial finger extended.

The man got closer, and Mikhail blinked, his eyes getting round.

“Shit,” he muttered, trying to put this into perspective. “He’s much prettier than me!”

“Don’t sweat it,” Kimmy reassured him. “I think he’s prettier than
me
! Jesus, Shaney—this is your ex-boyfriend?” Shane turned and looked at them both, his smile going a little crooked as he heard them. “Yeah. Emphasis on ex, right Mickey?” Mikhail swallowed. “Thanks for that,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry, guys—he’s only prettier than one of you,” Shane said 344

with a smirk and then started walking down the porch, keeping a tight hand on the rail. “Brandon, you sack of shit, what the fuck are you doing on my lawn?”

“He was talking about you, you know,” Kimmy said softly, and Mikhail rolled his eyes.

“That’s what he wants you to think.” But neither of them cared about that, not really. What they cared about was how much damage this pretty poison could do to Shane before he got kicked off their property.

Brandon smiled cheerfully and tried to hug Shane, looking hurt and sad when Shane backed out of his embrace like a tomcat with its ruff up.

“Cow-woman?” Mickey said speculatively, “Could you do us a favor?”

“What do you want?”

“Go back inside and get our phone. Deacon is the first number on it.”

“The action hero?”

“That is the one. He’ll be here in less than five minutes.” Brandon said something jovial and familiar and then tried to clap Shane on the arm. Shane moved away from him so quickly he pulled at his ribs again and winced, and Brandon’s voice could be heard clearly, from the middle of the big yard.

“Jesus, Shane—you’re still damned clumsy, aren’t you.”

“Five minutes?” Kimmy said doubtfully, her eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Mikhail told her decisively. “And hurry. You’re going to need to pull me off this asshole in less than three.” Kimmy hustled inside again, and Mikhail watched warily as Shane continued to back away from this very pretty man as though he had scabies and gangrene and syphilis, all wrapped into one.

I don’t see what anyone can see in anyone else but you…

“Anyone Else But You”—Kimye Dawson

BRANDON looked awesome. Tan, lithe, young. He was Shane’s age, but he just didn’t seem to carry the years the same way. Nope, nothing touched Brandon Ashford.

But Shane was so past the time when Brandon Ashford could touch him.

“Man, don’t even fucking try it,” Shane snapped when Brandon tried to go in for the hug.

“Whatsa matter, Shane—you’re not happy to see me?” Shane rolled his eyes. “I thought I made it pretty clear that I wouldn’t be the last time we talked.”

Brandon shrugged and tried to look sheepish. “Yeah—about that.

You know, you’re right. I
should
have visited you in the hospital. I just felt so bad, you know? And I didn’t want anybody to think, you know”—

winsome smile—“that I was, like….”

“Gayer than me?”

Oh look. Now he was being bashful. “Well, we both like guys, don’t we, Shane?”

Shane nodded like he was talking to a second grader. “Yeah, Brand, that’s right. But I don’t like
you
anymore, so why don’t you go away?” 346

“You’re looking good, Shane!” Brandon eyed him critically.

“You’ve lost some weight—looks good on you, man. Start waxing that chest, and you’ll be ready for Showtime!”

Shane looked down at his chest, where his thin gray T-shirt puckered a little from the chest hair underneath. His face washed with heat—

Mikhail really seemed to like it. “I repeat: What in the fuck are you doing on my lawn?”

“Shane, man—don’t be like that. I mean, after all we were to each other….”

“Yeah—you screwed me over in a lot of different ways, didn’t you?”

“Is that any way to talk to the guy who took your cherry?” Brandon tried to clap him on the arm, and Shane dodged him again, completely repulsed.

“Jesus, Brandon, I bet you say that to all the sixteen-year-old girls.

What do you want?” Ouch. Dodging Brandon was not as easy now as it had been that first month when Brand was talking him into bed. Shane’s arms went up to his ribs in defense, but his glare at Brandon was no less potent.

Finally convinced that the “so glad to see you” thing wasn’t working, Brandon went back to the charm. “Did you get hurt again? Jesus, Shane, you were always so fucking clumsy! Anyway, I had a little trouble with the ol’ L.A.P.D.—we had to part ways, you know?”

“Who’d you do in the locker room now?” Shane asked, and knew he scored a direct hit when Brandon grinned.

“Man, she was a
sweet
piece,” Brand told him eagerly. “Sweetest ass you’ve ever seen, and there I was, riding it, and your old friend walks in, and, well, next thing you know, we’re
both
out on our asses. And my family’s not talking to me after that, and… you know, I just need a little bit of cash to get back on my feet, and I thought of you!” Shane raised a hand to his mouth and stroked his chin, feeling the two-day stubble he’d left because he hadn’t felt like shaving. For a second, he actually thought about giving Brandon the money just to get the fucker off his lawn. Then he saw Brandon’s smug look and the waste of flesh who’d driven the car, and he almost snarled. He’d be damned if he played Making Promises