Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) (10 page)

He didn't miss Jeff's grimace, and he couldn't refrain from a wicked eyebrow raise to show that he realized exactly how much information he could mine from the cocky little man, and that he planned to fully take advantage of it.
But Jeff had other fires to tend, and Collin wasn't offended in the least when the object of his desire gave a wicked huff and stalked out of the house, yelling at Kimmy that she'd better ride with him because he didn't know where in the fu-rick the fu-ricking police station was.

Jeff: The Ex-Cop and the Cop-out

J
EFF
was unrepentantly glad about leaving Collin behind as he and Kimmy peeled out of The Pulpit in a spatter of mud and gravel.

“Turn right here—it's near the courthouse on the main drag, but about a block behind.”
Jeff grunted, grateful that Kimmy was one hundred percent common sense, and then the wretched woman blew that whole line of thought.
“He's really cute, you know,” she said tentatively, and Jeff looked at her sideways in the early November dark.
“So's Lucas.” Even Jeff, for all his self-absorption, hadn't missed the way Kimmy had shied off of Lucas's obvious interest.
“Lucas's a little young for me,” she said, and he didn't miss the grim warning in her voice. He'd been there when her ex-dickhead had shoved her face in a bowl of cocaine for spite, and he'd helped talk her down until he was sure her brain wouldn't just blow a gasket and bleed out her nose. Yeah, Kimmy had some mileage on her and some rough road under her feet, but that didn't mean she should write off all that sweet attention as something she didn't deserve.
“So's Collin,” he said quietly, and he felt her squeeze on his shoulder.
“Honey, I've seen young—that kid's not young.”
Jeff wanted to close his eyes and curl up with his cats so badly. “Yeah, well, neither am I.”
“Oh, Jeffy—you can't say that.” Kimmy laughed, and it sounded tired but natural. “You're about exactly my age, you little shit. You can't tell me that the over-thirties don't get a happy ever after—that's just no fucking fair!”
Jeff managed a laugh. “For you, Kimmy, I'll hold out a little hope,” he said, meaning it.
“Hold it out for both of us, Jeff.” Kim's voice dropped, and without the caustic humor, she sounded vulnerable. “He's obviously serious, or he wouldn't have made you throw a punch to get rid of him, right?”
“Oh God.” Jeff hadn't even thought about it. He had bruises along his ribs and on his jaw from where Collin had gotten his own blows in, but until Kimmy said it, he hadn't even really connected the fight to his own fist. “God—I swear I haven't decked a guy since….” Now he had to laugh. “Since your dumb-shit brother!”
Kimmy laughed delightedly. “Shaney? What the hell did he do?”
Jeff thought about it and shivered. “He didn't tell us, you know? About almost getting killed down in LA. And then he told me, and he was working as a cop up here, and I just….” Jeff didn't want to think about it, but given that he'd just gotten in his second fight in a year, he figured he probably should.
“You know, I love the big hairy mammoth like a brother, right? It just pissed me off. You get used to someone hanging out at the dinner table and think, „He's as solid as a rock. I don't have to worry about
him
disappearing from my life!' right? So it turned out that he was taking that risk, and… I don't know, there he was, on his ass, looking shocked as hell.”
Kimmy's laugh was soft and throaty. “God, I wish I'd thought of that. Of course, I'm sure he wanted to come drag me home by the hair around that time, too, so I wouldn't have had any ground to stand on to throw that punch, you know?”
Jeff nodded and made an accepting little sound as he shifted the car and made a hard right toward the courthouse. “You and Shane are good people.” Because she was a girl, he could say this to her, whereas he would have made her brother work for it. “Maybe give Lucas the time of day the next time he asks, you think, sugar?”
“Backatcha,” Kimmy said. “And however this falls out, you may want to stop by Collin's garage and tell him thank you for giving a shit, right?” Jeff took a turn and swore when the steering got picky, and Kimmy chuckled. “Or at least ask for him to look under your car, since now we know why you'd rather have Shane do it instead.”
Jeff fought off a whimper. For someone who professed to be a selfcentered bitch, Kimmy was exceptionally perceptive. “Yeah, yeah. Kid. Time of day. Maybe. Can we, I don't know, focus on the troubled teenager here?”
“I thought we were,” Kimmy said sweetly.
“He's in his twenties!” Jeff defended, feeling put upon.
“Wasn't talking about him, darling. But never mind—we're here— turn right in there.”
Lucas was already in front of the squat, yellow police station, a denim jacket on over his hooded sweatshirt, and Jeff couldn't help but notice his blush when Kim told him thank you for meeting them. Well, good for Kimmy. Somebody might be able to leave her baggage at the station, and wouldn't that be nice?
The jail was small and sterile, tucked down a hallway around the corner from the entryway. It was used for small-time offenders, drunken in public, shoplifting, and waiting-for-someone-to-take-you-home-andpay-your-fine type fuck-ups. After Shane had led them around the corner and went to confer with his old partner on the little Levee Oaks force, Jeff couldn't help feel that for all his freakish height and teenaged defiance, Martin looked more than a little small and a little lost huddled on the cot at the end of the small room.
“Oh, Jesus, what do you want?” the kid snarled, and Jeff tried hard to hold on to his fading sympathy.
“I want to make sure Kevin's little brother doesn't end up sleeping on the streets,” Jeff said baldly. “Hope you don't mind, but that makes me feel like shit, and I hate feeling like shit, so here I am.”
“So this is all about you?” The kid's expressive eyes were narrowed with contempt, and Jeff let it roll off his back.
“You bet. I've spent six years trying to get over your brother, and you come barreling in here with all your hatred and your judgment and rip that wound open with a fucking chainsaw, and you think I'm going to give a
damn
about you? Show me someone to like—or hell, even respect—and I'll make this about you, is that a deal, little man?”
Or maybe not so much with the rolling off. Jeff hadn't even felt that resurgence of anger, that snapping disconnect between the funny man who didn't take shit seriously and the fucker with the temper who used to throw a fist before he thought.
But maybe some raw emotion was called for, because Martin's tightly folded arms relaxed, and he backed up slightly, as though intimidated by Jeff's gay self.
“What do you mean, „getting over him'?”
Oh Jesus. “Kid, your brother was the love of my goddamned life! Do you think I just… I don't know, got news that he was dead and went out and hit the clubs?”
“Well we sure didn't see you at the funeral!”
Jeff closed his eyes and swallowed, trying so very hard not to show this one, trying so very hard to keep his gaping chest wound closed so his heart wouldn't fall out. “Really, Martin? You really think I would have been a big hit there at the funeral? Your folks were already grieving. How excited would they have been to have me show up, so they didn't even have that?”
Martin glared at him for a minute, and then his shoulders slumped. “You didn't miss much,” he muttered. “Apparently, all that nice shit people said about him was a lie.”
“Shut up!” Jeff hissed. “You
shut up.
Your brother was one of the best men I've ever known—”
“Yeah, but he wasn't good enough to come home, was he?”
“You think he was going to get a hero's welcome if he came home?” Jeff snapped. “They may have repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, like, this
morning
, but six years ago? He would have gotten a dishonorable discharge, and he would have been sent home with a terminal disease and no health insurance. Six years ago, his entire career—everything he'd worked for, everything he'd done to make you proud—all of it would have been shit on. Flushed down the fucking toilet. And your folks still wouldn't have talked to him, and all he had was me. And… you know, he was afraid I'd get sick too.” Jeff's breath caught as he remembered that letter.
If I have to watch you get sick, I might as well put a gun to my head.
God. Fucking Kevin. Jesus.
“Have you?” the kid asked, brutally curious.
“No, but only because I've got the killer health insurance.” Jeff thought about Doc Herbert, and Crick and Deacon. “And good friends who take care of me,” he added, grateful for his blessings as he hadn't been in a long time.
“So what's that like?” the kid asked, again with the no-holds-barred curiosity. “I mean, you know, the AIDS thing?”
Jeff blinked. Had he thought about this question—
really
thought about it—since Collin had asked him five and a half years ago?
Probably not.
Easy to bitch about the symptoms and the drug regimen and the small shit. Easy to make it funny in your own head, and not once, not ever, own up to the big, black fog mass boiling in the center of your chest. Easy not to think about it and just deal with it, because thinking about it took you to that place where someone else's mother had to come in and feed you and give you something else breathing to take care of, because everyone knew you were just one sleep away from cashing it in and giving it up.
Kevin had it easy, the sonuvabitch. Kevin had high-octane explosives and ammo when he found out.
Jeff swallowed and looked at Martin and thought,
This is Kevin's brother. Kevin died because he was afraid of it. He needs to know the truth.
“Wouldn't know,” he said, his voice flat. Fuck this. Fuck this kid, fuck this situation, and fuck this shitty question. “It's not the AIDs thing right now—it's still the HIV thing. But it's scary as shit. It's waking up every fucking day and saying, „I've got to take these pills at these times and deal with the fact that they make me feel like crap, because the alternative's worse.'. It's wondering if what you're eating is going to make you puke, or going to make you bloat, or if your hair is going to start to fall out, or if your liver's going to fail—and still going to work and doing your job. It's….”
Jeff swallowed, suddenly thinking about Collin on that long-ago day, and the confident young man who had followed him to a friend's to make sure he was going to be all right. “It's a hard way to grow up fast,” he said after a pause, and for the first time, he saw Martin's expression soften, just a little.
“I… I'm sorry,” he muttered. “I'm being an asshole.”
Jeff twisted his mouth. “Can't argue there.” God, he was ready to change the subject. “Uhm, kid—my friend is working on bailing you out of here. You planning on going back to your folks anytime soon or what?”
“They won't even say his name,” Martin mumbled, and Jeff pretended that didn't hurt a lot.
“Look, we can scare you up some place to stay….”
That softness went away. “I'm not gonna have to live with a fuckin' fag, am I?”
“You shame your mama, boy!” Andrew snapped, rounding the corner just in time to hear Martin lose his human personality again.
Andrew's presence was like some sort of magic zinging charge in the air, and Martin's face both became more animated and relaxed a little. “I'm sorry,” he said, automatically contrite. “I just….” He scowled at Jeff. “I'm not my brother!”
“And you're nowhere near my age!” Jeff retorted acidly. “And you weren't going to sleep on my couch anyway.”
“He wasn't?” Andrew asked, surprised, and Jeff flushed. He'd actually been planning on his guest room, but the kid had just been so
hostile.
Jeff remembered that he was supposed to be the emotional adult here and blushed even more. “I was sort of, you know… doesn't Promise House have a bed?”
“Yeah,” Kimmy said, right behind Andrew. “Thank you for asking.” She sent him a dry look, and he stuck out his tongue in annoyance. “Which teenager is going to sleep on it?” she asked in return, and Jeff took a deep breath because she was right.
“Martin, would you like to stay with Kimmy in Promise House? It's sort of a place for kids without a place to stay, right?”
Martin's eyes narrowed. “Just Kimmy?”
“There are a couple of kids there now. Everyone has his own room, you have to share a shower, there are two employees who are damned nice people, and my brother and I take turns staying in the counselor's room for now. He doesn't live far away, though. He's in and out most of the day.”
Martin's scowl faded, and he cocked his head to hear what she had to say.
Kevin used to do that
, Jeff thought, his heart suddenly adrift. For the first time in years, he let himself miss Kevin. He expected his heart to open up into a big heaving vortex and swallow him whole, but it didn't. It ached fiercely, gave one big throb that stopped his breath, and resumed its normal beat, a little sadder and slower than before. Jeff struggled to breathe again like a living human being on earth and not a dying one on Mars, and Martin completely ignored him to consider what Kimmy had just said.
“You won't call my folks?” he asked suspiciously, and Kimmy shook her head.
“We'll suggest that
you
do, but calling your parents isn't our job. Keeping you safe while you're an unsupervised minor,
that
is our job. You'll be expected to choose some sort of work at the place—we've got some light construction, some animal care, some groundskeeping or some crafts-for-cash you can choose from, and you'll be expected to abide by house rules—”
“I'm polite,” Martin said. He must have caught Jeff's rolled eyes, because he added, “Most of the time,” rather sheepishly under his breath.
Jeff remembered himself at fourteen. God, he'd been the evil side of snarky—he'd laughed at anyone over twenty-five, finding fault with everything from their weight to their posture to their music. He'd been absolutely sure that all of the bullshit that adults let themselves get sucked into would
never
happen to him.
He found his patience again, and a moment to regret fobbing Martin off on his friends, but Martin and Kimmy were on a roll by then, coming to terms with no sex, no drugs, no disrespect, no stealing, no music after ten o'clock, no fighting, no smoking….
Jeff tried not to wrinkle his nose. God, being a kid sucked. He backed off for a moment and let Kimmy work, because girlfriend was good.
“Jeff, you're not off the hook, you know,” Kimmy said, just as he was immersed in a vision of himself, a shower, the kitties, and that longpromised chocolate.
“Hmm-what?”
Kimmy put her hands on her hips and her feet in the third position (because twenty-seven years of dance did not just disappear, especially not when she was still dancing the fair circuit with Mikhail when they had time) and raised an eyebrow.
“You're
in loco parentis
, sweetcheeks. You have to come in for counseling with our little man here twice a week until he finds himself another place to bunk.”
“I
what
?” That was both of them, Jeff
and
Martin, and if Jeff had been a violent man or, well, a violent man toward
women