Somewhere in His Arms (73 page)

             
“Tire blew,” Alec informed him, shutting off the engine. He unfastened his belt and hopped out. They were out in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, and in the middle of a desert where the temperature was falling…fast. He shone the flashlight toward the right rear tire and saw where the rubber had burst. There would be no patch job. The whole tire was shredded beyond repair. “Hey, dad!” he shouted above the wind. “Did you pack that radio?” They were going to need a tow.

             
Pat came stomping towards him, grumbling under his breath and swore viciously when he saw the shredded remnants of the tire. “How did
that
happen?”

             
“Here,” Alec handed Pat the flashlight and crouched down. “It looks like an IED hit the bloody thing!” He stood up and huddled deeper into his jacket. Icy fingers of wind ruffled his hair and sent chills down his spine. “Someone must have left something in the road, maybe from a lorry or something.”

             
Pat crouched down himself to inspect the damage. Whatever hit the tire, it had done its work. They were stuck, at least until they could get someone out here to tow them back into town. “Well, laddie,” Pat snorted and shoved the flashlight back at Alec, “we’d better hunker down for the night. It’s going to be a cold one.”

             
Alec whipped out his phone and tried to call Lucy, but there was no reception out here. He only hoped she and Gavin were having better luck than they were.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Gavin turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Home sweet home, or something like that. He didn’t know where Pat had gotten this old relic. It looked like something that barely survived the 1906 earthquake. He tossed his duffle onto the floor in disgust and went to help Lucy.

             
She hurried in and set her small overnight bag and backpack on the sofa. Then she flopped down into an overstuffed chair and put her feet up. While the plane ride had been mildly pleasant, she was exhausted from having gotten no sleep the night before. Her mind had been too busy thinking about Rudy and whatever Alec and Pat might find. Now that she was again ensconced in Pat’s house, she felt she could allow herself the luxury of sleep.

             
Gavin flopped down beside her and turned on the TV. “Should we eat or should we sleep?” he asked as he flipped through the channels. “You hardly ate anything.”

             
“You sound like Alec,” she laughed warily and sighed. “I think I want a nap.” Lucy got up and made for the stairs. “Behave now,” she admonished and went to find the bed.
              Gavin laughed and waved at her as he found a horror movie channel and raided the kitchen. He settled happily amongst the cushions, munching on popcorn, and watched as some lunatic tried to carve up a fat man who looked a lot like Harvey.

             
It was near dusk when Lucy finally roused from her nap. She got up and went into the small bathroom and splashed some water on her face. There were dark circles under her eyes and small lines around her mouth that hadn’t been there yesterday. Too much worry and not enough sleep. She ran a comb through her hair and looked on with amusement at the small tub that Pat had installed. At least it was an improvement from that rust bowl she and Alec had tried to bathe in the last time they were here. 

             
She wondered idly what kind of trouble Gavin had gotten into while she slept. But as she made her way downstairs and into the living room, she saw that aside from empty chip bags and sofa cushions on the floor, most of the room was intact. “Gavin,” she called and found him in the kitchen taking something out of the microwave. He turned around and gave her a lopsided smile.

             
“We’re having macaroni and cheese for dinner,” Gavin said, and set the container on the table. “Pat must have thought he was stocking up for a zombie apocalypse,” he quipped,  “the freezer is chock-full of this stuff.”

             
“Well, he said he’d stocked the kitchen,” she said wryly and got plates. She set the table with forks and napkins and went to see what they had to drink. The refrigerator was stuffed with cans of soda and iced tea, thank goodness. She gathered glasses and filled them with ice. “So, what have you been up to?”

             
He handed her a loaf of bread and sat down across from her. “Did you know you could decapitate someone with an end table?”

             
“What…?” Lucy had been about to take a mouthful of the gooey concoction, but it slid off her fork and onto her plate, splattering her blouse. “And where did you come by this…information?” She snatched a napkin and tried to blot up the mess. “Should you be watching these sort of…movies?”

             
He chuckled and nearly choked on a piece of bread. Lucy was looking at him like she’d love to have him committed. “It’s not what you think,” he rushed to explain before she notified the Whoopee Squad. “I’m sort of studying,” he said, scratching his nose and eliciting a grin from his sister-in-law. “I…um…I’d like to do special effects.”

             
“Really?” she said, relieved and tucked into her lukewarm macaroni. “Then why did y---?”

             
“Why didn’t I get into that instead of taking my kit off?”

             
“Um…well,” Lucy glanced up at him, blushing profusely. It was none of her business. “I-I didn’t mean to…”

             
“Oh, that’s all right, sis,” he laughed and handed her another slice of bread. “It just sort of happened, like a happy accident.” Gavin made a face and helped himself to another scoop of mac and cheese. “You know I ran away at fourteen, right?”

             
She nodded and sipped her tea.

             
“Well, let’s just say the years between 14 and 19 were a bit of a blur.” Gavin wasn’t certain how much Lucy knew about his former life of turning tricks, but she was listening patiently with her lovely brown eyes making no judgments. “I wandered here and there until a friend of mine decided to head to L.A., and I decided to hitch a ride with him across the pond.” He stopped and decided he didn’t want anymore mac and pushed his half-eaten plate away. “No one ever tells you that when you get there, that you ought to have a plan.”

             
“Why? What happened?”

             
“What
didn’t
happen!” he said bitterly. “We had no place to stay. The bloke we were supposed to stay with had left town, and we were forced to spend the first night in a shelter. It was humiliating, not to mention dangerous.”

             
“Why didn’t you call home?”

             
“Oh…” he grumbled and poured himself another soda. “I wish I had. I just couldn’t bear to see dad with that look on his face and wagging his finger in my face, telling me he’d told me so.”

             
“How’d you meet the toady?”

             
Gavin had a good laugh at that. Alec was right; she
was
funny. “Is that what you call Harvey?”

             
“Yeah,” she said through a mouthful of bread and butter. “I’d say something else, but my mother raised me to be a lady.”

             
“Go on, say it!” he urged. “He’s that and then some. But I didn’t meet good ol’ Harv until two years later. Up until then, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. I turned tricks, mostly to pay on this squalid room I was renting. Sometimes if I was lucky…they would take me home…and feed me…and give me a change of clothes…” 

             
He stopped to see what her reaction would be to the fact that he’d had to suck cock for a living. But when he looked into her eyes, they were soft with unshed tears and compassion. He didn’t know why he was so surprised. Harvey had drilled it into his head so many times that if anyone he loved ever found out he’d prostituted himself for money, they would hate him. “Don’t cry, sis,” he said, as she began to weep for him. He rose and went to her, patting her arm awkwardly. “I-It’s not as bad as it sounds, really.” Then to his horror, her nose started bleeding! Gavin grabbed a napkin and put it to her nose. He seemed to remember something Alec had told him about what happened when Lucy got upset. “Oh…um…don’t do that!” he said, glancing about helplessly. “I’m sorry,” he said lamely. “I shouldn’t have told you. Alec said this would happen.”

             
Lucy held the napkin to her nose and pinched the nostrils together. Poor Gavin was looking a fright with all the blood drained from his face. He’d been confiding in her and this had to happen! “It’s okay,” she said, her voice muffled. “It happens sometimes. It’s not your fault. Go on.”

             
“You don’t
really
want me to continue?”

             
“Oh, sure…spill your guts! Then I’ll let you beat me at that new game you’ve been playing.” She eyed him quizzically. “You brought it didn’t you?”

             
“H-Huh?” he said stupidly and then recovered himself. “I did.” The bleeding seemed to stop just as suddenly as it began and Gavin was a little shell-shocked. “You’re s-sure you wouldn’t like to lie down first?”

             
“Oh, stop!” she said, and tossed the napkin into the trash. “I’m fine. How can you be a special effects artist if blood makes you queasy?”

             
“That’s different!” he said, slightly offended at her implication that he was a spineless jellyfish. “There’s a difference between fake and real!”

             
“There sure is.”

             
“And blood doesn’t make me queasy!”

             
“Oh, I believe you.”

             
“Uh-huh.” Gavin toyed with his napkin before continuing his story. “Well, I’d just finished with this one gent in Skid Row one night and Harvey rode up---don’t ask me what he was doing there--- and said he was looking for some guys to appear at a party he was throwing. The rest is history…if I can say that.”

             
“But, I thought you said your first movie was at 19,” she frowned. “What were you doing until then?”

             
Gavin blanched and looked down in embarrassment. “Harvey had me…um…servicing his…um… friends. I was a teenage sex toy.”

             
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, wishing she could take it all back. “Does Alec know?”

             
“Only what you heard through the door that night. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the rest. Please don’t say…anything to him.”

             
“And Pat?”

             
“He knows…but not everything.” He rose and put the rest of the mac and cheese in the refrigerator and cleared the table. “I think he’s better off not knowing, don’t you?”

             
Lucy stared at the tall young man clad in his brother’s shirt and jeans that were way too big for him and decided she’s take it with her to her grave. “Your secret is safe with me,” she swore.

             
“We should shake on it,” he grinned and spat into his palm. “Shake,” he said and held it out.

             
“Ugh,” she grimaced as their slimy palms slapped together in a bond of friendship. “But what if Alec asks? I don’t like to keep secrets from him.”

             
“You can tell him when we’re both old and gray. Until then, you have to keep my secret. You already shook on it.”

             
“All right,” she agreed, albeit reluctantly and changed the subject to something more pleasant. “What do we have for dessert?”

             
Alec had also warned him she had a fierce sweet tooth. “I think there’s some cookies,” he muttered as he fetched a package from the cabinet. “Pecan shortbread.”

             
“Gimme!” she said eagerly, reaching for the package and tore into one. “Now, about that game…”

              They played some bloody and uberviolent game that took place in outer space. Lucy was certain she’d have nightmares for a month about reanimated corpses trying to impale her with claws made from their own spines. Gavin beat her, of course. It was well after midnight when they finally tired of game playing and fell asleep in the living room: she on the sofa; he on the floor. The TV had been left on and droned quietly in the background.

             
Neither one heard the front door being tested, nor did they hear the frustrated oaths uttered when the knob wouldn’t budge. The shadowy figure skulked off and tore down the steps knocking over a trashcan in their haste; the loud reverberations woke up several dogs nearby. Enraged howls echoed throughout the darkened streets, and a promise was made: they would be back.