Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (44 page)

Visible strain etched Sam’s sweetly handsome face, and he shifted from eye contact to studying the wall behind the bed. Seconds loudly ticked by on the clock. He stood in silence, switching his weight from one sneakered foot to the other.

When Sam parted his lips but snapped them shut just as fast, David asked, “What is it?”

Sam blurted, “I want to say yes. Heck, of course I still want to be your friend.” He looked at David, but his features pinched, and he spun away. “I can’t help how I feel about you, though”—Sam walked around the bed, his hands locked behind his neck—“and I can’t unsay or undo the things I said and did, and it’s hard to think about being around you while knowing I don’t have any shot with you.” Sam glanced at David, and the rosy color in his cheeks paled. “But when that detective told me you were missing, I’d have given anything to have you back safe, even just as a friend. So I guess that means I don’t want to lose you either. But it hurts so much to want you the way I do and to see you love some other guy the way I wish you could love me.” Plopping into the chair, Sam dragged his hands down his face, his anguish visible. “I don’t know what to do.”

Oh man
. So much familiarity in those heightened emotions made David’s chest ache, but at the same time, he didn’t see his reflection in Sam at all.
Don’t blow it, Joyner
. Saying the right thing to this young man mattered right now. Meaning what he said mattered more. This moment would expose David’s ability to be a friend and a quality man.
Don’t you dare mess up.

“I can’t tell you to just get over it,” David began. “First, it’s insulting. And second, I know more than anyone how hard that is to do. But the difference between us is, when I look at you, I see a guy who knows who he is right now at age eighteen way more than I understood myself at twenty-eight. I look at you, and I see how sure you are of yourself and the direction you want your life to go. I see the certainty in your eyes about the kind of man you want to be. Because you have that going for you, I’m not even a little bit worried that not getting what you want right now is going to spin you out of control the way it did me. Learning from you at the shelter, watching how you are with the animals and people there… You showed me who you are as a human being, and that’s how I know you’re going to be okay.”

With real love pumping through him, although not the romantic kind, David promised, “So even though I truly know how hurt and angry and rejected you feel right now—and you know I can say that and mean it”—David laughed at himself, something he could not have done at Sam’s age—“the eighteen-year-old kid in me still admires and envies the young man standing in front of me right now. And that’s the truth. That’s why, if you have to step back from our friendship, which I would understand if you did, it would be much more a loss on my side than yours. I have a lot to learn from you.” Thinking back over his time since being released from prison, David smiled inside, just for himself, and pressed his hand against his chest. “Maybe I’m finally getting my stuff together enough that you could find some value in me too.”

Sam suddenly flashed a big smile. “You definitely kicked ass enough to escape and survive that prick who took you.” He moved to the bed, hoisted himself at the foot, and sobered as he said, “There’s a heck of a lot to admire in you too.”

More raw emotions bubbled to the surface in David. “I have a lot to live for. Five years ago I didn’t understand that. Now I do.” He studied his gauze-covered hands and scraped-up arms and didn’t have to look in a mirror to place each cut and bruise marring his face. Still, a sense of lightness breezed through David, and his lips turned up at the edge. “When pushed against a wall, I guess I realized how much I valued my life. I’m never willingly giving up again.”

Grinning back at David, Sam nodded. “Yeah, I can see why. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Before David could reply, Ben pushed into the room, head down, maneuvering a wheelchair. “They’re ready to let you go.” He looked up, zeroed in on Sam, and frowned. “You just have to sign some paperwork.”

Instantly Sam jumped off the bed. “Mr. Evans.” He locked into a straight, military-style stance. “Sir.”

David was surprised Sam didn’t salute, and he had to bite down a laugh. “He’s not your principal, and he’s not that much older than me.” David wiggled his hand, beckoning Ben. “You can call him Ben.”

As Ben took David’s hand in his, he put one hell of an unflinching stare on Sam. “Mr. Evans is fine.”

Turning beet red, Sam said, “Right, Mr. Evans. Okay. Anyway,” and skedaddled across the room. “I have to go.”

Leaning forward to see around Ben, David called out, “Hey.” When Sam paused at the door, David added, “I’ll see you at work in a couple of weeks?” and held his breath.

Sam remained still, clearly aware of what David asked.
Are we good again?

Eventually Sam nodded. “Yeah. If we overlap, we’ll have lunch.” Then came the big grin. “As long as you buy.”

New, sweet oxygen flooded David’s system. “The Cubans are on me.” Awash with another layer of hope, he waved. “Bye.”

“See ya.”

The second Sam slipped out of the room and the door clicked closed, David gave Ben the side eye. Mimicking Ben’s deep, smooth voice, he repeated, “
Mr. Evans is fine
.” He smacked Ben on the arm. “Sam is intimidated enough by you. That wasn’t exactly nice.”

Green flashing in his hazel stare, Ben scowled at David. “Just because I’m not worried about him doesn’t mean I like that he kissed you.”

In addition to giving Ben the sideways look, David added a double brow raise.

Stubborn for another long moment, Ben finally rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry.” He reached across the bed, peeled the covers back from David’s lower half, and mumbled, “I’ll let him off the hook in a bit.”

Buoyant, David pulled Ben to him and planted a loud, messy kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.”

Ben turned his head, rubbed their noses together, and asked, “You ready to go to my place?”

David nodded. “I’m ready to go home.”

Ben stumbled, and the healthy bronze color fled from his face. He recovered quickly and easily helped David into the chair, but he didn’t say much while David signed papers, or in the elevator on the way down to the parking garage, or while getting them on the road to Tampa.

By the time Ben pulled his car onto the Interstate, David worried his lower lip, closed his fingers around the dirty, familiar elastic band around his wrist, and covertly started snapping it against his skin.

Chapter Eighteen

A week and a half later, David said, “Thanks, Erin,” into the phone, and made a note on a piece of paper. “I’ll have the whole site ready to go live when I come in on Monday for work.”

“Bright and early,” Erin replied. “We’re swamped, and we can’t wait to have you back.”

“I won’t be late.”
I don’t know where I’ll be or how early I’ll have to leave or if I’ll be able to sleep in
—twisting in the chair at the dining room table, David glanced around Ben’s modern, cool, empty apartment—
but I won’t be late
. “Bye.”

After Erin said her good-bye, David hung up the phone.

David got up from the table, slowly strolled around the big, open condo space, and ran his fingers along the bookcases, chairs, couch, TV, and walls. Everywhere he touched, his fingers turned cold—which rang as so very wrong to David. Normally David only had to stand within a foot of Ben, or heck, often just think about Ben, and the forceful, crackling nature of the man’s personality and demeanor warmed David all over.

It’s cold because Ben isn’t here. Not in the furniture, not in the paintings on the walls, and definitely not in person
. David checked the clock, although he didn’t know why. Ben had left a few hours ago and had been vague about when he would return.
I can’t feel Ben in this place. It’s not a home. It’s a shell.

And since coming to this apartment, even when Ben was here, David still hardly felt the vibrant life he knew existed in that man. This guy David shared a bed with now—although they had yet to have sex—didn’t radiate nearly the passion and heat the Ben that David had gotten to know back in that motel in Coleman had. It was as if there were two of them, twins, with this one friendly and helpful but cool and aloof, while David’s volatile, dominating, and wonderfully overbearing Ben was trapped in another life where this distant guy was supposed to be.

The first couple of days David had stayed in Ben’s condo, he’d snapped his band against his wrist so much he’d rubbed the skin raw. Then, to distract himself, David had browbeaten Erin into giving him the website changes she wanted done for the shelter site so he could do them while recovering. She’d relented, and that had given him something to focus on for a week. Now he had nothing left to do, and his thoughts drifted to another strangely quiet night ahead on the couch with Ben, neither of them watching what was on the TV, struggling through inane conversation, all with David trying not to see the dimmed light in Ben’s eyes.

Circling the room a second time, David walked in front of the wall of windows, the sun shining so beautifully on the bay outside, and pulled the band on his wrist again and again, trying to calm the frantic pulse beating inside him. Suddenly, he spotted Ben crossing the street to their building below, and his chest seized with the tightest, best pain. David screeched to a halt and dug his short nails into his forearm.
No. No. This isn’t working
. With determination, David curled his fingers into his palm so as not to hit the band against his wrist anymore. David not only took his hand off the band, he pulled the elastic off his arm and threw it against the wall.
I’m not going back to that
. Snapping a band against his wrist didn’t solve his problem, and he didn’t need help getting anything into focus. David knew how to make his life right again, and it was time to stop looking for distractions to push the inevitable aside.
I have to talk to Ben. And whether he wants to or not, he’s going to talk back.

Taking a seat in a black leather chair that faced the door, David stared at the white-painted wood and waged an internal war to keep his hands off his now bare wrist. His heart raced too fast, and he fought against a driving force inside him that said he needed a distraction now or he would spiral back down into a bad, destructive place the moment Ben walked into the apartment.

David was fortunate to be alive, and frightened or not, he would not waste another minute cowing in some unknown fear of what might happen if he confronted Ben about their future. After doing extensive digging into Dr. Fariday’s patient history, the police had discovered three patients whose whereabouts couldn’t be located. All of them had been estranged from their families, and so none had been reported as missing.
The same could have been true for me
. Thank goodness the doctor had underestimated Brittany’s and Ben’s importance in David’s life. When confronted about the women, the doctor still would not speak—as he’d refused to do about his plans for David—but law enforcement had searched his land around the cabin and yesterday had found the remains of one of the missing women. They suspected that with time, they would find the other two dead and buried out in the woods too.

I’ve been given another chance to live
. David rubbed his chest, the ache inside a welcome pain that proved he still drew breath on this earth.
I won’t waste this gift, and I won’t let Ben either.

Locks suddenly turned on the door, and Ben, looking incredibly, unfathomably handsome in a charcoal-gray suit, stepped inside. As he turned the dead bolt and locked the handle, he glanced up. When he spotted David, he jerked.

Recovering quickly, Ben smoothed his hand down his suit jacket and offered David a tight smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Biting the bullet—he’d give himself an aneurysm if he tiptoed any longer—David blurted, “Can we talk?”

Pulling away from eye contact, Ben unbuttoned his suit coat and began walking toward the master bedroom. “Give me a few minutes to change. It’s hot as hell out there.” As he disappeared into the bedroom, his voice carried back to David in the living room. “I think I sweat through every layer I put on.”

Over the past ten days, David had learned to make some of the growls Ben used to emit, and a low one vibrated through him as he jumped out of the chair. He chased Ben into the room and found the man tossing his jacket on the bed. Immediately, on an instinct he couldn’t suppress, David rushed to Ben and took over the task of removing his watch, shirt, and tie.

Ben murmured his thanks, and after finishing the task, David left Ben to take care of his shoes, socks, and pants while David pulled cutoff sweats and a T-shirt from a drawer for him. David watched Ben through the mirror above the dresser, and the stilted way Ben moved cut through David worse than a knife. His heart aching and his voice soft, David caught Ben’s stare in the mirror and asked, “Why are you acting so different with me lately?”

Ben’s pupils flared. Rather than answer, he tore his gaze away, nudged aside his shoes and socks with his bare foot, and finished removing his pants and underwear.

Sighing, David exchanged Ben’s dirty clothes for the clean ones, but he put a hand on Ben’s arm before the man started getting dressed. “Talk to me.” He twined his fingers in Ben’s and tugged him to the bed. “What’s going on?”

Before Ben’s ass hit the mattress, he bounced back up. “Where’s Mika?” He shook out his cutoff sweats, put them on, and then pulled the faded gray T-shirt over his head. “We should be thinking about if we’re going to cook something here or all go out for dinner tonight.”

Rubbing his wrist, David exhaled carefully and remained sitting on the bed. “He took Elsa with him to hang out with Sasha.”

Almost at the door, Ben swung a pointed stare on David. “Who the hell is Sasha?”

“Really?” David asked, raising a brow. “She lives on the third floor with her mom. She just graduated from high school last week. Her mom is the widow; they both have long dark hair. Mika and I met them in the elevator a few days ago, and he and Sasha hit it off really fast.” Ben’s blank expression flabbergasted David. “You’ve lived in this building for years. Why don’t you know any of your neighbors?”