Authors: Mercy Celeste
The sun rose beyond the house, and for a moment the world seemed to catch its breath. A chill raced over Randy’s skin. October was off to a promising start, with cooler nights, but Randy didn’t consider the air. He just felt off. As if someone was watching him. But this section of Eli’s property was flat and clear of trees; unless someone was hiding out in the equipment barn, he was completely alone.
Owen Mason either wasn’t in the state at all or had disappeared completely. Which was a possibility. There were just too many heavily wooded areas in the county to park and wait. The department couldn’t afford to call out the choppers for a simple domestic dispute, even if it did involve Eli.
He pulled Eli’s keys out of his pocket and let himself into the house through the side door. He stopped in the kitchen; a shiver passed over him. Hell, it was like walking into a tomb. Nothing had changed. Not even that damned spooky portrait over the fireplace. Eli hadn’t touched a thing.
His steps echoed in the cold house, the feeling of being watched so much stronger now. He looked up at the long-gone family; four sets of eyes followed him as he moved around the room. Creepy. How in the hell did Eli stand living here?
He moved into the hall that led to the bedrooms before the answer came to him. Eli spent very little time here, and now Randy knew why. Too many ghosts to deal with. And survivor’s guilt.
Out of curiosity he opened each door knowing whose room was whose back when everyone was alive. Little Evan’s room was first. Smaller than Eli’s but decorated just the same as the day he left it. Blue walls and horse-themed bedding and toys more suited to a four-year-old than a nine-year-old on the shelf. The next room was Eli’s. Randy meant to slip inside and grab some clothes to take back to the hospital, but the condition of the room stopped him in his tracks. It was still the same. Exactly the same. The same decor as in Evan’s room. Eli’s awards on the wall, trophies on his dresser. Books from twenty years ago on the shelf. No dust. Or clothes. He closed the door as quietly as possible. The master suite was next. He expected to find Eli’s things there; it was only right, this being his house now.
Randy closed the door without setting foot inside. His parents’ pajamas still lay on the bed as if they’d come home and dress for bed at any moment.
He found Eli in the guest room, with Creed. The bed was a mess, clothes on the floor on one side of the room; Eli’s clothes. Creed’s were folded in drawers, his boots lined against the wall beside the dresser. A beat-up old straw hat lay on a chair beside Eli’s battered and abused baseball cap from junior high. Randy remembered that hat. They’d both made the team that year; they’d just got the hats the day Eli’s life changed.
Randy sat on the bed holding the hat in his hands. Eli never played. He never even started practice. But he still had that damned hat. And he was gay. In love with some damned rodeo bum.
He thought of Creed and his wounded eyes. The man was seriously good-looking. And hungry. Randy didn’t know what kind of hungry. He feared it was the kind of hungry that would consume Eli and spit him back out in the end. Even after yesterday, Randy didn’t trust him. He didn’t know how to trust him. Or Eli. He didn’t know how to find the friend he’d lost all those years ago. And that made him resent the hell out of Eli, and now Creed.
“Fuck it.” Randy tossed the hat back on the chair where he found it. This was all kinds of messed up. Eli living out here in a house frozen in time. Except for this one room. They’d made this one room livable. Eli and his lover. He’d never get used to that. Never.
He took one small bagful of clothes and grabbed the two toothbrushes from the bathroom and left the house behind.
The drive to the hospital took longer than he expected. Peanut trucks lumbered along the road at their slow, rattling pace. Out here you got used to it. If it wasn’t peanuts, it could be an escaped cow or horse or a drunk on an ATV. You just never knew.
Eli was gay.
That still didn’t sit right with him. Eli. And Randy had never once seen it. Of course, he missed their teen years completely. Eli would have discovered this about himself after he left. Randy had discovered girls not long after that. So why not? Maybe if Eli had stayed he wouldn’t have gone gay.
He stopped thinking the moment he walked into Eli’s room. No answer came when he knocked, but the door was half open so he went in. He stopped breathing at the sight of Eli and Creed together in the bed, Creed’s face upturned to Eli’s, his features relaxed, his lips in a soft smile. And Eli held him much like Randy held his wife. One arm around him, their hands clasped. Then Eli opened his eyes and the moment ended for all of them.
Chapter 15
Tension crackled around him. Creed didn’t think he moved. Up and away from the heat source he slept upon. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet. He smelled blood. Old blood. Hands in fists, the first thing he did was look for the closest escape route. A sheriff’s deputy blocked the only way out. Blood thrummed through his body; fast, he bounced on his feet, ready to move. Ready to run or fight. And then he recognized the deputy. Memory came rushing back.
Eli in the hospital. Randy the deputy is Judge Buchanan’s son. Owen Mason is back. There’s no place safe.
Eli sat up with a groan, his pain bringing Creed completely back into the real world. Randy shifted in his squeaky shoes; he held a paper grocery bag in his hands, and his eyes were wild as he watched Creed. Eli looked so pale beneath his freckles. Uncomfortable. Creed had been dreaming about that night in Vegas. His heart still raced from the memory. Everything was so damned confusing. Randy had walked in on them sleeping together. Creed had told Eli that he loved him. Maybe he was still dreaming.
“Creed? Are you okay?” Eli said, his voice soft, as if he were a child who needed comforting. Maybe he was.
“I was dreaming, sorry,” he said, forcing his body to relax. Hands down at his sides, fingers loose, he found the chair where he’d left it and sat down. “What time is it?”
“Little before eight,” Randy answered as he set the bag of clothing on the bed. “I went by the house and picked up some clothes and things for you both. The horses are fine; Sawyer took care of them last night. He’ll be back out later this morning. The house is—undisturbed.”
Randy paused on that last word too long as if he didn’t know what to say about the mausoleum Eli lived in. Creed didn’t blame him one bit. If he’d gone into the house for clothes then he knew they were sleeping together. Randy knew pretty much everything. Creed didn’t know how to deal with the look in Randy’s eyes. Or the fact that he wouldn’t meet Creed’s gaze. He looked between the two men and realized that this was what trapped felt like. Caught with his heart exposed and wanting to run. The running part he was very familiar with. It was the heart exposed thing that he couldn’t handle.
“I was thinking that it might be time to update the place. Tom is sitting on most of my money, just waiting for me to stop chasing belt buckles. Maybe it’s time. The place is like a time warp.” Eli struggled into a sitting position, dragging the blanket Creed had flung off back over his bare legs. Damn, Eli was mostly naked under there and Creed hadn’t even noticed.
“Sounds like a good plan.” Randy leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. He closed his eyes for a long moment and opened them again. Creed could tell he was struggling for control. “We haven’t found Owen, Eli. Wherever he went after he left your place … well, he’s gone to ground somewhere. I’m sure he knows we’re looking for him by now.”
“You won’t find him.” Eli mumbled, his swollen lips made the words hard to decipher. “He’s not stupid. He’ll lay low and then sneak out when he thinks it’s safe.”
“Do you know where he might have gone?” Randy watched them both with what Creed decided was his cop stare. He wasn’t a friend right now; he was a cop looking for answers.
“Owen was never part of my life before he got custody of me. I barely knew him. He left when I was five years old and never came back. Dad never talked about him beyond the general Owen is in Texas or Owen is riding in Vegas sort of way. I barely know who my dad’s friends were in this town; Owen doesn’t even register. So nope, not one single clue. He could be anywhere by now. Hell, he could be in Texas by now.” Eli became agitated as he spoke; he clawed at the IV in his arm. “I need to get the hell out of this place before I go berserk.”
“I think I saw your doctors making rounds when I came in,” Randy said, looking over at the door. “Probably in a couple of hours. Dad will be here soon and…” Creed’s stomach growled, stopping whatever Randy was going to say. “Sounds like you need to get some breakfast.”
“And a shower,” Creed agreed. He could still smell sex from yesterday morning and the scent of Eli’s blood was making him nauseated.
Eli held his ribs and reached for the bag at the foot of the bed, and then dug through it and dragged out a pair of Creed’s worn-out jeans and a T-shirt. He handed them over to Creed. He set Creed’s new boots on the bed and continued to look. A toothbrush emerged. “Damn, Creed, do you own a pair of underwear?”
“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that by now?” Creed said before remembering they had an audience.
“Fuck, Creed, don’t say things like that when I hurt like a bitch,” Eli said, and Randy sputtered an “Oh Jesus,” which caused all the color to drain from Eli’s face. “Shit, Randy, I, uh, I forgot.”
Randy didn’t say anything for a while; he seemed to be deep in thought. When Creed gathered his things in his arms and excused himself to use the bathroom to change he heard Randy say, “I’ll get used to it, Eli, I guess. I didn’t know before yesterday; Dad knew but he never told me.”
Creed let the door stay open a little to listen.
“The question is, how did Tom know? I mean, I never told him,” Eli said. Creed could hear pain in his voice as he moved on the bed.
“Don’t know. He assured Creed yesterday that he knew when Creed…” Randy paused, sighing. “So he’s the girl in your relationship? He’s pretty enough.”
“Oh, Jesus, Randy, Jesus, he’s a man, and there’s no chick in this relationship.” Eli snorted in an attempt not to laugh. Creed didn’t see anything funny about it.
“But you’re the … and he’s the … Oh, fuck, forget I asked. I don’t even know why I even…” Randy had the decency to sound embarrassed but Eli outright laughed this time. Must be something Randy did because the words were sure as hell not laughable.
“I like to bottom, Randy, so I guess that makes me the girl, and Creed, yeah, Creed and those thighs of his, I could ride him all night and never get tired of him. Save a horse, ride a cowboy, yee haw.” Creed could see his face turn tomato red in the mirror. A smile turned his lips up at the corners and he didn’t even realize he smiled. He knew Eli was only goofing to embarrass Randy, but damn he tingled all over from the notion that Eli thought of him that way.
“Jesus, goddamn, Eli. I don’t … okay, sorry I opened this line of … I’ll never get that mental image out now,” Randy said, and Eli howled with laughter. Creed loved listening to him be so un-Eli-like. Two weeks ago Eli and Randy could barely sit in the same car together, and now Eli felt safe enough to taunt his old friend with his love life.
“He’s a good man, Randy.”
“He’s a man, Eli. I just didn’t expect you … I mean we used to sleep in the same bed and…”
“And what? Maybe I perved on you or something. Is that it? We were friends then; what would we be if I’d stayed? When I figured out I’m gay? Would we still be friends or would you have turned on me? I’m still the same. I like baseball, and I ride fucking bulls for a living, I just prefer to sleep with men. I was fourteen when I kissed a guy and I liked it. So what are you going to do now? Believe me, there isn’t much you can do that scares me, Randy.”
“Have you ever been with a woman? Do you even know what that’s like? How do you know?”
“Because I know, the same as you know that you aren’t gay. I don’t have to sleep with a woman to know what I like. I like men. I like men like Creed. I love Creed, Randy. I’m not going to stop just because you don’t approve.”
“You don’t even know him; two weeks ago the two of you were mortal enemies. And—”
“And—I’ve spent years trying to get his attention. I went about it the wrong way. And then I let shit Owen said color the way I treated him. Owen must have seen it; why else would he constantly tell me how much Creed hated fags?”
A chill ran down Creed’s spine. Owen Mason told Eli that he hated fags? Too many nights of Owen telling him the same thing about Eli all swirled in Creed’s memory.
I see you mooning over Eli; why would he have anything to do with a whore like you? He hates fags, cunt, he said he hopes you get AIDS and die
.
“I don’t know how to be your friend, Eli. I don’t—can’t—relate to you anymore. I’m sorry for that,” Randy replied, his voice flat. “I was so happy when you came back all those years ago, but you weren’t the same person. You didn’t even seem to know me. I just wanted you to be happy. All these years. I just wanted to see you laugh again. To not see the cold hate-the-world expression you always wore. I can’t say anything about what you do with your life. It’s not my business.”
“No it’s not your business, it’s mine. I’m trying to salvage something for myself, Randy, I’m trying to, I don’t know… He makes me happy. I’ve only ever wanted to be happy. Is that too much to ask? First my family, and then Owen, and so many damned failed—failed everything. I’m tired of running from myself. I’m tired of being afraid that the kid I was might not like the man I became. And Creed … if he can forgive me for the shit I put him through, then maybe I can forgive myself and start over. I really don’t need your approval, you know?”
Creed held onto the sink to keep his knees from giving out on him. Listening to the loneliness in Eli’s voice damned near killed him. For ten years they’d been leading parallel lives and didn’t recognize what they’d become to each other. But was this love? What the hell was love anyway? Codependence. What they had was some whacked-out need to best each other or beat each other. Sex just seemed the logical plan B. Just because they found an outlet to funnel their aggressive energy into didn’t make it love. Did it?