Making Promises (11 page)

Kurt ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. Shane had expected it, and he’d ordered his own T-bone steak as well, wrinkling his nose when Kimmy ordered a chicken salad.

“Sorry, big brother,” she said with a grimace. “Since I’m not a coke-whore anymore, I’ve got to keep my weight down the old-fashioned way.” Making Promises

“It’s not working,” Kurt said critically. “You can really pack it in on your thighs, Kim.”

“You look beautiful,” Shane snapped, sincerely. “In fact, that’s one of the first things I thought when I saw you. You look strong and healthy—good for you.”

Kimmy smiled radiantly at him, and then Kurt opened his mouth up about how she’d never be model weight again, and the smile went away.

“Don’t like models,” Shane grunted. “Don’t like thirteen-year-old boys, either.”

“Ewww…,” Kurt said, looking at him in horror. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Same goddamned chest, moron.”

And then the waitress arrived with food, and that was the best news Shane had heard since Mikhail had gone trotting off into the Faire.

He ate steadily, enjoying his food and giving off his best “don’t bother me, I’m eating” vibe. Kimmy ate the same way—it was probably a throwback to their childhood, when they were both to be seen and not heard at the table, but it was also, Shane suspected, Kurt’s oppressive presence.

Halfway through the meal, when Kurt excused himself to the bathroom, both of them heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry,” Kimmy mumbled, showing eloquent eyes over her half-eaten salad. “I… he’s….”

“If you say ‘he’s nice to me-ee,’ I’m going to toss my dinner right here, Kim. You are so much better than that.”

Kimmy looked up, sad and naked. “What do you want me to say, Shane? I needed someone. He was there. I settled. That doesn’t mean it’s all bad, you know?”

Shane looked down at his hands, thought of holding Mikhail’s in his own for the whole day, and then reached across the table and took his sister’s hands. In spite of the weight she’d gained and her obvious strength as a gymnast, her hands were fine-boned and felt fragile under his big, hammy paws, and he smiled a little.

“I’m not a chubby kid anymore, Kim. I could protect you. You could come and stay with me and get your shit together and never have to depend on an asshole like him again.”

Kimmy swallowed and refused to meet his eyes. “I’ll work it out,” she said gruffly. “I’ll… I want to do it myself.” Shane thought of The Pulpit, of the interdependence of people that made up that family, and stroked the back of her hands sadly. “No one can do it themselves, sweetheart.”

She sighed—it was an old sound—and pulled one hand out and patted his knuckles like he was a small child. “Let me try, okay?”

“Just know—know. You have my number. You—and I mean you alone, that asshole’s not invited—you, Kimmy, are always invited to my home.”

Her hand disappeared from his vision. When it came back it was wet and smeared with mascara. “I’ll hold you to that.” There was a heavy moment, and then she sighed in annoyance.

“Christ—Shane, could you go check on him? He’s been gone a hell of a long time.”

Shane had a bad feeling just walking into the bathroom. It was your basic four-stall, two-urinal set-up, but the sounds coming from the end stall did not bode well. It sounded like someone sucking in a whole lot of nasal spray. Shane took a minute and got a hold of his temper, then angled his vision through the crack in the end stall.

And watched Kurt do another line.

He didn’t make another sound. Just turned his big body around and started fumbling with the wallet in his little leather pouch. When he got back to the table he lucked out: their waitress was right there, refilling Kimmy’s soda. He took out a handful of bills and put them in the girl’s hand.

“We’re going to have to leave,” he said amicably. “Could you tell the guy who was here that he needs to find his own way back?” The surprised woman took the money even as he held out his hand and said,

“C’mon, Kim!”

“Shane!”

“He’s not getting back into my car—if you want a ride back, you need to come with me now.”

Kimmy hopped up and hurried after him, and Shane roared out of the parking lot as though he was being chased by the hounds of cocaine hell.

They were silent for a few moments in the purring car as Shane tried to get them off of the main drag of Gilroy, and then he said, “Shit. Christ.

I’m still hungry. You up for an ice cream or something, Kim?” He heard her half-laugh, and then, “Yeah. Why the fuck not?” They stopped at a frostie—the old-fashioned kind run by mom and pop or whoever—and Shane got some fries to make up for the potato he hadn’t had a chance to finish, and Kimmy got an ice cream, and they sat together on the rough wooden bench and ate in bemused silence.

“I’m going to have to go back and get him,” she said after a moment.

“Yeah—but not in my car. If he gets busted with that shit in my car, Kim, there goes my career—such as it is. And honestly, I just don’t want him near me. I’m sorry….”

“Don’t be,” she interrupted. “He’s an asshole. But he’s my asshole.

I’ll come back and deal with him, and we’ll probably make up because we’re in the middle of Faire season, but….” Her voice trailed off, and he hated the hopeless note that had entered it. She took a deep breath and forced some optimism. “In the meantime, now that you’re done with your fries, how ’bout you go get a banana split, Shaney. Just because you’re not fat anymore doesn’t mean you don’t get some empty calories after you’ve lived through a day like this.”

Shane smiled at her. “With the exception of the waste of skin doing lines in the bathroom, my day was actually pretty damned good.” Kimmy smiled back. “Kurt’s an asshole—”

“We’ve covered that.”

“What I’m trying to say is don’t listen to him about Mikhail. Mik’s good at the fair hook-up—that’s true. But he’s a really good guy. I think he’s just lonely, you know? He doesn’t know how to ask for more, so he settles for what he can get.”

Shane looked at her pointedly. “No wonder you two are such good friends.”

Kimmy’s grimace was eloquent, and Shane took that chance to go get the banana split. Kim helped him eat it.

They got into the GTO again, and the atmosphere was almost lighter somehow.

“Nice car,” Kimmy said, running her hands over the leather. “Did you fix it up?”

Shane nodded. After he’d gotten the new job, he’d settled down to find some new interests to help define the new Shane. Working on the car was one of them, and the animals were another.

“Why don’t you find something on the iPod,” he said, pulling out of the narrow parking lot onto the main drag again. “It’s a good night to roll down the windows and crank up the volume.”

“Good,” Kimmy said with some humor. “The better to let the garlic seep through our clothes.”

Well, Gilroy did hold the title of “Garlic Capitol of the World.” Why not?

“Any preferences?” Kim asked, after scrolling through the menu for a few moments. “Gimme a clue or something here, Shaney—you’ve got what? Ten thousand songs on this thing?”

“Eleven thousand, six hundred, and twenty-three,” Shane corrected.

Indulging in music had been one of the perks he’d given himself with his blood money. “But there’s some duplicates, so that’s probably not exactly right.”

Kimmy laughed and decided on a choice. “Bruce. He seems to be something in common—anything special?”

“Have you heard the
Magic
CD?”

Kimmy made an approving sound, and the first strains of “I’ll Work For Your Love” started to rumble through the car. They rolled down their windows in tandem and let the music move through them. One more thing, Shane thought with a little bit of optimism. One more thing that bound them together like family.

The Faire lost some of its glamour without the enthusiastic crowds.

As Shane drove up around the fairgrounds to the employee parking lot in the back, it looked dusty and peaceful but no longer the place where dreams of an innocent, exciting past could come true. For the first time, Making Promises

Shane thought longingly of his jeans—if for no other reason than because they were comfortable and his.

But as Shane dropped Kimmy off by the RV that she and Kurt traveled in, he saw Mikhail lounging shirtless on a hay bale, ear buds in his ears and a thoughtful look on his pretty face, and suddenly the place looked a whole lot brighter.

Kimmy looked in Mikhail’s direction and gave a short laugh. “He’s going to be all casual, right? But his little tent is way off on the other side of the lot—and if you look, there’s plenty of hay bales there too.” Shane couldn’t help his sweet, hopeful smile. “I’m not going to be another Faire hook-up,” he said, meaning it. “Not tonight.” But he got out of the car anyway. He could talk to the guy—really, wasn’t it worth getting out of the car to talk to someone who got his jokes?

Kimmy came around and gave him a hug—the kind of hug where she buried her face in his neck and stayed for longer than she had to.

“I’m so glad you came, Shane,” she said softly. “As fucked up as I am….” Her voice threatened to break, and he shh’d her and rocked her and kissed her hair as it rested under his chin.

“Kim, we’re family. Just tell me you won’t forget that I’m your family again, okay? You don’t need to be in rehab to call. It doesn’t need to be Christmas. I’m….” He blushed and looked yearningly at Mikhail, as much of a long-shot as that seemed. “I’m getting into family now. Now that I have one… you can be a part of it. That would be nice, Kim. They’d like you.”

Kimmy wiped her face on his shoulder. “I need to be a better me first.”

“Kim….”

But she was gone, running for the RV and pulling her keys out of her own leather pouch at her waist as she ran. She was still in her faire clothes, her ankles flashing in her dancing boots under a skirt the color of ripe pomegranates and her brown wavy hair falling to her waist as she ran. She was beautiful and fey….

And she made him want to cry. The RV roared to life and lumbered off, leaving a hurricane of dust in its wake. Shane watched her go and then turned around toward the hay bales and the shade to find Mikhail.

The other man had started walking, bare feet, bare chest, and all. He was almost to the GTO, and Shane was both surprised and pleased.

“So,” Mikhail said, casting a disgusted gray-eyed glance to the departing RV, “I take it the asshole boyfriend got left behind?”

“He was doing lines in the bathroom,” Shane said with a sigh. He leaned his ass against the hood of the GTO and expected Mikhail to do the same. He was surprised—shocked, stunned, breathless—when Mikhail leaned forward instead of backward and rested the front of his body on Shane.

Shane’s hands came up to the man’s muscular biceps and he closed his eyes for a moment as he felt the smooth skin under his palms. Mikhail was short enough that, half-sitting as Shane was, their groins were right.

Up. Against. Each other.

Shane groaned and leaned his forehead against Mikhail’s and said it again. “I’m not going to sleep with you, dammit. I’m going to
court
you!” Mikhail grunted, and the sound conveyed a world of cynicism in one syllable. “Men don’t court me, pretty man. They fuck me. I’m a sure thing.

Can’t you just take a sure thing? You are pretty, I am available?” His shoulders moved in a shrug, and Shane’s hands slid to his elbows.

Absently Shane rubbed his thumbs over the tender skin on the inside of Mikhail’s elbows, and he heard Mikhail’s breath catch and shudder in his chest.

“You are pretty,” Shane whispered. He leaned his head back and saw the thick golden light hitting that blond hair and turning it almost transparent. “And you are the only person I’ve ever met who speaks

‘Shane Perkins’.” He caressed that vulnerable skin again just to watch Mikhail shudder.

“You are a hope,” Shane continued, leaning his head forward and touching his cheek to Mikhail’s temple. “We go into your tent and do whatever tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be gone. No hope. We leave it good tonight, and I court you, and you’ll be a hope.” He could feel the tight wire of reluctance as the other man leaned into him, and then, perversely, Mikhail ground his groin—swollen and aroused—up against Shane, and he groaned.

“You can do that until I come in my pants, you little bastard, but that’s not going to keep me from thinking you’re worth the wait.” Making Promises

Mikhail went limp against him—it was a surprise. “You did not look this stubborn this morning,” he said softly, peering up from his chest, and Shane rubbed that sensitive, tender skin again. There was a roughness under his thumbs, irregular bumps, scars, under each thumb, and as he glanced down Mikhail stiffened and started to pull away.

“I didn’t know you yet,” Shane replied absently. “Now that I know what you’re worth… hey. Don’t pull away. Let me see?” Mikhail had taken a step back and was standing, fists balled at his sides, with a miserable, defensive expression on his face.

“You want to see? You stupid, stubborn man—you want to see?

What a prize I am? What sort of hope I am? Here. Come look—you will see.” And with that he turned his arms out, so Shane could see the soft white skin he’d been stroking. Under the tan and the dust from the fair were the terrible ravages of a catastrophic love affair with needles and death.