Making Promises (47 page)

“I mean, I’ve got the extra room, and we could put your bed in there since there’s just bookshelves in there now, and, you know, you wouldn’t have to pay rent and maybe you could save up for a car for work and….” He trailed off, because work would still present a problem and, shit shit shit shit shit, maybe this would be the last fucking straw.

“That would be a solution,” Mikhail said cagily from the other end of the line. “I… I will think about it,” he promised before ringing off.

Shane hung up and gave a sigh of relief. It had been clumsy of him, but apparently not unforgivable. He was so relieved Mickey hadn’t just hung up and bolted for the hills right then that he didn’t figure the conversation would have any lasting repercussions until the next night.

Mikhail wasn’t at his apartment when Shane went to collect him, and his cell phone went straight to voice mail. Shane drove back to Levee Oaks in the rain-pissing dark, nervous and upset—oh Jesus, he’d spooked the guy, hadn’t he? He’d taken off for the hills or was hiding under his bed not answering the door or… or… or….

Or he was halfway between the bus stop and Shane’s house, sopping wet and carrying a really large package wrapped in blankets as he trotted briskly through their worst storm all year.

Shane pulled over and shoved the door of the GTO open, trying hard to be angry. It was difficult when Mikhail was shivering and blue and wearing one of Shane’s hooded sweatshirts over his denim jacket and still Making Promises

dripping water in a gloppy pool all over the inside of the car, but Shane gave it a try anyway.

“What in the fuck…?”

“Yes,” Mikhail chattered. “Yes, I broke my promise, but since it is to make a better one, I thought you would let it slide.” Shane reached over and cranked the heater and the defrog to maximum and hoped the fan could work faster than the steam could build on the inside of the windows.

“Mikhail, I beg of you, please have a fucking good explanation for this, dammit…. Man, I checked your apartment and everything! I was freaking the fuck out!”

Mikhail nodded and put his seatbelt on under the big object in his arms. “Yes, I am sorry—my cell phone quit when I was on the bus.” He pushed back his hood, and his hair sprang around his head in a corkscrew halo. He was trying to appear suitably chastened, but he seemed to be exuberant instead.

Shane blew out a breath and sighed. “So?” he asked as he pulled the car away. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Shane slid his glance sideways, took in Mikhail’s smirk and rolled his eyes. Damn, it was hard to stay mad at him. “Okay—tell me what you’re doing walking out here when it’s pissing down cats and dogs and even the gods are fucking cold… and if you make a crack about Zeus having blue balls, I’m pulling the car over right the fuck here and letting you walk home, dammit!”

Mikhail let out a little giggle, and the smirk widened. “Yes. Yes.

That’s exactly what I would do. I would walk home! You see? This is me, moving in.”

Shane hit a puddle and almost spun out. He recovered, slowed down, and tried to keep his foot steady on the gas pedal as he shot another glance at his crazy Russian boyfriend. “Moving in?”

“Yes.” He reminded Shane of one of the cats after they’d escaped from the house, gone hunting and dropped something unspeakable on his porch. “I went home today and looked around, and I realized, the only thing keeping me there was memories of Mutti. She is gone,” and for the 290

first time his voice sobered, “but you are here. And you want me to be happy, and I am happy when I am with you. Until you have found someone better, I will be with you, and it really is that simple.” Shane swallowed hard. “Really?” Damn. “That simple?” He took a deep breath and tried to control the giddy, big-doofus smile that wanted to take over his face.

“Da,” Mikhail said smugly. “You see, before I went to work today, I looked around. I thought, ‘My bed would go well in Shane’s guest room, like he said, and my favorite clothes are already there. We can move the rest this weekend.’” He thrust his shoulders forward, and indicated the burden in his arms. “This is the only thing we need, and so I took it. And now I am moved in.”

“But work….” Shane didn’t have to ask what the thing in his arms was now—even though he wanted a guided tour of it when they got home.

Mikhail nodded, looking very pleased with himself. “Work is taken care of. I asked Anna tonight—she said I could change classes with the girl who teaches at Levee Oaks. She lives in Citrus Heights—it is closer for both of us. If our students really want us, they will commute—that is what Anna said, and I hope she is right. Either way, I will still teach and I will still dance, but I will come to a place with cats who adore me.”

“And me,” Shane said, bemused by it all.

Mikhail’s expression sobered completely. “You are home,
lubime.
I can always find another shitty apartment. Time when you adore me is not always guaranteed.”

Shane grunted, trying to find words to tell him that it
was
guaranteed, that Mikhail
didn’t
have to worry, but he drove up to the cattle guard, and Mikhail put his burden down on the car floorboards and got out to open the gate. The dogs were huddling in the giant lean-to Shane had built up against the house and outfitted with some old blankets and food and water for days just like this when the weather changed. On a night like this, they were too cold to come out and greet their pet humans, and Shane and Mickey didn’t have to worry about being swamped with wet dog.

When they got inside, Mikhail took the cedar box out of its wrappings (there was a layer of trash bags under the sodden blanket—

when Shane asked why he didn’t put the blankets under the trash bags, he Making Promises

looked embarrassed and said, “Because I am not terribly bright. And now you know”), and put it on Shane’s dresser.

“It is heavier now than it used to be,” Mikhail admitted, shaking out his cramped arm muscles. He looked slyly at Shane as Shane was trying to strip off his jeans and socks and sopping wet tennis shoes. “I think I have you to thank for that.”

Shane grunted and sat down heavily, Mikhail’s shoe in his hand. “I didn’t want you to forget about us, is all.”

Mikhail stepped daintily out of his jeans and boxers, which were pooled around his ankles. “If my precious box were dropped into a well and bombed out of existence, you would still be etched in my heart.” Shane looked up at him from his ungraceful position on the floor.

“You always manage to say the nicest things when I’m feeling like the biggest jerkoff. Why is that?”

Mikhail shrugged out of Shane’s sweatshirt and then his denim jacket and then the three layers underneath—all were soaked.

“I do not know. Why don’t you join me in the shower and fuck me until neither of us care?” He was shivering, but his slightly blue-tinged grin was one hundred percent invitation, and Shane was on his feet and hopping out of his uniform and putting his gun in the closet safe even as Mikhail turned on the water.

As he stepped into the steaming shower and felt his lover’s pliant flesh under his hands, he reflected that Mickey had been right. Sometimes, words really were overrated.

Lost track of how far I’ve gone… How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed

“The Rising”—Bruce Springsteen

MIKHAIL would later wonder on the good fortune they had to bring his bed to the spare room—not that Mikhail ever needed it to sleep in, no, but it did make the room look good, and eventually it would get use.

In the meantime, he was learning that living with Shane was far easier than living without him had ever been. It was so easy, in fact, as to make Mikhail doubt his sanity just a little. What kind of fool turns down a stolen life when it is given to you?

That didn’t mean he didn’t worry.

Shane’s soul-breaking work schedule continued, and the stress of the odd shift times and the lack of sleep were beginning to tell. Mikhail had even called Calvin to ask, shyly and humbly, if there was any reason Calvin knew of why they were being scheduled so badly.

Calvin had sighed into the phone. “Why do you think, Mr. Bayul?

It’s not like everybody doesn’t know you’re staying with him. I mean, Shane’s a good man and a good cop, but nobody can take this for too long.

Hell—I had to take a day off sick leave. I spent the whole day worried that he was going to get sent out on a call and left there.” Mikhail sighed. He hated to ask. He really did. But it had to be done.

“And if I was not living here?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Calvin had growled. “I think you’re the only thing keeping him on his feet.”

Mikhail had tentatively broached the subject with Shane. “Well, what do you want me to do, Mickey? Quit and let them win?”

“Well, you could… I don’t know. Jon and Amy are doing legal work for Deacon….”

Shane shook his head and looked away. He was spending a precious hour off shift picking up the dog crap in the yard, because with six dogs, if it wasn’t done daily, the shit would
literally
crawl up the porch.

“They’re doing that because Deacon needs to keep the ranch. I don’t need this job. They haven’t done anything but harass me a little. And I’ve already gotten the big gay payoff. I don’t want any more money. I just want to do a job I’m proud of!” His voice rose at the end, and even Mikhail, with his flash temper, could see that the man was asleep on his feet. He sighed and took the clever dog-crap-picker-upper from Shane’s hands.

“Go take your boots off and nap,” he said softly. “I’ll take this over, and you can dream of some sort of amazing sexual favor to grant me for it later.”

Shane’s mouth went mutinous for a minute, and Mikhail remembered that yes, this big warm man had his pride, and it should be honored. To stave off the ego-puffing-chest-fluffing turkey moment, Mikhail raised himself on tiptoe and pressed his mouth to Shane’s.

Shane closed his eyes and opened his mouth and went boneless in his lover’s arms, and Mikhail took the advantage to push him into the house.

“You know,” Mikhail said as he tottered through the doorway, “there are other jobs out there that would make you happy.” Shane turned to him with such puzzlement on his face that Mikhail had to rack his brains to make sure he hadn’t been speaking in Russian.

“What other job?” he asked, at a complete loss, and Mikhail shook his head in frustration.

“Don’t hurt yourself with the thought, big man. We’ll talk about it later.”

Of course later was always at two in the morning, and they had better things to do with their mouths and their time at two in the morning.

More often than not, Mikhail ended up talking to Benny about it, because 294

that’s where he went when he was not working and Shane was. The little connecting pathway between their houses was just so easy to traverse, and much of it could be spent accompanied by the dogs, who always loved the run. By necessity, Mikhail had learned the trick to dealing with the dogs.

First, he always had something to throw for them on hand. Second, he always had a pocket full of dog treats. More than once, as Angel Marie had been thundering at him like a furry dragon of death, he had thrown the pocketful of dog treats on the ground and climbed whatever was handy to get off the ground and out of the way of the drooling monsters. Of course, more than once they had overtaken him and covered him in wet hair and dog spit, so it was a pretty even-handed battle at the moment.

But when he dodged out of the cattle fence and caught the trail to go to Deacon’s, he left the big furry monsters behind and found someone to share the burden for caring for his open-hearted cop.

Benny, surrounded by big protective men, seemed to have a special fondness for the diminutive Mikhail. In spite of their age difference, she related to him as an equal, and he was grateful for the unburdened friendship.

And they both shared the harrowing experience of getting their driver’s license.

“I don’t even want to ask him to take me,” Mikhail told her one Sunday, mournfully. “He would, you know? But he is always so tired—

and then we get in the car and he spends the whole time holding on to the oh-shit bar, and then where am I?”

They were sitting on the porch together, watching as Parry Angel—

bundled in a jacket because the wind was bitter on this sunny March day—toddled around a big plastic structure that had been set up in the front yard. Benny actually set down the knitting she had on her lap and turned to look at him wryly.