Making Promises (52 page)

“You did not tell me,” he said softly.

“You’re right. I didn’t tell you what?” Shane blinked—hard—

because he hadn’t taken any days off, and he needed that coffee badly.

“Didn’t tell me this would be a… a burden to so many people.” Mikhail looked unhappily toward the van, sticking out of Shane’s garage along with a whole bunch of parts and tools that Shane had not had four days ago. While they were watching, Crick—who was taking the tire off so he could check the brakes, because they were at that stage—slipped his hand from the lug-wrench and skinned the knuckles of his bad hand, letting loose a string of swear words into the night that made the sky about three shades darker. Deacon’s voice floated out to them.

“Goddammit, Carrick—let me see that. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Here—let’s go inside—Shane’s got the antiseptic and shit in the kitchen…”

“Deacon, it’s a scrape….”

“And we’ll need a bandage and we’ve got to scrub the grease out….”

“Deacon, I’m not made out of glass….”

“Just shut up and go inside, dammit. If we put a bandage on it, you can fix that goddamned tire!”

“Sir yes sir!” Crick snapped, saluting sharply.

Andrew stuck his head out from under the van where he was doing something with the chassis and snickered. “Shut up, Lieu, and go inside and let him doctor you. He’s the second best mechanic we’ve got, and we don’t want him distracted.”

“Second?” Deacon asked, a little affronted.

“Shane’s the first,” Calvin said, standing up from his place by the front of the engine. “I mean, I knew he restored the GTO, but, damn—I didn’t realize he was like a fucking genius with the things.” 322

“Shit.” Shane blushed and then he realized he hadn’t responded to Mikhail’s unasked question. “You were so proud, Mickey. I just didn’t want to take that away from you—and look. It’ll be ready for tomorrow, right? Jon and Amy said they’d follow you up and make sure it went okay.

They’re looking forward to seeing the Faire.”

Mikhail stood on his toes and pressed his lips to Shane’s, and Shane was surprised enough to open his mouth and kiss him back, groaning because there hadn’t been much time for the two of them in the past week, and it felt so good to hold him.

“Don’t make it small,” Mikhail whispered against him, dropping the grocery bags on the ground and wiggling closer. “Don’t make light of it.

You do that all the time—you create miracles, do wonderful things, and then act as though anyone else would do the same. Nobody would do the things for me that you have done. It is huge. It is bigger than the world.

You and your family have done the impossible, just for me. How could I not love you?”

Shane leaned back against the car in surprise. “Really? You do?” Mikhail stepped back and shook his head in irritation. “And how could I not have said it until now? You do miracles for me, and I can’t even say three simple words. No wonder no one has worked miracles for me before; I don’t deserve th—”

Because Shane shut that up right quick. They had to stop kissing eventually, because the coffee was getting cold, but Shane kept the words tight in his heart for the rest of the night. For the rest of the weekend, actually, because Shane worked, and he couldn’t go see Mikhail and Kimmy at the Faire.

It was hard watching him drive away in the now-working
purple
van. Mickey was going to paint it pink and call it “The Queermobile,” but Calvin said, “Oh yeah—and our own police department will egg your house and TeePee your lawn.

Mikhail had been pretty upset, and Shane had sent Calvin a quelling look, saying, “Don’t you let my job rule your life, Mickey. You paint the damned thing any color you like.”

Mikhail had sulked. “Yes, your damned job—they never can tolerate a purple brick, can they?” And then he’d looked up, a rather unholy gleam in his eye.

“No,” Shane said flatly.

“Oh yes.”

“Mickey….”

“You said I should paint it any color I like. So I am going to name it after you.”

Ten cans of purple primer later, (and one can of black) it was a big purple van with “The Purple Brick” freehanded on the side. Crick did the freehanding, and Deacon said it looked a damned sight better than the water tower. Crick turned red and said, “Fuck you, Deacon,” and then Deacon had smirked, and, well, it had been three in the morning by then and pretty much everyone had laughed their asses of.

Six hours later, Mikhail left. He called two hours after to let Shane know he’d arrived on time, and Jon had called shortly thereafter to let him know that Mickey wasn’t a bad driver and they could quit their worrying.

Since Jon and Shane had finally taken over teaching Benny to drive, Shane figured he could trust Jon’s judgment and relaxed just a smidge.

Of course, he relaxed even more when Mickey pulled into Deacon’s driveway in time for Sunday dinner. Mikhail spent the evening eating Benny’s pot roast and telling stories about the Nevada City Celtic Cross and how beautiful Shane’s sister had been when they danced. Shane was glad to hear that Kimmy could still dance, but he heard the undertone of the story. Mikhail had caught his eyes and shrugged—she was still in trouble and still wouldn’t ask for help, and that sucked. But Mickey was home and that rocked, and he was exuberant and thrilled to be independent and doing something he loved—truly loved—and Shane’s chest swelled and his throat ached to see his lover that happy. His cock ached too, so when they got home, Shane stripped him naked, and took him hard and fast, bent over the bed.

Mikhail came so hard he couldn’t talk for ten minutes, and when he was coherent, Shane manhandled him into bed, kissed him urgently, and said, “Now
that’s
how much I missed you!” and Mickey had grinned and shrugged, and said, “Not so much then?”

Shane did it again, and he was satisfied.

And he got told “I love you” every night, and he really started to believe it.

Which was why, when he got his ribs busted hauling StepBob and his friends into jail for a drunk and disorderly three days later, he was surprised when Deacon came into the hospital room without Mickey.

“You got the Vicodin?” Shane asked, because Deacon had been going to stop by the pharmacy and get Shane’s pain meds, and damn, his side was
really
beginning to hurt. Deacon nodded and cracked the seal on a water, handed him a pill, and let him wash everything down.

“Where’s Mickey?” He’d really wanted to see him—and he’d gotten spoiled that way.

“Funny you should mention that,” Deacon said, when he was sure Shane had swallowed the Vicodin. “’Cause I asked Benny that same question when the station called us.”

Shane made a mental note to put Mikhail on his list of emergency contacts—he’d be hurt if he wasn’t. “And what did Benny say?”

“She said that he was on the way to Monterey with Crick.” Shane tried to leap to his feet, but his ribs caught his breath in a blinding flash of pain, and he fell back down. “Monterey? What in the fuck…?”

“Seems your sister called when I was at the feed store? Something about needing to move right now? Anyway, I got home to an empty house just in time for the station to call to say you’d gotten the shit kicked out of you.”

“Somebody had a lead pipe,” Shane grunted, his brain trying to process this particular disaster.

Deacon grunted, too, and fingered a faint scar at his hairline. “I know that pipe,” he muttered.

Oh Jesus. If Kimmy had called, things must have gotten dire with Kurt. “Oh shit… my flaky sister just left her coked-up douchebag boyfriend.” Shane stood up this time and walked unsteadily to the door, waiting for his vision to come back when the Vicodin kicked in. “And Mickey and Crick went to help her? Oh, Jesus. The tempers those two have, I don’t see how this could possibly get any worse.” He stopped and gripped the doorframe, and suddenly Deacon was at his side, a hand on his bad elbow to help him keep upright. “Jeff was home when Mickey called. He went with them.”

“Oh fuck….” And he tried to hobble faster.

“Don’t you have to fill out some paperwork to leave?” Deacon asked, but he didn’t slow down when Shane said, “Who the fuck cares!” It took them an hour before they were on their way—for one thing, they had to go get Shane’s car from the station house because Deacon’s truck didn’t go faster than fifty miles an hour on the freeway. Shane was breathing hard, and his skin was clammy as Deacon belted him in, and Deacon shoved two different painkillers at him with a big bottle of water before taking his keys and going to the other side to drive.

“Take them,” Deacon grunted as Shane stared at the pills dumbly.

“But….”

“Trust me—they’ll work with the Vicodin. I wouldn’t steer you wrong here, and it’s gonna be a long fucking trip.” Shane did as he asked and closed his eyes almost immediately in relief. Deacon was rarely wrong. “God… there’s no way we can catch up with them, is there?”

Deacon shrugged and turned the ignition. Something boyish and delighted crossed his normally reserved, pretty face when he stepped on the gas. “We won’t be too far behind. I’ve seen your boyfriend drive—he pretty much hits sixty and putters there for a bit.” Using one hand on the wheel and a bit of panache, Deacon whipped the car out of the parking lot and onto the closest road to the freeway. “I’ve only driven her in the city.

How fast does this thing go?”

Shane grunted, wishing he could laugh. “I opened her up between L.A. and Las Vegas—I pegged the speedo, but I don’t know how much faster it went after that.”

The sound Deacon made in his throat then was predatory and gleeful, and if Shane hadn’t been stoned on painkillers, he would have been positively wonderstruck that Deacon could sound so deliciously evil.

“I don’t think we’ll get a chance to go faster than one hundred and forty,” he said thoughtfully, passing two cars legally and grinning just a little.

“But we can always hope.”

Shane fell asleep about five minutes later, but since they got to Monterey in two and a half hours, he always figured that was a blessing.

God knows what he might have pulled watching Deacon whip his car through traffic to make that kind of time.

Shane didn’t know how to get to Kimmy’s house, but apparently Deacon had that covered too. When he came to, groggy from the painkillers and still in pain (oh the fucking injustice!), Deacon was on the hands-free with Benny. Apparently she fed Kimmy’s address into the computer and got directions, and Deacon followed them. They drove through a neighborhood of pretty two-story homes, narrowly built together with postage stamp lawns. Deacon swore, and Shane blinked and focused, and there was The Purple Brick sitting outrageously in front of this nice bohemian neighborhood, and there were their people on the lawn with what looked like a yard sale. And even as they pulled up and took in the scene, there was Kurt, swinging a haymaker at Crick’s lame side, connecting solidly with his jaw.

“Oh
fuck
no!” The car came to a screeching halt, and Shane was thrown up against the seatbelt with enough force to bring tears to his eyes, and before he’d even cleared them, Deacon was out of the car and
vaulting
over the hood.

Shane scrambled awkwardly for the seatbelt and got out of the car as fast as his body would allow. Mikhail was crouched by Kimmy, and Jeff was on her other side, wiping her face with a wet towel.

“Okay, honey, now how’re you feeling?”

“Stoned,” Kimmy slurred. “Fucking bastard… I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. Swear. Mikhail, I swear. I did some at Christmas ’cause I was so lonely, but I kept clean since. I did. I swear….”

“We hear you, cow-woman,” Mikhail said brusquely. His hand in Kimmy’s hair was all tenderness, though, and Shane realized with a lump in his throat that Mickey loved his sister too. “Now shut up and let the pretty man ask you questions. He’s like a doctor without the sharp objects, and he wants to make sure your heart won’t explode, because that would be bad form.”

“Absolutely,” Shane grunted, moving over to them. “We make this drive out here, and you’re not around to take back?” Kimmy looked up at him through swimming eyes, and Shane realized her face was dusted with cocaine and her nose was bleeding—a lot.

“Shaney….” She started to cry. “Jesus, Shaney. I was leaving him. I swear I was. You said you’d be home, and I was going to go home. But we were out here, and that fucker shoved my face in a bowl full of coke…

said it was the only way to keep me here….”

“Jesus….” Shane’s heart started thundering in his throat—and his broken ribs—and he looked at Jeff, who had finished getting most of the drugs out of her hair and was taking her pulse.

“She’s running really fast,” Jeff said quietly. “But she’s still talking, and she’s not passing out.”

“You want to take the GTO and get her to the doc’s?” Shane asked, and Jeff shook his head.

“If she’s going to blow a brain gasket, it’s going to happen between here and the hospital, wherever that may be. Usually with coke, something like that happens immediately. We got it off her body—if we can keep her calm, her blood pressure should drop pretty soon. Don’t want to freak out the old blood pressure, do we, Shane’s sister?”

“You’re really nice,” Kimmy mumbled. “And you’re so pretty.”

“You know how this story ends, sweetheart,” Jeff said kindly, and she gave a grunt and rested her head on Mikhail’s shoulder.