Stories Beneath Our Skin (8 page)

"
Damn. That's... really not what I was expecting." Ace's fingers twitched and for a moment, Liam thought he might actually reach across the seats to comfort him. Liam wasn't sure he could take that right now.

"
It worked out." He said stiffly, shifting subtly away. "Gene wasn't a part of it. Turned out he was sort of a retirement plan for my aunt. Someone with a steady job for when times got lean. So when the smoke cleared, it was the two of us left standing."

"
So he raised you."

"
Yeah. Anyone else probably would have let me go into the system, but he took me in. He didn't have to do it. I don't know what would've happened to me if he didn't."

"
And now he's dying." Ace smiled at him tightly. "Knew you had a sad story."

"
Yeah, that's what Deb said, too. Gene wouldn't say it was sad though. Always said he wanted a kid and he got one, maybe later than he planned." He gunned it around a pottering Oldsmobile, relishing the hit of distracting speed. "He's seventy-five now. Got Hep C from a bad blood transplant a long time ago. Kidneys started failing and he did dialysis, but there's complications. Last month they moved him to hospice care."

"
And you came home." Ace stared blankly out the window. Liam could practically see the pieces falling into place for him. "And you spend every day with him, don't you?"

"
He's the only person in the world that gave a damn about me when it really mattered. I'm not going to let him die alone." Liam swallowed down heat and bile. "I promised him I'd be there while he was awake."

"
But he sleeps a lot. Especially at night. And it's obvious you can't sleep worth a damn." Ace drummed his fingers over his thigh. "So you figure, you'll find a night job. Something to fill the dark hours. And here's me thinking you applied 'cause you enjoyed it."

"
Yeah." Liam's chest burned. "Yeah, exactly. It's not -- I do like the work. It's not just to fill the time."

"
I wouldn't care if it was. You do good art. The whys of it don't matter to me." Ace tilted his head a little, and Liam waited for the inevitable pity or hollow reassurances. "So what's he like?"

"
Gene?" Liam frowned. "Why?"

"
Well you said you didn't want to talk about the bad parts, and I said talk about the good parts and you decided to tell me the bad parts. Which is cool, by the way, but tell me now. The good stuff."

"
He's funny," Liam said immediately. "He's got a big heart. We used to have strays from all over the neighborhood in our house. Cats, dogs, birds, ferrets, you name it. Even a chipmunk with a broken paw for a while. Maybe he should've been a vet. Guess you could say I was one of the strays." He tried on a smile, but it wouldn't stay, sliding off again. "He loved my aunt a lot, even when he found out that their whole life together was a lie. Never did really accept that. He'd visit her every chance he could in prison and write her long letters when he couldn't. I still don't get that. All this time passed, and I still can't forgive my parents. He's a different sort of person, I guess. For every problem I ever had, he has a story about something like that happening to a guy at work or a cousin or a friend."

"
I know guys like that." Ace smiled a little.

"
Goose reminds me of him sometimes." The comparison had occurred to him more than once, and he took comfort in Goose's familiar feel-good energy. "Though Goose is too out there. Gene's pretty traditional in a lot of ways. He doesn't care about my being gay or anything, but I know he wishes I'd find someone and settle down."

"
Maybe he just wants you to be happy. Some people have a pretty limited idea of what happy means."

"
Maybe." Liam glanced at him. "What about you? What's your idea of happy?"

"
Depends on the day." Ace shrugged. "Enough money to keep the shop open, enough food to keep me full, and a few friends are usually enough for me. What about you?"

"
A full house." He said before he could stop himself. "I want to come home at the end of a long day doing a job I love and have someone waiting who's happy to see me."

"
Yeah." Ace smoothed down the wrinkled line of his cutoffs, plucked idly at the soft white cotton strings. "That's as good a definition as any."

"
I should probably just get a dog."

"
Heh. Cynical, Professor, very cynical."

"
Animals are more reliable than people."

Silence descended in the car, the sun superheating Liam
's skin where it pierced through the windshield. Yet a prickle rose on the back of his neck just like the night before. This time Liam caught Ace at it.

"
You stare a lot." He grumbled, flicking on the radio.

"
There's a lot to look at." Ace didn't apologize. If anything, with it acknowledged between them, his gaze intensified.

"
It's weird." Weirder still was that Liam sort of liked it. He spent so much time trying not to be seen that it carried an illicit sort of thrill now. He felt naked and vulnerable, but for the first time in too long, also unafraid.

"
Don't know if you've noticed, but I'm weird. Get used to it."

"
You're not. Weird, I mean. Just intense."

"
But my staring is weird."

"
And intense."

"
It's a bit of the old pot and kettle there." Ace snorted. "You've got laser focus sometimes."

"
No idea what you're talking about."

St. Francis loomed up
, and Liam took three steadying breaths. His usual parking space was open, and he tried not to take that as a good omen. There wasn't any sense in looking for hope in these sorts of things. The time for hope was over. Psyching himself up to face reality required most of his energy, and it wasn't until Gretchen asked, "And who's your friend?" that he realized Ace had followed him inside.

"
Oh. Um." Liam nailed Ace with a hard glare, jerking his head back to the car, but Ace missed it entirely, too busy taking in the room. "This is my boss, Ace."

"
Nice to meet you." Gretchen eyed Ace warily. "He going in with you?"

"
Yeah." Liam said, flipping to the defensive fast enough to give himself whiplash. He didn't actually want Ace there, but he didn't like Gretchen's tone either. Just because Ace looked like the poster boy for What Your Mother Warned You About didn't mean he wasn't a decent person. "That okay with you?"

"
Sure." She pushed the visitor's log at him. "You know the drill."

"
Just sign in." Liam pushed it toward Ace and watched him draw in his signature complete with an extra flourish and smarmy smile for Gretchen. Apparently Liam wasn't the only one feeling defensive.

"
Remember to be quiet. People need their rest." Gretchen chirped, eyes still warily on Ace.

"
I remember." Liam sighed. He wanted to tell her that Ace, love of thumping bass lines notwithstanding, carried with him a profound quiet. Even his heavy boots barely squeaked against the shining tile floors.

"
Not bad for what it is," Ace said softly.

"
I hate it."

"
Well, yeah. Guess you would even if it was the Taj Mahal."

"
The Taj Mahal is a tomb." Liam ran a hand through his hair, wondering if his clothes would give away that he hadn't been home.

There wasn
't any time for warnings or admonishments, and, really, Liam didn't know where to start with those anyway. It had been too many years since Liam had introduced anyone to Gene. Once Liam was sixteen, Gene had given him a lot of free rein, and on the surface it hadn't been a bad idea. Good grades, self-motivated kid with a part-time job shouldn't need constant supervision. Sometimes Liam wished it had been different, but he couldn't blame Gene for everything that had happened with Brandon. There was only himself to set that burden on.

He pushed into the room, smile on his face and Ace on his heels.

"Sorry I'm late."

"
Started to think you got eaten by a bear." Gene struggled to sit up. Breakfast sat neglected beside him.

"
My fault." Ace stepped inside. "He was playing guardian angel last night for a group of us. Kept him up too late. I'm Ace."

"
Liam's boss?" Gene held out a frail hand, which Ace shook. "He's told me a lot about you."

"
That so?" Ace said mildly. "Good things, I hope."

"
With Liam? Always a mixed bag with him. Boy never met a dog that didn't bite, you understand?"

"
I'm not that bad." Liam slumped into a chair, already regretting not locking Ace in the car. "Just a realist."

"
Half-full or half-empty?" Ace challenged.

"
Depends on how much you started with."

"
Don't bother, he'll argue you to death." Gene gestured at the unused second chair. "Pull it up and tell me how my boy is getting on."

"
He's good." The chair squawked as Ace dragged it closer to the bedside. When he sat, his knee bumped into Liam's thigh. "Got a flair for art and shaky clients."

"
Never did know why he stopped." Gene shrugged. "Don't take much to tattoos or the like myself, but art always had to be more than scribbles on paper for him. Like it was alive inside him, and he wanted it alive in front of him. When he started his apprenticeship, I was worried he'd give up on college there for a while. I was shocked when he gave up tattooing instead. Never did understand why."

"
I am still sitting here." Liam knotted his hands together. He'd told Gene that he didn't have time or a place to tattoo in California and assumed the story had been bought. He should've known better.

"
Doesn't matter. He kept the knack." Ace shrugged, knocking his shoulder gently into Liam's arm.

"
You going to eat that?" Liam brought the oatmeal in, putting the spoon in Gene's hand. "Not going to do you much good in a bowl."

"
Well, it's cold now." But Gene ate a few methodical bites. "Watched the news this morning. Heard about this mess with the Sheriff's department and the gambling ring?"

"
Randy Jacobs, right?" Ace snorted. "Went to high school with him, and the guy has always been as rancid as three day old meat. We all knew when he became a cop that it wasn't going to end pretty."

"
Think he was bad? His father used to work for me. Never actually caught him at anything, but he could make a person uncomfortable. Slimy son of a bitch. Not surprised his kids turned out the same way." Gene leaned forward a little, eyes bright. "If you know the Jacobs, then you have got to know Sandy Pritchard."

"
Sure. She was a little older than me, but everyone knew Sandy."

The conversation spilled out from there, acquaintance after acquaintance brought up and compared. Liam had always known that he
'd grown up in small community, but he'd been a latecomer and often lost in his own world. Most of the names were only familiar to him through Gene's stories. With nothing to add, he sank back and watched Gene grow increasingly animated.

"
You probably don't want to hear an old man's ramblings," Gene scoffed an hour in, halfway through a story about his friend Rick, a plane, and a very confused cow.

"
I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be right now." Ace grinned, wide, boyish and utterly honest.

Whatever burgeoning crush Liam might have tried to smother to death in darkness abruptly flowered into bright painful reality. He could have withstood the good looks, amazing art
, and animal rescuing, but genuine interest in the only person Liam cared about and a smile that lit up the entire dreary room? He wasn't made of stone.

Liam spent the next hour trying to focus on the conversation instead of stealing glances at the lean lines of Ace
's body or worse, the plush arc of his lips. Despite his late night declarations, there had been people Liam was physically attracted to over the last few years, of course, but it had been all too easy to keep them at a distance. This was different. He recognized the sickening freefall of his stomach and the sweat on his palms. Klaxons blared in his ears, warning danger, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

"
Liam?" Gene said, a note of amusement in his voice.

"
What?" He blinked.

"
I was just telling Ace here that I've got to rest my eyes a bit. Maybe you could use a bit of a nap too. Sounds like you had a late night."

"
Yeah." He rubbed at his eyes. "You're probably right. I'll come back this afternoon, okay?"