Forever Promised (35 page)

He kept talking. His new coworkers nodded and smiled. He’d say later that once again, Deacon had saved his ass. Deacon would tell him that once more, Jon had saved his own ass.

Jon took it as a sign, a promise, that Deacon wasn’t going anywhere, but he didn’t tell Deacon that. Deacon could still call him a stupid asshole from three thousand miles away.

Crick
:
She Moves in Mysterious Ways

“O
H
YEAH
,”
Andrew said, watching Crick’s sister walk toward the stables from the driveway, “the titty fairy has arrived.”

“I just threw up in my mouth a little.”

Crick had come outside to dump eggshells and coffee grounds in the compost pile. It was his first time outside that day, and the hard blue of the November sky, as well as the savage, dancing wind, made him reluctant to go back in. Andrew was pulling hay bales off the delivery truck and stacking them against the wall, so that gave him a windbreak
and
a warm wall with sun, and Crick was taking a break.

Drew cast him an annoyed look now. “Hey—you and Deacon are going to go home with the cute wrinkly thing—I gotta take my bennies where I can get them.”

Crick looked at his, well, admittedly voluptuous sister, and tried to see the downside of taking the
giant
opening Drew had just given him.

“You already got all the Benny you need,” he said, full of himself. “And in another few months, you’re going to have even
more
Benny than you can handle!” He didn’t even quail under Drew’s disgusted glare.

“You know, you’re not the only one who was hauling that travois through the fucking desert, Lieu—”

“I was the one who wasn’t going to get you killed, Private Blood-loss,” Crick zinged again, practically hopping he was so happy to get a few in edgewise. Yeah, so Deacon was the “older, more mature” partner. Crick had long since accepted he’d be putting his size-fourteen feet in his mouth whenever it opened—he was used to it by now.

“Yeah, there was that. And I have to admit, you’re
mildly
less irritating than Private Andy—”

“I am deeply wounded by that.” When Drew paused to ogle Benny, he leaned over the corner of the truck with his hooks already set in the next hay bale. He leaned back on his good leg and, using it like a pivot, pulled his prosthetic foot up and whirled around to drop the bale on the ground next to his last stack.

“Wounded?” Drew panted, and Crick felt a sudden pang—he used to help do this. He’d tried, a couple of times actually, since he’d come back, but his hand still didn’t grip hard enough, and his leg would still give under the weight of the bale.

He swallowed against that sadness and pulled his attention back to the bright day and his sister’s tired—yet happy—look as she came to brief them on her last doctor’s appointment.

“Yes! I’m wounded that I’m only mildly better company than Private Andy. I mean, my boyfriend—”

“Husband—”

“He was my boyfriend at the time! Anyway, he gave you a job, and I gave you a girlfriend—”

“Fiancée—”

“I see no ring!”

Drew grunted and glared, his pink lower lip thrusting out considerably. “There is a plan for a ring. God, could she move any slower?”

Crick looked up. “Crap. No. And she looks like she’s in pain. C’mon.”

Drew dropped his hay bale back into the truck bed, and both of them hustled across the gravel driveway (as though either of them could hustle!) to see how she was doing.

“I’m fine,” Benny grunted, and Drew and Crick both met panicked glances and took her left toward the porch.

“What’d the doctor say?” Crick asked, and Benny sighed.

“He said I needed to rest more,” she admitted, and Andrew growled loud enough for Crick to know they’d had this discussion before.

“I told you—I told you everything you did for Thanksgiving—”

“It happens, Drew!” she snapped, and that’s when Crick knew she
really
didn’t feel well.

“Well, we can make sure it doesn’t happen anymore,” he said firmly. “Soccer season’s over, I can pick Parry up from school and drop her off—we’ve got it covered, Benny.”

“Ugh,” Benny muttered, and the two of them helped her up the porch steps one step at a time. “Look, guys—you’re right. You can take over.” She paused then and took a breath before waving them both off. “I’m fine. Tired, a little breakthrough bleeding—I just need to rest for a couple of weeks. The doctor told me to come back in two weeks after getting lots of sleep, and she was pretty sure it would be all right.”

“But Benny,” Crick said, “you look like hell.”

“Fucking nice,” she snapped. “Want to know how you look?”

“I could look like a baboon’s butt,” Crick retorted, “and who gives a fuck! I’m worried about you. Deacon told me this wasn’t a picnic. Do you think I just signed on to do this without worrying about you?”

She grunted and leaned against Drew again. “God. Just when I want to kill you, you turn around and act like….”

“A baboon’s butt?” Crick smirked, wanting to see her smile.

She did, and snuggled softly into Drew’s arms for a minute before straightening and trying to make it up the stairs.

She got one foot on the next step, and the only warning they had was the pounding of boots.

“Jesus, Shorty,” Deacon said. He stopped next to Benny and bent to heft her up. Drew helped her into his arms, and Benny leaned against Deacon’s chest in a way she hadn’t even done with Drew.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly as he hefted her up across the porch, and Crick and Drew could both hear her talking to him, softly and without expletives or insults, explaining what the doctor had told her. The door closed behind them, and Crick and Andrew found themselves struggling up after him and grunting.

“Wow—it’s like helping her is his superpower,” Crick said in awe.

“Great,” Drew muttered. “Chopped liver. I love that.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“It’s not the… same….”

Crick had stopped to glare at him as soon as the words started coming out of his mouth, and Drew paused and swallowed. “Yeah. I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s
exactly
the same, isn’t it?”

Crick nodded grimly. “Yup. But you know what’s different at the end of the day?”

Drew gave a frustrated sigh. “She’s going home with me.”

“Yup. And he’s staying here with me.”

Drew took another deep breath and turned to look at him. “Man, but tell me sometimes it doesn’t chew up your guts, right?”

Crick paused and stared at the closed door. “It does,” he confessed, because it was something he hadn’t let himself think about until just this minute. “But then, sometimes I feel the same way about you.”

“Because of my sister?”

Crick closed his eyes and remembered some of his good humor. And that he’d never
met
Drew’s sisters. “No, Drew—because of
all
of it. Remember when they were sick? All of them were in the hospital, and Deacon… I guess he just
escaped
to come talk to me on the computer because that was his date, and you know, the military didn’t fuck around? You remember that?”

Drew shifted. “God,” he said. “You know, Lieu, I could have not thought about that for pretty much the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, well at least you were here for it—”

“Do you know… man, Crick, Parry was the worst. If anyone ever tells me I don’t love that kid like my own, I’ll kill ’em. I was in the hospital and she… she was so tiny, and they had all those tubes in her body, and she was just so still… and Benny, she’d just wake up every five minutes and say, ‘Oh crap! Where’s my baby!’. They had to
sedate
her, did you know that? Because she wouldn’t sleep enough to let her body heal. And while we’re all freaking the fuck out in
that
room, Deacon just gets up, and pulls the IV out of his arm, and drives away. I’d forgotten he had the keys—I had to catch a
cab
.”

The sky was still hard and bright, but it wasn’t fun any longer. “So, have you noticed that everybody waited until I’m scared to death about having a baby to tell me how shitty things got when I was away in Iraq?”

Drew had the gall to laugh. “That’s not true.”

“Well, maybe not. But see, you and Deacon—you’ve done this before. And I missed it. I
missed
it. Hell—I helped
cause
it, and you and Benny and Jon, you all cleaned up my mess. I’m just….” He looked away. Drew had been a good friend—and a good man to his sister—and he didn’t want to get maudlin. “I’m just grateful. I don’t have any worries about Deacon loving my sister best. I mean, think about it. If that was going to happen, wouldn’t it have happened when I was gone, and he was hurting, and they were both so fucking miserable?”

Drew swallowed and studied his boots. Sometimes Crick had to remind himself that there wasn’t a real leg in one of those boots, because Drew was so good at using his body. “She wasn’t a grown-up then.”

“Yeah. Yeah. But Deacon’s five years older than I am. He….” Crick flushed. “He waited. He tried to get me to go away to college, and I went away to the army instead, but… but he
waited.
He was
celibate
!” Crick’s voice cracked on the word, because the fact was, Deacon liked sex—Deacon
loved
sex. Once Crick had come home and healed, and they’d learned how to take liberties with each other, Deacon had been as sexual a person as Crick had ever known. But only with people he trusted. Amy, probably (Crick had never asked her—and since she seemed truly in love with Jon, it didn’t seem fair to drag back up), but Crick—Crick for sure. And Deacon had put off sex for Crick. For one of the few times in his life, Crick was actually embarrassed about having to put his foot in his mouth in order to bare his soul.

“Look, Drew. I can see… I mean, I think he’s awesome because he’s
my guy
, but… I know. I know how you’d think he’s a threat—”

“Not because he wants to be!”

“But the thing is, he wouldn’t be
doing
this if he thought it would hurt us, okay? He had to sign papers and… you know, spooge in a cup—and you
know
nobody thinks of all of the bad things that can happen like he can.”

“Including—” Drew cut himself off, and Crick shook his head.

Drew sighed.

It just felt so disloyal even to say—Crick knew.

“Okay—I
know
what it’s like to be the second banana. I’m the fourth of seven, Crick, did you know that?”

Crick wrinkled his nose. “God. No, I didn’t know that—you don’t talk about home—”

“That’s because I’m
nobody
at home. Nobody knew I was gone, nobody knew I came back—nobody gave a shit when I left again. I send my parents a letter a month—they still ask me how I can wear a prosthetic in the army.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah—but you know what? I was important to
Deacon
,
and damned if I wasn’t important to him. And your sister….” Drew looked him in the eyes, and Crick realized, seeing that broad, kind face, just how much of that loyalty he took for granted. Deacon, not so much. Deacon didn’t equate giving Drew a job and a home to hauling a travois through the desert—but Crick was pretty sure Drew held the two of them equal parts accountable for saving his life.

“My sister?”

Drew’s smile went lopsided. “She just… just treated me like I was important. They listened to my war stories and gave me a job, and just like that, I was family. And she just… just
saw
me, you know? She always knew where I was, what I was doing—whether I’d eaten. She
loved
me, before she even knew I was in love with her. I… I want to give you this baby. If I could, I’d carry it for her, but I can’t. I can just… just
rent
her out and… and watch her be in pain, and I know… hell, if the worst happens here, Crick, she’s going to do it again….”

Crick winced. “We won’t expect her to—you know that. This… we love her, dammit! We love you both!”

“You think I don’t know that? I just… I want to start a life with her, that’s all!”

“Look—let’s just go inside and you’ll—”

“Jesus, Andrew!” Deacon stomped out onto the porch and grinned—but gently, Crick noticed, which meant that he wasn’t stupid. “That girl won’t take help from anyone but you. I hate to spare you, but do you think you could go get her some water and some lunch?” His grunt of disgust was real this time. “She seems to think I can’t boil water.”

Drew smiled. “You can’t boil water. The only one who cooks worse is Shane.”

“Well then, save her,” Deacon said and took a few steps down the stairs while Drew walked in.

As soon as he heard the door close, he looked toward Crick, who suddenly wanted to kiss him so badly.

Deacon didn’t give him a chance. He took two steps in and palmed the back of Crick’s neck to pull him down for a kiss.

Crick opened his mouth and moved in, treasuring the warmth of his body, the taste of him, the feel of his tongue. He wrapped his arms around Deacon’s shoulders and engulfed him, embraced him, held him close.