Home is the Heart (7 page)

“What?” Will asked.

“Someday I want to sleep with you on a wide bed, like the one in yer bedroom at your home.”

“That is no longer my home,” Will said seriously. “Wherever you are, that is my home.”

Brock gave a small, pleased smile and pulled his overshirt off. He nudged Will over and stretched out beside him, no small feat in the narrow ship’s bunk. Brock’s own bunk was actually attached to the wall above Will’s, but he had not used it. Instead, he had slept the night draped half over William, who had certainly not complained.

“What are you reading?” Brock asked, shifting as he tried to find a comfortable position.

“A book of poetry.”

“Poetry! But there’s a picture of an Indian on the page,” Brock exclaimed.

“You can’t read, can you?” Will cocked his head to look at the man snugged tightly up against him.

Brock made a self-deprecating noise. “Have you ever known a Traveller who could?” He studied the picture. “But I’d like to learn,” he added in a small voice.

Will planted a kiss on Brock’s temple and adjusted the book where he could hold it steady and still have one arm around his love. “Well then, as we have some time with nothing much to do, I guess I’ll teach you.”

“Later though, please,” Brock said with a shake of his head that made his unruly curls bounce. “Right now, will you just read the poem to me? It looks interesting.” He tilted his chin as a thought struck him. “Oh, Will, do you think we will see any Indians in America?”

“I doubt it,” Will said thoughtfully. “We’ll be landing in New York City. It’s a big place, bigger even than Dublin. Besides, from what I’ve heard, the Indians are all on reservations nowadays.”

“Perhaps a few live outside the city. I heard they’re a nomadic people, like Travellers.”

“Perhaps.” Will grinned and thumped Brock on his upturned nose. “Now, do you want to hear this poem or not?”

Brock reached out a finger and reverently touched the page with the illustration of an Indian boy. “Oh yes, please read it,” he breathed.

“The poem is called ‘Hiawatha’. It’s by an American man named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was first published in 1855,” Will patiently explained.

“No more yapping. Just read, William,” Brock commanded.

Will chuckled. “Whatever you say,
a ghrá-sa
. Whatever you say.”

Part 2
America

B
ROCK
stood on the street corner, peering through the gathering gloom, praying Will would show up soon. He was tired and cold and more shaken than he cared to admit. He’d spent the day looking for a job, but so had a hundred-odd other men, some with far better credentials than he had. And there were certain things he would not do for money.

Without thinking, he put a hand up to rub his right eye and had to stifle a yelp. Shite, but it hurt. He just bet his eye was purpling nicely. The side of his face was scratched and stiff from where the bloody waster had shoved him up against the wall. The bastard hadn’t expected his swift move sideways, not to mention the sharp jab to the ribs. Then Brock had run like the wind. Ha, he’d legged it like a scared rabbit, more like. He’d left his attacker many long city blocks behind—

Brock bit his lip and resisted the urge to look over his shoulder.

Suddenly Will was there in front of him, appearing like an avenging angel out of the mist. He had a huge smile on his face, and with a cry of, “Little brother!” he enfolded Brock into his arms.

Brock let him, loving the sharp scent of Will’s sweat, the strength of his embrace, the comforting feel of warm, damp wool against his face.

Will lifted a hand to rub Brock on the head in an affectionate big-brotherly gesture, but he stopped in mid-movement. His brow drew down in a scowl. “What happened? Who did this to you?” he asked, taking Brock’s face between his two big hands.

As any little brother would, Brock wrinkled his nose and ducked away. “Ach, it’s nothing. Just a friendly scuffle,” he lied. He would tell Will the whole of things when they got to the safety of their room, but not now. “Come on now, if we don’t hurry, supper will be served and gone before we even get there.”

Will’s frown deepened, but he followed Brock without a word toward Mrs. Schaeffer’s boarding house, where they rented a room as the O’Sullivan brothers. It was a ruse they’d refined in the bowels of the steamship on the voyage over, as they marveled over the packet of papers Ceara had handed William at the bottom of the gangplank. Among them was Timothy’s own baptismal certificate, as good as a birth certificate, signed as it was by a priest of the Catholic Church. Being brothers meant they could touch each other as much as they liked, though it had to be contact full of tug and tussle. Brock didn’t mind, but sometimes he had to jostle Will to remind him to keep things rough and tumble.

Will was still scowling when they reached the boarding house. People were already gathering for supper, so they washed quickly at the outside pump, as Mrs. Schaeffer was a stickler for such things. Brock finished first, leaving Will scrubbing at his leather-dye stained hands. He slipped into his place across from Brock just as everyone bent their heads in prayer. It was another of Mrs. Schaeffer’s many rules; you had to be there for the blessing, or you didn’t get to eat. But she was a decent cook, if a bit stingy with the meat. But tonight it was cabbage and corned beef, and there was plenty of the cabbage, if not the beef.

While he ate, Brock glanced up from his plate to see Will looking at him, a frown line etched between his ocean green eyes.

Before their trip across the Atlantic, Brock had not realized Will’s eyes were the exact color of a storm-tossed sea. Now he thought of it nearly every time he looked square into Will’s face.

He knew when most folk looked at Will all they saw was his handsome face, the breadth of his shoulders, and his military bearing. Due to these things, he’d had his choice between several jobs practically from the moment they’d stepped from the boat. But Will was so much more than a brawny body; he was smart as a whip. He’d been choosy and had waited a bit, waited and watched and learned—and then he’d taken a job at a shoe factory. A job with potential, he’d explained carefully, one where, given the right circumstances, he might be able to advance upward to management.

When supper was over, they retired to the room they shared. Will went in first and Brock trailed behind him. The moment the door was closed, Will turned and swiftly pushed Brock up against it.

“Who did this to you?” Will’s voice was low and gruff.

“Didn’t get his name,” Brock sassed.

Will growled low in his throat and went over to the basin of water. He got a flannel off the shelf and dipped it into the water. Brock’s protest was muffled against the washrag, but he held still as Will cleaned his face gently, carefully. He was trying hard to leave the old ways behind, but the practice of leaving water standing in a basin was one that still disturbed him. And a chamber pot was beyond reason; he’d rather get up and go outside in the pouring rain than use one.

“Ow,” Brock yelped when he’d had more than enough.

“Sorry, sorry.” Will sat down on the straight backed chair that was the only furniture besides the bed and the small chest that had a hole for the basin. “I could get you a new job at the factory,” he said softly. “Please let me.”

Brock shook his head. “No, no. I’ll find a job, really I will. I just can’t stand to be cooped in a building all day long,
a chuisle
.”

When they’d first arrived, he taken a job sweeping up floors at the same factory where Will worked. But he hadn’t lasted a week. The air of New York City might be grimy with oily soot, but it was better than the stale, closed-in atmosphere of the factory. “Let’s just give it a wee bit more time. I swear if I don’t get a job soon, I’ll go back to the factory. But, I- I….” he trailed off, a shudder of revulsion wracking his frame.

“Aye, I know,” Will said softly. “You hated being indoors all day. I understand. Let’s get some rest, then.”

William turned toward the bed, and Brock saw how his wide shoulders curved with exhaustion. Will spent nine hours a day standing, part of an assembly line that put together men’s dress shoes. Brock knew he wasn’t the only one who chaffed at being inside, locked away from both sun and rain. There wasn’t much he could do to make things better for Will except, perhaps, for one thing.

“Let’s,” he agreed quietly.

Will began to move, shucking his shirt and his fine woolen pants, tailor-made for him in Dublin. On the voyage over, his clothes had marked him as a man of substance, and even now after nearly three months working at the factory, they still looked better than anything Brock owned. But when they were both in the nip, everything seemed equal between them—and Brock liked it best that way.

They sank into the bed together, and Brock sprawled atop Will, raining kisses on his face, running his tongue over his firm lips. Will slid his stained hands into Brock’s hair and opened his mouth to suck in Brock’s tongue.

Brock quickly divested Will of his undershirt, then went to work on the buttons of his drawers. He sputtered in laughter as Will groaned and thrust helplessly against him as his hands worked at the recalcitrant cloth. He held Will fast and impatiently wrestled his underwear to his knees. Brock shivered at the sight of Will’s smooth, hard body—the muscles so beautifully delineated beneath the fair skin. He leaned in and nipped at one small, peaked nipple and then the other. Will groaned, a long, low sound he stifled with his own hand.

Brock began a slow journey down Will’s body, pausing to tongue the shallow navel.

The man bucked against him, then stopped to extend shaking hands to the buttons of Brock’s shirt. Soon shirt and pants and all underneath were peeled down, and Brock pushed Will back on the bed and kept on going down, down to the man’s hard, weeping shaft. Continuing to tongue his lover, Brock’s ears caught Will’s quiet mewling noises, and his nose filled with the warm, earthy tang of Will’s body.

Will groaned and then stuffed one fist in his mouth to further muffle his sounds.

Brock began to lick delicately at Will’s cock. Soon, Brock took him deep into his mouth, and together they began a rhythm that resounded in his head.

Will curled around and slipped his hand down to wrap around Brock’s needy flesh.

They rocked slowly at first. The pleasure of it raced from Brock’s toes up to the top of his head, coursing all through his body. He quickened the pace then, and soon enough he had Will jerking and then tensing, fast on his way to oblivion. As he came, Will’s mouth opened in a soundless cry of pleasure that made Brock’s gut ache. He wanted to hear Will’s sweet love sounds—he hated that they had to be so quiet. Still, a moment later he, too, was spurting over Will’s hand and onto both their bellies.

Then he collapsed against Will’s warm body and rested there for a time in their nest of shirts and pants.

Just on the edge of sleep, Brock heard Will’s hushed voice: “
Codlach sámh
,
a ghrá
.”

He dreamed of making love to Will, accompanied by the creaking sound of his waggon as they rocked together. Lush landscapes of rolling hills, of green and hidden dells closed in by thick, moist fog danced in front of his eyes. He smelled peat burning in an open hearth and the sound of uilleann pipes droning and a bodhran thump, thumping.

Brock woke with his head on William’s shoulder and the thrum of the man’s heartbeat in his ears. He was safe and warm and well fed, but he felt as if he were suffocating.

Slipping out of bed, he pulled on his clothes. It was Sunday, the one day Will didn’t have to go into work, but Brock did as he was able to earn a few bits by running errands for Mrs. Schaeffer. With a pang of regret, he glanced back at Will, warm and sleeping in their bed, and then he headed downstairs. Before he made for the kitchen, he went outside to use the spigot by the back door to do a little washing up. Thank goodness Mrs. Schaffer ran a tidy kitchen, with no cracked dishes or dirty towels lying about.

Brock could smell ham cooking even before he entered the kitchen. Mrs. Schaeffer’s broad back was to him as she bent over the stove. She acknowledged his presence with a relieved smile. “Ah, there you are,
Brüderlein
,” she said crisply. “I have an errand for you. Half the eggs delivered this morning were broken, and that will never do. Be a
gut
boy and run down to the market and buy me a dozen.”

Brock nodded and took two bits from the jar on the counter. At the portly woman’s nod, he headed out the door. It was just past dawn, and instead of cars on the street as there would be later in the day, there were a number of horse-drawn delivery wagons. When they’d come through Ellis Island, a big, fat Irishman working there had told them to steer clear of the strictly Irish parts of town, saying they were nothing more than slums these days. So they had ended up at the boarding house near Broadway in a distinctly German area called Williamsburg. Still, there were folk on the streets who had nothing better to do than harass others. But this early in the day, the streets were clear, with the exception of the many delivery wagons, both horse-drawn and motor-powered.

The Sparrow Shoe Factory where Will worked was only a couple of blocks from the boarding house. Brock had to pass it on his way to Tabar’s Market, where he knew he could get fresh eggs at a decent price. As he went by the tall building, he ran his fingers over the beautiful cast-iron detailing on the sides pieces and the front door. Yes, the place was quite grand, at least on the outside. He had no desire to spend his days locked up inside it. Suppressing a shudder, Brock hurried on past.

Inside the market, he spent a few moments talking to the proprietor. Then, with the eggs tucked tidily under his left arm, Brock headed back out into the streets. Catching sight of one of the bully-boys from the local street gang, he turned opposite from the way he needed to go. A few extra steps around the block were far superior to having his purchase confiscated by a shower of savages. It was times like these he missed his Gypsy brethren. No one messed with you when you had your family at your back.