Love, Like Water (22 page)

“Nngh,” Joshua said and managed a short nod. He watched as Eli pulled out, missing the fullness and twitching a little as Eli’s cock dragged one last time over his sensitized gland. Eli tied off the condom and tossed it into the little trash can by the bed. Then he eased Joshua’s legs down and lay beside him, pulling him into his arms. “I’ll get up in a minute and get us something to clean up with. But I don’t think I can walk right this minute.”

“In college we kept a box of baby wipes in the nightstand,” Joshua said into Eli’s wiry shoulder.

“Huh. Well, I’d look pretty damn stupid buying baby wipes. Lizbeth at the general would think I’d lost my ever-loving mind.” Joshua felt Eli’s lips on his hair. “You college fellas are all so smart.”

“Uncle Tuck said you studied animal husbandry, so shut up about ‘us college fellas’. You’ve been to college too.”

“Just got a two-year degree.”

“It’s still college, and it’s still a degree. You can’t hide behind your dumb cowboy act.” Joshua licked sweat from Eli’s neck and he shivered. “You’re smarter than I am—you didn’t go and get yourself in so much trouble you thought you’d never get out.”

“I play it safe,” Eli said softly. “I don’t take risks. I’m careful. Sometimes I think….”

After a moment, Joshua asked, “Think what?”

The shoulder under Joshua’s cheek shifted in miniscule shrug. “I dunno. Think maybe I’m letting life pass me by.”

“Do you love what you do?”

“Hell, yeah.” Eli’s voice was surprised. “You know I do!”

“Is there something else you’d rather be doing?”

“No. No, can’t say as there is.”

“Somewhere else you’d rather be?”

“Nope.”

“Then what are you worried about?” Joshua rose up on one elbow. “You’re doing what you love. You won’t find ten men in a hundred that can say the same thing. You’re lucky, and you’re smart.”

“I’m also queer, in a culture that ain’t so easy on queers,” Eli pointed out. “I’d be safer in a big city, I think.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Joshua said wryly. “Trust me.”

“’S’pose you’re right. Assholes are everywhere.”

Joshua grinned. “You should be happy about that!”

Eli blinked, then laughed. “Well, not the right kind.” He looked down at the sheet between them. “Not just me…. I mean, if you wanted to…. I don’t… I mean, I do, I
would
….”

“Eli,” Joshua said, “are you saying you’d bottom for me?”

“Yup.” Eli flushed scarlet. “I ain’t never…. Shit, when you’re picking up somebody at a bar, and you’re in a hurry, you just go with what you’re used to, y’know? I ain’t never had… I dunno.
Someone
.”

“I did. In college. He was a grad student.” Daniel, of the faraway brown eyes and the obsession with Renaissance art.

“What happened?”

“He got an internship abroad and I got a job with the local police department. It fizzled. They do.”

“Wouldn’t know.” Eli nuzzled Joshua’s jaw and Joshua felt himself relax into his embrace. “Don’t want to know.”

Joshua was going to ask what he meant, but instead, he fell asleep.

Chapter 19

T
UCKER
wasn’t sure why he was wide awake at five in the morning, but as usual he knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep, so he got up and went downstairs to make himself a cup of coffee. Despite the fact that it was still dark out, the light over the stove was enough to see the coffeemaker, so he didn’t bother to turn on the overheads.

The coffee had just begun to drip when the kitchen door opened quietly and Josh slipped inside.

He froze when he saw Tuck sitting at the table. “Uncle Tucker.”

“Josh.” What the hell was he doing outside at this hour? Tucker frowned at him, noting the flushed face and generally rumpled state of his usually tidy nephew, and a thought occurred to him. “Out visitin’?”

“Just… looking at the stars.”

Tucker nodded. “Pretty, ain’t they? Bet you can’t see ’em so well in Cincinnati. Or Chicago.”

“No. Too much in the way.”

“Yep. Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“So. Eli doing okay?”

The only sound Tucker heard was the faint tick of the kitchen clock. Then Joshua said easily, “He seemed fine yesterday.”

So he was going to play it that way, was he? Josh’s easy response didn’t fool Tucker in the slightest—in fact, it only confirmed his suspicions. Damn, the kid was good, though—no wonder he did so well as an undercover agent. “Cut loose, son. You look like a man that’s been well and truly done, if you know what I mean.”

“What do you want me to say?” All the superficial casualness drained out of Joshua’s body, and he dropped into one of the chairs opposite Tuck. “He said you knew he was gay. How did you know I was?”

“I didn’t—’til you came in here wearing his soap and a smug expression.”

“You can smell his
soap
on me?”

“No, but you just confirmed my theory.” Tucker sighed. “Shit, son.”

“We’re both adults.”

“You’re also both
men
.” Tucker got up and poured himself a coffee, then after a moment’s indecision, poured Joshua one too. Setting it in front of his nephew, Tucker went on, “I don’t get the whole queer thing, but if this fucks up my ranch, I’m gonna kill both of you. Eli’s the best damn foreman I’ve ever had, and you’re my nephew. I don’t want to have to deal with lovers’ quarrels and nasty breakups. You find a way to deal with each other so the men don’t know what’s going on, and maybe I can handle it. You don’t, and I’m shipping you back to Hannah—in pieces.”

Joshua’s face had gone closed and hard. “Don’t worry, Tucker,” he said in a cold voice that Tucker had never heard from him before. “We won’t flaunt our
queerness
in front of the men. I’m not fucking stupid.”

Sighing, Tucker said, “Shit, boy, that ain’t what I’m worried about. Well, yeah, it is, on account of you’re in the West, and cowboys generally ain’t exactly ready to march in no Pride Parade. You’re more likely to get shunned at the very least. Yeah, you coulda picked a worse place than New Mexico, but still. Shit, didn’t you see
Brokeback Mountain
?”

“Of course I did. I didn’t know you had.”

“Took a girl on a date to see it. She liked it.”

“It was a good movie.”

“Well, you know how they showed the dead queers in the flashback? That sorta shit still happens out here. Maybe not so frequent, maybe not so much in this state as in some of the others, but hell, that Matthew kid wasn’t so awful long ago. I don’t want another tragedy like that in my lifetime, Josh, and especially not involving my nephew.” He raised the mug to his lips and was surprised to see his hands shaking. “And Eli’s a good man, and don’t deserve to be hurt. So if you’re just, just
fucking
with him, then stop.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Joshua’s hands were flat on the table on either side of the mug. He was staring down at them as if they held the answers to all of life’s questions. “Not a new feeling for me.”

“Josh.”

His nephew looked up. He was completely expressionless. Tucker thought of the lively, determined boy he used to know, and his heart broke. Not for the first time since the shattered wreck of a nephew had arrived. In a soft voice, he said, “Just be careful, is all I’m askin’. If you and Eli make each other happy, then hell, make each other happy. But be careful.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, Uncatuck. I don’t know how to make him happy. I want to. But I don’t know how.”

“Hell, son, nobody does. That’s why you gotta work it out on your own.” He felt absurdly pleased by the childhood nickname Josh had used; it sounded so much easier on the ears than grown-up Joshua’s “Uncle Tucker.” “I don’t exactly have the best track record in relationships, either. But Eli’s not a complicated man. He likes to work, sleep, eat, and, from his regular trips into Albuquerque, get laid. He’s patient, and he likes you.” Tucker shrugged. “So long’s you’re not expecting flowers and chocolates, you’ll do fine.”

Josh snorted a laugh. “No.”

“You—you’re complicated. It might take you a bit longer to figure things out, but you’ll do fine.”

“I’m not complicated. I’m just a fucking junkie with nothing except a kind man for an uncle.”

“You gotta stop defining yourself that way, Josh. You’re more than that. I think….” Tucker stopped and sipped his coffee.

“Think what?”

Tucker sighed. “I think you mighta made a mistake quitting the Bureau.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“With everything that happened, I would have been eventually phased out. They were already talking about putting me on desk duty ‘temporarily’.” Tucker heard the internal quotes in Josh’s voice. “That would have stretched out until they found something even less important to do. Who knows. Maybe I would have ended up the janitor. At any rate, I’d have never gotten field duty again. The heroin made sure of that. Hell, they can’t even use me as a witness. Once… once I got addicted, I knew I had to make every bit of evidence count on its own, independently verified. Robinson said they would reference me as an anonymous informant to protect me and my family. Who I can’t even begin to defend since I can’t even legally have a gun anymore. Not that I want one.” Joshua drank some coffee. “Why am I saying all this? I didn’t even talk this much to the center shrink.”

“Maybe because you’re finally starting to relax?”

Josh snorted. “Maybe.”

“I’m seeing it. You’re putting on some weight. You don’t walk around like a ghost the way you did when you first came here. It’s only been a few weeks, but you look better since you were in the hospital. I think the hospital food agreed with you.”

This time the snort was more of a laugh. “Sarafina’s food agrees with me. I think the hospital saved a fortune with you bringing me all my meals from home. It’s different, but it kind of reminds me of my Abuela’s cooking.”

“They were nice people, your grandfolks. I met ’em a couple times in Chicago, when you and Cathy were still babies. Hannah was lucky to have them.”

“Yeah. I spent a lot of time with them when I was a kid. Of course, they called me ‘José’ and Cathy ‘Catalina’. I didn’t mind, but it drove Cathy crazy.”

“Technically, ‘Joshua’ woulda been ‘Jesus’,” Tucker pointed out.

“I know. But Abuelito had a brother named Jesus that he couldn’t stand, so they called me José instead. I didn’t care. It came in handy later, when I could show up as ‘José Rosales’ and people remembered the name. ‘Joshua Chastain’ never even came onto their radar.” Joshua stared into his coffee. “It would have destroyed them to know I was in the gang they fought so hard against. It broke their hearts when my father joined it, and he died because of it. They taught me to hate the gangs and to work against them.”

“And you did.”

“But I was still a member. I still….”

“Still what?”

“Did what they told me to.”

Tucker didn’t know what to say to that. He took a sip of his coffee and changed the subject. “Did your grandfolks know you were gay?”

“No, they died when I was in junior high, before I figured it out. Classic thing—Abuela died, and Abuelito followed her just a few weeks later. I heard that’s not unusual with couples who’ve been together a long time. At any rate, Mom figured there wasn’t anything keeping her tied to Chicago anymore, and when she got a job offer in Cincinnati a few months afterwards, we moved there.”

“Used to be a TV show set in Cincinnati. Pretty funny.”

“Yeah, I heard about it. Saw a few reruns.”

“And the gang didn’t know. About you being gay.”

Joshua shook his head. “No room for
maricones
in Los Peligros. Though ’Chete Montenegro was such a virulent homophobe I figure he was closeted and majorly in denial.”

“He one of the ones you put in jail?”

“No, he was killed in the raid that took out most of the gang—at least the ones on the drug-dealing side. The gang itself is still alive and well, and swearing that the rest of them had no idea that a ‘splinter group’ was so involved in trafficking. Like they didn’t benefit from the cash that came in. But we didn’t have enough solid evidence to go after the rest of them, so all we could do is keep monitoring them. The Bureau doesn’t have enough manpower to deal with all the gangs in the country. They have to cherry-pick the ones they can deal with.”

“And with your background, they were able to take down some of the worst. Jack Castellano knew about your gang tattoos. I guess they’re kind of famous.”

“They’re stone-cold killers,” Joshua said. He drained his mug and set it carefully back down on the table. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Insomnia. Happens when you get old. Figured there’s no point staring at the ceiling, so I thought I’d come down and get started on some of the backed-up paperwork, stuff you don’t need to deal with. Then after breakfast, we’ll get back to work. I want to go over the payroll with you.”

“Any chance I can catch a couple hours of sleep?”

Tuck looked at the kitchen clock. “You got forty-five minutes, son. Make the best of it.”

Josh nodded and got up, setting his mug in the sink. To Tucker’s surprise, he came over and put an arm around Tuck’s shoulders. “Thank you, Uncatuck. For everything.”