Nobody's Son (21 page)

“What the fuck?”

Shaun wrenched his mouth away from Con’s and turned toward the voice behind him.

Willis Erwin stood just inside the doorway, his face curled up in disgust.

“JESUS CHRIST.
You’re a
fucking fag
?”

Con took a step in front of Shaun, as if to shield him from his maybe-father’s words. “That’s enough of that. We don’t tolerate that kind of talk here, and I have no qualms about throwing you off the property.”

Erwin sneered at him. “Shut the fuck up, you fucking nigger. Go steal some cigars and stay outta this.”

“Okay, you’re done.” By then, Con had crossed the lobby in two long steps and wrapped one big hand around Erwin’s upper arm, dragging him bodily toward the doorway. “Get off this property, and don’t you dare come back. Next time you show your face, we call the cops.”

Erwin managed to break free just as Con got him to the door. “This isn’t over,” he growled. “Buncha backwater perverts. Should just burn the whole place down.”

Con pulled himself up to his full height, towering over Erwin. “Is that a threat?”

Erwin didn’t respond. He just turned and stomped away, Shaun hoped to get in his car and leave. Shaun couldn’t help being reminded of a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Con pushed the door shut and turned back to face Shaun. “Well,” he said. “That was….”

Shaun choked out a laugh. “Yeah. That was.”

Con crossed the lobby and wrapped his arms around Shaun. “You okay?”

Shaun nodded against Con’s chest. “I know it doesn’t make a difference,” he murmured, “but I sure as hell hope he
isn’t
my father. You know?”

“Yeah.” Con tightened his embrace. “Not exactly father of the year material, is he?”

Laughing softly, Shaun leaned back to look up at Con. “Well, the good news is, even if he did turn out to be my… the sperm donor, I’m a grown-up and don’t have to deal with him if I don’t want to.”

He deliberately shifted his tone to “petulant child” as he finished, and that drew the intended chuckle out of Con. “All right, then.” Con dropped a quick kiss on Shaun’s lips. “I guess us ‘grown-ups’ should get back to work, hmmm?”

Shaun groaned. “I like my job,” he said, “but it sure doesn’t beat this.”

He slid one hand down to grip one of Con’s asscheeks, and Con growled and bent to take Shaun’s mouth again. Shaun gave in for a few long moments but then forced himself to break away.

“Go on now,” he said, landing a light smack on the flesh under his hand. “Get out of here so I can get some work done.”

Con grinned and winked as he let Shaun go and stepped back. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said. “Just need to get the last couple of cabins set up, and the place will be done.”

“Then I’ll see you in a few hours. Go.” Shaun waved his hand toward the door and backed toward the desk. Con gave him one last heated look before turning and heading outside.

Still smiling, Shaun moved back behind the desk and tried to focus on the papers he’d been sorting. He’d just gotten back into the swing of things when the front door flew open so hard it banged into the wall. Shaun jumped and stared.

Willis Erwin stood in the doorway, a sneer on his face and a gun in his hand.

Shaun froze. “Erwin—”

“Shut your pie hole, faggot. Hands in the air.”

As Shaun slowly, carefully lifted his hands, he shifted his foot inches to the left to step on the panic button Con had installed in the floor just a week earlier. He also took half a second for a quick prayer of thanks that Erwin hadn’t pulled this shit at his gran’s house. For more reasons than one, but at least here, he was the only one in the line of fire.

He steadied his voice as best he could, trying for a friendly tone. “Willis, man—”

“This is
bullshit
.” Erwin shook the gun at him. “I didn’t ask for all that much. I just needed a little help. And this is how you repay me? You fucking
cocksucker
. Got AIDS and all that shit in your blood.”

Half my liver is a hell of a lot more than “a little help,”
Shaun thought, but he wasn’t dumb enough to say it out loud. “I didn’t know,” he said instead, keeping his voice as steady as he could. “I didn’t even know my father was out there, much less that he was sick.”

“
Fuck you
!” Erwin waved the gun again, and Shaun fought a flinch. Even if Erwin didn’t intend to pull the trigger, he was flailing the gun around so much that anything could happen. “You fucked me over, and you know it. I’d rather have no son at all than a fucking queer.”

“Put the gun down.”

Shaun froze as Erwin spun on his heel to point the gun at Con, who’d slipped in the side door unnoticed. Shaun barely spared a thought to wonder why he’d come back, torn between relief to see him and fear for Con’s safety.

“
You
did this!” Erwin practically frothed at the mouth in his fury. “I saw you all over him before. You forced him into it!”

Con had one hand held out toward Erwin. His voice stayed deadly calm. “Nobody forced anyone into anything,” he said. “Just put away the gun, and we can talk about it. All right? No reason for anyone here to get hurt.”

He didn’t spare a look for Shaun, and Shaun couldn’t blame him. Erwin was probably beyond reasoning with. The best they could hope for was to keep him from shooting before the cops got there, which would probably take ten minutes or more. And who knew how he’d react if he heard sirens?

“Dad.”

As Shaun expected, that got Erwin’s attention back on him. “Look. We’ll talk about this, okay? We can figure something out. You don’t need to—”

That was as far as he got before Con jumped into action. He had his hands wrapped around Erwin’s in a second, and they struggled for the gun. Shaun stared for a long moment before his brain screamed,
Duck, you idiot
at him, but by then it was too late. A sound like an explosion scorched Shaun’s ears, and searing pain bloomed in his shoulder. He fell back, head banging the wall as he hit the floor behind the desk, and his vision grayed.

Suddenly someone was there, lifting his head to put something soft beneath it. “Jimmy’s calling 911 to be sure they’re sending an ambulance.” It was Con’s voice, deep and rumbling in his chest, and Shaun forced his eyes open to look up at him.

“Hey there, gorgeous.” Con smiled down at him. “Erwin is out cold. Slammed his head into the wall. Jimmy’s keeping an eye on him, and the cops will be here in a few. He got you good, but it looks clean. I bet it hurts like hell, though.”

Shaun nodded. Tears rolled out of his eyes, but he couldn’t stop them. “So loud,” he murmured. “Didn’t know it was so loud. Last thing Mama heard. Should’ve been Marvin. Or ’retha.”

Con’s chuckle vibrated against Shaun’s hand, which somehow had ended up clasped in Con’s and held against Con’s chest. “I’d sing for you,” he said, “but I think you’d wish for anything but that.”

“Mmmm.” The pain had subsided a little, to a sharp throb rather than the initial stabbing agony. “Just keep talkin’.”

He let his eyes slide shut again, listening to the sound of Con’s voice without hearing the words, trusting that Con would take care of him.

SHAUN ROUSED
in the ambulance just long enough to grasp from the siren and swaying where he was, but the next time he came fully aware, it was to the white glare and antiseptic smell of a hospital. His shoulder and head hurt like a bitch, and his pants had gotten twisted uncomfortably around his legs, but otherwise he just felt tired.

No, more than that. Exhausted. Wrung out. Like he’d run a marathon without enough training.

“Mr. Rogers?”

Shaun would’ve laughed if he’d had the strength.
Just need a cardigan and some sneakers.
He nodded instead.

“I’m Andrea. I’m an intake nurse here. You’re in the ER at Northridge.” Shaun had no idea where that was, but he guessed Commerce, since it was the closest town. “We’re going to be sending you upstairs to get prepped for surgery, but I need to ask a few questions first, okay?”

Surgery?
Maybe things were worse than he thought. He felt his heart pump a little faster and heard an answering rhythm from a machine nearby.

“Your name is Shaun Rogers?” He tried to keep his breathing steady and nodded. “What’s your birthday?”

He swallowed and managed to whisper it. “Today. September 24, 1990.”

Andrea chuckled softly. “Some way to spend your birthday, isn’t it? All right. Just a few more questions. Any medical conditions we should know about? Allergies?” Shaun shook his head. “Are you currently taking any medications?” Another head shake.

“Do you have insurance?”

That time he nodded. “Card in my wallet,” he murmured.

“All right.” The nurse placed a stack of fabric next to him on the bed. The dreaded hospital gown, he guessed. “Someone will be here to get you in a few. We’ll bag up your personal items and bring them to your room after.”

She left, after pausing to pull a cloth curtain around his bed. Shaun had a few moments to wonder if anyone was there with him, but then a tall young man built like a linebacker pushed his way through the curtain, followed by a woman who wasn’t much shorter or smaller.

“Hello, Mr. Rogers,” the woman said. “We’re going to take you to get you prepped for surgery.”

This time he made his mouth work faster. “I missed why I need surgery,” he rasped. “Thought it wasn’t that bad.”

“The doctor will come in before we put you under to explain.” She was disconnecting leads and tucking things in around him. “But short version is they need to check to be sure everything’s clean.”

She stepped on something under the bed that made it shake, and then the man with her grabbed the end of the bed and pulled. They started moving, past the curtains and down a wide hallway. Shaun tried to look around, but that just made his head and shoulder hurt more, so he lay back and watched the lights on the ceiling pass by.

A few minutes and an elevator ride later, the bed came to a stop in another room, next to a bed that Shaun realized he was going to have to move onto. “All right, just lie still, and we’ll get you shifted over.” Or get moved onto, he thought, as the man and woman (Nurses? Orderlies? Who knew?) did something magical with the sheets that ended up with him in the smaller bed.

“Doctor will be right with you,” the woman said, and the two pushed his former bed back out into the hall.

Left alone again, Shaun went back to trying to ignore the pain and wondering whether anyone else was here. He guessed Con probably had to stay behind at the resort to deal with the cops, and maybe Jimmy too. Had anyone called his gran? He kind of hoped not, at least until they could say something more than that he’d been shot.

Holy shit! I’ve been shot!

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, though he’d bet either one would’ve hurt like hell. He’d never even touched a gun. His mama’s rules had been crystal clear: if he ever thought of going anywhere near her service weapon, he’d be grounded until he was eighteen. “When you’re older,” she’d said, “I’ll take you to the range and teach you how to handle one. But don’t you even think about touching one until I say so.”

By the time he was old enough, she was gone, and any desire he’d had to learn how to shoot a gun had died with her.

The door opened, and a middle-aged man and a younger man came in, both wearing scrubs. “Mr. Rogers, I’m Dr. Erickson,” the older man said, as the younger one moved to one side of the bed and hung a bag of fluid on a nearby stand. “We’re going to go in and check out the wound, repair any damage we find, and get you closed up. Do you have any questions before we get you prepped?”

Shaun cleared his throat. “Has anyone called my family?”

Dr. Erickson shook his head. “I don’t know about that, but we’ll send someone to find out. Ron here is going to get you changed and prepped, and we’ll take you in as soon as you’re ready.”

“Thanks.” It was all Shaun had time to get out before the doctor was gone. The nurse chuckled. “Not the greatest bedside manner ever, but he’s a good doctor.” The man shifted the sheet and blanket off to one side. “Let’s get you changed, and then I’ll finish getting you prepped.”

Pushing aside any embarrassment out of necessity, Shaun helped as much as he could manage, shifting his hips off the bed as Ron got him undressed and into a pair of hospital-issue socks. He put the gown over Shaun’s good shoulder and then pulled the covers back into place.

“All right, I’m going to put something into your IV that’ll make you sleepy, but they won’t put you all the way under until you’re in the OR. Okay?”

Shaun nodded, and a few minutes later, a wave of sleepiness washed over him. He closed his eyes and let it carry him away.

WHEN SHAUN
opened his eyes, he had vague memories of waking up earlier, he guessed in Recovery, yet another nurse prompting him to semiawareness and then letting him slip back under. His shoulder ached, but the pain wasn’t as sharp as it had been earlier, though he couldn’t say whether because it was actually better or because he had good drugs in his system.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

Jimmy’s familiar voice preceded the appearance of the man himself, leaning over the side of the bed and smiling down at Shaun. “Hi there, honey. Jumped in front of any speeding bullets lately?”

Shaun choked out a laugh. “You gonna call me Superman now?”

“Maybe.” Jimmy squeezed the forearm of his uninjured arm. He couldn’t squeeze his hand because of the IV and the monitor thingie Shaun could feel still clipped to his finger. “Glad you’re okay. Con will be down soon. He had to go to the police station and answer some questions.”

Shaun jolted at that. “They didn’t think that he—”

“I disabused them of that notion right quick.” From the steely set of Jimmy’s eyes, Shaun imagined that had been a sight to behold. “Told Con if they gave him even the slightest hint about painting him as a suspect, he’d better clam up fast and call me.”