The Foster Family (32 page)

“Don’t stop,” he said, an edge of his usual control in his voice.

“Trust me,” Charlie reminded him.

He took his fingers back then and climbed between Malcolm’s legs, spreading them farther and gazing down on him. “You know the deal,” he said softly. He grabbed his own pillow and cocked his head. “Lift.”

Malcolm did, because what else was there at this point? There was only trust. There was only the fact he loved this man with everything in him he couldn’t control in his ragged little world. The rest was a mask he wore, even for Charlie. And Charlie looked at him through that distortion every day and accepted the distance it created because he loved back.

“God, Charlie.”

“You keep saying that, Mal, and it’s going to go to my head, you know.”

Malcolm laughed. He honest to God laughed, and Charlie grinned his wide, heart-stopping grin as he blithely lubed himself.

“You going to ask if I’m sure about this?” Malcolm asked.

Charlie leaned over him and kissed him hard, and Malcolm opened his mouth in invitation. The invitation was accepted, of course, and then some as Charlie scoured his mouth and whipped the rest of Malcolm’s thoughts from his head.

Malcolm would wonder later what he had expected. Charlie’s cock working into his body was the same as the preparation had been. Firm and determined and very real. Possessive. Honest. All the things Charlie was, and Malcolm didn’t think anything at all as it happened other than that it was the only way things could be between them.

He would have been crude enough to tell Charlie he needed a good fucking to screw his head on straight had the roles been reversed. But Charlie didn’t roll that way. Charlie just got shit done, and it amused Malcolm to realize he was what needed doing this time.

“Charlie….” It was the last thing he could remember saying as Charlie seated himself fully and began to rock, slowly at first, but with more power and aggression as Malcolm caught his rhythm and began to move with him.

He expected to last longer. This wasn’t his thing, after all, but no. In this too Charlie knew what Malcolm needed. He needed hard and deep and true. And he got it. It whited out his mind and made him reach blindly to find Charlie’s hands, twine his fingers with Malcolm’s, and hold him to the bed while he pounded.

Malcolm stopped trying to meet him thrust for thrust and loosened his death grip on Charlie’s hands to let his lover resume control. He let Charlie hold his legs open and pried his eyelids up when Charlie demanded to be able to see him. He didn’t mean his body or his face. He meant he wanted to see Malcolm. He wanted to see into Malcolm, and that demand, that pure, honest, loving command was what tightened Malcolm’s balls and bowed his back and finally, Malcolm let go of the tightly held sounds.

Once more that band holding Malcolm’s tongue loosened, and his shout, as he came, bounced around the room, overpowered Charlie’s groans, and echoed until the only sound left in the room was that of their heavy, sated breathing.

C
HARLIE
COLLAPSED
beside his lover afterward and marveled. Malcolm had let him do this, and he hadn’t thought it possible. In his own mind, it was no different from their usual dynamic. Malcolm was his Dom, his safe place, his strength and power, and that hadn’t changed. The only difference was, Charlie didn’t wait this time. Not for Malcolm to draw all the straight lines in his head or compartmentalize the emotional backlash of Kerry leaving. He didn’t wait for Malcolm to calm all the insane upheaval the kid had brought into their lives.

This time, Charlie had seen the road of drought stretching between them while he waited for Malcolm to sort himself out. Without the dubious sanctuary of his draining job at the gallery to occupy his time and energy, the road had been too long. Too desolate. Charlie hadn’t been willing to wait, so he did what he had taught himself to be very good at, and got shit done.

He chuckled, and Malcolm glanced at him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Malcolm rolled to face him. “Not allowed, Charlie.”

Charlie grinned and caressed his flushed cheek. “I was just thinking that I was getting things done….”

Malcolm shut him up with a searing kiss, and free-floating bits of Charlie’s own psyche slipped into their moorings. He moaned happily and reached for more.

“Very funny,” Malcolm said, moving away to mock glare at him. “Don’t get it into your head you’ll be doing me all that often, Charles.”

Charlie’s heart clenched. “You didn’t like it?”

Malcolm’s gaze and his expression softened. “You know I did, baby. Because it was you. Because you were right. It was what I needed. I had no idea.”

“You aren’t the only one in this relationship, Mal. It isn’t always up to you to figure things out, make the decisions, and call the shots, and I’ve been a selfish prick, making it seem that way. I was getting so thin from that job. It was messing with everything in my head, and it took Kerry and his obsession with those stupid albums to make me see how far from
me
I’d gotten.”

Malcolm cupped his face. “I should have seen it.” He flopped onto his back and ran fingers lightly over his scars. “Not like I haven’t seen what a shitty job can do to a guy before.”

Charlie propped his head on one hand so he could see Malcolm’s face. “What do you mean?”

“The foster demon,” Malcolm said. And for a long time, it was all he said. Long enough that Charlie’s hand started to tingle and he had to reposition himself. He elected to use Malcolm’s chest for a pillow, since his own was still under Malcolm’s hips and he didn’t really want to think about what was probably leaking all over it.

Malcolm wrapped a strong arm around his shoulders, and Charlie remembered back into the mists of their early days when he’d always fallen asleep like this. He wondered when he’d stopped, but Malcolm started talking to him again, distracting him.

“The foster demon had this terrible job. He was a super in a neighborhood where people didn’t always pay their rent on time. He grew up in that neighborhood. I think he took the job because he thought he’d be able to make things better for the people he’d grown up with. The old ladies in their shabby, run-down, freezing little apartments. The single mothers. He could fix things and do some good. Prove it was possible to get out of that and make it.”

He trailed off. His hand stroking Charlie’s arm was the only movement, the rustle of the sheets the only sound.

“But?” Charlie prompted after a while.

“We weren’t that far from that neighborhood, Charlie. We weren’t that far from those people on the brink of eviction. If he didn’t have foster kids, he would have been those people still.”

“So he didn’t do as well as he hoped. Didn’t give him the right to go—”

“Not just that he didn’t do as well as he hoped, or make it as far as he dreamed. He wasn’t just the guy who came and fixed your plumbing. He was the guy who came and tossed all your shit into the street when you didn’t pay on time. He was the guy evicting his own friends and neighbors. He was the guy so deeply invested in the financial shithole that was that neighborhood, he couldn’t quit. He could only do as he was told. And it killed him to do it. He grew hard and bitter and angry.”

“And took it out on you.”

“On everyone around him. Worse on me, and Bobby.”

“Bobby?”

The room seemed to still around them, and here, Charlie thought, here at last was the nugget of truth at the center of his lover that he’d never been allowed close to. The secret he knew existed but had never been told. Here was the emotional point to all those cutting blades. The flame behind the cigarette burns.

“Another foster,” Malcolm said after a moment. “He lived there maybe three years. He was about two years younger than me. When they found out about my cutting myself, they took him out of there. Who knows what happened to him. I know it wasn’t the happiest of foster homes, but there was never any wanting for anything. He always made sure we ate and had good clothes, and it was at least… stable. Who knows where Bobby ended up.” Malcolm grew quiet again.

“You think that kind of emotional battering was okay because it was stable? That the example foster monster was setting was okay because no matter how messed up you were, he never kicked you out or gave you back?”

“You think being bounced around did Kerry any good?” Malcolm shot back. “You were lucky, Charlie. You had one foster family. You were adopted. It worked for you, and you even got to decide what you wanted from your birth parents. For a foster kid, that’s Nirvana. You’re the proof that the system, as broken as it is, can actually work. That really good people who want to help, who
can
help, are out there.”

“I know.” Charlie planted small kisses on his lover’s chest and sighed. “I know that, Mal. I was lucky. That doesn’t mean I don’t know about how grown-ups should treat kids who need love and care and support, and foster monster was not that guy.”

“No,” Malcolm admitted. “He really wasn’t. But it wasn’t his fault Bobby got moved, and not his fault the kid didn’t have at least the stability of one place to live.”

It wasn’t lost on Charlie that Malcolm had never called that house, that family, his home.

“And you really don’t know what happened to him?”

Malcolm shrugged. “I know he was moved to a temp home. Then he told me he was in a group home. He left there near the end of the school year, but I don’t know after that. I lost touch. Guess he moved to a different school. And then I met you.” Malcolm kissed the top of his head. “I found a new home and that place mattered less.”

Charlie smiled and pressed his body more tightly over Malcolm’s. “Love you too, baby,” he said softly and was rewarded with a finger lifting his chin so Malcolm could kiss him. It was one of those kisses that dropped a soft, fuzzy damper over everything, and Charlie could drift on the wave of
Malcolm-ness
for long, long minutes, or however long the touch lasted.

It did end, eventually, and they lapsed into more silence. He felt his lover growing heavy beside him, caught the twitch of Malcolm’s leg against his as he dropped into that floaty region between sleep and awake.

“I’m sticky,” Charlie complained.

Malcolm’s arm around him tightened.

“Mal?”

“Go to sleep,” Malcolm muttered.

“But. I’m a mess.”

Malcolm kissed his hair. “Me too. But you’ve got me on the right road now. I’m tired.”

“Yeah. Mal, my pillow—”

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

Charlie chuckled softly and gave up. Sheets and bodies could be washed. The pillow could be washed too, and the cats would appreciate a new bed from the old pillow. Charlie would pick something expensive and fluffy for himself. He could let Malcolm pamper him some of the time. He’d watched Kerry allow what pleased Malcolm, and the kid hadn’t imploded into a helpless sack of lazy. Charlie could manage to keep his autonomy too, probably.

T
HE
FLIGHT
to Seattle felt a lot longer than the five-and-some hours it had actually been. I was exhausted by the time I exited the cab on the curb in front of Nash Jones’s house. It was close to three in the morning, since the flight had been delayed something like five times. I couldn’t remember anymore. They’d finally squeezed me onto the last flight leaving the airport, and the ride had been a rough one, since the plane was flying through the trailing edge of the storm once it left the ground.

I’d decided not to call Nash to pick me up at the airport, just texted him and let him know when I expected to land, once I was actually on the plane and fairly sure they weren’t going to have everyone deplane and wait for morning.

Now, I glanced up and down the dark street and let out a sigh as the cabbie handed me my suitcase.

“Thanks, man.” I gave the guy a bit extra, since he’d been cool with both the bank machine stop, and the coffee drive-through, and my account had been semiflush. At some point, I supposed I would have to get in touch with Malcolm and thank him for that. I’d given him my banking information so he could deposit my gardener’s paycheck, but what he’d actually deposited was substantially more than any gardener had a right to make in less than a month.

“Enjoy your visit,” the driver said with a smile. “I’ll bet your folks will be glad to have you home. You’re a nice kid.”

How the guy could know that after a twenty minute car ride, I had no idea, but I smiled and thanked him anyway, and the cab drove off into the night, leaving me feeling heavy and tired and alone on the sidewalk.

I’d only taken two steps toward the house when the outdoor light came on, and for a moment, I thought I’d triggered a safety lamp, but then the door burst open and Nash himself barreled down the steps.

“Kerry!”

Another tall, lean figure appeared in the doorway, and I recognized David from brief encounters over the years. A tiny, bandy-legged figure clutched at David’s pant legs from behind, round, pale face peeking out to see what was going on.

“Is everyone still up?” I asked, dismayed that they hadn’t gone to bed hours ago because of me.