We Found Love (3 page)

“At your service.”

“Honey, you couldn’t service with a Viagra and some Patron in your current condition. Now roll over and let me check your temp before I put the thermometer in your ass again.”

Hunter grunted, best laugh he could give. “You did it in my ear.”

“That’s what we tell you pretty boys. Secretly—”

“Honey, you can’t scare my gay ass with that.”

The nurse snorted. “Ain’t it always the pretty ones.” She stuck the thermometer in his ear, checked his blood pressure, listened to his heart, then patted his cheek. “Stop being an asshole. You’ll be out soon enough. Suicide attempts aren’t—”

Hunter found quite enough energy to shoot up in his bed. “
Suicide
attempt?” Everything about sitting up had been a horrible idea. His stomach rolled over, and he thought he might puke. Meanwhile his dick was on fire.

The nurse, who he was still too fucked-up to see clearly, jumped back. “Calm down, now.”

“And why does my dick hurt?” He tried to yank on the offending painful extension of his body, only to find that caused overwhelming, tears-to-the-eyes pain.

“Mr. Morgan, that’s a catheter. You’re gonna be real sorry if you yank that balloon out. So just calm down.”

“Fuck that!”
I did not try to kill myself, dumbass. And my dick fucking hurts!
If only his tongue wasn’t spasming too much to say it. God-motherfucking-dammit.

“Calm down, Mr. Morgan.” The nurse was using Mommy Voice now. But… he’d only tried to tell them they were dumb. Because they were! He hadn’t tried to do himself in. He had too much going on, too many years left, too many drugs to take…. Hell, his cock was too big to die without fucking a few more dudes with it. What were they thinking?

“You have to calm down, Mr. Morgan.” That was a man. A male voice? Fuck. Fuck-fuck. Why couldn’t he focus? Why was he shivering?

Then…. Then…. Oblivion. A needle. A hug.

Chapter 2

Hartfield Mental Health Facility, Monday

T
HEY
COULDN
’
T
just leave well enough alone, could they? Those colorful-scrub-covered assholes insisted on dragging everyone out of their rooms, even the most antisocial bastard in the group—a title Riley held with pride. No one there liked him. He didn’t like them. The hate/hate relationship worked well because it meant no one wanted to talk to him. But there he sat, in a corner far from everyone else, with a print copy of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
opened wide in one hand. He’d always thought it ironic and a bit offensive for that classic to be one of the few books they had in this place.

A yellow hue hung over the room, most likely thanks to the piss-colored walls and off-white linoleum. It seemed to keep everyone nice and subdued, or maybe that was the drugs they fed everyone there. Riley always kept his mouth shut and didn’t act out, so they never knew if he was high or not—or low, as it were.

The sound of creaking wheels in bad need of a lube job caught his attention. The two big-ass orderlies were wheeling another one in. Another fucking one. Wasn’t this place already crowded enough? Pretty much every room had two people in it already. His was one of the rare exceptions, but his had always been a special case. But he was low man on the totem pole in the grand scheme of things. An old-timer but not as home sweet home as the two sickos down the hall from him.

The guy showed up in the standard apparel—white T-shirt, blue hospital pants, and blue socks with nonskid soles so people wouldn’t bust their asses. They’d issue a pair of shitty plastic slippers to him once he got settled in. Even give him a comb for that messy blond shit on his head…
if
they didn’t think he’d hurt someone with it. This dude might be the type. He def looked the part.

“What the fuck are you staring at?” the newbie yelled, for no reason at all from what Riley could tell. But the newb’s dark stare was zeroed in on Riley. That’s when he knew he’d been the one staring and the newb was yelling at him.

Without hesitating long enough to take a breath, Riley averted his eyes back down to the book opened in his hands. He pretended to focus on the words while looking up through his dark eyelashes.

“Quiet, Morgan,” the orderly pushing the wheelchair barked.

“Or we could have this beautiful nurse here sedate ya,” the second one added, nodding toward the long-legged ginger who’d started working at the facility a few weeks ago. She hadn’t been properly broken in yet. No one had made any huge scenes for her.

Her cheeks pinkened, and Riley wanted to vomit. The sad thing was, the big Latino motherfucker hitting on her made the moves on all the cute nurses who came and went at that place like bread going stale. No one with any sanity, hope for a career, or desire for better hung around that place—patients included. And Riley was quickly heading toward his nineteenth month, with no hope of reprieve.

The newb’s head swung when they abruptly made a right toward the patients’ wing. It was close to the nurses’ station for the ones who need to be watched closely. The farther down the hall you got, the saner the patients were—save for the old-timers, who were truly out of their minds but had learned the ropes and knew how not to rock the boat. Riley’s room was down that way, and from the looks of it, the newb was headed there fast.

Abruptly dropping the book, Riley pushed up from his corner perch and onto his feet. He absently followed, aware he was drawing closer to the action but not completely aware of the hows or whys. Curiosity? Maybe?

They stopped right outside his door, and Señor Badass reached for the knob. Riley’s gut twisted, heart going down for the count. The one thing he had in that place, his beloved privacy, was being yanked out from underneath him, and he couldn’t do anything more than watch.
Bend over, kiddo, take it like a man.

“Fuck,” he muttered. As far as anyone knew, that was his favorite word in a very limited vocabulary—most of which consisted of curses, because only things truly curse-worthy ever made him speak. And this moment was worthy of the most epically foul curse word in the litany of foul four-lettered concoctions.

“Whose bed is that?” he heard the newbie ask.

“His.” The orderly pointed in Riley’s direction.

Riley went deer-in-headlights, frozen and wide eyed and tasting the remnants of a flavorless lunch in the back of his throat.

H
UNTER
LOOKED
up, unable to stop the scowl on his face from making itself known. “Whose?” He heard a growl in his own voice that was probably uncalled for, but why change his whole fuck-off demeanor now?

Then he saw his roommate.
Saw
him
. It seemed cliché to think such a thing, but the man in the door was hard not to notice. The brief flick of a glance, a perfect tongue dancing on sweet, pillowy lips—hope and faith disguised in a compact, mistreated body.

“Oh, hey,” Hunter said dumbly.

“Hey,” his roommate said, barely a whisper.

Hunter found he couldn’t help bounding from his chair, extending a hand to shake.
What are you doing?

His roomie jumped back. Well, not necessarily jumped so much as flailed. His wide eyes flicked in every direction but Hunter’s before his gaze fell to the floor. Hunter felt he’d fucked up somehow but had no clue how. His mama always said he was too forward, but fuck. Not like he had the energy to fuck someone or the hope to think he could be more to someone than…. Yeah.

He sat back down slowly. One of the orderlies huffed a laugh before leaning toward his ear and whispering, “Don’t sweat it. He don’t like nobody, dude.”

Hunter looked up at the orderly, who was pointing at a prominent scar on his chin. “He put me through a window.”

Hunter reared in surprise, then jerked his head in the direction of his new roomie. The dude was barely over five foot eight. Hell, Hunter thought he was short, and he was five foot ten.

He was wrong.

His roomie was also pale as fuck, the skin on his face smooth as marble. Not like Hunter could see much of it. The way the cutie hid behind his bangs, Hunter wanted to shave the guy’s head just to see more of that.

Roomie was clearly uncomfortable under Hunter’s lecherous gaze, moving into the room and shoving his belongings into his pockets. He seemed extremely uncomfortable, but fuck if Hunter could stop himself.
Who’d’ve thought? Horny even in the Crazy House.

“Riley, it’s cool, man. Would we put you with someone you wouldn’t be safe with?” the scarred orderly asked.

Riley’s expression said yes, they would indeed do that.
Riley.
Wasn’t that a fitting name for such a cute guy? What was he doing there?
Probably trapped like me.

Clearly, Riley was normal like Hunter. No one with a tattooed sleeve and swagger like that was fucked-up. Maybe he was just shy? Who cared? At least Hunter had some eye candy for his stay.

The orderlies snorted. When Hunter turned his attention to them, he realized they were making fun of him, obviously realized he’d been checking out the fresh meat. The scarred orderly patted his shoulder.

“Good luck with that, homie,” Scarface said.

Hunter snorted. He wanted to say something clever in return, but when he turned back to Riley-Roomie, the brief glimpse he got of the man’s eye was a bit too feral for comfort.

He heard himself swallow, so there was no wonder the orderly had patted his shoulder. Even if this wasn’t prison, he suddenly had the urge never to drop the soap. Even if Riley-Roomie was that cute.

When the orderlies helped him onto his new bed, he lay back, not daring to look toward the other man. His withdrawal problems may have lessened, but he definitely felt a good headache throbbing, like a hangover with Riley’s name on it.

T
HE
ORDERLIES
were gone now. Hunter and Riley were alone. Alone together in that epically dangerous sort of way. Riley had no intention of turning his back on Hunter. Not now. Not two days from now. Not ever if he could help it. In fact, he didn’t plan on closing his eyes as long as Hunter was in that room.
That’s ridiculous, freak.

He sat down on his bed and scooted as far back as he could get, settling in a familiar corner, wedged between the wall and the headboard. He wished he had his book. At least then he’d have something to look at—something besides staring at his new roomie.

“So, um”—Hunter nodded in his direction—“what’s your deal?”

“Excuse me?” Riley fired back, surprised by the sound of his own voice.

“Your deal? Why are you here?”

Of its own volition, Riley’s right hand locked over his left wrist. Red covered his vision, and he was taken back to the tub where’d he’d decided to hide and give a go at cheating fate and taking his own life. He remembered each droplet of thick blood floating on the surface of his bathwater and how, as he lay there shriveling and bleeding, he’d chastised himself for not planning the attempt better. Had he cut deeper or wider or maybe done it right after his old roommate had left for work instead of trying that night, he might not be here now, dealing with this shit.

“Cat got your tongue?” Hunter asked.

Riley raised his head. “No.”

“Then what’s your kick? I mean, I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.”

There was a wickedness in the way Hunter looked at him, like he was committing to memory every detail of Riley’s face, his body, his tattoos, and the scars. Could Hunter really see the scars from across the room?

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Hunter eased onto his side, wincing as if his body had had a rough go at things in the recent past. The wince made Riley get a closer look, and what he found in his roommate was the same thing he’d seen in people who’d spent a hell of a long time binging, slowly killing themselves with shit sold on street corners in the hoods of Louisiana. Hunter had the dark, sunken eye sockets, hollowed cheeks, clammy skin, and moistened brow of someone who’d been going through detox and was still fighting the remainders of his last buzz.

“Look, man, we can’t stay in the same room and not talk,” Hunter said, voice growing increasingly frustrated. “Say something.”

Suicide.
The word clung to Riley’s tongue, begging to break through his pinched lips. He wanted to tell Hunter all about it, to explain the scars on his wrists and why he was covered in tattoos. He wanted to tell Hunter the entire story of his childhood, just because that stupid damn doctor had finally convinced Riley that talking about the past was good for the future. And yet, as bad as he wanted to say something, he couldn’t do it.

He rubbed his wrist, feeling the jagged line of scar tissue where the blade had sliced through his flesh. It ruined all the ink over his veins. Dots of white skin interrupted the colorful swirls. Nineteen months ago, he was minutes closer to all this bullshit being over.

“Oh shit,” Hunter said, eyes widening. “Did you….”