Keeping Promise Rock (41 page)

“Exactly. You get him laid, and the world will seem a
whole
lot less dire, trust me.”

Crick smiled, although there was a wealth of things he
hadn’t
told Jeff that weighted the expression down a little. “Well, the world will seem a whole lot less dire when he’s not getting an ulcer because he thinks he’s going to lose our home, either. We lost a lot of business, thanks to step-Bob and the bitch who spawned me.” Yeah, they’d come up in conversation, along with “driving while gay.” It was Jeff’s turn to look thoughtful. “Hmmm… you know, I just might be your fairy Jeff-father in all senses of the word, sweet thing—I might have an answer to some of your woes right there. You ever hear of Project RIDE?”

By the time Crick left the little PT room, Jeff on his heels filling out a business card with the details of Project RIDE, Crick had a little more optimism about the world. He also had Jeff’s personal number and a promise to call.

“Now make sure and tell your scary brooding boyfriend that you’re not my type,” Jeff had trilled. “It’s just that”—and he gave Crick a crooked smile, the kind that told Crick maybe the guy knew more about loneliness than he’d let on in forty-five minutes of physical and emotional therapy—“everybody needs a friend, right? Even your fairy Jeff-father.” For the first time since he’d come to in his hospital gurney in Germany, Crick let himself remember Lisa and the winsome smile she’d Keeping Promise Rock

given as she’d flopped butt first in the shaded sand next to Crick. Jeff looked that way too, and Crick thought wistfully that a friend wouldn’t be a bad thing to have, especially when his family was still grappling with his return.

“Absolutely,” he said sincerely, holding out his hand and clasping Jeff’s when he returned the gesture. “Deacon even lets me pick out slippers and plan slumber parties, if I ask nice.” Jeff grinned wickedly. “Can we do his makeup?” Crick just shook his head, thinking about Deacon’s reaction to that one. “Mmm… no.”

That wicked grin cranked itself up a notch. “Ah, well—a boy can dream.”

While they had lunch at Outback, Crick was all about Project RIDE—and Deacon started catching his excitement.

“You say they need a new stable? That’s promising…. He gave you the number?” Deacon took a healthy bite of his prime rib, and Crick made careful note of how much he had left on his plate.

“Yeah. They use the horses as physical therapy, so they
have
to be sweet-tempered. Mostly they run off volunteers, but sometimes there’s stuff they can pay us for—they get donor horses that need breaking, and we can charge for that. And they get government funding, so….” Crick’s face fell. “Well, maybe that’s not a plus.” Deacon laughed his quiet laugh, and Crick smiled at him, feeling a lump in his throat that no amount of soda could wash down. He felt it then, acutely: the difference between having a friend and being friends with your lover—no amount of easy conversation with Jeff was ever going to make up for one honest, quiet laugh from Deacon.

Deacon caught his regard and looked up. “What?” Crick blushed and grinned and shook his head. “Thinking about loving someone and being in love and dumb shit.” And now it was Deacon’s turn to blush. “You had one hell of a conversation with your physical therapist, didn’t you?” Crick looked away. “I’d forgotten, you know. How nice it was to have a friend.”

Deacon reached across the table and grabbed his damaged hand, which was something they could do in Sacramento or Citrus Heights or even Roseville, but not in Levee Oaks. The fact that it was the warm touch 278

of his flesh on Crick’s abused skin didn’t escape Crick either. To Deacon, it was Crick’s hand, not a claw, not something to be avoided. It was just Crick’s, and Deacon didn’t care that it was flawed.

“I haven’t really had a chance to tell you how sorry I am about Lisa.” Crick looked up at him suddenly and saw it there, all of it—no jealousy about Jeff, just simple understanding about his friend and his desire to give Crick support.

“I miss her. She kept me sane over there, you know? I keep….” He swallowed and looked down at his empty plate. Deacon had needed to cut his meat, and he’d done it so quietly and with so little fuss that Crick had hardly noticed. “I keep thinking I want to text her or something, to tell her how I’m doing. I had this idea fixed in my head, of her over there and me here, and me still being her friend. I just… I can’t make that go away.”

“You’re going to miss her. It’s going to be right there in your chest for a while—just let me know what you need to do to deal with it.” Crick blinked a little and then some more, trying to get a hold of himself. He was going to take a page from Deacon’s book and do this in private with only Deacon as a witness. “Jeff’s a start, I guess,” he said at last, thinking it was true.

Deacon sighed and got a tighter grip on his hand. “You… Crick, you and Benny, you break my heart. You’re fearless and you’re social—you should have friends. You should be at parties. I used to fantasize about you, when you were lining up art schools and thinking about going away.

You were having parties in a dorm room and saying outrageous shit, and you were surrounded by people, and all of them loved you.” He smiled that tight, fierce grin, and Crick’s heart broke—it was Deacon’s fantasy for Crick, but not for himself. And Deacon had never wanted to hold him back.

“You know how you keep saying that all you want is me and The Pulpit?
All I want is for you to want more. You have all these plans for everybody but yourself. I like having friends, you’re right. I want friends.

But I don’t want them more than I want my family. You and Benny and the baby and Jon and Amy and even Private Blood-loss. You’re my family—I want you to have us all.”

The tight, fierce grin grew open and dreamy, and Crick’s heart flipped over in his chest a little, and his scarred, clawed monstrosity of a hand gave a convulsive clutch under Deacon’s rough, perfect fingers.

“Okay,” Deacon said through that sweet, trusting smile. “I’ll dream that for you.”

That night, Deacon left paperwork on the desk for once and let Andrew do the muckraking. He showered early, while Crick was still sitting up in bed, watching the television that had been set up on the dresser while he was gone. Deacon came out in his briefs, with his hair combed and freshly shaved, which he didn’t have to do, and Crick looked at him with a hopeful curiosity.

“You look like you’ve got plans,” he said, and Deacon’s tight, fierce grin turned embarrassed.

“I… I could always go do…,” he started, reaching for a T-shirt from the dresser.

“Deacon, so help me, if you go do bills tonight, I’m going to kick your scrawny ass halfway to Canada. Get in bed, will you?” Deacon did, and Crick reached over to turn off the light.

“No,” Deacon murmured. “I want to see you….” Crick turned it off anyway. “Please,” he begged, hating himself for turning Deacon down in even the smallest of ways. “Let me imagine my body’s perfect, just for tonight.”

Deacon was close to him, close enough for Crick to smell his shaving cream and feel the clean moisture radiating from his skin. His eyes, that pretty green in the light, turned depthless in the dark, and his perfect mouth turned up at the corners right before Crick had to close his eyes.

“Your body
is
perfect, Carrick.”

The taste of Deacon’s breath on his face made his skin shiver and his cock instantly hard. The minute Deacon’s mouth closed over his, Crick wrapped his leg—his scarred but sound leg—over Deacon’s hips and groaned, pulling that bony, tough body flush against him, pushing his groin up against Deacon’s and groaning some more to find that Deacon was just as hard as he was.

It was Deacon’s turn to groan, and his tongue swept Crick’s mouth, and he claimed Crick for his own, again and again. Crick could have been lost in that kiss forever, but Deacon pulled his mouth away to place shaky kisses down Crick’s jawline.

Crick arched his back and exposed his neck, and still, still tried to press his bare chest closer to Deacon’s. The slick of their skin together 280

was heavenly, and Crick couldn’t get enough. Deacon apparently felt the same way, because as he kissed his way to Crick’s collarbone, tormenting with the slight rasp of teeth, he still stayed close, skin to skin, and the smooth gloss of shower-clean was rapidly made sticky with sweat.

Deacon’s mouth lingered on Crick’s chest. He suckled the sensitive nipples until Crick whimpered, afraid he was going to spill in his pants before the good stuff happened. Deacon moved on before he could do that and spent some extra time on Crick’s tender, shiny scars. He kissed the new skin on Crick’s shoulder, the ridges of shrapnel scars along his ribs, the twisted mess of skin on the left side of his stomach, each kiss a benediction, a claiming.
This is still you. I still love this. Don’t worry,
Crick; the whole of you is precious to me.

Crick writhed under each kiss, thrusting his hips out against Deacon’s stomach and then his chest as the man moved patiently down his body.

“I’m going to cream in my shorts if you don’t move soon,” he gasped. Deacon chuckled against his soft abdomen, and Crick threw his head back and groaned. He didn’t notice that Deacon’s hands were shaking until he fumbled Crick’s shorts twice. Crick finally caught a clue and put his own hands—the scarred one and the whole one—over Deacon’s and helped him strip off the boxers. There was already a damp spot on the front because Crick was leaking pre-come like a spigot, and the air hitting the head of Crick’s cock was something of a surprise.

Crick sucked in air past his teeth at the cold, and then Deacon’s tongue, rough as a cat’s, made a playful swipe across his head, and Crick laughed gruffly because it felt
soooo
good. Deacon opened his mouth then, done with foreplay, and took him inside.

Crick grunted with surprise. It was so quick, and Deacon’s mouth was so warm and so wet, and he moved his head once, twice….

Crick felt Deacon’s chest muscles trembling against his thighs, and even though he had stars exploding behind his eyes, he realized that Deacon’s movements were rough, trembling, barely restrained.

Oh God. Oh God—he’s holding himself back. He… he’s clumsy with
wanting me….

The thought was a revelation, and it was enough to make Crick grunt, trying to resist, wanting to comfort him, wanting it to be good for him too, but Deacon was insistent. He shoved his mouth forward jerkily, Keeping Promise Rock

and his teeth barely grazed the skin of Crick’s cock, and Crick was deep, deep in his throat when he came.

“Gaaaawwwwwdddddddd,” he gasped, tightening his hands in Deacon’s wet hair, and Deacon curled up around him, grabbing his ass with rough, jerking fingers, wrapping his legs around Crick’s calves, burying his head into Crick’s groin and clutching Crick’s naked, spasming body to him with trembling strength.

Crick eventually fell limply from Deacon’s mouth, and he reached down and hauled Deacon up by the armpits with a little help from Deacon himself. When they were situated and Crick was wrapping Deacon tight and hauling his face into Crick’s chest, Crick felt the clammy fabric of Deacon’s briefs up against his thigh.

“God, Deacon… you….”

“Yeah,” Deacon chuffed out a breath. “Hope you weren’t expecting the world’s greatest lover. He just came in his shorts.” Crick shivered, holding Deacon even tighter. “That is
so
fucking sexy,” he muttered in awe.

“You’re so easy,” Deacon mumbled, and Crick could feel his embarrassment scorching the skin of Crick’s chest.

“In your bed? I’m a sure thing.”

Deacon chuckled lowly, and then, miracle of miracles, he fell asleep.

Just like that. No bills, no stable mucking—just content, happy Deacon, cuddled up against Crick’s chest like he’d always dreamed.

So it wasn’t an entire night of sweaty, sensual passion, but Crick was thinking that it was a start—a good start, but a beginning just the same. He was thinking that with passion like that—the kind of passion that made a man just curl up and come from the wanting of his lover in his mouth—he and Deacon were on their way to a stellar year of make-up sex. He was thinking that he might not have needed the doctor to write him a note after all.

A week later, he was thinking that if Deacon didn’t fuck him and do it proper, he was going to climb the fucking walls.

“My God, honey, your shoulders are tight enough to bounce a quarter off!” Jeff sounded appalled as they started working on Crick’s PT, and Crick couldn’t blame him.

Crick had applied himself assiduously in the past week—he’d had Benny teach him to knit so he could do something useful with his hand 282

when he was resting, which was still more often than he’d like. He’d picked up more of the housework and had dedicated himself to mucking out four stalls a night, just to do his share.

Deacon was appreciative and supportive—and in return for Crick’s hard work, he dedicated himself to getting to bed before twelve o’clock, so they could at least fondle each other and one of them (usually Crick) could come before they fell asleep, exhausted by their day.

But Crick still hadn’t been pounded into the mattress like a railroad spike, and the stress was starting to tell.

“We’ve been busy this week,” he prevaricated, not wanting to bore Jeff with the financial troubles again. He’d called him during the week, and Jeff had returned the favor, and Crick was starting to recognize the rhythm of talking to a friend.

“You’ve been stressing over money is more like it,” Jeff said wisely, raising Crick’s arm over his head and stretching it obscenely while Crick tried to be a man about the whole thing and not whimper.

“Deacon told me a little about the money—it’s bad. Not as bad as I think he sees it, but it’s bad.”

And it was too. The Project RIDE money would help, if it came through—and they were crossing their fingers that it would—but still, they needed horses to break. It was what Deacon was best at and what nobody would give him a chance to do.

“Well, sweet thing, you know what’s great at relieving stress? And it’s free?”

“Sex,” Crick said dryly, not needing a diagram.