Breathe (7 page)

He said, “Thanks,” and turned to leave.

She put a hand on his back. “Did you get the job?”

He faced her. “Yeah. Three weeks and I get my first check. I"ll need a few

bucks for spending money.” No need to mention the smokes and whiskey. “But after

that, it"s all yours.”

“I can"t take all your money, Linc.”

“I"m going to help pay for this place and the other bills.” He forced her head up

with a hand under her chin. “And that"s final.”

Breathe

31

She bit her lip and nodded. The moisture in her eyes scattered with a blink of

her eyelids. She sat at the table with the kids.

Lincoln stopped off in the hall to wave at Adam, who lay on his bed texting a

message on his cell.

“Hey, Uncle Linc. Did you meet any drug dealers in prison?”

“Jail. Not prison. And we didn"t talk about our crimes.”

Adam waved an arm through the air and went back to typing with his thumbs.

“Yeah. I get it.”

Lincoln started down the hall and almost missed the “Glad you"re home.”

“Me too.” He wanted to say more, but hearing about his stepdad being an

asshole and how sorry Lincoln was that he and his siblings hadn"t gotten a better

deal in life would embarrass Adam. No need to remind the kid that the two men

who should"ve cared about him the most hadn"t bothered.

Davy"s room had shrunk in size. Either that or Lincoln hadn"t walked off the

beers like he thought. He left the plate of food on the desk and collapsed onto the

bed.

Crimes. Why had he used that word?

Because he was a criminal. He"d been arrested. Handcuffed. Charged.

Sentenced. Sounded like the consequences due a criminal.

He breathed deep and closed his eyes. The small room filled with the scent of

the charred edges on Nancy"s meat loaf and the smoke from the bar. Burning

rubber, gasoline, and blood replaced the smoke and meat loaf. Sounds invaded the

room. Metal crunching against metal, plastic popping loose, glass sprinkling over

the highway, and the sirens in the distance that would never arrive soon enough.

He swung off the bed and descended on the plate. He grabbed it and his duffel

bag and charged across the hall into the bathroom. It took three flushes to get all

the food down without a trace for Nancy or Sparky to find later. He showered,

changed, and threw the smoke-covered clothes in with the dirty laundry.

Back in Davy"s room, he was about to set the empty plate on the desk when he

spotted the stack of mail. He"d gotten other envelopes like the one on top. He opened

it and slid the two sheets of paper onto the desk. The first was a typed note, like all

the rest.

Ever wonder if she cried out in pain? If she felt the snap of bone? The crush of

her chest?

I do. Every night.

Now I hope you will too.

The plate slipped from his hand and clanked onto the desk.

Lincoln seized the note. Underneath lay a photograph. He didn"t reach for it.

Touching it would make it real. If he didn"t, maybe he"d wake in the morning and

find out he"d had more to drink than he thought. He dropped the note and bent

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Sloan Parker

forward, resting his hands on his knees, keeping his face and body as far from the

picture as he could, as if he were on a TV show, inspecting a dead body.

Which he was. A photo of Katie Miller. In the morgue from what it looked like.

She certainly looked dead. Who the hell had taken a picture?

He flipped on the desk lamp and leaned closer. Every detail of the snapshot on

Davy"s desk stood out. The pale skin. The bare shoulders. The cut that ran the

length of her right cheek. The shiny metal surface of the silver table visible behind

her body.

He snatched the picture and backed up to the bed. His ass hit the mattress.

She was dead.

Because of him.

He removed the wallet from his back pocket. Tucked behind his driver"s license

was the newspaper clipping. He unfolded the paper, smoothing it over his thigh,

moving his thumb in careful swipes.

He"d memorized every word of the newsprint and every inch of the photo above

her obituary. The smile that never faded, the crinkle of the skin around her eyes,

the birthday cake visible on the table over her shoulder, the hand she had on the

knee of whoever sat beside her just outside the crop of the photo.

Why was she smiling and how long after that moment until she died?

“I"m sorry.”

He ran a thumb over her hair. That hair had been what he was remembering

when the kid sat at the bar next to him, distracting him.

The black-and-white newspaper print left the color of her hair to Lincoln"s

memory. Long and red, framing her face, fanning out over the highway where she

lay contorted, the red hair with a deeper shade of red sticking to it, matting it to her

face. He"d never forget how she looked in that moment.

The note sat across the room on the empty plate, mashed potato remnants

seeping through to leave dark blotches here and there.

Seemed like someone wanted to make sure he never forgot.

He scoffed out loud. Fat chance.

But he had to forget. Didn"t he? He had to stop reliving every detail. Nancy

was counting on him. He couldn"t keep a job if he couldn"t stay sober.

He should take the notes and the photo to the cops. Nothing in the threats

were specific, but it still had to be illegal—harassment if nothing else.

Hell, the cops would probably just laugh at his ass. It wasn"t like anyone had

come after Lincoln. They were only words. Sent by her husband, no doubt. Lincoln

had already done enough to the man. He didn"t need to send the cops to his house.

He couldn"t blame the man for hating him.

He tucked the obituary and the new photo into his wallet and hid the note in

the nightstand drawer with the other letters. He stripped off his clothes, turned off

Breathe

33

the light, and crawled onto the bed, forcing himself to think of something else—

anything else.

The kid from the bar. That"d work.

The light hair that looked like someone had run his fingers through it. The

hint of toned muscles just starting to soften or fade, like a young man who had kept

fit all his life but no longer bothered. The nervous eyes that confirmed the kid"s

touch. He was gay but new to the experience.

Lincoln took his dick in his hand and gave a few strokes to encourage his

arousal. It didn"t take much time. Not with the image of the kid kneeling before

him, that tempting mouth on his dick.

He came, his body pulsating, his mind clearing of everything except the guy

staring up at him, licking the cum off his lips.

If only that release lasted as long as the whiskey.

If only it were enough to chase away the question that lingered. Were the

threats he"d received the empty words of a grieving husband—words Lincoln

deserved—or was someone about to make him pay more than he already had?

* * *

there the night before, a reminder to take them out with the rest of the garbage.

Too bad trash collection was three days earlier.

One year she"d been gone, and he still couldn"t get the schedule right. How

hard was it to remember one lousy day a week? Good thing he"d dropped out of

college the week after the funeral. Apparently when your wife died, your brain cells

died with her.

That was the only way to explain what he"d done at the bar. He"d been coming

on to that guy. No doubt about that. Jay kicked the pizza boxes aside and staggered

to the kitchen sink.

He couldn"t deny his attraction to the dark-haired man. Was it because he was

the first gay guy Jay had talked to? Or was it the serious eyes, the dark skin, the

way the man"s throat worked as he swallowed long gulps of the beer?

What must it be like for a gay man like Dark Eyes living in a small town?

There were no gay bars for him to patronize. How did he find other men? Was he as

lonely as Jay? And why did Jay care about the man"s emotional or sexual state

anyway?

He flipped on the light above the kitchen sink and squinted as he opened the

cupboard. No glasses. He tried the next cabinet where they stored the plastic cups.

Nothing. The top shelf with the coffee mugs? Nope.

Their house was turning to shit. It wasn"t just the dirty dishes piled in the sink

or the fast-food containers scattered throughout the kitchen and living room. It was

the dozen broken things he didn"t bother to repair. Like the doorknob to the

bathroom that had loosened and finally fallen off, the torn shower curtain hooked

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Sloan Parker

on by four of the original twelve plastic rings, the shutters on the living room

window that hung at odd angles and covered part of the window after they were

knocked loose during the last storm.

Katie"d be mad at him for all of it.

This was their first home, the fixer-upper they were going to make special,

where they had planned to raise their kids. She deserved better from him. Too bad

he couldn"t deliver.

He wanted to hate the place. He still owed the Shaws $8,572 from the down

payment he and Katie had borrowed. But he couldn"t leave. She was everywhere.

He couldn"t walk away from that. He groped under the sink for the dishwasher

detergent and found three bottles, all empty. He threw the last one into the sink. It

bounced off the stack of dirty plates and whacked him in the forehead, then landed

on the linoleum floor and skidded across the room to wedge under the refrigerator.

“Goddammit.”

Oh well.
Getting by
was the theme of his life now. He turned on the faucet and

bent to drink directly from it. The hair above his ear brushed the top plate with

caked-on pizza bits and melted cheese. When he had enough water to keep from

dehydrating in his sleep, he turned it off and brushed the side of his head. Crumbs

fell to the plate in the sink.

That was the extent of his cleaning up before bed. He made his way to the

couch in the living room and sprawled out on his stomach. He never slept there. Not

since she died. The night of the funeral he dragged himself into the bedroom. He

would not forget her or their nights together. He forced himself to lie in their bed

where he hugged her pillow and remembered the last time they"d made love—every

detail, every kiss, every breath—until exhaustion finally pulled him under.

But tonight…he couldn"t lie where they"d made love so many times when he"d

been in a bar not an hour earlier craving someone else. Could his life get more

complicated?

He pictured the dark eyes with the haunted look so like his own, the way those

eyes had looked at him, and how the man"s hand felt pressed against his. The blood

rushed to Jay"s cock, and he ground his pelvis against the couch cushion.

Yep. More complicated was definitely possible.

He didn"t want to do anything about the erection. But sex with another man

had always been a kick-starter fantasy. Nothing got him off like that. Katie knew it

and used the information on several occasions when she wanted to rile him up,

telling him stories of what she"d like to watch him do with another guy.

A fantasy. Nothing more.

He"d loved her most in those moments. She hadn"t gotten angry or jealous or

defensive. She never questioned his faithfulness or his loyalty. She played with his

desires and gave him all she could. She accepted all of him.

He eased his hand between himself and the couch. It was her touching him,

her mouth on him.

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35

But when he came with a grunt, it was a man with dark eyes who licked the

cum from Jay"s hand.

* * *

Jay cracked a smile as the woman at the far end of the bar flirted with the

dark-haired man wearing a leather jacket. She had no clue she"d already lost the

game. Not only was Dark Eyes gay, he also looked as lost as he had when Jay first

saw him. No one stood a chance with someone who obviously wanted to be left alone

the way he did.

She kept at it, though. “Come on. Buy me a drink.” She ran her long, pink

fingernails through the hair above his ear. Dark Eyes swatted her hand away and

returned his attention to the glass that held something stronger than beer, gripping

it with both hands.

Jay couldn"t blame her for trying. Dark Eyes looked good in the black leather

and faded jeans, his dark hair and skin a temptation for the fingers. Jay clutched

his beer and took a swallow before setting it on the table he"d grabbed ten minutes

earlier.

Sonny"s Tavern was crowded, the eligible singles mixing with the heavy