Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (19 page)

“Steaks. Good,” Bobby murmured with a short nod. He was resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder to see if Ichi was okay. “Need me to bring anything? Beer? Cake? Antacids?”

“Anything you want. We always end up with more food than people, so maybe some of those take-out trays you brought last time so we can pack up the leftovers.” Wrinkling his nose, Jae batted at a gnat trying to land on his face. “See you in an hour?”

“An hour sounds great. I can get some stuff together by then.” He was about to say more when Jae piled his bags into Scarlet’s hands.

“Wait here. There’s the cheese booth. I want to get some of that brie for Maddy. She’s got cravings.” Jae shook his head. “God, Mike as a dad.”

“Cole as an uncle.” Scarlet’s husky laugh teased Bobby’s ear. “That poor baby is going to learn how to play video games before it can walk.”

“And swear in about seventeen languages.” Bobby was talking to Jae’s back. He lost the man in about a second into the crowd. Turning to Scarlet, he shrugged. “Damn, he’s quick.”

“Not as quick as you,” she purred, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “You and Ichiro… I think I like that.”

“Shit.” Bobby bit back another curse, finally looking behind him. His lover was nowhere to be seen, and when he turned around to face Scarlet, he saw a cunning grin slide up over her face. “Oh, fuck me.”

“I would, but ah, I’ve found my heart, no?” She tapped at his cheek with a polished nail. “I wasn’t sure it was him until you panicked. Have you told Cole?”

“Are you kidding? You’d have seen a mushroom cloud or a crater in the middle of Los Angeles if I had.” He sighed, then rubbed at his face. “I need to. I want to. I don’t like hiding this kind of shit. It was one thing when it was… casual, but it got serious—real fast.”

“It’s nice.” She trailed her finger down Bobby’s throat and over to his chest. “I could tell you the heart wants who it wants, but—he’s your best friend. Do you think you will be asking him to choose between the two of you?”

“No… yes,” Bobby admitted. “I don’t want that. Fuck, I don’t want Ichi to be in that position either. It’s… complicated.”

“Well, he’ll be mad at you.” Scarlet pursed her mouth, a crimson moue in her tanned face. “But he’ll get over it. He loves you both too much. Cole needs to learn he’s not the center of the universe—although I don’t think he believes that.”

“No, that’s Jae.” They shared a quick smile; then Bobby sobered up. “Yeah, I’m going to tell him today. I’ll get him away from the others and talk to him. He won’t kill me if there’s people around.”

“Just do it quickly,” she advised gently. “Because neither one of you should be hiding. Not from Cole.”

“No, not from Cole,” he agreed. “But he’s not the only one I’m hiding Ichi from. He’s just the only one I can tell.”

I
N
RETROSPECT
,
Bobby realized he should have perhaps rehearsed what he was going to say to Cole, but instead his dick and mouth appeared to have had a discussion on the matter, leaving his brain out of the conversation. There was an eternity of horror, regret, and sheer outrage firing up sparks in his skull when his tongue went rogue, and he made quite possibly the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life since he’d married Marsha and promised her a forever he couldn’t deliver.

“There’s no easy way to tell you this, Princess, but I’m fucking your brother, Ichi.”

He couldn’t have stopped the words even if he tried. They spilled out like a tightly held release, and he’d stuck his brain in some glory hole to be sucked off by a whirlpool. The vacuum between his nervousness and Cole’s proximity needed to be filled, and his stupid tongue seemed more than willing to spew out the worst thing he could have said.

Then came the silence.

The cold, hard silence, and a rigid chill slammed down over Cole’s face.

It was surprising to find what he could hear in the spaces between friendship and condemnation. The babble of the two women sitting across the street, chatting about the obese basset hound snoring between them. The buzz of a bee as it sucked on flowers spilling out of hanging pots set under the porch eaves was nearly as loud as his breathing, perhaps even louder, because Bobby’s vision was beginning to speckle, and he had to gasp in some air to shoo off the black spots beginning to float across his eyes.

“You’re fucking my brother,” Cole repeated flatly. “
Ichiro
.”

“Well, it sure as shit wouldn’t be Mike.” His brain apparently continued to not only be on vacation but apparently had thrown in the towel and jumped off a high bridge in despair. The remaining bits of his sanity scrambled to smooth things over, but he didn’t have much hope. Especially since the best thing he could come up with after that gem was, “’Cause you know… he’s married. And straight. But mostly married.”

“Didn’t think that would stop you. The married part. But okay, we’ll agree not Mike.” The cold arced over to glacial, and Cole’s warm hazel eyes went flat and bottle green. He seemed to struggle to find something to say, finally deciding on the obvious. “How long? You and him? How long have you been…?
Shit.
”

“A while.” Bobby tried counting back the days since he’d first kissed Ichiro, if that counted. “But I’m not doing this right, Cole. Let me—”

“Shut up right now,” Cole snarled, pressing into his personal space.

Bobby took a step back, suddenly unsure of the fury in Cole’s expression. The happy-go-lucky charmer he’d teased and prodded was gone, replaced by a tangle of emotions and barely held-in anger.

“Look, this is between—” He held his palms up when he noticed Cole’s hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “We didn’t do this to hurt you. Shit, Princess, I swear to God, this isn’t even about you. I—”

“You want to talk?” Cole shoved at him, smacking the flats of his hands against Bobby’s chest. The force of the blow staggered Bobby back, and he struck the porch rail, its wide, flat top digging into the small of his back. “What the fuck are you thinking, Bobby?”

His brain finally kicked in. Unfortunately it joined the battle in full retaliation mode, and suddenly Bobby didn’t care if Cole was his best friend or even how often he’d pulled the man’s ass out of the fire—so many fires. He edged Cole back, getting up into his friend’s face to push him back and get some air between them.

“I was thinking maybe I could get some happiness out of it. Hell, maybe even make Ichi happy too,” he snapped back. “Not everything is about you, Princess.”

“No, it’s about Ichi. Fuck, it’s even about you!” Cole countered, his breath hot on Bobby’s face.

“What? I’m not good enough for your baby brother? Is that it? I’m sure as fuck good enough to be your best friend.” He was going to the mat with this, disregarding everything he’d built up in their friendship. “Or do you think I just want a piece of your ass too and am just waiting for the chance to get to it?”

Suddenly Ichi seemed worth losing Cole over, and as much as a trembling fear whispered the doom of his brotherhood with Cole, Bobby threw in with a wild hope Cole wouldn’t abandon him when it was all said and done.

Providing his temper didn’t leave the entire relationship in ashes at his feet.

“Fuck, you’re not good enough for
you
,” Cole spat back. “Goddamn it, Bobby. You think I wanted you away from Ichi because you’re a fucking whore? Because I think you’d fuck him and then dump him? Yeah, I do… and because doing that would be the worst fucking thing you’ve ever done in your damned life. You’d fuck up a good thing because you don’t think men can be together… be in love.”

“I don’t—”

“Over the past few weeks, every time I even fucking talk about two guys hooking up, you piss on it like it’s on fire. And all this time, you’ve been fooling around with my younger brother?” Cole stabbed a finger into Bobby’s chest. “You don’t think that’s a problem? For either of you?”

“Look, I—”

“You shit on my relationship with Jae. Hell, from the beginning when I first saw him, you were the first one to tell me not to get attached.” Cole held his hand up when Bobby tried to say something. “Yeah, you’re a great friend, but you’re a shitty boyfriend, Bobby, and you
like
being a shitty boyfriend. You take pride in it.”

“It’s different,” he protested. “Fuck, yeah I’ve been an asshole about it lately because… fuck, I didn’t… we weren’t ready to tell everyone we were… I don’t have a word for what it was. What it is.”

“Yeah, see, that’s another problem. You aren’t honest with what you do with your life. Bobby, your own kid doesn’t know you’re gay. And you’re okay with that.” Cole snorted. “I’m not. I’m not fucking okay with you lying to everyone outside of this little circle we’ve got. Yeah, it’s your business. I get that. I get that no one should be out if they don’t want to, but fuck, what about when you sit down for dinner and you’ve got to explain who the pretty Japanese guy is to your family? Or are you going to hide him in the closet with your shoes?”

“I haven’t told Jamie because it—” He should have told Jamie. If he owed his son one thing, it was the truth. Marsha hadn’t spilled the beans. For all the crap he’d shoveled her way, she’d kept their son out of it, leaving Bobby to clean up his own mess. A mess he’d left to stagnate and rot instead of facing it head on. “Okay, yeah. I should tell Jamie. I’ll admit to having to man up to that.”

“I get you not telling your uncle. Hell, he still calls blacks the
N
word to their face. I’m surprised someone there hasn’t injected him with antifreeze yet,” Cole growled. “But Ichi… he deserves to be loved out in the open. His father shoved him down enough in his life—enough for five lives—and here you come along. You think I’d want him living in the shadows because you can’t grow big enough balls to be honest with the family you’ve got?”

“Shoving Ichi down… not going to happen,” he snapped back. “You think I don’t know what he’s given up just to be… hell, just to be who he wants to be?”

“The worst of it, Bobby? You’re a fucking coward. You’re scared to admit you want to be loved. Or have someone in your life. You’d rather burn it all to hell than commit to having someone in your life, and that’s a crappy way to live,” his friend ground out. “Shit, you’re going to screw yourself up more than Ichiro, and then fucking what? Where the hell are you going to be when you break your own goddamned heart?”

There was more silence—this time, filled with stunned breathing. The women were still talking about the dog—as if the hound was the most interesting fucking thing in the world—and not even noticing Bobby’s world shattering in front of them. Another buzz took over for the bee, and oddly enough, it had a slight Korean hint to it. Turning, Bobby saw Jae taking the porch steps in a fierce march with a worried Ichi hot on his tail.

Ichiro looked from his brother to Bobby, his eyes widening slightly in shock. Gulping like a goldfish for a second, he finally sighed wearily and muttered, “So I guess you told him.”

Chapter 12

“D
ID
YOU
know about this? About them?” Cole’s fury ran hot, burning the air under the eaves. It turned its flames toward Jae, and he flinched, visibly hit by Cole’s wrath. “Did he tell you?”

“I didn’t—wait, don’t make this about me or you.” Jae’s snarl was just as fierce, shoving back at Cole’s assault. Mounting the last step to the porch, he went toe to toe with his lover, a slender, ferocious reminder of the man he’d fought to become. “No, I didn’t know, but fuck that.
You’re
not a part of this.
I’m
not either. This—”

When Ichi’d come up the sidewalk after parking the car, he’d spotted Bobby first. It didn’t take a lot of brains to figure out what they’d been discussing. Not when he could see the murderous look on his brother’s face. Jae meeting him at the end of the sidewalk was a fluke. Now they were both hip deep into Cole’s anger and struggling to get a word in edgewise.

“Look, yeah we should have told you,” Ichiro interrupted, sliding in between his brother and Jae. “When Mike found out, that night—”

It was definitely a slip up. Not having siblings up until a year or so ago, Ichi wasn’t prepared for the landmines he sometimes found along the way. By the chilling grit of Cole’s teeth, he guessed he’d hit one.

“Mike knows? Oh, this is getting better and better.” Cole threw his hands up. “Anyone else besides me you’ve left in the dark? How about the dog over there? He invited to the wedding? Maybe going to be the best man?”

“Why are you doing this? Why do you think you have this right?” Jae squared off again, stepping closer to Cole, his lip lifted into a snarl. “Ichi and Bobby don’t have to answer to you. They don’t have to answer to—”

“What the hell are you all doing up here?
You
, get up there.” A rumbling alto spiced with a dash of maternal grit drew them all up, and Ichi found himself being shoved up the steps by a forceful push of Claudia’s right hand. He stumbled, astonished at the strength in the enormous black woman’s arm. The porch went silent, dropped to a deathly quiet barely broken by their breathing. “Boy, do you have your keys? We are
not
doing this out here. You have
guests
.”