Let It Go (24 page)

“I know, Eli, we’re about done here. Judge Buchanan is wrapping things up and then a deputy is going to drive you home. Randy is, well, he’s a bit of a mess. His first kill and all.” The deputy rapped his knuckles on the table.

Eli didn’t know what to say or do so he kept his mouth closed and rested his head on the table, his temple throbbing in time to the deputy’s rhythm. “Can I get some Tylenol or something?”

“Sure,” the deputy said, the pounding on the table mercifully ceasing when he left to find Eli something to help deaden the pain in his head.

Maybe Eli dozed, he didn’t know, but it seemed like only a few minutes had passed when he was escorted from the station, a can of soda and four pain pills in his hand. “Judge Buchanan wants one of us to stay out at your place tonight if you think you need it.” Eli didn’t know this deputy; he was just a kid, maybe twenty if that old.

“Probably won’t be necessary. I won’t be alone, and besides the only monster that would come for me is lying on a slab down at the morgue,” Eli replied and laid his head on the back of the seat. Unlike the last two times he was driven out to his place, this time he rode in the front seat.

The red dually parked next to Eli’s truck caused him to pause. He’d forgotten that Creed’s friend had driven up just as everything went boom. He’d forgotten that the man had stayed behind to wait for Creed. Sometime in the last couple of hours the old man must have driven the truck into the stable yard to cover the blood that would surely still be on the blacktop.

“Well, if you change your mind just give me a call.” The deputy handed over a business card with his name on it after they stopped beside the back door. “If you need to talk to someone, or whatever, call, okay?”

“Yeah,” Eli said, taking the card. “I’ll do that. Right now I just need to take a shower and get some sleep.” He didn’t wait for the deputy to leave before letting himself in the unlocked door.

Creed’s old man driver sat at the bar drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper. Eli could only assume he brought the paper with him. “Is there more coffee?” was all he could think to say.

“Fresh pot,” the old man said, looking over to the coffeemaker. “You look whipped.”

“Feel like I’ve been trampled by a herd of wild bulls.” Eli didn’t move toward the coffeepot. He didn’t really feel like food or drink. “Did he come back?”

The old man looked at him for a brief second, his face as cold as Creed’s eyes, and for a moment fear gripped him so tight Eli couldn’t breathe.

“He’s back there somewhere, came in a half hour ago, filthy and…” The old man closed his eyes and sighed. “He’s in bad shape, Red. Really bad shape. Mason did things to him over the years. Bad things.”

Eli remembered the image of Creed with his broken thumb and bloody face; he remembered that night. Las Vegas, right after Creed had beaten him out for that damned buckle. Creed running barefoot through the hotel, his long hair streaming behind him, calling out to Eli for help.

“I’m telling you this because for some reason I think you might be the only one who can help him this time. I think you might know a little about bad things yourself.”

Eli could only stand and nod. He was the expert at dealing with Owen Mason and the terror he inflicted. Too much of an expert. Though maybe not as expert as Creed. “What’s your name, old man?” He was too tired to be polite. “What are you to Creed?”

“Name is Stephen, but everybody calls me Sly, and the rest of that is my business.” The old man gathered up his paper and his coffee. “I’m going to head into town for the night. I wrote my number down by your phone if you need it. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll talk.”

“Okay, sure.” Eli watched the man until he was inside the dually and then he locked the house, checking every door and every window until he thought he was safe. Then he went in search of his lover.

“If that’s what he is,” he said, leaning against the wall until a wave of dizziness passed.

The bedroom they shared was empty. Creed’s boots and shirt lay in a pile on the floor. The door to the bathroom stood open but there was no sound coming from inside. Eli went inside, closing the door behind him. He felt safer with the world closed out. Right now nothing made sense, but for some reason Creed sitting on the hard tile floor dressed in a pair of filthy jeans made perfect sense.

Creed leaned over his knees, head bowed, hands draped over his neck, the knuckles on both hands torn and caked with dirt. “Are you all right?” Seemed a stupid question to ask someone who’d just been—what? Raped? Was it rape? Eli didn’t know what or—

“Is he dead?” And that was a reasonable question, but Eli still laughed.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Creed?” Eli had no idea where to even start. His hands shook, his head ached, his heart—well, he didn’t know what the fuck his heart was doing. Breaking came to mind.

“Go away, Eli.” And that was a great idea, probably the best thing to do, considering. Except Eli never did what was best. He stripped down to his briefs and walked into the narrow shower and sat on the floor with his friend. “Please, just leave me alone.” Creed’s voice broke on the last word. Eli couldn’t bear the pain he heard.

“I’m not going anywhere, Creed, so you can forget trying to chase me off,” he said, running his finger along Creed’s forearm until he shivered. “I’m not—my uncle…” He sighed, giving up trying to find something nice to say.

“Have you ever been hungry?” Creed said after a long silence. “I mean really hungry, starved.”

Eli winced. Creed was always so thin; he had always looked like an overgrown puppy, all big hands and feet and constantly hungry even as an adult. He closed his eyes, hoping like hell Creed wasn’t telling him something he didn’t want to know. “No.”

“I have,” Creed whispered, lifting his head so Eli could see into his eyes. The horror he saw there—he gulped down a sob.
Please, just don’t let it be too bad.
“I didn’t eat for days sometimes. My dad—he—he didn’t want me around. He’d forget I was—he’d just forget. He was one of those guys who lived off the rodeo to buy his drugs. Selling whatever he had to sell when the money ran out just to get his next fix. Food for his kid wasn’t high on his list of things to buy.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Creed, it doesn’t matter to me. I—”

“You what? Love me? After what you saw this morning? You can’t fucking love me, Eli, I’m a whore. What your uncle said is true,” Creed shouted in the small space, the words echoing around them. “I let anyone with money fuck me, Eli. Anyone. I didn’t care who. I sold myself to truckers, bikers, businessmen. Women. Anyone with cash looking for a pretty twink for an hour. Owen didn’t know half of what I’ve done. You don’t love me. And I don’t love you, it’s all a lie. All one big fucking lie.”

“Creed?“

“He fucked me, Eli, against your truck, this morning. It wasn’t rape. I let him. I got off on it. I’m not staying, we’re not…” He choked on the words, and the tears came, fast and furious; he wiped them away with filthy fingers, smearing dirt down his face. “Just, please, leave me alone.”

Eli wrapped his arms around Creed’s trembling shoulders and pulled him to his chest. He didn’t fight and after a few moments Creed’s arms encircled Eli, holding on to him as if he’d fall if Eli let him go. “I’m not going to let you fall, Creed. I’ve got you.”

“The first time”—Creed drew in a breath against Eli’s neck; he dug his fingers into his flesh, not enough to break skin but enough to bruise—“My eighteenth birthday. He’d watched me for months; I knew why he watched me. I tried to avoid him but that night we stayed in a motel next to a truck stop. I hadn’t eaten anything in a couple of days. I blew a guy in the showers for dinner money. Picked up another and let him fuck me in his truck for fifty dollars. Enough to eat for a few days. Owen knew. He used it against me. And when he was finished he slipped money in my pocket. On my fucking birthday. And it never stopped. He found me everywhere we went. Started taking a room in the same motel. He’d pay me for the night. We never talked. He fucked me or beat me. That night in Vegas…”

“I remember,” Eli said feeling Creed clench his hand against his back. “He broke your hand.”

“I broke my hand. I did it. I didn’t know I could but I did it, just snapped my thumb from the rest of my bones.”

“Why in the hell—”

“He chained me to the wall in his RV. He was taking me to—I couldn’t let him take me, I couldn’t be his damned slave. I’d stopped hustling. I hadn’t hustled in a couple of years. I kept my winnings and I was winning enough to pay my way and put money aside. I was close to freedom. I wanted to be free of my father and his habit and everything that life turned me into. I was twelve, Eli, twelve … the first time. I started hustling when I was twelve because I was hungry. Back then it was for food. Just food. Blowjobs for cheeseburgers.”

“My God,” Eli said, holding Creed tighter when he tried to pull away.

“I’m so sorry, he wouldn’t have attacked you if we weren’t… It’s all my fault. My fault. I should have stayed with him. I should have never run from him. He wouldn’t have attacked you yesterday if I wasn’t here. He told me to stay away from you. It’s all my fault.”

“He put the scars on my back, Creed. My uncle is a … was a mean-ass son of a bitch who beat me all the damned time. When I was nineteen he finally caught me with a boyfriend and he lost his fucking mind and beat me with a horse whip, leaving me to bleed to death. And when he was finished he sold my horse for dog food. Sold my fucking horse. He sold Opie to teach me a lesson. Had the horse my father gave me slaughtered for dog food. And none of that had a damned thing to do with you. Yesterday, yesterday wasn’t that bad. There were days I wanted to kill him. So many days. Yesterday was just a little family reunion, that’s all.”

Creed clawed at Eli’s back trying to pull him closer. “Can’t talk about this anymore. I can’t live with it, I can’t. I can’t stand knowing that you were bleeding to death while he held me down and—I can’t stand being held down. I heard the ambulance and you didn’t ride that night. I didn’t know.”

“There was nothing you could have done.” Eli tried to follow the tearful mumblings without success. “What do you mean he held you down?”

“In Oklahoma City. I’d just finished the pole racing event. The first time you didn’t race against me. Not ten minutes after I left the ring, he pushed me against the trailer, in broad daylight. Anyone could have seen. I couldn’t move. There were bruises on my chest from the rails when he was finished with me. The ambulance came while … it was the first time that he hurt me. I thought he would kill me that day.”

A chill raced over Eli’s skin. Owen went from trying to kill him straight to Creed. How in the hell was he supposed to deal with this? Owen’s homophobia was easy to understand; that he was obsessed with a man wasn’t.

“I became his whore a couple years after that. Just his. He paid me enough. He bought me. I belonged to him.”

“Did you love him?” Somehow Eli needed to know that much.

“I don’t feel anything. I stopped feeling when I was twelve and the bullfighters passed me around. When you feel you die.”

Eli locked his heart away. Because Creed was right about that much. He’d just forgotten. “Okay, let’s get you cleaned up.” Eli dragged Creed to his feet and stripped his jeans off before he turned on the shower. The cold water stinging his shoulders cleared the confusion from his mind. This wasn’t love. Just fucking around because there wasn’t anyone else and because Eli paid him. Eli wasn’t his uncle. Creed wouldn’t become his obsession. No matter how beautiful, no matter how much Eli loved being with him, Creed was nothing but a—

“But I couldn’t stop it, Eli, I tried,” Creed whispered as Eli held him under the now hot water.

“Couldn’t stop what?” Another confession, another sin his uncle committed against him. Eli didn’t want to know. He couldn’t stand knowing.

“I let you in. I couldn’t stop it. I tried not to. I tried to hate you. I tried. Somehow, you got in and I fell in love with you. I don’t want to love you, Eli. I—I don’t want to. But I do.” Creed held up his battered hands, looking at his knuckles instead of Eli. “It killed me seeing your eyes this morning. After you found out. I’m sorry, I’m not worth loving. I know this. Just a whore. I’ll always be a whore.”

Creed broke then; his hands trembled, the gut-wrenching sobs nearly doubled him over. Eli held him, his heart breaking. “You’re not a whore. You’re not my whore or anyone else’s. You’re a man with a past same as everyone. You did what you had to do. I don’t hold that against you. Not this morning. Not now.” Eli took the soap and started with Creed’s hands, blood and dirt with a little skin washed down the drain. “What did you do to your hands?”

“Punched a tree.” Creed lifted his arms, letting Eli wash him. Nothing erotic, just a bath to wash away the past couple of days.

“Did it fight back?” Eli couldn’t help laughing. “Most trees don’t tend to fight back.”

“It put up a good fight; maybe…” There was a slight smile behind the grime. “I just needed to punch something. The tree was innocent.”

“Nah, trees are usually up to no good; I’m sure it needed a good punching.” It felt strange to stand in the shower bathing a full-grown man and cracking jokes about trees.

Creed took the soap from him and did the lower half of his body, and then started on Eli. “Careful over the ribs,” he said, leaning into Creed’s hands.

“Why aren’t you wrapped?” Creed didn’t give the soap back; he washed Eli down to his feet, hands lingering in sensitive spots. Eli took the shampoo and tried not to let Creed’s hands get to him.

“The mummy look is so last season, don’t you think?” He washed his hair, trying not to moan when Creed made a second pass over his dick. “Can’t believe this is turning me on.”

Creed looked away; shampoo in hand, he finished washing silently. They took turns rinsing under the shower, bumping elbows against the walls of the small cubicle.

Eli broke the silence. “Remind me to put in a bigger shower.” He dragged two towels from the rack and dried Creed instead of himself. Creed held the second towel and let Eli move his arms to dry his pits and then his hair. “Are you okay?”