Rough Canvas (32 page)

“Come on now, boy. Marcus has to get his face fixed up.” Owen’s face was full of pain and regret.

Toby shook his head, grip tightening. “Better if he’s ugly. Safer.”

Though he could see Marcus was being gentle about extricating himself, Thomas

could almost hear the vibration of his distress. He rose, intending to help, and suddenly Toby turned on him. “Did you hurt him, like Nurse thinks?” He shouted it, lunging at Thomas.

Thomas fell back, startled. Despite his injuries, Marcus was surprisingly quick, vaulting forward and catching Toby by the collar, hauling him back, though he let out a painful grunt.

“No, Toby. No.” He snapped it out through gritted teeth. “Thomas is like you. He takes care of me. He brought me to the hospital. He beat up the guys who hurt me.

Though he did take them by surprise,” he added with grim humor. His face was white, strained lines around his mouth.

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Thomas shot him a narrow look, but the teasing had fallen short. Owen was having a quick word with the nurse on duty, who was obviously getting a little concerned about Toby’s agitated state.

“All of them? He beat up all of them? They’re all gone?”

“Yes,” Marcus said after a moment. Suddenly he looked tired and in desperate

pain, for reasons that Thomas could tell had nothing to do with being beaten up tonight. “Now, go on back to work. There are people waiting for you to help them, okay?”

Toby nodded, his brow creased. He gripped the handle of the cart with both hands and pushed it on down the hall, stopping to look back once, his expression puzzled.

Then he turned the corner, disappearing.

“Bed pan,” Marcus said abruptly. Thomas lunged up but Owen was already there.

Marcus grabbed it, turned to face the wall and got violently sick. Thomas stood by, close, wanting to touch, help, but oddly restrained by Owen’s light hand and a quick, silent shake of his head. When Marcus was done, he was sweating. He lowered himself into the chair, his arm shaking. The nurse fortunately appeared with a wheelchair.

“You may have yourself a bit of a concussion, Mr. Stanton. I think we better take you in this.”

The fact he let himself be helped into the chair like an old man, rather than telling the nurse what she could do with the wheelchair, frightened Thomas worse than

anything.

“I’m going with him.”

“I’ll come get you just as soon as Dr. Tillman says it’s okay,” she promised, but in a firm tone that brooked no argument.

“Marcus.” Thomas closed his hand on his wrist.

“I want to get the hell out of here,” Marcus said abruptly. He lifted his head and pinned Thomas with a hard green stare that was almost glassy. “No matter what.

They’re not admitting me here. I want to go home after they stitch me up, even if I pass out. You got it? You nod and don’t mean it, I won’t forgive you.”

Thomas tightened his grip. “I’ll take care of you, of everything. Don’t worry about it.”

“Promise me.”

“Not if your life’s in danger. If they say you have a punctured organ or a

concussion, then tough shit. Get over it. You stay here. Anything else, I’ll get you home.”

Marcus sat back in the chair. “Asshole.”

“Stubborn bastard. Let them take care of you.” Thomas had to close his hands into hard fists to keep from reaching out again as they wheeled him down the hall and out of his sight. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.

He whirled on Owen. “What the hell was that about?”

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Owen ran a hand over his balding head. “Of all the places Dodger could show up, this would’ve been the last I’d guess. Like Fate, isn’t it?” He shook his head at Thomas’

searing look of impatience and moved back to his own cart. “Not my story to tell, son. If you’re the right person to tell, he’ll tell you. But I don’t know you.”

“He doesn’t tell anybody anything.”

Owen stopped, his hands clasping the handle. “Sometimes when you lose

everything, the last thing you want to do is remember. And telling is remembering. You do what you said you’d do.” His dark gaze fixed on Thomas. “If it isn’t too serious, get him out of here. Best for him and Toby.”

Watching Owen retreat down the hall, Thomas wanted to put his already swollen

knuckles through the sheetrock of the hospital’s sea green wall. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the nurse let him go back to Exam One. Marcus was stripped out of his shirt, his slacks open in the front. The doctor, a small-boned woman in her forties who barely came up to his chin, was checking out his ribs. A nurse had prepared a tray of sutures.

“Looks like they’re going to give me a wrap, stitch me up and then we can head

on,” Marcus said.

“If the X-rays say so,” Dr. Tillman corrected. “You his family?”

“Yes,” Thomas said without hesitation. “Is he okay?”

“Other than being arrogant as hell, which I don’t think can be surgically removed, I think he’s going to be fine. He was lucky.” She glanced sharply at Thomas, taking in his appearance. “Do you need medical attention?”

“No. Not my blood.”

“He’s obviously a better fighter than you,” the doctor observed to Marcus.

Marcus curled his lip. “I’m getting tired of hearing that. I was taken by surprise.

They jumped me. He had the advantage of jumping them.”

“Mmm. I’m going to go check those X-rays.”

When the doctor and her nurse left them alone, Thomas approached the table, ran his hand up the curve of Marcus’ bare back. There were bruises rising there from where they’d kicked him. He wanted to go hurt them some more. “You hanging in there?”

“Hanging. I just want out of here. Christ, what a stupid thing to do, wandering behind that place.”

“Guess talking to Lawrence really stirred you up.”

“Huh?” Marcus gave him a blank expression, then he shrugged, looking away.

“Yeah.”

Thomas dropped his hand, swallowed the hurt. “Who
was
on the phone? And who the hell are Toby and Owen, and why does Toby call you Dodger?”

Marcus’ eyes shuttered. It was a look Thomas knew. In the past it had frustrated him, annoyed him, made him angry. Now, fury just erupted. Somehow, if he’d known 167

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more about who was on the phone, Marcus wouldn’t have gone outside to a place he never should have been, to hide the conversation from him.

“Not going to tell me, are you? It’s okay to slap me down for leaving to take care of my family, but maybe that’s because whatever happened with yours is so awful you don’t want me to have anything to do with mine.”

“Get out.” Marcus’ eyes went freezing cold, his face a hard mask, the cleaned but unstitched slash making him look far more dangerous. “I don’t want to deal with this crap right now.”

“I’ve never gotten in, so how the hell can I get out?” Thomas snarled. “You want me to be your family? You let family in. Knowing they’ll hurt you, you do it anyway, because that’s what love is. You let them in to hurt you, love you—”

“Leave you?”

Marcus surged up now, coming nose to nose with Thomas despite having to hold

his side to do so. “Why should I pour out my guts to someone who considers me family only when it’s convenient, which means he’s never considered me family at all? You’ve got a permanent hard-on for me, but hey, join the rest of the world. You’re right. Go home. Go home to North Carolina and be everything your family wants you to be.”

His expression hardened further. “But you better be ready for the fact it will
never
be enough. Years from now, when you’ve done what you think they wanted you to do and you’re coming home every night to sit in your recliner with your beer gut and your passive aggression drowning in cable, you’ll be hating that girl you married. The family you thought you loved. And you
still
won’t be enough, because what they want is for you to be truly happy being someone you were fucking never meant to be!”

Venom was pouring off Marcus. Thomas didn’t know if it was aimed at him or if it was a poison Marcus was coating his whole world with, but it was all bullshit. All defenses against what he didn’t want Thomas to know.

Thomas took one step back, looked steadily at him. Took a deep breath. “Is it that bad?”

Marcus stared at him. Myriad emotions chased each other through his expression.

“Worse,” he said flatly.

“Does anyone know all of it? Have you ever trusted someone more than me?”

Marcus wanted Thomas to keep fighting, keep it on the level of irrational anger, but Thomas wasn’t obliging. And if he couldn’t ride out all of tonight’s shit in fury, Marcus wasn’t sure how he was going to survive it.

“No,” he said, sinking back down on the table, feeling the pain in every bone and muscle.

“Okay, then.” Thomas spoke after a moment, as if that was an answer he could

accept.

“See if you can get that nurse in here and get this done,” Marcus said, looking down at the tile floor, a depressing checkered pattern of white and green illuminated far too 168

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much by the fluorescent lighting. “Then we’ll go back to the house and get you packed.

You’re supposed to go home tomorrow.”

“But I could stay…”

“No.” Marcus shook his head. “We said the week. You needed to go back by the

weekend. Tomorrow’s Saturday. You need to go.”

“You want me to go.”

The hurt was there. Marcus thought the agony of it, joining the pain in his ribs, was going to squeeze the life from him. He needed Thomas to go now. Not tomorrow, this minute.

“You’ve got a great start on some excellent pieces,” he managed. “Take them home, finish them, let me know when you think you can estimate a completion date. I’ll get them picked up and brought to New York—”

Thomas planted his feet between Marcus’ braced ones and startled him by catching his face in both hands, tilting it up so Marcus was forced to look him in the eye.

The position crowded him. With his ribs throbbing, there wasn’t much he could do to shake Thomas off. God, those artist’s hands touching his face, Thomas’ expression unsmiling, the dark eyes searching Marcus’. His thumb traced the cut, then moved down over Marcus’ bottom lip. When his hip brushed the inside of Marcus’ thigh, it was too tempting not to put his hands on Thomas’ waist, his hips, draw him forward.

He couldn’t fuck a Cabbage Patch doll right now, let alone Thomas, but that wasn’t what he wanted anyway. His hands were holding onto Thomas’ waist much too tightly, almost violently digging in to his shirt. Almost like Thomas had clutched him, that day Marcus had come to see him at the hardware store.

His arms were rigid bands of muscle as Thomas ran his hands down them, moved

just an inch or two closer. It freed Marcus’ head to go where it would and he was tired, tired enough to let it fall forward, just barely brushing Thomas. He wanted…but he wouldn’t move forward any further. He felt as if he moved at all, he’d break. Thomas closed the gap, that one last step forward, then Marcus’ forehead rested solidly in the middle of Thomas’ chest. Marcus could feel Thomas’ heartbeat through the throbbing of his own skull.

He drew in a breath, looking down at the slope of Thomas’ abdomen, the thighs

that looked so damn good in jeans, the curve of his cock beneath the zipper. Shoes with socks. Size twelve, wide. Thomas’ hands stroked his hair, curled over his head.

Bending, he brushed his lips on the crown of Marcus’ head.

“I don’t want you to go,” Marcus muttered. His hands tightened as if he could hold Thomas with just his touch.

This was the root of it. The fight, the anger, the memories of family. It was all about Thomas leaving.

Thomas propped his chin on Marcus’ skull, overlapped his arms around his back,

holding him loosely. “We knew it would suck, didn’t we?”

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“Yeah.”

“If I could stay, if it was only about what I wanted, I’d stay until you got tired of me and kicked me out. I swear it.”

Marcus closed his eyes, breathed him in. For Thomas’ wellbeing, he should let him go. Just let go.

“Okay?” When Marcus didn’t answer, just sat there, breathing in everything that was Thomas, Thomas sighed, held his tense body closer. He rubbed Marcus’ back, easy, caring strokes.

His steadying touch and presence were like a carefully timed release valve,

allowing some of the pressure to dissipate so Marcus could breathe. Even when the doctor came back to report the X-rays were clean, he found he couldn’t bring himself to draw back, let go.

Not until he had no other choice.

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They were done. Thomas stood back, surveying the twelve paintings critically, but he knew they were what he wanted them to be, every one of them. He pivoted on his heel to look at the thirteenth, which was placed in the opposite corner of the work shed.

He’d converted the building into his studio when he’d returned from the Berkshires three months ago. The shed was in the middle of the pasture, previously a feeding area and rain shelter for the herd they’d had years ago. He’d worked on it after store hours, getting it renovated the way he needed it. Kate sometimes came and grazed just outside while he ripped and hammered through the long hours of the night, stripped down to jeans and sweating.

Every drop of moisture rolling over his skin reminded him of the touch of Marcus’

hands, the slide of his body over his. Full circle, back to longing and yearning, with too many hours to fill in the dead of night.

He hadn’t spoken of his time with Marcus, pushing away his hurt that his family studiously avoided the topic as well. He told them he’d agreed to prepare about a dozen paintings for the gallery. The commissions would be enough to replace the roof on his mother’s house, make sure the store had a comfortable winter with a heating upgrade. They couldn’t argue with it, though his mother pressed her lips together, saying nothing to support or reject it as she finished making a new pot of breakfast coffee during the Monday morning discussion.