The Foster Family (3 page)

Charlie felt Malcolm’s gaze on him and looked up. Sympathy for the young man warred with accusation in his expression. Charlie spread his hands into a helpless shrug. At least the statement answered the gay question.

Malcolm turned back to the stove.

“Maybe he just isn’t ready to—”

But the kid was shaking his head. “He all but laughed at me. We lived across the street from each other when we were kids. We were actually friends, because we didn’t know shit back then, you know? Then I moved and didn’t see him until he showed up in ninth grade at the same high school I was going to. I was in eleventh grade by then.” He crooked a sad little smile. “He laughed at me then too, when we saw each other again. I used to be so much bigger than him.” He drew a hand down his front and looked up at them, a mournful expression on his face. “I’m not exactly winning any prizes for buff and built these days. Anyway, first year of high school, he tried out for the football team, made it, because his stepfather’s rich and Andrew apparently has a miracle arm or something. He was first string right out of the gate, and everyone loved him.

“So there I was, long-lost nobody he couldn’t actually admit to knowing anymore, and I shouldn’t have cared. But I did, and the day I was late for biology and wasn’t watching where I was going—” He shrugged. “I had an armload of books and—” He looked between them. “Do I really need to keep going? It’s in every after-school special ever aired, isn’t it?”

Charlie sighed. Watching the younger man in Malcolm’s way-too-big sweats push his glasses up his nose and fix his focus on the floor tiles, he had a pretty good idea where the story was going.

“So I ran into him, of course.” The kid continued to stare at the floor. “Everything went flying. Everyone stopped and stared. It was….” He sighed.

Humiliating.

“A watershed moment,” he said glumly. “One of those instants in life you look back on and think geez, you know? If only I had zigged instead of zagged. Or glanced up. Or….” He sighed again. “Yeah.”

“So how the hell did you end up thinking he might want you at his party?” Malcolm asked.

Charlie shot him a look, but since he was still focused on the fry-up, Malcolm didn’t notice.

Surprisingly, the kid grinned. “Sorry. I limit myself to one humiliating story per meal. Since that one is pretty ubiquitous, it’s a good fry-up story. You want the real meat of my personal humiliations, it’ll cost ya dinner.” He flopped into a chair at the table. “I’ll have coffee if it’s ready, Malcolm.”

Charlie gaped at him.

Malcolm’s eyes narrowed and he set his spatula down. Just as well. Charlie squirmed in discomfort. He had his own humiliating story involving that particular utensil when he’d pretty much done exactly what this kid was doing now and directed an order at Malcolm. Charlie, of course, should have known better. He’d had plenty of time to get to know Malcolm and his ways, but sometimes it was easy to forget Malcolm was in charge. Always. It had been one of the hardest- but fastest-learned lessons of Charlie’s life.

Malcolm smiled thinly. “You don’t know me. And since I don’t even know your name, I can let that one go. But around here, if you want coffee, you make sure there’s enough for everyone, and you serve us first.”

Silence. Huge blue-gray eyes widened below dripping wisps of sun-bleached hair as the kid stared at Malcolm. Rather pretty lips parted as though he might say something, but then he closed his mouth again and swallowed. His chest rose and fell a few times, and it was easy to see he was once more balanced on that zig-or-zag edge. Run for his life or give his name.

“I should go,” he said softly, getting to his feet. “Thanks for everything.”

He got up, grabbed his shoes, and hurried to the front door. On the porch, he forced bare feet into sticky, ruined leather and clomped down the steps, then turned at the bottom to look back up at Malcolm and Charlie where they had stopped in the doorway.

“Kerry,” he said. “My name’s Kerry, and I was at his party because I thought… I thought when he fucked me, it had something to do with me. It didn’t.” He spun, took a few more steps, and faced them again. “If you need a gardener, I work at Leadon’s Nursery. I could use another job.”

Charlie blinked after him as he all but dashed down the sidewalk. “He’s like a rabbit.”

“A rabbit?” Malcolm eyed him.

“Yeah. Zigging and zagging all over the place to get away.” Charlie made hand motions to demonstrate, and Malcolm grabbed his wrist and lowered Charlie’s hand as the kid turned around one more time to look back just before he turned the corner.

“From what?”

Charlie smiled. “Don’t know yet.”

Malcolm sighed and headed back to his now-burning bacon. “You’re going to hire him, aren’t you?” he called back as Charlie closed the front door behind them and followed him into the kitchen.

“I might. First I’m going to Leadon’s Nursery to talk to his boss and see if he’s any good.”

“If I give you a bit of advice, will you listen to it?”

Wrapping both arms around Malcolm, Charlie used his height advantage and rested his chin on Malcolm’s shoulder. “You know I’ll listen. I always listen.”

“Don’t let him see you looking. I don’t think he’s ready for what we are. If you really want him, let him come to us, okay?”

“Sure.” Charlie tightened his arms and let out a breath. “I’m good at being patient.”

That only got him a snort and a tap on his arms. “Let go. I have to get ready for work.”

“You’re not going to finish making me breakfast?”

“You want the spatula again?” Malcolm asked.

Charlie shivered. “No, Sir.” He picked up the pan, discarded the burned offerings, and began again. “Be ready in twenty, okay?”

Malcolm nodded approval. “Perfect.”

T
HE
VIEW
from the gazebo really had been an incredible one. I concentrated on that memory as I walked, trying to ignore the squeak of drying leather and the blisters forming as I hiked.

In one direction ocean and sky had blended on a blue-gray horizon. In the other, spectacular gardens had hidden most of the house and offered me the comforting assurance I had been sheltered from that view as well. I’d quickly shucked my ruined suit, got the water on and the salt and sand rinsed off. Judging by the piles of sand on the boards at my feet, though, I’d seen why they’d wanted me to rinse off out there. Cold didn’t begin to describe the water. The early-morning spring breeze hadn’t helped. My teeth had clattered, even once I’d crawled into the warm, borrowed fleece.

Which I was still wearing, as it turned out. Did that constitute stealing? Malcolm had offered me the use of it so I didn’t think so, but I wondered if he’d expected me to make a dash for it like I had. I wasn’t entirely sure
why
I had. I’d have to bring him his clothes back. And retrieve my own, even though I was fairly certain there would be no wearing them again. Eventually.

That might give me an opportunity to find out what he’d meant by
serve us first
. I hadn’t gotten the impression he was talking about coffee. Not exactly, even though I was also sure that was all he was talking about. Because really what else could he have meant? I guess I knew what he
could
have meant. But…. It was confusing.

“Which is exactly why I left,” I muttered as I rounded the next corner toward home. I didn’t need confusing right now. Especially after last night’s fiasco with Andrew and the other parts of it I had not told my benefactors. The fact I’d searched every pocket of my suit while I was undressing and found wallet, cell phone, and house keys gone was worrisome. It was going to be a long walk home, and I wasn’t looking forward to telling Matt we’d have to change the locks again.

He’d make me pay for it—and it was my fault, so that was fair—and I’d have to arrange it from work. Since we both had cells, we had never bothered to get a landline. Good thing my boss Lissa was predisposed to being generous. She’d probably let me make a few calls on the company phone to cancel credit and debit cards and see if the cell phone company would freeze my data usage. I didn’t even know if such a thing was possible, but I didn’t want to pay roaming charges on top of everything else. It meant she’d have to be told why I needed to make the calls. Her mother-hen instincts would kick in and there would go any bit of peace I might have had.

There would be lectures and worried fretting over me for the next month unless I found a way to convince her I wasn’t the clueless, bungling oaf I appeared to be on the outside. I hadn’t actually managed, over the year I had worked for her, to make her believe it. I guessed passing out on the beach, getting robbed, and accepting help from strangers wasn’t going to be the ticket out of that pigeonhole either.

How was I going to pay for new locks, my share of the upcoming rent, and be able to eat this week? My stomach growled and I began to regret running out on a warm breakfast. Of course if I hadn’t insisted on making a fool of myself and going after Andrew in the first place, I wouldn’t have drunk too much, passed out, and been stranded on the beach.

“Idiot.”

There wasn’t really any point in arguing with myself. I was an idiot. What a fun set of circular thoughts that was to take my mind off the hour-and-a-half walk home.

As soon as I entered our cul-de-sac, I knew something wasn’t right. Could have been the police cruiser parked in front of our house or the mess on the front lawn that tipped me off. As I got closer and realized the mess was all my stuff—clothes, books, plants, bedding, everything—I began to wish I’d stayed passed out on the beach.

I hurried my pace. Where the hell was my cat? There was no one in the cruiser, but a middle-aged uniformed police officer crouched amidst the mess and gingerly dropped a few shards of broken pottery into a baggie she was holding. She wore a pair of blue gloves and an angry expression as she worked. I picked my way carefully through the debris of my life and up the front steps once she had turned her back. The door was propped open and I ventured inside.

“Matt?”

A screech assailed me, followed closely by a tiny ball of ginger-and-white fur I was only just in time to get my hands up to catch. The fiery little bundle mewled angrily at me and ran a rough tongue over the webbing between my thumb and hand. “Miss Claire.” Her claws dug into skin and skidded along my collarbone, but almost instantly she went limp and purring, settling into the crook of my elbow with a yawn that showed off her sharp kitten teeth in a field of pink.

“Long night, huh, precious?”

“Fucking hell, Kerry! Where have you been?”

“Matt. Hey. What happened?” I finally turned my attention to the rest of the room. It was a disaster zone. As I looked around, I started to notice the things that weren’t there. Both our laptops, gone. Matt’s gaming computer along with the ginormous monitor he’d bought less than a week ago, also gone.

“Where the hell is my TV?” He pointed a shaking arm at the empty television stand.

Not only was the TV missing but so were the DVD player, the satellite box, and the gaming console.

“Shit.”

Matt strode into my space and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Did you lock the door when you left last night?”

“Of course!”

“Then how did this happen? The lock’s not broken, Kerry.”

“I—”

“It’s all your shit out on the lawn, dude. Your crap they trashed.” Both his brows lifted. “Guess I should be glad all they did was take mine.”

“I fell asleep.”

“Asleep? ’Scuse me?”

“On the beach. Someone robbed me. Took my wallet and cell.”

“And keys.”

“Yeah.”

He slumped. “They took everything, dude.”

“We have renters’ insurance. We’ll be able to replace it all,” I said, hopeful even as my guts twisted into knots.

“Brand-new computer,” he agreed, nodding. “Too bad the last three years of grad studies and my thesis are on the old one.” He shot a glare at me. “That they
took
!”

“You didn’t back it up?”

He tilted his head and I followed the movement to look at his fish tank. It was clogged with paper, the ink already soaked off. They’d killed his fish.

“USB?”

“Maybe they thought the Green Works box I had all my memory keys and disks in was yours. They microwaved it.”

“Shit, dude.”

He glared at me harder. “You owe me a microwave.”

I sagged against the back of the couch. “Add it to the list,” I muttered. The list of things I already couldn’t afford.

A knock on the front doorframe startled me, and I turned.

The cop who stood there was not the same woman from the yard. This one was probably almost a foot taller than me. He was even taller than Matt. He looked good in the uniform, but that observation went out the window when he pulled out a little black notebook and flipped it open.

“You Kerry Grey?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Your roommate, Mr. MaKey, seems to think you know who did this?”

“I….” I held up my free hand, helpless. I had no idea what was going on.

“We should get a statement, Mr. Grey,” the cop said.