The Foster Family (6 page)

And for that question I had no answer. Why had I let him use me, humiliate me more, and then pretend to myself that I thought he cared about me? I wasn’t really stupid enough to think he did. Just desperate enough to want it to be true.

“This guy Malcolm already has a guy, Kerry,” she said. “Is that the sort of thing you really want to get in the middle of?”

“You didn’t see them together, though.” I thought back to the morning in their kitchen, to the looks that passed between them and the touches that did not. Like they were standing on opposite sides of some invisible chasm, wanting to be together, unable to find a bridge.

Silence as she puttered with the pots and trays.

“I think maybe they want someone in the middle.” I frowned. “Or something. I don’t know.”

“That can only be complicated, Kerry.”

I let out another snort. “Please. When has my love life ever been uncomplicated?”

“You don’t have a love life. You have a complete clusterfuck of a sex life, but love?”

That virtual sucker punch left me breathless. I dropped the trays I was moving onto the cart at my feet. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. I am one fucked-up stupid bastard, so what does it matter who else I let do me? I think I’ll take my lunch early and get the fuck out of here if that’s okay with you.”

“Kerry!”

“I’ll fill the truck up on the company card before I bring it back.”

“Kerry!”

She sounded pissed, and this was what normally got a guy fired, but I wasn’t interested in any more self-examination or discussion about what an idiot I was. If I wanted to bend over for Malcolm while Charlie was out, that was my own fucking business. At least I’d be getting laid and not have to worry about awkward sleeping arrangements afterward.

“Dammit, Kerry!” She grabbed my arm and held me back. “Would you listen to me?”

“No.” Yanking free, I snagged the keys from their hook near the cash register and stalked across the small parking lot.

She followed and put both hands on the open window frame once I’d slammed the truck door shut. “Then listen to yourself. For God’s sake, stop acting like you don’t deserve any better than Andrew fucking Shelton whatever his fucking name is and whatever psycho game he is playing with your head.” She waved a hand through the air. “And Matt. What kind of asshole kicks his roommate out after what happened? I don’t think you’re dealing with shit, and running off to pant all over Malcolm—”

I revved the engine hard and glared at her.

“Kerry—”

I stepped on the gas and the brakes. The engine squealed and tires smoked. She backed off. Maybe I felt a little bit bad about how upset she looked, but mostly I was done hearing how big an idiot she really thought I was. Really, really done.

T
HERE
WAS
a police cruiser parked on the curb when I drove into Malcolm and Charles’s driveway. Both cops were sitting in the car, and I immediately recognized Officer Karl in the driver’s seat. He was out and strolling up the drive as I parked.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, and he lifted both thick, dark eyebrows.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I came to consult on the front garden.” I pointed to the pink truck I’d driven in on with its flowery logo and array of gardening tools sticking up in the back. “My boss sent me.”

“We are waiting for the homeowner. Some of your credit cards were turned in at the precinct yesterday. The person who dropped them off said her dog found them when she was walking on the beach.” He waved in the direction of Malcolm’s backyard. “Since the timeline and high tide suggest you could only have come through this yard at the time of morning you said you came off the beach, I thought I would drop by and ask a few questions.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Did you come through here that morning?”

I nodded again. “Malcolm and Charles brought me up and let me use their outdoor shower to rinse the sand and salt out of my hair. We talked some. Malcolm came in to where I work today to drop off my clothes and phone. I sort of… forgot them when I left. He found the phone down there too.” I shrugged and stuck my hands in my pockets. “He needed some gardening advice. So….”

“Malcolm and Charles.” He pulled out his little notepad and pen. “Do Malcolm and Charles have last names?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

“Do you know them?”

“Um.” I drew a blank suddenly, even though Malcolm had just given me his last name not a few hours ago. “I forget I guess.”

“You guess?”

Thankfully, a sleek, black sedan pulled into the drive beside the nursery truck and Malcolm got out. He wasted no time striding to the curb where we stood and placing himself noticeably closer to me than to the cop.

“Can I help you, officer?”

Karl repeated his questions, skewed slightly to his audience, and Malcolm told him basically the very same things I had. He shot a lot of questioning looks at me as he answered, though. And I had a feeling I was in for some questions of my own when Officer Karl was through.

“So if my notes are accurate, and trust me, they are accurate to everything you’ve told me, Mr. Grey”—he turned his sharp gaze on me—“the only items taken from you while you were passed out on the beach that you haven’t recovered at this point are your keys.”

I nodded, and a look passed between the two older men.

“Yes, sir,” I said. That got tiny smiles from both and I felt heat rise like mist over my face. “Well, and the cash that was in my wallet, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that.”

“I went by your place today to talk to you, and your roommate said you had moved out,” Officer Karl said.

I started to nod but aborted it. “Yes. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“More like his sister moved in. There wasn’t a room for me there anymore.”

“Where are you living?” they asked almost in sync, Malcolm’s voice sharp and concerned, Karl’s merely businesslike as he flipped the page of his notes.

“On my boss’s couch.” I nodded at the cop’s notes. “You have the store number. I gave it to you last time.”

“Yes, I do.”

“A couch?”

I could feel Malcolm’s very dark eyes fixed on me, and his body heat spread over my back. I did my best to ignore him for the moment.

“If we find any other leads, Mr. Grey, we will get in touch, but I have to say, there isn’t a lot to go on. Unless you can remember anything else about who might have done this, we might never know.”

I shrugged. The beach had been full of college jocks eager to score points for their frat houses, with the team, and each other. Any one of them could have taken my keys and wallet, found my house, and trashed it. Some of them actually knew who I was from the college, and some of Andy’s friends from high school had been visiting him for the game and the celebration. It was entirely possible the incident was a drunken extension of my entire high-school career. I pushed my glasses up my nose and sighed. “Sorry, Officer Karl. I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea.”

He patted my shoulder. “If you did have an idea, Mr. Grey, keeping quiet in hopes they go away may not be as effective as—”

“I really don’t know. I was passed out. I have no idea. I’m sorry.”

“Well, as I said….”

I tuned him out. What was the point of him telling me yet again he couldn’t do much else? What was the point of hearing it? It wasn’t the first time I was kicked out of what I’d thought of as home with nothing but the clothes on my back and a bunch of apologies.

Malcolm and I stood on the grass and watched Officer Karl get back in his cruiser and drive away. No one said anything until the car had rounded the bend out of sight.

“Come inside,” Malcolm said, once we were alone. His tone was that of a man who didn’t expect an argument.

“The garden is out here.”

“And it isn’t going anywhere. Come inside.” He turned and strolled up the lawn, hands in his pockets, still, pants stretched tight across his ass. He had a nice ass. I followed him up to the house.

On the porch, he stopped long enough to unlock the door, then ushered me in. The place was silent, sun-warmed, and cozy. A small taffy-colored cat lifted its head from its tight curl on top of the hall table to mew at him. He ignored it.

“Hey, pretty,” I crooned, and tickled the top of its head. It pushed its head into my fingers, and a purr startlingly loud for such a small animal encouraged me to stroke under its chin.

“Spoiled brat,” Malcolm told the cat, running a huge hand over its back.

It arched up into his touch and closed its eyes.

“God help me,” he muttered, and dropped his keys into the bowl beside his furry friend.

“Boy or girl?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

I smiled at the cat. “She has got her claws into you,” I told him.

He arched a brow at me and snorted. “Charlie likes his strays, doesn’t he, Georgie?” he asked the cat.

I somehow knew he wasn’t just talking about the cat, and I took my hand back and thrust it into my jeans pocket.

“Look, I only came about the garden—”

“Sit.” The chair he pulled out made a loud scraping noise across the floor. It punctuated the soft command with the force he hadn’t put into his voice, and I sat.

“Tell me everything.”

“It’s not really your business,” I said. “I came to see the garden and help you buy plants.”

“And I came into the store to vet you for Charlie. We both know it.”

Did I know that? And how was I supposed to respond to it?

“He wants you. I won’t let you near him unless I know you’re safe.”

“I’m….” I glanced to the front door. “Going to just go.” But I didn’t get up, and a second later, he had one hand on the back of my chair and the other on the edge of the table beside me. He was so close I could feel his breath on my cheek and see the stubble just starting to show on his jaw.

“You tell me you’re not interested, and I will take you out and show you the garden. We’ll talk plants and trees, and whatever unpleasantness is going on in your life will not come up again. Tell me you’re not the slightest bit interested in what happens if I find you suitable for my Charlie.”

My mouth was too dry to speak. I stared into his eyes and swallowed hard. I wanted to look into those eyes and see hard certainty that I was not what they were looking for. Or maybe I wanted just to see certainty. Something hard and unyielding to maybe lean on, even if only for one afternoon.

But behind the words, there was just another guy looking for something he couldn’t name, and so he put Charlie’s name on it and hoped. If I didn’t quite get what kind of dynamic these guys had, I knew that hope. There was still a ragged little piece of it in me that the foster families and Andrew and Matt hadn’t completely torn to shreds.

“Why aren’t you suitable for your Charlie?” I asked him.

“I’m brittle and jagged,” Malcolm said. “Sometimes, he likes soft and malleable.”

That was an outright lie. Malcolm was as soft as anyone I’d ever met. He hid it well, but not from someone who already knew how to show the world the lie and hide what mattered.

Without thinking, I reached up and touched his face. His eyes dropped closed, just for a split second, and he turned his head a fraction. Then he was glaring at me again, fingers wrapped around my wrist, eyes blazing.

Oh yes. He could be hard. He knew how to be tough and tempered.

I let my hand go limp in his grasp and managed not to look away. “I’m interested.”

It was impossible to tell what passed through his expression. Relief? Apprehension? Resignation? But when his lashes fluttered and he nodded, I saw the thing that drew me to him. Hope.

I was very interested.

T
HEY
DID
tour the yard after that, and Malcolm carefully monitored how the younger man reacted to the space. It was as he’d feared. Kerry’s attention danced from plant to plant, taking everything in, a huge grin on his face. He crouched to feel the soil, to look under low-hanging branches, and he touched everything, felt leaves, smelled petals, dug his fingers into the dark earth, even closed his eyes and lifted his face, as though sensing the air.

“What are you doing?”

Kerry gazed up from where he crouched in the sun near a flower bed. “Feeling the sun. How warm it is, where it’s coming from.”

“Oh.” He reminded Malcolm very much of Charlie, who still had this same animation in his face, even though he’d been the one to build this garden from the ground up and knew it as intimately as he knew his lover. It still had the power to excite him. As though he expected every time he came out here that what he found would be brand new again. The garden was his other love, after all. His sanctuary from a job that stressed him out.

Maybe Malcolm was being presumptuous, bringing someone else in to play in Charlie’s proverbial sandbox.

“What am I getting into?”

“What?” Kerry’s bright eyes flashed, mimicking the clear sky as he looked up, that giant, happy grin still in place.

Malcolm’s gut swiveled and couldn’t help but stare. “Nothing.”