Chapter 20
JASE woke early the next morning. He was so stuck in the routine of his feeding, mucking, and work schedules, sleeping in was nearly impossible. He’d begged his brother to drop by and handle the feeding this morning, with a promise of an explanation if he could just have that one night.
At least Jase didn’t have to explain that he was attracted to guys as part of the begging process. But admitting he’d found a guy he was interested in. That could be a… thing.
Jase’d had enough lying around after an hour or so awake. He’d fished his phone from his pants on the floor, but could only stand playing on the damn thing for so long. He decided he’d get up and make breakfast. He didn’t know how long Ase would sleep, but the man looked absolutely worn out, even in a deep sleep.
Having slept great himself, he was ready to face the day. He was a little weirded out he’d slept so well with Ase, since he usually couldn’t stand someone else in his bed. When he’d tried to cohabitate with Lacey, he’d slept on the couch more often than not. The only nights he really spent in bed with her involved condoms, and even then he’d ended up awake earlier than he’d needed to be, and not felt particularly rested.
Those months were not something he wanted to dwell on any more, though. He hoped he might be moving in a better direction with Ase now. And if not, then he’d cross that bridge when they got to it. For now he was feeling too damn good to worry either way. Before any heavy talks or worrying about what came after their amazing sex the night before, Jase thought they both could use a good breakfast.
Maybe breakfast in bed. That made Jase’s cock perk right the fuck up.
He went to the fridge to see what he had to work with. All he found was condiments, yogurt, and some fruit. There was nothing but booze in the freezer. The canisters on the counter held granola. The cabinets, more booze. Jase frowned.
Okay, so he’d noticed Ase drank a lot. He’d even had trouble in town because of it, but until that moment, looking at all the bottles, it hadn’t really dawned on him how much Ase drank.
He knew there was a grocery store around the corner, within walking distance from the apartment community Ase lived in, so he decided he’d go out and get some things to make a decent breakfast. He spent the time walking wondering whether the drinking was as excessive as he thought. He wasn’t usually one to monitor another adult’s intake, and he himself enjoyed the devil’s brew as much as the next guy.
Surely, though, he was just overreacting. Ase’d only ever drunk around him when Jase himself was drinking. It wasn’t like the guy was drunk at the hospital.
He put it out of his mind for the time it took to grocery shop. He tried to think of things he knew Ase liked. He decided to go for a hearty breakfast, though. His stomach was growling and feeling the booze from the night before, and he knew Ase would be feeling it as well.
Finally back at the apartment, he got the coffee maker brewing and started breakfast. He felt a little bad for just making himself at home. Wouldn’t it suck if Ase’d been more inebriated than Jase thought and woke up thinking, Mayday! Freak in the house!
Ase’s phone started ringing in the bedroom. After whoever it was hung up and called again, Jase stuck his head into the room to see if Ase was awake. Ase’s bleary eyes cracked open, phone lying face down on his chest, and waved weakly, but he was smiling.
“Morning,” Jase said.
“Morning,” Ase croaked. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Yessir. And I’m gonna do eggs and bacon, if you don’t mind.”
“If I don’t mind, he says,” Ase said, his look incredulous. Well, something like incredulous. It was hard to see through the smudged makeup. Jase covered the smile the tried to break out with his hand.
“I know, I know. Raccoon eyes.”
“Something like that,” Jase said. “I’ll go start breakfast. You can shower.”
Jase was so happy to see Ase was in a good mood, he didn’t care if the man showered for a week and called him Suzy Homemaker.
He went back through to the kitchen and dug for pots and pans in which to cook. A knocking—no, banging—on the door made him start. The shower had started up so he yelled through the apartment, “Want me to get that?”
“Please. It’s probably just fucking Dustin come to bitch me out for running you off last night.”
“Well, this should be a surprise, then,” Jase said, under his breath.
In his clothes from last, Jase felt very walk-of-shame, but at least he was dressed when he opened the door.
Because it wasn’t Dustin. An attractive, if slightly plump and tired looking Latina woman stood at the door. Behind her a man who looked like a slightly older, shorter, and more portly version of Ase glared at him. Shit. Must be a brother and sister-in-law. This was awesome. Meeting the family and we haven’t even discussed a second date.
“Who’re you?” the man asked.
Jase frowned at the hostility, though he wasn’t surprised based on his last encounter with members of Ase’s family. “Uh, a friend of Ase’s.” There was no way to not make the next part sound bad so he had to just say it. “He’s in the shower.” He winced inwardly at the pissed off way both of them looked at him.
“Can you go get him, please?” the woman asked, looking at the man warily, then at Jase, as if she didn’t quite know what else to say.
“Um. Sure. You’re his brother?” Jase asked the man whose glare was getting just this side of fucking annoying. He wished he had his badge to abuse for just a second.
“Yes,” the man said, snidely. “Tell him his wife and I drove a long way to see him. If he can pull himself away from his busy life doing Dios knows what.” His look of distaste as he said the latter could not have been any more pronounced than Jase’s look of pure fucking shock must have at that moment.
“Wife…” Jase wheezed.
She just watched him evenly.
“Jase, who is it?” Ase’s voice trailed in from the bedroom, coming closer as he padded into the living room just out of view of the door. Jase turned to him, flushing at the hickeys on his bare chest; easily seen with him just wearing a skimpy pair of super short, low-rise boxer briefs.
“What’s up?” Ase stepped a little closer until he could see who was at his door, face falling immediately.
“The other shoe dropping, I guess.” Jase found himself wondering if there was a Spanish word for melodrama. Surely there was, for moments like this, where life played out like a telenovela with its fucked up timing. Though, Jase couldn’t imagine there was ever a good moment to find out you were fucking a married guy.
Ase looked resigned enough, but there was a spark of fight in him that wasn’t completely extinguished when he glanced at his guests. He said to Jase, “I’m sure you were already planning on it, but you should probably go.”
He went to the bedroom and tried to pick up his dignity along with his boots. He managed to put them on, unsure about the dignity part of the effort. He didn’t think his presence was necessary for the fucking explosion that was about to go down in this place. Hell, he might be one of the people who exploded.
“Jase, wait,” Ase said, coming into the bedroom.
“Yeah?” Jase said, hating the fucking way his voice shook so obviously, even uttering only one goddamned word.
“Jase. This is. It’s what it looks like, and it’s complicated. But, better you know.”
What the fuck was Ase saying? His eyes had that weird guardedness to them again, and Jase didn’t quite believe what Ase tried selling. But if he wanted to be a fucking martyr right now, Jase would let him. Jase had no desire to hash this out with Ase’s family in the next room and didn’t think it’d fare well to start a fight with Ase in front of them anyway.
“Sorry,” Ase said, stonily.
“I’m sorry, too.” The question that flickered in Ase’s eye was almost too quick to catch, but Jase answered it anyway. “Sorry you didn’t trust me enough to at least warn me.”
“Jase,” Ase said, probably not thinking Jase could hear it.
Jase turned sad eyes on Ase. “If you want to talk.”
He couldn’t do more than that. He left with his heart in his throat, glaring back at that asshole brother whose demeanor remained somewhere between hostile and murderous.
****
Slipping a shirt over his head, Ase listened as the front door to his apartment snicked shut. God-fucking-dammit.
He was so tired of having no fucking control, of his heavy-handed family. He couldn’t believe his brother and Lizeth would show up out of the blue. He’d paid his penance, but no. Never enough for these people. The old guilt, the old weight of his being so fucking weak settled on him, and he wanted to lash out.
The hissed conversation in Spanish coming from his living room was enough to make him feel like he was going to come undone. He went to his closet to grab sweatpants from the shelves, breathing deeply to control the boiling fury inside. His anger, resentment of himself and the people invading his space, his life again, danced like bright sparks in the periphery of his vision.
He knew Jase would be pissed at the situation, knew he’d think Ase was fucked up, but he’d still intended to tell him all about his circumstances. Eventually. In his own time. That’d been why he’d not wanted to get involved beyond a friendship before Jase knew all the facts. He’d told Jase most of his shit, but not the most shameful of it. And that the choice had been taken from him, again, was enough to send him into a simmering rage.
But that’d do nothing to help. He didn’t need cops called because he’d started a domestic fight like his brother would’ve had the situation been reversed. He’d not make this worse.
The day had started so fucking bright and full of promise, even if still marred by his omission. Jase, who for all his closet issues, still outed himself to potential bed partners simply because he was a good guy. And Ase had let him get blindsided. After having judged the man so harshly for being closeted.
Batting a thousand, Ramirez.
Before stepping into his sweatpants his eyes lit on his skirt, rumpled on the floor. If he were a lesser man—though, right now he couldn’t imagine being lesser—he’d have worn that out to greet the fam, just for effect. This was a bad enough moment without adding a black eye to the mix.
So into his pants he went and out into the living room he walked. He paused briefly to send a glare at the pair on his couch whose conversation stopped dead when he entered the room. Lizeth flushed; his brother crossed the room, moving toward him. Mateo had that posture that was all violence, all bullshit aggression, like a junkyard dog demanding submission from his lesser.
Ase snorted haughtily and made his way to the kitchen, Mateo hot on his heels, to pour himself a drink. Fuck coffee. Hair of the dog was called for. Now.
“You walk away from me?” his brother snapped.
Ase snatched the bottle of vodka from the freezer and uncapped it, taking a burning swig before throwing a look of disdain Mateo’s way. “In my own home, you don’t come at me like this. This is mine.”
“Damn right, it isn’t my home. If you’d been fucking around, being some white boy’s puto in my home, I’d castrate you. What are you thinking?” Ase’d barely turned to respond when Mateo stepped in his space. Even a head shorter, the man thought he was in charge. Once upon a time, maybe. Ase’d taken this abuse before. He’d moved over a thousand miles away to escape it. “You can’t run away from family.” His mother’s tearful voice ran in his head.
“Your wife had to come here to see you disrespect her.”
Ase scowled when Lizeth appeared behind Mateo. “She disrespects herself enough without my help.” She opened her mouth to respond when Ase pushed around them to go to his living room.
“Before you get stupid,” Ase said, over his shoulder. “This is Texas. If the Mexicans start brawling, someone will call the police and all three of us will sit in jail.” He gave Lizeth his most disparaging glare. “And they’ll deport without asking questions.”
“What are you doing, Alessandro?” Lizeth asked. Ase couldn’t be more surprised by the shock in her voice if he tried. “You have another man in your home—our home.”
“Your home is in Southeast. This, this is mine. And I want to know…” He glared from one face to the other, pulling reserves of anger, trying to hold on to pride he didn’t have much of any more, trying to be the Ase that Jase looked at like he had four years ago and again last night. “What. The fuck. Are you doing here?”
Mateo’s finger was in Ase’s face at that. “Mami is crying all the time; your wife is having her citizenship questioned, and Papi—”
“Don’t.” Ase’s tone was so chilly, the word so forceful, his brother winced. If that was the only satisfaction he’d get from this entire encounter, he’d take it. And he most certainly wasn’t going to talk about his papi. The man didn’t deserve the title. Images of that fucking awful night flashed in Ase’s mind, and his ire spiked. “Again, what do you want?”
“Mami said you told her not to come. She’s devastated.” And if it wasn’t just like their mother, to, as dramatically as possible, revise their conversation to suit her agenda.
“I never said she couldn’t come. I just said we wouldn’t spend the whole time on our knees in prayer.”
“Oh, but you’ll get on your knees for that gringo.” Ase wanted to hit his brother, despising how he twisted the word Ase called Jase so fondly into something so degrading.
Instead, he just looked at his brother drily, faking his confidence and said, “Clever.” He was too tired and too fucking sober, too emotionally wrung out for all of this.
“We taught you this lesson once before.” He wanted to wipe the smug expression of his brother’s face. And he was ashamed to admit the word made him want to cry. Dios, what had happened? He’d been so close to this man once upon a time. As children they’d been close in age and their family so poor, they’d only had one another to lean on for a while; they’d been inseparable. Now, he couldn’t stand to look at the man, and the feeling, no doubt, was mutual.
“Is that why you brought her?” Ase nodded in Lizeth’s direction, his deportation dig having clearly cowed her for now. “It didn’t work last time, you’ll notice.”
Mateo advanced on Ase, so Ase rose to his full height, blowing up. “If you think you’ll be able to do that again, I’m not twenty-two anymore. I promise it’ll take more than just you this time.” Mateo had had help last time as well, but Ase hadn’t put up a fight when they’d come at him. He’d still hoped, wished. He’d had no idea.
Lizeth gripped Mateo’s arm. “Mateo, por favor. If the policía are called…”
“And you are trespassing,” Ase said. “So just go.”
Mateo huffed and puffed. “I’m so sad for you, mi hermano. You have the most promise. But you throw it away.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Ase asked, throwing his hands up, his resolve cracking. “I’m a fucking doctor. I pay my bills and hers. I am not still in San Diego, embarrassing the familia.” He spit the latter with as much venom as he could muster. “I don’t know why I can’t be left alone.”
“You only have two more years doing this.” Mateo gestured toward the bedroom. “Mami and Papi put you through school; let you have freedoms, so you could pay it forward. You’re supposed to take care of the familia; not run from them, humiliate them.” Mateo’s tone was almost as sad as it had been angry earlier. Ase slumped into the recliner by the couch.
“I’ve given the familia all I have. I can do no more.” He was stunned to hear himself say it. He looked at Lizeth. “And you should be ashamed, because you want for nothing. You live off me, you date who you want, you don’t work…”
She had the grace to look abashed. He knew she wouldn’t feel it for long, though.
“Go,” Ase said, with finality.
“Si, Mateo, let’s just leave. There’s time.”
The room was silent for a moment while Mateo seethed at the dismissal. So much for the whole sad, we miss you routine. “Okay,” he said. “But this isn’t over. We are in town until Monday.”
Ase snapped, pulling up to his full height, grabbing his brother by the fucking collar and slamming him against the wall, banged his fucking head against it once. “Yes. It’s so fucking over.” Lizeth cowered, screaming for him to stop. Ase pulled open the door with one hand and shoved his brother out. Mateo stumbled, eyes wide and angry. “If you stay here, I’ll fucking kill you, Mateo. And no one will give a fuck because you. Are. Trespassing.”
“Fuck you, you fucking joto.”
Ase shook his head, resigned, but held his body ready to defend himself if Mateo wanted to come at him. “Go home or this joto will beat your ass and you’ll really have some explaining to do.”
Lizeth took Mateo’s arm and dragged him away. The way he demurred to her, eventually, the way he leaned in, left little doubt Mateo’s defense of her honor was brought on by more than family duty.
He hoped they were fucking happy together, the miserable fucks.
After watching them drive off, Ase had a brief moment of pride that he’d stood up for himself for the first time since his brothers and father decided to help him. He hated that he still didn’t want his family to turn their backs on him. The little bo inside him was so fucking sad.
He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled. Hard.
“Fuck!” he screamed at the walls.
Of course Jase had given Ase back some of his joie de vivre. Ase’d felt like himself for the first time in so long over the last few weeks. Thoughts of Jase and how the morning’s gilipolleces, this fucking nonsense and hysterics from people who Ase had grown to despise as much as he loved them, had detonated the fragile bond he and Jase’d started rebuilding.
Jase’d looked resigned, like he’d given up. Why wouldn’t he? Ase had been so close to giving up on himself, why shouldn’t Jase?
Fuck, his heart hurt, and the light dimmed when he realized he was back to square one with his family, possibly with Jase also, and he was tired of his shoulders feeling so fucking heavy.