Chapter Five

KEEPING DRY remained hopeless, so Forrester hunched his shoulders and braced himself as he ran from Kyle’s car to the stoop of his bookstore and the shelter of the overhang. After swapping phone numbers, Kyle had given him his address, so they’d decided it would be easier if Forrester just drove himself over so he’d have his truck. Not bothering with the main light, he locked up and headed straight to the register.

Visitor in the Wood was right where he’d left it.

Grinning and eager to get over to Kyle’s, he hurried toward the back room to the door that led to the alley where he’d parked. But the pizza he’d left on the counter caught his eye. He grabbed that too, knowing he’d want something to eat after he ravished Kyle all night long. Or maybe Kyle would ravish him.

Either way, baby, either way.

They’d had a great time at dinner, no awkwardness or lack of things to talk about. Sadly, Kyle’s disappointment that Forrester wasn’t out to his family was pretty obvious. Forrester hadn’t had a chance to explain, to make him understand it was easier this way.

Kyle’s words rang in his ears: You owe it to yourself and your family to have that kind of honesty in your life.

He knew Kyle was right, but he was lost somewhere between regret and relief that he’d never had to come out to Dad. He deeply regretted not telling Gramps, but Dad was a different story. He knew Dad loved him, but he was an old-school blue-collar guy, twenty years older than Ma. He’d never been nasty about gay people, but he’d made jokes and comments, like all straight men did in Forrester’s experience—including his brothers.

Just the thought of anyone in his family treating Forrester like he was weird or different made his stomach ache. He’d never wanted to face any of it alone. Since he hadn’t had a real boyfriend since college, why bother dealing with the drama if he didn’t even have a man in his life?

Bang!

Forrester drew up short.

Bang! Bang!

A man’s voice followed the crash.

His heart skipped as he strained to listen. Was someone breaking into his bookstore?

Then a van door slammed shut outside. Laughter sounded on the other side of the wall.

Someone was in the empty shop next door!

No one had been there since the weird hippie lady packed up her bead store six months ago. His cousin Otto Jr. owned the building and wanted tenants before the tourist summer season, but who would be there at night?

A Louisville Slugger sat in the corner with the baseball gear he’d brought to work before the game had been canceled. After setting the book and pizza on the futon, he made his way in the darkness to get the bat. The cold metal was familiar in his grip, an extension of his body.

It was probably teenagers—this was Gilead, after all. Nothing exciting ever happened here. Forrester slowly unbolted the door. A dumpster sat right outside, concealing his presence. The howl of the wind rushed into the quiet back room. Across the old canal and on the other side of the walking paths, the mighty Shiloh River churned like black satin in the wind. Rain splattered his glasses and sprayed his face, sending a shiver down his spine.

A nondescript dark van had parked in the alleyway. Yellow light cut across the ground from the open door of the vacant shop. Guys unloaded boxes from the van and carried them inside.

Definitely not teenagers.

Confused, Forrester lowered the bat. Otto Jr. would’ve told him if he’d rented the shop. Then again, renters wouldn’t be moving in at this hour—and in the rain.

What the hell were these guys up to?

He ducked back inside to call the sheriff’s office, but a familiar voice stopped him.

“Put it over here!”

His second cousin Alfie Parisi stood in the doorway, his slicked-down black hair shining in the light, looking as greasy as always. His shadow darkened the faces of the men with the boxes.

Forrester shook his head in disgust.

Uncle Otto Parisi had married Dad’s sister Rosa when she lived in Italy during the seventies. Ma always hinted he’d been in the Sicilian Mob, and Otto called himself a businessman. He owned a lot of real estate, including Forrester’s building in Gilead. His son Otto Jr. ran the business nowadays, and with a family discount on rent, Forrester would forever have a soft spot for them, but Otto Jr.’s kids were spoiled and nothing but trouble. Forrester sometimes saw Donnie and Mark at Smitty’s after a ball game, but he never cared for them because they had a string of fag jokes a mile long. Alfie was running his dad’s club in Shiloh, the Stein. It was the premier place to score whatever kind of drugs tripped your trigger.

“That’s all of them.”

Forrester’s head jerked back toward the unexpected voice, and he saw a third guy slide the van door shut.

No mistaking that linebacker physique.

He cursed under his breath.

Joey.

The baby of the family. The word was a misnomer because, at six foot four and two hundred eighty-five pounds, one could hardly call his brother baby-sized. Though he had eighty pounds of muscle on Forrester, it wouldn’t stop Forrester from kicking his ass if Joey screwed up his plans with Kyle tonight. But he didn’t feel like going outside and talking to Joey in the pouring rain. He hadn’t really dried off since he and Kyle went to dinner. A big gust of wind blew rain into his face, almost yanking the door from his grip as he shut it.

“That big dummy,” he muttered, fighting a shiver from the cold. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Joey’s number.

Joey answered on the second ring. “Hey, what’s up?”

Forrester didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What are you and Alfie doing in the alley outside my store, Giuseppe?”

“What did you say?” Joey whispered.

“You heard me.”

“Hold on a sec,” he muttered, and a scratching sound emanated from the phone as Joey covered his cell. Through the door, Forrester could hear his brother calling out, “I gotta take this call, fellas. It’s a chick I’m trying to get with.”

Forrester snorted in disgust.

A van door slammed and the rain on Joey’s end of the phone muffled. “What are you talking about? I’m at home, Frankie.”

“So if I go down the hall and knock on your door, you’ll be there?”

“Okay, no, fine, I’m not at home,” he admitted. “I’m at Denny’s having an omelet.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Giuseppe. I just saw you loading boxes outta that van.”

“How do you know what I’m doing?”

“Because I’m in my store, that’s how!”

“Why are you open so late?” Joey asked seriously. “Who buys books at this hour?”

“The store isn’t open. I’m just still here. Now tell me what you’re doing before I come out there and slap you upside the head.”

“No, don’t come out here.” Silence followed while Joey tried to come up with a way to make his actions sound better.

Forrester could almost hear his wheels turning.

“I’m doing a favor for Alfie,” he admitted.

“What?”

“Be quiet!” Joey snapped. “They’ll hear you.”

“I don’t give a crap if they hear me. And why are you doing favors for Alfie? You know the kind of shit he’s into. Tony said it could be heroin.”

“Tony don’t know shit. This is all on the up-and-up, Frankie. I wouldn’t do it if it was illegal. Dino’s getting me into the apprenticeship program. I’m gonna be a plumber. I’ll start at fifteen dollars an hour with bennies and everything. In five years I’ll be making thirty bucks an hour. Way more than I make at the club.”

Forrester wanted to believe him, but he knew Alfie. More importantly, he knew Joey. His little brother would buy oceanfront property in Arizona if a woman with big tits and a great line sold it. He stopped short of saying as much when his brain registered what else Joey had said. “What do you mean ‘the club’?”

Another awkward pause.

“Out with it, Giuseppe.”

Joey took a second longer to answer than Forrester would’ve liked. “I’m bouncing for Alfie at the Stein. I need the money to pay back Tony for all my DUI costs. Plus it’s a great place to meet chicks. This girl tonight….” His voice took on a dreamy quality. “Oh man, Frankie, you shoulda seen her tits.”

“I don’t care about her tits,” Forrester snapped. “If you needed money, you should’ve come to me.”

“I don’t want your money,” Joey practically growled. “I’m a grown-ass man, and I’ll earn it myself.”

His immature twenty-one-year-old brother always had an attitude anytime they implied or outright treated him like the irresponsible galoot he was.

Forrester sighed. “I meant you could’ve come and worked for me if you needed a job.”

“Me? In a bookstore? What do you think I am? Some kinda four-eyed geek like you?”

“Har-de-har-har, Joey.” His brothers all thought he was a nerd, and hell, Forrester knew they were right. One look at his action figure collection proved that. Never mind he could kick their asses ten ways to Sunday on a baseball diamond and had a wicked left hook they never saw coming. Liking “alien stuff” equated to geek in their thick skulls.

His brother laughed. “You gotta admit that was a good one, Frankie. Sometimes I just crack myself up.”

“Yeah, real original. Enough joking around. If Ma finds out about this, she’ll kill you.” Outside and over the phone, he heard the van doors slam.

“Who you talking to?” Alfie asked Joey.

“Hey, girl, I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Joey said to Forrester in what he assumed was his little brother’s smooth-talking-the-ladies voice. “Yeah, me too. Bye.”

Forrester cursed when Joey ended the call. Outside he heard the van start up, then pull away. He wrote Joey several texts, deleting them all before deciding to go with a simple: I don’t trust Alfie. You should be careful.

I got this. Don’t worry!

Forrester frowned at his brother’s reply.

Joey had been in high school, running with Alfie and getting into all kinds of trouble after Dad died. Fortunately, all the bikes they nicked, pot they smoked, and mailboxes they had played baseball with, had been done while underage. When Alfie moved on to a different, more sinister crowd, Ma had said enough and told Joey to stop hanging out with him. As far as Forrester knew, Joey had obeyed his mother like a good little Italian boy.

Looked like Joey wasn’t a good little Italian boy.

Thunder rumbled the night and Forrester shivered from his damp clothing. Joey’s expulsion from high school for fighting was one of the reasons Forrester had come home early from college. His brother’s trusting personality, coupled with a bad case of ADD, ensured Joey always took the fall when he and Alfie got caught. And Alfie always let him take the heat too, which never sat well with Forrester and their other brothers.

Well, Forrester wouldn’t let la famiglia drama ruin his evening tonight. He’d worry about Joey later when he could do something about it.

Right now all he wanted to do was get out of these wet clothes and get naked with Kyle.