TWENTY-FIVE
People talked around him. The voices were never close enough for him to catch what they were saying. The constant wispy quality of every little noise was driving him insane. Bright light and darkness alternated in his vision. Shapes and shadows never really merging to become something whole. One whispery voice sometimes stood out but then it would go away. And he’d mourn the loss until he heard it again.
That voice pulled at him. Sometimes it pulled with determination and he struggled to stay in the cozy comfort that was…cozy comfortable. No dreams. No nightmares. No people. Nothing that would hurt him. He was so tired of hurting.
Something poked at him. Before the poking was either sharp or so careful he almost cried from the pain of it. The careful. The careful broke something in him. But this wasn’t careful. This was…insistent. Something poked his shoulder…insistently. The whisper became…strident…the poking and constant nagging wouldn’t stop.
“Micah,” it said in an unfamiliar voice. But oh how his name sounded in that voice. Something about his name and that voice made him…not hurt. “Micah, wake up.”
“No.” He wasn’t ready to wake up and he was tired of being told what to do. “Sleeping.”
The voice snorted. The poked at him again. “Come on, Beastly. I know you’re in there. Come out to play.”
He smiled. That name. Oh that name. He loved that name. And the person who called him that. “Mmmm. Play. Maybe. Don’t know. Need incentive.”
“Beastly…Micah. No playing now. Wake up.” The voice really wasn’t teasing him. He was begging.
Micah opened his eyes. The light was too bright. He had to blink to focus. An angel with the palest hair and biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen hovered over him. A blue hoodie shrouded his face, making his eyes even bluer. He had the prettiest, reddest lips. Micah wanted to know what those lips tasted like. Strawberries. He would bet on strawberries. He reached up to catch the angel and pull him closer. Warm lips grazed his. He tasted of mint and lemons and not strawberries at all. But Micah didn’t mind. He was happy the angel allowed the kiss. Not often one got to kiss an angel.
“You are…mmm, love you so much.” He opened his eyes after the kiss and held the soft face close to his own. The angel smiled at him. His gaze darted to the side but Micah wanted his attention firmly on him, so he kissed him again and Chris opened his mouth to let him have a deeper taste. “Definitely love you.”
“Micah, your parents are here,” the angel said when the kiss ended. Those weren’t the words he expected to hear. He’d wished he’d never awakened if that was all he was going to hear.
“Mmm, but you love me?” He had to know that. It was important. Somehow that was the only important thing in the world. The only thing worth waking up for.
“I love you. You scared me so much. Thought I was losing you. But, Beastly, I don’t think your family knows…about…” Chris was nervous. He could tell. His fingers trembled when he took Micah’s hand.
Micah woke up. Wide awake.
He was in the hospital.
Fuck.
He’d been here before. Not that long ago. For a long time. Why in the hell was he here again?
Chris…shooting…someone shot him.
He reached for Chris and pulled him closer. Panic set in. He stroked the face that looked so frightened. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you? Why are you crying? Don’t cry, baby. Please.”
Chris grasped his hands and held them in his. “Micah. Micah. Focus. I’m okay. I wasn’t hurt. I’m okay. You were shot. Do you remember?”
“Yeah. I’ve been shot before. Not a big deal.” Something was off. Something Chris wasn’t telling him. “Couple of aspirin and I can go home the same day. No big.”
Chris snorted again. He liked the silent Chris when it came to the snorting business. “You’ve been here a week. Aspirin won’t fix it this time. Your parents are here. Do you want to see them? They’ve been waiting—”
“Parents?” Micah was confused. “A week? I’ve lost a week?” He was seriously confused. Chris cut his gaze to the side again and this time Micah followed. “My mother. Hi, my mother. Good to see you. And…” Micah looked at the man standing beside her with his big square head and wide shoulders. “Not my father.” He turned his attention back to the man who still leaned over him. “A week? What do you mean a week?”
“They put you in a coma. We almost lost you.” His mother sat on the side of the bed and reached for the hand Chris wasn’t holding. She looked at Chris on his other side, so many questions in her eyes. The two people he loved most and he wasn’t sure if he would lose one to keep the other.
“Coma? Lost me? I’m right here. And Mom…I should probably tell you something…before…” He watched her face go completely blank. She’d done that so many times in his life. Shut out everything while she waited for news she didn’t want. Like she was preparing for the worst. He didn’t want to disappoint her. He’d never wanted to disappoint her. He mimicked her face and realized where he learned that action in a rush of understanding. He was his mother’s son. Not his father’s. Well he was his father’s. He was just… “I’m in love. He’s special. This one. Not letting him go.”
Her face changed a little. She looked at Chris and back to him. “I can live with that. I’m happy you’re alive.”
“I’m gay.” He didn’t understand why she wasn’t angry.
“You made that clear when you kissed…Christopher? Is that correct?” She looked at Chris again and he nodded, a shy smile on his lips. “And he’s been here by your side more worried than anyone. I suspect he returns your affection.” Again Chris nodded. “I guess that’s all a mother can ask for.”
Micah looked at the man who stood where his father should be. He didn’t look happy. He looked angry. “Did you know? I didn’t tell. They kept the…” There were things in his life that needed to be kept secret and that was one. The scandal that had ended his career. He’d disappoint the father he’d lost and the one who took his place too.
“No. We didn’t know. Not until you woke up just now. After days of Chris trying to get you to wake up. After sitting with you hoping you’d wake up. I don’t care about anything right now except that you woke up.” She blinked away tears.
“Last year was worse than this. I was only nicked a couple of times. Why is everyone so worried? Why a coma?” He was so fucking out of it right now. He couldn’t get his bearings. Couldn’t…he flexed his toes and everything seemed to work. Both hands. God, he seriously had to piss. Maybe not. “I’m starving.”
Chris laughed and hung his head, his white hair falling over Micah’s hand. “Food. I guess he’s okay.”
“Well, I’d have said something else but I don’t think that would work with a catheter…”
Chris turned so red he looked like a cherry on top of whipped cream. “No more morphine for you,” he said, in a sing song voice.
“Oh God, did you just talk about sexing your boyfriend in front of Mom?” The voice of displeasure came around the curtain. He’d grown up since the last time Micah had seen him. Twenty-three and still angry at the world it seemed. And at Micah.
“Leave him alone Chad.” Ever the voice of reason, his sister followed their younger brother into the room. She reached into her pocket and dragged out a twenty dollar bill and handed it over. “Damn, I lost that one.”
“Lost what?” Micah watched his brother and sister smirk at him. It was like he’d never left home. Except they’d grown up sometime over the last ten years and he’d missed it.
“Chad said you were gay so long ago I can’t even remember when. I bet him twenty bucks that you were holding out for your tragic love story.” Rhea sighed and came around their mother to give him a hug.
Micah had to laugh. God it was good to see her. “Think you better get your money back.”
“Wait? What? That is a dude you’re holding hands with right? Sorry dude.” Chad’s outrage was so dramatic Micah had to laugh.
“He means you were both right. He is gay. And he did hold out for his tragic love story.” A new voice intruded and Chris squeezed his hand. His whole body tensed and he refused to look at Kady.
“It’s only a tragedy if he’d died, Kaitlynn.” Chris spoke to the bed, never looking her way. Even as the room filled with one more person. One that Micah hadn’t expected to see at all.
“Aunt Becca?” He ignored the tension between the two people he’d come to think of as his closest friends. The small woman smiled like sunshine and rainbows were the only colors ever invented and he couldn’t see anything dark when she was in the room. He lifted his hands and signed how happy he was to see her.
Chris seemed stunned when she signed back. She spoke, but it was very hard to understand her. “Aunt Becca, this is Chris. He’s my boyfriend.” He signed and her smile grew even wider. Chris sat stunned for a moment while Becca smothered him in a hug. Her hands flying the whole time telling him exactly how happy she was to meet him.
“Becca, don’t. Let him breathe, and we can’t translate for him if you—” His mom stopped her scold when Chris signed back, answering every question and making her laugh with his replies.
“Are you deaf too?” she asked him looking at his ears. And Micah’s mother groaned.
“Don’t tug his ears Becks,” Micah told her. “He’s…” He didn’t know what to tell her. He didn’t know what Chris would want them to know.
Chris unzipped his jacket to show her his scar. He spoke as he signed and Micah could hear that his speech wasn’t as developed as he’d thought earlier. He struggled to enunciate and lapsing back into sign helped him. “I have trouble with my voice. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I couldn’t speak for many years. But I hear fine.”
Becca thought that was wonderful. “I talk really well. I’ll give you lessons.” She signed and Micah thought that was a wonderful idea. Until he met his stepfather’s gaze.
“Hello, sir, you’ve been quiet.” Micah couldn’t ignore him anymore.
“It’s good to see you, Micah. I’m sorry…” He winced and Micah could see that he was trying not to say something to offend him. “I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”
“Death bed vigil seems to be the best I can do lately.” Micah hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to let old hurts come back to eat at him. “Last time though you weren’t my father and I could tell you which hell to get off at…now, not so much.”
“I’m still not your father, son, and I’ve never tried to be.” Again the wince at how it came out. “Well, this is going well.”
“I had a father. A good one. He’s not with us anymore.” Micah had had enough of half-truths and whole lies to last him a life time. And it had taken wading into Chris’s messed up life to figure out his wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it was.
“Micah, don’t start.” His mother warned. She looked so sad.
“Not starting anything. I want him to know where I stand. He’s not my father. He knows this. I’m not a kid and I don’t need him stepping into my life as a father figure.” He could tell he was pissing off everyone, except Becca who wasn’t the slightest bit interested in family squabbles. He took a deep breath and reached for Chris’s hand.
“Micah—”
“No, damn it just let me say it. So it’s out there and we can move on as a family. I don’t need a father but my mother needs a husband and she chose you. And I don’t have a problem with that. Not one single damned problem. I want her happy. There’s nothing in this about me. I’m not some selfish prick.”
“You just play one on TV.” Chad tossed that out as if it was air our Micah resentment day or something. “Selfish pricks stay away from their families. Good sons and brothers come see them. Make sure they are part of their lives. You haven’t been around in a long time. And don’t say work. You didn’t work for…” Chad stopped talking when a tear slipped down his face.
“Since the last time I almost died,” Micah said quietly. Regret. He had so much regret. So much hurt. “This past year…” He didn’t know how to explain. He leaned back into the pillow.
“You were an asshole,” Chris helpfully signed forgetting that everyone in the room could read his words.
“Takes one to know one,” Micah shot back, but not in sign.
“Never said I wasn’t one. I had reasons. You had reasons. Reasons they don’t know about do they?” Chris went on in sign and speaking as well for Kady who was looking lost in the whole Beasley family reunion.
“I was responsible for a child dying. I killed her mother.” Micah spoke to the ceiling. He couldn’t look his family in the eye.
“The case up in LA?” His stepfather asked, his voice grown tight with suppressed anger.
“That was me. All of it. I’m surprised you didn’t know, what with your connections. It’s not like my name wasn’t linked to it. My involvement was never released to the press.”
“You were cleared. That’s all that I cared about. I didn’t need the particulars.” Tom crossed his arms. “I knew there were reasons you were relieved of duty. If I had known…”
“If you had known…what?” Micah was too damned curious now. “That I had PTSD so damned bad I couldn’t even look in the mirror for six months without seeing that woman’s face? My nightmares. My…fears. I wasn’t ready to walk out of my apartment. And I didn’t see any of you coming out to California to visit me either.”
“You didn’t have to stay there. You could have come home.” His mother joined in the argument before his stepfather answered the question.
“No, Mom. I couldn’t have.” He couldn’t explain why. He didn’t understand why. He glanced at Chris sitting so silently. His pale hair escaping from the band he always tried to use to contain it. The one that always failed at containing anything. “I was toxic. You didn’t want to be around me like that.”
“You could have let us make that decision,” Tom said.
“And this is me being nice and not toxic and it’s a family argument in front of strangers. What exactly would you have said to me when I told you all to go fuck yourselves when I was angry and dangerous and not being nice and sedated like now? Get angry and be offended because I wasn’t being happy and friendly and there for you to talk to about work and dating and weddings and…I gave you my blessing. I didn’t say anything about how soon it was after Dad died. I didn’t say anything when Rhea dropped out of college or that Chad got arrested for drugs yet everyone is telling me exactly how to live my life when I didn’t ask.”
“Beastly?”
“What?” He shouted at Chris who just grinned at him and winked as if it was their own personal joke. “Oh. Yeah I guess I earned that name didn’t I?”
“The first time you opened your mouth and told me how to run my life.” Chris laughed. “But do carry on with your shouting.”
Micah gaped at him. Forgetting how much of a smartass he could be. He’d never heard him sass in his own voice. “You were supposed to be a cupcake assignment. Spoiled rich kid who needed babysitting. I was—”
“A judgmental asshole. But that didn’t stop me from falling in love with you. And didn’t stop you from getting shot. Again. They love you. And you’re telling them to leave you alone.” Chris was right. But he still didn’t look at the other party in the room.
“I think I get it. I’m an asshole. There. Is everyone happy?” He looked around the room at the begrudging smirks on his sibling’s faces to his mother’s shaking head and his stepfather’s intense scrutiny. “Now you need to go talk to Kady. She doesn’t deserve the cold shoulder.”
“Are you kicking me out?” Chris looked stunned.
“No, Chris. I’m asking you to go talk to Kady. She looks like she could use a friend.” Micah realized he’d probably have Becca follow him now that she had another special friend in her life. “Rhea can you help Aunt Becca…let Chris escape Aunt Becca.”
“Yeah, sure, come on, Becks. Let’s look at the cars out the window.” Rhea hustled their aunt to the window and she forgot all about Chris.
He cocked his head in that way he’d done early on when he was confused and unsure of himself. But he unfolded himself from the chair and stood up. And up some more. Micah followed his progress up until Chris towered over him. “I forget how tall you are. And beautiful.” He reached for Chris’s hand and gave him a look that he hoped Chris understood. That he needed a little privacy with his family.
Chris nodded and he left, walking past Kady as if she didn’t exist. Micah closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them he was calmer. “So let’s hear it. What you wouldn’t say in front of him.”
“He’s really pale, and hair can’t possibly be that color,” Rhea said from the window. “And he’s fucking gorgeous. Beastly. I like that. He’s got you pegged with that name.”
“He’s damned tall. He’s got to be taller than you. I guess that’s something to get used to. Having to look up to kiss him.” Chad found a chair and dropped into it, hanging one Converse clad foot over the arm.
“He’s quiet and polite. He hardly spoke to us when we visited. And wouldn’t leave when we offered to stay. I guess…I should have realized.” His mother reached for his hand again.
“He couldn’t speak until…the night I was shot, so of course he’s quiet. But he’s not polite. He’s just shy. And he can fight like an MMA champ. Keeps me on my toes.” Micah couldn’t stop the smile. “I love him, Mom. I want to be with him. I don’t want…” he swiped at his cheek, the tingling near his scar bothered him. He swiped away a tear that he hadn’t known he’d shed. “I don’t want to think…that Dad would disapprove. Or you or Chad and Rhea. I never told anyone. I didn’t want anyone to think I wasn’t…” He stopped because the words that wanted to trip off his tongue made him ashamed that he’d even thought the things he had. “That I was less of a man because I—”
“Micah.” His stepfather cut him off. Micah saw the anger in his face and heard the impatience in his voice. He didn’t want to hate this man, but he didn’t want to like him either. “Listen to me, son.”
“That’s the second time you called me son. Please don’t do it again.” Micah didn’t want to listen. He hurt. He hadn’t noticed when Chris was holding his hand. Now he could feel everything. And he couldn’t keep the pain from crossing his features either. “I was in a coma? Why was in a coma? I don’t get that part. The bullet holes, I was there for those, and they weren’t near my head.”
His stepfather sighed. “Damn it, Micah, listen to me.”
Micah stopped pretending the man hadn’t said anything and gave him his undivided attention. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m not your damned commanding officer.”
“Anymore, sir. Old habits are hard to break, sir.”
The man sighed again and swiped his hand through his regulation haircut. “Okay, here’s the deal, I won’t call you son if you stop calling me sir.”
“You could have told me you were dating my mother. That would have been the better way to deal with this Tom. We went through two tours together and you stepped right in when my dad died like it was no big deal.”
“We were friends. I might have been your CO but I was your dad’s partner and friend after I left the service. I worked with him. I watched him worry over you while you were still there. I watched him worry about you when you went into law enforcement. I was there when he found out he had cancer. The hardest thing he had to do was tell you. He didn’t know how to tell you. I was there for that. He didn’t want you to think he was weak when he couldn’t beat it. He didn’t want you to see him hurt. Exactly like you’re doing right now. You were his pride and joy. All of you kids were. He loved you all. And I’m not here to take away his memory. I remember him too. And, son…Micah, he wouldn’t have cared about that boy. He wanted you to find someone to make you happy. I’ve never seen you smile. Not once in all the years I’ve known you. You came to me angry after boot. You were angry the day you hit the streets. And I saw you smile when you saw that boy…your young man…a real smile that…that’s all your dad ever wanted for you. Someone who could put that kind of smile on your face. Someone you’d die for.”
“I don’t want to die for him.” Micah wiped away the free flowing tears. “I just fucking found him. I don’t want to die for anybody right now. I want to stop being shot at. That would be nice.”
“I should never have suggested you for the job. You weren’t ready. I thought you needed to get back to work. That’s the way you were. Sitting around for a year…I didn’t know you weren’t coping with what happened last year. My fault for not checking in. I guess you’re right. We could have come to you. I could have helped you if I’d known.”
Micah glared at him. Of course it all made perfect sense now. Retired military, law enforcement…he’d have enough connections to get Micah on any number of private security hiring lists. “I was wondering how my name came up.”
“Gideon was looking for, like you said, a babysitter for his nephew. He called me up and we talked for a while. I wouldn’t have even mentioned you if I thought this was more than some local bullshit. That asshole severely underestimated the situation.”
“So you’ve met Gideon!” Micah had to laugh at that assessment. “Asshole is too mild of a term for him where Chris is concerned. I swear I thought he was trying to drive him insane so he could take over Chris’s estate. Hell, I still think he’s after Chris’s money.”
His stepfather’s gaze turned stony. “Go with your gut, Micah. Always go with your gut.”
Déjà vu. Micah looked at his stepfather as if were just now seeing him. All those years ago when he’d ridden his ass hard to be a better Marine…to be a better person…it was his voice he heard in his head when he was in doubt. “I’ll do that. Now can someone please tell me about the damned coma and if there’s something no one is telling me…because I get the feeling that there’s something I don’t know?”
“You lost too much blood. They had to do a transfusion and you didn’t respond well. They induced coma to give your brain a chance to heal. They thought they lost you, Micah. And when you didn’t wake up…Chris has been here since we arrived. He wouldn’t leave you. He kept telling you to wake up to come play with him. I’ve never seen anyone so…” His mother stopped talking and pressed her fingers to her lips. She was crying and Micah couldn’t ask her to stop because he was crying too.
“I promised him I wouldn’t die on him. I’m a lousy bodyguard. I got too attached. God, I love him. I need to tell him that. I need…I hurt so damned much. Mom, stop crying, you’re making the kids cry.”
“We’re not kids, asshole,” Chad growled at him. “And besides you’re crying more than I am.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I was talking about me, you little punk.”
Chad shot him the one finger salute but he still wiped his face. Rhea just let the tears flow. She didn’t think he could see. But her face reflected in the window. “See that big truck, Becks.” She didn’t notice that she forgot to sign the question.