Benfield Assisted Living felt more like a prison and less like a care facility each time Noel made his weekly trip up from Stratton. Every Sunday afternoon for the last three years he’d made the trek, without fail, to visit Tristan. He hoped to take a walk with Tristan today. The weather was lovely. Sunny and hot with a light breeze. Tristan had always loved being outdoors.

Noel signed himself in at the desk and exchanged polite greetings with Kim, the nurse on duty. Everyone knew him. Tristan was one of only a dozen residents under the age of sixty-five, and Noel one of the few non-family members of a resident who made weekly visits.

Tristan’s room was on the west side of the complex, down a sunny corridor lined with mostly open doors. Noel had gotten to know some of the other residents over the years, which helped with reintroducing them to Tristan over and over again. Thanks to a homophobic basher and his bottle, Tristan had no short-term memory. He lived his life in a series of notebooks, recording everything, leaving himself sticky notes about times to do every imaginable task, from brushing his teeth to changing his socks, because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it.

The short-term loss also gave him trouble with remembering names to go with new faces. The staff wore nametags, which helped immensely, but the residents didn’t. Even if he had an instinctive sense he’d seen the person before, the name never came back without help. The whole thing frustrated the hell out of Tristan, who’d once been a free-spirited, fun-loving young man with a smile for every stranger.

The first man Noel thought he loved, and who was still his very best friend.

Tristan was sitting in his armchair, looking out the window, ear buds in. He preferred listening to music over almost anything else. The songs were short enough that he could listen to the entire thing without getting lost or confused. His room was the same as it always was: papers tacked to the walls, strewn on his desk, stacks of notebooks by the bed. Impersonal by choice. Tristan’s family paid for the care facility, but they’d cut him off emotionally years ago when he was bashed and effectively came out to them. They never once came to see Tristan in the hospital.

Even Noel’s own close-minded parents had made the trip up from West Memphis when they heard their youngest son had been sliced to ribbons with a broken bottle.

His hand skated over his left pec and the bumpy skin beneath the soft cotton tee. The worst of the scars, bunched there like the assholes had wanted to cut out his heart.

Tristan’s head swiveled, and his eyes widened with delight. “Hey, you came.” He said it with the same surprise every Sunday, as though the time and name written on his weekly calendar wasn’t quite truthful.

“Of course I came.”

He hugged Tristan tight, alarmed at how skinny he was in Noel’s arms. Tristan only ate when he felt hungry, which was rarely ever, and they were paying these fucking people to get him to his regular meals. Noel made a mental note to have words with the staff about the weight loss.

“Do you feel like taking a walk with me?” Noel asked. “It’s gorgeous outside today.”

“Okay.” Tristan tucked his iPod into his back pocket, then turned to study the weekly calendar on his wall. “I don’t have to be doing anything else right now, do I?”

“No, buddy, this is our time to hang out.”

“Of course. We do this every week.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Do Billy and Chris still come around?”

The four of them had roomed together in Harrisburg the summer between their junior and senior years in college. That was the summer Tristan and Noel were bashed and Tristan’s life stopped moving forward. “They were here at Christmas. They brought you those sticky notes shaped like arrows.”

Tristan peered at his walls until he spotted them. “Oh, I love those stickies. The shapes are more interesting than the squares.”

“Yeah, I agree.”

After Tristan fetched a notebook, they strolled down the hall toward the back garden. A few of the elderly residents smiled and waved as they passed. Tristan always knew he should recognize those lined and spotted faces. For the first two years, he’d been an angry mess. Depressed over his failures, furious over being unable to do something as simple as watch an hour-long television show without forgetting the beginning by the time the end rolled around. Mostly he’d adapted now.

Or he showed anger less and less around Noel.

“You’re a policeman, right?” Tristan asked.

“That’s right. In Stratton, a little town about twenty minutes down the turnpike.”

“Have I ever visited?”

The question made Noel stumble. Tristan had never asked that, nor had he ever shown interest in seeing where Noel lived. Tristan had the freedom to sign himself out whenever he liked, but he never left Benfield unsupervised by choice. He was afraid of getting lost and forgetting how to get back.

“No, you’ve never visited Stratton,” Noel replied. Careful. Curious. “Would you like to?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Okay. I work night shifts Friday through Tuesday, so my only totally free days are Wednesday starting in the morning, until Friday evening.”

“What is your shift again?”

“Eleven to seven. Overnight.”

“That’s right.” Tristan glanced at the notebook he clutched, as though needing to consult it. Once they’d gone out the rear doors to the back patio, Tristan opened it to the last paper-clipped page. “Here it is. My therapist, Dr. Patrone, thinks I should start going more places. Testing myself.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“Right now I think it’s a good idea.” Pain flashed in his eyes. “I don’t want to live here forever. I want to take steps to be able to live in the world again, Noel. I want that so badly.”

“I know.”

He slung an arm across Tristan’s shoulders, and Tristan leaned into him. They walked off the concrete patio and out into a wide, green lawn. To their far left, a group was playing badminton. A redheaded nurse waved at them. Noel waved back.

“So can I come visit you this week? For a day, at least? Please?”

Noel was helpless to say no when this was the first time in three years that Tristan wanted to go somewhere. To be part of the world. “Of course you can. How about I pick you up early Thursday, and we’ll spend the day together?”

“All day?”

“All day. Or until you get totally sick of me and demand I bring you back.”

Tristan grinned. “I’ll never get sick of you.”

“Good, because you’re totally stuck with me.”

“Whether I like it or not?”

“Exactly.”

“So tell me about your week.” Tristan bent down to pluck an errant dandelion from the otherwise immaculate lawn. “I can’t promise to remember it in half an hour, but I’d like to hear it.”

Noel smiled at the familiar line. Did Tristan know he said that every single week? “It’s been mostly quiet. Although last night my partner and I responded to a disturbance call. Loud party was keeping up the neighbors.”

“Frat party?”

“No, no colleges in Stratton. It was a birthday party gone wild. A bunch of women and their stripper.”

Shane tied to that bed, staring at him in wide-eyed fear sent a shiver down his spine. Noel hated not knowing for sure what that was all about.

“You remember that party at the Beta house sophomore year?” Tristan asked. His entire face lit up as it often did when he remembered the past. Firm memories that a bigot’s bottle hadn’t torn away. “We got so wasted on schnapps that night.”

“I remember you thinking my bed was a trash can and barfing on it.”

“You barfed on your own bed, and you know it.” For a moment, the old Tristan was back. Bright, happy, able to tease about anything.

They had talked about college so much these last few years that Noel was certain he’d relived it at least twice. Anything, though, to see his old friend again. “Oh no,” Noel said, “you christened my bed. I got my revenge by pissing on yours.”

“Asshole.”

“Dickhead.”

They’d teased each other with those names before, but for some reason, Tristan got quiet. Sad.

Noel squeezed his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s never stupid, not if it’s bothering you, Tris.”

He slid out from under Noel’s arm. In the sunlight, his honey-brown hair gleamed like spun gold. It had grown out in waves in the past few months, even though his calendar had dates marked for haircuts. He looked so much younger than twenty-three. Young and small and in need of protection from the world. Protection from people who hurt others and got away with it.

“I’m just lonely, is all,” Tristan said. “And I don’t mean you coming once a week, or not having residents clamoring to talk to me. I miss…being with someone. Going on a date. Dancing. Kissing. Sex. All of it.”

Noel couldn’t think of anything comforting that didn’t sound trite, so he waited.

Tristan glanced at the words in his notebook. “That’s part of why I want to get out. To learn to be in the world. I hate being so lonely.”

“I know you do.” He tugged Tristan close and enveloped the smaller man in a hug. He tried to put all of his love and support into the embrace. Tristan clutched the back of his shirt, his face pressed into Noel’s throat. “You know I’ll help you figure this out. Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

They walked a while longer. Tristan read a few passages from his notebook that detailed the activities he’d participated in. A checkers game he won against Mr. Albi, a retired teacher with no family, who was pushing ninety-six. Learning how to play polo. And a long list of the new songs he’d discovered since last Sunday. Noel listened, asked questions and patiently answered others, until the sun was dipping low, and Noel knew without checking the time that it was nearing supper.

“I’ll walk you to the dining room,” Noel said.

“For what?”

“Dinner.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They arrived at the facility’s dining room a few minutes before six, when folks would begin arriving in droves. Some of the wheelchair-bound residents had already been brought in and settled at tables. Noel paused outside, hating this part every week.

“So I’ll see you Thursday morning, eight sharp,” Noel said. “I’ll go by your room before I leave and write it down on your calendar.”

Tristan blinked at him. “What’s Thursday?” Before Noel could answer, he held up a hand. “Wait. Wait.” He looked at his closed notebook, studied it intently, and then a connection was made. Noel saw the change in his expression. “I’m visiting.”

Hope bloomed like a flower inside of Noel’s chest, beautiful and unexpected. “That’s right. You’re going to come see Stratton with me.”

The delighted smile he got nearly broke his heart in pieces for how blinding it was. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

They hugged again, more joy this time, and then Tristan strode into the dining room with a confidence in his step that Noel hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Maybe Tristan was finally on a path toward healing and getting his life back. God knew he deserved it.

* * *

The sight of Jason’s truck already parked outside the trailer on Wednesday afternoon hit Shane in the gut. Jason worked at the Feed until five, and it was only a little after three. Home early wasn’t good.

Please, God, don’t let him have been fired.

They couldn’t afford Jason losing his primary job, not when Shane’s hours at the deli were barely thirty a week. He’d had a shorter shift today than expected, and he’d lost an hour tomorrow. The owner, Paul Mineo, was fair and kind, but he had a business to run, and Shane was one of the few people working at the deli who wasn’t family. He got cut first.

Shane slammed his car into his parking spot and bolted inside. Jason was asleep on the living room couch, an arm thrown over his eyes. Black swirls of tribal tattoos were inked all over both arms, and they disappeared beneath his East Street Pets polo to swirl on his chest. One long swirl on his left arm had been hand done in prison, the rest over the years since he got out.

The trailer screen door squeaking shut startled him awake.

Jason blinked bleary eyes at him, face paler than normal. He was eight years older than Shane, which made him a little more wrinkled and worn, and Shane only had one tattoo, but they were identical in every other way. Same dark brown, almost black hair. Same brown eyes and pointed chin and thick eyelashes. They were even the same damned height. Jason had been his only family since Shane was ten years old, and his big brother napping in the middle of the day was not normal.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asked.

“Nothing’s wrong, bud,” Jason replied. He arched his back, like he was trying to sit up, then changed his mind and stayed put. “Feel like shit is all.”

“Are you sick?”

“I don’t think so. No fever. Just really tired for no good reason. I dropped a fifty-pound bag of dog chow that I can usually throw no problem. Phil sent me home.”

Shane studied his brother, who looked like a stiff wind could blow him away to Oz. In the last ten years, Jason hadn’t had so much as a head cold, so what had knocked him on his ass in the middle of the day?

“Stop looking at me like that, Jo,” Jason snapped.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m going to explode into little bits. I just need a good night’s sleep, and I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Shane didn’t want to argue it. Jason was the most stubborn human being on the planet. He’d needed to be in order to win custody of Shane a decade ago. He might have been Shane’s only known relative, but he was also a convicted felon, and he’d spent a lot of money he didn’t have to hire a good attorney.

And then he’d spent more money they didn’t have when Shane lost his fucking mind two years later.

“You hungry? I’m going to fix something,” Shane said.

“Sure, whatever you’re having.” Jason cast a forlorn look at the TV remote on the far side table. Shane took pity and lobbed it at him before escaping to the kitchen.

They didn’t have much except frozen pizzas, canned soup and instant mashed potato flakes. Nothing super healthy for someone who was probably suffering from exhaustion. He heated up two cans of minestrone soup, because it had more vegetables in it than the other kinds.

Despite the noise of some action movie on TV, Jason had fallen asleep again by the time Shane brought him his soup. He woke Jason up with a firm shake of his foot, then helped him sit up. Jason didn’t protest the assistance, which only proved how shitty he felt. Shane tried not to watch him too intently while they ate.

“So how did Saturday go?” Jason asked out of the blue.

Shane barely managed not to slosh his hot soup. “What do you mean?”

“You had a gig, right?”

Code for he took his clothes off for money. Jason had always silently accepted those gigs, and he’d never once asked for a status update afterward. “Yeah. I left the cash on your dresser Sunday.”

“I know.”

“So obviously it went fine.”

“You know Elizabeth? Pretty blonde who works at the Feed? She said her cousin was at a birthday party Saturday that got broken up by police because of the noise.”

Shane’s gut rolled. “Yeah, that happened.”

Jason’s eyebrows lifted. “You were there for that?”

“I was on my way out. The cops didn’t cite me. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Shit, that came out way more defensive than he’d intended.

“Okay. I was curious if you were at the same party, and that’s a yes. That’s all I was asking.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Shane managed a few more spoonfuls of soup, but his stomach was protesting too much to force the rest. Jason hadn’t meant anything by bringing up the party, but goddamn, the memory still hurt. Shane wanted to confide in Jason. Tell him what happened and make sure it was okay to be so freaked out, because sometimes he was pretty sure he was overreacting. But Jason looked so fucking tired, as if he was going to fall face-first into his soup any second. He endured so much because of Shane; he didn’t need this shit on his plate too.

“I have a gig Friday night,” Shane said. He’d gotten the message a few hours ago. Gay party in Harrisburg. He way preferred gay parties out of town. Agreeing to do Saturday’s gig here in Stratton had been out of desperation because of his shrinking deli hours, and only now was he seeing how dangerous that had been. The last thing he needed was giggling women showing up at Mineo’s to ogle him and word getting back to his boss about his moonlighting.

Jason nodded. “Be careful.”

“Always am.”

Liar.

Shane carried their empty soup bowls back into the kitchen, washed the dishes, then hung the towel on a cabinet drawer to dry. By the time he returned to the living room, Jason had fallen back asleep with his head on the arm of the couch. Shane hefted his legs onto the cushions, then turned off the TV.

He retreated to his bedroom and let his brother rest. God knew he deserved the break.

Guilt slammed into his chest and sat there, heavy and hot, pressing Shane down. Jason had suffered so much, for so many years, all because a ten-year-old Shane couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Couldn’t keep a secret like his stepdad had asked. Telling had started an avalanche that was still slowly burying Jason alive beneath its weight.

Shane dug into his dresser’s bottom drawer, all the way into the back where he stashed some weed, his porn mags and some old videos. With the videos was the business card he hadn’t been able to toss, even when he’d walked away. Chet Green. Three years ago, he’d thrown a hefty chunk of money at Shane in exchange for the videos in his drawer. Videos that had probably earned Chet thousands in the meantime.

Chet might not even be in business anymore, but if he was…factoring in inflation and the fact that Shane was in better shape than ever thanks to his dancing, maybe he could earn enough. Enough to cut down on the interest they were paying, and for Jason finally to take a breath.

Shane’s gut rolled at the idea of being tossed around a set again, unable to control the sex he was having. He’d hated that last video with a passion, because he’d been told to fake it, take it and don’t call for a break unless something really fucking hurts. He hadn’t called out because that would stall, and he’d wanted the whole thing over as fast as possible.

He took out his phone. His reflection caught in the shiny surface. He didn’t have the worry lines that Jason did. He didn’t walk like the world was on his shoulders and it would all spin out of control if he wasn’t careful. Jason still had some amount of pride left.

Shane had none. Not anymore.

He punched Chet’s number into the phone, then hit Send.