Awakenings
THEY MADE love once more in the night, and while Brady didn’t have the experience he sensed Eric (Charlie—you can call him Charlie now) might have, he knew enough to call it “making love” in his heart and not “having sex.”
As much as the interlude had started out as a dream, as an escape from the terrible things that had happened the day before, Brady didn’t have that excuse anymore.
He’d called the man in his arms by his real name, and that came with responsibilities.
What is he doing here?
Where did he come from?
Where does his money come from?
Who are these people?
And that was just the beginning. Questions—real questions, not those dreamy questions that could be filed away as bothersome realities, such as “Are you on PReP?” or “Do you have lube?” began to pepper his consciousness.
He closed his eyes and breathed out and tried to put some semblance of order to his thoughts, and through his eyelids he could see the light of a Scorpio moon arrowing through the blinds.
See that light? Them’s my people.
The other questions fell away.
People grew up wanting to go into law enforcement or the military for two reasons. The first, best, most commonly voiced reason was to help people, to give back to the community, to do some good.
The second reason, the one that made people distrust law enforcement and the military, was to have the power to abuse civilians.
Brady knew his own heart—his father had been a sheriff’s deputy, and he’d loved his part in the community, keeping people safe, even from themselves. Brady had wanted to be like that.
His Uncle Jimmy had been an asshole who liked throwing his weight around. Brady had not wanted to be like him.
The people Brady had fallen in with, Ace’s people, wanted to help. The nurse in the hospital had been kind to the bank robber—but also kind to Brady. His boss had been helpful, and both of them had given him a chance to get away from Arlen Cuthbert and the men Brady had never fit in with.
Eric, Jai, and Ace had all had chances to kill. It certainly would have been easier to kill the bank robbers than it had been to make impossible knife throws and inflict almost magical bullet wounds in order to incapacitate the bad guys with guns but not kill them.
And they’d all shown up there on the word of Ernie, a seemingly sweet kid who liked to bake and who kept an eye out for “Ace’s people.”
Am I one of Ace’s people?
Brady pondered it as the moon drifted through the blinds. Would that be so bad, being a part of this group out in the desert? Was this—
Brady’s eyes shot open. Were these people the reason crime statistics in the area had gone down?
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to howl, and he must have made a noise because Eric grumbled in his arms.
“What’s got you riled?”
Brady shook his head. “I’ll tell you later,” he said, still poleaxed by the thought. But Eric was awake, regarding him soberly from Brady’s shoulder.
“Regrets, Deputy Carnegie?”
Brady shook his head, not even needing to think about it.
“No. It’s just….” His mouth twisted. “A year and a half ago, when I was transferring out here, I came because I wanted to be part of the force that was reducing crime statistics in this part of the state.” He gave a baffled laugh.
“Once it became clear that Arlen Cuthbert wasn’t it, I thought I’d stick around and figure it out.
” Another one of those laughs shook him, and Eric grunted.
“It’s not law enforcement,” he muttered.
“Nope,” Brady said, still laughing. “What about you?”
Eric gave the same sort of laugh. “Would you believe I thought there was a crime syndicate out here that might protect me, take me in, have my back?”
A crime syndicate? Why would he think—
“Oh Lord,” Brady muttered, not even wanting to know what kind of criminal he was in bed with. “We’re both right.”
Eric grunted. “And like it or not, we’re both with exactly the people we were looking for.”
The irony shook him—but only in his mind. His body was spent, and it was time to leave his mind behind, to glut his skin on the man in his arms, in the solid endorphin cascade of having made love for much of the day, and to give up trying to make sense of it all.
“Get some sleep, Charlie,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Eric mumbled against his chest, and in his head, Brady heard Ace’s voice again.
Them’s my people. There’s more’n you think.
There must be, Brady thought groggily. He was one of them now.
THE NEXT morning he and Eric were up early, out running around the sidewalks of the little neighborhood, although Brady wanted to know why Eric hadn’t figured out where he could run in the desert.
“I’ve been here about a week longer than you,” Eric muttered, and that surprised him.
“You seem like you’ve known everybody here forever,” Brady said, stretching a little in the clean shorts and sleeveless T-shirt that had been dropped off with some of his other clothes.
“Nope,” Eric told him, doing the same. “Let’s face it—we were both searching for the same thing when we fell through that little divot in the desert, Brady. We fell together, that’s all.”
Brady grunted, not wanting to think about it. Eric had awakened him half an hour earlier, letting him know they had until nine o’clock to be exercised, oxygenated, rinsed off, and caffeinated before they would be meeting at Ace and Sonny’s.
“Why Ace and Sonny’s?” he asked now, glancing around the little neighborhood as they, of one mind, stopped stretching and started to run. Three other couples lived here, right?
Eric shrugged. “Because of all of us, Ace and Sonny have the most to lose.”
Brady wanted to challenge that. They had the garage in the middle of nowhere and the tiny house. Compared to the homes back here, to the lives he’d seen—more comfortable, less edge-of-the-universe—Ace and Sonny seemed like the easiest two people to displace.
Them’s my people. There’s more’n you think.
And it kept coming down to that, didn’t it?
These houses here, the people who lived in them—they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Ace and Sonny.
For some reason that little gas station on the edge of the universe meant something.
It was that soft glowing light in the desert, not just for…
for giant Russian mob enforcers, but also for little, kind-voiced nurses.
For Brady, the police officer, and Eric, who had very accurate aim, whether it was with a gun or with a can of olives.
“You disagree?” Eric asked, as the thud of their sneakers rang softly in the sunrise quiet.
“No,” Brady said. “You’re right.”
“Then why the face?”
Brady shook his head and pushed himself a little bit faster. He wondered when he’d learn to stop asking questions. Every question I ask gets me closer to who you are, Charlie, and I’m not sure if I could survive that.
But their breaths were nearly synchronous, as were their footfalls as they traversed the neighborhood, and Brady couldn’t remember, in his entire life, that happening with another human being.
TO HIS surprise, the blond nurse was in the cashier stand when they got to the garage. Sonny could be heard swearing underneath a dark blue Chevy Tahoe in the pit, and Ace and Jai were running tests on a Honda Odyssey under the overhang, using a monitor hooked up to the inside of the engine.
“All right, Jai,” Ace called to the big man, who was in the vehicle working the pedals. “You can turn ’er off now. We was right, her belts are going. I’ll give that lady a ring so she knows if she wants to risk it to LA, or if she wants to stay here while we order parts.”
Brady grimaced involuntarily. Either way was pricey, but he’d heard the chuff-whine of the engine as he’d gotten out of the now-familiar sedan that they’d given Eric to drive.
“I think it was Ernie’s old car,” Eric had explained. “The first day I got here, it’s what he was driving, but—”
“Sonny refurbished a Kia for him,” Brady said, remembering that rather sweet exchange. “Do they do that a lot?”
Eric let out a breath. “Who am I talking to?” he asked carefully. “The cop or the friend?”
And that was enough to tell Brady everything. “You’re talking to a guy who’s not going to care if the VINs are changed up and the registration is forged,” he answered dryly. “Can none of these people drive a legal vehicle?”
Eric flashed him a quick grin. “Ace, but his car—”
“Is the illegal street racer,” Brady filled in dryly. “Irony in the Desert, my posthumous biography.”
“You should start working on your pseudonym now,” Eric told him, but Brady saw his lips twist and thought maybe they were okay.
Ace glanced up at them and called “Sonny, me and Jai are gonna go talk in the house, okay? George, you okay out here?”
“I love to spend my Sunday mornings at the cashier stand, Ace,” George retorted. “You should know that by now.”
Ace shot him a quick grin in obvious appreciation for his sarcasm and said, “You like to spend your days off going hiking in Tehachapi in winter. I don’t know what weirdness turns your key, but if Jai can love you for it, I’ll accept your kinks.”
George chortled, and Jai threw his head back and belly laughed, the sound belting out and ringing through the garage. Even Sonny snickered, the sound echoing from the mechanic’s pit at their feet.
Eric smiled and went to follow the two of them into the house—which looked to be crowded given the extra cars in front, including one bright red convertible Maserati Brady hadn’t seen yet—while Brady hung back.
Ace must have sensed his hesitation because he turned sharply. “Officer Carnegie, not to put too fine a point on it, but you are the reason for this here meeting.”
Brady nodded and gave George a quick smile. “I just wanted to thank Nurse Carmichael for his help Friday.”
George winked. “No thanks necessary, sir.” Then he sobered. “I’m sorry about how things turned out. Amal and I were both off when your witness died, but I’ve got a friend at the ME’s who can tell me what happened next week.”