Band of Brothers #2
“Oh Jesus,” Anthony muttered. He’d seen the passageway from where it ended up, which was inside the ranch house proper, in Ed and Julie Royal’s den. He’d even crawled through it toward the swimming pool and back, but to say he’d enjoyed the experience would be an overstatement.
“I’m sorry,” Reg told him sincerely. “I know this isn’t your favorite.”
Anthony pulled himself out of his mild claustrophobia enough to grin at Reg. “I just can’t believe this ever came in handy,” he said, telling the absolute truth. “Now you go first while I text Dean and Marcus.”
Anthony: Under the house now. Saw lots of big black vehicles on the way.
Marcus: Yeah, I know, somebody called actual ICE on us. I’m in the kitchen enjoying lemonade until they knock. The car hidden?
Anthony: Smaller carport. You got backup? These guys aren’t… good people.
Marcus: Dean’s on the way. Probably quickly, which is why he’s not replying. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be safe. You guys stay quiet.
Anthony: Will do.
One step down the staircase, and another. He was low enough to reach up and grab the ring to pull the floor down after him, grateful for the light sconces in the corner.
“Oh,” he muttered. “How cozy.”
This end of the passage went a little deeper than the end near the house.
Maybe five feet deep. Reg had apparently stocked it.
There was a tiny portajohn, the kind you found in RVs; a box of trail mix, well wrapped to hopefully repel rats; and a case of water, as well as a reusable nylon trash bag.
There were also several portable stools and some heavy-duty sleeping bags.
The boys were already laying the sleeping bags out to sit on, cross-legged, putting their backs up against the wall.
Anthony took the offered camp stool Reg indicated and sank onto it gratefully.
He was a little over six feet tall, and standing upright was impossible for him—for any of them actually.
Having a place to sit was a relief because it was easier to pretend he was in a regular sitting room when he didn’t keep walloping the back of his head.
“So,” he said when he was settled, “what now?”
“Now we wait,” Reg said grimly. “Marcus should be able to get rid of the ICE agents—unless they take him into custody for being too brown for them—”
“Ouch.” Anthony winced. Yes, he knew it was true that the rogue government agency was committing atrocities in the name of a corrupt administration, but his father had given so much of his life to the DOJ that it was still hard to hear.
“I’m sorry,” Reg said. “Your dad is awesome, but some of these undertrained morons would shoot him for having a limp, and they’d shoot Marcus for being too brown, and―”
Anthony grabbed his hand, hearing a thread of panic in Reg’s voice. “We can’t make it better by imagining the worst,” he said calmly. “We’re set down here, the boys are safe, and Marcus is smart. Take a breath.”
Reg nodded, and for the umpteenth time, Anthony wondered. Reg was obviously a cautious person by nature, but what had made him sure, so absolutely certain, that the worst would happen?
“Mr. Royal,” Reynaldo said after a few quiet moments, “what made you decide to build secret tunnels under your houses?”
Reg opened his eyes and focused on the question while Anthony blessed the kid for providing a distraction.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “We were burying the coaxial cables and the fiber optics to increase the bandwidth of the computer system, and I realized that the soil was really compact and the bedrock was far enough down to give us some tunneling room. I had a friend who likes to mine—you know, for gold?—and we spent a summer researching how to build the safest tunnels, and I did a lot of free IT work for my other friend with access to a backhoe while my parents were gone, and, well, a little bit of skirting around the pool and here we are.”
“So you just planned to hide people from the government on a whim?” Ilia asked, sounding understandably doubtful.
“I like being prepared for an emergency,” Reg said placidly. “I have a secret escape from my apartment too.” He gave that shrug again. “It’s a personality quirk.”
“You got any more of those?” Ilia persisted. “I’m asking for Anthony, who might want to know.”
Anthony snorted. “Yes, I do want to know, but unlike some people, I know to bide my time and not to pry.”
Ilia shrugged. “You two may think you have tomorrow, but me and Reynaldo here know better, right, Rey?”
Reynaldo bit his lip, and Anthony got the feeling that the other boy was a little closer to Reg’s temperament than Ilia. “Preparation is good,” Reynaldo said. “Thinking ahead is good. Look at us here. We’re as safe as we can get. This is a good thing.”
Reg let out a little laugh. “My mother used to bring home store leftovers, the stuff that expired the day before but hadn’t really gone bad yet.
She brought that home every Friday. We’d have a big party for all our friends.
They’d come, and we’d eat nothing but frozen pizza all night, with all the fruit that was perfectly ripe but wouldn’t be ripe tomorrow, you know? ”
Both boys stared at him avidly and nodded.
“And then she’d give away bags of canned and dry goods to the kids who didn’t have much at home. The pizza was an excuse for all of us to help her distribute the food into the bags and find the friends we knew who needed it. I think we probably fed half the county at one time or another.”
“You didn’t keep any of that?” Reynaldo said. “Or sell it?”
Reg shook his head. “Some of it wouldn’t keep, and that needed to be eaten then.
And as for the rest, we just had faith, you know?
My parents kept working, even though there were seven of us and they didn’t make a lot of money.
And it was so weird. At least once a week, somebody’s parents would stop by and drop off jars of jam their grandmother had made or corn flour from a brother coming from Mexico—there was always enough.
” He shrugged. “A perfect peach? That can’t wait.
A frozen pizza? That can wait, but only for so long.
Sometimes you save and sometimes you savor, right? ”
Anthony was still holding his hand from when Reg had been losing his shit, and now he squeezed it, wanting to kiss the man next to him so bad he couldn’t breathe.
Savor me, dammit! I am right here!
Ilia was not buying it either. “That’s some great advice coming from a guy ignoring the guy holding his hand.”
Reg stared at him and then noticed his hand and Anthony’s tangled together.
Please don’t pull away, Anthony begged, and to his relief, to his profound relief, for once Reg didn’t.
He gave Anthony a sideways glance and smiled a little. “He’s just glad we avoided the Frida Kahlo documentary,” he said mildly.
And suddenly Anthony absolutely needed him to know the truth. “I would have sat through the documentary for the excuse to hold your hand.”
The sideways glance turned to a full-on stare, and Reg’s mouth parted a little, and Anthony wanted to kiss him so badly his chest ached with it.
In the close space across from them, he heard twin gasps as the boys watched them have this moment, and he met Reg’s eyes grimly, spotting the exact instant when it occurred to Reg, too, that they weren’t alone.
Reg’s expression of honest regret sustained Anthony, gave him hope.
“It would have been a good date,” he said softly, and then he squeezed Anthony’s hand.
Anthony nodded and then glared at the two boys. “This,” he said firmly, “is not for you. Anybody have a game they want to—”
There was a faint rumbling, and Anthony realized with a panicky flare of claustrophobia that they could feel the vibrations of the vehicles coming over the cattle guard.
“Oh God,” Reg muttered, “I hope all the cats are in. I don’t trust those assholes not to run them over.”
“Ooh, Mr. Royal, you are walking the wild side,” Reynaldo teased softly.
Reg scowled at the boy and was obviously going to make a retort when the rumbling stopped and an ominous silence began.
“I can’t do this,” Reg muttered. “You guys stay here. I’m going to go check on Marcus and—”
Anthony stilled him before he could make his way down the tunnel. “No,” he murmured. “If they decide to take Marcus into custody there’s nothing you can do but get arrested with him. The boys need you.”
Reg gave them an anguished look, and Anthony hated himself a little, because it was clear that making this choice between someone Reg considered family and the boys who needed his protection was absolutely ripping his soul out. After a few agonized breaths and an eternity, Reg nodded.
“Of course,” he said. “Sorry, guys. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch like that.”
“We know you wouldn’t, Mr. Royal,” Reynaldo said loyally. “You’re solid like that.”
“Yeah, he’s solid,” Ilia said doubtfully, “but he’d still try to rescue a kitten in a tree while telling us to get out of the way ’cause the tree might fall on our heads.”
“He likes us all safe,” Reynaldo said. “It’s not a bad thing.”
Ilia blew out a breath and leaned his head against Reynaldo’s shoulder. “The thing about you and him,” he said, “is you both think that’s possible. It’s sweet. Not reality, but sweet. That’s okay. If we die tomorrow, we still got to kiss.”
Reg and Anthony met eyes then, and Anthony knew his own glance was heartbroken. How terribly, terribly sad that the boy’s first kiss with someone he really liked would be shadowed over with “if we die tomorrow.”
But Reg’s expression was older, wiser, and Anthony had to swallow.
It was clear—so very clear—from Registrar Royal’s expression that he’d lived with that shadow his entire life. What would it take, Anthony wondered, to remove that shadow, if only for the length of a kiss?
It was almost as big a goal as the kiss itself.
The conversation faded, and while they left a small electric lantern on, for a while it was just the four of them, breathing in the cool semi-darkness and hoping for the best.
Anthony wondered about Dean’s plan and hoped it was going to work.