Here for You (4 page)

The doorbell jangled, and Cole tried to look casual, but failed as his neck turned fast enough to give him whiplash.

It was a group of young girls. Not Ian. Cole blinked. He realized he’d been hoping to see Ian and took a deep breath. He obviously needed to unravel this weird attraction. And then get over it—fast.

“Got to work,” Andrew said. “Duty calls.” But a smile lingered on his face.

He might gripe about his long hours, Cole thought, but anybody could tell Andrew was proud of his café. For Cole, his job was only a job. Andrew might envy his time with his housemates, but Cole envied Andrew’s success, and he was only a few years older than Cole. Where would Cole be in a few years? A big chasm of the unknown yawned beneath his feet.

“Yeah, I’ll see you later.” Cole left the café and Andrew to his other customers. He spent the next few hours taking care of other boring errands, but his heart felt oddly restless for the rest of the day.

C
OLE
WAS
happier when Saturday arrived and he met up with his housemates for an early dinner as planned. He had to work later at the bar, but he was looking forward to these few hours with the others. “Where’s everybody else?” Cole asked Tomas.

Marc had cooked a chicken but was nowhere to be seen, and Brendan and River were not there either.

“Relax, Papa Bear. They will all be here soon.” Tomas stepped out back and fed one of the stray cats that lived in the neighborhood.

“He’ll never go away now.”

“Poor fella.” Tomas stroked the mangled fur. “Wish I could bring you inside, buddy.”

Tomas was crazy for animals, especially large mongrel dogs. He volunteered at the local shelter. Unfortunately their house rental agreement didn’t allow any pets.

“I have gorgonzola twice-baked potatoes and chocolate silk pie,” Marc declared as he opened the front door.

“Marry me,” Cole said. “I don’t give a shit if it’s legal.”

“Only if you beat me at
Call of Duty
.” Marc smirked.

He was the best at video games in the bunch. Tomas helped Marc with his bags and rummaged through the contents. “Oh, you have bread and cheese too.”

“It’s family dinner night.” A joyous feeling invaded the center of Cole’s chest. Growing up, he never had meals like this, or any kind of real family meal. He ate alone or didn’t eat.

“Any wine?” Brendan came down the stairs, surprising them.

“Hey! We didn’t even know you were home.”

“My bicycle is out back. I took a quick shower.”

“I got a nice chardonnay,” Marc held up a bottle.

“Any beer?” Cole asked. At Marc’s shake of the head, he frowned. “Well, damn.”

“You could have brought home something from the bar.” Marc used the corkscrew, then poured the wine.

“Thank you!” Brendan sighed with pleasure, taking a glass from Marc.

“I guess I’ll settle.” Cole reached for a glass, and Marc playfully slapped his hands.

“Say please.”

“Stop teasing Eggs,” Tomas said.

“Stop calling me Eggs,” Cole said.

“How many times did you lock yourself out of the house this week?” Tomas asked. “You have to admit, you earned it.”

“Hey!” Cole shoved at his solid, broad chest. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Now that I’d like to see,” Marc said.

Brendan lifted his glass. “To the usual bitching at family night.”

“Except we still need River.”

“I texted him. He said he’d try,” Brendan said. His face eased into a relaxed smile as he eyed Cole taking a sip of wine. “And how was your shift the other night? Did that hot guy ever show up?”

“No. So I had to settle once again. No hot guy and now no beer. Poor me.”

“Poor you,” Brendan agreed, his eyes laughing. “Never getting what you want.”

“How true,” Cole muttered under his breath.

“So nobody crushworthy?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t get crushes,” Cole answered. “They all crush on me.”

Brendan rolled his eyes. “And I’m sure you forget them right afterward. Do you even recall your first ever crush? When was it? Preschool. I bet you don’t know his name.”

“Who was your first crush, hotshot?” Cole needled back. “I know who your current one is—”

“Shut up! I told you that many months ago in confidence.” Brendan reddened.

True, he’d confided to Cole about crushing on Ian a while back, but it was obvious he still had feelings for him.

“Okay, forget it.” Suddenly, the fun had gone out of their bitching back and forth. It wasn’t as if Cole wanted to discuss Ian either.

“Thank you. I will forget it. But I will share my first crush,” Brendan said.

He paused dramatically. His light brown eyes twinkled with mischief, and when he smiled, Brendan had dimples the size of pennies. But it was his sunny nature that enticed most guys. Brendan simply lit up a room.

“Who was it?” Tomas asked.

“Matt Hathaway. Man, oh man, did I have it bad for him. He had reddish brown hair, blue eyes, and cute freckles across his nose. I loved those freckles. He had them everywhere. I just wanted to strip him naked and play connect the dots.” Brendan gave a smile and a shrug.

“Did he want you back?” Marc asked. He and Tomas had the food out, and they all sat down at the table.

“Naw. He had a girlfriend. But when I let him cheat off me in history class a few times, I could smell his skin, his spicy cologne. Then I’d go home and hump my pillow all night.”

“You let somebody cheat off you? I’m shocked,” Marc said.

“I’m more shocked that he humped the pillow,” Cole added. “So what happened to Matt?”

“Oh hell, poor Matt. Got that girlfriend pregnant our junior year. He probably has three kids by now and a mortgage, and a beer gut. But I still think about his freckles some days.”

Cole grinned. He could almost hear the words in his head forming, creating an image of a young Brendan pursuing the straight boy in his class with unrequited longing:
When the bell rang, I stayed at my desk, gazing at the back of Matt Hathaway’s shoulders, where a smattering of freckles—

“Eggs? Hey, pass me the soda. I’ve only been asking for two minutes.”

“Oh, sorry.” Cole snapped out of it and passed Marc his Coke. For years Cole tried to stick to a journal and ignore the weird voices that came into his head. He really needed to focus more on what was in front of him and stop daydreaming.

Brendan smiled across the table at him as if he knew exactly what Cole had been doing. “So, Cole, no crushes? Really? Never?”

Cole broke into a sweat as the thought of Ian entered his mind. “Nope. Never.”

“I remember my first crush,” Tomas said.

His eyes locked on Marc’s. Cole waited to see if either of them would say more, but as usual, Marc and Tomas remained quiet on all the history between them.

Tomas and Marc had been best friends since they were twelve years old. They’d survived their childhood in the rougher areas of Miami, and if there was anything more between them aside from friendship, it appeared long over by the time Cole had moved in. Occasionally Cole had caught them looking at each other, their faces troubled, their eyes hungry, like now…. But the looks never lasted, and they never spoke of it.

At that moment River saved them from the awkwardness as he burst through the door.

“You made it!” Brendan got up and clapped his back.

“Yeah.” River, never one for many words, sat down. He smiled at them all briefly and then grabbed a piece of bread.

“We were just talking about first crushes,” Tomas said. “Who was yours?”

“The Hulk.” River chewed his bread, but after he swallowed, he said nothing more.

“The Hulk?” Brendan mused, shooting him a sweet smile. “You like them big and built and green?”

“And angry,” Cole added. “Or have you moved on to other superheroes in your more mature years?”

“Maybe.” River ate a second piece of bread.

“I’m all for superhero porn night.” Cole grinned. “Bring it on.”

“You’re for
any
type of porn night,” Tomas said.

River chuckled, drawing surprised looks, because he rarely laughed.

River had been the last to move in. Brendan posted a room for rent at school when they’d realized money was tight. They had turned what had been a loft into a small extra room and charged some rent, after getting permission from Evie, the owner of the house, to do it. Evie rented places all over town, and she liked “you boys,” as she referred to them, because they paid their rent on time… usually. Evie, a single mom in her late thirties, was a looker too. She’d chopped her hair off and wore no makeup. She was mouthy and tough talking on the exterior, but still couldn’t completely hide her delicate features. She and her kids lived a few blocks away. When her ex had deserted them, Evie kept her family going financially—with the few properties she fought her ex over in court along with his back child support—and emotionally too.

River was the hardest to bond to in their tiny family. Shy and exotic-looking, with light green eyes and a mop of unruly dark curls, River barely spoke. He didn’t seem to think too much about his looks either, always buried under the hood of a car or joyriding on his motorcycle. All Cole had learned about River in the first six months since he’d moved in was that he disliked sharing his cereal and he worked as a mechanic. Keeping to himself, River never offered any information about his past. Cole didn’t resent him for that, as he understood River’s reticence. They had all shed their backgrounds. Cole had done it too. But it did make him curious, and it bothered him that River remained separate.

“Give him time. He’s only been here a few months,” Brendan had said.

River did soften when Brendan was nearby, but overall he remained a mystery. River was a person of few words and capable of deep silences. However, he fixed Marc’s broken-down car for free on several occasions, and once hauled all their sopping-wet laundry to a Laundromat when their washer broke in the middle of a spin cycle. Nobody could claim to know River, not really, but he was slowly becoming one of them, building a bridge to where they were. And he’d shown up at It’s Five O’clock Somewhere a few times, tipping Cole extra even though he only sipped a Sprite. Yes, there was definite hope for River, and that made Brendan especially happy, since Brendan liked everybody to get along. “Let’s not fight,” he’d say, whenever they’d snap at each other over tiny gripes. Tomas and Marc went at it the most, bickering like two-year-olds, but with an undercurrent of past hurts.

“Oh, by the way,” Brendan said to River, “I saw a couch sitting out on First and Powerline. It was a thing of beauty. If I wasn’t on my bicycle, I would have taken it. It might still be there.”

“We don’t need another couch.” Marc scowled.

“What color?” River asked.

“Green with flowers. I know—” Brendan held up a hand. “But it could be redone so easily.” His eyes danced at Marc’s groan.

River and Brendan enjoyed garbage hunting, which they claimed was a better form of shopping, hauling back lawn chairs or end tables and fixing them up into useable condition, co-conspirators of the dumpsters.

“One person’s trash….” Brendan always grinned.

Cole never joined them or commented on it. There’d been too many times when his mother was between boyfriends and he was hungry, and he’d gone outside the fast-food restaurants to wait for them to toss out uneaten burgers and fries. But this wasn’t something he shared with the others. He could have shared it—Cole knew his brothers would be there for him and never judge him—but he kept some things to himself.

“I don’t care if I had thrown something away,” Marc said. “If I saw some asshole out at the curb taking my garbage, I’d be pissed.”

Tomas put him into a pretend choke hold, then tickled Marc’s side. “But you’re always pissed about one thing or another, yeah? So what would it matter?”

Marc gave a big smile even as he flipped Tomas his middle finger.

“Where’s dessert?” Brendan asked. He loved chocolate. He smacked his lips in appreciation as Marc got the silk pie out. “I’m organizing a 10K race with my bicycle group next week, and I need lots of calories to burn off. Anybody want to join us for the race?”

They all groaned. Brendan never sat around and simply relaxed. He went from one activity to another, from furniture diving to law school study groups to bicycle races—nobody could keep up with his ever-growing projects. Personally, Cole found it fine to sit on his ass and watch television on his days off. Not Brendan. He didn’t take days off.

After dinner Brendan cajoled them to pile into Tomas’s truck and head to the beach. He started with Cole first as they did the dishes together.

“It’s summer and still light. C’mon. Please?”

Cole cocked an eyebrow. “I love how you beg. Do it some more.”

“I don’t beg.” Brendan made a deliberately goofy face, sticking his tongue toward his nose and then panting like a dog. “Much.”

Cole laughed. “Let’s go ask the others.” He hooked an arm around a happy Brendan. “You won’t drop it until I agree anyhow.”

“True.”

“You want to go for a quick swim before sunset?” Cole asked Marc. He already knew the answer. He looked at Brendan and they communicated silently.

“We’d love for you to join us. It will be fast?” Brendan said.

“Not me. I’m up too early.”

“Sure.” Brendan smiled. “I understand.” His gaze looked kind and steady.

All of them knew that Marc rarely went to the beach. When he did go, he wore swim shirts and long trunks and acted uncomfortable with it all. Marc had a firm, muscled body, but he was self-conscious. Once, at the gym, Cole and Brendan had seen why.

“I’m off to punch the shit out of some boxing bags,” Marc had told them.

He liked a sweaty, adrenaline-pumped workout, one that left him stinking and exhausted, while Cole and Brendan preferred the StairMasters or light weights. “Unless you ladies have finally found your balls and want a real workout?”

“Not me.” Cole gave an exaggerated yawn. “I’ll just sip some tea and walk the treadmill.”