Page 10 of Shades of Henry
“So am I,” Henry said, like that depressed him. “I thought… I thought I’d have my life together by now.”
“Hey, mine’s just starting out,” Lance said. “I make no judgments.”
“I do.” Henry let out a big breath. “My father taught me to judge and judge hard and judge mean. And I learned that lesson so well, I judged myself right into a fucking corner.”
“And then what?” Lance asked.
“I gnawed off my own leg to get out of it.” Henry let out a broken laugh. “I’m making no goddamned sense. Pizza. Meet the kids. One thing at a time, right?”
“Right.” Lance figured there’d be more than that; therehadto be more than that. But unlike his brother, who had “Den Mother” written all over him, Henry seemed to be a much tougher nut to crack. A handsome nut—hard mouth, flat eyes, soldier’s bearing and all—but a tough one. In truth, Lance was expecting Henry’s first meeting with the guys to be a disaster.
He was pleasantly surprised.
The guys—he’d been right, Zeppelin had been in Curtis’s room, along with Fisher, who didn’t live at the apartment but had just sort of come along for the come—were all gathered in the living room, Cotton included, watching some sort of Hallmark romance movie and eating popcorn.
Lance walked in, followed by Henry carrying two XL pizzas, and they were suddenly the heroes of the hour.
“Oh my God!” Randy stood up, his obviously still growing frame showing ribs in spite of the almost continuous working out he did. “Is that food? Real food? Can I have some?”
“My treat,” Lance said dryly. “We’ve got a vegetarian and an all-meat.”
Cotton sighed, his brown-velvet eyes—surrounded by black lashes and black hair—were huge in his fair-skinned face. God, this kid looked fragile. Who let him turn eighteen and get naked with strangers? “No vegan?” he asked pitifully.
“Ta-da!” Lance pulled out a small gluten-free, vegan cheese and spinach special that he’d been holding in his free hand. “Vegan it is!”
“Woo-hoo!” That suddenly bright look on Cotton’s face was all Lance needed. Yay! He’d made this kid happy. “You love me.”
“Yes, little brother, I do.”
“Plates?” Henry said, setting the boxes down and opening them up, then setting the bag with the napkins and parmesan cheese down next to it.
“Who needs plates?” Billy asked. “There’s napkins.” Billy was in his early twenties, short, muscular, Latino, and quiet. He was one of the few guys who’d been there for over a year, and he and Lance… well, they weren’t exactly brothers, but they had some of the same damage. Some of the same damage they didn’t share with anyone else.
“What’s a plate?” Zeppelin asked, shaking his sandy blond hair out of his puppy-dog brown eyes. He wore it down to his shoulders, and it was practically all he wore, almost all year round. Right now, his outfit consisted of a pair of holey blue briefs, and Lance rolled his eyes.
“A plate is a thing I’m going to make you hold in front of your balls unless you go put some shorts on. Guys, this is Henry. He doesn’t do scenes, and if you want to know if he does guys, ask him, but look at his muscles and his scowl first.”
He looked over his shoulder and gave Henry a game smile, and Henry scowled theatrically for his benefit.
And then he winked.
Lance saw it, but the rest of the guys couldn’t, and so when he turned that scowl on the rest of the household and they all straightened their posture and stared at him with a little bit of fear, Lance had to contain a smirk.
“Plates,” Henry reiterated, and then he gave Zeppelin a particularly hard stare. “And pants.”
And for all they were supposed to be adults, Lance hadn’t seen such scrambling to obey an authority figure since the second grade.
In three minutes there were six young men wearing clothes, gathered around the table with garage-sale dinnerware, getting out cups and gallons of milk.
Henry sat down at the table, but as he did, he told them, “A table’s a luxury on deployment. By all means, sit where you want—this is just me.”
The guys all nodded respectfully and reassembled, draping themselves over the couch, the recliner, and the inflatable mattress that had apparently been brought out to accommodate sheer numbers.
But they didn’t leave Henry alone.
“Deployment?” Billy asked. “When’d you get back?”
Henry finished chewing his first bite of meat-lover’s special and swallowed. “About two weeks ago.”
