Page 15 of Shades of Henry
Henry’s brother was a businessman, a good parent, and he shot and edited porn for a living.
And Henry, who had lied to his family and to himself for the past ten years, was in the middle of all of this, pretending to be straight.
Aces.
“Henry. So good to see you on time.”
Henry smiled grimly at Galen.
Galen had probably been the prettiest man in any room, once upon a time. A brutal motorcycle accident—and a few years addicted to painkillers—had left him a little thinner, with a scar he tried to hide behind tousled hair and scruff on his chin. Henry privately admitted that the guy was still stunning—his brown eyes and lazy-eyed smile would have appealed very much to Henry once upon a time.
But Galen was a dry, sarcastic bastard who seemed to sense Henry’s general judgment of all matters porn, and he was really good at leaving little verbal slices just under Henry’s skin.
“Lance gave me a ride,” he said, giving credit.
“Ah, Lancelot—even helping out the dragon.”
Henry smiled thinly. “Not all of us dragons have our own chariots,” he said, and Galen’s lazily lifted eyebrow should have warned him.
“What a good vocabulary word, Henry. A few more of those and you can go out and get your own job.”
“I could go now,” Henry said sweetly. “But then you’d have to take an Uber to the airport, and that would piss all sorts of people off.”
Including Davy, dammit. And Henry was trying so hard to do right by his brother.
“Galen….” John looked at Galen expectantly, and Galen glanced away, backing from the door and letting Henry in. John didn’tappearto be a force of nature. Five-foot-nine, maybe, with red hair and freckles, and perpetually ten pounds underweight with bony ankles and Opie ears, John was neither handsome nor powerful. But he seemed to have good ideas—and the kids in the flophouse talked about him like he was their favorite teacher.
Henry had to admit that they’d all been paid regularly and treated well as employees. He’d heard the boys talking—they got robes before and after scenes. They were tested often and counseled well on how to avoid disease and how to stay safe in general if they were going to do other gigs besides just porn. They were even given a chance to go to clubs and be celebrities, promoting their faces, their personalities, and their videos. It wasn’t a job Henry would have chosen, but he could tell that John was trying to run a respectable outfit and give his boys every chance possible.
And he seemed to owe Davy some sort of blood bond, because he was constantly reminding Galen not to be an asshole.
“I apologize, Henry,” Galen said, glaring at John through slitted eyes. “If you can get my carry-on bag, we can proceed.”
“Travel safe,” John said, putting a casual hand on his lover’s hip. “Play nice with the other lawyers. Don’t eat anybody for breakfast.”
Galen bit his lip almost shyly and leaned in for a kiss, and Henry had to look away. Not because he was disgusted—although he remembered the body language, the quiet huff, the rolled eyes—but because he was touched. There was a tenderness there. Galen could be a bastard with a dagger for a tongue, but he seemed to melt when this scrawny redheaded porn-pervert said nice things to him. And Henry wasn’t iron or stone. He was as susceptible to romance as the next guy—if the next guy had been yearning for his lover to be that kind, that open about his feelings for his entire life.
Henry grabbed the practical carry-on and the less practical garment bag, and passed the two of them, engaged in their goodbye kiss, on the way out the door that led from the kitchen to the garage. John had property in Florida, and Galen had old contacts he was trying to break away from, cleanly and legally. He’d made this trip twice before since Henry had shown up on Davy’s door, and this was supposed to be the last time for a while.
Henry situated the luggage in John’s newest acquisition, a Buick LeSabre, as old-fashioned as it was luxurious. He turned toward the connecting door to the kitchen and walked to the steps, ready and waiting to help Galen down. Galen took them by himself, eyes narrowed in concentration, cane wielded with sheer force of will. The accident that had scarred his face had nearly cleaved his foot in half, and while he could walk without the cane most of the time, when he was stiff or there were stairs involved, he seemed to really need it.
Henry could respect a guy who tried to work past an injury, and he tried to be a gentleman.
Galen was just crap at accepting help was all.
Still, Henry waited by the car door and made sure Galen was belted in before closing it and opening the garage door to the bright spring day beyond. The dismal rain hadn’t lasted long. They were in the first week of May and it was almost hot, and Henry was wondering what the summer would hold. As Henry made his way down the tree-lined streets of what he privately admitted was a very pretty city, he couldn’t stop himself from commenting on the weather.
“It’s gorgeous today. When do you think the rain will come back?”
The soft snort behind him wasn’t reassuring. “October if we’re lucky.”
Henry took in the green lawns and the leafy canopy overhead. “No, seriously.”
“No, seriously. This part of the country is in the tail-end of a drought, Henry. John won’t even flush the toilet after a piss—none of the locals will.”
Henry blinked as several moments from the past month in the flophouse came into focus. “Oh my God! I thought those assholes had been born in a barn!”
For once Galen’s dry laugh was not aimed at him. “No, sir—that was a concerted community effort to not flush away a precious resource. You’re welcome.”
