Page 40 of Shades of Henry
“I’m not sure.” Henry didn’t have to look at his face to know Lance had assumed that carefully neutral look he used when he was trying not to talk about himself.
“Bobby still films scenes sometimes,” Curtis said quickly. “Just, you know, I could use the cash.”
He disappeared quickly, leaving a sort of numb silence in his wake.
“Bobby still films scenes?” Henry asked, scrambling to fill the silence.
“Sometimes.” Lance kept that arm around his chest, and Henry finally acknowledged it, rubbing the back of Lance’s hand fitfully. “He… he grew up in a hick town. I think it’s his way of being seen. Reg sort of gets off on it, so it fits them.”
“Mm.” Henry tried to disapprove, tried to argue, find another way for them. After all, he liked Reg. One of the things in Jackson Rivers’s favor was how gentle he’d been—how nonjudgmental, actually. Fuck. “I wish I understood,” he said finally, melting against Lance and giving in. “My brain is such a muddle right now. I… I just know I’m scared and a little sad and I’m too tired to be an asshole about you guys filming porn. It was such a line in the sand, so black-and-white when I got here. Sex for money, bad. Sex for love, good, as long as it’s a boy and a girl. But… butIdon’t even fit that idea.” He thought of Martin Sampson with his head bashed in, and the way he’d run out of that hotel room, without taking the money Henry was going to give him. Why? Had he recognized Henry’s name?
Henry couldn’t put it all together.
“Just sleep,” Lance murmured. “Fall asleep. I’ll lie down on the mattress after the movie. I won’t leave you.”
“You feel so good,” Henry confessed. “So safe. Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
His eyes closed, Lance’s arm locked over his chest like one of those bars on a roller coaster, and he dreamed of up and down, up and down, Lance’s arms wrapped around him, the two of them inseparable, even in the chaos.
And in the way of dreams, their clothes disappeared, and he was kissing his way down Lance’s bare chest, but he could never get past his navel.
“But how will I know you?” he whispered in the dream.
“You knew me before you kissed me,” Lance whispered back.
Henry woke up sometime in the dark of night, shivering, craving the feel of Lance’s mouth on his. He sat up on the couch, and Lance murmured, “I’m still here,” from the inflatable mattress.
Henry grunted and stumbled to the bathroom, the shivers not easing as he relieved himself and stumbled back.
He couldn’t make himself lie down on the couch alone again.
“Henry?” Lance said, sitting up gingerly.
“Can I…?” Oh God. He was an adult. He was asoldier.
“Yeah, sure.” Lance lifted the blanket and patted the spot next to him. “You didn’t even have to ask.”
Henry climbed in and burrowed against him. “Thanks,” he said, feeling naked.
“It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
He fell asleep believing that and slept soundly.
When he woke up again, the cops were pounding down the door.
Allies and Ally Cats
LANCE PACEDaround the apartment restlessly, his stomach churning. He’d thrown up once already, on purpose, and the purging seemed to have steadied his nerves a little—and made the giant breakfast he’d eaten feel a little less burdensome—but it wasn’t enough.
He checked his phone for the thousandth time, drawing up short when it actually buzzed.
Released from questioning. Home in fifteen.
Lance took a deep breath and tried to still the shaking in his stomach.
Henry had looked so alone when he’d walked out that morning. The cops had barely given him time to put on a pair of cargo shorts and some loafers, and he’d been grumpy and unshaven and….
And dear.
