Page 93 of Shades of Henry
Lance looked at Henry again, his heart aching.Please, Henry, don’t go with him. Don’t. You’re not his. You never were.
He saw the indecision in Henry’s face, the stoicism. Henry had been determined to do it all alone, from paying his share of the rent to keeping this man—and their terrible secrets—locked in his heart. But God, that wasn’t him anymore. Couldn’t he see that?
For just a moment, Lance could see Henry forgetting all the hard-learned lessons of the last couple of months, and his heart almost shattered.
Then Henry shook his head. “It was easy when we were alone,” he said softly. “Wasn’t it?”
Mal wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You and me, we had a good time alone, right?”
Lance wasn’t even aware he’d moved until Henry turned and put a gentle hand on his chest. “No, baby,” he said softly. “Not over him.”
“Me and you,” Mal snapped, trying to intrude into their contact. “We’re how it’s supposed to be, right, Henry?”
“I thought so,” Henry said. “But… but that’s only because I didn’t know what good was.” He dropped the hand from Lance’s chest and turned back to Mal. “You had me so fooled, I thought good was when you remembered lube or didn’t knock me around. I thought good was when we got leave together and you didn’t have to tell people I broke up a bar fight with my face. That’s not a good time, Malachi. That’s a bad time. That’s eleven bad years of averybad time. You think I’m going to go back to that now?”
“Henry, it wasn’t like that!” Mal cajoled. “I only ever hit you when you got ideas about leaving, and look at us—”
“You destroyed my career, Malachi. I had a right to leave, and you took the Army away from me. You think that means you care?”
Mal shook that off. “It was a shitty job, anyway. C’mon, man. You can’t just dump me. We’ve been tight since grade school!”
“And that’s where it should have stayed,” Henry snapped. “You’remarried,Mal. Did that escape your attention?”
Malachi grinned like a salamander, and Lance’s gut churned. “Is that what’s got you so turned around? You want me to leave your sister? I left your sister—”
“You left my sister pregnant and alone and broke. With myparents,where Dad can knock her around for not being good enough to stay married to you, because that’s such a treat.” Henry swallowed and shook his head. “I can’t do anything about that. Debbie, my parents—they’re not going to listen to me now, or Davy. But that’s their world. This is mine. And in my world, I deserve a guy who cares about me.”
“I didn’t care about you?” Malachi demanded, his voice breaking. “We had each other’s backs, Henry Matthew Worrall. We were in each other’s back pockets since we were kids! Ilovedyou, goddammit!” Mal reached out to grab his arm, and Lance started to hit the Call button, because he’d be damned if Mal laid a finger on Henry again.
“Youraped me!” Henry roared, breaking the contact, and Lance almost dropped his phone.
Mal sneered. “I didn’t do nothing that you weren’t begging for—”
But Henry held up a hand and took a deep breath. “I said no. I took a promotion to make it illegal for me to say yes. And you did it anyway. It may never go to court, but you know what? I’ll press charges anyway.”
Mal gasped. “You’ll what? You’ll tell all those people that—”
“The people I need to care about me know,” Henry said. “They still care. I work in a law office now. I’ve got some help with the charges. Hey, itmaygo to court. There’s precedent. Because you and I both know you didn’t have my consent. You say that word to yourself—sayconsent. Sayrape. Tell yourself that’s who you are. Say it until you believe you’re a bad man, Malachi. Say it until you know you’re the bad guy.”
“You were fucking your sister’s husband,” Malachi sneered, advancing in on him. “That doesn’t make you a fuckin’ saint!”
“My big mistake was thinking we had a relationship,” Henry said, taking his own step forward. “It was in thinking I had a choice. I was coerced, and you’re the bad guy. And I’ve made some mistakes—God knows I have—but you are a mistake I’m not going to have to live with. Not again. Someday, I’m going to be married to a nice man who would rather chew off his own wrist than hurt me. He’s a doctor, Malachi, smarter than me, but he still thinks I’m something. That’s a relationship. That’s how I know what you and I had was bullshit. That’s how I know I don’t ever have to go back to the military, or even back to Montana, to know I’m home.”
Malachi grabbed both arms this time and shook him. “You’re talking crazy!” he shouted. “You and me, we’re what’s real!”
Henry broke the grip again in a classic self-defense move, and when Malachi tried to grab him again, Henry broke it again. “Keep your fucking hands off me!” he snarled. “You don’t ever get to fucking touch me again!”
Malachi hauled his hand back and slapped Henry in the face, hard enough to split his lip and bloody his nose, and Kane and Lance both moved in to stop that shit, but Henry was closer. He pulled his elbow back and took him down—two punches to the nose, the jaw—and Malachi’s knees wobbled as he held his hands in front of his face.
“Henry?” he moaned, his voice broken. “Henry, you hit me…. I’ll fucking kill you, man. You and your little pissy boyfriend. You fucking hit me!”
Henry wiped his split lip and bloody nose on his shoulder. “You’re the bad guy,” he said, and Lance heard the tears in his voice—but the strength too. “And I’ve got good guys ready to stand up for me now, but I don’t need them to beat you.”
Mal dropped his hands and snarled, feral as a wounded bear. With a howl, he rushed Henry, who had the presence of mind to step back and trip him, so he flew forward and ended up sprawled face-first on the concrete. And then Henry did a thing that terrified Lance to the bones.
He flipped Mal over and sat on his chest and started to beat him. “Stop it!” Henry screamed. “Stop it! Just fucking stop it! You don’t have the fucking right! Just stop it!”
“Henry!” Lance cried, afraid to get in his way. “Henry—you willkillhim!”
