Where There's a Will (31 page)

“See?” Bo said as he stood up and moved in front of Max. “I love you enough to take a shoe for ya, baby.”

“Kiss-ass,” Rory muttered. Annabelle smacked him with the shoe and laughed when he grunted and grabbed his stomach. “Ouch! Why’d you hit me?”

Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Because Bo did the noble thing and was willing to defend his man. You just rolled on Chance.”

“Because I knew he wasn’t the one who said it in the first place!” Rory argued, flopping a hand at where Max and Bo sat. “I was there when Max suggested it! I was deflecting and leading you to the truth—plus, I didn’t think you’d hit Max. No one can hit Max!”

Will was impressed. He was getting to cuddle with one of the cutest babies on the planet
and
watch an entertaining example of healthy byplay between siblings. Even he could tell Rory wasn’t mad, or Annabelle, now that he’d seen her grinning.

He moved over to the couch and sat down while the banter continued. Eventually Troy came and sat beside him, and Carlos moved around behind him, and Will thought he’d never been so content in all his life.

And he wondered how much it was going to freak his men out when he told them he wanted a baby or three. Yeah, it was going to be a fun conversation—but, he realised as he saw the soft looks Carlos and Troy were giving him and Ember, it wasn’t going to be a surprising one. After all, no one knew him as well as his men.

Will grinned and let the joy flow through him. He had a lot of great years to look forward to.

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Coming Soon from this author at Total-E-Bound Publishing:

Leopard’s Spots: Isaiah

Bailey Bradford

Released 2nd July 2012

Excerpt

“There ya go, Mr Brinkman, she’s all fixed and ready for the road.” Isaiah Trujillo winked at the old man and handed him his keys. Mr Brinkman was cool, a sweet lonely widower who’s partner of thirty-seven years had passed away almost eight months ago.

Mr Brinkman took the keys and caught Isaiah’s hand in both of his, patting it affectionately. “I think you can call me Cliff, Isaiah. Especially after all the work you put into restoring this beauty.”

“Thank you, Cliff.” Isaiah fought against manners drilled into him by his mother and grandma just to call Cliff by his first name. He knew it was good manners to do as he was asked by the man, too, but it just felt a little weird. He withdrew his hand after Cliff patted him one last time then Isaiah turned and gestured at the bright red ’69 Camaro he’d spent all his spare time working on over the past few months. “So, are you planning on racing her?”

he teased.

Cliff tittered and walked over to run a couple of fingertips over the hood of the Camaro.

The thick white racing stripes down the car really made the red pop. The paint job had been an utter pain in the ass, and Isaiah had lived in fear of fucking it up, but he’d been driven to do his best on the opportunity he’d been handed. Isaiah’s auto shop usually handled day-today repairs, and he seldom took paint jobs, but his true love lay in restoring old cars—he just wasn’t sure he could make a living doing it yet. Maybe, once he built a rep for himself.

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“I might just. Relive some of my youth.” Cliff didn’t sound like he was joking, and Isaiah became aware of the melancholy look in the older man’s eyes. What was it like to have loved someone for so long, to have found your soul mate? Isaiah had seen his brother, Timothy, and his mate, Otto. Both, like Isaiah, were snow leopard shifters, and very much in love. Would he ever find someone like that? It sure didn’t seem possible. All the clubs he went to were just meat markets, places to fuck or find someone to take home for a night.

Perhaps he should try somewhere else, but where?

“You know, I was driving this car the night I met Quincy,” Cliff said, then he sighed and grimaced. “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that. Probably bore you what with all the hustling men do nowadays.”

Isaiah frowned in return, trying to grasp what Cliff was talking about. He wasn’t confused over how Cliff knew he was gay, or gay-friendly. The rainbow flag in the shop window wasn’t small or possible to miss. “Hustling?” he asked.

“Screwing around,” Cliff clarified. “Seems like that’s the thing to do, see how many men you can have sex with. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I even hear it in my own age group, you know. Like no one actually cares about anyone, just…” Cliff huffed and flapped a hand in the air. “Just bodies slapping together. It saddens me to think so many people are missing out on a love like Quincy and I had. Still have, because I won’t stop loving him.” Cliff’s eyes sparkled with tears that soon leaked down his cheeks. He didn’t seem ashamed at all, not even swiping at them. “I don’t think it’s just gay men, but sometimes I wonder if love will be a thing of the past in another couple of generations.”

“That’s awful,” Isaiah said without thinking, but the very idea made him feel kind of queasy. Then it dawned on him what he’d just done and he blushed so hard even his feet felt hot. Isaiah tipped his cap back and rubbed his forehead as he looked at Cliff through his lashes. “Sorry, I don’t mean—” he stopped himself. He wasn’t a liar, but how did he say what he meant without being insulting?

Cliff just nodded and caressed the hood of his car, waiting patiently. “I’m not going to get mad, Isaiah. We’re talking, and I’d like to think of us as friends, if you can tolerate the ramblings of an old queen sometimes.”

It made Isaiah feel a little less insecure. He wasn’t the brightest guy—there was a reason his brother was a doctor and he was a mechanic—and talking wasn’t his best talent, either. In www.total-e-bound.com

fact, he was so shy outside of work that sometimes he couldn’t bring himself to deal with people. Other times, he could manage a trip to a club, when he was desperately lonely, but he didn’t really have to talk much then, either. Which kind of proved Cliff’s point.

“Yes sir,” Isaiah blurted out, then quickly corrected himself when Cliff started to speak.

“I mean, Cliff. I’d be happy to count you as a friend. “One of Isaiah’s very few friends, actually. Cliff nodded and waited. Isaiah hoped he got his words out in the manner he intended them to be heard. “All I meant was, it’s awful to think that’s the way we’re going to end up. I see what you mean; I’ve been to Cinders”—Cliff muttered his understanding of that being a gay club—“a few times. And yeah, all it is, is a place to hook up.” Blow jobs in the bathroom, sometimes even in the club itself, and the alley… Well. Isaiah wasn’t going to tell Cliff what went on there. “The thing is, I don’t know that there’s lots of places to meet a nice man, you know? Like, how did you meet Quincy?”

Cliff beamed and now his eyes twinkled with joy instead of sadness, and it warmed Isaiah’s heart. Stroking the hood gently, Cliff watched his fingers. “I was driving this beauty down A1A in Florida, believe it or not.” He cackled and shook his head. “Got the retirement down backwards, don’t I? But I was born in Merritt Island, Florida. Anyway, here I was driving down the highway, and you have to understand, times were different. Certain things weren’t talked about. I knew I was different, but there was no one I could turn to.”

Cliff stopped rubbing the hood and clenched his hand into a fist. He faced Isaiah and anger etched deeper lines around the old man’s mouth. His expression shifted, and he appeared to be years back in his mind. “At the stop light in Cocoa Beach, I saw this beautiful young man being hassled by two big brutes. No one else gave a damn that he was being shoved or about to be seriously hurt. I saw him go down, pushed to his knees. But he didn’t quail in fear or anything. Instead I could see his anger, see him struggle to get up against the hands holding him down. He was magnificent in his refusal to give up.

“The light changed, but I couldn’t leave him. All of the sudden, just like that,” Cliff snapped, “everything clicked into place. I knew with a certainty who I was, what I was, and that the man shaking his fist at his attackers was the key to my happiness.” Cliff turned a sharp look on him. “People make fun of love at first sight, but it happens. In seconds, I knew Quincy and I would be together no matter what I had to do to make it happen. If he wasn’t gay, then so be it. I’d be the best friend he ever had and pray he’d love me back. Cars behind www.total-e-bound.com

me honked when the light changed but I didn’t care. I leaned over and pushed the passenger side door open just as Quincy fought to his feet. I’d have gotten out if I needed to, but Quincy was a fighter, yes he was. Little guy, and fierce…”

Isaiah understood that. His cousin Oscar wasn’t exactly tall or muscular, and he scared the shit out of Isaiah. Fierce was an understatement.

“Quincy looked up and our eyes met. He never looked away from me as he ran for the door. The second he dove in, I felt a peace like you wouldn’t believe, joy so encompassing I thought I’d burst from it.”

Isaiah believed it. Cliff was all but glowing now talking about it. He wondered if Cliff always spoke so poetically of his love, if he was so well-spoken on other subjects, or if it was Quincy and what they’d had together that gilded his tongue.

“Quincy and I never wanted anyone else,” Cliff continued. “We were it for each other, and there was no need to go messing around. We held each other’s heart, and that is a treasure, and an honour. No real man, or woman, would abuse such a gift.” Once again, tears streamed down Cliff’s cheeks. His lower lip trembled, and Isaiah shuffled his feet, wishing he had enough balls to hug him. “Then he started having trouble eating, and the doctor found the tumour, and it didn’t matter how much Quincy fought, it still took him from me.”

Fuck it, he could just risk being embarrassed. Isaiah took a couple of steps forward and opened his arms. Cliff sobbed and Isaiah’s heart broke for the man. Maybe he didn’t want to find someone after all, not if this was what happened to the one left behind.

Except Cliff had been so happy, and Isaiah didn’t doubt that Quincy had been, too. “It was worth it,” Cliff sniffled, as if reading Isaiah’s mind. “Every second we had together, every second I could touch Quincy, see him, hear him. I wouldn’t change anything, except to love him even more, if possible.”

Oh, Isaiah’s eyes burned and so did the tip of his nose. His sense of scent was skewed from the motor oil and other chemicals in the shop, but he thought he could still possibly smell the sincerity, even, of Cliff’s words, catch the sweet promise of his love.

Maybe I can have a flowery thought, too.

“Oh dear, look at the mess I’ve made,” Cliff mumbled, swiping at Isaiah’s chest. “Your coveralls are all wet and I’m not sure that’s just tears on them.”

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Cliff looked mortified but Isaiah laughed, not that he was going to look and see what was left on the material. “It’s okay, Cliff. These things have dirt and oil and God knows what else all over ‘em. I have a washer and dryer on site and a shower in the back I use most nights before I go home.”

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Cliff looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “I could pay to have it…dry-cleaned?” He seemed to realise the ridiculousness of that as soon as he said it and he chuckled. “Silly me, right?”

Isaiah huffed a laugh himself and patted Cliff’s bony back gently. “This ol’ thing ain’t worth the cost of dry-cleaning, but I do appreciate the thought.”

Cliff’s smile was tremulous at first but it soon blossomed into one that Isaiah would bet had charmed Quincy from the start. “You are a sweet young man, putting up with a melodramatic old geezer like me. Thank you.”

“It was—” Isaiah began only to shut up when Cliff pointed at him. “What?”

“You need to stop going to that club, and start going places where nice young men are,”

Cliff chided. “Isaiah, there are gay churches here in Denver, and ways to meet online, I’ve heard—”

“Oh no, nuh-uh,” Isaiah interrupted. He’d seen some of those online places, and that one phone app, Grindr, and it just wasn’t for him. Some of those, if not all of them, were at least as bad as Cinders.

Cliff caught his wrist and it was only then Isaiah realised he’d been retreating like some big coward. He stopped and Cliff gave his wrist a squeeze before speaking again. “There’s still church, and if nothing else, you could spend the time you waste at clubs volunteering for one of the GLBTQ centres. There’s a youth centre not far from here that just re-opened after receiving some much needed donations. I know for a fact they could use all the help they can get.”

“What’s it called?” Isaiah asked. He’d thought of volunteering somewhere before but didn’t know what he could contribute. But surely even if all he did was sweep floors or something, it’d help, right?

“It’s just called The Heart, and if you are truly interested, I can give you the name of who to talk to.” Cliff was digging in his pocket, pulling out his wallet. “There’s a new staff www.total-e-bound.com

director there. She’s young but very intelligent and dedicated to helping kids in our community.”

Isaiah took the card Cliff handed him and studied it. There was nothing fancy about it, it was just a cream-coloured business card with Bae Allen Warren, DVM, and a couple of phone and fax numbers printed on it. “I think you gave me the wrong card. This one’s for a veterinarian.” But he wasn’t eager to give it back. It felt good in his hand, the paper soft and smooth on his rough skin. Isaiah thumbed over the name and smeared oily residue on the card and immediately felt guilty, as if he’d done something wrong or ruined something pure.

He was just full of drama, wasn’t he?

Cliff pulled at the edge of the card, squinting as he hunched over to look at it. “Oh, oh no, that’s Dr Warren, a veterinarian who might start volunteering there, too. He’s very cute, and single, I believe.” Cliff winked at him and Isaiah couldn’t think of a word to say when his face felt so hot all the sudden. “You keep that card. He left several at the centre. Here.”