Without answering, Marcus advanced to where he sat at the small desk and stood over him, looking down with a frown.
“You look upset. What’s wrong?”
Unable to answer, Tyler merely shook his head and went back to his tablet, pretending to work on the schedule. To his surprise, Marcus took the tablet out of his hands and pulled him into his arms.
“Hey. It’s going to be all right.” Marcus slid a hand beneath his shirt, and Tyler dropped his head to Marcus’s shoulder, relishing the warmth of his touch. If only forgetting the problems that loomed in front of him everywhere he turned were that easy.
“How can you say that?” He inhaled Marcus’s scent as if imprinting it in his memory to carry it with him after he’d gone. “This isn’t something you can throw money at to make it go away. If the judge says I can’t have Lillie, we have to leave.”
Marcus drew back to gaze at him. “Is that your plan?” His face hardened, and Tyler watched a muscle twitch along his jawline. “You’re planning on running away—taking the coward’s way out?”
Stung by Marcus’s unusually harsh rebuke, Tyler lashed back. “What am I supposed to do? Wait until they take her away? Look at me.” He pushed Marcus away. “I’m a single gay man with no steady income, living off another man’s good graces. What kind of role model am I?” A sense of helplessness such as he’d never felt before swept over him.
Never one to shy away from telling others how he felt, Marcus stared him down. “So instead of fighting for her, you’re going to do what? Live on the run and drag her along? You can’t do that to her, Ty. She’s got a life here now.” Marcus hesitated. “I thought we had one as well. Or at least we were building one.”
Shit. Tyler scrubbed his face with his hands. A bossy and stubborn Marcus he could deal with, but when he let down his guard and showed his vulnerable side, something Tyler knew he rarely did, he fell in love with Marcus all over again.
“We do; I don’t want to leave.”
“Then we fight. Get yourself a studio and sign a lease. That’ll show the court you’re capable of caring for her. They aren’t going to take her away from her blood relative to put her in with strangers.” Marcus took him in his arms again, and Tyler sank into his strength. “Josh’s contact at Children’s Services said they want to keep families together.”
“I wish I could be as trusting in the system as you. All my life they’ve failed us.”
Marcus hugged him tight. “We’re in this together now, and failure is not a word I accept.” For a few moments, with Marcus’s arms around him, the problems in his world faded and he could pretend.
Marcus’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and Tyler laughed. “And here I thought you were exceptionally happy to see me.”
The words died on his lips at the look of excitement on Marcus’s face. “What is it?”
“It’s a text from Sam. He says he’s talking to someone right now who may have information about Amber.”
Adrenaline spiked through Tyler, and his heart began to pound. “Where? Where are they?”
Marcus scrolled through his phone. “Some place in Brooklyn… Canarsie, he says.” Marcus’s brow wrinkled. “Where the hell is that?”
Tyler chuckled. “Farther into Brooklyn than I’m sure you’ve ever been. Almost on the border of Queens.” He gathered up his stuff. “Let’s go. Lillie is with Angela, and they’re home. Since I wasn’t sure if I’d have any appointments to look about renting studio space, I asked Angela if she could give Lillie dinner tonight, so we’re covered.” His brow creased. “It’s going to be a fortune to take a cab out there.”
“Fuck it. I’ve told you to stop worrying about money.” Marcus yanked him close again and nuzzled his neck. “See what I do for you? I’ll go to the ends of the earth.”
Marcus meant the comment in a lighthearted manner, however the utter willingness he’d shown to jump into his life pulled Tyler in conflicting directions. From when he first left home to come to New York and try to make it as a professional dancer, Tyler had refused to sell himself to advance his career. That automatically put him at a disadvantage, knowing that sex in exchange for coveted roles was how the game was played.
When Lillie came into his life, changing his priorities, his focus shifted to earning enough money to give her the necessities. He never allowed the anger he’d felt at his sister’s betrayal to bubble over to where Lillie would see. No matter what, Amber was her mother. He simply soldiered on, doing whatever he could to make a living for them.
Being with Marcus meant giving up the piece of himself he’d always held back, even from himself. Somehow Marcus had circumvented all the roadblocks he’d set up to keep people out; with his refusal to accept the word no, Marcus reached inside and pulled out the part Tyler had hidden from the world since he was a child—his ability to trust and depend on someone. When everyone in your life has always failed you, it made it almost impossible to believe a person would give you their heart, expecting nothing but to be loved in return.
Now that there might be a chance of actually finding his sister, another worry descended over Tyler, one he hadn’t thought about before this moment, and he was certain Marcus hadn’t either.
“Marcus?” He hated to break the intimacy of the moment, yet Tyler had to ask the question that had been tugging at his heart.
“Hmm?”
“What if she wants Lillie back? I’ll have to give her up, won’t I?”
Marcus sighed and pulled him close, his arm resting comfortably around Tyler’s shoulders—a perfect fit. They walked out of the dance studio and down the steps of the school to the street before he answered.
“Let’s get there first and see what Sam’s dug up.” His voice grim and his normally laughing eyes dark with some unreadable emotion, Marcus held up his hand to hail a cab. “No use speculating. It’s one of my least favorite things to do.”
A cab pulled up, and they got inside, Tyler sliding in after Marcus, barely hearing the address to where they were going. The only thought occupying his mind was whether or not Lillie would still be his by tonight.
