He brought the car back to his apartment andstarted along the route again.He was driving even more slowly now,trying to think like Lucas.It wasn’t easy.His first instinct hadclearly been to get out of the apartment—a pretty good idea, underthe circumstances.He’d turned toward the halfway house when he’dleft the building.The other direction would have taken himdowntown and Lucas wasn’t the sort to seek out crowds when he wasupset.So Lucas would have walked, head down in the rain, notpaying much attention to his surroundings… Mark drove so slowlythat people were honking at him and speeding by with angrygestures, but he ignored them.Where would Lucas have gone?
Mark felt a quick spark of excitement when hesaw the stone building looming out of the rain, but dismissed itquickly.It was a church, and that was whereMarkwould go,not Lucas.Still, he had no other ideas, so he found a parking spotand jogged up the wide stairs to the imposing wooden doors.Thiswas the town’s United church and Mark had been there a few timesfor meetings and community functions, but it didn’t have the sameemotional resonance as his own building had for him.But thiswasn’t about Mark, it was about Lucas.
And there he was.Sitting in one of the backpews, staring up at the altar as if searching for answers.Therewas a puddle at his feet and Mark knew from experience that thechurch custodian would bitch about this sort of thing to theminister, but nobody was bothering Lucas.The whole place seemeddeserted, actually, although there was probably somebody not faraway keeping an ear on things, if not an eye.
He eased into the pew and slid down until hewas next to Lucas, close but not touching.Lucas glanced over athim in surprise.“Mark.What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“And you looked here?”
“Divine inspiration.”Who knew, maybe it hadbeen.
“I’m really sorry,” Lucas said with a furtivelook over his shoulder to be sure no one was listening.He wantedto protect Mark from any other loss of privacy, and it made Markwant to hit something.Lucas shouldn’t have to be so worried aboutthis.
“It wasn’t your fault.Just an awkwardcoincidence.”
“Is your mom pissed?”
“She’s upset,” Mark said carefully.Maybe toocarefully, because Lucas’s expression made it clear he knew therewas more to it than that.Mark shrugged.“It had to happen at somepoint.It’s just too bad it was now, with all the rest of it.”
Lucas was silent for a moment before asking,“All the rest of what?”
Oh.Lucas didn’t know.How would he have?Mark had called Terry Groban, but there was no reason for Terry tomake an announcement to the residents of the house.And there’dbeen an announcement in the paper, but Mark had never seen Lucasreading the paper, or much of anything else.“My father,” he saidquietly.“He passed away last night.”
Lucas turned toward him.“Shit, Mark, I’m sosorry.”His expression grew even more serious as he realized thelarger context of the day’s events.“And your mom…oh, fuck.Shemust be…”
“She’s got a lot of reasons to be upset.Finding out about me and you is just one more thing.It’s whatshe’s focusing on right now, but I think it’s just because that’sthe thing she actually thinks she can control.She can’t do a damnthing about my dad.This, though…”
“She can do something about this.”It wasphrased as a statement but Mark could hear the subtle question, therequest for reassurance.
He was only too happy to provide it.“No.Shecan’t.She made it clear she doesn’t want to be around you.Shedidn’t really have to say so, to be honest.I’m not that stupid.But she can’t ask me to stop seeing you.”
“She can’t?”Lucas turned to look at Markwith a raised eyebrow.“You’re seriously telling me she didn’t askyou to dump me?”
“Well, yeah, okay, let me rephrase.She can’tmakeme stop seeing you.She can ask, she can order, she canthreaten.But that doesn’t change anything.”He reached for Lucas’shand and wrapped his warm fingers around Lucas’s cold ones.“Ifthings go bad between you and me, it’ll be because of somethingbetween you and me.Okay?Not something from the outside.”
“That’s kind of a weird way to put it.”Lucasdidn’t seem entirely serious, but he wasn’t completely jokingeither.“Are you saying you’ve got a problem with something betweenyou and me?”
Mark shook his head with a tired smile.“Theonly thing between you and me that I don’t like is all theseclothes.If we got rid of those, I’d be happy.”
“That’s why I came to the apartment,” Lucasadmitted, then hastened to add, “Not like a booty call.Just…Iwanted to be with you.Close.”
Mark frowned.“Before you knew about my dad?Are you okay?Did something happen?”
“Nothing compared to your dad.”
“But something?”
Lucas looked uncomfortable.“Sean lost hislegs.And he’s a bit of a mess.I mean, obviously he’s a mess now,but it sounds like he was before the accident too.And I was toowrapped up in my own shit to notice.”
“He kicked you out of the house and beat youinto the hospital,” Mark said firmly.After learning those littledetails he’d been less concerned about Sean as a romantic rival andmore worried about Lucas’s friendship with an apparent psychopath.“He pushed you away, so how could you have known anything waswrong?”
“Because he pushed me away.If it was hardfor me to be without him, I should have known it was hard for himto be without me.”
And now they were veering back into the partsthat made Mark jealous.“It’s a complicated relationship, but thatdoesn’t make you responsible for his mental health.Nobody but Seancan make Sean healthy and happy.”
Lucas didn’t look totally convinced, but hisshoulders relaxed a little.“We shouldn’t be worrying about this.Not now.I’m really sorry about your dad.”
