“I trust you. I just want to do what’s best,” I said. “I don’t want you to be fucked over.”
Laken’s small frown vanished. “Okay, I’ll be here.” He saluted me.
Drew and I left without any more bullshit from Laken, which was pretty mild as far as trouble went. I was surprised when Drew did drive us into a really nice neighborhood, but then again, I’d figured Casey Uhlig, Angel’s man, would do something good with his life. His family had been well enough off when we were in school, and he’d always had everything handed to him—or at least it had seemed that way to me when I was a teenager.
My mother didn’t work, and my father was at the glass factory on the east side his whole life. He’d lucked into the house where I grew up because his parents had given it to him. We’d been okay, but I’d never had anything I wanted. I breathed out the old hatred for Uhlig and his friends as the neighborhood transformed from the upper end of what most people I knew could afford, to massive homes I could work my whole life and never be able to buy. Of course, Drew pulled up in front of one bigger than all the others around it. I blew out a long breath and stared at the nice lawn and house. The landscaping was similar to what had been done at mine. We were one step closer to solving the riddle of who had rebuilt my place.
Uhlig had probably arranged, if not paid for, every single upgrade. Angel couldn’t afford it. I was an asshole. I didn’t remember everything I’d shouted at Uhlig in the courtroom when they tried to arraign me the first time, but it wasn’t nice. It had been a shitstorm—every ounce of hatred for him, myself, and the fucking world I could gather together and spit at him. I sighed and covered my eyes with my hand.
“Oh,” Drew said, and he sounded like he’d been punched in the gut. “He looks a lot like you. Damn.”
Dropping my hand, I stared as Angel walked across the lawn. He was wearing a pair of shorts, which wasn’t something he’d normally have done when he lived at home, and had on a T-shirt with some sort of cartoon character on it—a skeleton. The jewel on the metal piercing in the left corner of his lip glinted pink in the sunlight when he glanced up, and my gut clenched to see him wearing more makeup than he used to when he lived with me… though the last few years were sort of a blur in my mind. He had on smoky eyeshadow, and his lips were a deep wine color. There was also a pink stripe in his black hair that gave him a punk-rock look that maybe was a little tough.
I couldn’t say he wasn’t beautiful, but I also couldn’t help but think of what he was doing as dangerous. The wrong sort of attention landed on men who dressed that way, and sometimes they ended up buried in the woods. I shook off the horrible thoughts, but they were so close to the surface after the courtroom. He had his arms crossed over his stomach. I hated that he looked like he wanted to run away. He wasn’t a small guy, or at least not much smaller than me, not now that he was grown, but his attitude made him seem ten times more fragile.
The way Angel appeared scared all the time was everything I’d tried to beat out of myself, one way or another, either with fighting or drinking—or I’d had beaten out of me by someone else. I opened my door and didn’t bother with my cane, pride making me want to show him I was doing better. As I carefully walked across the immaculate grass to meet him, I wished more than anything I hadn’t been the person trying to turn my son into someone else all those years. He hadn’t deserved the shit I’d laid at his feet. My thoughts raced down dark roads and stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Angel and I stopped a few feet away from each other. We were quiet and awkward as we stood on the lawn, staring, apparently neither of us certain of what to say. I noted the blue polish on his fingernails, and he noticed me looking and curled them under, hiding them. I wanted to blurt “I’m sorry,” but shoved my hands in my pockets instead.
“Good to see you on your feet again, Dad.”
“Thanks.” I nodded, and he did, too.
We stared some more. His face went pink and mine heated, and I figured we truly didn’t look much different from each other. It struck me that he was older than I thought he should be, and I chalked that up to the years I’d lost in a bottle. But he was also younger-looking than his true age, and I put that down to something about the way he carried himself and the clothes he wore.
“Uhlig owns this place?” I asked and couldn’t tamp down the sizzle of fury the name caused me, though these days I was coming to recognize that feeling for what it was—jealousy. Uhlig had always had a nice life, an open life, or at least more open than mine.
Angel glanced over his shoulder at the house and wriggled his toes into the grass. Even the nails on his feet were painted. Another pang went through me. I’d given him hell about that so many times. “Yes, I live here with my Casey b—” He bit at his lips and his eyes widened as he stepped back. My heart hurt. “With Casey.”
“Figured.” I sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way… just… don’t you want to be with a guy your own age? Not one mine?” I’d lost the right to protect him a long time ago, but life wasn’t always nice, and part of me worried Uhlig was taking our old beef out on Angel somehow.
Angel shook his head and his brows lowered, and it made me strangely happy to see some of the fight in him surface as he scowled. “I thought you wouldn’t ever want to talk about anything that had to do with me and a man.”
In my head, a white noise grew until it was difficult to think around it. I should just tell him I was gay, too, and get it over with, but I had no idea how to start that conversation or explain why I’d acted the way I did. Mostly I was fucking scared for him, same as always. Scared Uhlig might hurt him, worried someone on the street would beat him just because theyknew. All that fear turned into a rock that sat in my stomach. “You fixed up the house while I was in prison.”
Angel snorted and ducked his head. “I didn’t want you to come home to nothing.”
A lump formed in my throat. “It’s beautiful. And I suspect I owe Uhlig thanks, whether or not I want to give it. But no matter what that place looks like, I still would have been coming home to nothing.”
Angel flushed beet red, and his eyes gleamed with anger. “I tried to make it something you would like.”
“I mean, you wouldn’t be there. You would have never come to visit me, would you?”
His jaw hardened and he stared at the ground. With a huff, he glared at me, but I knew that expression well. It was the fury I used to see all the time in the mirror. “I promised Casey I wouldn’t put myself in dangerous situations.”
Nodding, I tried not to take his words personally, but it was impossible. It hurt to hear him sayIwas a dangerous situation, and while I hadn’t been drinking for a bit now, if Drew and Brandon hadn’t shoved me in the right direction…. I didn’t want to think about it. I’d have been dead before too much longer.
“That’s good,” I said and winced at my rough tone. “Smart.” I turned and gestured toward Drew, and he must have been waiting for a signal from me because he walked over from the Jeep. There were cautious nods between him and Angel.
“I’m Drew Greene.” He held out his hand, but Angel only wrapped his arms around his stomach and shook his head.
“This is my boyfriend,” I said, and the effort it took to spit out those words was worse than running full tilt up Mount Everest. I rubbed at my chest and stared at Angel, willing him to understand that I loved him without me having to actually open my mouth and say anything else.
Angel’s bottom lip wobbled like it used to when he was a little boy and was upset. He hadn’t cried much as a kid, but when he did, it was usually a tidal wave of tears. My stomach turned.
He sucked in a deep breath and glared. “I’ve seen your name on the news, Dad. The shit they’re talking about… Casey didn’t want me to see it, but Merit sent links to the articles to me. He thought I should know. You’re even worse than I thought. How could you have been one of those people?”
I went to lean on my cane and it wasn’t there. Drew grabbed me around the middle and kept me from toppling over. I let him take my weight, and Angel’s eyes widened as Drew pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “I never wanted to be in the AS. I never wanted to be anywhere near it. I….”
