Michael let out a sigh. It was a fair question. “Desperation,” he said after a moment. “My brothers—they’re not nice people. My father died in prison, and Ma kept telling me that I’d never be half the man he was.” Michael snorted, and he knew it was a bitter sound, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “I didn’t want to be half the man he was. I didn’t want to be any of the man he was.”
“What did you want?” Carl asked softly.
“I wanted a date with Dale Earnhardt Jr., but he’s straight, so we can’t always get what we want.”
Carl’s rich laughter was his reward, but he hadn’t really earned it yet, had he?
“I wanted to be safe,” he said after Carl’s laughter faded. Carl had been honest with him, and he surely earned the favor. “Daddy beat on Angus and Scooter something awful, but I was too little to get beat, mostly, so they thought it was their job to beat on me. So did my ma. The safest place I had was my best friend in high school, Beth. So, you know, I got her pregnant by thinking of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and married her. And we did okay, really. I got a business loan for a car repair shop, and business was good. I could feed Beth and the kids. And even though I wasn’t really happy, I felt safe.”
“What happened?” Carl asked, and Michael was grateful because Chuck must not have told him this part.
“Angus and Scooter,” he said in disgust. “The garage was making money. I was paying my bills, sort of. Then they broke in—I swear they broke in—and stole my cashbox. I reported it to the insurance company, but the cops figured out it was my brothers and….” He trailed off and winced. This had not occurred to him.
“And someone like me was the asshole,” Carl muttered. “Fucking. Fabulous.”
Michael gave a harsh laugh. “You know, until this moment right here, I always thought it was Angus and Scooter. Wait, no, still Angus and Scooter being the assholes. They broke a window, broke the lock, and no, the insurance didn’t pay. That was bad enough. I started spiraling down the drain right then. But then they found out that the cops thought I was part of it and—” He shrugged. “—they kept stealing. Any night they needed a little cash. I-I stood up to them the second time. They broke my nose and my wrist, and then I couldn’t work on cars, and—”
“It got worse,” Carl murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, I kept thinking it was a trap of my own making, but I couldn’t figure out how I’d made it. Anyway, I was about to go bankrupt and had closed up the garage when my brothers told me they could make it all up to me. All I had to do was help them with one lousy fuckin’ thing.”
“Oh God,” Carl whispered.
“To be honest, they’d gotten recruited by Wilbur and Klamath, the guys who didn’t make it out of the bank. Chuck and I overheard them talking about the double-cross, but… you know, Angus and Scooter wouldn’t have believed me.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Which is sort of funny if you think about it. You know. They wouldn’t have believed me.”
“So you agreed to go to jail, basically.” Carl sighed, the sound heavy and joyless. “Trapped was an understatement.”
“It sucked.” Michael didn’t want to talk about how badly it had sucked. Nobody had asked him—not even Chuck. But then, nobody had to. He had “meat” written all over him, including a handy prison tattoo right next to his tender orifice that he was hoping nobody would see.
Carl made him feel safe, and boy, did he want the physical contact. He craved being held and touched with warmth, with tenderness, and Carl’s kisses had led him to believe that all of that and more was waiting beneath the surface. But he didn’t want pity. He didn’t want somebody to look at him the way those men in prison had looked at him and then to use him like that. Not again. He didn’t think Carl would do that, but he figured the less he told Carl about what had happened in those missing two years of his life, the more he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
And then Carl asked, voice low and sad. “Are you going to make me ask the big question?”
Michael was almost at the airstrip, which was good. He was driving a small precision automobile at a relatively high speed, and his hands were suddenly sweaty and shaking. That was no good at all when they were on the freeway. He tightened his hold on the wheel, took the exit for the frontage road that led to the hangar, and tried to control his breathing.
“Why does everyone assume prison rape’s a thing?” he asked, bitterness dripping from his voice.
“Because you turned pale,” Carl said gently, “just thinking about it. And because you want someone who will keep you safe. And because you—you are so sweet. Such a good person. And you were in a place where that wasn’t going to keep you from getting hurt.”
“Do we have to talk about this?” he asked, but he sounded husky and distraught to his own ears.
“It’s your choice,” Carl said. “Always your choice. If you like, I can talk about the weather, which is gorgeous. Or I can talk about my trip tomorrow, which I sort of don’t want to take. Or I can tell you the fun stuff to do with Leon di Rossi’s teenagers, because you deserve a day out, and I sort of wish I was going.”
“That last one,” Michael decided miserably. “But why don’t you want to take your trip?”
“Because.” Carl very deliberately brushed Michael’s knee with his hand. Not hard enough to distract him or fuck up his driving, but enough to let Michael know he was there and serious. “Because I liked waking up with you this morning. Even if we’re still in our pajamas, I’d like to wake up with you again.”
Michael swallowed hard. “We don’t have to be in our pajamas,” he ventured.
“Sure we do. Because if the time comes when we’re not in our pajamas, I’d like very much to not have to leave you alone in the morning.”
“When,” Michael responded, like saying it would make it so. “When the time comes.”
“Mm…,” Carl hedged. “You might decide you deserve a hero.”
“Yeah, well, you might realize you are one.” He was. Michael could tell. But his faith was not contingent upon Carl’s recognition of his own worthiness. Michael could do all that for him.
ONCE THEY got to the garage, Michael actually had some work to do. He changed into a set of coveralls and left Carl on the couch in the little “apartment,” working on his laptop. After a couple of hours, he came to get some water and found Carl dozing, his head resting on the arm of the couch, his laptop sliding off his thighs.
Very carefully, Michael caught the laptop and set it on the seat of the couch. Then, because he was feeling brave, he bent over the side of the couch and brushed his lips against Carl’s temple. When he pulled back, Carl was smiling a little in his sleep.
“Mm… whatcha doin’?” he mumbled.
“Was gonna go check on the falcon,” Michael told him. “Hodges, the janitor kid, told me he found some fresh roadkill and put it in the fridge to feed him.”
Carl grunted. “Mm….”
“Yeah, not attractive. I’ll go do it. You stay and sleep.”