A Flophouse Story
One bootstrap act of integrity cost Henry Worrall everything—military career, family, and the secret boyfriend who kept Henry trapped for eleven years. Desperate, Henry shows up on his brother’s doorstep and is offered a place to live and a job as a handyman in a flophouse for young porn stars.
Lance Luna’s past gave him reasons for being in porn, but as he continues his residency at a local hospital, they now feel more like excuses. He’s got the money to move out of the flophouse and live his own life—but who needs privacy when you’re taking care of a bunch of young men who think working penises make them adults?
Lance worries Henry won’t fit in, but Henry’s got a soft spot for lost young men and a way of helping them. Just as Lance and Henry find a rhythm as den mothers, a murder and the ghosts of Henry’s abusive past intrude. Lance knows Henry’s not capable of murder, but is he capable of caring for Lance’s heart?
This one is for Desi and Brenda and Mary of course—because everybody was as invested in Henry as I was, and that meant the world to me.
And also for Mate and the kids—because my house is just that nutballs sometimes, and Mate is my partner who looks at the chaos and then at me and goes, “O-kay… so we deal with this how?”
Rude Awakenings
HENRY KNEW what a cheap hotel bed felt like. With nine years in the military, he and Mal had gone on leave in a thousand different places. And the creak of the springs, the smell of sex, the chafing of cheap sheets?
It was all sickeningly familiar.
Except his face hurt, and his shoulder too, where someone had landed a blow, and his knuckles had that three-day ache from being clenched too hard.
Who’d he beaten up again?
His eyes shot open.
No. He hadn’t landed any blows in that fight. And Malachi had effectively betrayed him and ripped his heart out. And his family had taken Mal’s side.
Then why did he smell like sex?
He rolled over in the queen-sized bed and felt the warm spot—and the wet spot—and grimaced. Last night was so hazy. God. The bus had pulled in at, what? Ten thirty the night before? It had been raining, and he’d gotten a hotel nearby, and there’d been a guy… not bad-looking. Brown eyes, brown hair, a slick smile that showed all his teeth and a couple of dimples to boot.
He’d been a little tipsy. At first Henry had thought it was alcohol, but after the guy had come up to the hotel room, he’d popped open a little pharmacy bottle and offered Henry one. And it hadn’t been vodka in there.
Usually drugs would have repelled the fuck out of Henry, but his face still hurt, and his heart still hurt, and he was alone in Sacramento—a place as strange to him as he was to it—and the only people he had to contact in the morning might just kick the door in his face.
He hadn’t taken one, but he hadn’t kicked Martin out of the room, either.
The shower turned off, and Henry swung his legs over the end of the creaky bed and rested his head in his hands. A burst of steam and hotel-scented shampoo blew Martin back into the room, and he grinned, the look so suggestive, so filthy, Henry felt his gorge rise.
“Ready for another round, soldier?”
“No, thank you,” Henry muttered. “I need to shower and get out of here.”
“That’s a shame.” Martin gave a patently fake pout. “You sure you don’t want to stay around for… coffee?”
“Very.” Henry stood up, keeping the sheet around his waist.
“Well, then, could you spare some money for a cab?” It was said with a raised eyebrow, and Henry’s stomach churned. It wasn’t even a one-night stand. Well, thank God for condoms and PrEP.
“Yeah, sure.” Well, the guy could have taken his wallet and run while Henry was still sleeping; that was something. “Throw me my pants. My wallet’s in—” Martin went straight for the wallet in the pocket. “—the side.”
He wondered if he was going to have to chase his one-night trick naked down the Astroturf hallway of this shitty motel, but Martin froze as he was opening Henry’s wallet.
“Henry?”
“That’s me.”
“Henry Matthew Worrall?”
Henry blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Martin Whoever-You-Are?”
Martin blinked and shoved the wallet back into Henry’s pants, complete with the cash he’d been about to grab. “Sampson. But you can call me Martin About to Be Out of Your Hair,” he said abruptly. “Thanks for the nice time, soldier. See you around.”
He was dressing as he said it, the kind of quick, efficient movements of someone who was apparently used to getting in and out of his clothes a lot.
And then he was standing at the door before Henry could get awkward about not wanting to leave his wallet in the same room with the guy, even if Martin had just refused any payment for what had been about to be a business transaction.
“You said you’re going to visit your brother?” Martin asked carefully, thin face expressionless.
“Yeah?”
“Good. I hope you both find your way home.”
And then he was gone.
Henry groaned and banged his head silently on his fist. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Sigh. Shit was a thing he had to get together in a paper bag right now or he was going to become one with this truly horrific bed.
Nine years in the Army. Nine years of learning how to pull himself up from his bootstraps and do the fucking job, and he was going to stop now?
He stood, back straight, and dropped the sheet, then grabbed the towels Martin had left on the floor. He had his brother’s address in his phone and enough money for a cab and some breakfast. And he was damned if he was going to let a glitch in his plan like Martin No-Last-Name derail him from moving on with his life.
Funny how what fate planned and what we plan for ourselves are very rarely the same thing, right?
Right?
“HENRY? SERIOUSLY. Is that you?”
Henry hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder and tried a smile. Davy, his brother, had always been the one with the charming grin. Henry had learned to keep his own features stoic and even in the last nine years.
“Davy?” Oh, this was harder than he’d thought.
His brother David lived in a cute little house in a nice residential area in the city proper. From Davy’s letters years before, Henry knew that the property values in Sacramento were pretty high, and the yard was small and the house only had one full bathroom and a spare bedroom, but he hadn’t expected it to be so… cute. The gutters and trim were painted green, the stucco painted a pale cream color, the fence recently stained, and from the looks of it over the fence, the backyard had some landscaping done.
The lawn was cut even with the driveway, and the shrubs in the front yard had been recently trimmed.
It wasn’t some trashy den of iniquity, as his father had sneered about ever since Davy had come out—not just as gay, but as a former porn model. It was a home, right down to three sets of galoshes on the porch, one set a mud-covered and tiny pink color, with little umbrellas all over it….
Davy’s boyfriend—husband, dammit, husband!—had a niece who they cared for. Henry had forgotten about that until he’d walked up onto their porch, and suddenly he couldn’t decide who was dirtier, his brother for coming out to the family and walking away or Henry for getting kicked off the farm and dragging all his problems with him.