“Well, Bobby still stops by to check on the guys,” Lance said. “Gives them piecework with his construction firm if they need it.” He looked briefly at Henry. “You could probably take some of those jobs to tide you over.”
Henry looked interested. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Oh, this question was a little personal. “I, uh, take it you won’t be filming scenes?”
The horror on Henry’s square-jawed face spoke volumes, and Lance tried hard not to be hurt. Well, Dex was buckets full of awesome—he was allowed to have a redneck family member who wore his ass for a hat.
Dex let out an amused sound. “No scenes for Henry.” Unexpectedly, he put his hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “And probably no relationships until he gets himself sorted out.” Henry shifted uncomfortably, and then broke Lance’s heart a little by biting his lip, the expression making him look about fifteen years younger and vulnerable as hell.
“No,” Henry said gruffly. “Probably not.”
Lance nodded, hopefully looking confident, but inside he was a little confused. He’d assumed Henry was straight. His posture, his judgy sneer, his horror when he’d realized what was going on inside the apartment—all of it had pointed to a straight guy thrown into his worst nightmare.
But this? This sadness, this discomfort—this wasn’t the judgment of someone who didn’t want to join the party. This was the judgment of someone who’d assumed the party wasn’t for them.
Looking at Henry’s extreme unhappiness and the self-loathing that seemed to radiate off him like sound waves, Lance thought he might be only a little right. Maybe this party wasn’t for Henry, but there might be some guy out there who’d throw him a hell of a happily ever after.
“I’ll take over from here,” Lance said softly. They stood at the bottom of the stairwell now, and Lance could see Dex’s SUV parked in the visitor’s spot near them, Kane in the front seat, fiddling with his phone.
Dex looked over at his husband and waved gamely, and Kane smiled. Then he shot Henry a glare that should have thrown a bolt of lightning through his chest.
Lance swallowed. He’d never seen Kane really pissed off, but given Kane’s size—the width of his shoulders, the thickly muscled thighs, the pure no-bullshit way he carried himself when he wasn’t goofing off—he’d never really wanted to.
Poor Henry. Whatever this guy had done to earn that glare, it must have been truly heinous. But not, apparently, unforgivable.
“You should go,” Lance said because Henry wasn’t backing down from that glare. He was matching Kane scowl for scowl, probably out of sheer cussedness.
Dex pulled his brother into a hug. “Text me tonight and let me know how you’re settling in.”
“That’s not really nece—” Henry argued.
“It is. It’s completely necessary,” Dex told him. “You don’t just spend two nights on my couch and get to disappear out of my life again.” Dex’s angel’s mouth made a funny little wobble. “I… you could be the only family I get to hold on to, Henry. I’m not going to let you go.”
Dex hugged his brother again, tighter, his windbreaker rustling against his brother’s denim jacket, then pulled away and turned toward the SUV before Lance got a look at his face.
He didn’t need to.
“C’mon,” he said to Henry, pulling him in the direction of the super’s office on general principle. Behind them, the SUV started up and backed out, but neither Henry nor Lance looked at Henry’s retreating brother.
“Where we going?”
“I’ll show you the super’s office, the vending machines, the laundry room, and then we’re going to borrow Billy’s car—” He jangled the pocket of the sweatshirt, where Billy’s keys sat. “—and go get pizza.”
Henry let out a bark of laughter. “Pizza?”
“Yeah. Mountain Mike’s—it’s right down the street. I’m a paid resident now, and I’m not going back to Little Caesar’s, no way, no how.”
“Resident?” Henry said, and Lance didn’t let the surprise bother him. “As in med school?”
“Yup. Student loans only get you so far. But, uh….” Oh, how embarrassing, secrets already. “Don’t tell the rest of the flophouse, okay? They think I’m still a student. I just get tired of explaining first-year intern and residency and student loans—this way they don’t get all weird because I’m a real doctor.” Lance wasn’t going into the rest of the happy psychological porn dance he did, not with Henry—not now, when he still remembered Henry’s palpable disdain.
“Yeah.” Henry let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped. “I’ve got some savings from the Army, and in the Midwest, it would have set me up for a couple of years. Not so much here.”
“And your brother didn’t want you to be alone.”
Henry grimaced. “No, sir, he did not.”
Lance let that one hang as they walked down the damp sidewalk. As a whole, the grounds were kept nicely—the shrubs were clean of litter and the grass neatly trimmed. The complex itself was, well, complex. Lance had lived here for three years, and he hadn’t figured out the rhyme or reason to the numbers on the different buildings.
The super’s office faced the street, with a buffer of a wide lawn, a fence, and a sidewalk. Across the parking lot were the dumpsters, and Lance told Henry that they kept the key on the peg by the door. The rule was supposed to be the first person who saw the trash was full took it out.
“How’s that work for you?” Henry asked, wrinkling his nose, as if he knew what to expect from a houseful of post-adolescent men.
“Not as well as you’d think,” Lance said, quirking his mouth in a smile, inviting Henry to laugh with him.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Sure. Do you keep a chore chart or anything?”
Lance wrinkled his nose back. “Uhm….”
And now Henry assumed a patient look. “Does the toilet need to be donated to science?”
“No respectable lab would take it,” Lance said, feeling embarrassment for the first time in ever.
Henry shrugged. “I can do that shit. I….” He sighed. “It’s why I joined the military. I like order.”
“How far’d you get?” Lance asked. “In the Army, I mean.”
“Staff sergeant,” Henry said, and Lance heard the faint ring of pride in his voice before his shoulders curled forward even more. “I miss it.”
“What happened?” Boy, was Lance curious—but not surprised when Henry shook his head.
“Can we not talk about this?” he asked plaintively. “Please?”
Lance took a breath and gestured. “Super’s office. By the way, avoid him if you can. He’s this sort of creepy asshole who likes to leer. Anyway, we usually pitch cash into the kitty and get a cashier’s check to give to him. Due on the first, late on the fifth.”
Henry nodded shortly. “Everybody pay the same?”
“People with actual beds in the bedrooms pay twenty bucks more a month than people on the couch and the air mattress.”