He was pleasantly surprised.
The guys—he’d been right, Zeppelin had been in Curtis’s room, along with Fisher, who didn’t live at the apartment but had just sort of come along for the come—were all gathered in the living room, Cotton included, watching some sort of Hallmark romance movie and eating popcorn.
Lance walked in, followed by Henry carrying two XL pizzas, and they were suddenly the heroes of the hour.
“Oh my God!” Randy stood up, his obviously still growing frame showing ribs in spite of the almost continuous working out he did. “Is that food? Real food? Can I have some?”
“My treat,” Lance said dryly. “We’ve got a vegetarian and an all-meat.”
Cotton sighed, his brown-velvet eyes—surrounded by black lashes and black hair—were huge in his fair-skinned face. God, this kid looked fragile. Who let him turn eighteen and get naked with strangers? “No vegan?” he asked pitifully.
“Ta-da!” Lance pulled out a small gluten-free, vegan cheese and spinach special that he’d been holding in his free hand. “Vegan it is!”
“Woo-hoo!” That suddenly bright look on Cotton’s face was all Lance needed. Yay! He’d made this kid happy. “You love me.”
“Yes, little brother, I do.”
“Plates?” Henry said, setting the boxes down and opening them up, then setting the bag with the napkins and parmesan cheese down next to it.
“Who needs plates?” Billy asked. “There’s napkins.” Billy was in his early twenties, short, muscular, Latino, and quiet. He was one of the few guys who’d been there for over a year, and he and Lance… well, they weren’t exactly brothers, but they had some of the same damage. Some of the same damage they didn’t share with anyone else.
“What’s a plate?” Zeppelin asked, shaking his sandy blond hair out of his puppy-dog brown eyes. He wore it down to his shoulders, and it was practically all he wore, almost all year round. Right now, his outfit consisted of a pair of holey blue briefs, and Lance rolled his eyes.
“A plate is a thing I’m going to make you hold in front of your balls unless you go put some shorts on. Guys, this is Henry. He doesn’t do scenes, and if you want to know if he does guys, ask him, but look at his muscles and his scowl first.”
He looked over his shoulder and gave Henry a game smile, and Henry scowled theatrically for his benefit.
And then he winked.
Lance saw it, but the rest of the guys couldn’t, and so when he turned that scowl on the rest of the household and they all straightened their posture and stared at him with a little bit of fear, Lance had to contain a smirk.
“Plates,” Henry reiterated, and then he gave Zeppelin a particularly hard stare. “And pants.”
And for all they were supposed to be adults, Lance hadn’t seen such scrambling to obey an authority figure since the second grade.
In three minutes there were six young men wearing clothes, gathered around the table with garage-sale dinnerware, getting out cups and gallons of milk.
Henry sat down at the table, but as he did, he told them, “A table’s a luxury on deployment. By all means, sit where you want—this is just me.”
The guys all nodded respectfully and reassembled, draping themselves over the couch, the recliner, and the inflatable mattress that had apparently been brought out to accommodate sheer numbers.
But they didn’t leave Henry alone.
“Deployment?” Billy asked. “When’d you get back?”
Henry finished chewing his first bite of meat-lover’s special and swallowed. “About two weeks ago.”
“You turn in your papers?” Billy grimaced. “I tried to enlist, but I failed the physical.”
Lance arched an eyebrow, and Billy gave him a barely perceptible nod. Oh, sweetheart. No. The weight of their shared secret seemed to press on Lance’s chest—or his stomach, which was where most of the pizza they ate would not be by the end of the night.
“That’s too bad,” Henry said, and his sincerity made Lance dizzy with relief. And then, blessed, blessed Henry… he didn’t pry. “It’s hard when you want to serve but they won’t let you.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Lance asked and then had to not clap his hand over his mouth.
Henry gave him an inscrutable look. “What happened to me was… complicated. And in the long run, it wasn’t something I did so much as something I had coming.” He twitched his lips at Lance.
“And it’s something you don’t want to talk about. I’m sorry.”
“No worries.” Henry munched doggedly on his pizza. “What are you aiming for now?” he asked Billy.
Billy bit his lip in what looked like hope. “A degree in engineering. I’ve got another year—”
“He’s been head-hunted,” Cotton blurted, wide-eyed.
“Dude, that doesn’t mean nearly what you think it does,” Zeppelin said with a smirk, and Cotton flat-out ignored him.
“No—two firms, right, Billy?”
Billy nodded. “Yeah. I may get to do a paid internship next semester.”
“And then you’ll move out of this dump and we can visit you in a real house?” Curtis asked hopefully. Curtis—African American, skin of pale bronze, as clean-cut as an ROTC cadet—was going to school to study kinesiology so he could get into sports medicine, and he seemed to need examples of guys who got out of porn and moved on to other things. He volunteered his spare time at a children’s shelter, and while Lance wanted to point out that if he waited tables with that time instead he might be able to afford a different living situation, he got the feeling Curtis was there for the same reason Lance was. And it had less to do with money than with not being able to buy family.
“Absolutely,” Billy said, his voice ringing in sincerity. Sometimes guys meant that. They kept up with their buddies at Johnnies, made friendships. Sometimes guys were in and out. Lance recognized that this was probably like a lot of jobs, a lot of living situations, but still, it gave him hope to think of Billy becoming like Reg and Bobby. Reg’s house was a dump—that was a given—but damned if every two weeks or so, somebody didn’t go visit them and end up having a beer and some dinner and TV in a different living room. Of course, they might also get co-opted into helping Bobby restore Reg’s beloved dump, but it seemed a small price to pay.
“Engineering,” Henry said with respect. “Those are tough courses. I looked into that.” He knocked his skull with his knuckles. “Too thick.”
Billy laughed, but he looked pleased. Well, yeah. They were all pretty here. Being praised for your brains, your drive—that was unusual, and Lance felt a teeny bit of relaxation seep into his stomach. Henry had promised, and apparently he was going to live up to his word. Lance was relieved.
“Anybody else got a surprising major?” Henry asked, and he seemed to have relaxed as well. “Rocket science? Economics of underdeveloped countries?”
“Personal trainer, dude!” Zeppelin hammed. “The better to surf when the surfing’s good!”
“You live in a valley, Zeppelin,” Fisher said patiently. “This isn’t the place to be a surfer bum.”