Page 4 of Between Two Thorns

Mr. Strong & Silent

D elcan Reddick was having one hell of a night. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.

College nights were already shit. He hated the loud music, the flashing lights, and the fucking crowds. That was why he sat in the corner of the Bone & Barrel and glared at anyone who thought about taking his spot. His scowl and general don’t fuck with me attitude usually scared them off—Unless, they wanted something he was selling.

He knew why his uncle sent him off to these damn bars with entitled white kids who’d just as easily buy a bag of laxatives and laundry powder was beyond him. Nah, he got it. But he sure as hell didn’t like it. In the group the Reddicks ran with, he was the pretty face.

And wasn’t that a sad thought?

Del pushed his dirty-blonde fringe out of his face, only for it to fall back over his light green eyes. He wasn’t cute. He sure as hell wasn’t some sort of pretty face—everyone said he’d had a scowl. If they weren’t saying he looked grungy, no matter how clean he was.

Del scoffed at his short glass of brown liquid, stirring it like the ice had offended him.

“Something that drink said sideways to ya?” Bonnie asked from behind the bar.

Del felt his eyes roll up to face her, his expression entirely unamused. “You makin’ fun of the way I talk, ma’am?”

“No.” Bonnie said solemnly, immediately cutting it out with the fake southern accent. Good, cause it crawled right up Del’s nerves and stuck in his craw.

He swirled his drink again, taking another sip, and realizing that Bonnie was still standing in front of him. He raised an eyebrow at her, which was invisible under his untamable hair. But Bonnie seemed to get the message.

“Just came over here for the stirring conversation you always provide, honey.” She gave a smirk, and Del gave a scoff.

No one in their right mind or wrong would ever fucking think that he was the chatty type. He didn’t wanna talk to anyone, and he didn’t care what they said to him. There was a wall up between Del and the rest of the world, and that was the way he damn well liked it.

“And.” Bonnie leaned closer, closer to Del’s face than he really wanted anyone to be. “To tell you to be careful tonight, going about your…business.” Bonnie gestured to him vaguely.

And Del wanted to be pissed, but he knew exactly what she meant. At least Bonnie hadn’t been judgemental. Most people looked down their nose at him and how he survived.

“More than usual?” He asked, keeping his voice down, which was easy with his low and gravely tone.

She shrugged her sun-tanned shoulders, pushing dark curls away from her face as she glanced over to the other end of the tiny sitting portion of the room. “You remember that kid with the fake ID last month?”

Del didn’t answer, just gave a grunt of assent. That glued-together driver’s license wouldn’t have fooled him.

“Well, one’a the conditions of keepin’ our liquor license—gotta have a private EMS on busy nights—but this guy looks more like a cop.” She leaned back from Del, nodding her head in the direction her eyes had gone earlier. “And he keeps staring at you.”

That had the dirty blond tensing up real quick. She could have just gotten to that point—the last thing that he needed, that anyone needed, that would right and surely ruin a party, was a cop.

Bonnie dismissed herself to put out the next few rounds of drinks, and Del tried to be surreptitious as he looked over towards the person she had indicated.

When he did, he saw the last thing he had ever expected to see in a bar that was barely keeping it all legal in the middle of the desert Arizona.

“Sam…?”

***

Del stayed stock still as the past and the present all tried to crash into him at once. Texas was an entire world away, even if it was only a few states over. But there was the fireman EMT who ended up at the Reddick house more than anyone who was invited. Out of instinct, Del grabbed for his wrist, covering the sleeve of the green henley he wore.

But there he was, the man right out of his past, looking almost exactly like Del remembered him.

Other than a new bit of gray that made his black beard even more striking.

“Hey, stranger.” Sam’s voice was just like Del remembered. Smooth and easy, with an underlying cool confidence that just made you want to trust him.

Or, maybe, that was just how the dirty blonde had learned to respond to the man that had been rescuing him from his shitty life since he was seventeen.

Could Sam see how far he’d fallen since then? There was always a deeper and rockier bottom.

“Hey,” Del finally voice, realizing that this entire thing had taken place in his head and he hadn’t actually said anything out loud.

Though, no matter how many years had passed, Sam hadn’t forgotten what he was like. Didn’t reach out to touch his shoulder or to offer his hand, just slid into the barstool next to Del without waiting for the invite that the younger man wouldn’t think to give…but really wished he had the guts to.

The medic did really remember him.

“Long time no see.” Sam chuckled, with a roll of his shoulders, making conversation like it was the easiest thing in the world. And like Del’s staring wasn’t making it awkward. “You’ve grown up a bit.”

“Things happen when ya ain’t dead.” Del answered, and he heard another chuckle. He was being rude, wasn’t he? That was rude. Sam seemed unaffected, letting it slide off his shoulders. But Del knew himself, and he knew he couldn’t help but be an asshole. Even when he wasn’t trying to be. “You got gray.”

He winced at his own failed attempt at making conversation with a man who had meant so much to him.

But Sam Estrada let it go with a laugh, rubbing at the silvery lines of his beard along either side of his mouth. “Grays happen when ya ain’t dead.” He shot right back at Del, who was trying to stare a hole into the bar top between his elbows, as if it would swallow him up and take him the hell away from his failed attempts at conversation.

Though, the sarcastic remark made a smile finally surface to Del’s lips.

They sat for a moment in a familiar silence. Growing up, when things happened with Del’s father, with his mother, with his uncle…everyone always tried to make Del talk about it. Tell them what happened, tell them how it made him feel. Spill his guts when they’d already been ripped out.

Sam was the only one who would let him sit in the back of his ambulance and not say a damn thing. He’d just, stay. Within reach, but not touching. Because Sam had always been good at seeing what people wanted and giving them what they actually needed.

Del couldn’t help but admire it.

“So,” Sam bridged after a long moment, and the dirty blonde turned his head towards him, but never facing him fully. “Last I heard, you were headed back east to Alabama.”

“And you were staying in Dallas.”

“Well, things happen.” The medic said, that thoughtful hand stroking back across his short beard.

Del looked up from under his bangs, but didn’t ask. Sam would answer if he wanted to. And it seemed he did.

“Amber moved out here, ‘bout a year ago, t’be closer to a clinical trial for Zeke.” Sam reached over, and Del watched every movement of his hand, brushing down the dark hair of his tanned arm.

Del thought he should be able to interpret. But people and their quirks always evaded his understanding.

“They alright?”

“Yeah…seems they’re doing just fine.” Sam sighed, and Del felt the sudden urge to reach out and put a hand over the man’s. Over the hand that was petting his arm and…what? Offer him some sort of comfort.

As if Del had any to offer.

Del, in one of the many character flaws that he had, brought his left thumb up to his mouth, already trying to nip at the cuticle—since his nail was already gone.

This time, he felt just a brush of fingertips against the palm of his hand. Making him drop the digit he was attempting to mutilate, and look up at the gently concerned brown eyes, willing him to stop. Like he always had when Del was young.

“Well, gotta get back to this job.” Sam patted the table, close to Del’s arm, too close and not close enough for the younger man’s liking. All at once. “Doesn’t pay, but it was the first thing I could get. Only been here a week.”

Sam stretched, and Del just glanced over when he did. The tight uniform shirt rode up along his stomach, showing a trail of dark hair below his belly button…that made Del feel an ugly blush creep up along the back of his neck.

A warmth some part of him had always felt for Sam, and should never feel for a man.

His uncle would kill him and spit on his unmarked grave.

“Maybe I’ll see ya around, Del?” Sam asked, his voice warm and his smile genuine when Del finally looked up and meet his fascinatingly deep eyes.

“Maybe.” Del said, non-committally. “If I’m around.” Because he wanted to give a flat and firm no.

The man who had seen him on the worst day of his life, helped him actually try to make something of himself, could never see how he’d sunk right back to rock bottom again. Sitting in a bar full of barely not-teenagers, with a pocket of something to sell for three times the price it would be in the city.

“You still remember my number?”

“Mm-hm.” Del shrugged. That was one of the few things he was good at.

“I’ll be around.” Sam promise him, with that firm, sure smile that nearly broke whatever heart Del still had left inside him.

Because, he would be. All the younger had to do…was ask.

And Del never would.

***

Del watched until Sam’s back had disappeared out the swinging door, roiling around in his thoughts like the spin cycle on a shit-old washing machine. The music the DJ was currently playing sounded about as good as the washer they had growing up—which had no top and an exposed spinning drum.

He knew his uncle sent him here because he was young and he looked like he might still pass as a college student, though he had a handful of years on them. Jaxson didn’t care that his nephew hated how loud it was and that the flashing lights gave him a headache. He had a supply, and he had to sell.

Del glanced towards the dance floor and then the door. He just needed an easy mark or two to dump the rest of this on, and he could get the hell out of here.

Maybe one would walk right through the door.

As his light green eyes were trained that way, the door did open. All he saw was a flash of red hair disappearing behind the broad shoulders of the bouncer man. who was about as threatening as a football coach running the study hall.

Del rolled his eyes, about to turn his attention somewhere else, when the girl stepped out from behind the bouncer.

One of the pink lights from the dance floor rolled over the little seating aread, illuminating her in a rosy glow.

She was beautiful.

It was his first thought, and it made his neck even redder. And he’d just cooled down from seeing Sam again.

He’d never been struck by someone on first sight before—hell, it even took a while before he looked at Sam in a way that he shouldn’t.

But she was beautiful.

Freckles dotted the high points of her exposed skin, along her arms and dusting her cheeks. She had long red hair that waved down to the middle of her back, and below that—well, staring at her ass just made his face heat even more.

Del cleared his throat and tried to keep his eyes back on his own drink. He was almost done with it, and some dude edging off the dance floor and eyeing him.

Like he was debating whether to make a move. Del sipped at his whiskey, draining the glass slowly. He wasn’t gonna make a sale if he tried too damn hard.

When he set his glass down…he saw the girl was up at the bar.

And she was even prettier up close.

She placed both wrists down on the shiny wooden top, then looked up at the drinks like she didn’t have a hope of understanding. Del felt a strange urge to come to her rescue. Maybe recommend a sangria or mojito, something she might like.

But their eyes met, and he quickly ducked his head back to his own drink.

“You gonna order somethin’ that’s on the menu, honey?” He heard Bonnie’s voice over the thump of another track picking up. “That tall drink might just be a little much for you.”

Del rolled his lanky arms, turning just as two bodies blocked out the light.

When Del had offloaded the remains of the supply in his pocket on the students—for three times the price, as Jaxon instructed, he sat finishing his drink and watching the dance floor.

He didn’t dance. He never had danced, and he wasn’t about to start now. But, the girl was pretty easy to spot from her bright red hair, like a buoy swaying in the ocean, buffeted back and forth by the waves.

Del sipped his drink, just watching curiously. Wondering what it would like to be dancing with her. Hell, to dance with anyone. Could he keep up…or would they expect him to lead?

Del gave a little scoff at that thought, shaking his head at his glass as he set it down. He stood up as a wave of bodies came between him and the girl, hiding her red hair from sight. Reminding him that he had other things he wanted to do tonight than watch and day dream.

A flash of hair caught his attention as he threw some cash down on the bar to cover his drink and give Bonnie a nice tip for letting them do business in her bar.

The redhead was shoving at her dance partner’s chest like she was trying to push him away.

But the fucker wasn’t getting the less than subtle hint.

Then, the girl was on the ground. Flat on her ass. And she was about to be trampled.

And Delcan Reddick sure as hell wasn’t about to another woman be hurt in front of him. Not when he was big enough to do something the fuck about it.