Page 3 of Shades of Henry
“God, Davy. I can’t talk about it,” he begged, wiping his eyes. His humiliation was palpable, so thick he could almost choke on it. “I… I can’t even right now.” Davy had been prepared to leave all he was behind—he’d practiced at it, probably from the moment he’d moved away from Montana. But Henry had worked his whole life to hang on to his family, and he just couldn’t talk about what he’d left on the kitchen floor—along with not a little of his blood after his dad had beat the shit out of him, a military-trained adult, for being gay.
“I get that.” Gah—Davy’s eyes were still so earnest. “But you’re going to have to someday. As for where to put you, why don’t you stay here a couple of days? Shower, do your laundry. I’ll get you a laptop, and we can work on your résumé.”
“I can’t live here,” Henry said, looking around. There were pictures on the refrigerator of a turtle holding flowers, for God’s sake, and a small shelf of children’s books in the corner of the dining room. “This is your family.” And Henry was unclean, whether he could tell his brother that or not.
“It’s too small,” David said grimly. “Frances has the other bedroom. All we’ve got for you is the couch. How you doing for money?”
Henry grimaced. “Not great. I… I was saving for college, but….” A dishonorable discharge didn’t come with pay.
“You’ve got a little, but you don’t think it’ll go far,” David said, nodding when Henry did.
“I can get a basic job,” Henry told him. “Fast food, waiting tables—I just—”
“Need a place to start. I get it.” David nodded, like he was making a decision. “Okay. I think I can get something lined up for you. It’ll be sort of sporadic, odd jobs for me and John, my boss, mostly, but we’ve been talking about needing a gopher, and he’s been pretty good about Kane holding lights and doing set production stuff for a salary.”
“I wouldn’t have to—” Henry’s panic made his voice crack.
David let out a clearly negative snort. “No, you wouldn’t have to film scenes. Jesus, Henry—I’m not going to whore you out on film when you’re desperate. We only take the willing. Kane and I haven’t been on film for two years, and the business has kept on growing. Don’t worry. We’ll find something. A place for you to live is what we need.”
Henry’s relief made sweat pop out on his back. “Good to know,” he rasped.
David rolled his eyes some more and kept pondering. “There’s a place….” He grimaced and looked at him directly. “You’re not gonna like it. A bunch of the guys from Johnnies crash there. It’s sort of a flophouse—two bedrooms and like five guys, and they’re coming and going and shit. But they’re babies, really. I mean, yeah, they’re making their living doing porn, but some of them have never lived away from home. With the exception of the sex—and don’t get me wrong, you can practically smell come rolling down the stairwell—it’s like a boarding house for young men. They could use a grown man to help them out.”
Henry stared at him, nonplussed. “So, you want a, uh, nanny for porn stars?”
Another expression from David that made Henry feel mean-minded. “I work with these guys—do me a favor and don’t phrase it that way, all right? Like I said, they’re good kids. But… you know. Coming out, girlfriends who don’t know, parents who find out about the porn, boyfriends who don’t understand. Most of these guys are eighteen, nineteen. I think the oldest is Lance; he’s twenty-six or seven, and he does his best. It’s all about the fuckin’ drama with the other kids, and I….” He bit his lip like this hurt. “I’ve seen somespectacularflameouts. Friends. Friends who really needed a keeper sosomebodycould tell them they were worth the trouble and to please not do that thing that’s about to hurt us all.”
Henry caught his breath. Self-harm. Drugs. Dangerous behaviors. He could see all of that going down with young stupid people. Or stupid young people. Or just kids like he’d been, without the prop of the military and an outstandingcover story to explain why he was spending so much extra time with Mal.
Henry was twenty-seven, trained in physical combat, and he’d let his father beat the shit out of him because he thought he deserved it. What would a teenager do if Daddy showed up at his door with an attitude?
He’d done so very little in his past to redeem himself. This was like… like protecting people, wasn’t it? He’d wanted to serve his country, and while this wasn’t anything close to that, it was something. Something that didn’t make the world about Henry Matthew Worrall—liar, cheat, and potential homewrecker, dishonorably discharged from the job he’d loved.
“Sure,” he said, wondering if this aching feeling would ever grow numb. “What do I have to lose?”
“Self-loathing,” David said brutally. “Prejudice. All the bullshit Dad saddled us with that’s going to kill you if you don’t let it out. Feel free to put that shit in your rearview, little brother.”
“Where’d you leave yours?” Henry asked bitterly, hating that his brother seemed happy, smug with it even, when Henry couldn’t stand the fit of his own skin.
“Mom’s kitchen floor, when Kane blocked his second punch.”
Henry opened his mouth and closed it, not sure he had an answer to that, but David held his hand out to stop him.
“It’s going to be harder for you, Henry. You didn’t have anybody to block.”
True enough. Because even before Henry had left his dignity on his mother’s kitchen floor, he’d left his heart and his hope and his self-respect at Malachi’s feet, and Mal had stomped on it all in combat boots. Well, fucking your brother-in-law was sort of an invitation for abuse, right?
He swallowed, the whole story pounding in his throat to get out, but at that moment, his brother jumped a little in that human gesture that said he had gotten a call but was determined to ignore it.
“Get it, Davy,” Henry said gruffly. “I’ll go shower and do my laundry and try to get my shit together, okay?”
David sighed. “This might be John about a car for you—Sacramento’s sort of spread out. You’ll need one. But Henry?”
Henry pulled his military mask in place. “Yeah?”
“I will talk about it. Anytime. Anything you want to say. I….” He grimaced. “There’s some stuff that you can’t keep secret, and it would kill you to try. I won’t kick you out. I won’t turn my back on you. Ever. Understand? I might not go to prison for you, but I’d write you every fucking day, okay?”
Henry swallowed hard and tried not to laugh at that idea. Straight-arrow Henry, go to prison? Daddy’s favorite? Naw. “Roger that,” he said, like the military speak could keep his emotions in check.