Home Again

Angel wanted to believe it, but it was too late in life to change that radically. He was selfish and reactionary. He had the devil’s own temper and he always had. And becoming famous had made it even worse.

He’d accepted the truth about himself a long time ago—he sure as hell wasn’t going to change now. What was the point?

He was dying. He understood that now, and after Tom left, Angel had lain there, waiting for his next breath, and the next, and the next, waiting for each feeble beat of his heart. A surge of loneliness had come over him then, settling deep and heavy in his ragged heart. He’d wanted someone—anyone—to sit with him, hold his hand, and tell him it was all right.

He’s not like you, Angel. He hurts easily.

Her words had come back to him, stinging his conscience. He’d only ever loved two people in his life—Francis and Madelaine—and he’d hurt both of them.

The crazy part was, he’d never really meant to, never wanted to, at least. Suddenly he was thinking of the past, of the times his big brother—no more than eight years old himself—had hidden Angel from their drunken mother, the times Francis had tried futilely to turn her wrath on himself instead … times they’d sat in that old weedy lot beside the trailer park and spun their shaky dreams together.

How had he forgotten all that—how had he walked away from it?

Slowly he reached out and picked up the phone, dialing the number Madelaine had left him. An answering machine picked up on the third ring.

Angel left a message and hung up.

Angel was more than half asleep when he heard his door open. Quiet footsteps moved into the room.

Ah, he thought with relief, Attila the Nurse with his fix.

He opened his eyes and saw a tall man standing in the door. He had wheat-blond hair and pale skin and blue eyes, and he was wearing a gray UW sweatshirt and faded Levi’s. For a second, Angel had no idea who it was, then he realized.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Is that you, Franco?”

“Hi, Angel.” It was the same voice after all these years.

Angel’s first emotion was pure elation, a quick Thank God that someone cared, that someone had come. Then he thought of Madelaine, of Francis and Madelaine together, and jealousy started, sudden as a dart, piercing through the joy, ripping a little piece of it away. Then there was guilt, acrid and sour, the memories of Angel’s betrayal and Francis’s hurt. He forced a cocky grin. “It’s good to see you, bro. Glad you had time to stop by.”

Francis flinched. Angel immediately felt like a jerk. But wasn’t that always the way of it? Why couldn’t he ever do or say the right thing around Francis?

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long,” Angel said at last. “I had another heart attack in Oregon and they flew me up here.”

“Another one?”

He shrugged. “Technically it’s an ‘episode of heart failure,’ but it sure as hell feels like an attack.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m always okay—you should know that.” He faked a smile. “They’ll pump me full of drugs and send me home. Nothing to it.”

Francis pulled out a chair and sat down. He looked older than his thirty-five years, and there was a sadness in his blue eyes that made Angel uncomfortable. Francis had always been such an optimist.

“How’ve you been, Franco?”

Francis didn’t smile. “That’s a hell of a question after all these years. What am I supposed to say, Angel? ‘I’ve been fine. How about yourself?’”

Again Angel had said the wrong thing. He wanted to save this moment, make something of it, but he didn’t know how. He and Franco had been fighting for all their lives—at least, Angel had been fighting with Francis, and Francis had taken it. He didn’t know how to stop the cycle, how to break out of the mold and say, Let’s start over.

“Have you seen her?” Francis asked.

No coyness there, not from Franco. No beating around the bush about who she was. Angel felt a sudden, undeniable friction settle into the room. “Yeah, I’ve seen her.”

“And?”

Angel studied his brother, noticing that he was still blond and still had the lean body of a long-distance runner. Yeah, he was the same old Francis, nearly perfect in every way—good-looking and decent and moral. The kind of man a woman would feel safe with, loved by. The ideal guy to step in and mend a sixteen-year-old girl’s broken heart.