No Saint (Wild Men 6)

“I’ll bring you antibiotics. Dad has a whole box leftover from when he had a molar taken out last year. I saw it in the bathroom cabinet.”

“You a doctor now?”

“Unless you decided to go visit a real one?”

He winces. “I’m okay.”

I roll my eyes a little. “Okay, macho man. Let’s get you inside, then.”

“I don’t need no help,” and he kind of slurs the words like he’s drunk.

Screw this.

Grabbing his arm, I pull until he groans and pu

shes to his feet. He drapes his arm over my shoulders, hauling his pants up with the other hand.

He’s so much taller than me, so much heavier, that when he staggers I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop him from falling on his face. But he catches himself with his other hand on the wall.

“I’m fucked,” he mutters. “Goddammit.”

“You need to cut yourself a little slack. Infection is like that. It can knock you off your feet.”

“Infection’s a bitch,” he agrees, soft and rough, and flipping my heart over as he leans on me, trusting me to help, even if he refused it.

Actions speak louder than words, right? I told him that. And he’s showing me trust right now. I wonder if he realizes what he’s doing.

I shove the house door wider with my shoulder and lead his lurching steps inside. “Good thing tomorrow’s Sunday. You’re in no shape to go to work.”

“Fuck that,” he murmurs, and I almost laugh. He sounds so out of it. “Shit.”

I maneuver him through the cluttered, dusty living room toward what I hope is his bedroom, and he curses, steering me the other way, to another door. We push it open together and stumble into a dark space like a closet. The dust is so thick that I cough, my sinuses stinging.

“Ouch!” My shin hits the bed and Ross awkwardly falls on it, letting out a surprised yelp, thankfully releasing me as he does. “You okay?”

“Peachy,” he growls. “Good throw.”

I giggle and sit down beside him, my eyes getting used to the gloom. Some light enters through the window slats, just enough to make him out sprawled diagonally across the narrow bed, his legs hanging off.

He rolls on his back, eyes-half closed, and I can’t help but stare at his hard jaw, his pale hair, his soft lips.

“You should be staying here,” I find myself saying, “Not in a padlocked garage. It’s your home. It’s your right.”

He turns his face away. “You don’t get it. I can’t stay here. I fucking can’t.”

“Why not?” A horrible thought strikes me. “Oh crap, did your dad kill—”

“Not here, no. Fuck, no.” He pales even more. “I’d have burned the place to the ground if he had.”

The police wouldn’t agree with burning the evidence, but I don’t say that. I want to ask if he knows where it was done, where his dad killed the two women, but I hesitate. The way he talked about his mom, and that tattoo, it tells me he loved her, and that talking about her has to be painful for him. I never gave his mom much thought all my years growing up here. We all knew she’d skipped town, but it was long ago, and nobody ever talked about her, so I guess we all assumed Ross didn’t remember her much, or didn’t care.

What an awful thing to imagine, right? That a kid wouldn’t care if his mom had left.

Then again, with his bad attitude and tendency to hurt others Ross reinforced the idea that he had no feelings. Why worry about someone who didn’t worry about anyone else, right?

Besides, my mom and I never got along, and since she left, I’ve barely seen her at all. It was easy enough to project my situation on him. I’ve had Aunt Emily in my life, though, and she’s been more of a mom to me than my mother ever was...

God, I need to get back home. I bend over, start to unlace his black combat boots.