they wish they could run away from. I bet Tucker does as well. Be enigmatic and as nonthreatening as possible.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to work.” Gerome realized that he needed to deal with this and that it was his responsibility. “I’ll take care of it.” He put his hand up to stop further discussion, because it wasn’t going to be helpful.
“Just one more question. Do you really like this guy?” Terrance asked. “I mean really like him, like he could be the one, the way Daniel was for Richard?” He groaned. “Like I said before, we are all so damned screwed.” He sighed.
“And why is that?” Richard asked, crossing his arms.
“Because the more people who know about us—and if Gerome is in love, then at some point he’s going to have to explain who we are—the more likely it is that eventually someone will say something and our lives will end up in the ‘wheel of towns to move to’ lottery all over again.” Terrance growled. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
Gerome crossed his arms over his chest just like Richard.
“You’re both bastards, you know that? Fine. I kind of like it here and don’t want to end up freezing my butt off in Idaho or stuck in some quaint little seaside village in Maine… where we still freeze our asses off for half the year.”
“Then help us,” Gerome said.
Terrance rolled his eyes. “I always help you. Richard got Daniel because I helped, and maybe you’ll end up with Tucker… or some other guy… because I helped. And I end up with nothing.” For a second he looked like he was twelve years old. Gerome lowered his arms and patted Terrance on the shoulder. “I don’t need your pity or any of that shit.”
Gerome and Richard shared a look and then both shook their heads at the same time.
“Fine. Just quit that silent eyebrow code shit and figure this stuff out.”
Gerome sighed. “We’re going to watch and see if we can figure out more about what’s going on.”
“And we all keep an eye out for Tucker,” Richard added.
Gerome wished to hell that their lives were simpler. There was something to be said about what they’d had in Detroit. At least they all knew where they stood and understood their lives. Being out here in the law-abiding world was so much harder. Keeping hidden from their old lives while somehow trying to build new ones. And every time something good happened, it was always filtered through the threat of exposure and the fact that their old lives were just sitting there, waiting to take away whatever they might have built.
“Yeah.” Gerome held out his hand, and Richard took it. So did Terrance. “We need to keep the people we care about safe. That’s how we’ve always done things.” He turned to Terrance. “Right?”
“And you really care about Tucker that much?” Terrance pressed.
Gerome stared, not looking away from his gaze for a second. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly.” He certainly wasn’t going to spill his feelings about Tucker to Terrance before he had had a chance to talk things over with him. Gerome was a little confused as far as his feelings went. Things with Tucker were very different from anything he’d experienced before. “But I want a fucking chance to try to figure it out.”
Terrance gripped his hand. “Okay. That’s good enough for me.” Sometimes the level of trust between all of them struck Gerome hard. They might argue and bicker with each other—they’d always done it—but in the end they arrived at better decisions because of it. “We always have each other’s back, no matter what.”
“Yeah, we do,” Richard added as he released his grip. “But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t careful.”
“What are you thinking?”
“That I need Daniel to try to find out what information we can about Tucker.”
Gerome wasn’t happy and tried to disguise his tension.
“We need to know that there isn’t some hidden agenda.”
“From a man who spent months, if not longer, living in a tent, half-starved and desperate enough to take a job to scour the beach for a package just for a few hundred dollars?” He cocked his eyebrows as though it were a ridiculous notion, but figured it wasn’t going to hurt anything, and if it put some of Terrance and Richard’s doubts to rest, then that would be good.
“You never know. Things could simply be exactly as they appear, or they could be more. I don’t really know.