Bad to Be Worthy (Bad to Be Good #2) - Andrew Grey Page 0,46

what was going to happen to me. I’d lost my job and my apartment, and I had little idea how I was going to feed myself. There had already been some nights when I had gone without eating.” They came to a stop, and Gerome gently tugged his arm away from Tucker’s and put it around him instead. “I can still remember lying in that little tent, in complete darkness, just me, my thoughts, and the sound of the waves.” He shivered, and Gerome slowly turned them around, heading back the way they’d come.

“I can’t imagine how that would feel,” Gerome began. “No… I guess that’s not really true. I know what it feels like to wonder if you have a future at all.” He turned to Tucker. “I had no one, just like you did… at least it felt that way. In some ways that fear stayed with me for years.”

“But you had the guys, Richard and Terrance,” Tucker said.

Gerome nodded. “It was still hard being a foster kid, shuffled from place to place because you weren’t really wanted.” He sighed softly. “Maybe that isn’t exactly true.” He paused as his own childhood came into focus in a way it never had before. “Maybe I never allowed myself to be cared for. I don’t really know.”

Tucker leaned closer, his arms encircling Gerome’s waist. “Just tell me and get it off your chest.”

Gerome shrugged. He hadn’t come out here for a heart-to-heart talk or to bare his soul, but that seemed to be what was happening… and he wasn’t too sure how comfortable he was about it. His head whirled for a few seconds, and then his thoughts settled into calmness. Maybe he’d been carrying this around for so long that it was time for him to let it go. “Maybe I was shuffled and moved all the time because I never gave any of them a chance. I wonder sometimes if I had been more open to them, if some of my foster families would have been more open to me. I kept myself closed off and aloof, even aggressive, just to hold most of the world at bay.”

“So you couldn’t be hurt again?” Tucker finished, and Gerome nodded. “And you’ve been doing that for a long time.”

Gerome couldn’t disagree. “I think all three of us have, to some degree.”

“Did you have anyone you were close to besides Richard and Terrance?” Tucker asked.

Gerome turned out toward the water. “I did. Terrance’s mother. She died over a year ago.” He thanked God every time he remembered that he and the guys had been able to talk to her before then. Gerome hugged Tucker tighter and closed his eyes. “There were many times in my life that I have been alone.”

“But you always had the guys?”

“Since we were about eight years old, yeah. They are my family, like brothers.”

Tucker chuckled, and Gerome wondered what he had said that could possibly have been funny. “Did you ever think it strange that all three of you are gay?”

Gerome had never thought about it. For each of them, it was just a part of themselves that always was. “I think we ended up together because we were gay. All of us were different otherwise, and maybe we were drawn together. We were tough kids and we lived in a rough place.”

“Is that why you three can look at each other and seem to communicate without words?” Tucker asked. “I’ve seen that when you guys get together.”

Gerome nodded. “We have so much shared experience, I guess. Most of the time I don’t even think we realize we’re doing it.” He tried to keep his voice level, knowing this was his chance to smooth over any suspicions Tucker might have. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but he was sure that making too much of what they had seen and now knew about the people involved in the drug running offshore was only going to raise Tucker’s suspicions, and he didn’t want to do that. All of them relied on staying under the radar for safety, and when Gerome had stepped in to help Tucker, he hadn’t anticipated that his act of kindness could severely blow back on all of them. And yet, if he hadn’t stepped in, then he wouldn’t have Tucker in his arms right now, and that felt so right.

Gerome leaned closer, touching his lips to Tucker’s, who shifted in his arms, pressing against him, their kiss growing more heated by the