“See? Backrub, sex… it can all lead to the same place.”

  “Right now, it’s all leading to… ohh… ohh God….”

  Mikhail’s thumbs parted the crease of his buttocks and spread him, and the side of his hand slid between, exposing him to the air, and Shane’s lazy arousal turned to a hard-on that could drill concrete.

  “Jesus….”

  “Isn’t here. I am.” Mikhail had lowered his head, the better to explore, and Shane felt a pointed tongue come out and taste the flesh of his left quarter. There was an experimental smack of tongue and palate, and then Mikhail said, “Oh good—the label was right. I was afraid it would taste horrible, but no. It’s a little like mouthwash.”

  “I didn’t know you were planning to lick my… oh…geez….”

  Mikhail’s hands were busy again, and this time they were even more personal. One of them slipped under Shane and began to fondle, and Shane’s testicles became hard and swollen from the gentle rubbing almost immediately. The other hand was busy too. Shane’s backside was kneaded some more, and then spread again, and then one experimental finger slipped its way in, and Shane had to grab the coverlet in both hands and groan into the bed.

  “Mickey….”

  “Yes. Not Jesus.”

  Shane would have laughed, because the word play was fun and Mikhail was good at it, but he was being stretched, and it burned a little because it had been a while, but it felt good too. Mikhail’s other hand fumbled for his cock and started stroking him in the confines between Shane’s body and the bed, and Shane raised himself a little on his knees to make room. Mikhail adjusted his position then, straddling his knees and kneeling behind him, and then grabbing Shane around the waist and hauling him up until his face was planted in the mattress and his ass was sticking out in the air. Shane might have been embarrassed then, he might have felt vulnerable, but those hands again, spreading his bottom, and then….

  “Ohhh… God, Mickey….”

  That pointed little tongue found home, and Shane almost came, and then when he stopped himself, he almost cried it felt so good. And it didn’t stop. Shane moaned and gibbered and swore and begged, but that tongue and Mickey’s fingers didn’t stop, and finally, he pushed himself up on all fours and pleaded, “Oh, please, Mikhail… please….”

  “Please what?” Mikhail panted, but he was already behind Shane, pressing down on Shane’s shoulder blades until Shane’s face was pushed down into the bed again and already positioning himself. Shane felt the little mushroom head right at his entrance, pushing just barely, and Shane wanted it, wanted it soooo bad.

  “Fuck me… please, oh geez… please please…. Oh God….”

  And Mikhail was inside him, moving, thrusting, slowly at first and a little uncertainly, and then natural rhythm took over as Shane screamed his pleasure into the pillow in front of him.

  “Stroke yourself,” Mikhail panted. “I cannot reach and fuck you too….”

  His hand flailed for a moment, but every boy knows how to find his cock in the dark, and Shane had himself in hand soon enough. He grabbed and squeezed, and Mikhail thrust, and then Shane stroked, and his skin was a little rough but he couldn’t help how fast he pulled and stroked and squeezed and… oh God… oh geez… oh… oh….

  “Auuuuuuuugggghhhhhh….” His climax went on and on and on as he pumped come over his hands and his stomach. His vision went black, and he couldn’t seem to stop coming until Mikhail made the same sound and thrust all the way home, deep into his ass, and collapsed over his back.

  He felt it. He felt Mikhail’s climax, his spend, hot and slick, inside his body, and as he slid flat to the bed and Mikhail rolled off of him and out, he thought that if he had anything left in him, he’d be hard again just from the feel of Mickey’s spend trickling down his thighs.

  They lay there, breathing hard, for several minutes, and when Shane opened his eyes it was too look into Mikhail’s blue-gray ones and smile.

  “God.”

  “I told you, he’s not here.” But Mickey was blinking as he said it, looking a little bemused.

  Shane reached out and stroked the inside of his lover’s outstretched arm, needle tracks and all. “I think He is,” Shane whispered. “I see Him in everything you do.”

  Mikhail blinked. “That’s blasphemous.”

  Shane shrugged. “Or holy. What made you decide to…?” If he’d had the energy, he would have blushed.

  “Take charge?” Mikhail asked with an arch of his eyebrows.

  Shane’s grin was about the most energy he could summon. “Yeah. Take charge. You’ve never wanted to before.”

  “I’ve never wanted to ever,” Mikhail said seriously. “No one has ever trusted me to do that. I have never trusted anyone else to do that to them. I have never trusted myself.”

  Mikhail’s hand came out and brushed Shane’s cheekbone in his turn, and Shane’s smile softened. “I do trust you,” he said. “And I love you. I hope you know that.”

  “It is the only thing I believe in,” Mikhail said seriously. He was the one who moved in for the kiss—but Shane was happy to follow his lead.

  Chapter 23

  There she sits buddy justa gleaming in the sun, there to greet a working man when his day is done…

  “Cadillac Ranch”—Bruce Springsteen

  IT WAS a good thing Shane trusted Mickey. Otherwise, a month later (and two weeks after Mikhail had obtained his driver’s license, to Benny’s immense envy), he could have seriously fucked up their relationship.

  But then, pretty much anybody else would have lost his freaking mind, so Shane could be proud. It was almost proof that they were meant to be together.

  It all started when Shane got home from work and saw an ancient Chevy van parked in the driveway beyond the cattle gate. The color was hard to decipher, because most of it was in red or gray primer, and Mikhail was standing behind it, gazing fondly at the damned thing while he absently patted Angel Marie’s head and the puppy gnawed on his pant-leg.

  It had rusted fenders, blacked out windows, and—Shane would put money on it—a blown something-or-whatsis and two or three whajamawhosis that had been taped together for the trip from someone’s front lawn to his driveway.

  No parent ever looked prouder of a high school graduate than Mickey looked at that rust-nut monstrosity lowering Shane’s property value just by not disintegrating into powder.

  Shane parked the car and walked up to the love of his life, setting a warm hand on Mickey’s shoulder. “Uhm, wow.”

  Mikhail turned a beaming smile on him. “Isn’t she beautiful? I’m going to drive her to the faires, and that way you don’t have to worry about me when I work.”

  Shane’s stomach, which just moments ago had been a simple working organ sitting in his abdomen, suddenly became a ten-pound acid pressure cooker, complete with broken glass and rusty nails.

  “Uhm, the one this weekend? In Nevada City?” Oh God. That was only four days and sixty miles away.

  “Yes!” Mikhail nodded, excited. “Kimmy called—everything is go!”

  Shane swallowed. “Awesome, Mickey. It, might, uhm, need a little work before it’s street legal, you know that don’t you?”

  Mikhail’s open-eyed gaze at him was as trusting and guileless as the child he had never been. “It shouldn’t need too much work. It only died three times on the way over!”

  Oh, Jesus. Now Shane knew a parent’s pressure to be Santa Claus. “Of course. Absolutely. Excellent. I’ll be out to check it over in a minute, okay?”

  “Where are you going now? I wanted to show you the inside—it has a bed!”

  Shane mentally added “bleach” and “upholstery cleaner” to the terrifying list of things he was going to need for this to turn out okay.

  “Give me a second, Mickey—I gotta go inside and change, and I just remembered I need to call Deacon.”

  It took the full four days to get that thing into working order and four nights of everyone working side by side with hanging electric lights and music playing from the garage and grease beneath their fingernails and men turning the air blue with things like “motherfuckingcocksuckingbitch—die die die die die fucking fucking fucking fucking assfucking die!” (This last was Crick, when the engine wouldn’t stop turning over even after they’d disconnected the starter. Nobody knew how that happened, but given Crick’s bad luck with mechanical things in general, everyone decided it would be best for him to focus on stripping the dark shit from the windows.)

  Jeff was the only one who opted out of the whole business. He chose to watch the children in Shane’s house instead. Amy and Benny helped Mikhail rip out the fuzzy purple upholstery and establish a bench seat (complete with seatbelts) that folded back into bed, with some room in the back for another bedroll.

  “Good,” said Shane, viewing their work. “It’s less like a bong and Wesson oil party back here.” And of course that was always an improvement.

  Calvin joined them on the third day, when even Deacon confessed that the engine block was going to be a challenge, and Amy and Benny retired to the kitchen. They cooked a lot, and Shane would shoo everybody home and come in to a house that smelled like stew and tacos and other things they’d made for the impromptu work party, and, lo and behold, food would appear like magic on the counter. Calvin’s two-year-old, Amos, and Parry Angel took an immediate love/hate to each other, and a lot of effort was apparently spent separating the two of them and then allowing them to reunite when they swore they’d be good.

  Calvin himself was a little uncertain at first—but once he realized that none of the men working on the car had any interest in him as anything other than a ready pair of hands, he relaxed and actually enjoyed the company. He was a little surprised when Shane told him they didn’t do beer, he’d have to settle for soda, but other than that, he was happy to help Deacon bore out the engine and replace the blown head gaskets and rebuild the carburetor. In fact, he told Shane privately that he was a little afraid of Deacon.

  “The guy’s so quiet—it’s like he’s Special Forces or something.”

  Shane didn’t tell Calvin that it was just because Deacon didn’t talk to strangers—he figured if Calvin hung out enough at his place, he’d figure it out.

  On the fourth night, as everybody was working far beyond the call of duty so Mikhail could drive the van to a faire the next morning, Shane came back from the store with Starbucks for everybody as well as a big bag of candy and nuts so folks would stay awake. Mikhail greeted him in the damp spring twilight.

  “Here, let me get that.” Mikhail reached and grabbed the groceries, and Shane wrestled with the six jumbo-sized coffee/latte/cappuccinos that everybody had ordered.

  Shane set the coffee cartons on the top of the GTO and turned to find Mikhail looking at him quietly. It was past eight, and the sky was still that curious purple between blue and black, and a breeze had sprung up off the delta that made Shane shiver in his still-green front yard. There was something unsettling in Mikhail’s look.

  “You did not tell me,” he said softly.

  “You’re right. I didn’t tell you what?” Shane blinked—hard—because he hadn’t taken any days off, and he needed that coffee badly.

  “Didn’t tell me this would be a… a burden to so many people.” Mikhail looked unhappily toward the van, sticking out of Shane’s garage along with a whole bunch of parts and tools that Shane had not had four days ago. While they were watching, Crick—who was taking the tire off so he could check the brakes, because they were at that stage—slipped his hand from the lug-wrench and skinned the knuckles of his bad hand, letting loose a string of swear words into the night that made the sky about three shades darker. Deacon’s voice floated out to them.

  “Goddammit, Carrick—let me see that. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Here—let’s go inside—Shane’s got the antiseptic and shit in the kitchen…”

  “Deacon, it’s a scrape….”

  “And we’ll need a bandage and we’ve got to scrub the grease out….”

  “Deacon, I’m not made out of glass….”

  “Just shut up and go inside, dammit. If we put a bandage on it, you can fix that goddamned tire!”

  “Sir yes sir!” Crick snapped, saluting sharply.

  Andrew stuck his head out from under the van where he was doing something with the chassis and snickered. “Shut up, Lieu, and go inside and let him doctor you. He’s the second best mechanic we’ve got, and we don’t want him distracted.”

  “Second?” Deacon asked, a little affronted.

  “Shane’s the first,” Calvin said, standing up from his place by the front of the engine. “I mean, I knew he restored the GTO, but, damn—I didn’t realize he was like a fucking genius with the things.”

  “Shit.” Shane blushed and then he realized he hadn’t responded to Mikhail’s unasked question. “You were so proud, Mickey. I just didn’t want to take that away from you—and look. It’ll be ready for tomorrow, right? Jon and Amy said they’d follow you up and make sure it went okay. They’re looking forward to seeing the Faire.”

  Mikhail stood on his toes and pressed his lips to Shane’s, and Shane was surprised enough to open his mouth and kiss him back, groaning because there hadn’t been much time for the two of them in the past week, and it felt so good to hold him.

  “Don’t make it small,” Mikhail whispered against him, dropping the grocery bags on the ground and wiggling closer. “Don’t make light of it. You do that all the time—you create miracles, do wonderful things, and then act as though anyone else would do the same. Nobody would do the things for me that you have done. It is huge. It is bigger than the world. You and your family have done the impossible, just for me. How could I not love you?”

  Shane leaned back against the car in surprise. “Really? You do?”

  Mikhail stepped back and shook his head in irritation. “And how could I not have said it until now? You do miracles for me, and I can’t even say three simple words. No wonder no one has worked miracles for me before; I don’t deserve th—”

  Because Shane shut that up right quick. They had to stop kissing eventually, because the coffee was getting cold, but Shane kept the words tight in his heart for the rest of the night. For the rest of the weekend, actually, because Shane worked, and he couldn’t go see Mikhail and Kimmy at the Faire.

  It was hard watching him drive away in the now-working purple van. Mickey was going to paint it pink and call it “The Queermobile,” but Calvin said, “Oh yeah—and our own police department will egg your house and TeePee your lawn.

  Mikhail had been pretty upset, and Shane had sent Calvin a quelling look, saying, “Don’t you let my job rule your life, Mickey. You paint the damned thing any color you like.”

  Mikhail had sulked. “Yes, your damned job—they never can tolerate a purple brick, can they?” And then he’d looked up, a rather unholy gleam in his eye.

  “No,” Shane said flatly.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Mickey….”

  “You said I should paint it any color I like. So I am going to name it after you.”

  Ten cans of purple primer later, (and one can of black) it was a big purple van with “The Purple Brick” freehanded on the side. Crick did the freehanding, and Deacon said it looked a damned sight better than the water tower. Crick turned red and said, “Fuck you, Deacon,” and then Deacon had smirked, and, well, it had been three in the morning by then and pretty much everyone had laughed their asses of.

  Six hours later, Mikhail left. He called two hours after to let Shane know he’d arrived on time, and Jon had called shortly thereafter to let him know that Mickey wasn’t a bad driver and they could quit their worrying. Since Jon and Shane had finally taken over teaching Benny to drive, Shane figured he could trust Jon’s judgment and relaxed just a smidge.

  Of course, he relaxed even more when Mickey pulled into Deacon’s driveway in time for Sunday dinner. Mikhail spent the evening eating Benny’s pot roast and telling stories about the Nevada City Celtic Cross and how beautiful Shane’s sister had been when they danced. Shane was glad to hear that Kimmy could still dance, but he heard the undertone of the story. Mikhail had caught his eyes and shrugged—she was still in trouble and still wouldn’t ask for help, and that sucked. But Mickey was home and that rocked, and he was exuberant and thrilled to be independent and doing something he loved—truly loved—and Shane’s chest swelled and his throat ached to see his lover that happy. His cock ached too, so when they got home, Shane stripped him naked, and took him hard and fast, bent over the bed.

  Mikhail came so hard he couldn’t talk for ten minutes, and when he was coherent, Shane manhandled him into bed, kissed him urgently, and said, “Now that’s how much I missed you!” and Mickey had grinned and shrugged, and said, “Not so much then?”

  Shane did it again, and he was satisfied.

  And he got told “I love you” every night, and he really started to believe it.

  Which was why, when he got his ribs busted hauling StepBob and his friends into jail for a drunk and disorderly three days later, he was surprised when Deacon came into the hospital room without Mickey.

  “You got the Vicodin?” Shane asked, because Deacon had been going to stop by the pharmacy and get Shane’s pain meds, and damn, his side was really beginning to hurt. Deacon nodded and cracked the seal on a water, handed him a pill, and let him wash everything down.

  “Where’s Mickey?” He’d really wanted to see him—and he’d gotten spoiled that way.

  “Funny you should mention that,” Deacon said, when he was sure Shane had swallowed the Vicodin. “’Cause I asked Benny that same question when the station called us.”

  Shane made a mental note to put Mikhail on his list of emergency contacts—he’d be hurt if he wasn’t. “And what did Benny say?”

  “She said that he was on the way to Monterey with Crick.”

  Shane tried to leap to his feet, but his ribs caught his breath in a blinding flash of pain, and he fell back down. “Monterey? What in the fuck…?”