He kept telling himself that it was closeness he wanted until his lips were slick and swollen with kisses, he had Joe’s shirt fisted halfway off, and he ached with need. He wondered how far he could push and still consider it not sex, how much they could do before his modesty or Joe’s common sense got the better of them.
Pants off. That was the line. He could work with that. Still gripping the back of Joe’s shirt, he pulled him toward the ground. Horizontal. Yes.
“Papi, wait.”
Devin tried. He really did. Especially once the hands that had been in his hair and down the back of his pants shifted and braced against his shoulders. But his momentum and Joe’s weight in his arms propelled him forward, and he didn’t stop until Joe’s back hit the dirty wood floor and his head clunked against the stock of the rifle.
Joe winced, and Devin cringed with him as the rifle clattered across the floor, the sound echoing around the room.
Aria groaned, and a loud thump against the wall had Devin picturing Peter flailing around in his sleeping bag, trying to decide whether to should hide or flee. And then the screams started.
Loud and ragged, Flix begged in his sleep for Marcus and swore at Joe. Interspersed through it all were his desperate, anguished screams.
Joe pushed Devin off of him and scrambled around. The movement jolted Devin from his paralysis, and he crawled toward Flix as fast as he could. Joe flicked on his flashlight, illuminating Flix, sleeping bag twisted around his legs, struggling to stand. Flix managed to make it upright, but he stumbled. Devin caught him before he hit the floor.
“Let me go, you bastard! They’re killing him!” Flix screamed and lashed out with his fists. He kicked and writhed, and Devin struggled to hold him.
Devin settled for lowering them both to the floor and letting go. He stayed close, though, and spoke as calmly as he could. “Flix. Flix, listen to me. It’s Devin. Devin, not Joe. It was just a bad...” He stopped himself and grabbed Flix’s hands. He pressed the palms together between his own and willed himself to breathe.
The screams kept coming, rising and breaking like lightning in a storm. Devin waited it out, whispered nonsense as close to Flix’s ear as he could get, anything to break Flix free from having to relive Marcus’s death. If only he could look to Joe, ask him how to handle this, but it didn’t matter. He already knew what to do. “Marcus is gone. It’s over,” he rasped, hating himself for saying it.
Flix stopped. His eyes snapped to Devin’s like they had no choice. His mouth closed for a moment, then it opened slightly, the hint of uncertainty staining his face.
“That part is over now, Junior. He’s already gone.”
Flix reached up and touched Devin’s face. It wasn’t until then, until Flix’s fingers trailed through the wetness on Devin’s face, that Devin realized he’d been crying, too.
Flix’s chin quivered. He stared at the fingers that had stroked Devin’s face. After a moment, he met Devin’s gaze. “He’s gone.”
Devin nodded.
Flix nodded, too, then laid down on his back and pulled his hand out of Devin’s grasp.
The room had quieted, and Devin glanced around. Peter had shifted so his back pressed against a wall, as far from Flix as possible. Aria sniffled in the corner. And Joe watched.
Without taking his eyes off Joe, Devin lay next to Flix, getting close enough that their sleeves brushed.
An hour later, when Peter and Aria’s snores had synchronized and Flix had rolled into Devin’s side and cried a wet spot that covered half of Devin’s shirt before falling into a jittery sleep, Devin was still wide awake.
Across the room, he was sure Joe was, too.
SEVENTEEN
Blood-red and flashing, the huge sign had been visible for half an hour. As they drew up to the building underneath it, Joe re-read the words. Maze-On Cowboy Travel Experience. The sign even had a thirty-foot-tall animated cowboy throwing a lasso around a sheep. He’d rope the sheep’s hoofed feet, drop it onto its side, and reel it in. Then the animation started over.
Joe pushed the hair out of his eyes — back in Purcell, Sadie had offered to cut it and he’d told her no; another regret — and studied the building. The place was built of weathered wood-look concrete, the same as some of the fancy houses in Austin. The finish didn’t quite match up, though, like the building had been expanded over and over with a slightly different product on each addition. A front porch ran the length of the building. Merchandise filled every window: clothes and food, candles and hot plates, rusted crosses, colorful pots and statues, glittery jewelry far brighter than the gaudy pieces Flights of Fantasy had made the girls wear. A man and a boy who looked to be about ten pulled up on bicycles, chained them to the porch railing alongside three or four others, and went inside. It all seemed so civilized.
Until Joe saw the one thing he had never seen before that curdled the contents of his stomach: the small, hand-painted sign that said Whites Only.
Well, Devin and Peter could go in and buy their supplies. Devin was the one with the money anyway.
“Motherfuck,” Devin said from behind him. “I am not doing this shit.” He grabbed Flix’s elbow and wheeled him around in the opposite direction, then glared back toward the store. “We’ll get our shit somewhere else.”
Joe blocked their path before they had taken three steps. He appreciated the sentiment, he really did, but they needed more cold-weather clothes before they got too far north where the winter would likely be more extreme than they’d ever experienced, and he had no way of telling how long it’d be until they came across another opportunity. The Kansas City biodome was still over 200 miles away. And that was only their halfway point to Minneapolis.
“Do you see another place to stop? Because I don’t.” Joe moved
