ON A STEAMY January afternoon deep in the rat’s asshole of south Texas, Chenco Ortiz opened the envelope taped to his trailer door and watched the last of his cobbled-together dreams turn to dust.
Had it come via his post office downtown instead of flirting at him in the afternoon breeze, the letter would have gone unopened into the laundry basket with the rest of his mail. The unorthodox delivery threw him off his game, but the handwriting sealed his fate. After a long day of bending out the window handing people their tacos to go and suffering the Rio Grande Valley’s perpetual irritation with a man named Ortiz who couldn’t speak Spanish, the lure of Crescencio penciled in feminine scrawl was too much to resist.
It reminded him of home.
When Chenco had still lived in his mother’s carefully manicured subdivision, she’d left notes on his door when their schedules didn’t match. Sometimes the missives had been to ask him to pick up his sister, but sometimes they were simply Carmelita Ortiz’s special brand of love.
You are strong and good, my son. God gave you to me perfect. I am so proud of you, and I love you just the way you are.
Intellectually Chenco knew there was no chance this particular letter was from his mother. He’d learned all too painfully just the way you are was code for so long as you stay the way I want you to be. But today he was hot and tired, and he stank of grease and failure. He wanted the note on the door to be from his mama, saying she forgave him and he should come home. Honestly, as grisly as things had been lately? He’d take an angry tirade, so long as she spoke to him again.
Chenco opened his mail.
The letter was from a lawyer.
Dear Mr. Ortiz: As executor of your father’s estate, it is my duty to inform you of the current status of your residence at 369 Charity Place in the city of Donna, Texas.
Ah, yes, the trailer. Chenco shut the door behind him, setting his keys down on the kitchen counter. He should have looked this lawyer up in Cooper’s papers and sorted things out himself instead of making the guy hunt him down. He had the deed in the safety deposit box at the bank, but he supposed he’d need to file it officially. Hopefully doing so didn’t cost a lot of money, because paying for the leathery old skinflint’s pine box had not been cheap, and Chenco hadn’t exactly started out with a trust fund.
It would be good to have the ownership settled at last. As castles went, it was a pretty pathetic one, but Chenco had clawed his way into this heap of rust, and he had nowhere else to go. He’d take any victory he could get right now, especially over the mean old son of a bitch he’d called father.
But as Chenco read on, he went cold to his core as Cooper Tedsoe, dead and buried these three weeks, stole triumph from his son’s trembling hands.
“He can’t do this.” Chenco’s whisper, raw and hollow, echoed inside his ringing ears. “This can’t be right. He said…”
Well, he’d said. When had Cooper ever told the truth?
How could he lie about this?
Setting his teeth, Chenco grabbed his keys and stormed to his Nova, letter in hand. By the time he drove into McAllen and parked outside the lawyer’s office, he’d so girded himself with inner steel he made knights in armor look pathetic and bulky. Before the politely smiling receptionist could say anything, Chenco slammed the half-crumpled paper onto her desk. “This is wrong.”
Her smile wavered. “I’m sorry, sir?”
Chenco poked his finger at the paper. “Someone taped this on my trailer door. It’s a mistake.”
A flicker of recognition and fleeting sense of sadness lit the receptionist’s eyes. Without looking up, she pressed a button on the phone system in front of her. “Mr. Cuevas, I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, but Crescencio Ortiz is here.”
A whisper of sanity suggested to Chenco perhaps he’d done this badly, but as Cuevas emerged from a closed door behind the receptionist, the last dregs of control ran out of Chenco’s fingers. He shook the letter in the lawyer’s face. “This is horse shit.”
Cuevas held up his hands. “Mr. Ortiz, there is no need for such language. I’m in an important meeting right now, but in a half hour I can—”
“This says you’re giving my trailer to the—” Chenco choked and swallowed the rush of pain before switching tactics. “Is this some kind of joke? You think this is funny?”
The lawyer had the same look of pity on his face as his receptionist. “I would never joke about probate. I will point out also it isn’t I who gives or takes anything. Our office is simply executing our client’s directive. However, I understand why you are concerned. If you could wait twenty minutes—”
“Your directive is wrong. Even my father wasn’t that big of an ass. This whole thing reads like something out of The Onion. Really, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? As if they’re heroes instead of racist, murdering assholes? Why them? What the fuck does the KKK want with my trailer?”
With a weary nod to the receptionist, the lawyer opened the door to his office and leaned inside. “I’m very sorry, Steve, but I need a few minutes. Maria will get you some coffee.”
“No worries, Luis. I’ll take a walk and get my own. I could use a chance to stretch my legs.”
A man emerged from the office—a white man, an inch shorter than Chenco but twice as broad and swelling with muscle. Sometimes men wore chaps and motorcycle boots as a fashion statement, but Chenco suspected there was a bike to go with this guy’s gear. His shaved head, tattooed arms, and heavy leather said badass without so much as a stutter. The letter’s invocation of the KKK still ringing in his head, Chenco retreated, blind rage giving way to wariness.
The man met Chenco’s gaze and held it. He didn’t threaten, but at the same time everything about him said, Behave, boy.
Chenco wasn’t behaving. He was being an ass. Lowering his gaze in shame, Chenco loosened his posture.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the white man grunt quietly in approval.
“No need to rush,” Cuevas’s client said as he headed out the door.
The lawyer ushered Chenco into his office, shutting the door behind them. He indicated the chair across from his desk, and when Chenco sat, he found the leather still warm from the man whose appointment he’d interrupted, the one who’d silently scolded him. When Cuevas settled into his own seat, threading his fingers together over the desktop as he leaned closer with a grim expression, the last laces of Chenco’s defenses came undone.
“Mr. Cuevas. This can’t be right. I put money toward the lot fees for the trailer. I paid the taxes. I paid Cooper’s goddamned hospital bills.”
“I understand, and I’m truly sorry. Unfortunately this does not change the contents of your father’s legal documents.”
Behave, boy. “Sir, his will didn’t say this. I saw it. If he did write this, he did it after his stroke, and it can’t stand up to anything.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this dictate does in fact come from the valid legal will for your father, dated before his stroke.” The lawyer’s countenance brightened. “However, if you could produce this alternate document, and if it were dated after the copy we have on file, it might be possible to contest.”
Chenco had gutted the trailer and safety deposit box after Cooper went to the nursing home. He had no letter. “Maybe he filed it with a different lawyer.”
“No other will has been filed. I can provide you with the original copy, if you should care to verify this yourself, or I can provide one to your attorney.”
“I don’t have an attorney. I have the trailer.”
“Mr. Ortiz, I’m afraid you do not.”
Why couldn’t the lawyer yell at him, call Chenco names and threaten him? Why was he as grandfatherly as Mr. Flores at the funeral home had been?
How was Chenco supposed to fight back?
Chenco dug his fingernails into his leg. “Why would he do this? Why would he tell me he was leaving it to me, let me pay for everything and then…”
He trailed off, arrested as terrible recognition dawned, hollowing him out as if he’d been shot from the inside. When the lawyer passed over a box of tissues, Chenco pushed them away, dragging himself from the empty cliff of hurt and shame with a shake of his head.
“No.” The word felt like steel in Chenco’s mouth, and he clung to it. “I haven’t cried for him yet, and I’m not letting him have any tears now.”
Cuevas nodded and put the box aside. “I could put in a request for an extension, using your revelation of a potential additional will as cause. I doubt the other party is in a great hurry to claim a fifty-year-old mobile home in Donna, Texas.”
No, but they certainly wouldn’t grant any favors to a homosexual half-Latino, to say nothing of what they’d do when they found out about Caramela. “I won’t be able to find the will, sir.”
“You are upset, Mr. Ortiz, and grieving. I’m sure the court will allow you ample time to exhaust the possibility of an alternate will, especially when I speak up for you personally.”
Now Chenco felt like shit. “You don’t owe me such a courtesy, not after how I’ve behaved.”
Cuevas let out a huff and sat back in his chair. “I’ve been waiting to mitigate this damage for years. You didn’t make helping you very easy. I’ve sent you several letters, some registered, but from your reaction I’m taking it the one I had taped to your door in the flats is the first one you’ve opened.”
“I can’t deal with this. I don’t have any money saved, not after paying his—” Chenco stopped, not trusting himself to go on. His throat felt thick, his stomach raw. “I work two jobs already, but I don’t make enough money to pay rent on my own.”
“Do you have friends, perhaps, or other family where you can stay? Your father did have another son by his wife—”
“God no.” Chenco shuddered. “My older brother doesn’t know about me, I don’t think, but if he did, he’d kill me. If you thought Cooper hated a gay half-breed, wait until you get a load of this guy. He’s been in town since the funeral, and I’ve worked like hell to avoid him. If I have to stay with someone, it’s not going to be Mitch Tedsoe.”
“I don’t know the man, so I’ll have to defer to your judgment. As I said, I’ll file for an extension. Hopefully this gives you time to make alternative arrangements.”
Chenco’s stomach wasn’t raw, it was rancid. “I can’t pay you.”
The lawyer’s smile had dark edges. “Oh, you won’t. The estate and its beneficiaries will receive my bill, and I intend to be thorough regarding this matter.” He handed a card over the desk to Chenco. “Please leave your number at the desk in case we need to be in touch. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to call if something comes up. I wish you luck in your endeavors, Mr. Ortiz.”
Recognizing he was being dismissed, Chenco thanked the lawyer and returned to the main lobby, where he left his cell number with the receptionist. On his way out, he glanced to see if the man he’d interrupted was in the waiting area, but it was empty, which was a relief. All Chenco wanted to do was get out of McAllen, head back to Donna, and soak in his tub. While he still had a tub.
The impact of what the lawyer had revealed closed over Chenco in a slow, choking fog. The trailer isn’t mine anymore. Cuevas would buy him some time before the inevitable, but there was no way out. Cooper had seen to that. First he’d bled his son dry, then he’d left the only thing Chenco wanted to an organization who would never in a million years do anything but kick Chenco hard and fast into the street.
Was Mitch’s return to the valley part of this double punch? Had he known what Cooper would do and was in town to hunt him down and finish the blow? What if Chenco hadn’t run off when he’d seen Mitch at the funeral? Would he be rotting slowly into the mesquite instead of wallowing over how badly their father had fucked him over?
The thought made his feet heavy, disorienting Chenco so much he inadvertently circled the block, landing on the street parallel to where he’d parked. Slipping into the alley, Chenco wrapped himself in the darkness, sliding down the relative coolness of the brick wall as he sat on the ground and hugged himself. Three stray cats scuttled from beneath a pile of newspaper, the smallest bearing a dead rat in its mouth. From the street, sounds of lazy afternoon traffic drifted into the alley, and above him an air conditioner whirred and complained in the heat.
He should call Booker, or Lincoln. Even in a month he wouldn’t have enough money saved to rent so much as a shoebox on the corner. He’d have to live in someone’s spare room or sleep on their couch. Except what was he supposed to do with Caramela’s things? Lincoln would let him store some stuff, but he had roommates, and Heide took up all his extra space. Was Chenco supposed to trust Booker’s boyfriend not to rip Caramela’s wardrobe up for fun some afternoon when he was high? Hope nobody went through his bins in the storeroom of the club?
What in the hell was he going to do?
Chenco rocked gently, taking slow, careful breaths as he soothed himself. He wouldn’t let the fucker win, not now when this was the final battle. He shut his eyes and imagined Caramela on the stage of a bright, beautiful hall, the best in the world, a thousand admirers roaring and screaming her name. Yes, he’d get there, and he wouldn’t let his asshole father stop him.
You are good. You are strong. You are perfect the way you are. You will figure this out, one way or the other.
Chenco murmured the words out loud when they failed to take simply by repeating them inside his head. He would beat this. He wouldn’t let anyone stop him. He’d claw his way into the sun. He didn’t know how he’d do it yet, but he’d find a way.
All those years. All the time, all the money, all the visits to the nursing home—he laughed at me. He never loved me. He never even liked me. He hated me so much he went out of his way to destroy me.
Swallowing, Chenco drew his bottom lip into his mouth and bit, sucking on the soft flesh until it hurt, until he could focus on the pain instead of the hollow wounds inside him. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t—
“Are you all right?”
Chenco looked up, releasing his swollen lip as he stared at the mouth of the alley. The man from Cuevas’s office stood there, his shaved head silhouetted against the sun. Leather creaking, he closed the distance between them and crouched in front of Chenco.
THE BOY FROM Cuevas’s office reminded Steve of Gordy.
It was the facial expression, the look in the kid’s eye. A hunch of his shoulder, the huddled, haunted body language, determination and grit leaking out around despair. The echo of his best friend called to Steve, leading him to the stranger.
“Are you okay?” Steve repeated the question, gentling his voice and resisting the urge to touch the young man’s arm in reassurance. “Do you need any help?”
The boy’s shoulders let go of some of their tension. “I’ll be fine, sir, thank you. I’m very sorry for interrupting your appointment.”
“That’s not a problem.” When the kid remained curled against the wall, clearly hoping Steve would get up and leave, Steve held out a hand. “Steve Vance. Pleasure to meet you.”
The boy accepted the hand with a slight but steady grip. “Crescencio Ortiz, but everyone calls me Chenco.”
“Chenco, not Chencho?”
The boy blushed. “My little sister mispronounced it, and the wrong version stuck.” Letting go of Steve’s hand, Chenco withdrew and wrapped his arms around himself again with a curt nod. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Vance.” Now please go away, his expression telegraphed.
Steve pretended not to notice the dismissal. “Likewise, Mr. Ortiz.”
In his pocket, Steve’s phone buzzed, and he murmured an apology as he pulled it out. Canceling the incoming call, Steve opened a text window and tapped out a reply.
“Sorry. One of my houseguests needs directions.”
Chenco shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t want to keep you.”
“Not at all.” Steve eased himself onto the ground as his knees were starting to protest. He sent the text. In the middle of something. Can you give me fifteen?
The response came a few seconds later. Okay aisle just keep getting lost a little hunger. Another text came through almost immediately. Fucking voice texting.
Steve replied with a link to Find My Friends and gave instructions on how to use the app to locate him. When he was satisfied his friend wouldn’t end up in Reynosa, he pocketed the phone and returned his focus to Chenco. “These are old friends back in town after a long absence, but they’ve lingered to sightsee. I don’t mind putting him off a bit longer.”
The look on Chenco’s face said he was dubious about the merits of sightseeing in the Rio Grande Valley. As an RGV native, Steve had to agree with the sentiment.
Chenco rubbed his arm in a self-conscious gesture. “You have your appointment, so I understand if you have to go.” His tone made it clear he wished Steve would.
Probably Steve should go, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the alley. Partially it was remembering how upset the boy had been in Luis’s office, but mostly it was the eerie way Chenco was so determined to button up now that got to him. Clearly Chenco was used to having to solve his problems on his own, to making himself okay by sheer force of will. Steve couldn’t shake the desire to be the guy who made it easier, at least this one time.
“I know you’d rather I leave you alone, but I saw how upset you were. I can tell you still are. Humor an old man and reassure me I’m not going to read about you on the front page of the paper tomorrow.”
Chenco’s cheeks burned, but his body posture eased in quiet surrender. “My father passed away three weeks ago. He wasn’t a very nice man, but…it turns out he was more of an asshole than even I predicted. It upset me as all.”
“As I left, I thought I heard you say something about your father leaving his property to the KKK. Your home?”
Instead of replying, Chenco glanced at Steve’s smooth, shaved head.
Steve laughed and touched the back of his scalp. “Wrong tree you’re barking up there, boy.” He could see the hesitation in Chenco’s expression and decided he might as well lay down all his cards. “I’m not Klan, Chenco. They don’t let gay men wear the sheets.”
Chenco’s expression softened in surprise. “Oh. I didn’t—” He deflated the rest of the way, flummoxed by Steve’s confession. “Oh.” He rubbed his arms self-consciously. “Me too. I’m gay, I mean. Which is why my dad left the trailer to the Klan. To be an asshole.”
“Sounds like he succeeded. I’m sorry.”
Grimacing, Chenco averted his gaze. “I should have known he was only using me. I never loved him, but I thought we had an understanding, that maybe he hated me but respected me in his own fucked-up way. No chance. He did this just to hurt me. He knew I couldn’t afford to move out of the trailer and my mother would never take me back. He was fully aware what a nasty kick in the face it was to give a gay half-Latino’s only piece of security to the fucking KKK. He did it to bleed me out.”
So fucking like Gordy. The comparison chilled Steve to his core. “Do you have a place to go?”
“Mr. Cuevas bought me some time. I’ll find something.”
Steve didn’t like the vagueness in Chenco’s tone. “If you have trouble, let Luis know. He can hook you up with some agencies, maybe make some phone calls for you.”
“I don’t want to bother him any more than I already have.”
“Luis is a family friend—I know he’d be more upset over executing a will that helped send a kid to the streets than he’d mind being bothered.”
Chenco gave Steve a hard look. “I’m twenty-four.”
Steve’s lips curled into a wry smile inside his goatee. “I’m forty-one. You’re a kid.”
“Yes, sir.” Chenco’s tone was wry, but his gaze slipped to the tattoos on Steve’s arm.
Steve cleared his throat. “If it comes down to it, I know a few affordable places you could rent. I can talk to the landlords, maybe get a six-month discount to get you on your feet.”
The offer sent Chenco’s walls right back up. “Thank you, but I’d never expect anyone to do that for me.”
“Likely why I offered.”
“But why? You don’t know me.”
Steve arched an eyebrow. “You don’t think someone can do something nice just because it needs to be done?”
Chenco pursed his lips. “Everyone wants something.”
How did someone get so cynical at twenty-four? “So you don’t have any friends who would help you simply because they like you?”
“Yes, but you’re not my friend.” Chenco looked away. “I’m sorry. Probably you are being nice, and I’m spitting in your face.”
Leaning forward, Steve put his left hand on the ground near Chenco, not touching him. “You’re right to be cautious of strangers. But I do want to help you if I can.”
Chenco drew back. “But why? I’m just some guy who interrupted your meeting.”
“You’re a human being in need, and I can see a way I could possibly help you. That’s why.”
“But no one is that noble. Nobody ever helps me.”
The naked yearning underneath his tough exterior, the need clawing over iron resolve, made Steve burn with an answering fire. “Maybe this is your turn to be saved.”
Their gazes met and held, and Steve felt his whole being go still. Chenco had let him in, just a little, and Steve knew what a gift that was. He planned to treat it with respect, hopefully get that wall torn down some more. Let me help you, boy. He could see their friendship expanding in front of him, and he wanted it in a way he hadn’t wanted anything in a long, long time. One more minute, one more reassurance, and he could give Chenco his phone number, maybe get Chenco’s in return.
A disturbance at the mouth of the alley broke the spell.
“Monk, this is the fucking coolest app ever. It took me right to you. I’m making Ethan download it the second I see him. Oh—hey there. Sorry, didn’t realize you had company.”
Swallowing his irritation at the interruption, Steve pushed to his feet and gestured between Chenco and the man who approached them. “Chenco, this is Randy Jansen, one of my houseguests. Randy, this is Chenco Ortiz.”
“A pleasure to meet you.” Randy extended his hand.
As Chenco accepted Randy’s handshake, however, Steve realized something was wrong. Chenco looked wary again. It was almost as if he recognized Randy—except Randy didn’t seem to recognize him back. Jansen was his usual cheeky self, pumping Chenco’s hand harder than he should have as he winked.
Chenco looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
Randy picked up on that but played the scene as cool as he would a poker hand, deftly switching his focus to Steve. “Got a text from Sam on the way over. We might want to swing past the house before we do the grocery store. Something came up on the feed. Sam wasn’t sure if it was a big deal or not, so Mitch went over to the cannery to check—”
Movement out of the corner of Steve’s eye drew his attention, and he motioned Randy to be quiet. Chenco had backed away, stumbling over an upturned box.
The prickle at the back of Steve’s senses morphed into full-on alert. Yes. Something was very wrong here. “Chenco?”
“You’re in on it.” Chenco’s expression was full of hurt and pain as his gaze moved from Randy to Steve. “You didn’t want to save me. You’re in on it. I was right. You do have an agenda, and it’s his.”
Steve closed the distance between them. “Chenco? Who are you talking about? What’s wrong?”
The boy took off like the hounds of hell were on his heels. Scaling turned-over trash cans and scattering stray cats, Steve chased him, but the kid was younger and leaner and fueled by terror. By the time Steve got to the street, Chenco had climbed into a beat-up brown Nova and peeled away.
Randy came up beside Steve and put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know.” Steve played his mental tape backward, trying to find the source of what had made the kid run. Everything was fine, right up until Randy came into the alley. He turned to his friend. “It was you. He was upset at you.”
“I don’t even know the kid.” Randy glared at him. “What the hell, Vance?”
“He burst in on my appointment with Luis, upset about something in his father’s will. I gave them a minute to sort it out, and when I went back, I found Chenco in the alley. His dad’s an ass, he’s about to lose his house. He’s proud and hurt and lost, and he’s got nowhere to go. Now he’s upset with me, and I don’t know why.” He caught Randy regarding him with an odd expression. “What?”
Randy put a hand on Steve’s arm. “Oh, Monk. He isn’t Gordy.”
Steve jerked away. “I didn’t ask for your analysis, Skeet.”
Jansen didn’t back off, the bastard seeing too much as usual. “Look. I get it. You wanted to help save him, and something went wrong you can’t identify or fix. It’s practically a rerun. Except you don’t know this kid, and you’re not responsible for him. Also, this guy seems in firm possession of all his marbles, unlike Gordy. You can stand down.”
Steve’s jaw hurt from clenching it. “I need to get back to Luis.”
Randy caught his shoulder when he tried to leave. “Hey. Chill. I won’t bring up Gordy again.” When Steve gave a curt nod, Randy let him go. “So he was fine until I showed up. But it was you he looked at like you’d gutted his kitten. That’s the pot right there, the space between me scaring him and this somehow being your fault.”
Steve had no idea how to read the gap. “I’d ask Luis, but he’d never tell me anything unless he thought the kid was in danger.”
“Well, you got his name, right? Did you forget your hacking skills in the hour and a half since I last saw you?”
That angle had occurred to Steve. He knew he shouldn’t go there, but God he wanted to. He needed to fix this with Chenco. Steve longed to take the young man’s pain, hold it in his hands and turn it into something as beautiful as the boy himself.
Randy put a hand on Steve’s arm. “Give him a Google while I make dinner. If nothing else, maybe we can give the intel to Luis. Sound good?”
Steve nodded, but he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d hand this over. No matter how bad an idea it was, he’d have every electronic record on Chenco Ortiz before Jansen finished layering his lasagna.
If Chenco needed saving, Steve would be the one to rescue him.