THE MORNING AFTER Steve told him he could move in, Mitch and Chenco went to breakfast. It had been Steve’s idea.
“Get to know him,” Steve suggested. “You haven’t spent much time just the two of you. Don’t take him to the trailer, though. It’s not a great idea for him to go back to ground zero.”
Chenco agreed, and fifteen minutes later he and Mitch went out in Steve’s big black Ford F-150, Harley edition. Chenco whistled low as he slid into the passenger seat. “Damn. I should have gone into computer programming. My mother would still love me, and I could have bought this truck.”
This made Mitch chuckle as he strapped himself in and fumbled with the keys. “Shit pile of money his family sits on helps a bit too. But yeah, computers are good.” He fired up the engine, let it rev a minute then put it in reverse.
As his brother led the truck down the drive, Chenco thought of the big blue semi. “So you drive a rig, huh?”
“I do indeed.” His drawl wasn’t as thick as most south Texans, like he’d been away awhile, but sometimes it crept in with a vengeance, which it did right then. “Independent operator.”
“So you travel all over the country?” Chenco couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of his voice.
“Used to. Stick around hubs now more often than not, especially in the western states. So Sam can get a job.” Mitch nodded and reached for his cigarettes. “I’ve seen the country. Right now I like seeing Sam.”
Okay, that was about the most romantic thing Chenco had ever heard, and he didn’t believe in romance. He settled into his seat as his older brother smoked. “How’d you two meet?”
This question made a slow grin spread across Mitch’s face. “It’s a long, wild story.”
Mitch shared some of it as they made their way into town, about Sam dancing in an alley behind his aunt and uncle’s pharmacy, about a long-distance drive which ended with Sam bringing Mitch and Randy together. Occasionally it seemed Mitch edited things out, and Chenco got the idea those missing bits were on the steamy side. He made a mental note to ask Randy about them later. Something told Chenco Randy wouldn’t leave any meat to spoil.
Mitch told several stories as they wove their way through McAllen, some about him and Sam, some with him and Sam and Randy, one particularly crazy one about how Randy met his husband, who apparently was some big casino owner in Vegas—but in the middle of his tale, Mitch broke off.
“Forgot to ask if you cared where we ate. Normally I’d say we should hit Taco Palenque, but I figure you don’t want to go there since it’s where you work.” Mitch rubbed his chin and grinned. “I worked in a taqueria for six months when I first cut out of Donna. Lived in a piece of shit on Pecan Boulevard and worked next door.” He took a drag and shook his head, smiling around the butt. “Had some of the best fucking times of my life in those six months.”
“How’d you end up driving a truck?”
“Fucked a guy who taught me how.” Now his smile wasn’t just nostalgic, it was tender and sad. “Taught me my Spanish, my business, and how to not fuck myself up. He was a good friend of Steve’s, which is how I met him too.” He cut a glance at Chenco. “Steve’s taken a real shine to you, and I can’t help but notice it’s mutual. You choose to go anywhere with it, I’ll tell you this—you won’t ever find a stronger, more loyal, more devoted man.”
Remembering the fierce, conflicted look on Steve’s face and the force he’d used to grind Chenco’s face against his cock, Chenco swallowed hard. Don’t think about that.
Mitch ashed out the window. “Can’t fucking believe we both came out queer. I hope Dad got the fucking runs thinking about it.”
“I’m fairly sure he did.”
“Why’d you volunteer to live with him?”
Chenco shrugged. “At first it was some sort of fuck you to the universe, but then it became practical. You know how much money I saved with no rent? I don’t work much at the restaurant, so I can practice and take jobs doing drag—I’d quit Palenque outright, but I like the extra cash to keep things flush. I kept trying to save up to move out when Cooper was alive, but he conned me into helping him out in the home, lying about leaving me the trailer, and I was dumb enough not to get proof. Booker’s always wanting to take the show on the road, take Caramela up to Austin and the gay circuit there—hell, he wants to go to Filthy Divas—but it takes cash. Lots of cash.”
Mitch smoked for a minute. “What’s Filthy Divas?”
“It’s an annual drag competition in L.A. Kind of like RuPaul’s drag race, but no reality show broadcast. It’s more about bringing your act and showing it off. The cash prize is only okay—covers your expenses and a good night out—but the real prize is being able to say you were there, you went down the runway, you stood on the stage. If you win, you pretty much won’t ever beg for a gig again. Book wanted us to win and tour the continental U.S. as RuPaul & Company Part Two. It isn’t going to happen.”
“Never say never,” Mitch drawled.
“Life says never to me every damn day. I like to flip it the bird, but I try to get myself into the best position possible first. I’ll get to Filthy Divas someday, if I want to go. Maybe I’ll do something else. It’s just gonna take some time. Also, Book’s either got to ditch his boyfriend or convince him he can actually leave town.”
This made Mitch frown. “What?”
“His guy, his Dom or whatever—Tristan is a bit of a shit as far as I’m concerned. Booker loves him, but he’s mean sometimes. I’ve wondered more than once if all Book’s bruises were from consensual play.”
Mitch went quiet, and it gave Chenco the opportunity to realize they had wandered away from McAllen and were heading east. “You missed the turn for Palenque.”
“Didn’t think you wanted to go there.” Mitch’s voice was suddenly a bit sharper, more focused. “This Tristan have a last name?”
Uh-oh. “Shit, I stepped in something, didn’t I?”
“I’m more a tourist in the lifestyle, but you tossed up a big red flag someone should check out. There’s shit here, maybe, but it ain’t yours.”
“But—”
“You try telling what you told me to Steve and see what happens.”
Chenco’s sense of what Steve would say was very clear. “Fuck.”
“He’s not going to be pissed at you. But you can bet Booker’s boyfriend will be getting a visit. Don’t give me that look,” Mitch said, his voice getting sharp when Chenco paled. “Unless you think it’s a good thing for your friend to have someone fucking him over?”
“Shit. No.” The more he sat with the thought, the crappier he felt. “Fuck. Fuck. I should have said something sooner.”
“Unless you knew someone in the scene, no you shouldn’t have. This is a self-policing community.”
“What, they’re going to rub Tristan out?”
Mitch gave him a come-on look. “They’re BDSM, not mafia. If he’s in the official scene and he’s gone bad, he won’t get laid again anytime soon, not local. If he’s not, he’ll get a swift education about what those letters really mean and the responsibility that goes with them.” He took another drag and swore under his breath. “Everybody reads a fucking book or hops a few websites and thinks they’re cool to play around.”
Chenco, who had indeed read a book and visited a few websites, felt foolish. He wanted to crack the door a little more open, ask how he’d find out without books or websites, maybe before he got too comfy about the idea of letting Steve play with him, but then Mitch turned the truck off at the exit leading to the flats. “Oh shit. Steve said I wasn’t supposed to take you back to the trailer.”
Mitch grunted. “Yeah, well, he ain’t my Dom, and neither are you. I want my fucking closure.”
Chenco wanted to tell him that where Cooper was concerned, he wasn’t ever going to get it, but he figured it would be a waste of breath.
As they turned into the trailer park, Mitch had much the same reaction as Steve about the condition of the neighborhood. He drove slowly, taking in the decrepit trailers, the aluminum foil on the windows to keep out the heat—it was too early for that yet, but some people didn’t want to bother putting it up and taking it down, and there wasn’t anything to look at outside anyway. Chenco liked the light, so he pulled it down in the winter and waited to put it up until the first May day that tried to bake him raw. Rusted trucks stood on blocks, yards were weed traps. No kids ran the streets, no old men sat on lawn chairs. It wasn’t that kind of neighborhood, not anymore. The flats were where lives came to die.
They pulled up to the trailer but didn’t get out of the truck, not right away.
“Looks smaller.” Mitch’s voice was a little gruff. “Rustier.”
“I thought about painting it, but I figured I might as well take out an ad saying good shit to steal inside. Except it’d say it in Spanish.”
“Buena mierda adentro para robar.”
That wasn’t just Spanish—it was Spanish with all the right moves and notes and a bit of valley for the cherry on top. Chenco gaped at Mitch, and his brother stared back at him, brow lifted in silent question, looking like a kinder, gentler version of Cooper. Speaking fucking valley Spanish.
“Fuck you.” Chenco shoved him. “I’m half goddamn Mexican, and you speak better Spanish than me.”
Mitch grinned. “Yeah, well, fuck wisely and you might learn to hablar Español too, gringo.” When Chenco swore at him again, he laughed and cracked open his door. “Come on. Show me what you’ve done with the place.”
IT MADE CHENCO feel good, knowing Mitch liked what his little brother had done with his childhood home.
Chenco gave him the fifty-cent tour, stem to stern, and Mitch paused a lot to smile and remember. Occasionally he didn’t smile, pointing out a dent in the wall from one of Cooper’s drunken swings or when he’d locked himself in the closet because his father’s poker buddy had wanted to show him something in the bathroom. Mostly he liked how Chenco had reclaimed the space. “You healed it,” he said more than once.
Partly due to this warm reception, Chenco allowed the tour to extend to his dressing room.
It was Cooper’s old bedroom—Chenco still lived in Mitch’s, and he’d been able to show him some of the childhood posters he’d found in the back of the closet. Chenco got a sick thrill out of putting on pantyhose in the room once belonging to his fuckhead of a father. With Mitch, he was revealing a part of himself he didn’t hide but didn’t share easily.
“How’d you get into drag, anyway?” Mitch asked as they settled down in the kitchen, Chenco making them breakfast.
“Sideways, pretty much. I kind of always had it in me, but I didn’t know what I was doing with it. I wanted to be a girl, but I didn’t want to be a girl. I’d watch Beyoncé videos and Nelly and JLo—God, Jenny, I worshipped her so hard—and dance like them and beg my mom for a sparkly leotard. Then one day I snuck into a gay club, saw a drag show, and it was over.” He flipped eggs over with his spatula and smiled. “Heide and Lincoln helped me get my shit together, come out to my queen and she to me. Guided me through the ropes. Only trouble is, Caramela is all glam. God, but I wish she’d be happy with fifty-dollar wigs from the costume shop, but no. She wants to make JLo herself look like a bad copy.”
“Well, you’re good. She’s good. Fucking amazing. I’ve seen drag all over the country. You could take any of them. Are you gonna perform again pretty soon?”
“I’m supposed to next week.” Chenco tried not to melt under his brother’s praise, but it was impossible. “Are you saying nice things about my act because we share a gene pool?”
“Shit, no. If you were crap, I’d tell you to knock it off and try to teach you trucking. You’re good. You need to get your ass to the Filthy Divas thing.”
“Well, unless you come with a trust fund you feel like sharing, honey, that’s not happening anytime soon.”
Mitch huffed a laugh. “I don’t, but—well, let’s say I bet Randy’s already made some calls.” He stood and stretched. “I’m gonna nip out and have a smoke, if I’ve got time.”
“Sure. This’ll be a few minutes yet.” He smiled a little shyly. “Thanks for this, Mitch. For coming here, for saying nice things. It means a lot.”
Mitch gave a gruff nod as he headed out the door. “Keep ’er warm for me.”
Chenco smiled to himself as he put Mitch’s omelet onto a plate and served himself up a bowl of muesli and almond milk. It was cool having an older brother who thought he’d done okay with himself. It had been a long time since he’d allowed family to matter to him, and while it still felt a little dangerous, it was also beginning to feel more than a little bit okay to let down his guard.
As if that thought had personally gone out and stirred up trouble, no sooner did Chenco think it than Mitch came tearing back in, his cell phone to his ear. “Chenco, we need to get you out of here. Right now.”
The world shifted slightly sideways. “What? Why? We haven’t had breakfast.”
“We can’t have breakfast. And when I say you need to get out of here, I mean you need to get out of here. Like, you can’t come back. Ever.”
“What?” Chenco’s heart slammed at the top of his throat. He swallowed it back down. “No way. This is my life, my stuff—”
“Chenco.” Mitch pointed out the window. “Sometime in the hour since we’ve been here, somebody painted a gang symbol on Steve’s truck.”
“They do it all the time. It’s our welcome wagon.”
“Steve has a very distinctive truck. A lot of people in the valley know it. A lot of dicks in the flats know it. They enjoy bashing in the heads of homeless people for fun. Homeless people who live at the cannery.”
Oh no. A cold, terrible wind whipped through Chenco. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Oh yes, Mitch’s face said. “They know this truck. They know Steve. They hate Steve. I just drove Steve’s truck into their turf and parked it in front of your house.”
For a horrible second Chenco stared at his brother. Then he melted, slow motion, into a chair.
Mitch hauled him back to his feet. “We have to leave.”
Chenco was going to be sick. “If I leave, they’ll trash the trailer. They’ll trash my stuff, Mitch. Caramela’s stuff. I can’t leave her to them. It’s her back there. It’s not just my head, it’s her stuff. I can’t do this to her.”
“Then start packing. If you have a gun, I’d appreciate knowing where it is.”
“Under my bed. Bullets in the bedside drawer.” Chenco headed for the dressing room, but he stumbled. “Oh my God, Mitch.”
“Steve’s on his way, and he called some of the guys.”
“Not Randy?”
“Randy is at Steve’s house, keeping my husband from coming along.”
Chenco couldn’t ask any more questions because Mitch disappeared into his bedroom. To get the gun. To defend the trailer against the Donna gang.
Chenco moved in a daze, at first simply spinning in vain, trying to decide how to start, then ruthlessly combing through from one side of the room to the other, identifying each item and deciding whether or not it was essential. It was extreme reverse hoarding—to each item he asked, do I need this to live my life? Does Caramela? The answers sometimes surprised him.
She rose up too, making it clear what was at her core, what she could not leave behind and what was frivolous. When he threatened to fall apart, she soothed him, reminding him all this could be replaced, that they were queens the both of them, that they were strong and nothing and no one could get them down.
Even so, when Chenco saw Steve filling the doorway to the dressing room, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He broke down.
Without saying a word, Steve took charge of the room—a few other men Chenco didn’t know had arrived with Steve, and they all moved to Steve’s orders, taking Chenco’s things, finishing the boxing up and moving his belongings outside.
Sitting on Steve’s massive thigh, Chenco curled into his neck, calming, accepting strokes on his arm and thigh. The uncertainty, the wildness of the night before, was gone. This was the Steve who had petted him, the Steve who had carried him out of the club.
“I have control of this, Chenco. You do not need to worry about this anymore. I will take your things to my house, and I will keep you safe until you choose to leave.”
Swallowing a sob, Chenco pressed closer. “Thank you.”
“Thanks isn’t a requirement. It’s my truck, my past messing up your present, and I clean up my messes.” Steve nuzzled Chenco, vulnerability leaking through. “I know you said you’d think about it, but for now, you need to say yes, baby. We’ll talk the rest through back at my place. What you need to know right now is you’re safe.”
Chenco wanted to crawl inside Steve’s belly and lie there, warm and curled and part of him forever. “Okay. I’ll move in.”
Steve crushed him close. “Good.”
The rest of Chenco’s packing happened with Steve and Mitch and the other silent men as his personal pack mules—when he pointed to something and said it came along, they boxed it or bagged it and took it outside. They had him go through each room twice, closing the door on it when he was finished.
“This will never all fit in the truck,” Chenco said at one point, starting to lose it again.
“That’s not for you to worry about.” Steve said this with another one of his hard grips on Chenco’s arm. “Finish going through your things.”
Chenco did. He sent everything out except for the cedar box with his mother’s letters, which he said he’d carry himself. When it was all over, Mitch and the guys left the two of them alone in the living room, Chenco’s back to the door, forehead on Steve’s shoulder as Steve wrapped big arms around him and stroked him gently. Steve was a little shorter than he was, so he had to slump, but he felt about three inches tall, so it worked out in its own way.
“I’m not ever coming back here, am I?” Chenco whispered.
“No.” Steve kept stroking his arms. “I’m sorry. The guys will stay as long as they can, stripping everything not nailed down, and they’ll bring it to the house. But no, you can’t come back here, ever. Not when they associate you with me. Even if things don’t work out with us, you can’t, because you are now connected with somebody they’re aching to fuck over. You’re a big, easy target. These assholes can’t be taken out by stilettos. Not even in the neck.”
“I know, I just—” One tear escaped, and Chenco wiped furiously at his eyes. “I worked so hard. I came here with nothing, I beat Cooper, I beat the gangs, and now—”
He started to break, and Steve dug in his fingers, staying him, but he nipped at Chenco’s ear too, a baby bite, enough to make everything inside Chenco slow to a crawl.
“Hold on to the pain, baby. Be strong for me, carry your troubles home. Don’t give them your sorrow. They don’t deserve it. You save it for me, lover, and I’ll show you things you can do with the heaviness you carry that will blow your mind. I’ll take you so high you won’t know pain from pleasure. These threats will be so far beneath you they’ll be dust, and you’ll laugh and blow them away. Keep it close, keep it real, keep it deep, because, baby, I’m going to ask you for it, and you’re going to give it to me. You’ll sob, scream, and you’ll beg me for more, get down on your knees even as you cry big fat tears. It’ll hurt, oh, it’ll hurt—so good you’ll never, ever let anybody cheap have it again. So hold on to that pain, baby. Hold on.”
Chenco’s head felt crazy, rotating lazily about six feet above his body. Steve’s words filled him with terror and yearning, but above all they gave him, inside, the same kind of control Steve could leash a room with. In the distant landscape of his mind, Chenco could see a great big beast he hadn’t known was there. It would have been scary, except he knew that darkness wouldn’t come out until Steve let it. Steve would keep it in control.
He looked up at Steve. “Give me a preview, Papi.”
Steve’s eyes went dark, and his face split into a terrible grin, giving Chenco a glimpse of his own monster. Hand in Chenco’s hair, Steve pressed a kiss to his lips before drawing Chenco’s bottom lip into his mouth.
And bit.
Chenco cried out in surprise, but as Steve’s teeth found purchase, the cry became one of pain, real pain. Steve fed on it, groaning pleasure and sliding his jaw back and forth, making it worse, making Chenco howl. He melted into Steve’s arms, crying, not quite sobbing but so close, and Steve pressed him into the door, grinding an iron erection into his groin.
Sadist. Oh. My. God, he really was.
The beast inside Chenco lifted its head, and as it met its master, it shoved Chenco’s sensibilities and the last whispers of his propriety aside. It lay down for Steve, lay Chenco open and wide.
He’s ready. He’s yours. Take him.
As his inner masochist came to bloom against the door of Cooper’s trailer, Chenco felt like he’d pulled his chest cavity wide open and stood ready for Steve. He wanted this, he got off on this, not so much with his dick but with something so deep inside him it made dicks seem cheap.
Here at this door was where Cooper had called him anchor baby and faggot and shitsucker. This was the door Chenco had kept coming to like a dog, where he asked Cooper if this was all he had, if he could hit any harder, because he wasn’t impressed. Here was where he’d made his stand, where he’d taken the pain of his life and put a yoke on it.
Now this door was where another man, a better man, took the yoke for him.
His cock was so heavy and ready he fully expected it to bust out of his jeans and start whimpering and begging along with the rest of him. In fact, when Steve drew away, Chenco moaned more than he had for any pain. The loss of Steve’s touch was the first pain from his papi not dripping in pleasure.
“We have to go, baby.” Steve nipped one last time at Chenco’s swollen lip, but it was so subtle it was worse than if he’d just kissed him. “The guys are waiting. We have to go.” He stroked Chenco’s arm. “It’s time to say goodbye.”
Chenco did. Holding on to Steve, still pressed to the door, he scanned the half-emptied room, seeing it as it was and as it had been in all its stages. He saw Mitch’s uneaten breakfast as well as his own. He saw the cans of beer Cooper left for him to pick up. He smelled the stench of Cooper’s unwashed body, saw it sitting slack-jawed in front of the television, half-rotten from a stroke. He saw it all, heard it all, remembered it all.
“Goodbye, Cooper. You fucker.”
Steve nudged his elbow to move him and opened the door.
Outside on the trailer’s lawn and all up the street were bikes and trucks, every last one driven by fuck-you leather daddies gleaming in the sun.
Chenco stared. “This might be worth it actually.”
Steve’s laugh was low and wicked as he reached down to openly fondle Chenco’s ass.
Chenco had envisioned himself leaving the flats many, many times, but never had he imagined it would be riding bitch behind Steve on his hog as he drove with Mitch and a small squadron of badass men not just out of the flats but through them, brazenly revving their engines on the gang’s home turf.
They had it timed right too. They did enough of a circuit to dig into the gang’s side, a parade for the angry-faced, rough young men who had begun to crowd at the end of the street, but the bikers didn’t stay long enough to get the gang so pissed they’d try to retaliate. When they swung out of the flats and toward the highway, a pair of black-and-whites was on their way in, and when Steve tossed a salute to them, they gave it back.
The ride away from the flats was like everything else about being with Steve—slightly nerve-wracking and ultimately thrilling. His cedar box was tucked into a leather satchel on the side of the bike, secured into place by a buckle, leaving Chenco free to wrap his arms around his papi and watch the world fly by. It felt fucking good to be able to slide his hands down Steve’s thighs at stoplights and have Steve move Chenco’s hands to his crotch, encouraging him to fondle the fat sausage waiting for him there. It should have been a shitty moment, but it wasn’t, and it was all because of Steve.
He half-thought he’d get a chance to explore more of what they’d started in the trailer when they got back to the house, but all Chenco got was a reassuring grip on his ass before Steve started directing his friends where to put Chenco’s belongings.
Well. He’d moved out.
The thought made him dizzy.
Sam came out to greet Mitch, and Chenco’s brother got not just a motherfucker of a bear hug but a public grope and a hand down the back of his pants before Mitch called over his shoulder he’d be back down to help in about twenty minutes. Then he and Sam were gone. Chenco glanced toward Steve, wishing they could disappear too.
Randy smirked as he came onto the porch and read the expression on Chenco’s face. “Yeah, none of that is coming your way soon. You, Princess, just put on the world’s biggest cock ring. His nickname is Monk for a fucking good reason.”
Chenco swallowed a whimper. “I’m not a princess, bitch, I’m a queen.”
“Yeah, but you’re my best friend’s little brother I didn’t know he had. I have ten years of ribbing to make up for.” He squeezed Chenco’s arm and nodded toward the house. “I’m making brunch for the masses. I could use a sous-chef for vegetable chopping.”
“Fair enough.” Chenco followed him.
“There’s some good news,” Randy said as they headed to the kitchen. “My husband got tired of hearing about all the fun we’re having here without him, and he’s coming down in a few days. He can’t wait to meet you.” He grinned over his shoulder. “He’s bringing our gangster with him too.”
Gangster? Chenco paused, wondering if he should ask for clarification, but given the amount of explosives his poor mind had already endured today, he figured it’d be best not to ask. If there was one thing he’d learned from his new family, it was that pretty much damn near anything was possible.