Where All Paths Meet, page 34
part #3 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
Holmes was red eyed, but his face was soft and strangely clear, and he moved with that familiar, liquid smoothness. I knew the look on Dad’s face because he wore it the last time he beat me at arm wrestling, after I’d done way too much buildup with the trash talk. That was how Dad looked when he was unbearably pleased with himself and making only a minimum of effort not to show it.
“Are you—” I started to ask. I took a step. I stopped. My legs were trembling, and I thought of a video I’d seen on TikTok, of a colt that had just been born. “How—”
Dad gave me another of those amused looks, but all he said was, “We’re going to help Holloway move back into his dorm.”
“But—” This time, I summoned up all my internal fortitude and managed a complete sentence. “It’s summer.”
Dad raised an eyebrow.
“Not that it’s a problem—I mean, I want H to—I mean, that’s great—”
“Son,” Dad said.
I stopped and tried to remember how to swallow.
“Holloway is going to do Walker’s summer program,” Dad said.
And I, Boy Genius, said, “Oh.”
Dad sighed. “Shake a leg. Go find him a spare toothbrush and some clothes he can borrow until his stuff arrives.”
I looked at Holmes. My brain remembered how to swallow, and I did that a few times.
“Now, Jack,” Dad said more loudly.
I sprinted to the house. I grabbed an unopened toothbrush from the hall. Then, triumphantly, my brain said, Toothpaste too! So, I grabbed toothpaste. I grabbed shirts and shorts and joggers and tried to carry all of it in my arms, and then I tripped on my backpack, and it all flew out of my arms.
A bag, that super-smart voice in my brain said. Maybe put it in a bag.
So, I did that.
When I got to Baker and shouldered open the door to 221, they were making the bed together, Dad helping Holmes with the sheets. Holmes looked at me, and his red eyes got a little wider. Dad made a disgusted noise.
“I put it in a bag,” I said.
“For the love of God,” Dad muttered. “You know, my son, we have all sorts of options. You could have used your backpack.”
“I tripped over my backpack,” I said. I was talking too fast, but I didn’t know how to slow down.
Holmes looked at Dad, and Dad rolled his eyes, and Holmes gave that soft huff of a laugh.
“You could have used a suitcase,” Dad said.
I blinked. I hadn’t thought of a suitcase.
“Anything, in other words,” Dad said, “except a grocery bag.”
“I dropped them,” I said.
“My only child is apparently having a stroke, Holloway,” Dad said as he took the paper bag. “Please excuse us.”
Holmes’s grin was unsteady, gone almost as soon as it appeared. Then he looked like he was about to cry again.
“Do you want some time to yourself?” Dad asked Holmes.
I said, “No,” a moment after Holmes did, and Dad gave me a dirty look.
To Holmes, he said, “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Holmes nodded.
“Eight o’clock sharp.”
“Yes, Mr. Moreno.”
“Good man,” Dad said. He gave Holmes another dad hug before he left, and Holmes’s eyes were silver as he blinked away tears.
The genius in me chose that moment to say, “If Holmes is going to stay, and if I’m going to be a student at Walker, maybe we could get a room together. I mean, a double.”
“Mother of God,” Dad said under his breath. “Maybe you’d like a five o’clock curfew. How about that?”
That woke me up a little. “Five o’clock!”
“Think about it.”
“Dad!”
He laughed. As he passed me, headed toward the door, he squeezed my shoulder and said, “My son, whom I love dearly, and who is the most important person in the universe to me.”
I was staring at Holmes again, but I managed to say, “Uh?”
“Do not make me castrate you.”
That definitely woke me up. Dad chuckled, but there was something serious in his eyes, and he held my gaze until I nodded.
“Door open, boys,” Dad said. “I’m going to bang on the radiator and pretend I’m working while I spy on you.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
And then his steps were moving down the hall.
“Normal parents do not behave this way!” I shouted after him.
When I looked back, Holmes was smiling—that real smile, the true one, with all its wobbliness. He whispered, “Hello, Jack.”
It took me a couple of tries before I got out, “Hi.”
For some reason, that made his smile flare up again. He sat on the bed, and after a moment, he said, “Would you like to sit down?”
“I’m all dirty, and the sheets—”
“Jack,” he said and made a desperate noise that might have been a laugh. “Please?”
So, I sat next to him. His arm was warm where it touched my arm. His leg was warm against mine. He smelled like that woodsy heat I dreamed about sometimes. His breathing accelerated, and then he was crying again, wiping at his face with one hand.
“Is it ok if I—” I started to put an arm around him, stopped. “Do you mind—”
Holmes turned into me, burying his face in my shoulder, and I looped an arm around him. He cried harder for a while, and I stroked his hair and tickled his neck. After a while, I realized we were lying on the bed, and his crying had slowed. And then it stopped. And then we had a situation. And down the hall, Dad was banging on the radiator, and I wondered if he’d been serious about that threat.
For a while, we lay like that, both of us pretending it wasn’t happening. Holmes’s breathing was slow and deep.
“We never went to prom,” I said.
He sounded like he was about to start crying again.
“It’s ok,” I said. “It’s ok. I’m just saying, you know. We didn’t get to go. And I wanted to go with you. So, um, maybe next year, it’ll be like a raincheck.”
Holmes nodded against me. Then he got up onto one elbow. His eyes were redder than ever, and that wasn’t supposed to be cute, but apparently Holmes could make anything look good.
“Jack, I know you can never forgive me, not for what I did when I betrayed your trust and took the safe, and certainly not for what my—for what Blackfriar did to your mother. All I can do is apologize—”
When I shushed him, he stopped.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. What I meant was, I’m sorry it was true, and I’m sorry I was the one who told you, and I’m sorry for what I took from you, because I can’t give anything back.
He shook his head as tears came again. Somehow, he managed a choked, “You should not apologize. I should apologize—”
“I’m sorry, H. I’m sorry too.”
With a wet laugh, he shook his head again. “That’s what you say at the end of a fight.”
I brushed some of his hair back into its part and nodded.
“I don’t know how to undo what I did, Jack. I’m afraid I’ve lost you. I’m afraid if I’ve lost you again, it will kill me, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot—I cannot stop it from hurting.”
“You didn’t lose me. I’m right here.” I carded his hair again and smiled up at him. “We’re both right here.”
He shook his head again.
“You didn’t lose me,” I said. “Did I lose you?”
Another shake of the head.
“Then we’re ok,” I said. “We can figure out the rest of it together.”
I drew him back down, and although he resisted, it wasn’t much. He lay in the crook of my arm, and we stared up at the ceiling, and after a while his body softened by degrees. I listened to his breathing. I hadn’t known until today how much I missed it. He started to pick mulch out of my hair, not seeming to realize he was doing it, and I grinned in spite of myself.
Down the hall, Dad was still banging on the radiator, which maybe they should consider teaching in sex ed, because it was painfully effective.
“Do you know how Watson described himself?” Holmes asked. “John Watson, I mean. In his original accounts.”
I shook my head. A little more mulch fell out, which made Holmes quirk a smile.
“He said, ‘I was a whetstone to his mind.’” Holmes fell silent again. He cupped the side of my face and looked at me, and I didn’t know what to call his expression. “But he was so much more. Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant detective, Jack. He would have been that regardless of other circumstances. But he was a good man—he was a happy man—because of John Watson.”
He bent, and his lips hovered over mine, and I knew, once more, Holmes was giving me what he had never given to anyone else. I crossed that tiny, infinite gap and kissed him. His lips were dry. He tasted like Holmes. He was trembling, and I tried to tell him, each time our mouths moved against each other, that he was all right, that this was all right, that I would take care of him.
Holmes broke the kiss. He blinked slowly, and his voice was gravelly in a flattering way as he smoothed down my hair and said, “You are my soul, Jack Moreno. I do not know why John Watson wrote his stories that way, why he wrote himself so small, when he was so much more. I do not think I will ever understand. But I do not want to know what I would be without you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, but I didn’t think I needed to say anything. I lay there, arm around Holmes, and kissed him again. A few more times, in fact, until Dad started singing, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” in time with all that banging on the radiator.
When Holmes slid off me, he huffed another of those laughs.
“It’s not funny,” I said, tugging at my jeans. “See how you like it when you die of blue balls.”
Holmes did laugh then, a real one this time, turning into the pillow to smother the sound.
When he’d recovered, I said, “I think I know.”
The question formed itself in his face.
“About Watson, I mean. Why he wrote the stories that way.” Holmes stayed silent, so I gave a lying-down shrug. “Because he loved him.” I waited again. “Like I love you.”
Holmes’s breathing changed. He ran his knuckles across his eyes, and he said, “Do you? How can you, Jack? How, after everything?”
I gave another of those lying-down shrugs. His hair was the color of aspen leaves in autumn. His eyes were the color of the sky before dawn. He was mine for as long as I could hold on to him, and I planned on holding on for a long time. I cupped his cheek. My thumb found his cheekbone, and I wiped away another tear. It was a surprise and not a surprise at the same time. The way things feel when they’re finally right. When everything comes together. When the end and the beginning meet. I grinned. “Elementary, my dear Holmes.”
THE FACE IN THE WATER
Keep reading for a sneak preview of The Face in the Water, the first book of Iron on Iron.
1
“I’m not catastrophizing,” Teancum Leon said as he wheeled his luggage into the Santaland Resort and Convention Center lobby. “I’m simply stating a fact: by coming to the middle of Missouri, we’re statistically more likely to be murdered by hillbillies.”
His husband, Jeremiah Berger, who went by Jem, smiled at an elderly couple passing them. But he said, “And.”
“And if that murder were to be preceded by events like those in Deliverance, which, by the way, I still don’t know why you made me watch—”
“Because it’s amazing.”
“—then we shouldn’t be surprised.”
When Tean paused to orient himself in the hotel lobby, Jem reached over to smooth down his collar. “And.”
“And we would likely end up being made into masks of human skin.”
“You didn’t even watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You said it was too scary.”
“So, you can see my point: this is objective reality. That’s all.”
Jem considered him. He seemed to be speaking to himself when he said, “We should have gotten you more tweed.”
Tean blinked. “What?”
“More tweed. You’re this bigwig—”
“I’m not and have never been a bigwig.”
“—specially invited to attend a prestigious conference—”
“Missy invited me to be on her panel, Jem, at the annual conference for a third-tier association. Most of these people are hucksters. And I’m not even the keynote speaker.”
“—and we should have gotten you those pants the horse guys have to wear, the really baggy ones. Only out of tweed.”
“Jockeys?”
Jem smirked. “Boxers, but I wanted to surprise you.” Before Tean could formulate a reply to that, Jem caught the eye of an older woman passing them. “This is my husband,” Jem said. “Teancum Leon. He’s a bigwig speaker who got invited to be on a panel.”
The woman smiled at them and gave Tean a second look.
“I’m not—” Tean began.
“You can have his autograph for five dollars,” Jem said over him.
And because he was Jem, the woman laughed. She even touched Jem’s arm as she passed.
When Jem looked back at Tean, he said, “What?”
Tean refused to answer, but judging by the grin playing behind Jem’s beard, Tean thought he already knew anyway. “And I don’t know why I have to wear tweed—”
“You’re not wearing tweed,” Jem murmured. “A problem I intend to solve.”
“When you get to wear—well, that.”
That was a neon pink and green Beverly Hills 90210 t-shirt that fit Jem like a dream and vintage Adidas shorts (gray and purple because, well, Jem) and flip-flops.
“I seem to recall the last time I bought you a pair of shorts being told, ‘I have chicken legs,’ which, for the record, I disagree with, and I like how you look in shorts.”
“That’s not the point,” Tean said. Although he felt like he might have lost track of what the point actually was.
Because the whole Deliverance-squeal-like-a-pig thing wasn’t getting any traction, and the clothes thing had been a flop, Tean gestured at the lobby of the resort. True to its name, Santaland had gone all out with the Christmas decorations. Plastic Christmas trees, of course, filled every corner, shedding multicolored light from big, old-fashioned bulbs. Plastic reindeer perched in ornamental spaces overhead, looking down at conference-goers from where they bounded and leaped and frolicked in plastic snow. Plastic garlands draped the mantel of an enormous fieldstone fireplace, where orange plastic streamers shimmered. No actual fire in August, thank God—Tean was still soaked with sweat after the short walk from the car. Plastic elves wore jaunty plastic hats. And, of course, no fewer than eight plastic Santas were staged in various positions: in a sleigh, of course, and with a sack of toys over his shoulder. One appeared to be bending over and pulling down his red velour trousers. Background music played softly, and at least one of the hidden speakers had blown. It sounded like Irving Berlin had suffered a stroke. The only concession to the conference were signs and banners for the International Habitat Conservation and Protection Association.
“Do you know—” Tean began.
“You get one, so make it good.”
For a moment, Tean floundered. He went with “They have too many bucks. If these were real deer, when they went into rut, they’d trash this place.”
Jem made a face. “Really? That’s the one you picked?”
“No, hold on—”
Laughing, Jem put a hand on his nape and steered him toward the registration desk. “You’re going to have fun. You’re going to cut open snails and ride walruses and throw fish back into ponds, and one of you is going to have to wear the shame antlers, and there will be so much animal urine, you’ll be like a kid in a candy store.”
“One time,” Tean said, “I had coyote urine in my pocket one time, and it should be a lesson to you not to snoop, much less open things that don’t belong to you.”
Jem smiled at an older man passing them, and because he was Jem, the older man smiled back.
“If I’d smiled at him,” Tean said, “he would have burned me at the stake.”
“Get it all out of your system, or your friends are going to make you wear the shame antlers when you do the annual penguin dive.”
“What are the shame antlers? What is a penguin dive?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“It’s going to be three unbearably boring days, Jem. In fact, it’s going to be so boring that we should turn around right now, and we can fly back tonight, and—”
“This lady is coming to talk to you.”
“—and I’m going to tell her I’ve got giardia, and don’t you dare contradict me.”
“Never,” Jem said through a smile as the woman reached them.
It had been years since Tean had seen Missy Bennett—since grad school, actually—and she’d changed. They both had, of course. She’d gotten rid of most of her dark hair (thanks to Jem, Tean knew it was called a bald fade), and she’d opted for a baggy t-shirt and jeans that accentuated the androgynous look. The heart-shaped gauges were new, but the earbuds worn around her neck weren’t—and neither were the dark, friendly eyes.
“Missy—” Tean began, lurching into a hug when Jem propelled him from behind.
At the same time, Missy said, “Teancum—”
She laughed. Tean tried to extricate himself. Jem, when Tean glimpsed him out of the corner of his eye, was beaming.
When they separated, Missy turned toward Jem, holding out a hand. They shook, and Missy said, “You must be—”
But Jem said over her, “He doesn’t have giardia.”
It was an interesting experience, Tean thought through the distant ringing in his ears. He’d never been swallowed by a black hole in slow motion before.
Then Jem grinned and said, “I’m Jem.”
And somehow, because he was Jem—again, over and over again—Missy only laughed and said, “Missy. I’ve wanted so badly to meet you. Ever since you made Tean get Instagram.”
