No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel Read Free Book Online

the most natural response. A man who pretends he’s not looking or a man who makes a big deal of it are both annoying. One’s prissy, one’s a lout.
    Anyway.
    Sex. That’s how I was thinking from the first minute I saw him, and it wasn’t all that easy to lead him up the stairs because I’m sensitive about those not-skinny thighs. I chattered to make myself feel calmer, and wished I’d put on jeans instead of shorts. “It’s kinda hot up here as the summer moves in, but we’ve got a million fans and you should be all right.”
    “I’ve been in Brazil, darlin’.”
    I smiled over my shoulder. “Good point.”
    The room was tucked under the eaves on the north end of the house. He dropped his stuff on the bed Shane had made, and I showed him to the bathroom, still pretty humid from my shower, and illustrated the wonky controls. “That’s really it.”
    As I said, the bathroom is tiny, tiny. Malachi just stood there in the doorway, filling it up entirely. “Tell me about Michael,” he said. “How long has it been AIDS?”
    I took a breath. “Two and a half years.”
    “After Andre died,” he said. Not a question.
    “Yeah.” I blinked, looked down at my toes. “It took a lot out of him, losing Andre, then the restaurant.”
    “And he’s dying,” Malachi said.
    “Yes.”
    “What about drugs? All the antivirals and whatever?”
    There were times that the reality was almost more than I could stand, and a wave of that hit me just then. “He was HIV positive for a very long time, Malachi, since the late eighties. He took the drugs then, and they worked, but he developed resistance to some of them and allergies to some others, and he can’t tolerate anything anymore.” I raised my eyes. “He’s pretty much down to some antibiotics and some pain meds, but that’s it.”
    “He looks tired and very thin, but not like he’s gonna die.”
    “I know.” It was one of the more difficult aspects of the whole thing. “Sometimes he’s back to his normal self, he feels that good. And sometimes he’s really tired and won’t get out of bed for days. You’ve caught him on a good day. I swear I’m not lying—although he will.”
    A small frown pulled down his heavy brows. “No.” He took an envelope out of his back pocket. Three envelopes folded together, actually. “I didn’t doubt you were serious.”
    Seeing those three letters, each one more desperate than the last, sparked the anger that had been lurking since I’d seen his gorgeous bod on the porch. I glared up at him. “What took you so friggin’ long to get here?”
    “I was in Brazil.”
    “For six months?”
    A lift of those arched brows. “That’s right.”
    “Doesn’t anyone get your mail and tell you when something urgent is going on?”
    He looked down at the letters, smoothed them between the index and long finger of both hands, framing my handwriting on his name:
Malachi Shaunnessey.
His mouth tightened a little, then he looked up at me, very directly. “It’s not like there’s some big network of people in my life. My mother is dead. My father’s an asshole and I don’t care what happens to him.” A little jerk in his throat or maybe the jaw, just enough to show that if he weren’t such a big, alligator-blood-drinking tough guy, he’d probably have tears in his eyes. “I never expected . . . Michael’s always landed on his feet.”
    Damn. I’d had nearly two years to come to terms with all of this—a stage at a time. And although he was my best friend, he wasn’t my brother. I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
    He gave that guy-nod, eyes downcast, throat working a little.
    “I’ll let you take your shower, get some rest. We can talk later.”
    “Thanks.” The sound was a little rough, but he attempted a faint smile. Didn’t step back, just lifted his head and gave me a rueful half smile, acknowledging his almost breakdown.
    And, just like that, I was very aware of the fact that he dwarfed me—which