The Difficult Kind

GUTHRIE LOADED up his drum kit and made sure it was secure in the bottom of the bed before turning to Owen, Neil, and Roberta for their obligatory "You okay, bro?" hug.

They were, in fact, very okay—they'd made lots of tips, gotten lots of buzz, and had even been recognized by groupies who'd followed them from the Washoe. Scorpio, which was much trendier, was a fun club to play, but Guthrie was itching to go ho—

Back to Sacramento. Where Tad and April waited, and he could talk to Tad in person instead of having their worst, most painful conversations over the screen.

"You heading to the apartment?" Roberta asked, all of them glancing around to make sure they were alone and in the lights.

Guthrie had been planning to say yes, of course, but what came out of his mouth was, "I'm still pretty wired. I think I'll head up to Sac, you know?"

The others nodded, seemingly unsurprised, and as he watched carefully as they all got in their vehicles and started up, he thought, Why not?

Well, lots of reasons. Who knew how long his buzz of excitement would last, for one thing, and Tad wasn't expecting him until tomorrow for another. The girls weren't exactly expecting him either, but….

He pulled out his phone and texted Agnes. Hey, angel—you guys in for the night?

Yeah, Guthrie. Why? You need us to cook dinner?

What a sweetheart. No, sweet pea. You guys settle in. If it's okay, I'll head on up to Sac from here. I'm good for it."

Sure. We'll miss you but stay safe.

And with that, she signed off, and Guthrie was good to go.

He didn't text Tad, though. Something about the spur of the moment thing, the decision to just up and fly free—he liked that. He didn't feel obligated. Nobody expected him, so if the truck broke down or he was forced to pull off at a rest stop and nap in the back, he wouldn't be putting them out. He could just… drive up. Hopefully make Tad happy, but not be beholden to anybody.

He didn't want to look into that feeling at any depth. The simultaneous desire to be near Tad, near his cozy little apartment, his gruff, fragile sister, his kindness—and bossiness—and insistence on making Guthrie a part of his family, coupled with his… his what?

What was he afraid of?

For the first time in a long time he heard his father's voice in his head.

People like us don't get no happy ever after, son. People like you got nothing to do but burn in hell.

Ugh. God, he'd spent years trying to flush that conversation. Longer than that trying to flush his entire childhood. The music he could keep, but everything else—the being on the road, the being subject to his father's moods, the loneliness—that shit he wanted to pretend hadn't happened. Until Tad had started probing over the phone the night before.

So was that it? Guthrie was keeping his distance from Tad because he was afraid his father was right?

Wow. For a grown-assed man, that was a really childish jump in logic, wasn't it?

Still, after a stop for coffee and a moment of choosing his Spotify playlist designed to keep him awake, he shook off his internal analysis and concentrated on getting to his destination. It didn't matter what the destination was to him , only that he got there in one piece, right?

Still, his mind wandered, fretting around words, around music, and at one point, he hit pause on the playlist and started singing his own stuff out loud. He'd composed music before—he knew the process—and had even performed a couple of his songs at gigs, depending on the band's preferences, but he'd never felt a real… drive to do so. Until now.

An hour and a half later he pulled into Tad's apartment complex and found a parking spot right in front of Tad's building, which was something of a miracle. Instead of getting out immediately, he pulled out his phone and started making notes, writing down his lyrics with chord progressions and such, wanting to keep that song in his head, because for that ride home, that song had been him , all the things in his heart that he never let out, and it felt like this was a way to do it.

He wasn't sure when he set his phone down, satisfied, and leaned his head against the side window, but that's where he was when a sharp rap on the glass woke him up.

"Guthrie!"

He startled, arms going wide out like a baby's as he tried to orient himself to time and place.

"Wha? April?"

"Jesus, Guthrie, what're you doing out here?"

"Was gonna come in in a sec," he told her, because that had been the plan.

"But what are you doing here?" she asked. "You weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow. Tad called you and got no answer, so he checked your location."

Guthrie grunted. "Didn't know he could do that," he said, still disoriented. "Good to know. Yeah, I decided to come up tonight instead. Shut off the engine, took a breath… guess I fell asleep."

She let out a helpless little laugh. "Well, come inside. My brother's losing his mind!"

"Let me get my gear."

"I'll get your guitar," she said, "and you get everything else. Did you bring any clothes?"

He had, oddly enough, brought his knapsack out of habit. "Knapsack's next to the guitar," he told her and got out, leaving her to it.

She went into the house first, carrying the guitar case and the knapsack, and he followed with the two cases and equipment bag of the drum set in his arms. April set everything down in a corner of the little-used dining room and then took his stuff from him in time for Tad to launch himself into Guthrie's arms.

"Where were you?" he asked, and Guthrie found himself being held so hard it should have hurt, but didn't.

"No worries," he murmured, burying his face into Tad's neck and closing his eyes. Tad had a smell , a good one, beyond shampoo and body wash and such, and Guthrie had been missing it. It was like a food or something, the way his stomach recognized it, wanted more.

"But you weren't at the apartment. You didn't answer your phone."

Guthrie grimaced. "Old truck," he explained. "Put the phone on mute when I'm in traffic. Sorry. I just—"

"He fell asleep in the cab," April said dryly. "Tad, back away from the Guthrie, I think he needs to eat."

Guthrie shook his head. "Naw, we ate at the—" His gurgling stomach put lie to the idea that the chef's salad he'd had was enough.

"Grilled cheese sandwich," April said decisively. "Go sit on the couch. Make cow eyes with my brother. Explain to him why you fell asleep in the truck. It'll be riveting, I'm sure."

Tad pulled back far enough for Guthrie to see the purely adolescent irritation in his face. It was the look a big brother gave his irritating little sister when she was butting in and unwelcome. Before Guthrie could laugh, Tad took a deep breath and turned toward Guthrie.

"She's a pain in the ass—and I should know—but she's got a good plan. Come on ."

Tad grabbed his hand like kids on the playground and dragged Guthrie to the couch on legs that seemed almost steady now. He paused for a moment, making sure his donut pillow was in the right place, and then settled delicately, his game leg extended, before gesturing imperiously for Guthrie to take his place on the other side of the couch, facing him.

"You know," Guthrie said, yawning, "I'm going to fall asleep right here, clothes and all."

"You will not," Tad ordered. "Because April's going to feed you, and then I'm going to take you to bed."

"That's forward," Guthrie poked. "And presumptuous. I can always go back to sleep in the cab."

"You will not!" Tad's cheeks were getting pink. "Now come on—talk to me. What were you doing?"

"I think we've established I was sleeping," Guthrie said dryly, and then held out his hand. "It's no big deal. I… I wanted to be here and not in San Rafael is all, so I drove here instead. I took a few minutes after I parked to make some notes on something in my head, and then I fell asleep." He relented on all his snarkasm. "I didn't mean to worry you. I just honestly didn't know anybody was expecting me when I got here."

Tad gave him a glare of pure exasperation. "We were," he said. " I was. Guthrie, you're important to us."

Guthrie felt an uncertain smile flicker on his cheeks. "You, uh, know I'm basically a freeloader. Won't you at least let me pay rent?"

"No," April said from the kitchen. "I pay rent 'cause I get the spare room. You don't pay rent because now that you've made a big deal out of it, Tad and I won't let you."

Guthrie gave her a droll look over his shoulder. "You're gonna hurt my pride," he said, and there was a kernel of truth in that, and Tad must have heard it too.

"It's not pride," he said primly. "It's vanity. And control. You don't want to be in anyone's debt because you don't trust that they won't hold it over you. So tough. We won't hold it over you. You'll have to trust us."

Guthrie was going to argue, but at that moment April came around the corner with a perfectly grilled cheese sandwich. Guthrie stared at her, surprised.

"That was damned quick," he muttered.

"I did this thing," she confessed, "where I used mayo on the crust and then got the pan really hot and threw water on it and put a cover over it before I flipped it really quick. It makes the edges crispy and the inside gooey. It's amazing ."

Guthrie stared at her, bemused, and Tad chuckled.

"We watched cooking shows for the last two days," Tad said, grinning at his sister with pride. "She made blankets, and we watched cooking shows, and I'm finally awake enough to contribute to the conversation. I was practically human."

"And I'm almost done with Guthrie's blanket," she said proudly.

"My blanket?" Guthrie asked through a heavenly, crispy, and gooey bite of grilled cheese sandwich. Mayo on the outside—who knew?

"Yeah," April said. She gave a nod toward her big laundry basket by the recliner, where a handsome fawn, sage, and lavender blanket sat. It was made in strips, each strip with a textured design on the surface, and Guthrie's heart went a little wobbly.

"I saw you working on that, sweetheart," he said, reaching out to touch it. "Is that for me?"

"Yeah," she said, giving a proud smile. "If I can make a blanket good enough for you, maybe I can finally make a blanket good enough for my brother to replace that crap one." There were two blankets on the back of the couch now, and Guthrie knew one was from his mother. The other, a basic back-and-forth stitch in a variegated blue, had been one of April's earlier efforts.

"I like that blanket," Tad said mildly.

"I'm better at it now," April retorted. "You need a better blanket."

"Well now I'm torn," Guthrie said, catching Tad's eyes. "'Cause that's more than good enough for me, but nothing's good enough for your brother."

She bent to kiss his cheek. "And that's why you get a blanket," she said with satisfaction. "I'm going to make you another sandwich." With that she took the little plate but left him the napkin.

"I absolutely can't eat another sandwich," he said quietly to Tad, who laughed.

"April, how about you put a hold on that. Let him finish, okay?"

"He's skinny," she said, her lower jaw shoving out mulishly. "And he was asleep in the car outside the apartment. I don't trust him to take care of himself. He needs to eat."

Guthrie opened his mouth to tell her he was a grown man, but Tad beat him to it. Sort of.

"I'm sure he does, but we'll have to get him on a feeding schedule and feed him a little bit more every day, okay?"

"I don't believe this," Guthrie muttered, and Tad sent him a mulish look of his own that told Guthrie he wasn't over the sleeping-in-the-cab-of-the-truck thing. Guthrie yawned then and wiped his face and his fingers with the napkin.

"Go crawl into bed," Tad murmured. "I'll be there in a sec. Don't argue, okay?"

Guthrie might have if he hadn't been so tired. As it was, after brushing his teeth, stripping to his briefs, and climbing into bed, he was barely conscious when Tad came in, turned off the light, and slid in next to him. With a murmur he backed into Tad's broad chest and welcomed the arm around his waist by covering Tad's fingers with his own and lacing them together.

"I like you here," Tad murmured.

"Wait until I do something cool," Guthrie said back.

"You're here. That's cool."

Guthrie was asleep before he could even laugh at that.

SOMETIME IN the night, they reversed positions, with Guthrie careful not to bump up against Tad's backside but Tad practically snuggling him off the bed in an effort to get closer. Toward the morning, Guthrie got up to use the bathroom, and when he came back, Tad had changed position, so it was Guthrie's turn to be little spoon again, and he liked that. Liked Tad's possessive arm around his middle, liked the way Tad splayed his hand on the soft skin of Guthrie's bare stomach, liked the way he—hello!

"That's not my stomach," Guthrie mumbled as Tad's fingers dipped below his waistband.

"Nope," Tad murmured. "Want me to stop?"

Oh! His fingers brushed against Guthrie's cock, still full from his morning wood, and it was like a magic touch. His entire body melted against the bed, against Tad, and without volition he lowered his hand and trapped Tad's fingers exactly where they were.

"No," he hissed, beyond pride in that one touch. Tad's smell had haunted him as they'd slept. It had permeated his senses, sunk into his skin. Tad was there, warm and strong and touching him , and now the touch was on purpose , and Guthrie couldn't resist, not in the name of pride, not in the name of reason, not even in the name of privacy.

He glanced toward the bedroom door and saw that, unlike during the night when it had been partially open, it was closed all the way, something Tad must have done when he'd gotten up to pee.

"This was premeditated," he mumbled, arching into Tad's grip, and Tad chuckled grimly.

"You're skittish," he said, stroking with a firm touch. "Need to keep you from running. Sorry."

"That didn't—" Guthrie gasped as Tad skated his thumb across the head. "—sound—oh God, Tad, I'm not going to last—sincere!" he managed, and Tad grunted and let go of his cock to pull down his shorts.

Guthrie was suddenly bare in the warmth of the summer morning, and Tad was scooching around the bed to take his cock into his mouth.

"Oh God," Guthrie moaned softly when Tad's lips closed over him, and that quick, all that was left was the heat and the home inside. Then Tad added the pressure of his fist and swirls with his tongue, and Guthrie threw one arm over his face and then used the other to massage the back of Tad's head through his now-shaggy hair.

Tad chuckled and kept up with the blowjob, and Guthrie arched into his mouth, the hand in Tad's hair shaking, his body overwhelmed by simple touch. All those hours on the road and his skin felt shaken to a windsock, and suddenly he was being touched , and sexually , and it all came crashing into him, how sensitive his skin was, how much he craved the attention, and Tad was giving it, and he was flying , and —

The hand covering his face moved to his mouth as he came, biting his palm, shaking so hard he wasn't sure what to do with his limbs next. His other hand came up from the back of Tad's head so he could cover his whole face and let loose with the damned tears that seemed to curse his time in bed, particularly with this amazing man who bossed him around for his own good and made sure he ate and worried about him when he didn't know where Guthrie was.

Tad backed away, and Guthrie caught a peek between his fingers of the exasperating man grinning in satisfaction.

"Hey," Tad murmured, his tenderness Guthrie's undoing. "C'mon, look at me." He nudged Guthrie's hand down, and Guthrie saw his mouth, swollen and rimed with glossy come, and he groaned.

Tad moved his other hand and took his mouth, letting Guthrie taste himself, letting him get lost in the kiss, in the sex of it all. Guthrie opened his legs, wishing Tad was naked and realizing that he was . Guthrie ground up against his hard cock, wanting more even though he was still soft from his orgasm and not likely to get hard in the next few minutes.

Tad let go of the kiss long enough to reach under the pillow behind Guthrie's head.

"I want to fuck you," he murmured. "You may have to buck your hips a little, but I think we can do it."

Guthrie whimpered, suddenly needing to be taken. "You're better?" he managed to rasp.

"God, I hope so," Tad muttered, pulling the lube out from under the pillow. "I stroked myself last night, thinking about you. I wanted you so bad."

"Ooh," Guthrie breathed. "I had no idea."

There was a moment of fumbling and then Tad's fingers breached him, not roughly but with intent, and Guthrie bore down on them, accepting their stretching and the gentle ache that came with it. He shook, overwhelmed again, and without meaning to, raised his hips to give Tad better access.

"God, you're so needy," Tad whispered, but not like it was a bad thing. "I've needed to be needed like this my whole life."

And then he was there, at Guthrie's entrance, and oh… oh God. Oh damn. Guthrie shuddered, and he felt the damned tears again, and Tad took him over, invaded him, made him whole. He tried to raise his hand to cover his eyes as Tad took up a gentle rhythm inside him, but Tad stopped him, took his hand, laced their fingers together, and nuzzled his cheek.

"No hiding," he whispered. "It's fine. Whatever you feel, as long as you want this, it's fine."

Guthrie let out a whimper and arched his back, torn between wanting to hide and just wanting . Tad took him at his blatant invitation and thrust in again, keeping their hands laced as he balanced his weight on his good knee and used his abs and good thigh muscles to fuck.

Guthrie watched, helpless, through blurred, stinging eyes as Tad tilted his head back and smiled, obviously enjoying himself. The sight made him smile, made him catch his breath, made him raise his hips and wrap his legs around Tad's, inviting him deeper, begging him to go harder, wanting more.

Tad complied, a look of such open joy on his face as he thrust that Guthrie's eyes stung even more, spilling over. He was finally forced to close them, simply feeling, allowing the dark pleasure to overtake him, detonating him from the center out until he convulsed around Tad's cock, his body swept into another orgasm he hadn't even known was coming.

Tad gave a gasp of his own, almost a laugh, as Guthrie shuddered, and then Tad was rutting, coming inside him, burying his face against Guthrie's neck and collapsing against him, still coming even though the position forced him out of Guthrie's ass.

For a few moments they simply clung to each other, their orgasms stuttering to completion, and then Tad gave a little sound of discomfort, released Guthrie's hand, and rolled to the side. Guthrie tried to turn away then, so he could bury his face in the pillow and let the shame wash over him, but Tad grunted and pulled him so his head rested on Tad's shoulder and he had nowhere to hide.

"It was good?" Tad was still breathing hard, and he had the smuggest smile on his face. "Tell me it was good. My ass is gonna hurt for a week after that. Tell me it was good."

Guthrie couldn't help the smile and little sputter of stupid, useless sex tears that came with that. "You know it was good. Whoever taught you the sex things, gotta give 'em props."

"Taught me?" Tad harumphed. "Nobody taught me anything. All of that was good old-fashioned study . I read every gay romance book known to man in my late teens." He paused. "Not as many as there should have been. Anyway, you learn a few things."

"Such as?" Guthrie prompted, mostly to hear him talk. God, it was easy, lying here with him. Guthrie's fears subsided, and he tried to keep his eyes open so Tad would keep saying shit.

Tad turned his head, then, and with a throat-tightening tenderness, pulled the long strands of Guthrie's hair out of his eyes. "Like you gotta make love to the person in your bed, not the ghosts that follow him," he said softly. "And you gotta listen to them, to their noises, to their expressions, to see what's going on. Don't turn away from me, Guthrie. Not when it's you and me. Okay?"

Guthrie swallowed, eyes still burning. "Do you know how embarrassing this is?" he asked.

Tad kissed his temple. "Maybe if you let some of your heart show sometimes when you're not in bed with me, it won't all be backed up when you are," he said. "You ever think that? You're so guarded, but you're one of the best people I know."

Guthrie shook his head. "One good deed doesn't make me a good guy," he said, and unbidden came his childhood, growing up with two rednecks who made fun of anyone not straight, White, and moderately poor. Those years of struggle, of trying to figure out who he was, hadn't come without hurting feelings, without being the douchebag who'd take a girl to bed because his father was getting suspicious and then try to let her down gently because he just wasn't feeling it. Until Seth had walked through the door, Black, with blond hair and green eyes, his head in the clouds, his clothes ill-fitting and falling apart—hell, even his sneakers had been unlaced—Guthrie hadn't known how small his world had been. No matter the years of heartbreak that had followed, of stupid, hopeless yearning, Guthrie would always have Seth to thank for showing him that the world was as big and as small as the kid in your own backyard that you might not have seen for the blinders put on you by family.

"Tell me," Tad murmured. "Why aren't you a good guy?"

"I don't know," Guthrie mumbled, not wanting to talk about himself. "Tell me why you are ?"

Tad grimaced. "I'm not such a good guy," he said, and Guthrie turned to stare at him.

"Oh I doubt that. Why not?"

"Fine. My turn. Because April didn't go into rehab voluntarily—not at first. I mean…." He puffed out a breath. "Man, how good a guy can I be if I handcuffed my sister to a bed and gave her sedatives until the meth shakes were gone, and then kept her there and cleaned her up? I mean… I had to shave her head, Guthrie. And then I had to shave my own because lice don't go away. I had to treat her for fungal infections and… and bed bugs and pressure sores and the whole time she was begging me for one more goddamned hit."

Under Guthrie's head, Tad's shoulder was shaking, and Guthrie could hear the pain in his voice.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling this with all his heart. "My dad's a real bastard when he drinks. Sometimes the only way I could cope with it was to be a real bastard back. There's no… no magic pill to help us deal with people when they become someone else. It's like Dr. Jekyll was a real nice guy but Mr. Hyde would kill you. Sometimes the only way to deal to deal with Mr. Hyde was to become… you know. The nine-hundred-pound gorilla Mr. Hyde's afraid of."

Again, that quiet, kind brush of lips at Guthrie's temple.

"What kind of gorilla were you?" he asked, voice a little broken. "I was the kind that screamed in my sister's face and slapped her, hard , when she bit me. I… she had a bruise across her cheek, and my bite got infected because her teeth were awful before we got the caps on and…." He shuddered. "I had to spend a week in a hotel dosing myself with lice remedies and antifungals and antibiotics before I felt clean enough to come home. And the whole time I was caring for that fucking wound I was like, ‘Good! It's infected! It should be, because I'm a shitty person and I deserve it.'"

This time it was Guthrie offering comfort. "Oh baby," he rasped, turning his head to kiss Tad's chest. "No. That's not true. That's not… you were trying to save her life. It looks like you've done that, but it was hard work. That was blood work right there. I-I didn't make the same sacrifice you did. I couldn't. Right before Seth left, I came out. And as long as Seth was there, my daddy smiled at Seth and was okay and a little standoffish, and I thought, It's okay—he'll still be my dad, and me and Uncle Jock and my daddy can keep on going, but I'll be looking for love in a different place is all , and that was okay. But the minute Seth was on the plane to Italy, and there was no hope that… that brilliant shining boy and his amazing talent was going to bless my daddy with any more goddamned money, he kicked me out of the band. Told me to get my faggoty ass the fuck out of his sight. After all he did for me. Uncle Jock just… just stood by and watched and…." He shook his head. "Last text I got from Jock was a year ago. Apparently, Daddy crawled into a bottle and stayed there, and Jock wanted me to come back and pull him out."

"No," Tad said, his voice cracking. "No, you don't owe him—"

Guthrie shook his head. "It ain't that simple. It's never that simple. 'Course I said no, but how much of that was righteousness and how much of that was spite? How much of that was a little kid going, ‘Apologize first, you big poo-poo head!'"

Tad let out a snort, the laughter through tears kind. "And how much of that was a hurt little kid?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," Guthrie admitted sadly. It was still early, he thought as he turned on his side into Tad's warm body, and he'd been damned tired the night before. "But see? Being a good man—sometimes it's harder than just rescuing kittens from trees. Sometimes you don't know who's worse, Mr. Hyde or—"

"The nine-hundred-pound gorilla," Tad filled in. "I hear you. But you're not—"

Guthrie shook his head, tired suddenly. "There's more," he mumbled. "There's always more. Can we not have any more confession today? I don't get a man in my bed often. And you're the best one so far. Can I enjoy this, please?"

"Yeah," Tad whispered, adjusting his position so Guthrie was still tucked against his chest, but he was a little more on his good side and less on his back. "And if I'm the best one so far, I want to be the best one period. No other guys for Guthrie. Just me."

Guthrie gave a humorless chuckle. "Like there's another man in the world I'd look in the face. Ever."

And then, before the meaning of that could sink in or grow huge, he fell asleep so he could dream that this place, where people made him grilled cheese sandwiches and blankets, where lovers told him he was okay and good, wishing it could stay forever, never change, be his as long as he lived.

But Guthrie knew better. Dreams like that weren't real. That's why he sang about perfect love and perfect pain. He knew there was no such thing.