Free Stories Beneath Our Skin by Veronica Sloane Page A

old when they got caught?"
    " They all got arrested when I was ten. I came home from school and the house was empty, but that wasn't unusual. I think I wound up making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner." The milk he drank had been a little sour, lingering in his mouth for hours as he waited for someone to come home. Even now, he couldn't drink milk straight without his stomach turning. "Social services came to get me the next morning, and I stayed with a foster family for a week or so while they sorted everything out."
    " Damn. That's... really not what I was expecting." Ace's fingers twitched and for a moment, Liam thought he might actually reach across the seats to comfort him. Liam wasn't sure he could take that right now.
    " It worked out." He said stiffly, shifting subtly away. "Gene wasn't a part of it. Turned out he was sort of a retirement plan for my aunt. Someone with a steady job for when times got lean. So when the smoke cleared, it was the two of us left standing."
    " So he raised you."
    " Yeah. Anyone else probably would have let me go into the system, but he took me in. He didn't have to do it. I don't know what would've happened to me if he didn't."
    " And now he's dying." Ace smiled at him tightly. "Knew you had a sad story."
    " Yeah, that's what Deb said, too. Gene wouldn't say it was sad though. Always said he wanted a kid and he got one, maybe later than he planned." He gunned it around a pottering Oldsmobile, relishing the hit of distracting speed. "He's seventy-five now. Got Hep C from a bad blood transplant a long time ago. Kidneys started failing and he did dialysis, but there's complications. Last month they moved him to hospice care."
    " And you came home." Ace stared blankly out the window. Liam could practically see the pieces falling into place for him. "And you spend every day with him, don't you?"
    " He's the only person in the world that gave a damn about me when it really mattered. I'm not going to let him die alone." Liam swallowed down heat and bile. "I promised him I'd be there while he was awake."
    " But he sleeps a lot. Especially at night. And it's obvious you can't sleep worth a damn." Ace drummed his fingers over his thigh. "So you figure, you'll find a night job. Something to fill the dark hours. And here's me thinking you applied 'cause you enjoyed it."
    " Yeah." Liam's chest burned. "Yeah, exactly. It's not -- I do like the work. It's not just to fill the time."
    " I wouldn't care if it was. You do good art. The whys of it don't matter to me." Ace tilted his head a little, and Liam waited for the inevitable pity or hollow reassurances. "So what's he like?"
    " Gene?" Liam frowned. "Why?"
    " Well you said you didn't want to talk about the bad parts, and I said talk about the good parts and you decided to tell me the bad parts. Which is cool, by the way, but tell me now. The good stuff."
    " He's funny," Liam said immediately. "He's got a big heart. We used to have strays from all over the neighborhood in our house. Cats, dogs, birds, ferrets, you name it. Even a chipmunk with a broken paw for a while. Maybe he should've been a vet. Guess you could say I was one of the strays." He tried on a smile, but it wouldn't stay, sliding off again. "He loved my aunt a lot, even when he found out that their whole life together was a lie. Never did really accept that. He'd visit her every chance he could in prison and write her long letters when he couldn't. I still don't get that. All this time passed, and I still can't forgive my parents. He's a different sort of person, I guess. For every problem I ever had, he has a story about something like that happening to a guy at work or a cousin or a friend."
    " I know guys like that." Ace smiled a little.
    " Goose reminds me of him sometimes." The comparison had occurred to him more than once, and he took comfort in Goose's familiar feel-good energy. "Though Goose is too out there. Gene's pretty traditional in a lot of ways. He doesn't