Free Nothing but Smoke (Fire and Rain) by Daisy Harris Page B

in my life enough that he wouldn’t settle for excuses.
    “So much going on that you can’t go to a movie? Funny, you seem to have the time to get your dick sucked.” Okay, that was a low blow, and probably something Michael had wanted to say to Mark so often that he was spewing it at Nicky for no reason.
    But shit, Tomas was a firefighter and had plenty of time to date Jesse. And Logan didn’t do anything beside work and hang on Henri’s every word.
    “My mom is sick.”
    Michael wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Some part of him wanted to snap off a remark about how that was a likely story , but Michael held back. “Oh.” Not knowing how close Nicky was with his mother, Michael wondered whether to ask for more information. He didn’t have a right to all of Nicky’s personal details, but it seemed rude not to say something. “Like…is she okay?”
    “Yeah.” Nicky let out a rueful chuckle. “Well, not really. Not by any normal standards.”
    Michael chewed on the inside of his cheek, his jaw working. Clearly, there was a story there, but Michael wasn’t sure how much to probe. “So, do you need to hang out with her? Or take her to the doctor? I mean, we can do dinner some other time.”
    “No.” Nicky sighed. “Her home health aide had an open slot and can come in tonight for a few hours, and I…” His voice wavered, almost cracking. “I really need to get out of here. Do something normal.” Another laugh, but this one more amused than sad. “Well, not something normal. Maybe a little…less normal, actually.”
    Home health aide… That meant Nicky’s mother was the kind of sick that went beyond a course of antibiotics, or even surgery and a week or two of recovery.
    Michael wanted to ask a million questions—if Nicky’s dad was in the picture, or any siblings. But he got from the tone of Nicky’s voice that Nicky wanted to forget about all that for a while. “Less normal, huh?” Michael leaned against the counter. “What kind of less normal are we talking? A leather bar?”
    Nicky’s snort was pure mirth. “No. Okay, not that un-normal. I was thinking maybe Chinese?”
    “I could do that.” After a day of coffee shop food, Michael was more than ready for some vegetables. “You want to go to the International District?” There were some great Thai and Indian places in the U District, but all the best Chinese was in the I.D. “Shit.” He remembered his car was still at the auto place down on Rainier. “My car’s in the shop.”
    “Oh. Well, I could pick you up.”
    “I guess.” Michael dreaded the thought of being a passenger again. “Or I could meet you. There’s a bus that goes straight from The Ave to Madison.”
    “You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind coming up that way. What’s the address?”
    “It’s on The Ave. The place is Speedy Coffee. Knock hard. I may be in the back office.”
    “Awesome.” Michael could hear Nicky’s smile over the phone. “And by the way, thanks.”
    “For what?”
    “For agreeing to meet me. I know… Well, I’ve thought a lot about what you said.” Nicky let the words hang there. “I mean, about my being not straight.”
    Henri had told Michael a thousand times that “I told you so” was Michael’s personal catch phrase, but hearing Nicky admit Michael was right…out loud…well, it went a long way to puffing up Michael’s pride.
    “Yeah. Well, I’m starving, so hurry up.” Michael chuckled, covering up his excitement.
    “I should be there in twenty minutes.”
     
     
    Nicky would never find street parking. Especially not for the Lincoln, which seemed to have been built with the assumption that the owners would always be going somewhere with valet parking.
    Luckily, Michael stood on the curb, in front of a café tucked between one of those lunchtime-only noodle places and a head shop. The sign in the window was lower than the rest on the street, giving it the aura of somewhere you’d only go if you were on