“FUCK you, Sionn,” the blond man jogging behind him panted. “I hate you. Hate you like your mama hated bathing and left a trail of dead flies behind her when she walked.”
“You think I like doing this, Rafe?” Sionn came to a stop, his lungs burning nearly as much as the muscle knot in his leg. Panting, he bent over, stretching out as deep as he could to ease away the ache forming along his back and ass. “You’re crazier than I thought.”
They’d taken their run up near Ghirardelli Square, pounding through the predawn light. The first hill nearly killed Sionn, and he’d heard Rafe muttering about crazy Irishmen a few steps behind him. Going down on the next street, his long-legged friend outstripped his pace, easily eating up the decline with a slanting jog.
After his cousins, Rafe Andrade was the reason Sionn made it through high school. After Sionn was thrown into a Catholic school nearly twelve hours after landing in San Francisco, he’d been sullen but Rafe waded through the broiling anger Sionn’d brought with him from Ireland, sweeping it away with a cocky smile and an attitude so brash most people wondered how he’d stayed out of juvenile detention.
He hadn’t. He and Sionn were combustible, first finding ways into the principal’s office, then police stations where his uncle held sway. While Sionn went home with his aunt, Rafe often spent the night in a cell, or CPS picked him up until his mother could be found. Outgrowing their anger took longer, and Rafe kept his troubles personal until he could no longer keep in the damage they caused. They’d both struggled through Rafe’s downfall and then, resurrection. Now Rafe was there again, stoically pushing Sionn along as he regained the pieces of himself he’d lost.
“It would be fecking great if we both had our shite together at the same time,” Sionn muttered at Rafe one time over a pint of ale. “Imagine that, boyo?”
“It would be fecking great,” his friend mocked him, mimicking Sionn’s accent. “The damned world would end. We’re the ultimate gay bromance… a homo-platonic Romeo and Juliet, destined to be a tragedy and dying young while we look good. Well, me anyway. You… well, you should buy stock in a paper bag company so the guys who have to fuck you have something to put over that ugly face of yours.”
Sionn would have punched him if he hadn’t been drunk… and if Rafe hadn’t been able to kick his ass since they were teens. No, he thought as he watched his friend wipe sweat off of his hard chest with his damp T-shirt, Rafe’d grown up mean and played dirty. They’d been too close to the bay, sitting on Finnegan’s patio, and Sionn wouldn’t have put it past his friend to dump him into the freezing water.
“You been up to the house yet?” Rafe gasped in between heaving breaths. “Your aunt’s house, I mean. Not mine. I can still smell your stink from the last time you came over and watched the game.”
“Your dog’s the one that farted, not me. And Jesus, why are you giving me shite about that, Rafe?” Sionn didn’t need to ask him which house he meant. Rolling his eyes at the man, he scoffed. “Don’t tell me she’s called you.”
“Not only did she call me, but she gave me crap for not coming over too.” He grinned back, laugh lines crinkling his face. “So I threw you under the bus and said I’d seen you eating at Burger Time last Sunday.”
“While you were escorting a pack of nuns to Sunday Mass, I imagine? Or maybe feeding the poor bread and fish you conjured up out of thin air?”
“Imagine away. You’d be wrong, but the guy I was with could certainly suck the crust off a baguette if he tried.” Rafe gave him an eloquent bow, the beginnings of a graceful dip until Sionn’s elbow dug into his ribs. “Jealousy is not a good look for you, Murphy.”
“You’re a sick and pathetic boy, Andrade.” Sionn began to walk in a broad circle, shaking off the tremors in his legs.
“Speaking of pathetic….” Rafe shook his long hair back from his face and queued it back with a tie. “Anyone been sucking your baguette? You know, diddled your weenie?”
“Jesus, Rafe!” Sionn shot an apologetic look at a woman trotting by at a slow crawl. “Have a care, boyo.”
“That was as politically correct as I get, mate.” His friend showed no remorse, other than gracing the frowning woman with a broad smile. The blond’s off-kilter grin was enough for her to return it over her shoulder before she continued down the pier walk. “’Sides, she didn’t seem to mind. So, no sucking, then? Baguette or anything else?”
“No,” Sionn grumbled darkly. Long fingers playing over strings flashed through his thoughts, teasing his mind. “Maybe. Complicated, it is.”