A Memory Away by Taylor Lewis

understanding. “Not a good place to grow up, huh?”
Kyle smiled ruefully. “Oh it’s a great place to fit in if you’re the right kind.” He shrugged his slim shoulders and looked away causally, trying to hide how much the memory of Black Falls still burned four years after he’d managed to escape with Megan. “If you’re destined for an adolescence filled with swirlies and daily dumpster dives, not so much.”
“Oh.” Jonah didn’t know what to say. “I was sorta a jock.”
Laughing, Kyle looked back at him and shook his head. “Colour me surprised.”
Jonah grinned at him, relieved to see him smiling again. “So I’m guessing you don’t go back there if you can help it?”
“No.” Kyle picked up his mug and idly swirled the dregs of his tea around as he peered thoughtfully into the depths. “There’s just my dad there and we prefer it if he comes to see me and Shea here. It’s easier on him.”
Jonah frowned again. “Easier?”
“ Black Falls is not exactly the most politically correct place on earth and I’m not exactly the most discreet of people.” Kyle smiled wanly. “When you add to that the existence of Shea....” He trailed off and then shrugged delicately. “Like I said, easier.”
“Oh.” Jonah found himself at a loss for words yet again. “He’s not real accepting then?” He waved a hand between them. “You know; of you being how you are.”
The whoop of genuine laughter from Kyle’s throat had not only Jonah staring in surprise but the rest of the deli too.
“Are you joking?” Kyle almost doubled over with giggles. “My problem with going back to Black Falls to visit would be trying to stop my dad taking a tyre iron to anyone who looked at me and Shea sideways. In the interests of him not spending his twilight years locked up in the state pen for multiple homicides its better all-round if he comes to us, that’s all.”
Jonah stared transfixed at Kyle’s face, amazed all over again how different he looked when he was relaxed and happy. He found himself smiling back. “So he’s a badass?”
Kyle nodded, still giggling helplessly, and waved a hand over his head, presumably to indicate just how big his overly protective daddy was. “He’s a mechanic and built like the side of a barn.” His eyes sparkled with mirth when he looked at Jonah, “We don’t look much alike.”
Unable to help himself, Jonah leered. “You look pretty okay to me.” The leer increased when Kyle’s eyes widened and he looked uncomfortably away so Jonah took pity on the other man and started to attack his strudel with extreme prejudice as he changed the subject. “So New York’s home now?”
Kyle eyed him warily but seemed reassured that the brief lecherous moment had passed when Jonah blinked innocently at him and shovelled another mouthful of strudel into his mouth. “Yes, definitely. What about you? Have you always lived here?”
Jonah chewed, swallowed and silently congratulated himself on being an awesome human being. This whole thing was in the bag.
~*~*~* ~
A few blocks away Gina Lopez sat in her car and watched as Megan walked briskly down the street towards her apartment block, carrying a bag of groceries and mouthing the words to whatever she was listening to on her iPod. Waiting until the other woman was safely inside the building, she grabbed the file sitting on the seat next to her that she had swung by the station to pick up after Lee had returned her call with the information she needed and hopped out of the car. She buzzed the Super to be let in as she was pretty sure that Megan would only do so over her cold dead body and, after flashing her ID, took the stairs up to the second floor and quickly located Megan’s apartment.
The door opened almost immediately after her solid pounding and Megan stared at her for a moment before recognition dawned. “What do you want? I thought we were finished with you.”
Lopez curled her lip. “Yeah, well, if wishes were horses, baby.”