Truce

Chapter 1Lake I startled awake. It took me two seconds to realize it was because I’d dropped the book I’d been reading on my face. A quiet giggle from the couch across the coffee table made me glare playfully at one of my two roommates, Rey. “I told you you’d fall asleep, again.” He grinned. “Yeah, yeah…” I rubbed a hand over my face and tried to feel more perky. Our last roommate, my best friend River, was on his way home from work with pizza, hopefully. I turned to the tiny window next to the chair. With how small our two-bedroom NYC apartment was, our forty-two inch TV covered the bottom half of said window. At least the view was okay from this one: the building across the courtyard used mostly for trash collecting didn’t block all the daylight. “Don’t worry, you weren’t out for more than a few moments,” Rey said in his quiet voice. I was about to answer something, when the doorbell rang. He frowned. “Did Riv forget his keys again?” Rey’s expression grew cautious, almost fearful, when anyone rang our doorbell. He was afraid of something. As always, he dashed into the closest bedroom—mine—and wouldn’t come out until he knew the coast was clear. I went to open the door. A serious-looking older man stood there, schooling his expression at the last minute. He’d likely been grimacing at the state of the corridor. “Can I help you?” I asked. “I’m looking for Lake White.” “That’d be me. What’s this about?” I didn’t think I owed anyone money. The guy looked all too professional and serious to not be, well, those things. “My name is Hudson McMillan, I’m an attorney and I represent your aunt, Ruth White.” The ever-familiar sound of River jogging up the stairs drifted to us. McMillan glanced toward the stairwell, then back to me. “May I come in?” “That’s my roommate,” I replied, not opening the door an inch more. River glanced up from the pizza boxes he was balancing in his hands. He smiled, then frowned a bit when he noticed McMillan. “What’s up?” He had his scrubs on with his bag slung across his chest. “This is Mr. McMillan. He’s here about my aunt, I guess.” “Oh, all right. You the guy who’s been trying to call Lake from Illinois?” I made room for them to step inside and closed the door behind them. “That would be me, yes.” McMillan was doing his best not to judge the apartment, but it was still there, the slight suggestion of poor guys, living in such a cramped, worn-out space. It wasn’t a new expression by any means. River and I got that a lot. River took the pizza boxes to the coffee table. He raised his brows at me, gaze going toward the bedrooms. I smiled and flicked mine at the closest door, my own. “So, Mr. White, I have some personal business—” “Please take a seat, and whatever you have to say, River is my best friend, and he will hear everything anyway, so…” I shrugged. “Might as well get on with it.” River looked down at his work attire, then frowned. “I can postpone my shower for this, sure.” “All right,” McMillan didn’t seem pleased, but maybe that was just the obvious stick up his ass. The man sat on one end of the couch, and River moved the pizza boxes to the other end, so McMillan had a spot for his briefcase. I went back to my chair. “Drinks, anyone?” River asked. “I need coffee.” “Uh, sure, I could go for a cup,” McMillan replied. “Thank you.” “Me, too,” I added. Rey wasn’t big on coffee, but he liked tea a lot. Sadly, he wouldn’t be coming out of my room anytime soon with a stranger in the apartment. Once River announced the coffee was ready, McMillan and I went around the couch to the kitchen—it really was a small place—to fix our mugs. The corner of McMillan’s mouth twitched at the sparkly unicorn mug River pushed his way, and something about that relaxed me. Maybe the guy’s stick was bendier than it first seemed? The thought made me snort, and River gave me his patented best friend expression of contain yourself, man. We all sat down, River on the other end of the couch from McMillan. “So, I’m sorry I haven’t been taking your calls,” I started with the obvious. “It’s just…my family…” McMillan frowned. “Right. Your aunt told me about that. For what it’s worth, I don’t condone such actions. Nobody should be discriminated against based on something like sexuality. I have friends who work solely with the l***q+ community, and I’ve heard stories about what can happen with families like yours.” River made a surprised little sound, and McMillan smiled slightly. “I knew Ruth personally. She had some…stories.” “Knew?” I asked, even though I knew what was coming. “Right, Mr. White—” “Call me Lake, please.” I leaned forward, clutching my mug. McMillan made the face that all bad news deliverers do. “Ruth passed away just over a month ago. I’m so sorry for your loss.” “How’d she die? She was young, wasn’t she?” I asked, trying to do the math. My dad was in his early fifties and Aunt Ruth had been his big sister. “She was fifty-seven.” McMillan seemed genuinely sad when he said, “And nobody knew she had a congenital heart condition, until…after.” “The autopsy?” River asked, wincing as he glanced at me. “It’s not like I really knew her,” I reminded, and both River and McMillan relaxed. “Right. She’d been complaining about shortness of breath lately, but since it’s springtime, she said it was likely allergies, but…” McMillan sighed. “At least she passed in her sleep.” “That’s good. The way I’d prefer to go.” River smiled sadly. “So what’s this about?” I gestured at the briefcase and a thick folder of papers McMillan had in his hands. For some reason the man glanced around the apartment, then looked at me. “There’s no easy way to say this, but…Ruth left you everything.” I gripped the mug harder so I wouldn’t accidentally let go. “Come again?” “She left you Twin Star Rescue and all the rights to her novels.” “What novels?” I frowned. I worked in a bookstore; shouldn’t I have known if my aunt had written something? McMillan winced. “The Anneliese Harris novels.” The mug clattered onto the worn floorboards and the coffee splashed all over. “Y-you’re saying that Lake’s Aunt Ruth is Anneliese Harris?” River asked. “The woman whose books constantly top the bestseller lists? Who just sold a series to Netflix?” “Yes.” McMillan sighed wearily. “Look, Ruth never wanted the fame, which is exactly why nobody knew who she really was. She loved writing and horses, and those novels were just a hobby at first. Then…” “Then things took off after the third one and she published a total of nine in the last fifteen years,” my voice came out in a monotone of shock. “I work at a bookstore, I…” “Only certain people she trusted knew. There was no way for you to know.” “So those rights are Lake’s now?” River asked, frowning. “And the rescue?” “Well, the rights are Lake’s fair and square, but there are caveats to the rescue.” “And what would those be?” I managed, my mind scrambling in the dark for something to grasp onto. “Well for one, she had a couple of staff. She works—worked—with several other rescues and organizations. It was her passion, rehabilitating horses, and sometimes other animals, too. Severe neglect and abuse cases were hard for her to deal with, but she did anyway,” McMillan said in a tone filled with sadness and admiration, both. I cleared my throat. “And…?” A shadow moved in the corner of my vision, and McMillan startled. I wasn’t sure who was more spooked, the attorney or the teenager who’d slinked into the room with a rag in hand. “I’ll just…” Rey whispered, then dropped to his knees to take care of the coffee and the mug. “This is Rey, he’s a friend who lives with us.” River’s tone suggested McMillan better not ask any questions or pay attention to the kid or else. “All right,” McMillan said, quickly reading the situation and averted his gaze from the skinny teen wiping the floor in a meticulous, almost frantic manner. “So, the rescue…?” River prompted. “Right. Ruth’s best friend, Theo, is the foreman.” McMillan did the wincing thing again. The man had tells out the wazoo, I hoped he didn’t play poker. “Ruth promised Theo a job for the rest of his life.” I still wasn’t seeing the problem. “And that’s an issue because…?” “She wants you to run the rescue in her place, with Theo. If you do that, everything goes to you. You’ll sign papers that state Theo has his job for the rest of his life, and even when he retires, he gets to live in his cabin on the property if he so chooses.” I nodded. “If I don’t want to run the rescue?” “If you choose to sell it instead, then two thirds of the money left after everything is settled goes to Theo instead.” “But not the book stuff?” River clarified. “No, that has nothing to do with the rest.” “What’s the rescue valued at?” Rey asked, wincing when everyone focused on him at once. “The current estimate of the property is two point five million dollars.” I choked. “W-what?” “Your aunt put a lot of money into the property over the last twenty years. When the book thing took off, she made changes with some of that money, too, and well, that’s what it’s estimated at right now.” “That’s a lot of money.” I blinked a few times. “Even if this Theo gets two thirds, that’s still the book rights and what, over eight hundred thousand dollars?” “Exactly. But there’s one more caveat: You can’t sell the rescue unless you have spent at least three months living on the farm, working with Theo to the best of your ability. She wanted you to see what she saw in that place before you decide.” River cleared his throat. “Who gets to make the decision what best of Lake’s ability is?” McMillan smiled slightly. “That’ll be decided between myself and Theo.” I groaned. “All right. So…” I trailed off, not sure what I was going to say. McMillan took a sip from his mug and looked pleasantly surprised. River was the one who picked the beans for our coffee, because in his job, he needed to start the day right and that meant good quality caffeine. “You need to give your notice at the bookstore.” River put up one finger and made a circling motion with it. “We need to figure out when we move and what we do with all this stuff.” “Wait, we?” My eyes widened. “I was going to wait until I’ve fed you two pizza and you were happily in a food coma, but here goes: I gave my notice today.” River winced, as if waiting for a negative response to his news. “Well f*****g finally!” Rey commented from the kitchen where he was rinsing the rag. “You hated that place!” I grinned. “He’s not wrong.” River’s eyes shined with excitement. “So we can do this thing, right? I won’t let you go alone, and I know Rey won’t either, even though—” I winced, turned to McMillan, and asked, “Can I ask your professional opinion on something?” McMillan frowned, but seemed curious. “Sure.” “And it’s confidential, right?” “Unless you’re an active threat to yourself or others, yes.” I thought for a few beats. “Say…if I had a friend who was barely seventeen years old and a runaway, but they wanted to come with me to a whole other state, is that…okay?” Rey tensed, gripping the kitchen counter hard enough that I could tell his knuckles were white even from this distance. McMillan glanced at Rey and cleared his throat. “Well, if you’re not forcing him to work or…you know—” he waved a hand and made a face “—then it’s not human trafficking. If you know someone is searching for him though—” “Lake and I don’t even know Rey’s real name, and we scooped him up like the icicle he was the day of that surprise freeze at the end of November.” River held out a hand toward Rey, who took it and came to sit on the armrest of the couch next to him. “Rey is like our baby brother. We can’t leave him behind,” I added. Rey took in a deep breath, obviously mustering all his courage, as he considered McMillan. “I don’t know if anyone’s looking for me, and I don’t care. This is my family, not…not them.” McMillan seemed to try to read him, and finally nodded. “All right. I don’t think anyone’s going to ask and if they do, we’ll deal with it then. If you feel like you need to be sure, though, you could give me your name and I could have a cop friend look into—” “No. Absolutely not.” The snap in Rey’s voice was more forceful than I’d ever heard from him before. “If someone looks me up, they’ll know. I…” He licked his lips, his nervous tick, and said, “They’re not good people. They have connections. I…” He slid off the armrest and into River’s arms, sobbing like he hadn’t in months. McMillan nodded. “We won’t do that, then.” He gathered some of the papers and handed them to me. “Look these through. If you want to hire representation, you can, but…” He shrugged. I made an educated guess. “You’re saying that the only horse in this race you have is the fact that you were friends with Ruth and want to see her wishes carried out?” “Right.” He smiled. “I don’t see any point in paying for someone else when the rescue is already paying for my services anyway. I’m not going to screw you over, because I’m not that kind of guy and I would never do anything to jeopardize Ruth’s life’s work.” We made tentative plans to meet up in Illinois in a few weeks, and McMillan left with his briefcase. “Well, this was unexpected,” I managed to say as I put the folder of papers on the tiny end table next to my chair. I weighed the folder down with my to be read pile. “Can we eat now?” Rey asked, his stomach making an unholy sound that made him giggle. “Yes, bottomless pit, we can. Go get us drinks and napkins, will ya,” River said and pushed the boy onto his feet. I straightened the pile of books, then burst into hysterical laughter. “I c-can’t…” I pulled out the middle book, one of Anneliese Harris’s newer ones, because I was always re-reading them, and showed it to River. My best friend started to laugh, too. Rey came back and took one look at what we were laughing at and let out a giggle-snort that sounded so silly, it just spurred us all on. “Holy f**k, this is the weirdest day of my life!” I wheezed after a while, wiping my eyes with some napkins. Rey, despite his issues about leaving the apartment, let alone going all the way to another state, lifted his bottle of water. “To Illinois?” River and I toasted with him. “To Illinois!”