Bad Influence (38 page)

This time he returned the motion and pressure.

He wasn’t going to jail.

He hadn’t been able to really let himself believe it until this second. Still wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to wake up under the blue-striped cover at Quinn’s house, or worse, wake to find himself in an orange jumpsuit.

He turned to look for Gavin, to thank him, and stubbed a toe on the bench. First his hearing went. Now his eyes. Standing next to Gavin was Zeb. This was definitely a dream because Zeb was way the hell out in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania.

Eli grabbed Silver’s arm and tugged him down the aisle. “Better get while the gettin’s good.”

“Who are you, my grandfather?” Silver muttered as they left the courtroom.

No one was out in the hall, but when Silver hit the marble stairs and saw Zeb standing down in the lobby with Quinn, with their friends, he felt like he really was in a movie. The kind with a happy ending. And for once, Silver didn’t want to be watching it from a distance, he wanted to be in it. Feel everything up close. Even 3-D wasn’t going to cut it. He had to have the real thing.

Silver looked down at his suit. Yeah, he supposed if he ever did it for real, Eli would be the one to give Silver away, the one he would want at his side.

Quinn put a hand on Silver’s back, Marco clung with a quick hug, even Jamie threw a friendly punch at Silver’s shoulder. He needed to thank Gavin, needed to thank them all. Without his found family, Silver would already have been dressed in orange. But knowing that didn’t slow Silver down as he walked through his friends to stand in front of Zeb.

If Zeb’s hands weren’t in his pockets, Silver might have flung himself on him. Instead, he just stared. Zeb’s hair was in a ponytail, but he was clean-shaven.

“You’re here.”

“Seemed like a pretty important day in my boyfriend’s life. I thought I should be here.”

“Boyfriend?” Silver asked. He was two for two in the stupid department.

Zeb grabbed Silver’s hand. Warm. Solid. Real. “Pretty amazing guy too. Have to say the prick of an ADA took a few years off my life, but you should have heard what the lawyer said about my man. All that he’s managed in two months. Impressed the judge too.”

“He had some help,” Silver said.

Zeb shook his head. “I am so incredibly proud of you.” He pulled Silver into a hug. “I love you.”

Silver took a deep breath. Sandalwood. Whoever said you couldn’t go home again was a moron. It was right here. He swallowed. “Love you too.” Like Zeb could have missed noticing that.

Zeb squeezed harder.

Silver pulled back enough to say, “Are you coming to the party, or do you have to start back to camp?”

Zeb released him. “I think I have to go to the party. At least to give you a ride.”

Silver glanced around. Everyone else was gone. They headed for the door.

“What’s with that tone?” Zeb sounded hurt. “Didn’t you hear me say I love you?”

“And I love you, but I know how important being at the camp is to you. Like teaching.”

Zeb stopped him before the metal detectors. “You’re important to me, Silver.”

So after kicking Silver in the nuts for four years, the universe decided to hand out all the goodies on the same day. He supposed maybe he could not be completely selfish and make sure Zeb knew what he was getting into.

He tugged Zeb outside and took a deep breath. The oppressive city heat had never felt better. Because he was free to be out in it—and to bitch about it.

“Have you thought about what having a boyfriend means?” Silver asked.

“I’m hoping it means you in my life as much as possible. Plus, really awesome sex.” Zeb grinned.

“I mean for teaching.”

Zeb’s brow rippled. “Quinn has a boyfriend.”

“But Quinn has been there long enough that they can’t just fire him. Zeb, stuff gets out. You know it does. And if the parents find out your boyfriend has HIV—”

Zeb stopped walking. “If I lose my job, I’ll get another one.”

“You heard the judge. I can’t leave Baltimore.”

“So I won’t either.” Zeb started down the pavement again.

What had happened to the guy who had been afraid to bump arms in public?

They reached the parking garage and started up the stairs. They’d get in the car and go to the party and sneak off and fuck. Why couldn’t Silver just let it go at that? He was like a kid whining about having to go to the toy store. But if he got to have what he wanted and it got taken away again…

“If you’re with me, everyone’s going to think you’re positive too.”

Zeb froze. “Is that what you think? Silver, I don’t care what anyone thinks. I don’t care how people see me. Unless the problem is how you see me.”

“I just want you to be sure.” At Zeb’s narrow-eyed look, Silver blurted, “You can think about it and tell me when you come back in August.”

Silver thought he knew every expression on Zeb’s face, but he couldn’t read this one. Zeb didn’t give him much time, striding toward his car on level three. “About that. I’m back.”

Silver jogged after him. “What?”

“I mean, when I told them I had to leave today, I also told them I wasn’t going to be able to come back.” His voice echoed among the cars.

“But—”

“I don’t need three weeks to think about it. I love you. I never stopped loving you.”

Silver stopped. “If it was so easy to get out of, why did you leave?”

Zeb turned and leaned on his car. “You didn’t ask me to stay. And after—I didn’t think it should be up to me. Well, screw that. I’m not waiting. I’m asking now. I want you. I want us. I want it all. Are you in?”

Silver’s head floated loose on his shoulders at the same time that his feet stuck frozen to the ground. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. Sometimes standing still was good. He’d been running away from so much crap, it never occurred to him he had something to run toward. He could hang on to what hurt, or grab a chance to have what he’d wanted from the minute Zeb had made the first Star Wars reference. But a chance to have it without the lie that had cost them so much time. Without the need to lie because they already knew the worst and loved each other anyway.

Silver’s feet found the answer first. He jogged up to Zeb and grabbed his face, startling a huge smile. “I think you’d better get this car rolling before they have a real reason to arrest us.”

Zeb popped the locks, and Silver ran around to the passenger side. Across the roof, Zeb gave Silver that special, just-for-him twisted grin. “You know, since we’ve waited all this time, you think the party could wait a little longer?”

“Sure.” Silver slid in, grabbed the GPS and threw it in the backseat. “We’ll just tell ’em you got lost.”

Author’s Note

To our great misfortune, there is no real Gavin Montgomery available to create a safe space for homeless GLBT youth in Baltimore, but there is YES, a drop in center for youth, which welcomes GLBT teens.
www.yesdropincenter.org
. Like most social programs, they always need help. I will definitely be sharing some of what I earn from Silver’s story with them in the hope that no one ever has to face the choices he did.

About the Author

K.A. Mitchell discovered the magic of writing at an early age when she learned that a carefully crayoned note of apology sent to the kitchen in a toy truck would earn her a reprieve from banishment to her room. Her career as a spin-control artist was cut short when her family moved to a two-story house, and her trucks would not roll safely down the stairs. Around the same time, she decided that Chip and Ken made a much cuter couple than Ken and Barbie and was perplexed when invitations to play Barbie dropped off. She never stopped making stuff up, though, and was surprised to find out that people would pay her to do it. Although the men in her stories usually carry more emotional baggage than even LAX can lose in a year, she guarantees they always find their sexy way to a happy ending.

To learn more about K.A. Mitchell, please visit
www.kamitchell.com
. Send an email to K.A. Mitchell at
[email protected]
.

Look for these titles by K.A. Mitchell

Now Available:

Custom Ride

Hot Ticket

Diving in Deep

Regularly Scheduled Life

Collision Course

Chasing Smoke

An Improper Holiday

No Souvenirs

Life, Over Easy

Not Knowing Jack

But My Boyfriend Is

Bad in Baltimore

Bad Company

Bad Boyfriend

Bad Attitude

Coming Soon:

Bad in Baltimore

Bad Behavior

When did save a life become change a life?

Bad Attitude

© 2013 K.A. Mitchell

Bad in Baltimore, Book 3

As the openly gay middle son of the most powerful family between Manhattan and Miami, Gavin Montgomery knows his role—look good in a tuxedo and don’t make waves.

Waves are the least of his worries when he tries and fails to keep a friend from jumping off a high bridge. His last thought as he falls in too is that someone else will have to take over as family disappointment…until he’s pulled from the water by a man with an iron grip, a sexy mouth and a chip on his shoulder the size of the national deficit.

Police rescue diver Jamie Donnigan finally has life the way he wants it. Okay, he could have done without losing his father, quitting smoking and watching his friends drift into couplehood. At least he’s managed to escape that particular trap.

When Gavin’s father turns Jamie’s routine rescue into a media circus, he figures if he’s going to suffer for his good deed, he might as well enjoy a roll in the sack. But Jamie’s not immune to Gavin’s cultivated charm…and all the risks that come along with giving in to it.

Warning:
Includes above the recommended daily allowance for snark, attitude, stubbornness and a variety of scorching hot sex (even for this author).

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Bad Attitude:

Beach’s coma forgotten, the heroes were toasted and congratulated until the dessert stations rolled out.

Gavin stepped away from the dais. As a polite “Oo” responded to the colored flames at the bananas Foster station, Gavin heard Jamie mutter, “How much longer does this crap go on?”

The glib manner was gone, the scowl Gavin remembered in its place.

“Not too much longer.”

“Thank fu— God.” The genuine disgust in Jamie’s face made him more appealing than his perfectly fitted Hugo Boss.

There was a chef and a waiter at each of the stations, three people working each of the two bars, and three waiters at the dessert buffet.

“C’mon. Follow me.”

When you were mostly invisible, people didn’t notice if you disappeared. Gavin had slipped down back halls with waiters, bartenders and an occasional guest at more than one black-tie affair. The top floor of The Regency where they were holding this had a conveniently located storage closet on the far side of the commercial elevator.

But when Gavin opened the door, Jamie’s hand shot out to slam it shut again.

“Must’ve fucked a lot of the waitstaff to find your way back here. What’s the plan now?”

Gavin had thought that was painfully obvious, painful in the way he’d made his dick a promise as soon as Jamie had come with him. “I thought you said you’d give me a ride.”

“In my truck, yeah.” Jamie leaned back against the painted cinder blocks covering the elevator shaft. He’d picked up another skewer somewhere along the way, splintering it into a toothpick. He tucked the fragment back into the corner of his mouth. “Why? What did you have in mind?”

Gavin leaned in and pulled the bamboo stick free. But before he answered with the hard kiss he’d intended, the challenge in Jamie’s eyes stopped Gavin mid-lunge. The bored arch of brows over half-rolled eyes suggested Jamie was expecting that response. That he already knew how the whole thing would play out.

Gavin was nothing special. Even wanting to lose himself in feeling something as honest as pure sex for a few minutes was only another layer of faking it through tonight—every fucking night of his life.

He leaned in and tasted Jamie’s mouth with slow, soft pressure, the way Gavin had wanted to when that wide full mouth came into focus the night on the boat. After a quick inhalation, Jamie kissed him back.

A slick, warm slide then the pressure of Jamie’s tongue sent a shock down Gavin’s spine. Rooting him here, making this something real. Jamie licked inside, and Gavin cradled Jamie’s head, thumbs across his cheeks before locking around his neck to drag him deeper into the kiss that filled Gavin’s head, squeezing out everything but this new smell and taste, the electric tingles where their skin touched, the sticky and sweet pulse in his cock and balls.

Jamie’s tongue thrust solid and sure and knowing along Gavin’s, nothing like the frantic or hesitant ventures from a random waiter or discreet guest. It was the same cocky assurance Gavin had seen in Jamie as he held his own in the room full of power brokers, popping expensive hors d’oeuvres into his throat like he owned the place.