Heartless (Keeping Secrets) (11 page)

“Is not a joke if he wants you to stay with him. Besides, didn’t you say he stood up for you? He threatened his
amigo
. That means something. He cares about you, even if he didn’t before.” I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted to hear that Tommy was a total bastard and that I needed to go find a new man. I set my drink on the coffee table and turned my attention to Juan, who was sitting beside me. My normal MO said that I should use him to get rid of this feeling of inadequacy that was pulsing like a divining rod inside me. I put my hand on Juan’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“How long is your dad going to be gone?” I gave him a sultry look and let my fingers play over the coarse material of his shirt. He looked at me like he wasn’t buying what I was selling. My face crumpled. I felt the mask I’d erected come undone in the face of that hint of rejection. I didn’t want to cry. My caress turned into a clutch. “Please,” I whispered.

He indulged me by leaning forward and capturing my lips in a kiss. His mouth tasted like his drink, Coke and some bitter liquor that came out of his dad’s cabinet. I opened my mouth and let our tongues merge. Nausea twisted my gut into a knot, and I sobbed into the recesses of his mouth. He broke the kiss and wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight.

“
Conejito
, you don’t want this,” Juan murmured against my hair. “Your love for your
pendejo
boy can’t be cured with a kiss, no matter how good of a kiss it is.” I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted to forget I’d remembered how to love.

“I didn’t expect this to hurt so bad,” I admitted, squeezing my eyes shut to stop the tears that threatened to fall. I hated Tommy for making me feel this way. I hated myself more.

“In my culture,
conejito
, when you love something, you hold on with both hands and fight like a son of a bitch to keep it,” Juan said. “You white boys don’t know about real love.”

“Like your daddy doesn’t know about your love for boys?” I countered, feeling the need to defend myself a little bit. He chuckled.

“Not that it’s your business, but I haven’t met anyone I’d bring home,” Juan quipped, pinching my side.

I snorted. “Aren’t you guys Catholic? Doesn’t that violate some sort of supreme religious dogma?”

“Things work a little differently in my family. If I met a boy, I wouldn’t introduce him as boyfriend or lover or whatever you call him. I’d say he was my friend, and my family would love him like I do, except no one would mention the fact that we share a bed. ¿
Comprende
?”

“Sounds shady to me,” I said bitterly. I’d hate that. I would hate to be kept a secret. It just wasn’t in me to be that guy. Guess it was a good thing that Juan and I weren’t really involved.

“The point is, if you love your
pendejo
, you should talk to him.” Juan gave me another squeeze and then disentangled himself from me so he could stand. “You need to be certain where you stand one way or another.”

That was my cue to leave. “I’ll think about it.” I paused. “Can I use your phone?” He nodded and fished his cell out of his pocket. How they afforded a pay-as-you-go phone was beyond me. I dialed Kevin’s number from memory. It went to voicemail after only three rings. He was probably still at practice. Just my luck. I sighed and dialed Tommy’s number. It rang once. Twice. My heart sunk.

“Hello?” Tommy’s voice came through the speaker, and I felt an acute sense of relief. I shouldn’t have, but there it was.

“We need to talk.” I managed to sound completely emotionless as I said it. That was an amazing feat in itself.

“Baby? God, where are you? I didn’t see you when I came out from practice, and I was scared something had happened.” Tommy sounded genuinely concerned, which only managed to tick me off for some reason.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I grumbled. “You were real worried. I’m at my apartment building. Come get me.” I hung up the phone without giving him time to answer. I handed it back to Juan without another word.

Juan’s brown eyes were still filled with concern. “Give him a chance,
conejito
.”

I pushed myself off the couch and headed for the front door. “Got to find out if he deserves one first, Juan.”

I
PACKED
a brown paper grocery bag in my room with enough clothes to last a few days, along with a few books that I might need for homework. I glanced over at my still half-packed garbage bags, full of my junk. As silly as it was, those trash bags of stuff actually represented something far more important to me than the things inside. I’d packed them in hopes of getting to take them over to Tommy’s house. They were my symbol of escape, of happily ever after, of a relationship and a home where I didn’t have to be anything but myself. Hope was a demon all right.

“You’re leaving again?” Jonathan whined from my doorway. I didn’t even react. I’d felt too much already today, and I just didn’t feel like it. “Where are you going?”

“Over to Kevin’s. My friend Tommy is picking me up.” I was civilized. I’d give myself that much credit.

“You’re always gone lately.” Jonathan pouted, blocking my way as I turned and tried to get out my bedroom door so I could go wait outside.

“I’ve been busy. I told you,” I said patiently, sliding along him as I ducked under his arm. My skin crawled from the brief touch. “You’d get sick of me if I was here all the time.” Sometimes it felt like I was the adult and I was surrounded by whiny-ass children. I swore then I was never going to be a parent.

Jonathan sighed, like I’d taken away his favorite toy or something. “You know, I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be given a little attention.” I didn’t think it was too much to ask not to be fucked by my stepdad, but I didn’t get an option. I glared.

“Look, Jonathan, I’ve had a really crappy day. I want to go spend the evening with my boys, get drunk, and screw something pretty. Mom will be back soon, and besides, don’t you have poker tonight?” I knew he did, which was why he was putting on the show to begin with. He’d be leaving to go with his buddies in about an hour.

“Yeah,” he said. He gave a grunt and went into his and Mom’s room. I rolled my eyes and hit the front door. I was so fucking out of here.

I sat on the curb that turned into the parking lot of the apartment complex and flicked pebbles over the edge into a puddle of dirty, oil-filled water. The purr of Tommy’s engine was easily identifiable against the other traffic running up and down the highway mere feet from my place. I looked up in time to see him pull to a stop in front of me. He rolled the window down.

“Are you okay, baby?” Something in my expression must’ve clued him in that I was not happy, because he hit the unlock button and didn’t demand an answer. I opened the car door and threw my bag behind my seat, and then climbed on in. I clicked my seat belt, and he put the car in gear. His white-knuckled grip on the shifter told me that he was sweating it. Good. The bastard deserved to be a little uncomfortable.

“I’m assuming that you’re not going home tonight, with that bag. Where are you going to stay?” Tommy asked after another five-minute stretch of silence.

“Kevin’s,” I answered simply. It didn’t matter that Kev didn’t know. Tina and Joshua had long since grown used to me coming and going, with and without their son.

I looked out the window and watched the world whip by in a kaleidoscope of blue, green, and gray. Staring out the side window could sometimes make you sick; the mixture of color and the disoriented view made your stomach rebel. Sometimes the only cure was looking out the front window and steadying your eyes ahead of you. It was a lot like life. I could try and look out my side window, try to focus on the other men, the sex, and the trouble I could get into, but in the end it only made me sick. It was time to face front and purge myself of my constant, soul-deep nausea.

“I heard you talking with Rick, Tommy.” I just laid out my cards. No more games. No more “punishing” other people because I couldn’t deal. “What exactly was the ‘deal’ you two concocted?” I watched as Tommy flushed red then paled to a pasty white.

“I–I, baby, it’s not what you think!” he protested. “I admit, I was pissed and played it up with the guys at practice. I told them all that I was just fucking you and then I was going to leave you. But I fell in love with you, and you became something so much more than that. Jason, you have to believe me.” He was babbling now. It was endearing.

“No bullshit?” I asked, calming down. Now that I’d made the decision to purge myself of poison, I felt so much better.

“No bullshit. Jason, I love you.” Tommy had tears in his eyes when he spoke. I believed him. It might have been stupid, but I believed him. “I told Rick I was going to bring you down to size, and then when he saw us together, he assumed I was getting back at you for being a dick. I never thought you’d hear that conversation, and I did tell Rick to fuck off anyway.”

“I believe you,” I said. I tilted my head back so that I stared at the soft gray ceiling and breathed a little easier. My anger had drained away and was replaced by calm. “I can’t move in with you, though, even if Charles and Mark say it’s okay.”

“Why?” he asked in a small voice. I reached over and patted his thigh.

“Because I just realized that I would be asking you to rescue me, and I can’t necessarily rely on you. I can only rely on myself.” I thought about the consequences of what I wanted to do. Was I giving him up to assert my independence?

“Baby, you need help if you’re going to break out of this situation,” he said. Tommy reached over and took my hand. I allowed it. “I swear, even if we weren’t dating, I’d help you.”

“But we are dating, Tommy. And that changes everything.” I wished there was someone there to guide me. Someone, anyone, that I could talk to who would understand.

“Come have dinner with me at my house,” Tommy said suddenly, making a U-turn at a red light so we headed away from Kevin’s house. “Uncle Mark and Uncle Charlie have been wanting to talk to you and get to know you better. I know you don’t know them well, but they’ve heard it all.”

“Somehow I don’t think the cookie-cutter gay version of the Partridge family is going to understand,” I said softly.

“Well, look, here’s what you don’t know. Danny was in a situation a lot like yours.” Tommy dropped that bomb without looking away from the street ahead of him. “Except he left his situation. He was homeless for about two years before Uncle Mark found him living near an abandoned building near his offices in Boston. Danny doesn’t really talk about it, but it was apparently a big deal for our family that they were bringing home a fourteen-year-old homeless kid. They adopted him right before Mom died. They’re used to dealing with situations like yours.”

I just wanted to bury my face in Tommy’s neck and not think about this. To know that Danny had been where I was and had had the strength to leave gave me a newfound respect for him and for the family he’d become a part of. Like I said, I wasn’t an easy kid, and it gave me just a little flicker of hope. “I don’t know,” I said. I bit into my bottom lip and closed my eyes. I didn’t want them to know, but I also didn’t know how to deal with this anymore. “Maybe I should just stick to my original plan of getting the scholarship and moving.”

“Huh?” Tommy asked. Ah, I’d forgotten that I hadn’t told him about my future plans. We’d been dealing with my drama so much in the time we’d been dating we hadn’t been able to talk about anything else.

“I’m going to apply for a scholarship to NYU. It’s a huge deal. I always planned to just get my scholarship and use that to get the hell out of here,” I explained.

Tommy sighed. “It still wouldn’t hurt to have some extra support, Jason. Trust me when I say that Mark and Charlie are the best people you can ever hope to have around. Please come to dinner? You don’t have to agree or anything, but I think you should talk to them and get to know our family first before you decide that you can’t live with me.” He sounded hurt toward the last. I knew my denial had put that note in his voice, but I just didn’t know up from down anymore. The boy had me in so many knots that I didn’t know if I was coming or going.

“Well, since my chauffeur is heading in that direction anyway, it doesn’t look like I have a choice.” The joke fell flat. I looked over at Tommy as he waited for my decision. Sighing, I reached out and petted his thigh. “I’ll come, Tommy.”

He relaxed a little after that and took one of his hands off the steering wheel so that he could twine our fingers together. “I am sorry about what happened with Rick. It was stupid, and I should’ve told you about it,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze.

“Yes. You should have. But, I didn’t exactly react in a way that gave you a chance to explain.” I leaned over and rested my head against his tight bicep. The seat belt stretched across my neck in this position, tightening like a noose. I didn’t care. I just wanted to touch him. “It really hurt to think that you’d done that to me.” I didn’t say that I didn’t deserve it. On the contrary, I probably did for past and future sins, but I had never felt the bite of something so blatantly cruel before.

“I really am sorry, baby,” Tommy murmured. “I promise that I’d never hurt you on purpose.” It was then I remembered about kissing Juan. Shit. I should’ve told him about that. But… I didn’t want to disrupt this moment of peace for anything. I nuzzled closer, until the seat belt was almost choking me. I’d make up for it somehow. I’d be a great boyfriend from now on. I made the pledge but still had that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I should’ve come clean.

Chapter Twelve

I
KNOW
everyone always talks about loving S.E. Hinton’s
The Outsiders
. It was okay. I was more of a
Rumble Fish
guy myself. I idolized the Motorcycle Boy, just like Rusty-James did. He was a free man. Someone who took off to go to California on a whim and was so beyond everything internally that normal things just didn’t seem to faze him. The fact that he died in the end seemed to fit. There was no such thing as a real free man and even if there was, he’d end up shot by someone. Standing on the porch, waiting for Tommy to open the door so I could sit down to a family dinner with his uncles and cousins, made me want to be the Motorcycle Boy like nobody’s business. I wanted to climb on a bike and ride the hell away, even if someone killed me.