Lonely Hearts (2 page)

This time when he picked it up, he gripped it tight, clutching it to his chest as he rose. He stood on the edge of the dance floor, which was filling up with the wedding party as the orchestra-chorus began “You've Got a Friend in Me”.

Elijah glanced around desperately for an exit. He found one, but not before his gaze once more grazed Baz, and weakened by the hole in his armor, Elijah let his gaze linger as the truth seeped into his heart.

I'm never going to have this. Not this kind of family. Not these kinds of friends. Not with an Aaron or Kelly or Walter or Baz or anyone. No one's ever going to love me this way. I wouldn't know what to do with it, even if they did.

He let himself have one moment of wallowing in misery, and then he packed the pain away, back into the dark corner it had lived in since as early as he could remember. He ducked through the beaming, swaying guests and escaped out the side door, safe in the knowledge nobody was going to miss a scrawny, scowling loser, knowing while he wasn't ever going to get a happily ever after, he could still find a way to get high.

As the wedding guests applauded, Sebastian Acker tracked Elijah's exit behind the darkened panels of his glasses. That last, naked glance ghosted on his conscience the same way everything about Elijah did. Leaning over to Marius, Baz spoke quietly in his best friend's ear. “Gonna nip outside.”

Marius frowned and nodded at Damien, the third leg of their dynamic trio, who was also the Ambassadors' student director. “Don't be long. He said something about doing last call, in case people go to the hotel early.”

Last call.
The comment sent a jolt of sorrow through Baz, which he did his best to smother from Marius's notice. “Right. I'll keep it quick.”

“If you miss it because you were getting high in the Tesla, I'll never forgive you.”

“I'll be there.”

With a squeeze of Marius's shoulder, Baz wove his way through the crowd, winking and flirting in an attempt to hide his discomfort. When Baz slipped around the corner of the building, he found Elijah a polite distance away from an amicable group of middle-aged smokers. His shoulders hunched as he sucked on a cancer stick between swigs of alcohol.

Safe and sound.

Reminding himself Elijah was out of the woods, Baz returned to the reception. Howard Prince was in jail, and there was no way he could shoot an Acker and do anything but stay there. Except no matter how Baz reassured himself, the urge to shadow Elijah, to protect him, hadn't faded away after the shooting.

For now, however, Baz had an entirely different dragon to slay.

As Baz returned to the reception, Damien nodded toward the rest of the upperclassmen Ambassadors leaving the banquet hall. “We're going downstairs. Marius found a room we could use, where we can have some privacy. I have everybody but Aaron. You mind fetching him?”

Baz spread his fake smile as wide as it could go. “Not at all.”

He was glad for his sunglasses as he approached his friend, who was chatting with Giles and two Salvo members near one of the speakers. When Baz smiled, nobody knew the gesture didn't make it all the way to his eyes.

“Ambassador, you have one final performance of the year.” He ruffled Aaron's hair. “Let's go.”

Aaron followed Baz out of the room. “Is something wrong? You look upset.”

“Nothing's wrong. Nothing I didn't know was coming, anyway.”

“But what—?”

“You learned the Pink Floyd song, right? The one Damien handed out before the graduation ceremony?”

Through the heavy tint of his sunglasses, Baz saw Aaron blink. “Yes, but what— Oh.”

Yeah.
Oh.

The Ambassadors had been Baz's lifeline since he joined as a freshman. They hadn't given a shit he was gay—some, of course, were happy to hear it and had shown him a good time. They didn't care about his senator uncle and crazy political family except to crack a few jokes about where was his Secret Service. They did care about his grim high school history and the reason for his disabilities, but they loved him enough not to bring it up, to help him move away from the past.

The Ambassadors were everything to Baz. But once a year, they had to have this moment, when the graduating seniors sang their last song. This year the remainder of Baz's first-year class would say goodbye—not Baz, because he'd put off reality as long as possible. He'd had an extra year to avoid the inevitable because anyone in music therapy or other five-year program was still with him, but that year was up. He couldn't make time stand still completely.

He couldn't keep
his
Ambassadors around forever.

They wove their way through the crush toward the basement of the marina, passing silent rooms, a small kitchen, a storage area. In the distance, Baz heard the other Ambassadors speaking in hushed voices.

In the center of the room, Damien cleared his throat. “It's been a hell of a year. We got six new amazing members. We gained a sister choir—and don't think for a minute they're not gonna kick your asses in any tournaments you enter together.” He squeezed Baz's hand tight. “We had our scares. Our challenges. But we made it through. Every man here is a hero. A brother.” He let out a shuddering breath and lowered Baz's hand. “I'm gonna miss each one of you like a fucking arm.”

Baz told the tears to fuck off. “You've got a lot of arms, man.”

Damien swung Baz's hand, lifting it, a quiet acknowledgment. “Yeah. I do.” He pulled out a pitch pipe, blew the note and counted them in.

For the fifth time in his life, Baz sang the graduating Ambassador brothers goodbye.

The group had been singing “Goodbye Cruel World” at their final concert since the early eighties, when pulling a Floyd was current. The arrangement was pretty pedestrian, but it never altered. Maybe the original composers could have done better, but this wasn't a moment for flash. This was sending graduating members home.

Baz didn't let himself dwell on that, not during the song. He pushed Damien up under his solo. He felt Marius beneath him, rumbling the basement floor of the bass section with a resonance no one would ever be able to replicate. Baz swelled with his brothers, with Aaron and Sid and all sixteen of the Ambassadors. He belted the last chorus with his whole soul, his heart. The final note hovered in the air, held until the last Ambassador ran out of breath. They kept still another four beats after, suspending the moment as long as they could.

Then it was over.

They embraced. They man-patted, they wept, they whispered promises to stay in touch, vows they all knew would be more difficult to keep with each passing day, until they were the old Ambassadors lingering alone in the homecoming crowd, grasping for their ghost of this moment, this time. Aaron and the other first-years had the same stunned look of horrible realization they all did when they were the newbs—comprehension that this was only the first goodbye, and someday it would be them singing their last note.

If Baz could have gotten his shit together, this would have been
his
last call. Someday it would have to be. But the panic this thought instilled in him made his paranoia about Elijah's safety seem a moderate worry in comparison, so he boxed the fear in the mental cell it had crawled out of.

Baz deliberately left embracing Damien and Marius for last. He flirted with Aaron, teasing him about how he'd have to be Baz's choir wingman now. He baited Sid about being the old man in the White House with him. He put off approaching his best friends as absolutely long as he could, but at last they found him, and the bastards hugged him together.

“This isn't goodbye.” Damien's voice was gruff. “We're only moving into the Cities, and I'll be in town a lot until Stevie graduates in December.”

Marius's cheeks were already salt-streaked as he spoke in his calm, steady voice, so sexy he could seduce a nun. “I'm not moving out of the White House until the end of the month. And as Damien said, I'm not moving far.”

Baz shut his eyes tight. “I know.” But Marius would be in med school. How much time for hanging out would he realistically have?

Marius removed Baz's glasses, bringing an uncomfortable wave of brightness that threatened a headache, but Marius had already pulled Baz in low, blocking out the light with his hands. “I'm not leaving you alone. I don't give a fuck how you try and shut me out, you can't. You're my brother, and I've got your back. Damien and I both do. Always.”

Marius's and Damien's vows couldn't soothe Baz's soul. They said they weren't leaving, but they were. They were starting their real lives, ones where the three of them didn't share a living room and a daily schedule. Damien was getting married. Marius would be right behind him as soon as a girl hooked him in the mouth. People moved on. Everyone did, eventually.

Everyone but Baz.

Damien clutched Baz's head, kissed him on the cheek, sighed. “Enough. This
isn't
goodbye, and we have a wedding to dance at. And one of us has to stay sober enough to drive to the hotel.”

“Well, thank God that's not me,” Baz quipped. “Though I suppose I have to audition a new driver soon.”

Marius hooked his arm. “You still have a driver.”

For now.

Baz punched Marius in the arm, teasing him about how was he going to survive without Baz's sick wheels. He did what he could to distract himself from the heavy truth. No matter what they said, this was the end.

Distraction, however, never came cheap to Baz, and lingering with people he was about to lose did him no favors. He knew he should celebrate this last moment, drink up their companionship one last time, but he couldn't. Every second with them now was a reminder they were almost gone. What he needed was a way to check out. He had a handful of narcotics and a few other pharmaceuticals in his car, which combined with the fifth stashed in the glove box would go a long way to smoothing out the jagged edges the evening had left on him. Sex would be good too—a rush, a release and a blissful crash. Except everyone at this wedding came with strings.

The memory of Elijah's naked gaze returned, but Baz shoved the thought away the same as he always did. Elijah was off-limits. Baz wasn't able to articulate why. He only knew it was the same kind of instinct as the one urging him to
protect Elijah
. Ignoring those impulses never came with pleasant consequences.

Except tonight, something had changed. Tonight Elijah lingered in Baz's mind like a cancer. Made his feet itch, sent him to the bar for four too many whiskey sours. Made him yearn for the pills and better booze in his car.

Sent him out the door via the patio where he'd last seen Elijah.

This time he didn't tell Marius or Damien where he was going. He was too busy talking up a mental justification for seeking Elijah out a second time, preemptively staunching the panic he'd feel if Elijah wasn't still standing there or somewhere else equally obvious. It kept mingling with the memory of that terrible gaze, sending his anxiety higher.

His breath caught in exhausted relief as he saw Elijah huddled on the deck, staring out at the lake with the same hollow expression.

Emboldened by alcohol, driven by a loneliness scraping the bottom of his soul, Baz sauntered over to Elijah with a rakish smile. “Hey, sailor. Care for a drink?”

Chapter Two

As Baz grinned at him and waited for a reply, Elijah, king of the acid quips and one-liners, could find nothing to say.

Better yet, he completed his village-idiot look by letting his mouth hang open. Was this a joke? Would Marius and Damien pop out of the bushes giggle-snorting at how moronic Elijah was? Would he end up on the stage holding flowers, and they'd laugh as pig's blood splashed on his head?

With a chuckle, Baz plucked the flask from Elijah's hand. “Whatever this is, it must be good, if you're numb already. Mind if I give it a sample?”

Elijah continued his impression of a potted plant. His erection thickened as he watched Baz's Adam's apple work against the whiskey, but this was as animated as Elijah got.

Baz lowered the flask and spat, making a face as he wiped his mouth. “Holy
shit
, it tastes like rancid, hairy ass. What the hell is it, and how in God's name are you swallowing it?”

Elijah's cheeks burned. “It was the cheapest.”

Baz's expression remained unreadable behind his glasses as Elijah chastised himself for finding infinite ways to be a tool in front of the one guy he wanted to impress. He tried to crawl into his trick head, the mental fortress allowing him to blow anybody and sleep like a baby after, but he couldn't get there. All he could do was stew in the knowledge that the only thing he was blowing right now was the remotest prayer of Baz ever speaking to him again.

What a fuck of a nightcap to the greatest shitshow on earth.

Except Baz didn't laugh, didn't roll his eyes. He said, “I have an eighteen-year-old bottle of Oban in my glove compartment. It'll ruin you for other stuff forever, but if you're okay with that, I'm more than willing to share.”

Baz was looking at Elijah the same way he had the day in the parking lot in March, his glasses knocked away and his shoulder bleeding out onto the snow as he regarded Elijah with the strangest cocktail of hope and relief.

“S-sure,” Elijah replied.

“Excellent.” Rakish grin in place, Baz held out his arm.

Telling himself he finally understood why Carrie had gone with Tommy to the prom, Elijah tucked his slim hand into the crook of Baz's elbow.

They walked in silence around the marina to the parking lot, where Baz strode with purpose toward the farthest row. For a moment Elijah tried to guess which vehicle was Baz's, then got completely distracted by a sleek red car tucked beside a copse of trees. It looked about two seconds old and slightly space-age. Elijah entertained a delicious image of getting fucked over the hood, imagining the fit the stuck-up middle-aged asshole who owned the thing would have if he knew a scrawny gay kid was thinking about using his midlife crisis as a fucking post.

Except they kept getting closer to the car, until the only conclusion Elijah could reach was that this wet dream of a machine belonged to
Baz
.

Baz grinned at Elijah. “Nice, right? I've wanted a Tesla forever. Got it last week. They were holding off until I got my ass together enough to graduate, but me taking a slug in the shoulder made them soft.”

Tentatively, Elijah ran his hands over the frame. The car was sexy as fuck, largely because it was so quiet about it. “It's incredible.”

“I tricked out everything I could. I wanted the Model X for the
Back to the Future
doors, but I soured when I realized it's more of an SUV. Plus my ceiling was $100k, and I'd get less bells and whistles with the X.”

One hundred thousand dollars. This car costs one hundred thousand dollars.
If Elijah had one hundred dollars, he felt dizzily rich. Of course, with his
poor Elijah
fund, he could technically buy this car. And feel guilty as fuck for wasting other people's money. He ran his hand over the trunk, trying and failing to comprehend the gap in economics between the two of them.

Baz beamed like a proud father. “I love the all-glass roof. With the performance package, it smokes down the road. Well—so I hear. Rides pretty great.”

“You haven't driven your own car?”

“Can't.”

Elijah's body locked up. “You—can't? My dad—?”

“No. I haven't been able to drive since I was sixteen. In fact, I got in one good day and one godawful night before I was done for good. Your dad had nothing to do with this. But even if he did, it would have nothing to do with
you
.”

That
was a load of shit, but Elijah was so busy being relieved he wasn't responsible for Baz not being able to drive his own car, all he could do was exhale in relief.

Baz punched Elijah lightly in the arm. “You want to molest the outside a little longer, or you ready to sit in the cockpit?”

Everything inside Elijah lit up. “You mean—drive?”

“Not after your cheap whiskey and the good stuff I intend to offer you once we're inside. But we can put it on the agenda for later. Go on. Get in the driver's seat.”

They were going to have a later? Elijah cast a sidelong glance at Baz, again wondering if he was walking into some kind of a setup.
What the fuck is going on? You've acted as if the sight of me revolted you ever since you discovered we were attending the same college. Except for the time you saved my life.

He couldn't ask any of those things, though, because as soon as he went to open the driver's door, he paused. “Um—where the fuck are the door handles?”

Baz's grin split his face as he kept walking closer. “They're right there. The silver things.”

“Yes—the silver things flush with the side of the car. How am I supposed to—”

He stopped talking as the handles popped out.

“They retract for aerodynamics. Also, because it's bitching cool. Reappear when the keys get close.” Baz cracked the door and held it open for Elijah. “Your car, sir.”

Elijah slid into the Tesla. The seats were butter. It didn't just smell like a new car—it smelled like
money
. Money and geekery and excellence. He ran his hands over the steering wheel and ghosted his fingers over the huge glass panel on the dashboard between the wheel and the passenger side. It was almost a built-in iPad. It was dark at the moment, and Elijah itched to see it light up and blow his mind.

“That's the dashboard control center.” Baz gestured at it as he climbed into the passenger side. “Full touchscreen, controls everything. It has Internet too—all but video.”

Elijah was about to ask for the keys, but he couldn't see an ignition switch. “How do I turn it on?”

“Put your foot on the brake.”

Elijah did. The lights lit, the fan purred softly, but the car itself made no sound.

“Never gets louder than this.” Baz gestured to the hood. “There's no engine there. It's in the rear, between the wheels. About as big as a breadbox. So in addition to the hatchback, we have storage at the front end—they call it the frunk—where the combustion engine would be.”

Elijah let out a sigh full of arousal. “Holy shit, this is so fucking cool.”

“Oh, honey, this dog has so many tricks it needs a circus. You can raise and lower the suspension manually or let it adjust itself according to weight. You can manipulate how the sound comes out, so it's perfectly situated around you as the driver or balanced between us.”

Baz whipped through a dizzying array of features, all of them fifty times more decadent than anything Elijah would have ever thought to dream of, let alone expect to actually have in a car. Elijah was still hung up, though, on the first magic trick. “How did you start the car without a key?”

Grinning, Baz pulled a black fob out of his pocket and dangled it between them. “This is the key. Just needs to be in the car. Pretty standard on new vehicles these days, but I like to think the Tesla's is cooler. I don't think many start by a foot on the brake. It turns off when we get out too, and locks itself after thirty seconds, sucking the door handles in.”

Elijah had no idea magic keys were standard now. He thought of the 1996 Oldsmobile his parents had occasionally allowed him to drive, wondered briefly what had happened to it. Since his mother was in a mental institution and his dad in prison, neither of them could drive it right now.

Baz opened the glove compartment and withdrew a bottle of golden alcohol. “Care for a drink?”

Yeah, Elijah could handle a little oblivion. He accepted the bottle, and after a glance at Baz to make sure it would be okay, took a hit straight from the fifth. The buttery, smoky scotch played on his tongue, making goose bumps break out across his skin.

“Whoa.” The taste kept exploding in his mouth, long after he'd passed it to Baz. “God, it makes me want a cigarette.”

“Go for it.” Baz touched the glass screen, slid an image on the panel, and half the car roof peeled away to reveal the increasingly purple sky.

“I can't smoke in your brand-new car.”

“Why not? I'm going to.” Baz pulled something else out of the glove compartment—a baggie full of small, white, rolled joints. “Unless you have a moral objection to weed.” He waggled his eyebrows over the top of his glasses. “They're
medicinal
.”

“I only mind if you don't intend to share.”

The grin splitting Baz's lips gave almost as good a buzz as the lit joint he passed to Elijah.

Leaning back, Elijah stared up through the moonroof as the scotch and marijuana unkinked his brain. The rawness and tension seemed to mist out of his body, rising up toward the jet trails above. “This is nice. The only thing that could make it better would be if I still had the Xanax they gave me in the hospital.”

Popping the console between them, Baz withdrew a brown bottle and tossed it into Elijah's lap.

Elijah stared at it. He remembered well the blissful unplugging the drug gave him, and he hadn't been kidding when he'd said it would make the moment perfect: the scotch, weed and Xanax combined would untether him completely, sending him blissfully into happy land. But he also knew it came at a steep cost.

He gripped the sides of the bottle, running his thumb over the label prescribing the medicine to
Sebastian Percival Acker
. “If I take this, I'm gonna turn into a pile of mush. I'll grin like an idiot, dance like a hooker and sing like a canary.”

“Sounds good to me.”

It did to Elijah too…except. “I'll also offer to blow you. A lot. And if you don't let me, I'll wander off and keep trying until someone does.”

He glanced to the side to check how that comment was received but mentally cursed as he remembered the glasses rendered that impossible. All he got was Baz settling into the corner between his seat and the door, rolling the bottle of scotch on his upraised knee. “So Xanax makes you horny.”

Elijah thought about letting the remark stand, then decided, fuck it. It had been fun to ride the fairy tale of Baz Acker actually giving a shit about him, but he knew firsthand fairy tales were a lot more Grimm brothers and much less Walt Disney. Time to lay his cards on the table. “No. More shuts down the part of me keeping me from wandering around like a fucking idiot. Xanax puts my internal babysitter to sleep. I'll want to have a good time.”

With you. Because I've wanted a good time with you for a long, long while.

Baz kept quiet, moving only to retrieve the joint and take a long drag. “It more puts the demons to sleep for me. Though I'm impressed. I don't think I could cut loose enough to want to fuck just
anybody
.”

Elijah slugged some scotch before he could bring himself to reply. “Less cutting loose and more…letting out the lonely.” He played numb fingers over the steering wheel. “I wouldn't sleep with just anybody.”

“But you would sleep with me, because I'm not just anybody? You're gonna give me a big head, Prince.”

I want to give you all of the head.
But the ribald response got swallowed by another wave of guilt. “You saved my life.”

Beside him, Baz went still. “Is that what this is about?”

Elijah frowned, not sure what
this
was. “Why I want to sleep with you? No. That's because you're hot. But the other thing…makes me feel weird. And bad.”

Baz didn't respond right away, and Elijah kicked himself for fucking up getting laid. He should have refused the Xanax and ridden the scene out. Except he knew he'd have broken at some point. It was too weird.

It was fucking unfair how he had to go and be rational and cautious right now. Why couldn't he have one good night? One good time? Wasn't he fucking owed one?

Baz cleared his throat. “You still haven't said if you
want
a Xanax, only what will happen if you do.”

Say no. Be safe.
The thought drifted into Elijah's conscience before being drowned by a slosh of Oban. “Oh, I want one.”

Fuck those fucking glasses. “So you were letting me know what I was buying?” He retrieved the pill bottle from Elijah and rolled it around in his hand.

Elijah tracked the movement, all his emotions and fears smashing against the weed and booze in his system. Baz cracked the medicine cap off with one hand and split a pill with the deftness of one who'd done it a lot. After pocketing the bottle, he held up the half-circle.

Elijah stuck out his tongue.

Laughing, Baz put the pill between his teeth and dropped it into Elijah's mouth.

As Elijah swallowed the Xanax with scotch, Baz whispered kisses along his jaw, trailed down the center of his throat, mimicking the medicine's descent. Elijah shut his eyes and slid his hands over Baz's shoulders, into his hair. When Baz pressed the nearly spent joint to his lips, Elijah took a deep hit, holding the smoke inside him as long as he could, wanting to fly as high as possible.

With Baz.

Baz brushed a dry kiss over Elijah's parted lips, catching the lower mound of flesh with his teeth. “I haven't shown you the Tesla's backseat.” He ran fingers down Elijah's chest, popping one button, another. “I can still drive there, baby.”