Lonely Hearts (5 page)

“So you feel guilty because you saved his ass? Wouldn't taking a bullet for him cover at least a little?”

“I don't feel guilty. Well—I do. But that's not why.” He sighed. “I don't know. I'm better when I know he's okay. I didn't mean for tonight to get so out of hand.”

“He's going to live in the White House with you. Did you fan flames you can't control?”

Baz snorted. “Are you kidding? He blew
me
off after. Fucking danced with anybody
but
me. Didn't so much as look my way.” Marius laughed, and Baz threw a pillow at him. “Shut up. It's not funny.”

“The fuck it's not. Sebastian Acker, heartbreaker first class, has been sent home without supper.”

“I did so get supper. I got goddamned dessert. Cream-fucking-filled.”

“Yes, but no return trip to the buffet for you. I hear there's an informal
I got fucked by Baz
support group. Maybe they'll let you in.”

“You're enjoying this
far
too much. You're supposed to be on my side, remember?”

“Oh, I am. I happen to think this is the best thing that's happened to you in a long time. You might build some character out of it.”

Baz indicated his naked chest, zigzagged with surgical scars, some of them angry and recent. “I got the goddamned character-building badge, thanks.”

Marius's expression didn't dim, not with pity, not with shame. He simply continued to stare patiently at Baz, waiting for him to stop pouting.

This
was his best friend.

Baz shut his eyes against the pain that had nothing to do with light and everything to do with the impending first of July and his best friend's removal from his daily life.

Marius's hand fell on Baz's ankle. “I am not. Leaving. You. Stop fucking acting like I'm shipping off to Afghanistan.”

“Can you be gay so I could marry you and be done with it?”

“Yes, because my orientation is the only thing standing in the way of our marital bliss.”

“True. I shouldn't wish myself on anybody.”

Marius's massage of Baz's ankle became a sharp slap. “Jesus. You want to talk about a goddamned
princess
. Stop pouting.”

“Sorry.” Baz arranged himself on the bed beside Marius and gently tweaked his nose. “You're a saint, you know?”

Marius tweaked him back. “I do.”

“I keep trying to do this on my own. I do want to graduate, eventually. I just…don't know how. To do real life. I don't want to end up in my parents' house forever. But I don't know what else to do. How to be. Only with you and Damien.”
And you're leaving.

“You'll figure it out. We'll help you.”

Baz was pretty sure he was beyond hope. The thought depressed him. He teased the stubble on Marius's jaw. “I'd get tits and a pussy for you, if you'd marry me.”

Marius slapped him away. “
Stop
. You're so trans insensitive.”

“You know I'm good in bed. It's been a few years now, but I bet you still remember the New Year's Eve when you were drunk and—”

With a growl, Marius leapt on Baz, wrestling him as he clamped a hand on Baz's mouth. Baz giggled as they fought, as Marius cursed him out for being an ass—and it was good, right up until Baz's giggles tripped over into hysterical tears.

Marius didn't miss a beat, only shifted from holding him down to simply holding him, cradling him tight and whispering over and over again while he pulled Baz's face into his shoulder, that everything was going to be okay.

Chapter Four

When Elijah lived on the streets of Saint Paul, he'd have done anything to have a regular job with regular money and a legitimate roof over his head. As little as five months ago, he'd lain in his dorm room with his parents threatening to cut him off or rebaptize him into hell, and he'd bartered with any listening deity for any way out, any way at all.

Now it was the end of June. He had a pristine bedroom in a subdivision. He got a hug from the pastor's wife every morning, a promise he could stay as long as he needed, and cookies each afternoon because she thought he was too thin. He had friends checking in from their home bases. He had a job, as regular as rain, and the only time he had to get on his knees to make money was to open a case of canned tomatoes or pull rogue forks out of the automatic dishwasher.

Elijah was grateful all day long. But sometimes he felt more panicked and stifled than he had the night he'd returned to South Dakota and begged his parents to let him come in, lying about how Jesus had led him home.

He scolded himself when he felt that way. Did he hate being beholden to everyone? Hell, yes. But unless he wanted to sleep under an overpass and wrap himself in righteous indignation and independence, this was his way out. He was safe now. They all told him this, over and over and over. He understood they weren't lying. This wasn't some bait and switch and they'd get angry and threaten him if he didn't do what they wanted. That was his parents' shtick, and they were safely packed away.

So why, he wanted to know, now that he was warm and safe and getting a cookie tummy, did he wake up in cold sweats and sometimes cry himself to sleep?

He never asked anyone the question, but Pastor Schulz, his temporary host and live-in counselor, didn't need an invitation to read Elijah like a book, and he didn't wait long to say what he thought about the latest chapter.

“You're panicking because you're safe now.” Pastor crossed his leg over his knee. They were in his study at the house, having an impromptu session after Elijah almost dropped the stack of plates for the table during a panic attack that came out of nowhere. “You've had a rough set of circumstances for a long while, but you're smart and capable, and you knew it wasn't safe for you to react to the horror of your situation in real time.”

“I
do
feel safe here.” Elijah huddled deeper into the afghan Liz Schulz had tucked around him on the love seat. “I know I'm okay. I'm sorry I can't act like it.”

“As I've told you before and will tell you as many times as you need to hear it, Elijah, I have no expectations of your behavior. There are no conditions on your staying here. I know you'll move in with your friends before the end of the summer, but you're welcome here until the moment is right for you. October, December—whenever that is. It is my pleasure, and Liz's, to help you as long as you want our help, and our only motivation in doing so is our desire to show compassion to a child of God who needs extra love right now.” His thin white eyebrow raised toward his Friar Tuck-like bald head as he added, “I admit I itch, for selfish reasons, to remind you what your parents and their community advertised as Christian behavior was anything but.”

“Trust me. I didn't need a map to figure that one out. Just a Bible with all the bits left in.” Elijah worried the corner of his bottom lip in his teeth and stared at the frothy white shag throw rug on the floor between them. “I don't like how I'm freaking out when I'm okay.”

“This is the time to be gentle with your vulnerable self, not scold him for perceived bad behavior.” Pastor picked up his teacup and frowned absently over the top. “I think sometimes you'd have done well with a small vacation away from Saint Timothy this summer, to let yourself truly unplug.”

“Well, Giles and Aaron offered about seventy times. And Mina. And Walter and Kelly. Damien and Marius too. Practically everybody tried to adopt me.”
Except Baz. Haven't seen hide nor hair of him since the wedding.
Elijah poked his thumb through one of the crocheted holes in the afghan. “I wanted a job, though. I know people keep chucking money into my fund, but…it makes me feel weird if I'm not contributing too.”

“Whatever makes you safe is the right choice for you right now.”

Elijah did feel safe with Pastor and Liz. They felt like grandparents—not his real ones, because his fruitcake mom and dad hadn't sprung from the sea—but what grandparents
should
be. They were Mr. and Mrs. Norman Goddamned Rockwell, live and in person. They
were
Christian, yes, but quietly so. Pastor didn't wear his clerical collar unless he was going to campus. The most in-your-face aspect of their faith was how they prayed before meals, but it was a trancelike murmur of
Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, may these gifts to us be blessed, amen
and nothing more. Sometimes Liz would kiss Elijah's forehead and whisper, “God bless you, child,” but it didn't seem like a burden. More of a benediction.

Except the more Elijah thought about what Pastor had said about how he was panicking because he was safe—well, he'd buy that, but there was more to it too. Sometimes, when Elijah was able to peel away the guilt from his reaction, he realized he was also restless and trapped by the tidy bows wrapped around his life. Yes, the cookies and lace-edged linens were wonderful. But not a lot of sex happened when you lived in the campus minister's spare bedroom. He'd had a few offers on his Grindr account, but he couldn't bring himself to sneak away to fuck, so he didn't get laid.

Safe was great—but it was a bit boring. The most risqué thing Liz and Pastor did was watch
Hot in Cleveland
.

Elijah didn't smoke except around his work shifts. He couldn't bear it if Pastor or Liz caught him, though he knew they wouldn't say anything. Probably wouldn't so much as give him a look of disappointment.

Sometimes the blind acceptance didn't simply make him itch. It made him
nuts
. Which was awful. Sleazy as hell. But it was still the truth. His tenure at Chez Schulz wasn't doing anything for his creative writing, either. That had been flagging since his parents ramped up their censure after Christmas, but he'd thought of little else while he recovered from the shooting.

Mina approved of his trying to write. “You should do more than post on those free fiction sites,” she kept telling him when they spoke on the phone. “Your stuff is good. You should get paid.”

The idea of getting paid for his work had always been a dream, but
now
it felt like a way out. He didn't know what he could reasonably expect from publishing short stories or a novella, but he found himself dreaming more and more often of declining his poor-me fund because he was able to pay his bills himself. Obviously not right away. But…well, if he wrote a
few
stories…maybe in a year he could be independent?

Maybe two years. Enough money to replace the cafeteria job would be good. That had to be reasonable, right?

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't—but he did know you didn't get paid if you didn't actually write the goddamn words. Yet every time he attempted to work, he stared for an hour at a blank notebook. Sometimes he got out a random article or gerund phrase, and one weekend he'd written a whole page before he'd ripped it out and shredded it over the trash can.

Sometimes his inability to write bothered him more than anything else. He'd written ever since he could remember. Poetry, short stories, journal entries. He had his fantasy novel too, but he'd decided long ago he shouldn't take it too seriously until he was older. Every time he opened it up and read what he'd written, all he could see was his youth and inexperience.

But online gay erotica? Come on. He was basically masturbating on the page. He'd published on Nifty for
years
. Naughty Nate had five thousand followers on his Archive of Our Own site, and they liked his original stories as well as his fanfic. Downshifting into writing for pay couldn't possibly be too hard.

Except after never suffering so much as ten minutes of writer's block in his life, he was stopped up worse than an oxycodone addict. Elijah didn't know if his authorial constipation was happening because he was trying to write for money, or because he was a hack unless he composed to escape hell.

How sick was he that if it was the latter, he kind of wanted a little hell back.

He didn't actually, but he felt so
empty
not writing, like the guy in
A Clockwork Orange
after the Ludovico technique. Evenings spent escaping into dystopian fantasy or the erotic adventures of idealized college students were fun. Trying not to spill on Liz's furniture and worrying when the next panic attack would creep up on him wasn't any kind of a good time.

So he smoked a lot in the alley one block over from Liz and Pastor's place, he stared at a blank notebook page, and he worked. Mostly he worked.

At food service, usually Elijah ran the dishwasher. It was a gross job, and it made his hands raw and red. He had to scrape off and rinse other people's half-eaten food into the disposal, which was a real cosmic kick in the nose. He couldn't stop calculating how many kids on the street the scraps would feed, and his average for an eight-hour shift covering two meals—for summer students only—was forty to fifty hungry homeless. The amount of food nibbled at or discarded completely uneaten made him angry.

One day so many fully intact pieces of chicken breast came through he started saving them. At first it was a kind of self-torture, each barely eaten thigh and wing fueling his indignation. When he'd filled a one hundred and five ounce can, however, guilt and panic overcame anger. What was he going to do with all this food?

He decided he'd take it out to the trash bins. He'd seen some stray cats there. He thought about putting it on ice in a cooler with a label
free safe chicken
and seeing if he could figure out where homeless people were staying in the area, but that felt complicated, and he didn't know if anyone would appreciate it. Or how he'd get there. Or if it actually
was
safe, and what if no one found it before salmonella, and he accidentally killed someone? So he hauled the can to the alley.

Lewis Abrahamsen was in the alley.

Technically Elijah had known Lewis existed before they worked together. They were both sophomores, both skinny and awkward über-twinks, and as far as he could tell, they were both gay. He would have sworn he'd seen Lewis's profile on Grindr last year, but not for long and not anymore.

Lewis was…weird. Slightly off, different in a way that made Elijah feel the guy wasn't fully in focus. He always seemed pissed, or moody, or pissed and moody, and he smoked more than Elijah. Several times Elijah had passed him and seen red-rimmed eyes, from crying or drugs, it wasn't clear. Either angle meant more baggage than Louis Vuitton, so Elijah elected to pass. He had a matched set of bullshit all on his own, and his recent disaster with Baz had only driven home the need to stay away from headcases.

The day Elijah went to the alley with his industrial-sized pizza sauce can full of discarded chicken parts, Lewis was there, smoking another cigarette. By rights Elijah should have met him before on that count alone, but the alley was technically off-limits for smoking. The whole campus was. If Elijah wanted to light up, he used the alley near The Shack, because he was all about rules now.

Lewis didn't seem as if he gave a fuck about the rules. He leaned against the wall across from the door to the kitchens, drawing on his cigarette with aggression, tracking Elijah warily as he hauled his can around. He pushed his messy strawberry-blond hair out of his face and frowned. “What do you have in your hands?”

Elijah's cheeks heated, and he vowed the next time he felt like measuring how much food the cafeteria wasted, he'd lie down until the urge passed. “Nothing.”

“It looks like a pizza sauce can full of half-eaten chicken.”

“Yeah.” Elijah set the can beside the Dumpster and kicked it out of the way. “It's…for the cats.”

“Great, so there will be
more
of them the next time I come out for a smoke.”

Elijah thought about pointing out Lewis shouldn't smoke out here anyway, but he'd sound too much like Aaron. He looked around for something to wipe his hands on and settled for his apron. Watching Lewis smoke reminded him he hadn't had a cig in over twelve hours, and the yearning hit him upside the head. Fuck the rules anyway. “Hey—can I bum off you? I'll pay you back inside. Mine are in my locker.”

At first Elijah thought Lewis would say no, but Lewis pulled a pack out of his pocket and passed it over, followed by a lighter. “You're Elijah, right? Elijah Prince?”

The way Lewis said
Elijah Prince
made Elijah pause with the lighter at the tip of his borrowed cigarette. Great. He'd almost forgotten about his unwanted celebrity. He inhaled, shut his eyes while he breathed the smoke out, and nodded. “Yeah.”

Lewis ashed his cigarette. “Sorry. I mean—I heard a little about the whole thing with your dad in the parking lot—” He winced and put his cigarette in his mouth. “I'll shut up now.”

Elijah shrugged. “My parents are religious nutjobs. I ran away when I was sixteen, went home because it was too rough on my own, and faked a conversion. Last year in the middle of second semester, it all caught up with me, and when my dad found out I'd made a fool of him, he came to campus with a gun. Now my mom is in the process of being committed, and my dad is awaiting trial for attempted murder and terrorism.”

“Shit.” Lewis ground the butt of his cigarette into the dirt and pulled out a new one. “He shot the guy with the sunglasses, right? Baz Acker? The one whose dad is a US Senator or something?”

“Uncle. And yeah.”