Runaway Model (18 page)

But Bryce would never forget.

"Keep the fucking ring, I don't want it back. I don't want to ever see it again. And that goes double for you."

He supposed it was possible that a moody musician could have a change of heart. But after less than a week?

Were Stoney and Kyle really together now? Really? After Stoney had more or less called him a thief? Didn't Kyle have any better options?

Didn't Kyle realize he deserved better than that?

Bryce scrolled quickly, searching through dozens of silly or irrelevant comments. He couldn't have said exactly what he was searching for. He just couldn't seem to stop.

"Pick me next time, Stoney!"

"Me, Stoney!"

"Come to Brasil!"

"Argentina!"

"Turkey loves you, Stoney!"

And then there were the comments from the haters. Why the fuck would you follow a fan account if you weren't a fan? Why would you come here to leave a rant against gay men in music? No wonder Stoney Rockland had never officially come out.

Bryce would have closed the phone and read no further. He didn't need those words in his head. But he feared for Kyle. He had to know the worst.

And some of the hate was definitely aimed his way. They called him a stalker, a groupie, a starfucker.

"A no-talent no-hoper who insinuated his way into #Stoney's life to get attention."

They knew nothing about Kyle. Nothing about his life. Not one fucking thing. And they thought they had the right to judge him?

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

Or maybe they were right. Maybe he was the one who knew nothing about Kyle. Not one fucking thing. Kyle had, in fact, almost certainly stolen that ring. No two ways around that.

Maybe Bryce was wrong to see the beauty in Kyle. Maybe it was a classic case of letting the little head do the thinking.

Some of the fans were debating the rights and wrongs of musicians staying in the closet. Thought-provoking. Especially in light of the fact that Bryce hadn't ever quite come out in public himself. But he scrolled through quickly, seeking something else.

Here. A little wildfire of comments had combusted on the topic of privacy. Everyone had an opinion about why Kyle had deleted his accounts.

"People. It's a privacy issue. Pure and simple. You can't be in a relationship with a star and keep blogging as a fan. It's too invasive for #Stoney."

"#StoneysSecret could have said something. To take down all the videos like that without a word of warning! That's not fair to the fans. Those videos are part of our #fandom. They belong to all of us."

"Guys. Those videos belong to Kyle and Stoney. It's their choice whether or not to share. It's a privilege when they do share. Not an entitlement."

"Stoney's nothing without the fans. He better not forget that."

"@miraellender How can he forget it? How do you make that assumption? He's with a top fan. What more proof do you need that #StoneyRockland follows this #fandom?"

On and on and on and on.

Bryce's head was spinning. It was easy to get confused about who knew what and who was simply speculating.

But everybody seemed to be awfully certain of their information.

Everybody couldn't be wrong. Especially not with photos.
People, this is real. People, this happened
. He heard the girl's words as clearly as if she'd spoken them aloud instead of typing them into a cell phone.

Kyle didn't need Bryce. He'd never needed him.

He was where he'd worked to be for the last two years.

In bed with Stoney Rockland.

T
he New York tube held no challenges for an Englishman who had never learned to drive.

The subway
, he reminded himself.
They call it the subway here.

Kyle strapped the ostrich-skin messenger bag across his body and made his way from the airport to a randomly selected hotel in Times Square. He picked it because it looked like it might be the most expensive. Kyle was at home with expensive.

A diamond should be set in gold or platinum. Not in nickel silver. Kyle would prove to everyone he was a diamond.

"Will you need help with your luggage, sir?"

"The service will deliver it later." Kyle's heart rate didn't even flutter as he made the usual excuses for not having any possessions. Then he took a second look at the boy at his elbow. He was a type like Kyle himself—tall and slender, sculpted cheeks, big eyes.

"Michel. Is it you?"

"
Oui.
Vegas was getting too heaty."

Michel was still a hugger. Already he was flinging his arms around Kyle and squeezing him, messenger bag and all, as if they were long-lost brothers.

Kyle hugged him back. He hadn't known how much he missed him until he had him in his arms. "How are you working? You're legal now?"

Michel spoke better English than he used to but he was still the master of the Gallic shrug. Kyle felt thin shoulders lift underneath his embrace.

How he hated to let him go. "Let's get together after you get off work. I'm buying."

Michel had the same food court tastes he'd had back in Vegas. Here they were in one of the great food cities of the world, and he'd asked to eat at the Times Square McDonald's.

"I will not be at the hotel long. You found me just in time. I will be a fashion model." Michel whispered the name of a highly-regarded Québécois designer.

"You're having a relationship with Leblanc?" Kyle found it hard to believe, remembering Michel's horror of sex.

"
Non
, Kyle. But..."

"You've dangled the hope in front of him."

Michel nodded, utterly without shame. He made no apology for what his background had made of him.

Kyle suspected the whole mess would blow up in Michel's face. It was one thing to play that game in Vegas. You know the mark's going home in three days. It was quite another to play the tease in New York.

But Kyle's whole life had just blown up in his face. He couldn't give advice to anybody else.

"Can you get me work?"

"Not at the hotel. No openings right now. Maybe when I quit but I do not know if they care about my recommends... It is New York,
mon ami
. Even more than Vegas, you have to tip people out."

Michel knew Kyle well, even after not seeing him for almost two years. Kyle wasn't going to pay off someone for a silly job carrying tourist bags. He could do better. He just knew it.

"I'm OK for now, mate. It's OK."

"You have a fifteen hundred dollar a night hotel room. You will need work fast. Some kind of work..." Michel slipped an arm around Kyle's waist. He was needy for touch, always would be. And he felt safe here. Nobody in a Manhattan McDonald's was going to give a fuck about two skinny teens having a cuddle.

"There is a party tonight." Michel lowered his voice to breathe the name of the club into Kyle's ear. "The manager does not pay the entertainment. You pay him. Two hundred dollars. Ask for Vasily. After that, it is up to you what you do and what you earn."

"This is profitable for you? This kind of party?"

"There is danger,
oui
. You get a beating or worse if you do not get away fast enough without giving the mark what he wants. But I have pocketed thousands in a night. I always get away. I am motivated."

Kyle didn't want to do that kind of rob and run work any more. When he was underage, he'd had little choice. But now? His savings, plus the payoff from Stoney Rockland's man, would buy him some time.

"I have to think about it, Michel. I've changed. Grown up."

"Boys like us cannot afford to grow up,
mon ami
. You will see."

Kyle sipped at his Coke.

"Stay at my place. It is safe there. Cheaper than the hotel,
oui
?"

"Thanks, mate."

Kyle thought back to those times in Vegas sleeping in the same bed in a crowded squat. Michel might not have been fully aware of the desperate way he clutched at Kyle in his sleep. No sex. There would never be sex with Michel. Just warmth.

Staying at Michel's place couldn't be a permanent solution for Kyle. He was a red-blooded man. He needed...

He wouldn't let himself think of the name that came to mind.

He needed time. That's what he needed. Time to heal.

***

"T
he Norwegians have increased their offer to 800 million." Catherine still made no secret of the fact that she was strongly in favor of cashing out. "You'll walk away personally with 400 million."

"Catherine, I've already said no. This company will soon be worth billions. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life regretting that I sold out too soon."

"We're just too fucking leveraged. If the price of oil dips below fifty, that's it, we're toast."

"It's 2014. I don't care what you think the Saudis are going to do. The price of oil is not going that low again in our lifetimes."

"You can't know that, Bryce. You're gambling. The Norwegian money is a sure thing. You're not going to get a better offer."

"The offer is unacceptable."

"Bryce, if you refuse this offer, I will tender my resignation today and cash out my shares as soon as humanly possible."

"Do what you have to do, Catherine. I'll be sorry to see you go."

Did Kyle ever Google Bryce? Would he look up Bryce's name one day and find him on a list of America's billionaires?

Maybe it was a pitiful ambition.

Fuck. There was no maybe about it.

He, who once dreamed of being an equal player with Exxon-Mobil, now dreamed of impressing an eighteen-year-old boy.

An eighteen-year-old boy who'd already forgotten him to move in with a rock singer.

Pitiful. Pathetic. Sad and sorry.

He needed to date men his own age. Men who didn't listen to music.

***

T
he usual tour videos, photos, interviews, gossip, and fanfic trailed in the wake of Stoney's North American tour. But there were no new photos of Kyle. There was little further discussion of his very existence.

At the end of the day, a relationship between a singer and a music blogger wasn't all that newsworthy. The remaining blogs went back to cheap chitchat about rumored liaisons between Stoney and such stars as Lana Del Rey or Alex Turner. There didn't seem to be the slightest shred of truth to any of those allegations.

Bryce wished he could set his mind at rest about Kyle's stalker. Nigel. Bryce assumed it was a first name—a not-uncommon one in the UK. He realized again how little he knew about Kyle as he tried to research Nigel.

Bryce didn't know where Kyle came from—not just what city but he didn't even know what county. He supposed any English person could have told instantly from Kyle's accent but Bryce didn't have the first clue.

He knew this Nigel was a teacher but he didn't know where he taught, since he didn't know where Kyle had gone to school.

This was a job for Arnold Geurne.

"Don't," Arnold said. "It isn't your problem. This is a law enforcement issue."

"The victim made a choice not to inform law enforcement."

"That's his perfect right."

"I don't agree. This predator might target other boys in the future. He may have done so already. He needs to be removed from the gene pool."

"Listen to yourself. You're a petroleum engineer, not fucking Dirty Harry. It isn't our business to remove predators from the gene pool."

"I'm making it my business."'

"You don't know what it's like to be locked up. To have someone else in total control of your day. To lack every scrap of human freedom and dignity."

"I don't intend to shoot the man."

"Then what?"

"With enough information, we can expose what he's doing and force the law to step in."

Arnold shook his head. "Most sexual predators most times do get away with it if they're reasonably intelligent."

When Arnold was in juvie, Bryce supposed he'd seen big boys prey on smaller boys with his own eyes. He didn't like to wonder if anything like that had actually happened to his friend. Arnold was a big man now. But nobody's big when they're fourteen.

"I will not sit by and do fuck-all nothing."

"You're not giving me a lot to work with, boss. One name Nigel, maybe a first name, maybe a surname, maybe a fucking nickname. Origin United Kingdom. Profession teacher."

"Can we assume he entered the United States a day or two before the concert where he attacked Kyle?"

"So you want me to search Department of Homeland Security records for every fucker named Nigel from the UK who flew into the United States on those dates? Sure, just call it up on Google like Edward Fucking Snowden."

"The airlines will have their own records. Maybe their frequent flyer programs aren't under secure passwords. No need to annoy the feds."

Arnold thought about it. "No idea which airline, of course?"

"The ones that fly out of England..."

"Well that's fucking helpful, Bryce. I never would have figured that out on my own." He shook his head as he started tapping keys. "On the bright side, it's probably only slightly illegal to intrude on frequent flyer records. As opposed to being highly fucking federal offense style illegal to intrude on the DHS."

"Do you think it will work?"

"Maybe. If he's a greedy fucker who signed up with a frequent flyer program to earn miles while he's stalking teen boys across the pond..."

***

M
ichel had concocted some ridiculous drama to explain why he wasn't ready to have sex just yet with Leblanc. The man was forty-two. Kyle wondered how long his friend really expected to be able to dangle this sophisticated designer on a string. He was surprised it had gone on this long.

"So I'm your ex who came crawling back begging you to give me another go?"

Michel nodded. "
Oui
. I am an undecided boy. I do not know what I want. It is only fair to give you another chance."

"You're lucky he doesn't just boot your cockteasing arse to the curb."

"He is starting to suspect I am not gay. I need a hot boy on my arm."