Salvation (10 page)

When my hand was clear, he stepped back
and said, “I’d suggest flushing that with warm water, followed by peroxide.” He
set the tweezers aside, pulled a brown bottle out of the first aid kit and put
it beside the sink. “I’m going to bed. You and your friend are welcome to spend
the night, the guest room is at the end of the hallway. Or if you change your
mind about me and would like to join me, my bedroom door will be unlocked.”
Embarrassingly, my cock stirred at that suggestion and I tried to cover it by
shifting positions. If he noticed what I was doing, he didn’t react.

Vincent left the bathroom and I sat
there for a while, almost shaking with the effort of stopping myself from
running after him.
Don’t do it,
the rational part of my brain warned,
even as the rest of me was screaming,
Go! Go! Go!
Finally I sighed, slid
off the counter and held my hand under running water for several seconds. I
dried it carefully, then drizzled some peroxide over the little divots on my
palm. It stung, but I was too distracted by thoughts of Vincent to care.

I made myself go to the guest room,
where I stripped off everything but my white t-shirt and boxers and climbed
between the cool, steel grey sheets. I’d been staring at the ceiling in the
semi-darkness for several minutes when a sound in the hallway caught my
attention. My heart started pounding as I sat up in bed, thinking Vincent had
decided to pay me a visit. But then Skye slipped through the ajar bedroom door
and crossed the room quickly, climbing in bed beside me.

“Can I sleep here?” he asked as he
pulled the covers up over himself. “I woke up and got a little scared,” he
admitted. “I’m weird about sleeping alone in unfamiliar places.” When I laid
down beside him, he draped an arm over my chest and snuggled against me. Once
he was settled in, he said, “I’m surprised you’re not with Vincent.”

“Why would I be? It’s not like
anything’s going on between us.”

“Yeah, right,” Skye said, putting his
head on my shoulder. “Being around you two is like watching a Van de Graaff
generator.”

“A what, exactly?”

“It’s a device that creates a visible
spark as it transfers energy between two objects.” I raised an eyebrow and
looked at him, and Skye added, “I really loved the hands-on science museum when
I was a kid. But that’s not the point. I was just trying to say there’s so much
attraction between you and Vincent that I can practically see the electricity
crackling between you. Don’t bother denying it.”

“I’m not denying it. I’ve never been so
attracted to anyone in my life. But being with him isn’t a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“He’s mixed up in some dangerous stuff.
I don’t know what exactly, but he admitted he’s a criminal. And last night, he
came to pick me up after work and we actually got in a high speed car chase. I
mean, I’d known him
a day
, and there we were, re-enacting a scene from
the Bourne Identity! We ended up breaking into a school and hiding out in a
storage closet.”

Skye sat up and stared at me with wide
eyes. “Oh my God, that’s freaking awesome!”

“What are you, nuts? I’d have to be
crazy to get involved with him.”

“Then why did you go out with him again
tonight?”

“I didn’t. He found out I was going to
the club where you worked and followed me to make sure I was okay.”

Skye raised an eyebrow and deadpanned,
“Wow, what an ogre. No wonder you’re trying to stay away from him. I mean, a
man that would look out for you and try to keep you safe, yikes!”

“Did you not hear the part about the car
chase?”

“Was he the one doing the chasing, or
the one being chased?”

“Being chased.”

“So, I’m guessing he had no idea that
was going to happen, right? That it was your basic wrong place, wrong time kind
of situation?”

“But he’s a criminal.”

“Well, geez, who isn’t? I break into
places to steal scrap metal. And my best friend Christian is a graffiti artist,
he’s chased by the police at least twice a week.”

“But Vincent carries a gun, not a can of
spray paint.”

“Okay. So maybe he needs you to set him
on the straight and narrow,” Skye said.

“You’re actually advocating that I get
involved with a felon.”

Skye reclined beside me, propping his
head up with his hand. “I’m not saying it isn’t risky. But aren’t the best
things in life always a bit of a risk?”

“Maybe. But they don’t usually include
high speed car chases.”

“That sounds so damn fun.” He flashed a
bright smile at me as I rolled my eyes. Then he added, “I mean, it’s your call
of course. You have to go with what your gut tells you, not your weird new
blue-haired friend, even if he is usually right about everything.”

“It’s telling me getting mixed up with
Vincent is a mistake.”

“Is your gut telling you that, or your
overthinking brain?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I can’t do
it.”

“But you said you don’t even know what
he’s involved in, so maybe it’s not even that bad.”

“I’m guessing he’s not just selling
counterfeit Girl Scout cookies,” I said, “given the fact that thugs are trying
to chase him down.”

“So, be his salvation, Trevor.”

“I have no idea how to do that.”

“Isn’t it worth figuring out? I mean if
it was me, I’d give my left nut to be with a man that gorgeous and sexy. Of
course, then my hottie wouldn’t want me, what with only having one nut and
all.” Skye grinned at me as he put his head on the pillow again.

“It just isn’t the smart thing to do,” I
said.

“Do you always do the smart thing?”

“I try to.”

“Doesn’t it get boring?”

“Stop being the devil’s advocate, Skye,
or I’m booting you back to the couch.”

“Okay, okay.” He draped his arm across
me again and snuggled close. I wasn’t used to that much physical contact,
especially from someone I barely knew, but it was actually kind of nice. I
rested my hand on his arm and relaxed, letting my eyes slide shut.

“Thanks for helping me tonight, Trevor,”
Skye said quietly.

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you really think someone drugged
me?” he whispered, fear and uncertainty in his voice.

“I don’t know.”

He thought about it for a while. Then
Skye burrowed close as he could get, head on my chest again. I wrapped my arms
around him and held him securely. After a while, he fell asleep and I just
continued to stare at the ceiling, my thoughts completely focused on the
bedroom down the hall.

Chapter
Six

Skye took off first thing in the
morning, saying he had to finish a project at school. Soon after that, Vincent
gave me a ride to his grandmother’s house, since Nana was expecting me and he
was going there anyway. He was polite but quiet on the drive across town. Now
that I’d shot him down he’d closed himself off from me, reverting back to the
stoic version of himself that I’d first seen at the party. It was kind of
depressing.

Once we reached Nana’s big, beautiful
Victorian and entered the elegant foyer, he told me how to find the kitchen,
then jogged up a winding staircase. I watched him go. Then I sighed and headed
in the direction he’d indicated.

The kitchen was total pandemonium. About
ten people were bustling around, everyone talking at once. What looked like a
little studio audience had been set up off to the side, a couple rows of chairs
holding half a dozen tiny Nana clones with white hair and giant handbags, all
of them chattering excitedly. Industrial-looking lights and a television camera
were pointed at the big kitchen island. It was so bright that it made me wish I
was wearing sunglasses. I ducked into a corner and tried to make sense of it
all.

River appeared beside me, his brows
knit. “Hi Trevor. Are you sleepin’ with my kid brother?”

“Of course not. Why would you think
that?”

“Because you spent last night together,
even though you just met. I wondered if y’all got some crazy-ass notion to
deflower each other or something.”

“You mean Skye’s a virgin too?”

“Yup, and I’m glad to hear ya didn’t
spend last night goin’ for the two-for-one devirginization special.”

I grinned at him. “That’s not a word.
And he was right, by the way, you
are
overprotective. Not that there’s
anything wrong with that, I’m glad he has someone looking out for him.”

River smiled at me and said, “Hell, I
don’t know what I was worried about. You’re both so inexperienced that y’all
probably couldn’t even figure out what to stick where. Be like a squirrel
tryin’ to hump a pinecone.”

I laughed at that. “Thanks, that’s
really flattering.”

“Just saying.”

“So now that you know I wasn’t
corrupting your brother last night, are you going to tell me what’s going on
here?”

“Oh jeez, talk about an idea that
snowballed. Nana decided that she’d be doing the world a service by becoming a
TV cooking instructor. I guess she figured, as long as she was teaching you and
me some recipes, she might as well teach others, too.”

“And she actually got a TV station to
agree to that?”

“Well, yes and no,” River said. “She
found out how to get a show on our local public access station, then went out
and rented herself some equipment. But she didn’t stop there. She also hired a
director, cameraman, sound technician, lighting expert, makeup artist,
hairdresser, and a personal assistant. You need to mentally prepare yourself
for that last one, he’s a piece of work.”

“Wow. She really doesn’t do anything
halfway, does she?”

“Apparently not.”

“And what are we supposed to be doing
while she’s becoming the next Julia Child?” I asked.

“Watching and learning, I guess. Oh, and
avoiding the wrath of Sven.”

“Who’s Sven?”

“The aforementioned piece-of-work
personal assistant.”

Just then, an extremely tall man across
the room called out, “I need everyone in their places, we’re going live in
eight minutes. Hurry up, people!” He was dressed in head-to-toe black,
including a beret, which he’d cocked so far to the right that it was barely
clinging to the side of his head.

“The director, I assume,” I said to
River.

“Roger that. Also, his name is Roger, so
that’s funny,” my companion told me with a grin.

“He’s not serious about going live, is
he?”

“Actually yeah, he is. Nana somehow
wrangled a Monday morning time slot on the local station, I guess she has some
sort of connection over there. So this is being uploaded directly for
broadcast.”

“Holy crap.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine. It’s local TV on a
Monday morning. There’s gonna be like six people watching. What’s the worst
that can happen?”

Just then, a man of about thirty-five
with bleached blond hair styled in an elaborate pompadour marched over to us.
“Did you not
hear
the director?” he snapped. “We’re going
live
,
people. What are you doing over here? You need to get ready!” He was probably
the most flamboyant gay guy I’d ever seen. He was dressed in a screamingly loud
floral shirt with a yellow ascot and bright green skinny jeans, along with
lemon yellow topsiders. I again wished I had a pair of sunglasses.

“Sven, Trevor. Trevor, Sven.”

“No time for formalities,” Sven snapped.
“You two need to get changed, pronto!”

“Get changed into what?” my friend
asked.

Sven stared at River and spoke slowly,
over-enunciating like he was talking to a not-terribly-bright child. “Your
on-air
wardrobe
. We’re going to start
filming
in about
six
minutes
.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
River demanded. He was dressed in an oversized surfer’s t-shirt that said
Bodie’s
Board Wax: Helps Your Stick Slide
along with his usual long swim trunks and
beat-up Birkenstocks.

At the same time, I exclaimed, “What do
you mean by on-air?”

“Christ almighty, you two are worse that
my wife Helen. She always needs way too much of an explanation for everything.”

“We didn’t bring a change of clothes,
Sven. This is what we’re wearing,” River informed him.

“Oh for the love of God,” Sven
exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “Are you
trying
to ruin Ms.
Dombruso’s debut? Let me go find some aprons or something, while you two get on
set!
Now!
” He stomped off with an elaborate sigh.

River took my hand and started guiding
me through the crowd. “Did you catch that bit about his wife Helen? He refers
to her about every three minutes, as if that somehow will make people think
he’s straight.”

“Wait, what’s happening right now? We’re
not actually going to appear on camera, are we?” I stammered, panic welling up
in me.

“Yeah we are, but don’t worry. Like I
said, there’s gonna be about six people watching.”

“But I get really bad stage fright,” I
told him, my heart rate already accelerating. “I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can. The show’s thirty minutes
long, and I’m guessing Mrs. Dombruso will be talking for twenty-nine of ‘em.
All we have to do is stand there and nod and watch what she’s doing. It’s not
like you’re going to have to memorize lines or anything.”

“I can’t do this,” I repeated. By now,
River had towed me to the center of the kitchen, around the back of the island.
The camera and lights were pointed right at us, and I shielded my eyes to keep
from being blinded.

A man and woman rushed up to us. He
looked a lot like the actor who’d played Khan in the original Star Trek series,
and wore so much self-tanner that he was dark orange. “Boys, I’m Mr. Mario,
Nana’s stylist. We don’t have much time, but let me see what I can do.” He
wielded a huge comb in one hand and a bottle of spray in the other, and started
to come after River, who bobbed and weaved, dodging whatever was being sprayed
at him.

“Oh no, dude,” River exclaimed,
shielding his shoulder-length brown hair with both hands. “Nobody touches the
locks of loveliness.”

Mr. Mario sighed and turned to me, and I
pulled back and told him, “What he said.” The man rolled his eyes and left the
set. The makeup artist was stealthier though, and before I realized what she
was doing, she’d attacked me with a huge brush and some kind of loose powder.
This immediately set me off on a sneezing jag.

Sven reappeared holding a couple blue
aprons with white pin-striping. He handed one to River, who pulled it on over
his t-shirt, then sighed and tapped his foot impatiently while I doubled over
and kept sneezing.

“Three minutes, people,” the director yelled.
“Where’s Mrs. Dombruso? We need her on set now! Sven, where is she?”

“Mother of
God
, do I have to do
everything
?”
Sven exclaimed. When I straightened up, he grabbed the hem of my blue cardigan
and yanked it straight up and off me, threw it to the side, and shoved the
apron over my head before marching off.

“This is freakin’ awesome,” River said,
his brown eyes sparkling with amusement as he tied the apron around his waist.

“It’s a circus.”

“I know, that’s what’s freakin’ awesome about
it.” The makeup artist was still lurking, and she started to come after River
with the same big brush. He ducked out of the way like a fencer in a duel and
said, “Oh no, sister, that ain’t happening. You got white-boy-bisque there with
that powder, and while that’s fine for my pasty-faced friend here, that does
not
go with my already flawless part-Mexican mochaccino skin tone.”

“It’s translucent,” she insisted, “it
works for everyone. It’s just to keep the shine down on camera.”

“Step away from the Latino,” he told
her, making the sign of the cross with his index fingers and holding her at bay
with it. She sighed and slunk away, muttering something about on-air talent and
their rampaging egos.

“We’re live in two minutes, people,” the
director announced, sounding a bit hysterical. “For God’s sake, where is our
star?” Everyone started talking at once, and then he yelled, “Shut the fuck up!
I mean, quiet on set! Boys, you two are going to have to wing it until Mrs.
Dombruso arrives.” Horrifyingly, he meant River and me. “Sven, if it’s not too
much trouble,
could you fucking go and fucking locate our fucking star
?”
He screamed that last part shrilly, turning completely red. The beret that had
been hanging on by a hair fell off, and he grabbed it with both hands and
jammed it on his head, pulling it so far down that it covered his eyebrows.

“Oh sure, like this is somehow
my
fault
!” Sven shrieked, and stormed out of the kitchen.

River was chuckling. “Man, this is
priceless. I wish Skye was here to see it. Oh hey, I should call him and tell
him to tune in.” He pulled out his phone and speed-dialed a number, then yelled
when his brother picked up, “Skye! I’m gonna be on TV in two minutes! Channel
158!” He jabbed the off-button and returned the phone to his pocket.

“Live in sixty seconds! Quiet on the
set!” The director bellowed.

“Oh God, I really can’t do this,” I
mumbled, and tried to bolt.

But River clamped down on my hand and
yanked me to his side. “Oh no you don’t! If I have to publicly humiliate
myself, so do you. We’re business partners, remember?”

“I quit.”

“You can’t quit.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t let you.”

The director yelled, “Boys, get ready to
fill some air time. Look right there, right into the camera. Going live in
five, four....” he mouthed the last three numbers, and a green light blinked
on.

I started sweating profusely as my
friend, who still held my hand, started talking. “Um, hi! I’m River, of River’s
Edge Catering, and this is my business partner, Trevor.” He glanced over at me
and knit his brows in concern, then looked back at the camera. “Um, so yeah, if
you need any catering, give us a call.” He recited his phone number, then
glanced at me again. After a beat, he turned back to the camera. “No event is
too big or too small, whether you’re throwin’ a party for a thousand or, like,
a romantic dinner for two. Call us! Our rates are really affordable. Don’t
forget, River’s Edge Catering. Sure, there are a lot of caterers in San
Francisco, but those other guys suck, so give us a call.” He recited his number
again, glanced at me one more time, then said, “Okay, they don’t really suck.
There’s a lot of awesome caterers in this city. But they’re like, way
expensive, dude! You shouldn’t have to like, sell a kidney on the black market
just so you can afford a caterer for your daughter’s weddin’, know what I’m
saying?”

River kind of ran out of steam after
that and fell silent. The director slumped down in his chair, his face in both
hands. Everyone else in the kitchen was staring at River and me with deer-in-headlights
expressions. My friend still had a killer grip on my hand, so I couldn’t flee.
All I could do was wish for a sudden death brought on by my racing heart
exploding.

There was commotion to my right all of a
sudden, and Nana burst into the kitchen. “Sorry I’m late, boys! I had a
wardrobe malfunction. Not to where my boob flew out in front of millions of
people or anything, but something went wrong with my suit at the dry cleaner’s.
It changed color! I don’t know how you fuck up something like that.”

“Um, Nana, the show’s already started,”
River told her, pointing at the camera. “You’re on live TV.”