Sing for Your Supper (2 page)

Lazy thing. Should be out catching mice.

It yawned at me, showing off yellowed, but formidable teeth.

You read minds, don’t you?

Another yawn and it rolled over, tucking its head down under one paw, effectively turning its back on me. Typical.

And I’m taking a cat’s snub personally. That cannot be a good sign.

Inside, the place was smaller than it looked from the outside. Six tables and a couple of booths crammed the front room. Half a dozen stools covered in slick, black vinyl lined a low, granite counter along the back. The tables were heavy, polished oak and the chairs high, ladder-backed affairs painted in varying shades of blue. Underfoot, polished linoleum looked newly installed. It looked like the kind of place city-come-country folk would eat—a posher version of the diners scattered all through the prairies.

Behind the counter a young man pretty much my age grinned a greeting and set a cup of coffee down on the bar. He was taller than me by a good few inches, with sandy blond hair and a pixie face. He tilted his head, just as though he knew precisely how pretty he was, and looked me up and down. There was a golden cast to his eyes that just about matched his hair.

“Hey.”

I nodded and changed my path, from where I had been heading to the furthest booth, to sit, instead, at the counter in front of him.

“Hey.”

“What can I get ya?”

I turned out the contents of my pockets right there on the counter. A twonnie and two quarters. “Will that even pay for the coffee?” I met his gaze, determined not to let the shame show.

“Coffee and a doughnut, if you don’t mind it being stale.”

“Beggars and all that, right?” I smiled, mustering up a half-decent expression from somewhere, and he gave me a little shrug in return.

He puttered about, bringing out a plate and arranging two doughnuts on it. It made a little clacking sound as he set it down in front of me. “Have one on me.”

I’m not a huge fan of deep-fried bread products, but with my stomach growling the way it was, I’d take just about anything. “Thanks.”

I ate the first one in two bites and glanced up to find him grinning at me.

“Anything you don’t swallow with that much gusto?” The gold in his eyes seemed to shimmer suggestively, and he winked.

He’s not really asking what I think. Is he?

I blinked and placed the second doughnut back on the plate. “I suppose that depends,” I answered, cautiously.

“How hungry are you?”

“You got dishes need washing or something?” My belly churned, and I wasn’t sure if it was the day-old-doughnut, the hunger it wasn’t enough to appease, or something else entirely. A vision of
Driscoll’s
leer popped into my head. Maybe if I played dumb, he’d drop it. Maybe, he hadn’t actually suggested what I thought he had in the first place.

Maybe you’re losing your mind, Taylor. Just calm the fuck down. Everyone hasn’t turned gay, and you aren’t that irresistible.

“Danny!” The guy hollered over his shoulder and a few seconds later, the grizzled old man from the front porch poked his head through the kitchen door. “Watch the counter for a few. I’m going on break.” To me, he bobbed his head to one side. “C’mon ‘round back. We’ll talk.”

“Pansy ass fucker,” Danny muttered as he shuffled in behind the counter and untied his sloppy apron. “‘Talk’ my ass.” He peered at me through a speculative expression. “Or yours.” He gave me a once-over that left the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

“Mind your own business, Danny,” counter guy snapped.

I glanced at my doughnut and coffee, wondering if I would look too desperate if I scarfed them back before following the guy to the back of the diner.

Counter guy reached over and touched the back of my hand to get my attention. “Don’t worry. We’ll talk. C’mon.” He held up a wooden section of the counter and nodded his head towards the kitchen door.

Outside, I’d expected a grimy lot next to a Nim bin, maybe a few milk crates to sit on. There was, instead, a paved lot a few metres off, and next to the back door of the restaurant, a small patch of herb and tomato garden. The tomato plants were rife with little yellow flowers. Whoever tended that plot knew what they were doing. They’d have a fantastic harvest if the drought didn’t interfere.

We stepped out the door onto a smooth, stone path that lead past the garden. Under the shade of an ancient apple tree sat a small gazebo with two double swing seats facing each other, and a hedge hiding it from the road and the diner.

“Have a seat.” Counter guy ascended the gazebo steps and settled on one of the swings. He gestured to the other.

I perched on the edge of the seat and the chains clinked and squeaked as the swing took my weight.

“So.” He tilted his head again, studying me. “Looks like you’ve been on the road a few?”

“Yeah.”

“How far you travelling?”

I shrugged. I was beginning to imagine there wasn’t anywhere far enough to escape the image of
Driscoll’s
face or the sound of Pete’s voice in my ear, but that wasn’t something this stranger needed to know.

“My name’s Matt, by the way.” He held out a hand.

“Taylor.” After a second, I shook his hand. “So. What is it you had in mind, exactly. Matt?”

“Straight to the point, huh?”

Like I haven’t danced this dance before.

“Don’t worry. I’m not up for anything you don’t fancy.” Matt leant forwards in his seat. “You ain’t cheap. I can see that.”

“I fancy a meal,” I muttered, and slid off my seat to my knees. Not looking at him, I shuffled forwards between his legs.

He didn’t have any compunction about spreading his knees apart to make room for me. My gaze fixed on his crotch and the substantial bulge behind worn denim. Gentle fingers raked through my hair and he sighed. “You must be pretty hungry to do this for soup and a sandwich.”

“Imagine what you’d get for a steak,” I countered, finally raising my face to glare up at him. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

It wasn’t like it was the first time. It never ceased to amaze me, the number of ‘straight’ guys out there willing to let a fag suck their dick in exchange for, as he said, a soup and sandwich. Most of them didn’t talk this much, though.

He grinned wide and leaned close. “Fine. No talking, then.” His lips hovered over mine a split second, then descended, his tongue thrusting inside my mouth before I could move out of the way. His fingers tightened in my hair as he kissed me, and I couldn’t help responding.

It was a good kiss. Old geezer’s comment should have tipped me off that Matt was different.

When he pulled away, he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Steak it is.” He shifted back in his seat a bit. The bulge hadn’t gone away, and he played with himself idly.

I watched his fingers caress his cock. “What? That’s it?” I asked after a few seconds of him watching me watch him.

“You should eat. I can hear your stomach growling from here.”

“But…”

“Maybe after. Lunch rush is pretty much over. Got a couple hours before I have to come back for the dinner rush.” He gave me his little shrug again. “Come back inside, have a proper meal. Then decide.”

“That’s—”

He tilted his head, waiting for me to finish.

“Decent of you.” I finally dragged my gaze back to his face. “What if I say no?”

He leant forwards, sifting his fingers through the hair at the side of my head. “Then you say no. I lose a steak and a couplecouple of potatoes. Lot less important than what you lose if you say yes and don’t really mean it.”

“Sounds like a proper fucking date,” I muttered, climbing to my feet.

He laughed, a clear, rich sound, and I couldn’t help but smile back. So what if I was selling a little bit of what I had for a little bit of what he had? He was the first in months to make it feel like I wasn’t a cheap whore, even if we both knew what the score really was.

He stood, too, and cupped a hand around the back of my head, pulling me in for another kiss. It was rather deliberate, and I suspected I was meant to stop him if I wanted to. I had a perverse need to see his lips all puffy and red, though, and besides, there was something about the gentle compulsion of him holding me which made it better somehow. That, and his tongue scraping past my lips and teeth and invading my mouth like he owned it.

“Ngh.” My eyes drifted closed and I swayed into him a bit. Without my thinking about it, my fingers closed in tight fists on the T-shirt hanging over his loose jeans.

“Mmm.” He pulled away, still holding my head in his hands. “Doughnuts.” His grin brightened up the shadowed gazebo. “Come inside and eat. I have plans for delicious you.”

“Sure.”

He turned and sauntered back the way we’d come, and I watched the sway of his hips. A chill shivered through me and I stopped, suddenly reminded of all the things that could go wrong. As though sensing my hesitation, he stopped and turned.

“Food, first,” he reminded me. “I promise. Nothing else unless you want.”

How much could I really rely on the promise of a stranger? But how much could I afford not to eat again today? I nodded and followed him inside.

Chapter Three

The steak was exactly like his kisses—it melted in my mouth and left me wanting more. Probably wisely, he hadn’t cooked me a very big meal once I’d confessed it had been a few days since I’d had anything more to eat than the doughnut and a few stolen peas and carrots from a roadside garden. Three ounces of beef and a small baked potato proved about as much as I could handle. After that, Matt led me upstairs to the tiny apartment he had above the diner.

It was surprisingly nice. I decided someone must’ve got a discount, because the same granite countertops graced his kitchen as I’d seen in the diner downstairs. That was where the resemblance ended, though. The walls here were a warm, honey colour, and the floors dark wood, maybe sanded, stained barn boards. Ikea featured heavily in the decorating scheme, but the room wore it well, and he fit in the space perfectly.

“Nice.”

“Thanks.” He looked around, maybe seeing the jeans in a crumple on the floor beside the couch, and the dishes piled by the sink, but it was, by far, the cleanest man’s apartment I’d ever seen. His gaze came back to me and his lips curved pleasantly. “I’ve got a few things to prep downstairs. You can shower.” He pointed to the television hanging on the wall above the folded out couch-bed. “Take a load off. I’ll be back in a half hour or so.”

“I could rob you blind.”

“If you can find anything worth taking, you’re welcome to it. I’m banking on the appeal of a hot shower here, though.”

“And a hot guy.”

He grinned. “That too.” At the door, he stopped again and looked back. The grin was gone from his face. “If you’re still here when I get back, I’ll be flattered that I rate hot enough to bother with. If you’re not, good luck to you.” The door clicked closed quietly behind him, and after a minute or two, I managed to release a bit of the tension in my shoulders.

“This is too bloody good to be true, Taylor.”

Still. A hot shower. When was the last time I’d cleaned in an honest-to-God shower, with soap and shampoo? I’d been cleaning myself in gas station sinks or country creeks for a month.

The water went a long way towards relieving the stress and tight muscles of my neck and shoulders. The soap, thankfully, was not Irish Spring, but some aloe liquid with tea tree oil. I took extra time on my hair. It was long, now, well past my collar, and the thick waves desperately needed the attention. I lathered, rinsed, and repeated twice before it felt like I’d got through the road dust to my scalp. Proof Matt was as much a poufter as me was in the abundance of conditioner. The bottle was twice the size of the shampoo bottle, and half as full. No doubt he used it for more than just his luscious tresses.