Taking In Strays (23 page)

“It’s not a beauty contest!” Burton’s voice grumbled from below, guessing what was taking Donny so long to come downstairs.

Donny blushed and hurried down the steps. Burton gave him a droll look as he fussed with the trays of pastries and donuts on the counter. “Get the coffee perking,” Burton ordered.

Donny fumbled through the job, eyes repeatedly flicking towards the outside of the shop, looking for someone in particular.

“Traffic is heavy this morning,” Burton commented. “He’ll need to find a parking space.”

Donny blushed again as he set out the cups. His shaking hands sent some of the paper cups tumbling to the floor. He scooped them back up and looked for dirt. Burton took them out of his hands and tossed them into the garbage.

“I’m being stupid, sorry,” Donny mumbled.

Burton snorted and smiled. “Understandable. Try to relax. You did live with him at one time, right?”

“He let me stay a few days,” Donny corrected as he wiped sweating hands on his jeans. “It wasn’t a good situation. I was a mess.”

“Yet he came here, anyway, to see you,” Burton reminded him as he went to unlock the front door. “He brought flowers. I don’t think you left a bad impression on him.”

“He’s…” Donny struggled for the right words, but nothing he considered was right. In fact, to say any of them out loud would have been insulting.

“Don’t short change yourself,” Burton said firmly. “If he’s a nice guy and he likes you, then you have some qualities that made that happen.”

The usual customers came through the door and there was a momentary flurry of activity as they paid for a few items, but mainly concentrated on the free breakfast. When there was finally a lull, Donny felt a clench of disappointment in the vicinity of his heart as he realized that Peter wasn’t there and waiting for the activity to die down. The door was empty, sunlight a bright beam on wood floors and old books, and the sound of the street loud in the silence of the shop.

An hour ticked by, going as slow as molasses. Finally, Burton began cleaning up the coffee and what was left of the baked goods. “Want to make a call?” he asked softly in sympathy.

Donny glanced at the door one more time, feeling hollow inside, and nodded. He wanted to make the call in private, but Burton was already placing the phone on the counter and gesturing towards it. Donny picked it up, stared at it, and then decided that he couldn’t talk to Peter without getting emotional. Instead, he called the one man who always seemed to know what his brother was doing.

“Dr. Dan Parker.”

Donny licked nervous lips. “It’s me, Donny.”

There was heavy silence and then Dan said, “You could have called back last night.”

Donny remembered his call to the station then, hoping against hope that Dan was working late or that one of the officers would pick up the phone. Donny felt a chill. “Oh, shit! I forgot! I am so sorry, Dan! It was all happening so fast… My cell phone was smashed… the police showed up…”

Donny tried to remember what Dan might have heard, but the night before was a blur. Dan was talking again and Donny forgot everything to listen to him say, “It was hard to hear. There was someone saying that you raped someone and that they had it on video. You said that you didn’t want an audience. Then the connection was gone.”

“That’s not what happened!” Donny protested. “That’s not what we said! I turned on the phone so that you could hear Stone confess.”

“I was worried. I didn’t know where to look for you, though,” Dan interjected into Donny’s frantic protests. “An officer came in and told me about almost arresting someone for buying an underage prostitute. He said his partner let him go, but that he still had his doubts. When I asked for a name, he gave me yours.”

“Dan, please… did you tell Peter?” Donny couldn’t help his voice from wobbling or his hands from clutching at the phone. “Is that why he didn’t come this morning to the bookstore?”

“Of course I told him,” Dan replied. “He has a right to know.”

Donny closed his eyes tightly, feeling as if Dan had thrust a knife through his heart. “Dan, I swear, that’s not what happened. You have to believe me.”

“You have a great deal of luck,” Dan said irritably, “After everything that’s happened, you don’ have any formal reports or actual arrests. You have to understand that I deal, every day, with people who are expert liars, Donny, people who want help while it’s necessary, and then revert back to their old ways as soon as they don’t need me, or the system, any longer. For some reason, I felt that you were different. Peter felt it too. He was so eager to see you this morning, but I couldn’t let him, not when I knew that, sooner or later, he was going to hear about what happened last night even if it was kept out of an official report.

“What did he say?” Donny demanded, getting angry now. “How is he feeling?”

“What can be expected,” Dan replied tightly. “He feels betrayed and depressed.”

“This is not my fault!” Donny shouted. “I was doing everything right! I was ready! I made sure that I became the person Peter could love!”

The word love was out of his mouth before he could think and stop it. It silenced him, that bald truth, that he had done everything with that goal in mind.

Dan sounded sad, now. “Didn’t I warn you to improve your life for yourself and not someone else? It’s about loving yourself. It’s about believing that you are worth living a better life. If you don’t have either of those beliefs then it is so easy to fall back into your old life when the person you made your goal fails to be there at the end.”

“I didn’t fail and neither did Peter!” Donny retorted. “This is all shit! That isn’t what happened! I won’t let it end this way because I was set up!”

“If you really care about Peter, you’ll leave him alone, Donny,” Dan told him. “The truth isn’t something that’s apparent, right now, and it may never be. I can only look at the facts, right now, and protect my brother accordingly.”

“Let me speak to him,” Burton demanded. “I’ll tell him what happened.”

“Why should he believe you?” Donny said as he paced, cradling the phone against his ear and feeling hot tears sting his eyes. “You don’t have any facts and he wants facts. Even you didn’t believe me at first.”

“Not until I remembered that I have been leaving you with the cash,  my checks, and my credit cards,” Burton told him. “They are all there in the office. You could have robbed me blind. Instead, you’ve been actively trying to save me… save my business,” he amended.

Donny wiped at the tears and said, “Money isn’t my problem. Sex… I’m always up for a cheap screw, a fast, no strings blow job, a faceless fuck behind a bar. I never thought about tomorrow, because I didn’t want there to be a tomorrow. I wanted people to hurt me because I thought I deserved it for being a let down to my father, for being gay. Why not rape someone? Why not buy a kid? What’s it matter as long as I destroy myself in the end? Peter doesn’t need that. Dan’s right. I can whitewash my life, but I’m still trash underneath the paint.”

“Donny,” Dan began to say, but Donny cut him off.

“No, you’re right,” Donny told him harshly. “Thank you for telling Peter, for making him break it off with me before I mess up his life. I won’t bother either of you again.”

“Donny,” Dan tried to say again, but Donny was hanging up the phone and then just standing, numb and unsure what to think or do.

“Son, is there anything I can do to make this right?” Burton whispered, feeling how tightly Donny was strung.

“No,” Donny replied. “Thank you,” he added belatedly. “I need to think about this. Do you mind if I take the day off?”

“Go ahead,” Burton told him, “but don’t stew, Donny. None of those things you said about yourself are true. I know you’re hurting right now, but you have to-”

Donny turned and began walking towards the stairs as he replied, “I can’t talk about it. Just… let me alone with it for a few hours.”

“All right,” Burton replied. “I’ll bring up some lunch for you later. Chicken salad on a hoagie all right?”

Donny nodded, though he hadn’t really been listening. He went up to his room and stretched out on the bed. He stared up at the old ceiling for what seemed like hours, turning events over and over in his head in frustration and deep sorrow.

He should leave, he thought. Wait until after the shop closed, take his things, and make sure he didn’t hurt Burton too. He could find a place somewhere and get a few bottles of cheap booze to drown his sorrows in. He could go back to his father and at least pretend to go along, take that trip to South America and live on an expense account. He could just end it, the darker part of his mind suggested, and he thought of a few spots that might make it quick.

A weight suddenly settling on his bed made Donny start. Peter was sitting and looking very hard at his big hands held tightly together. He was dressed in a powder blue sweater, a white button down shirt, and jeans that were molded to his muscular legs. His jaw was as tense as his hands.

“Tell me what the truth is,” Peter begged in a hoarse voice.

Seeing Peter there, in the flesh, brought back Donny’s feelings for the man, hitting him as hard as a freight train. He was suddenly furious at himself. What was he thinking? Did he really want to kill himself for things that were not his fault? Was he willing to give up his own life and Peter so easily? The answer was no. He needed to find his backbone and fight for the life he had worked so hard for.

“The truth is that I was kidnapped,” Donny replied as he sat up and edged close to Peter. Sitting side by side on his narrow bed, their stiff tension made it just as cold as a bench at a bus stop, inhabited by strangers.

“And you escaped?” Peter asked.

Donny nodded. “He was the son of one of my father’s rivals. He was going to record me and a kid… you know?  He said he would hurt the kid if I didn’t go along… enthusiastically.”

Peter’s expression changed to disgust. “Was that the kid Stanton saw you with?”

“Yes,” Donny replied. “I managed to get out of the van.” He backtracked, “After I tried to phone Dan so that he could hear the conversation. My phone was damaged, though. He didn’t hear much. I did get out of the van and I told the kid to go home.”

“There was money,” Peter said. “Stanton said… fifties?”

“Stone wanted to pay me off. I didn’t want the money. I gave it to the kid.”

“Burton, the man who owns the book store where you work, was there,” Peter said. “He spoke for you and told Stanton that you were all right.”

“Yes.”

Peter sighed. “He’s a good man. He helps out the kids in the community.”

“I don’t have any proof that what I’m saying is the truth!” Donny blurted out. “You shouldn’t believe me. You should listen to Dan.”

“I did listen to Dan,” Peter replied and finally looked at Donny, his eyes red and his expression tense. “He told me to investigate and make my own decision.”

“He did?” Donny swallowed hard. “Didn’t he want you to get away from me before I hurt you?”

“He worries about me,” Peter replied. “He’s seen it hundreds of times; people that he tried to help using him, using the system, and then going back to personal self destruction. It’s hard to blame him for being skeptical. He knows that I have to decide for myself, though.”

“It doesn’t look good,” Donny agreed. “I don’t blame him for believing that I’m just like those other people.”

“What were you thinking about when I came into the room?” Peter asked suddenly. “You didn’t even hear me come in.”

Donny felt his tension increase and nausea grip his stomach. “I…”

“Tell me the truth. If we can’t be honest with each other, then it’s over between us,” Peter insisted.

“I was thinking that I needed to get away from Burton before I hurt him too,” Donny admitted, but it was hard to say the words and admit what he thought about himself. “I thought I should take my father’s offer and go drown my sorrows in South America on an expense account. I even thought…”

“What?” Peter prompted, looking att Donny intently, his gold brows frowning.

Donny couldn’t look away. Those blue eyes filled his world as he admitted, “I thought that I should find a good place to kill myself.”

He was suddenly in Peter’s vast embrace, being squeezed hard against abs that probably saw two hour a day workouts. They hurt his already bruised body a little, but Donny didn’t care. He wept and he thought that he heard Peter choking on sobs himself.

“I don’t want you to do that,” Peter begged him. “Please?”

“I don’t know how this happened,” Donny choked out, “It’s like going crazy, suddenly caring about someone this much. Shouldn’t I fight it? Shouldn’t I make myself come to my senses and stop needing you this much?”

“I don’t know,” Peter replied. “I only know that, when our eyes first met, I thought,
this is the guy I’ve been waiting for.
I was an idiot for thinking that what I felt for anyone else was love. It wasn’t. That was loneliness; neediness. This is… powerful and right. I don’t want to let you go. I don’t want you to ever think about ending it all, again.”

And wasn’t that something terrible to hold over someone’s head? Stay with me or I’ll kill myself? “There’s so much wrong with this, with trying to get together with you, right now.”

“I’m not letting you go,” Peter said forcefully and he lifted Donny’s chin and kissed him hungrily. When the kiss ended, Donny felt as if every fiber of his being yearned to reclaim that kiss. “You’ll wait forever trying to find the perfect time. I’ve made my decision. I want to be with you, Donny. Tell me what
you
really want.”

“The same, but I don’t think I can have it,” Donny protested. “I don’t want to ruin everything.”

“We’ll have our problems, our fights, our difficulties, but we can work those things out if we love each other,” Peter insisted.

“I want to believe you,” Donny sighed.

‘Then don’t go to South America,” Peter asked. “Don’t end it all. Stay here, with me. We’ll take it slow, like we planned. I need you to be here for me.”

“I was here,” Donny said and couldn’t keep the hurt out of his voice.

Peter ran fingers through his crew cut in irritation that wasn’t aimed at Donny. “Dan called me and told me that you didn’t want to see me this morning. He told me that he and I had important things to talk about.”