“I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” Zeb said at last. “It’s been a long day. A lot of emotions raked over.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I’m not perfect.”
Silver leaned sideways to face him. “Surprised you can admit it.”
“You know that better than anyone.” Zeb’s hand made it halfway to Silver’s face and fell away, but his eyes stayed focused on Silver’s. “I thank God I got this chance to see you again. To apologize. And I thank you for hearing me out. I guess anything else is a little too much to expect.”
Zeb glanced away.
The rain sliced sideways, and Silver wiped it away from his cheek and ear and eye. “What does that mean?”
“If you want, I’m gone. I’ll find a job somewhere else. Let you get on with your life in peace. You won’t ever have to see me again.”
“Did I say I wanted that?”
“Not in words. Specifically.”
“You expected a nice-to-see-you-again blow job?”
“Of course not.” Zeb’s eyes were dark, but there was very little light coming from behind the glass at this end of the balcony. Only the flicker of a fake candle on a table barely as wide as one of the miniquiches the waiters had handed out. Maybe the dim light was what made the lines around his mouth so stern. “Though was there some other message I was supposed to be receiving based on the way you acted when being tutored?”
The heat in Silver’s cheeks should have turned the rain to steam. He shifted back to face the street. “Must be losing my touch.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Silver didn’t need to look to see Zeb’s wry smile.
“Jordan.”
No smile in Zeb’s voice now. It was the voice that had sent him away. Silver watched the tiny river in the gutter and waited him out.
“Do you want me out of your life?” Zeb said flatly.
Silver spun to face him. “No. I don’t want that.”
“What do you want?”
He had to decide now? What if it was the same thing he’d wanted at sixteen? Zeb. Zeb and a house and a dog. To be able to touch Zeb in public and not have to worry. To know when he had a nightmare, he could roll over into Zeb’s warm body. What if Silver spilled his guts with everything he wanted and Zeb laughed? Or worse, shook his head patiently and explained that he might have loved Jordan then, but he could never love who Jordan was now?
He couldn’t say any of it out loud. “I don’t know.”
Zeb nodded, then leaned in for a kiss, but Silver could tell it was headed for his cheek. He tipped his head so their mouths connected instead.
At first Zeb froze and then kissed him, steady pressure, gentle movement. The electricity tingling under Silver’s skin should have been enough to call a lightning bolt right to them.
Zeb’s hand cupped Silver’s cheek carefully, and their heads tilted in unison. Like the memory of how they did this couldn’t be erased in years and distance and scars. Silver pulled Zeb’s lip between his own, tasted rain and then Zeb. Felt the hint of his tongue as the kiss got hotter, wetter. Zeb’s thumb moved, pressing and then jolting away from his bruise.
His lip. It could start bleeding again. Silver stayed in that kiss for another second, a few more moments to imprint that memory, and then backed away.
Zeb let out a long breath. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “When you figure it out, you know where I am.”
Then he was gone.
Chapter Thirteen
SILVER HADN’T realized that the Sold stickers on Eli’s stuff meant the whole run of prints had sold out. It didn’t take a math genius to realize that Eli was swimming in cash. As they made their way out to Quinn’s car, Silver ducked down so he could bump shoulders with Eli.
“Holy fuck, Eli. You got it made. Your Daddy will have to roll on his back and take it now.”
Quinn made a sound like a pissed-off bull as Eli laughed.
“Not exactly. The gallery gets a big percentage of sales. No one would even know about my stuff if it wasn’t here.”
“They know about it now.” Damn. Why hadn’t Silver been born artistic? The only thing he could do was sing well enough to not have people beg him to stop.
“They do. And Henry wants me for another photography show in January.” As they crossed a side street, Eli teased, “How ’bout it, Quinn? Ready for a little extra income?”
Quinn spun around, and the intent expression on his face, even in the dark, yanked on Silver’s guts and gave them a hard, mean twist of jealousy.
Grabbing Eli, Quinn lifted him off the pavement, hugging him tightly. “I am so goddamned proud of you.”
Silver’s throat squeezed. Like he was going to cry. Which was about as lame as it got. He didn’t think Quinn was hot. And Silver was definitely not looking for a toppy Daddy in bed. So why did he want what Eli had?
The want was a live thing inside, chewing on Silver’s guts. He had to look away, take a few steps toward the Buick, and rest his hands on the metal of the roof.
Since that kiss with Zeb, Silver hadn’t felt right in his skin—and worse, didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing. Did the kiss mean something new? Something besides hurling all his anger and hurt into the space where Zeb used to be? That had been about as successful as landing punches on a ghost. Nothing but missed swings and bleeding knuckles.
The interaction hadn’t been imaginary this time. A real kiss. Zeb live and in the warm, nice-smelling flesh. But with the way Zeb had kissed Silver, maybe it was Zeb seeing ghosts.
Because Zeb had kissed him like Silver was still Jordan. Still young and learning how to do it. Jordan was dead and buried. And Silver didn’t have much to offer in his place.
“Are you getting in or going to keep mooning over the clouds?” Eli nudged him.
Silver jumped. He hadn’t even heard them approach, hadn’t noticed Quinn unlocking the car. Stupid. And dangerous.
“Quinn was all set to invite everyone to meet us at With Relish, and I said how would that be fun for you, so we’re going to Angelo’s in Little Italy.”
Silver wondered if he was supposed to say something—thanks or yeah, that would suck on my day off—but Eli went on.
“I called Zeb, too, since I didn’t see him around when we were wrapping up.”
Silver’s stomach did the kind of dip that would have echoed to his knees if he were standing instead of belting himself into Quinn’s back seat.
“Sorry.” Eli’s monologue continued. “I had to leave a voicemail. Do you want to try him?”
Another one of those dips, this time more solid with disappointment. Christ. Maybe Jordan wasn’t as gone as Silver thought. He still could do the quick mood shift like a fucking teenager.
“No. It’s fine.”
At the restaurant, Eli’s version of everyone turned out to be the usual suspects. Nate and Kellan and Jamie and Gavin. The last pair might not have been out on the balcony, but they’d found someplace to get busy. Silver knew freshly fucked when he saw it. And smelled it. He wasn’t the only one rolling his eyes at Jamie’s smug grin. Quinn did a little head-shake thing that only made Jamie smugger.
Was there such a thing as a seventh wheel? Maybe the waitress would bring over a booster seat, since Silver felt like Eli and Quinn’s sorry-we-couldn’t-get-a-sitter baby baggage.
His phone rang, and Silver shoved himself away from where he was wedged between Jamie and Quinn. Not knowing what to say to Zeb was preferable to being stuck at the table.
It wasn’t Zeb. It was Marco.
“Timo is keeping my phone because he thinks I will call you, and I couldn’t remember your number forever—but in calculus class today, something hit—” Marco made a sound like a blast from an ion cannon. “—and I remembered and borrowed a phone on break.”
Eli could take monologuing lessons from Marco.
“Uh-huh,” Silver contributed when Marco ran down. Damn, they had classes that kept you so late they took breaks at nine at night? That sucked.
“So what?”
“What should I do about Timo? He said he’d give me my phone back when classes started, and now he won’t.”
“I don’t know. He scares me.”
“Pendejo. Fuck him.”
“No thanks. He told me if he saw me with you, he’d kill me.”
“Timo never goes anywhere.” Marco sighed. “Me aburro.”
“Huh?” Without Marco’s face and gestures, translation was harder.
“I’m bored.” Marco rolled the r like he had in aburro. “I want to go out and have fun.”
Silver missed dancing at the Arena, but not the rest of the hassles involved in what used to be fun—creepy guys, long lines, wondering if his luck would run out and he’d get jumped on the way home. Marco wouldn’t be nineteen until September, and his fake ID only passed in the dark.
“Hang out with guys from your class.”
“Petardos. Nerds.”
Whereas Marco’s presence in calculus made him cool. Silver rolled his eyes.
“I can’t really go anywhere. I have my court date in two weeks. I can’t risk getting in any trouble.”
“You’re still staying up there with your friends? Eli and his papi?”
“Yeah. The cops”—Jamie was a cop, right?—“and the judge said I had to stay with them.”
“But they’re gay. And papi is hot. You have it good.”
“Well, there’s no parties and no three-ways going on. All I do is go to work.” And the tutoring with Zeb, let’s not forget that part.
“But they don’t make you feel wrong.” No whine, simply stated as fact.
Silver heard the desperate need all the same. Remembered the hunger, the way it left him raw and empty. The yearning for one voice to tell him he wasn’t deviant, bad, a perversion. He’d have gone crazy in high school if he hadn’t had Marissa to talk to.
As if the sudden sympathy came through in the sound of Silver’s breathing, Marco pressed, “One night. Saturday. Somehow I’ll get a car.”
“I have to work four to midnight.”
“I don’t care. I have to go somewhere that isn’t the library or school or church.”
Saturday. When Silver had hoped he might meet up with Zeb for tutoring and then see what happened from there. Which reminded Silver it hadn’t only been the promise of sex to make him count down the hours to being with Zeb again. Back in New Freedom, Zeb’s tiny studio apartment had been a safe place to be themselves.
“Okay. If you can get a car, come up at around noon.”
“I will. If I trade babysitting that night, my sister’s husband will give me a car.”
“Just don’t get in any trouble.”
And please don’t get me in any, Silver added to himself after he shut off his phone.
SILVER JERKED out of sleep with an erection like the goddamned Eiffel Tower between his legs. He didn’t have to wonder where the fuck it had come from. That dream.
It had taken him back to the restaurant. Only in his dream, Zeb had shown up. Silver could have done without the audience and the judgy commentary from Nate and Jamie, but he hadn’t cared when Zeb had slid under the table. His tongue. His mouth. Jesus.
His dick was so hard it hurt. Legs trembling with it. No way he’d make it to the bathroom. The tissues on Eli’s desk would have to be cleanup enough. But damn, he couldn’t move. No strength in his legs. All of it in that granite spike. He spit in his hand, worked it in with the precome, and stroked.
Fuck. He’d thought when it turned back on, it would be nice and slow. He’d see a hot guy, and there’d be a nice, prickly warmth like stepping into the shower. And it would grow from there.
Not this. Not a flip of a switch and the coming-out-of-his-skin desperation like he’d had at fourteen, needing to jerk off to a jeans commercial because they talked about the fit of the crotch.
His hand wasn’t enough. Wasn’t anything like his dream. He wanted to—had to—fuck his dick into Zeb’s throat, drive it into his ass, feel that hot pulse of wet flesh. The convulsive pressure, the friction taking him higher until he spilled sticky and wet inside Zeb’s body.
Silver shuddered, hips bucking as he shot onto his stomach, imagined painting Zeb with it, his chest, his nipples, his face, and that pathetic patch of beard.
As the spasms slowed, faded until Silver was just stroking slowly, he remembered why it couldn’t happen like his fantasy. He might not need to rush off and wash the sheets with bleach, but he wasn’t going to be pumping come into anyone. Ever again.
But somehow, the thought of Zeb looking up at him, mouth around Silver’s latex-covered cock, was enough to give his stomach another hard rock of want. Yeah. He could manage that. Run out for some condoms, ask Zeb if they could squeeze in a little tutoring tomorrow before Silver had to go in to work.
He wiped up with the tissues, trying not to think why Eli would need tissues at his desk.
As Silver climbed back into bed, he picked up his phone, clicking to his last text exchange with Zeb.
Got Eli’s voicemail. Do you want me to come?
He had and he hadn’t.
He’d wanted to see Zeb again, see if that kiss had been something Silver built up in his head to be bigger than it was. But not with the audience. He and Zeb had enough shit between them without dragging everyone else’s issues into the mix.
Silver had wimped out on his answer. Going to be leaving soon. Now he sent What time do you get out of work tomorrow?
It was almost 3:00 a.m. If Zeb sent an answer in the morning, maybe they’d be able to work something out. Waiting didn’t seem possible. Any more possible than sleep right now. Every cell in Silver’s body buzzed with energy. This was nothing like the zombie wakefulness he chalked up to side effects from his pill.
When his phone buzzed with a call, he almost dropped it in surprise. “Is everything okay?” Zeb asked immediately.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Um. Sorry I woke you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“Lying is a sin, you know.”
“I’m not lying. I’ve been up for a while.” Zeb’s voice had a note of something when he said up. Something touching the edge of a dirty pun.
“Well, vengeance isn’t the only thing it’s a sin to take into your own hands either.”
Zeb laughed, the sound so warm Silver felt it wrap around him, like they could almost slide under the sheets right there to take care of things together.
“Though I might have done that earlier,” Silver added.
“Yeah?” Zeb’s sex voice. Rough. Urgent. So completely unlike him and only him at the same time.
There was an invitation in that yeah. One Silver wished his dick wasn’t too sore to accept. Apparently abstinence was better than Viagra. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t take the direct path. His voice betrayed him with a small hitch, but he stuck to his plan. “What time does school get over?”
“They’re setting up for commencement. It’s a half day.”
Was it possible that things were actually going to go Silver’s way for once? “I—uh—have to be at work by four, but I was hoping….” He was just as nervous as he’d been that first time, asking if Zeb wanted to talk about the Star Wars movies, only this time so much more was at stake. And Zeb didn’t offer any help, the bastard. “We could meet and go over the social studies part of the test?”
“Sure.” Pleasant, but with none of the teasing edge that had made Silver’s cock ache as blood tried to fill it again.
“Um, could we meet at your house?” Silver wanted to kick himself for the breathlessness in the question. He sounded like Marco, for fuck’s sake.
“I’ll pick you up at noon.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I NEED a drink.” Silver pushed away from Zeb’s small kitchen table.
Silver couldn’t believe this. They were actually looking at the social studies workbook. Like the kiss and the conversation last night hadn’t happened. As if S
ilver had really wanted to talk about what a bunch of dead guys did and why the fuck anyone would care.
“Help yourself. Glasses are in the cabinet to the left of the sink. Grab anything you want from the fridge.” Zeb stayed plastered to his seat with the workbook in front of him.
Okay, so Silver had set things up to go exactly like this. Sort of. He’d wimped out on the phone, gone to something a bit more subtle than Let’s go to your place and fuck. Because until last night, he’d never felt like he had so much of himself on the line if he asked that question.
And dammit, now he couldn’t figure out if fucking was ever going to be on the table—literally was fine with Silver—next to the lame-ass workbook. He’d been pretty sure Zeb was flirting last night, that the kiss had been more than hey-nice-to-see-ya. But Zeb had been the one to end it all last time, and Silver needed something more obvious to be sure they were on the same page.
Silver took out a plain glass from the cabinet. The restaurant got fancier stuff for a quarter a pop. Nothing special on the glass, not even an indented base. Like Zeb’s apartment. Not dirty or rundown, it just wasn’t anything. Beige walls, beige carpet. The kind of place you rent when you don’t plan to be there long.
Oh.
“So how long does the summer camp run?”
“Six weeks. Plenty of time before school starts again.”
“You’re going to stick around here then?”
Zeb’s back stiffened. After a moment, he turned to look at Silver. “Unless I hear otherwise. From the school district. Or from you.”
Silver shook his head. Realizing he’d been pathetically eager, he added, “Live where you want. When do you get to hear if you still have a job?”
“They can decide not to renew my contract right on up until school starts in August.”
“That sucks.”
“It’s all part of the fun of summer as a teacher. No pay and no job security.”
“All that and brat kids too? Why would anyone do it?”
Zeb did that half-smile thing. “I guess it’s one of those things you just know is right for you.”
Bad Influence Page 15