Can't Stand The Heat

by Louisa Edwards

  “You piece-of-shit faggot,” the tall one snarled, spit flying from his mouth.

  That word. Jess shuddered, his mind throwing him back into the past for a disorienting second.

  Crew Cut took a menacing step forward, but Frankie didn’t back down. Jess was frozen in horror. He couldn’t remember how to get his feet to move.

  Until Crew Cut drew back his arm and took a swing at Frankie. Maybe Frankie’d been expecting more taunting and verbal sparring, maybe he’d thought the frat boy was too drunk to hit what he aimed at. Either way, Frankie wasn’t prepared for the blow, which took him hard on the chin and knocked him off balance. He staggered a few steps to the left into a pile of metal trash cans.

  The cans clattered to the ground, making a huge racket, but Frankie kept his feet.

  “You like that, you pansy ass?” Crew Cut taunted.

  With that, Jess was up and moving.

  Adrenaline surged through him like a searing tidal wave, pushing energy and tension into every limb. The guy who’d been standing there cheering on his homophobic friend made a grab for Frankie as he lunged for Crew Cut, and Frankie turned on his new opponent like a rabid dog. Crew Cut reached for Frankie, clearly intending to pin his arms to his sides, but he didn’t get the chance.

  Jess let the anger and fear fuel him, putting his head down and barreling into the guy who had first hit Frankie. Jess’s forehead and shoulder hit him directly in the midsection with the full force of his body. Something sharp—belt buckle?—caught Jess right above the eyebrow, sending a flare of bright pain through his head.

  Crew Cut went down. Jess stood over him, hands fisted tight, breath fast and shallow, and waited to see what he’d do.

  The guy wheezed a little, the breath knocked out of him. He made one abortive gesture toward getting up, but collapsed back again with a grunt when Frankie slung the shorter frat boy around by one arm to land on Crew Cut’s chest.

  “Didn’t expect a couple of fags to fight back, did you, boys?” Frankie snarled, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he couldn’t wait to get back to brawling.

  “Shit, Kyle, are you okay?” the shorter frat boy asked. He was stocky, the kind of bandy-legged, broad guy who often stood on the sidelines of college ball games just generally making Jess wish football uniforms were less tight.

  Pudge got to his knees and helped Crew Cut, or Kyle, Jess supposed, to a sitting position.

  “Come on, man, let’s go,” Pudge said, but Kyle spat on the sidewalk and shook his head.

  “No way. Fucking fairies, I’m gonna—”

  “You’re gonna what?”

  Jess whirled, eyes wide. He hadn’t even heard Chapel’s heavy door swing open. Adam filled the doorway, arms crossed and stance belligerent. Behind him, Jess could just barely make out another guy with shoulder-length hair who was resting what looked like a baseball bat on his shoulder. He didn’t see Miranda anywhere, but anxiety strung him tight as a bow. These frat boys had to leave. Like, ten minutes ago.

  “I’d listen to your mate, there, Kyle,” Frankie put in coolly. “You won’t get me with a sucker punch twice. And as you can see, the fairies have friends.”

  Pudge dragged Kyle to his feet, casting fearful glances at the bar door. Kyle didn’t want to back down, but when the bat-wielding man stepped farther out into the alcove, he shook his head in apparent disgust and let Pudge turn them around and pull him down the street.

  It was over. Jess gulped in air and blinked rapidly, clearing something thick and smeary from his right eye. Shit, was he bleeding?

  “I didn’t run away,” he realized aloud. “I was scared, but I stuck.”

  “You did,” Frankie said, turning to him and cradling his face in both long-fingered hands. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of Frankie’s mouth. It made him look even more dangerous and bad-ass than usual. Frankie’s long fingers brushed gingerly at the sore place above Jess’s eyebrow, drawing a hiss.

  “Think we’ll have matching scars?” Jess asked with a grin.

  Frankie’s lips tightened when he looked at Jess’s cut, but his voice was light with laughter when he said, “You were my hero, slaid the nasty dragon for me and all.”

  “And to the victor go the spoils, right?”

  Everything Jess had felt before the interruption by the frat boys came roaring back, heightened and intensified by the lingering rush of danger in his veins. High on adrenaline, he forgot their audience and reached out to clasp Frankie’s lean hips, pulling him flush against his body.

  “That’s what they say,” Frankie replied. He ducked in for a kiss.

  “Adam, did you find Jess? Is everything okay?” Miranda’s concerned voice brought Frankie’s head jerking up.

  Jess’s heart jumped, then sank down into his stomach where panic pumped raw acid in a sudden, queasy gush. He dropped his hands and stepped back in a hurry, ignoring the way Frankie’s eyes darkened for a moment.

  Miranda pushed between Adam and the other guy to get a good view of Jess and Frankie, standing in the center of a circle of light from the streetlamp overhead.

  “We . . . heard a noise, and I didn’t see you,” she said, sounding uncertain. “Jess. What’s going on here?”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nothing. Everything’s fine.” Jess sounded normal but distant, as if he were in shock.

  Miranda stared at her brother. A million excuses were running through her head for why he was standing there, too close to Frankie, watching her with heartbreaking terror in his eyes.

  And then she noticed the blood on Jess’s face. Anger swarmed up and over her in a welcome rush, pushing her nebulous fears aside.

  “You son of a bitch,” she said, stalking forward. Adam put out a hand to stop her, but she shook him off. Christian moved aside easily, and, as if feeling that the threat of danger had passed, he turned and went back into the bar, shutting the door behind him.

  Little did he know, thought Miranda. Fury made her feel ten feet tall, and whatever was in her eyes was making Frankie scowl in confusion and dawning worry.

  Good. He should be worried.

  “Miranda, don’t,” Adam tried, but she ignored him.

  “What the hell did you do to Jess?”

  Frankie reared back as she got closer, his gaze cutting to Jess as if looking for a clue about how to answer.

  “Eyes on me, scumbag,” Miranda hissed. “I asked you a question. What the hell did you do to make Jess bleed? Did you hit him?”

  “Whoa, wait a minute there, sweets,” Adam said, bounding to her side. “I’m sure Frankie didn’t do anything to Jess. Right, guys?”

  Jess’s eyes were wide and almost blank, the blue as opaque and dark as she’d ever seen it. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  “Had us a bit of a scuffle, that’s all,” Frankie said, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off Jess, despite Miranda’s very clear warning. He rummaged in the front pocket of his too-tight, ripped jeans and came up with a squashed pack of cigarettes. The casual, unconcerned way he lit up and took a puff made Miranda ache to slap him. There was blood on Frankie’s mouth, too, and Miranda’s blood pressure shot skyward.

  “A scuffle?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Jess, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on here, because it looks a lot like Frankie made some sort of . . .” God, she didn’t even know how to say it. She ended up spitting it out. “Some sort of pass at you or something, and you had to fight him off. Is that true? Because so help me God, if it is, there will be hell to pay.”

  That shook Jess out of his shock. “No! Miranda. Shit. Calm down, would you, please? I really think I’ve had enough violence for one night.”

  “What violence?” Miranda nearly shrieked. “We heard some kind of racket out here, and I looked and looked and couldn’t find you, and then Adam said he thought he knew where you were. And now you’re saying there was violence?”

  “A couple of drunk frat guys hassled us,” Jess said. “But it was no big deal. Some trash cans
got pushed around, and one of the losers hit Frankie.” His voice got hard and angry for a second before he visibly calmed himself. “But it was fine. I’m fine, so can we just go back inside and forget about it?”

  Adam closed a hand over her shoulder, but Miranda barely felt it. She was watching Jess, and keeping an eye on Frankie for good measure.

  Frankie wasn’t looking at Jess anymore. He didn’t look at any of them, even Adam. Wandering a few steps away from the group, Frankie examined the end of his cigarette, then stuck the filter back in his mouth. Talking around the butt, he said, “Yeah, good idea. You lot go on inside, I’ll be along in a mo’.”

  All that while squinting off into the distance away from them, as if they weren’t worth his time or attention.

  Even if Frankie really had gotten that split lip sort of defending her brother—and Miranda was no fool, she knew there was some pertinent information missing from Jess’s story—she couldn’t help it. Frankie Boyd got her back up in the worst possible way.

  Jess was aware of his distant coolness, too, and it seemed to make him unhappy.

  “Frankie,” he said. “Come on.”

  Miranda noticed Adam watching this exchange carefully, his brows drawn together as though he were deciphering some secret code.

  Frankie hollowed his gaunt cheeks around the cigarette, plucked it from his mouth, and blew the gray smoke in a billowing cloud over their heads. Then he angled his head far enough to slide Jess a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Go on with your sister, now, Bit. You were spot-on, everything’s fine here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jess sucked in a breath. His face looked the way it had when he was twelve years old and trying out in-line skates for the first time and realized, too late, that he had no idea how to stop.

  Adam’s worried gaze swung to her, and the concern she saw in his brown eyes made Miranda feel as if she’d hit the same fence post Jess had on those damn skates, a solid thunk of wood straight to the gut.

  Her nebulous fears came swirling back. Sweat sprang to the palms of Miranda’s hands and her heart tripped all over itself trying to catch up to the lightning pace of her brain.

  Time slowed down and white noise filled her ears. Into the silence, Miranda dropped a single, slow question.

  “What were they hassling you about?”

  Jess looked from Frankie to Miranda and his brow cleared. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Frankie himself appeared carved from stone, frozen with the cigarette inches from his mouth. She could feel Adam’s solid warmth behind her, and the immediate sense of safety he provided made her want to lean into him.

  Jess’s quiet response took all choice away from her.

  “The frat assholes took exception to the sight of two guys kissing.” He swallowed visibly, but firmed his chin and went on. “Specifically, me. And Frankie.”

  Miranda’s knees went watery, enough to make her grateful when Adam stepped up a little closer and lent her his silent support. She blinked. What was she supposed to say to that?

  “You and Frankie?” She hated the sound of her own voice, high and thin with something like fear.

  A fear she saw echoed in Jess’s blue eyes—God, their mother’s eyes—but his jaw was set and determined. Miranda watched him nod and saw their father in Jess’s stubborn chin and solemn expression.

  “Miranda. I’m gay.”

  There was a momentary flash of recognition—Yes, I know, I’ve always known—before Miranda throttled it.

  “But you . . . you like girls,” she said stupidly. “I mean, what about that girl at Brandewine? Tara?”

  But Jess was shaking his head. “No. Tara was my friend. Or at least, I thought she was. She was the first person I came out to—and she couldn’t wait to tell the whole rest of the school and all the people we worked with at the restaurant. Pretty much nobody wanted to have anything to do with me after that.”

  “This is why you came home,” Miranda realized, dazed. “Oh, my God, you must have felt so alone. And confused!” Her heart ached with the knowledge of what Jess had gone through, and guilt at not having dug deeper to find out what had prompted his transfer from Brandewine.

  Actually, the guilt ran far deeper than that, but even looking at it sideways made panic start to bloom in her chest, so she shoved it down.

  “I wish I’d told you before,” Jess said. His face was lightening, as if he felt relieved at finally coming clean. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t hold it against me.”

  “Oh, honey,” she choked out. “No, of course not.”

  Pulling away from Adam, she rushed to wrap her arms around her little brother. He was only an inch or two taller than she was, and still so skinny and coltish. Not even done growing yet, and he’d had all this bewildering chaos of emotion happening inside him. And he’d had no one to turn to.

  It had always, always been Miranda’s job to be there for him. She’d failed in the worst possible way—but no more.

  “None of this is your fault,” she said fiercely, not ready to let him go. “You’re only a baby, Jess, how could I blame you?”

  He stiffened in her arms.

  “Miranda—”

  She let him pull away, but kept one hand circling his wrist. She couldn’t bear to lose the connection entirely.

  “It’s okay,” she said soothingly. “We’re just going to go home and talk this out.”

  Jess gazed at her uncertainly for a moment, then his eyes cut to someone behind her. Miranda realized with a start that Adam and Frankie were both still standing there, bearing witness to this incredibly private family moment.

  Moreover, it was Frankie Jess had looked to, as if for permission. And suddenly Miranda knew exactly who was to blame in all of this.

  “How could you?” she hissed at Frankie. “I wasn’t so wrong, after all, was I? Maybe you didn’t hit him yourself, but what you’ve been doing to him is a hell of a lot more damaging than a scratch.”

  “Whoa, Miranda, what?” Jess was shaking his head, but Miranda ignored it. He was a child, he didn’t know what he wanted. But this . . . this man, with his too-tight jeans and too-cool attitude—he’d tricked Jess into believing something that just wasn’t true.

  “He took advantage of you,” Miranda told Jess. “He picked up on your normal, natural teenage confusion and he took advantage.”

  Her voice shook dangerously and she had to press a hand to her eyes for a moment before she could go on. Frankie the Scumbag did not get to see her cry.

  When she looked at him again, however, Frankie the Scumbag was staring at Jess.

  “Bit,” he said hoarsely. “Bit, I—”

  Frankie reached out a hand, and Miranda lost it.

  “Just stop,” she cried. “Don’t talk to him, don’t look at him. And for the sake of all that’s holy, don’t ever, ever touch him again. Oh, my God, I can’t stand to think of your hands on him, I can’t stand to think—”

  “No, you stop it,” Jess said, startling her. His eyes were blazing as he shook free of her restraining grasp. “I’m not listening to this for another second. It’s a lie, everything you’re saying, you couldn’t have it more wrong.”

  He backed away from her and Miranda followed like a puppet on a string.

  “You don’t understand,” she said, making her voice slow and clear so she could explain it to Jess. “This man is older than you, honey. By quite a few years, and they’re important years when you’ll do a lot of growing up. And he had no right”—she shifted her attention to Frankie and emphasized that point again—“no right to make you think he cared about you, or to try to talk you into doing anything you weren’t comfortable with.”

  “No right, is it?” Frankie finally broke in. His spiky hair and weirdly arched eyebrows made him look like a drawing out of a children’s story illustrating the damn Prince of Darkness or something. “Maybe you’re the one who hasn’t the right, to treat your brother like he’s mentally deficient, or a bloody child
.”

  Miranda bristled. “I don’t believe I have to answer to you for how my brother and I conduct our private, personal family affairs. And he is a child, you disgusting pervert!”

  Frankie tilted his head and smirked that horrible smirk at her. “You wouldn’t think he was such an infant if you’d come out here about ten minutes earlier, pet.”

  Jess smacked him on the shoulder, looking mortified, and Adam hopped into the conversation.

  “Whoo kay, Frankie, really not helping. And can I say, we all might need to take a breather here? Seriously, Miranda, deep breath.”

  “I won’t be able to breathe freely again until my brother and I are safely at home, nowhere in the vicinity of this, this, this . . .” She sputtered, unable to come up with anything scathing enough.

  “Vile seducer?” Frankie supplied, sneering. “Shameless debaucher of innocents?”

  “Okay, enough,” Jess said loudly.

  Miranda opened her mouth, only to shut it with a snap when Jess continued, “And that goes for you, too. God. This is so not how I wanted this conversation to go.”

  Forcing a calm she didn’t feel, Miranda held up her hands in surrender.

  “You’re right. We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Let’s go home, and I promise we can sort it all out.”

  She’d have to find out what the age of consent was in New York State. Probably eighteen, which was patently ridiculous, but with any luck it would be twenty-one and she could press full charges against Frankie Boyd.

  Lost in fantasies of court dates and Frankie in an orange jumpsuit, Miranda didn’t immediately notice that Jess wasn’t agreeing. In fact, he’d moved closer to Frankie’s side, shrinking away from Miranda as if she were the one who’d victimized him.

  The sight brought that panic that had been roiling beneath the surface bubbling up into her chest and throat. Her throat closed up, making her voice sound tight and terrified when she said, “Jess?”

  “I don’t want to go home and sort anything out,” he said with a tremor that stabbed at Miranda’s heart. “Because there isn’t anything to sort out. I’m gay. You aren’t going to change that with a conversation. And I’m sorry”—his voice broke a little—“that this is so hard for you. But it’s been hard for me, too.”