by Aiden Bates
Ryan blew a note across the top of his own beer bottle. It felt good, after so long, inside to be able to put his mouth on a nice, cold glass bottle and drink something cold and hoppy.
Of course, it had felt good to put his mouth on Anthony’s cock, too, but he wasn’t going to think too much about that.
“I appreciate it. I do, believe me. But after everything, I’m still adjusting, you know? I feel like I need space that’s mine. I need space that I control, that I decide who comes into and all that.
“It’s been a long few years, you know? When you’re where I was, you don’t get to decide any of that. And the people who do decide aren’t usually doing it with your best interests at heart, if you know what I mean.”
He rubbed absently at a scar on his left arm. It was hidden by a tattoo, but he knew it was there.
“I hear you.” Jamie nodded slowly. “I won’t pretend I get it. I don’t, and I hope I never do. But I hear you. I’ll respect it. And if half of what I see on TV is true, you probably want the quiet, too.”
“Hell yeah.” Ryan chuckled and put his feet up. Prison was loud. “Watch a lot of prison movies, do you?”
Jamie ducked his head and blushed. He wouldn’t have forgotten that Ryan had been the one to give him his first porn flicks, back when he’d been figuring his body out for the first time. “Er, no. Not to my taste, oddly enough. No, I watched a lot of documentaries.”
“Ah. Well, you know how those things are. They’ll do anything to put butts in front of the screen.”
Ryan waved a hand. He didn’t ask Jamie what was really on his mind, because he was trying to keep a mood of reconciliation going. If Jamie had really wanted to know what prison was like, he could have skipped the documentaries and just shown up. Even once would have been enough.
Bringing up old hurts wouldn’t make them go away. It wasn’t like they could turn back time. Ryan pushed on with his commentary instead.
“The documentaries can’t show you the boredom, you know? They can’t show you just how mind-numbingly boring the place is. People get loud just to give themselves something to do.
“And a lot of the guys on the inside, they’re dealing with stuff in their heads that you and I can’t hope to understand. They’re screaming because they’re in pain, they’re scared, they’re seeing Beelzebub, whatever.”
“I guess.” Jamie squirmed a little. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the buzzer went off and spared them both. The pizza was apparently here.
Ryan ran down to grab it, grateful to be spared having to talk about prison any more than he had to. When he got back, Jamie had thought of a new topic. “So. Which division of Roscoe Industries were you thinking of?”
Ryan opened the pizza box. “The one that doesn’t involve a paycheck signed by Mom or Dad, actually.”
Jamie scoffed. “Oh, come on. Cute. Seriously, though.
“Were you thinking commercial real estate? Maybe construction? You’ve probably got some great management skills for dealing with folks in that industry. Or we’ve got some good openings in the residential real estate side of things. I don’t know if that’s something you were into, but if you are, I could talk to Charlotte.”
Ryan laughed. “Look at you, little brother. Since when are you all gung ho about joining the family fold, anyway? You always said you’d never go to work for the family business, and now here you are trying to recruit me.”
“Sorry, buddy. I’m not cut out for office jobs. I never was, and even if I had been back in the day, I’m sure as hell not now.”
Jamie nudged him with his shoulder and lifted a hot, steaming slice from the box. “Oh, come on. You have to know we’re not going to leave you hanging, bro. We’d never leave a Roscoe hanging. We’ve got tons of jobs just waiting for you. You should really take one of them.”
Ryan pulled his hand back from the pizza. Jamie’s line about never leaving a Roscoe hanging took his appetite far, far away.
They’d left him hanging, sure enough. Hell, Mom would have tied the noose for him. Some days, the only thing that had kept Ryan going was knowing how much his continued existence bothered the family he’d left behind.
He took a deep breath. Saying that out loud wouldn’t do him any favors. He wasn’t going to get anywhere by lashing out. He rested his hands on his thighs and tried to think about something, anything, that brought him peace.
Anthony’s face was the only thing that sprang to mind, so he grabbed it.
“I don’t really need to dip into the Roscoe family money,” he said, once he’d gotten his emotions back under control. “I’ve got what’s left of my inheritance from Grandma, but I’ll find something a little more independent to do with my life. I think that’ll make everyone happier. Don’t you?”
He couldn’t resist a little huff of amusement. “It’s not like Mom wouldn’t hesitate to throw me right out on my ass if I showed up for a job, anyway.”
Jamie opened his mouth to object, but he shut it again. Something twinged inside Ryan’s chest, but he tried to pretend it hadn’t. He didn’t like to admit his family could still hurt him.
“Well,” Jamie said after a moment, “you still have to come to brunch next week.”
Ryan laughed out loud. “What part of throw me right out on my ass escapes you?” Christ, he’d hated Mandatory Sunday Brunch even when he’d been allowed — expected — to show up.
Now that he was cut off and nothing was mandatory anymore, there was no reason under God for him to put himself through that mess.
“It’s brunch, bro. It’s different. It’s important. No one gets to skip brunch, if they’re in town. I’m not sure how you managed to skip it this week.” Jamie’s smile had a watery quality to it. “Come on, you know you have to come.”
“I know Mom will call the police if I show up.”
“No way. No way she will. As long as you’re part of the family, she won’t turn you away from brunch. You’re her son, Ryan. Her firstborn. She’ll let you show up.”
“I don’t even have the right clothes anymore.”
“I’ll have something sent over. Just be there.”
“Ugh. Fine, but if the police show up, it’s on your head.” Ryan’s stomach turned, but he didn’t have anything to bring up.
The fact that his own mother was likely to call the police rather than welcome him home after he’d been in prison for years made him wish they’d killed him on the inside. Fuck, he shouldn’t have stopped in Culvertown. He should have driven the other direction, given this place as wide a berth as possible.
“So.” He forced a bright smile onto his face. “Tell me about Anthony.”
Jamie gave him a sideways look. “Why do you want to know about Anthony?” He took a bite of his pizza, but the wariness never left his eyes. “He’s a good kid.”
“I’m sure. I’m just curious. He was a little out of character for the rest of the crew at your party.” Ryan picked up a piece of pizza and toyed with it.
He wasn’t sure why he was asking about Anthony. It was mostly so he could avoid having to think about family stuff, but there was definitely more to it than that. “Is he seeing anyone?”
Jamie choked on his pizza. “Stay away from Anthony, Ryan.”
Ryan chuckled and pressed his free hand into his chest. “What are you, his knight protector? Is he the damsel in distress?”
Jamie just glared. “I mean it, Ryan. You’re my brother, and I love you, but Anthony’s so far off limits he’s not even on the same planet. He’s not a Roscoe.”
“Well, no, that would just be creepy.” Ryan frowned at his brother.
Jamie snorted. “You know what I mean. He’s an innocent. He’s pure. He’s like this little shining ball of light who just wants to make people happy. He doesn’t deserve to have that sucked out of him.”
“Because that’s what I do.” Ryan looked away. “Right. I get it. No problem.” He put his slice down.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It�
�s just — Tommy used to be such a happy guy, and we’ve seen what happened to him. You know?” Jamie bowed his head.
“Right.” Because Ryan was a dark cloud that sucked the light and life out of everyone.
Jamie didn’t know the truth, of course. No one did, but Ryan had gotten himself into that situation somehow, and yeah, he was the psychic vampire that leached everything good out of everyone. No wonder his family didn’t want to see him anymore.
“I didn’t mean to suggest —”
“It’s cool.” Ryan knew his smile was brittle. His whole being felt brittle.
Their conversation got stilted after that, and Jamie left soon after, but what was Ryan supposed to do? Change the past ten years, twenty, twenty-five?
He paced his apartment like a caged animal for a little while, and then he made himself sit down. He needed to find a way to steady his mind. Jamie hadn’t told him anything he didn’t know already.
Ryan wanted to be a better man, but he was only going to do so by learning to socialize again. He didn’t have any real friends left, but maybe he could reconnect with some of the folks he’d known once before. They’d seemed glad enough to see him at the party, albeit in a fake kind of way.
He’d deleted his old FriendBook profile back before he went to prison. Now he created a new one. He didn’t know who to send requests to, but Jamie would know some folks.
Ryan found his brother’s profile and combed through his friends list. There was Terrence Wilson, Ryan’s old lab partner. He sent him a friend request. He sent one to his old study buddy, Dave, too.
And there, right near the top, was Anthony King. Single, lives in Culvertown, employed in retail, yada yada yada. Ryan’s hand hovered over the friend request button while he stared at the picture of his beautiful boy.
Would Anthony welcome contact, or had he already figured out that Ryan was a waste case?
The door buzzer rang again. Before he could change his mind, Ryan hit the “send friend request” button. Then he got up to go let the latest visitor in.
He didn’t know who he expected to see, since he hadn’t shared his new address with anyone. Certainly, the last person he expected to see was a swaying Tommy Roscoe. His cousin reeked of cheap vodka and cheaper tequila. Christ, the fumes rising from Tommy were an ignition hazard.
“Ryan,” he slurred, and stumbled into the apartment before Ryan could slam the door in his face.
Damn it. Ryan caught him, and then regretted it. He should have let him fall on his face.
Grabbing his cousin by the lapels of his stained denim jacket, he slammed him into the wall. There goes the security deposit. “I asked one thing, when I did what I did. I asked one goddamn thing of you. And you couldn’t do it!”
Tommy was sobbing. He couldn’t stand up, couldn’t reach the ground, and he was sobbing. Snot poured out of his nose, pooling in his mustache, and he was slobbering.
Ryan had been drunk. He’d been hammered. He’d never been this drunk. The stain on Tommy’s jeans told him that it was even worse than he’d thought, too. “I’m ssshhhorry, I’m sssshhorry,” Tommy said, clutching onto Ryan’s shoulders.
His cousin’s pathetic state did little to mollify Ryan’s rage. “We had a deal!” he hissed, getting as close to Tommy’s face as he dared.
“All you had to do was get yourself clean. Otherwise, what was the point? What the fuck was the goddamn point of any of it?”
There had been no point. He saw it when he looked into Tommy’s yellowing eyes. The rage ran out of him then, leaving only grief and despair.
He’d wasted his youth, wasted his life, and squandered his family’s love, all for nothing. He lowered his cousin to the ground with as much gentleness as he had left in him.
“I can’t deal with it,” Tommy muttered. “I tried. I did, but I can’t fucking live with it. I see it every day, every time I close my eyes, if I’m sober.”
Tommy sighed and got a towel from the little bathroom. He put it on the couch, sat Tommy down on top of it, and called for a cab.
When he’d made arrangements, he turned to his cousin. “Go home and sober up, Tommy. We can maybe talk when you know how many of me you’re talking to, okay?”
Tommy sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Ryan tried not to recoil. “I keep seeing her face,” he whined.
Oh, Ryan knew all about that. It had been a horrific sight. “You understand why I can’t be around you when you’re like this, right?”
Tommy threw his arms around Ryan. Ryan’s gorge rose again, and it took everything he had not to recoil. “You should kill me,” he hissed, hot breath a rancid wind against Ryan’s ear. “You should kill me,” he said again.
Ryan’s heart broke for his cousin, even as he held back a scream of impotent rage. His sacrifices really had been for nothing. He’d done what he had so Tommy could have a life, because Tommy’d always had more potential than Ryan had.
But here he was, too drunk to do anything but cry on Ryan’s shoulder and ask to be killed. Nothing had changed, and at this point it was too late for any of it to get any better. “You should’ve killed me then,” Tommy blubbered.
Ryan might have been good at comfort once. Prison had burned all of that away. Now he had to sit and try to figure out how to soothe Tommy’s breaking heart.
He shouldn’t have to sit here and comfort Tommy, not when he’d sacrificed for him and had it thrown back in his face like that, but what else was he supposed to do? He patted Tommy’s back and hoped it didn’t make him puke.
“You can’t think like that, Tommy,” he whispered. “You can only think about how much it’s going to piss your enemies off that you’re still alive, and rub it in their faces.”
If Tommy heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. He just sobbed into Ryan’s shoulder until the cab arrived. Ryan had to help him down the stairs, and sacrifice the towel to the cause besides.
The loss pissed him off, but really, what was one more sacrifice in the greater scheme of things? He gave the driver an extra twenty dollars not to tell anyone where Tommy had been, and headed back up to his apartment.
He knew exactly how well it would go over at the Roscoe family table if they knew Ryan had been in contact with Tommy, after all.
He threw the pizza into the fridge. He’d get a few meals out of it, if he tried to make it stretch. Then he turned back to the computer. He hadn’t meant to leave it on, but he might as well turn it off before he went to bed.
His feed showed one friend request accepted. Anthony King.
Ryan smiled and opened up the Messenger application. Hearing from Anthony made the whole awful night better, and made the decision to stay in Culvertown marginally less terrible.
He stared at the empty messenger app. What in the hell did he have to say to Anthony, anyway? They’d fucked. One night together.
That had been a week ago. What was he supposed to say now? Hell, after everything, maybe he should say sorry.
He rested his fingertips on the keys. Words failed him.
5
Anthony forced himself to keep his eyes away from the clock. Time had never moved faster because Anthony was counting it. Some days were slower than others, but every hour paid the same. That was what his mother told him, and it had proved true every day of Anthony’s working life. If his bosses wanted to pay him to stand there for a few hours, then he would stand there for a few hours.
A customer walked in and Anthony tried to look alive. Today was Tuesday, and not a lot of people wanted to buy cell phones on Tuesdays. Fortunately, he only had to work a six hour shift at the BuyBest on Tuesdays, from two until eight. Someday, he’d like to live a life where he didn’t have to work at BuyBest at all, but it would be a good long time before that happened.
The customer looked the cell phones over quickly, but then the one in her pocket rang and she took off. Oh, well. Maybe the next one would want a nice, sleek, rop of the line model. The kind that got Anthony a sweet commission on top of what
he got paid to stand around and look good.
It was a nice fantasy, anyway.
Anthony’s phone buzzed. He closed his eyes and pulled it out of his pocket. He was hoping for one message in particular, but he didn’t expect it. More than likely, it was his boss from his other job, the one at the shoe store at the other end of the mall, asking him to come in on his day off again.
Please, no. I need the time off. He wouldn’t say no, though. He didn’t dare.
He looked down at his phone. The message was in fact the one he was waiting for. Ryan Roscoe’s face appeared on his screen, a shiny new profile pic. You didn’t have to leave so fast.
Anthony grinned like a fool, a flush of heat rising through his body. Ryan Roscoe had that effect on him. Hell, Ryan Roscoe had that effect on anyone with a pulse.
He had to acknowledge a moment’s worth of doubt, too. Ryan couldn’t have honestly wanted him to stay, could he? Not after everything he’d said, not after the way he’d pushed him away so many times.
Anthony wasn’t here to feel insecure, or at least he wasn’t here to wallow in his insecurities. He’d made his peace with the way things were with him and Ryan. He was allowed to have a little fun with it, though. I guess you should have asked me to stay, then ;)
He shoved his phone back into his pocket as he noticed his boss coming into the room. Nothing put a good mood on ice faster than his boss, Elisa Crooks. Her pale blue eyes showed the window to her cold, dead soul.
“Anthony, the store is dead tonight. Why don’t you go ahead and clock out? We definitely don’t need anyone to stay on this late, and if someone needs a phone, they can always check out through the tablets department.”
“Okay. I’ll see you Thursday, then.” Anthony faked a smile for Elisa, one that faded as soon as her back was turned. He muttered some curses as he closed down his register and brought it toward the back office.
Maybe he was bored as hell, and maybe he didn’t want to be here anymore, but he and his mom also needed the money. Sure, an hour and a half didn’t add up to much in the greater scheme of things, but it added up to something.