Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  At some point the shapes took a form. As sleep pulled him under, Baz surrendered to a drug-soaked dream. All his friends from all his years at Saint Timothy danced to silent music around his bedroom. Keeter, Marius, Sid, Damien, Aaron, Giles—everybody was there. They laughed and ground on one another, and Baz watched.

  A figure formed at the end of his bed. Dark and slight, naked where the others were clothed. It was Elijah. Everyone else in the dream was soft and hazy, moving through a fog, but Elijah was sharp-edged. His body was angular, pale, his skin networked in ugly red scars. He didn’t dance, didn’t laugh, only sat on Baz’s feet, staring.

  It wasn’t until Baz drifted into a deeper plane of his subconscious that he realized Elijah’s real-life body didn’t have any scars. They’d only seemed familiar because he was looking at the mirror image of his own.

  Chapter Five

  Much as Elijah hated to admit it, things got a little better when Aaron, Giles and Mina moved into the White House. They showed up at Pastor and Liz’s place asking him how he was doing, dragged him on trips to the store and walks around campus. They foisted Giles’s old laptop on him, as well as a new, much smarter smartphone piggybacked onto Giles’s family’s plan. They glared at him when he smoked too much, nagged him in text and Snapchat when he didn’t come over to the White House enough, and demanded to know when he’d move in. In return, Elijah made snide remarks, complained they drove him crazy…and didn’t have any more of those weird panic episodes.

  The reason he stayed away from the White House, though, wasn’t because he wanted to cement his role as Aaron and Giles’s personal Grumpy Cat. That honor went entirely to Baz. He was both the reason Elijah stayed away and the reason why when he did show up, he was so surly Giles swatted him and asked what the hell his problem was.

  Which was pretty rich, since Baz made Elijah look like he had a sunny disposition. He spent most of the time in his room, or pacing the kitchen, or sitting in his Tesla in the garage. He slammed pans around before inevitably ordering takeout, or sat for an hour on the couch channel surfing but never landing on anything.

  He never said a single word to Elijah. If he needed someone to drive him over to Marius or Damien in the Cities, he asked Giles or Aaron, or Mina.

  Elijah was about ready to trip him to see if that would get Baz to acknowledge he existed.

  Aaron, damn it all, noticed the weird tension and commented on it.

  “Did something happen with you two?” He dug into a bowl of Cheetos and frowned at Elijah as he munched. “I thought you kind of connected or something at Walter and Kelly’s wedding, but I guess not?”

  Elijah threw a Cheeto at Aaron’s head and picked up the remote.

  Aaron didn’t let it go. “Did you fight or something?”

  Elijah set his jaw and fixed his gaze on RuPaul’s Drag Race. “You’d have to notice someone was alive to fight with them.” He winced at how seventh grade the comment sounded. “Have you been composing? I thought I heard the piano earlier.”

  “Some. Mostly I’ve arranged songs for Salvo and the Ambassadors for the fall. I think I need more coursework under me before I can compose very well.”

  Maybe that was Elijah’s problem. He should look into writing classes. He needed to pick courses for the fall, straight up. “I have to figure out a major. English, I guess.”

  “Sounds smart, with all your stories.”

  “You do know English is reading dead white men, sweetheart, not writing.”

  “I have to take music history to learn how to write music. This could be the same kind of thing.”

  Elijah sat with the idea a minute, trying it out. He hadn’t thought of English except as something easy. The idea it might give him what he wanted was a little more hope than he knew how to handle.

  He was working up the courage to ask Aaron if he’d read any of the Naughty Nate stuff and maybe what he thought about it when a door opened on the second floor. Baz bounded down the stairs, jingling his keys. “Aaron, babe, could you give me a lift into the city? I’ll cab home. You can use the Tesla for whatever you want tonight.”

  Aaron glanced uncertainly between Baz and Elijah. “Um, sure.” He patted his jeans. “I gotta go find my wallet, though.”

  Baz saluted on his way to the kitchen and the garage beyond. “I’ll wait in the car.”

  After Baz disappeared, Aaron glanced awkwardly at Elijah. “You’re…sure nothing’s going on between the two of you?”

  Elijah smiled, sharp and brittle to mask his hurt. “Not anything I was told about.”

  Aaron left it at that, disappearing up the stairs to his own room. Elijah stayed on the couch, gripping the remote so tight it almost cracked.

  God, but he wanted to storm after Baz and ask him what the fuck his problem was, but he’d die before he gave the bastard the satisfaction of a dramatic performance. All he could think about, though, was this was what it was like when he came over to the White House to visit. By the fall, he was supposed to live with this crap full-time. Elijah didn’t know how many more times he could be snubbed by Baz before he’d break.

  Swearing under his breath, he fished his cigarettes out of his backpack and headed out the front door. Usually he smoked behind the garage, but he’d go the long way to avoid His Royal Highness.

  “Should never have fucked him,” he murmured as he cupped a hand around the tip of his cigarette. Pocketing the lighter, he took a deep drag and went around the corner—and ran smack into the center of Baz’s chest.

  “Jesus—” He tried to catch his cigarette, but it tumbled out of his hands and broke in half as it hit the side of the building on the way to the sidewalk. Cheeks burning, pride smarting something fierce, Elijah glared into the fucking sunglasses.

  Baz said nothing, only stared back, unreadable as ever.

  Elijah’s traitorous brain played memories of being touched and teased in the back of the Tesla. Those hurt, but remembering the way Baz had smiled that night slayed him. Yeah, well, he’s not smiling now. And obviously the whole “need to protect you” line was a pile of steaming shit.

  Elijah wanted a killer exit line—seven or eight rose to his tongue, but he couldn’t make any pass his lips. You hurt me kept threatening to spill out instead.

  Baz’s lips flattened into a subtle frown. As one eyebrow tipped delicately above the plastic rim of his glasses, he reached for Elijah.

  When the front door opened and Aaron came out, Elijah ducked around Baz and made a beeline for the rear of the house. He sat on the bench in the garden, clutching his cigarettes and holding his breath as he kept one eye on the door from the garage. It remained shut, and all he heard was the sound of two car doors slamming before the eerily quiet crunch of wheels over gravel as the Tesla drifted silently away.

  Elijah choked down two cigarettes by the time the door did open—but it was Mina who sat beside him, not Baz. She put his head on her shoulder and gently hugged him to her side.

  “I hate him,” Elijah whispered, in a tone belying the truth that he very much did not.

  Mina kissed his hair. “Karen left a half a box of wine in the garage apartment’s mini-kitchen, I have popcorn, and I can swipe Baz’s copy of Howl’s Moving Castle from his room. Want to stay over tonight?”

  Elijah swallowed a stupid, achy feeling over Baz having his favorite movie and nodded. “Yeah. I do.” He snuggled in closer to Mina. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.”

  Aaron didn’t say anything about Elijah as he drove the Tesla out of Campustown, but once they were on Interstate 94, he pounced. “What’s going on with you and Elijah?” Aaron turned down the music and gave every indication he was settling in for a real answer.

  Baz shrugged and averted his gaze out the passenger window. “Nothing.”

  “You don’t ever talk to him. It’s like when he’s in the room, you pretend you can’t see he’s
there. I think it bothers him.”

  Oh, Baz knew it bothered Elijah. Even before their encounter just now. He rubbed his thumb over the carbon-fiber pattern of the Tesla’s trim.

  Aaron wasn’t done. “Are you doing to him what you did to me after we hooked up? Because let me assure you as the one who’s been on the receiving end of the silent treatment, it sucks.”

  Baz shut his eyes. “Sorry.”

  “He’s about seventy times tougher than me, but he’s more sensitive than he lets anyone know. The more caustic he gets, the closer you are to a raw nerve. If you stand still and wait for that to burn out, you usually get to see what he’s hiding, and it’ll break you.”

  Elijah could break Baz without showing him anything. Which was why he’d stayed away. He felt too raw as it was.

  Baz scraped his nail over the trim he’d stroked earlier. “You should tell him he’s better off. I’m an ass, and I’m a ton of work. I should have asked Marius to give you that speech a year ago.”

  “He did. Kind of. Walter took care of the rest.” Aaron switched lanes to pass a minivan. “The thing is, you aren’t actually an asshole. Not all the time. And for the record, I think it’s your version of Elijah’s caustic remarks.”

  Baz slipped two fingers under the bridge of his glasses and applied gentle pressure to ward off the tension headache. “Trust me, kid. Nobody wants to be around my bullshit right now.” He sighed and let his hand fall to his lap. “Which is part of what this command performance is.”

  “Where am I taking you? I mean, I get the hotel address, but why? I figured it was some swanky booty call.”

  Baz’s lips quirked in a half-smile. “No booty. Gloria Barnett Acker has requested the honor of my presence in the Park Suite of the Saint Paul Hotel. Or, in layman’s terms, my mom flew here to read me the riot act.”

  Aaron’s grip on the wheel became white-knuckled, and his shoulders hunched in piano-wire-taut tension. “Are you—okay? Do you want me to come along?”

  Too late Baz remembered Aaron’s intensely negative association with parental summons. “Hey—no. It’s cool. My mom doesn’t do dramatic scenes. The worst thing she’s going to do is make threats about putting conditions on my allowance, which she’ll never follow through with. You have to remember these are the people who bought me a one hundred thousand dollar car—which I can’t drive—because they were soft after I took a slug in the shoulder.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  “Why don’t you come up and meet her? She’ll probably feed you dinner and vow to buy you an instrument. She likes you.”

  “I don’t need her to buy me anything.”

  “Yes, but she needs to give gifts. Her assistant has a zipper pouch of assorted gift cards on hand at all times. Usually iPad minis too, though she’s been giving Fitbits lately. She shows love by showering people with things.”

  The last shards of Aaron’s tension unkinked, and he settled into the driver’s seat. “So your mom’s pretty cool.”

  Baz considered how to answer. “She’s unconventional. She absolutely loves me and would do anything for me. She has her moments of magic and wonder, yes, but she never held me on her lap and snuggled me—she’s not that kind of mom. Nanny Gail was the cuddler. And she was good at it, so I didn’t complain.” He traced the seam between the passenger window and the door. “Mom means well. I definitely couldn’t function without her as my backup.”

  “But she’s still going to ream you out?”

  “Pretty much.”

  A pause, and the tiniest return of tension. “I can stay. Giles and I were going to go to a movie, but he wouldn’t mind if I put it off.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll text you once she’s finished the lecture and let you know I’m okay. And if it turns out I’m not, I’ll call you and you can come pick me up. But I won’t need to call you. This is an old fight. It’s about my reluctance to face the future, and the way I’ve leaned on Marius and Damien instead of letting them move on. Which I’ve already bowed to before she can yell, asking you for a ride instead of calling one of them.”

  “You know I’d drive you anywhere, anytime. Same goes for Giles, and Mina.”

  “I do know. And thanks.”

  “You could ask Elijah too. In fact, you should. He really is a great guy. And—” Aaron flushed. “I read his online writing. Holy crap.”

  Baz had found it too. “He’s good. Wicked way with words, that one.” Wicked mouth and hands as well.

  You had to fuck it up with him, didn’t you?

  Aaron adjusted his grip on the wheel. “What I’m saying is, you shouldn’t freeze him out.”

  Baz held up a hand. “Message received. I’ll stop being a dick.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s not a good idea to set yourself up for failure. But being tolerable might not be a bad goal.”

  Laughing, Baz leaned over and planted a wet kiss on Aaron’s cheek. “If you’d flipped me this kind of shade when we were flirting, I’d probably have asked you to marry me.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t, because I’m going to marry Giles.” He blushed, looking happy and slightly serene. “Not exactly officially yet. We’ve sort of agreed we’ll get engaged later, but we’re not in a hurry. There’s nobody else for me but him.”

  Baz was happy for them. Jealous, but in an abstract way, because he knew this kind of settled happiness was well beyond his reach. It would be nice, but he knew better.

  You could have had a hint of it with Elijah.

  The GPS led them off the interstate and through the streets of downtown Saint Paul to the Saint Paul Hotel. They pulled up under the awning, where Baz passed over the key fob and explained the car start and shut-off to the valet, giving them his mother’s room number before linking his arm in Aaron’s and leading him into the lobby. When Aaron rubbernecked at the opulence, Baz slowed to let his friend get a good look.

  “This is pretty swank,” Aaron declared.

  “Old swank. My mom’s favorite kind.”

  He took them to his mother’s suite, where he rang the buzzer. The door was opened by Erika, the intern his mother’s assistant was managing at the moment. She was just out of undergrad and hoping for a foot in the door at one of his mother’s foundations. Her smile was bright, her expression eager, but Baz could read her terror too. It made him like her. Too many of the interns were overconfident sharks who pissed him off.

  Unfortunately, her naiveté meant she was already toast.

  He smiled back at her. “Hi, Erika. Is my mother in? Stephan texted me and said this would be a good time, but we can go grab a drink in the lobby if it isn’t.”

  “Oh no—absolutely fine.” Her manic evened out as she aimed her beam at Aaron. “Hi. I’m Erika Green, one of Ms. Acker’s assistants.”

  “Aaron Seavers.” He stuck his hand out and shook hers. “Baz’s friend from school. Pleased to meet you.”

  Erika ushered them into the parlor part of the suite and gestured to the sofa and chair. “She’s on the phone in the other room. I’ll let her know you’re here. Can I get either of you anything to drink?”

  Baz talked over Aaron before he could say he didn’t need anything. “Did she wheedle an espresso machine out of them as usual?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Erika was on firm footing now. “Double shot latte? With a little honey?”

  “Well-remembered.” Baz nudged Aaron’s leg. “What can she get you?”

  Aaron had the I don’t want to bother her look about him. “I’ll just have coffee.”

  “Sure.” Erika bustled about with the machine.

  “He wants some cream and my mother’s caramel syrup too,” Baz added, and let Erika do her thing.

  Erika dripped water from behind her ears, and Baz would lay money on Stephan, his mother’s barracuda executive assistant, eating Erika for brunc
h before the month was out. He was shocked she’d lasted this long. He couldn’t save her, but he could give her a few moments of feeling competent.

  Stephan breezed through the French doors from the other part of the suite. “Sebastian. So good to see you. I was surprised I didn’t receive a call to collect you. But now I see you brought a chauffeur more charming than I could ever hope to muster.” Stephan held out a finely manicured hand to Aaron. “Stephan Warner. I’m Ms. Acker’s executive assistant.”

  Aaron blinked under the 800-watt beam from Stephan’s polished expression and tentatively accepted his hand. “Aaron Seavers.”

  “Wonderful to meet you. I trust you’re settling into the house well enough?”

  Aaron cast a confused glance at Baz, How does he know me? written all over his face.

  Baz shut his eyes in a long blink so he could stay the urge to roll them. “He’s fine. I brought him up to meet Mom, but he needs to get back. As I understand it, he and his boyfriend have a date.”

  “Absolutely. Gloria is finishing up a quick conference. Shouldn’t be but another few minutes.”

  “Here’s your coffee.” Erika placed a delicate cup and saucer in front of Baz and another in front of Aaron, and glanced around hopefully.

  “It looks amazing. Thank you,” Baz said.

  “Yes, thank you.” Looking overwhelmed, Aaron picked up the cup—sans saucer—and held it like a shield. Baz wondered if he should maneuver him out the door and let him off the hook. If this was his reaction to Stephan, he probably wasn’t ready for Gloria.

  “Erika, I haven’t received your report yet, and I asked you for it several hours ago.”

  Erika and Aaron both snapped their spines straighter at the tone in Stephan’s voice. Erika cowed as well. “Sorry, sir. I was prepping notes for Ms. Acker’s conference call.”

  “Now that’s done, and you’re playing barista. If you want to work at Starbucks, this can be arranged.”

  Erika murmured an apology, Stephan revealed the shallow limits of his soul, and Aaron looked so far beyond uncomfortable Baz was working up an exit strategy, when the French doors opened and Gloria Barnett Acker swept into the room.