by J P Barnaby
It didn’t take long. Patrick entered the kitchen and walked to the cabinet. He pulled out a glass, got some ice, and then drew water from the tap. All the while, Bren didn’t look up. He didn’t want to see the permanent resentment in Patrick’s eyes. Not after last night. He traced the top of the can, all the little intricacies of the pull tab. The opening slit his finger, but he didn’t notice that either. He simply kept tracing.
Patrick dropped into the seat across from him at the table. He picked the seat he’d always been in as a child, just as Bren had. A constant reminder that some things in their lives never changed, would never change. Tragedy had trapped them in that perpetual stage of adolescence forever.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, whatev—”
“No, Bren. I am honestly sorry.”
Bren raised his head and caught Patrick’s gaze. Even around the red haze of a hangover, Bren saw none of the petulance, none of the resentment that normally lived there. He saw sorrow and shame, but no anger.
“Sorry you hate me? Sorry you tried to bust up the store? Sorry you slept with Anthony? What exactly are you sorry for, Patrick?”
“I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you. Yes, I hated taking care of the store, but not for the reason you think. I hated it because it was your passion and someone took that from you.”
“That isn’t true.”
Patrick paused and then gave a slow nod. “Okay, you’re probably right about that. Sometimes I didn’t want to be here, to deal with the responsibility.”
“And now we’re honest.”
“But what I’ve realized is that if you woke up tomorrow and decided you wanted to take the store back, I’d still stay. You’re all I have left, Bren. I’m not leaving again.”
Bren rested against the back of the chair and let out a breath.
“Why did you try to bust up the store?”
This time, it was Patrick’s turn to sigh. He took another long drink of the water, and Bren got the impression he chose his words carefully.
“Danielle broke up with me. I took it worse than I should have.”
Bren hadn’t been expecting that answer. He figured it had to be something to do with being chained to him, being chained to the store. To be honest, he still didn’t discount that thought.
“Fine. What about Anthony? You fucking slept with a kid in the store, Patrick.” The venom that spewed out of him shocked him with its voracity. Anger had turned into rage.
Patrick held out both hands, palms out. “I didn’t touch him. I swear. I was in no shape to drive home, and he put me on his mattress. To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of it. Just him reaching out, being kind.”
“I turned the fucking video off when you were humping him against the wall.”
“What?”
“Like a fucking dog.”
“No. You’re lying.”
The chair clattered to the floor when Bren stood up and moved around to the other end of the long table to move the mouse on the computer. It took him just a few minutes to bring up the video. The mouse caught the brunt of his anger as he hit Play and stood back to watch his brother humping Anthony in the doorframe.
“Oh my God. Why didn’t he say anything?”
“Maybe he liked it.”
“Bren.”
Bren shoved the chair back in the direction of the table and stalked to the refrigerator. Fuck the soda. He grabbed one of the beers off the top shelf and kept walking until he got to the couch. The house remained silent, absolutely fucking silent, as he flopped onto the cushions. He didn’t care if Patrick followed him. All he could see was the way Anthony had stripped off his brother’s jeans and crawled into bed with him like it was nothing.
Of course he hadn’t turned the fucking camera off. He’d watched every minute of it. Anthony had to know Bren would be watching. Just showed how much the kid gave a shit about him.
“Are you angry because he’s seventeen or because he’s a guy?”
Bren didn’t answer. His hands shook as he took another drink of the beer. Goddamn it. It was right on this couch. They’d shared, what? Sex. Pizza. A movie. Since he’d come home from the hospital two years before, it was the first time someone actually wanted to sit and spend time with him. And his brother fucking took it.
His brother took everything.
His toys.
His store.
Now Anthony.
“Go to hell, Patrick.”
“What is your fucking problem, Bren?” Patrick dropped onto the love seat. “I don’t get it. I didn’t touch Anthony like that. He put my drunk ass on that stupid mattress and slept there because he had no other options. Why is this such an issue for you? It’s not like I stole your….” Patrick’s eyes widened, and he sat up perfectly straight as Bren slumped farther down the couch.
“Fuck you.”
“How is that even possible? You guys were only here for an hour or—”
“He came back.”
“What do you mean he came back?”
“He took the bus and came back, a couple times now. I told him I liked movies but couldn’t do the violence anymore. He brought over Harry Potter. We order pizza and hang out. I think we just finished the third one.”
“Oh.”
“He e-mails too.”
“Oh. Oh no.”
“Oh no, what?” Bren tossed the empty bottle somewhere in the direction of the table. It banged off the side and landed on the carpet.
“I didn’t know, Bren. I swear I didn’t. I just… I hooked him up with Sean. I wanted him to have friends here, maybe even a summer fling.”
“Of course you did.” Bren scoffed. “Whatever. He’s probably better off with metrosexual Sean than the angry, broken drunk anyway.”
“I don’t think—”
“Just go, Patrick. I don’t need anyone else to resent me.”
Fifteen
“ARE YOU sure you want to give these to me?”
Anthony stared wide-eyed at the key in his hand. It sat atop a piece of paper with a four-digit code. He didn’t even have a key to his parents’ house because someone was always home, and of course his parents wanted to keep track of his movements. That was why he’d just started crawling in and out of the window.
Patrick grinned. “I told you I’d give you one after your probation was over. You’ve earned it. Plus, I have a feeling you’re going to be out late tonight, so you’ll need it. Where are you guys headed?”
“I don’t know.” Anthony couldn’t tear his eyes away from the key and everything it symbolized. “Sean said something about a beach.” He looked up at Patrick. “Are we near the water?”
“Have you not looked at a map?” Patrick asked with a laugh. “We’re right on Lake Huron. Didn’t you notice that you passed a lake to get here?”
“I didn’t, actually. I just kind of followed the directions. It never occurred to me to find out what might be there.” Anthony closed his eyes for a second and then opened them again slowly. “Jesus, I’m an idiot. I never even thought about what I was doing before I left. Not once.”
“It’s called learning from your mistakes, kiddo. We all do it. Some lessons are just harder than others. He’s probably taking you over to Metropark. They spend a lot of time hanging out there.”
“Yeah, that was it. Is there anything special I need to know?”
“Nope, they’re good guys. Take a sweatshirt. It gets cold on the lakefront at night.”
“Thanks.”
The bell sounded on the front door, and they both glanced up to see Sean come in with Jeff and Chris tagging behind. Chris wandered off down the aisle of mixes, and Jeff went over for beer. Sean bumped Anthony’s arm with his own. Anthony liked the casual mix of board shorts, Keds, and neatly preppy pastel T-shirt he wore. It was nothing Anthony could have pulled off, but he liked the way Sean did.
“Hey, I love that T-shirt.” Sean pulled the hem of it away from Anthony’s skin. “Outbreak Monkey is one of my f
avorite bands.”
“Me too. I like what they’ve been doing since Mackey got out of rehab.”
“His stuff was always intense.”
“Yeah.”
They stood around in awkward silence as Patrick sat behind the register and counted down the day drawer. Kevin had already started stocking the weird cooler, the stuff with wine coolers and imports. Anthony got the impression he just ticked down the minutes until his boss got the hell out of his way.
“Okay, I’m going to run up and get a hoodie. I’ll be back in a minute,” Anthony said to escape the fucked-up new-friend silence. That way, they could talk about him. He took more time than he needed because he also checked his e-mail quickly. Nothing from Jay, nothing from his parents, but always something from Bren.
It’s been a bad day. Want to come over tonight and watch a movie?
Oh damn. Now he wished he hadn’t made plans with Sean. It was the first time Bren had ever asked him to come over. Usually he made innuendos or sometimes forwarded links to YouTube videos he liked, never once had he said “come on over.” With that, Anthony had two choices. He could pretend he hadn’t gotten the e-mail until tomorrow when it would be too late, or he could find his balls and answer it.
He closed the laptop and grabbed the hoodie before he could change his mind.
“SO, THERE’S not much around here. The college is pretty small. But we go out to the beach and just hang out. Sometimes we play beach volleyball if it’s not too crowded. Usually, there’s not a lot of people there after dark. But we have a place that’s pretty remote, so we can do… you know, whatever.”
Sean winked at Anthony, who sat in the front seat of the truck next to him while Jeff and Chris took the back. Anthony didn’t turn around to look, but from the sounds and movements he could see out of the corner of his eye, it seemed as though they were getting kind of handsy back there.
Anthony saw a sign for Metropark, but they kept driving a mile or so down the road until they came to a barely there opening in the trees. Sean parked the truck behind a small cluster and they got out.
“There’s a trail here that leads to the beach,” Sean explained. “This way we don’t have to worry about pesky things like when the park closes.” He laughed and led the way through the trees. Every sound in the brush startled Anthony. He’d seen too many fucking horror movies to be able to make it through peacefully. Any moment, Jason would come out of the lake and murder him with the dull end of an oar. Then, after a few more steps, Michael lurked from behind that goddamned fallen tree off to the right, and he’d have a machete the size of a car. He jumped when Sean put a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Where I’m from, a walk in the woods usually ends up with you on the news,” Anthony admitted, and Sean laughed.
“Same here, most of the time. But we aren’t lost in the woods. We’re moving with purpose.” Sean held his hand out, and Anthony saw a clearing ahead. Oh, thank fuck. The trail changed from dirt-packed leaves and mulchy twigs to sand, and they trudged through it on their way to the open water. Dark and sparkling, the lake went on for miles, overtaking the world before them.
“The fire pit is over here,” Jeff said. “Let’s grab some branches and wood from the trees to burn.”
He and Chris started the hunt, and Anthony joined in, foraging at the edge of the woods, picking up pieces and discarding anything wet or covered in ick. He had no idea, really, what he was looking for. They’d never built fires at home. At least, not on purpose.
“That’s good,” Chris finally announced, and they carried bushels of pieces in their arms about thirty feet onto the beach where a circle of rocks and a few fallen logs waited for them. Footprints and assorted left-behind odds and ends—a flip-flop here, a hoodie there—littered the area around the logs.
They dropped the wood into the pit, and Chris started to arrange it into some meaningful order, at least meaningful to him. Anthony stood off to the side, watching the waves as they crashed into the shoreline. For the first time since he’d landed in Patrick’s lap, he felt at peace.
“It’s kind of overwhelming, huh?” Sean asked from his shoulder as another wave made its way onto the sand.
“The lake? It’s the only thing in my life that isn’t overwhelming right now. In fact, it’s pretty calming here.”
“You did just run away from home. I guess that’s enough to set anyone’s life spinning.”
He didn’t ask why Anthony left; he didn’t push. Anthony appreciated that. He spent another minute watching the water, taking in the serenity of it, and then went back to the circle, where Chris had the branches starting to burn.
“Anthony, welcome to Detroit,” Jeff said and handed him a beer out of the cooler they’d lugged from the truck. He popped the top and took a pull. For a long moment, he tried to remember if he’d ever had a drink just for the sheer enjoyment of it. In the years since he’d started, he’d only ever used the alcohol to block out the unpleasantness of his life.
“Are you guys from Detroit?” he asked, just to have something to talk about.
“I’m from Ferndale,” Jeff said. “It’s like I’m trapped here by some kind of quantum tunneling effect.”
“I’m from Lansing, but my parents moved here because my dad’s job changed about five years ago,” Chris said.
“I’m from Parma, Michigan. It’s about a hundred miles west,” Sean offered. “I moved here when I started college.”
“Wait, you’re from Parma?” Jeff asked, a quirk at the corner of his mouth.
Chris smiled too.
“I don’t understand, what’s wrong with Parma?” Anthony asked.
“That makes him… Parma Sean,” Chris said, causing Jeff to snort beer out of his nose.
“This is why I’m looking for different friends,” Sean confided to Anthony, who laughed.
“Thank you for inviting me out,” Anthony told Sean. Then to try to match the joking tenor of the moment, he added, “I can only read and surf Internet porn so much.” He thought it would make them laugh, but the guys just nodded.
“You a Tube8 man, or XTube?” Jeff asked, and Anthony choked on his beer.
“Uhm, I was kidding. I’m… I….” Anthony sputtered and Jeff laughed.
“I know, I just wanted to see how far you’d take it.”
“I’m a Tube8 man myself,” Chris said, ignoring the banter. “It’s not just thirty-second promos for shit you have to pay for.”
“Right?” Sean piped in. “If I’m gonna go get my rocks off, I don’t want to keep taking my hand off my dick to find another video.”
Anthony’s face burned. He’d never heard anyone, not even Chase, talk so brazenly about sex or porn.
“Anthony, you’re so red that you’re glowing,” Jeff said and put a hand on his arm.
“I just… I’ve never really talked about stuff like this before. I didn’t know anyone besides my brother who was gay. And he never talked about sex. It freaked him out.”
“Sex freaked him out?”
“Yeah, he’d been assaulted. It bothered him to think about it.”
“Damn, I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t fuck or at least rub one out,” Chris admitted. “If I could major in it at college, I’d graduate on the dean’s list.”
“Not even that could get you on the dean’s list. Been there, done that,” Jeff said and Sean laughed.
“Damn, burn!”
Chris glowered in Jeff’s direction. “Says the guy who was bouncing on my dick last night.”
“Oh my God,” Anthony whispered to no one. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to giggle like a teenage girl, but that seemed kind of uncool, so he kept it inside.
“Anyway,” Sean said. “What’s going on with you, Anthony? Patrick said you and Bren got to be friends. Way to go there. No one has penetrated his armor in a long time.”
“He-he, you said ‘penetrated,’” Jeff muttered, and the circle started laughing again.
&n
bsp; “You’re an idiot.” Chris leaned over and biffed him on the head.
“I don’t know,” Anthony said, trying to ignore their laughter but failing as he chuckled through his explanation. “Sometimes he’s a dick, sometimes he’s fun. He just looked like he could use a friend, and I sure as hell could. And… uhm… he givesgoodhead.”
“Wait, what?” Sean bellowed so loudly that a small contingent of birds escaped from the trees into the air.
“No way!” Jeff said, and suddenly all eyes were on Anthony as they waited for his explanation.
“Bren’s gay?” Sean’s eyes were wide.
“Patrick had me go over there to help Bren with a repair guy, and we got bored. He said we should fuck, but the guy got there, so we just did oral. Which was okay because I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that.” Anthony looked away toward the lake again, wishing that its cool watery depths would stop the burning in his cheeks.
“Why weren’t you sure?” Sean asked, his voice gentle.
“I haven’t done that before,” Anthony admitted. He started to stand so he could walk to the water’s edge and escape the conversation, but Sean grabbed his arm.
“Hey man, there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re not going to razz you about it.”
“I just feel stupid.”
“Hey, it’s like douching, man, just let it all out,” Jeff said, and the other two guys groaned.
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I….” Anthony started but lost his nerve, all bravado melting onto the sand in the heat of the fire.
“You… what?” Sean asked.
He stared into the fire, anything to avoid the eyes on him.
“I don’t know what douching means.”
“Oh!” Sean said with a quiet laugh. “That just means cleaning things out if you bottom.”
“How do you…?”
“Depends on the guy, and what you have handy,” Chris supplied. “Some guys use an actual enema kit without the medication stuff. Some guys use a squirt bottle like those old-fashioned ketchup bottles—”