by A. M. Arthur
He refused to look at himself in the mirror while he did his business and washed his face with cold water. He’d had emotional hangovers before, but this one was fighting for the record, and he still couldn’t make any sense out of the events of the previous night-slash-morning. All he really understood was that he needed to see Will.
Someone knocked. “Taz, man?” Brendan. “You okay?”
No, I’m not okay. Nothing is okay.
“Be out in a sec,” he said instead.
“Romy’s makin’ French toast, if you want some.”
“Thanks.”
The floorboards creaked, indicating Brendan was moving away. Taz took another moment to collect himself, then left the safety of the bathroom for the kitchen. The clock on the microwave startled him. It was after ten o’clock.
“Morning,” Romy said from the stove, where he was flipping bread in a sizzling pan.
“Hey.” Taz couldn’t muster up much energy for his reply, or to pretend he was all right. “Sorry again about dragging you guys out of bed last night.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Romy glanced over his shoulder. “It’s what friends are for, right?”
Taz nodded as he glanced around the kitchen in search of caffeine in cola form.
“We don’t drink coffee,” Brendan said, entering the kitchen from the dining room side. “But we gotta French press in the cabinet and a sack of grounds if you want some.”
He didn’t want to admit he had no idea what a French press was, or how to use it. “It’s okay, I don’t drink it much. Mostly I drink soda.”
“Ezra bought the French press for us as a housewarming gift,” Romy said. “He’s a huge coffee snob, if you couldn’t tell by what he sells at Half-Dozen. He knew we’d never use a drip machine, so we have the press in case of emergencies. Please, sit. We have orange juice or sweet tea.”
“Um, tea, please.” That had a little bit of caffeine in it.
Brendan poured him a glass while Romy finished plating the French toast. Taz took a minute to check his phone, which was nearly dead. No messages. No texts. Will had to be awake by now. What if he’d seen the news on television? Shit, what if he found out from someone other than Taz himself?
“You guys mind if I, uh...?” He held up his phone.
“No, go for it,” Romy said.
Taz went into the living room while the line rang. And rang. And went to voice mail. “Will? I’m coming to see you this morning. We need to talk.” He sent the same message via text, desperate to talk to his boyfriend.
A folded newspaper lay on the coffee table, half its headline visible. Taz grabbed it, then sat down hard on the sofa. For a moment the paper grayed out, and he blinked hard to bring it back into focus. On the front page of the city paper, above the fold, was Peter Callahan’s mug shot.
More than any conversation he’d had the previous night, seeing the arrest in print and on the front page made it real with a crystal clarity that horrified him. His father had really, truly done those things. He’d participated in the sale of illegal narcotics. He’d murdered a man.
Taz stared at the paper, his stomach sour and his insides shaking. He’d never be able to look Will in the eye again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Will couldn’t find his fucking phone.
After getting himself under control, he’d allowed Jennifer to coax him into a small bowl of cereal and a glass of juice. The same calm, patient manner she’d used time and again those first few months to get him to do something as simple as eat a single scrambled egg. Now older and wiser, he understood the need to eat something to keep his energy up so he could figure out what he was feeling about all of this.
Abandoned, in a way, because he needed Taz and Taz wasn’t there.
And increasingly frustrated, because he couldn’t find his fucking phone.
He’d torn his room apart twice, which hadn’t taken long because his room was small and he didn’t have much stuff. He’d searched the living room, too, even though he remembered having it when he left Romy and Brendan’s the night before. He hadn’t gotten out of—The taxi. He must have left it in the taxi.
And no one from the cab company had turned it in. Fuckers.
Gloria called his number to be sure it wasn’t in the house. No one heard anything, and no one picked up on the other end of the line. It was a cheap phone, but it was his only tie to Taz.
Except it wasn’t. Will tore ass back upstairs to his bedroom, booted up his laptop and logged into their favorite chat room. Taz wasn’t online, but he messaged him anyway: I lost my phone. Please come over. Or message me here. Please. I need you.
He needed Taz so badly. He needed to hug him. To be hugged by him. To ask so many questions and look into Taz’s eyes when he answered. He had to know for sure that Taz hadn’t known about his father’s other career. That their relationship wasn’t based on a lie, or on Peter using Taz to keep an eye on him. He had to hear those things from Taz. His heart wouldn’t survive anything else.
The floor in the hallway creaked. Will stared out the window, hoping whoever it was went to their room and left him alone. Instead, somebody knocked on his shut door. He ignored them.
A second knock. “Will?”
Taz.
He shot off the bed and yanked his door open, heart pounding in his ears. Taz was a rumpled wreck, wearing the same clothes as the day before, but he was there. Standing in front of him. Will fell against Taz’s heaving chest, and he nearly sobbed at the warm comfort of Taz’s arms cinching around his back. Holding him close.
“I’m so sorry,” Taz whispered, over and over while they held each other. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
Taz started shaking, so Will pulled him over to the bed so they could sit. He tried to figure out how to arrange them so he could hold Taz better, but Taz seemed to need to be the one doing the comforting. They also needed to talk about this, but Will couldn’t find the words to begin.
“I lost my phone somewhere,” he said. “I think I left it in the taxi last night.”
Taz didn’t respond other than to release a deep breath.
“I saw it in the paper this morning.” Will didn’t have to clarify what he’d seen, because Taz’s entire body flinched. “Freaked out so badly they called Jennifer, my former foster mom, to calm me down.”
“Fuck.”
Will’s throat closed up. “I hate asking this, Taz. I hate it, but—”
“I didn’t know.” Taz untangled them so he could look Will in the eyes. Taz’s green eyes were shiny and red and full of so much raw emotion that Will’s sparked with tears. “I didn’t know he was into drug dealing. I didn’t know he knew about your past this whole time, I swear I didn’t.”
A ball of worry that had held Will’s heart hostage since he’d first read the paper burst free and flew away.
“There was one thing I knew,” Taz said. “I should have mentioned it when it happened, but I was scared of what it could potentially imply, so I ignored it. Played it off. I didn’t let the pieces get too close to each other, because I didn’t want to believe my dad was anything other than who he said he was.”
Will hated the way all of that sounded, but he forced himself to say, “Tell me.”
“The morning of the benefit back in July? Detective Morrell came to see me.”
“He what?” Will tore away from their embrace and stood, staring down at Taz. His brain raced with too many possibilities and the shock of hearing Taz had kept that from him all this time. “Why?”
“To ask me about Peter. He said he was a person of interest, but not for what. Mostly he asked what Peter did for a living, who he was dating, all surface stuff. Then he told me Peter had been in prison once before.”
Will blinked hard at that tidbit. “He was?”
“You knew your dad had been in prison, and you were questioned by the same detective who’s overseeing my case, but you didn’t tell me any of it?” Will didn’t know whether to scream or cry. Another damning piece of conversation came back to him. “Peter knew who I was when we met by his car?”
Taz nodded, his chin trembling. He was trying so hard not to cry, and Will wanted to make it better somehow, but he was too fucking confused. “He knew,” Taz said. “He admitted it to me last night.”
Will startled so badly his elbow hit the wall. Fire raced down his forearm, and he bit back a sharp yelp. “You talked to him?”
“Yeah. Screamed at him a little bit, too.”
“You went to the police station?”
“Had to. Had to give a statement.”
Will took in Taz’s slept-in clothes and sallow skin. “What happened last night after the cab dropped you off?”
Taz wilted a bit more. “A guy who worked for the same boss as my dad tried to kidnap me at gunpoint.”
“Excuse me?” Will hadn’t heard him correctly, that was all. His stressed-out brain had communicated the wrong words. “Can you back that up, please, and try again?”
“Let me try from the beginning, okay?” Taz offered him a watery smile that came off more like grimace. “Back in July when Peter realized who you were, and saw how close we were getting, he killed Christopher Mayes to protect both of us. He was afraid his boss would order you killed to protect Mayes, or might try to use me against Peter. His boss was pissed, because Peter acted alone, so Peter was sent to California, supposedly until things died down here.”
“Supposedly?”
“On Friday morning, someone was sent to kill Peter, but he failed. Peter was worried I’d become a target, so he came back and turned himself in to the police the same day. The cops put a tail on me, and they stopped the guy last night before he got me too far. That’s when Morrell showed up and told me what Peter had done. I spent most of the night at the police station trying to understand all of this. Terrified you’d hate me for what my dad did.”
“I don’t hate you.” Confused as he was, Will knew that one thing to be true. Taz had gone through hell last night, and Will hated that he’d been alone throughout the ordeal. Confronting the awful truth about his father while Will watched food blog videos.
“You’re upset with me, though,” Taz said. “I mean, you have every right to be. I kept things from you, things that ended up being pretty huge, and I’m so sorry for that. Peter was my whole world for two years. He saved me, and I didn’t want to believe anything bad about him. Last week, too, I refused to go to the morgue with you because I was scared Morrell would see us together and say something to you about Peter. I needed Peter to stay my hero.”
Taz’s refusal to accompany Will to ID Mayes’s body made a lot more sense, and it reminded Will of his own reaction—and the need to talk it out with Taz.
“But Peter used me, too,” Taz continued. “Conditioned me to depend on him for everything. Urged me to remain isolated and alone.”
“But you don’t need him. You’re strong enough to stand on your own two feet.”
“Because of you.” A single tear slid down Taz’s left cheek. “I’ll always treasure that gift.”
“We’re both stronger together than apart. You give me the strength to stand, too, Taz, so no more secrets. No more keeping things hidden.”
“I don’t have any other secrets, I promise. I should have confronted Peter sooner about my concerns, and I didn’t, and I’ll always be sorry for that.”
“Good.” Will inhaled a long breath, then let it out. “I have a secret.”
Taz tilted his head. “You do?”
“Thursday I acted like I was okay with you not going with me to the morgue, but I wasn’t.” Will sat next to him, relieved when Taz let him hold his hands. “I was angry and pretended not to be, and I took that anger out on you when I fucked you the way I did, and I’m so sorry. What I did was not okay, and it’s bothered me ever since, but we haven’t been able to talk about it.”
Taz released one of his hands to cup Will’s cheek. “You didn’t hurt me. I think I let you take what you wanted because I felt lousy about my reasons for not going with you. For basically lying to your face about it.”
“Still. I never wanted to use sex against you, Taz, and I never should have taken you to bed angry. Putting you on your knees like that was mean and degrading, and it made me no better than those men—”
“Stop.” Taz put a silencing finger over his lips. “Don’t you ever compare yourself to those men. Not ever. What you did wasn’t anywhere close. Was it a healthy way to express yourself? No. Was it assault? No. Not even a little bit. I consented, okay?”
Another piece of that stifling fear broke free from Will’s heart, and he sagged against Taz’s chest. Relief filled him to bursting, and he let it out in a soft sob. No tears, just the sound, releasing a great pressure from his chest. Taz hugged him tight, and it felt amazing now that there were no more barriers between them. No more secrets. No more unspoken fears. Despite being fully clothed, they’d never been more naked to each other.
“I love you,” Will said.
“I love you, too. So much.”
“Are we going to get through this?”
“Definitely.” Taz kissed the top of his head. “Do you forgive me for keeping things from you?”
“Yes. Forgive me for Thursday?”
“Of course.”
Will let out a long, cleansing breath that bled the last of his tension away. He inhaled Taz’s warm, familiar scent, a bit sharper with the faintest hint of cinnamon. “Did you come here straight from the police station? You must be exhausted.”
“I didn’t. They were done with me around four o’clock, I think. It wasn’t safe to go home, and I didn’t want to disturb you guys here, so I called Brendan for a ride. They let me crash on their couch for a few hours.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s nice to have friends, you know?”
Will did know. “That was super chill of them.”
“Yeah. They fed me breakfast and everything, but once I realized what Peter did was in the newspaper, I had to get over here and see you. Especially since you didn’t answer your phone, and I know why now, but still.”
“How long can you not go home?”
“I don’t know. I mean, Morrell didn’t tell me I couldn’t go back to my place, he mostly made it sound like it might not be safe. Peter has obviously made enemies.”
And because of my stupid fucking issues, I don’t have my own place for Taz to crash with me.
“Romy already offered to let me stay at their place for a few nights,” Taz continued. “He also offered me guest rooms with his other friends, if I didn’t want their couch. He said Ezra once gave him a place to stay when he was at his lowest point, and he’d pay it forward. I don’t want to put any of them out, but I don’t know how I feel about going back to that apartment. Peter found it for me, and he paid the first six months’ rent on it, plus the deposit.”
“I get it.” He didn’t need to explain to Will why that apartment felt tainted now, knowing where Peter’s money had come from. “I wish you could stay here with me.” And until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to him that Taz was upstairs, in his bedroom with the door mostly shut.
Gloria was letting them break the rules.
“The good news is, my lease runs out at the end of October, and I haven’t signed the new agreement yet,” Taz said. “It’s due in a few days, but I’m not going to stay. I’d rather the hassle of finding a new place than staying there another year.”
“That sounds like a good
plan. Can I help you apartment hunt? I mean, I’ll be spending quite a lot of time there, so I need to approve the location and the floor plan.”
Taz chuckled. “Damn right you’ll be spending a lot of time there. All your time, if I had my way.”
Will’s heart turned over at the intent in those words, but he didn’t dare to hope—nah, fuck hope. He reached for it, because he wanted it. “Maybe I should just move in with you in October, then.”
“Maybe you should.” Taz pulled out of their hug to look Will in the eyes, smiling so broadly that Will couldn’t help smiling, too. “Let’s get an apartment together. Are you comfortable doing that?”
“I think so. I definitely need to talk it out with Dr. Taggert at our next session.” He was apparently recently engaged, and Will needed to remember to congratulate him on Wednesday. “I moved in here because I couldn’t take care of myself, but I’m learning how to do that. I’m taking control of my anxiety, instead of allowing it to control me. I’ll never be normal, but I can do normal things like live with my boyfriend. I want to.”
“And we’ve still got a little less than two months to work out the details. No blindly rushing into living together. This will be new for both of us, so we need to ease into the idea.”
“Agreed.” Will wanted it more than anything else in the world, but he’d never had a boyfriend before, much less lived with his romantic partner. He’d never had a place of his own to nest in with the man he loved.
Sometimes nineteen felt too young to be so certain of his future, but Will couldn’t imagine one without Taz in it. And he didn’t want to. He wanted Taz, and Taz wanted him. All of him. Exactly as he was.
Will touched the left side of Taz’s face and grinned. “I see you.”
Taz smiled back. “I see you, too.”
Epilogue
“...happy birthday, dear Will...happy birthday to you!”
The chorus of voices broke out into delighted cheers. Will ignored them, intent on the twenty lit candles on his birthday cake. He had to get them all in one gust. His birthday wish was too important to blow it.