“Do you think he’d…?” he asked, and I nodded solemnly because I thought Steven would absolutely follow through on his promise. Alex fidgeted, playing with one of the cheap silver rings on his hand. He watched it turn around his finger for a minute before he looked back up at me. I didn’t know if he felt uncomfortable because he was frightened for me, or if something had happened before I’d gotten to the studio. His nervous energy started to make me edgy.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, and he shook his head, his gaze still fixed on his hands.
“They want you up in the green room,” he informed me, and I looked at my watch. I must have been in the first shoot because we hadn’t been late getting to the studio.
“Oh, okay. Thanks, man,” I said and put my hand on his shoulder as I passed. A couple of guys sat in the living room watching a movie. Noticing that Brian wasn’t one of them, I let out a sigh of relief. Jogging up the stairs, I got to the second floor and saw that the door to the green room was open, so I walked in.
Brian was sitting alone on the bed.
“My shoot is with you today?” I asked, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples with the tips of my fingers. They usually didn’t have guys work together more than once or twice and certainly never in a row. I couldn’t work with him again so soon; I just couldn’t. Being in the same room with him, seeing him, hurt me enough.
“No,” he said quietly and got up off the bed. At first, I thought he wanted to touch me, but he walked past me, closed, and locked the door.
“Brian, I don’t know what you have in mind, but we can’t do this,” I told him and heard the panic in my voice. If Steven showed up, if he found us….
Brian held up his cell phone, shook it in midair, and then set it on the bedside table.
“Alex and Mike are watching for O’Dell. They’ll text me if he shows up. We chose the green room because it’s got that walk-through bathroom into the blue room. If he comes, you can go into the bathroom, wash your hands, and come out. He doesn’t have to know,” Brian told me and sat back down on the bed. I felt trapped. I didn’t want to hurt Brian by walking out when he’d obviously planned things out to talk to me, but I couldn’t let Steven catch me in here with him. Any of the other guys might tell Steven what he wanted to know; few of them would stand up against him for us.
“This is not a good idea,” I said quietly and sat down on the bed about a foot from where Brian sat.
“We won’t do anything but talk. Mike didn’t think it was a good idea for the other guys to hear what we were talking about.” He turned on the bed to face me, pulling one leg up to be more comfortable. I matched his position and remembered it was the way we had always sat on my bed to talk back home.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked cautiously. “I can’t get into any kind of relationship with you, Brian. He will kill you, and then he’ll kill me, and I don’t mean that in some abstract way. I mean he will take your life. I can’t let that happen.”
“I am not afraid of Steven O’Dell,” he said, and the conviction in his voice surprised me. Brian never had that kind of confidence back in Alabama. Despite the danger, and despite that my instincts were screaming for me to get out of the room, there were so many things I wanted to know. So I stayed.
“Brian, he’s dangerous,” I said, trying to make him understand.
“So am I,” he said with a smirk. I couldn’t even imagine what that meant.
“What?”
“I’m dangerous too,” he said and then smiled. So many things about Brian were exactly as I remembered: his smile, his eyes, the way he ran his hand through his hair. So many things were new: his muscled body, his confidence, his conviction.
“Okay, what does that mean?”
“Before I came to San Diego, I had a job as a karate instructor. I’m almost a brown belt, which is just one belt below the black. I can hold my own in a fight, Jamie.”
“I’m not talking about a fight! I’m talking about him blowing your brains out. Karate isn’t going to be much help against a gun,” I said, losing all patience. The fear echoed in every word I spoke. Brian reached over and took my hand.
“I love you, and even if you didn’t love me, I wouldn’t leave you with him. I promise you, I will get you away from him, and we’ll go someplace where we’re both safe,” he told me quietly, and I didn’t have the heart to argue with him. Instead, I looked down at our entwined hands.
“I love you too, Brian,” I whispered. “It seems like I’ve loved you my whole life.”
“Me, too,” he said and pulled me into his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder, and he held me. Questions chased each other around my brain, and before I could decide what to ask first, one bubbled out.
“How did you learn karate?”
“I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine,” he promised, and I nodded. It would all have to come out eventually, and I really wanted to know all the new things about my Brian. The resistance I’d been trying to keep up since I saw him for the first time a couple of weeks ago crumbled. As hard as I pushed him away, he would just come back to me twice as strong. He’d given up his whole life in Alabama just for the chance at finding me. He would never ever give up. Too tired to make him try, I had to think of another way to keep him safe.
“Emma saw you kiss me on the lawn the day you left for California. She really thought that you guys were going to get married and have perfect little Bible-beating babies. Her brother Brad didn’t like that the fags had lied to his sister, so he and a couple of friends… they… put me in the hospital.”
I looked up at him, startled. That explained the scars on his leg and side. Goddammit, that was my fault too. If I hadn’t dated Emma, if I hadn’t lied to her, they wouldn’t have hurt Brian. Guilt turned my stomach, and I touched his arm before I could stop myself.
“Anyway, my parents talked to Coach Williams; remember him?” he asked, and I nodded. Of course I did, the gym teacher slash Marine who thought we were going to be attacked any time. “He has a dojo, and he gave me private lessons and then asked me to help him teach.” Something occurred to me as he half shrugged. Brian had never called Richard and Carolyn his “parents”; he always called them “Richard and Carolyn” or his “foster parents.”
“Your parents?” I asked, and his smile lit up his face.
“My turn to ask you a question,” he said with a smirk, and I grinned. The carefree feeling his smile inspired in me was completely foreign in my new San Diego life, so I clung to it like a child with a favorite blanket. Just like that blanket, it was warm and comforting.
“Okay, your turn,” I replied as I leaned over a few inches to kiss his cheek. Brian looked at me for several minutes, trying either to phrase his question or decide on one.
“Where did you go when you left the Sunshine Center?” Brian asked carefully. The question he really wanted to ask, hidden behind the more harmless one, was how I had ended up the drugged-out slut with Steven O’Dell. It wasn’t a story I looked forward to telling, though I knew I would have to eventually. It disgusted me, how easily manipulated I’d been.
“I didn’t really go anywhere. I’d talked a delivery driver into giving me a ride into San Diego, and then I spent the next three days wandering around trying to figure out what to do. The second day, after I’d stayed awake the whole night because I was too afraid to sleep, I called my parents.” The sharp edge to my voice made him kiss my forehead and pull me a little closer. “I was scared, so I called my mom. She told me that she didn’t want me to come home.” Actually, she had told me that her son was dead and for me not to call again. My father hadn’t even bothered to come to the center when she left me there. He couldn’t even look at me.
I wondered how proud they’d be of where my life had gone.
“I went to your dad’s office to see him when I first got here. Jamie, he—” he started, but I pulled away quickly and cut him off.
“I don’t want to talk about my parents, Brian… ever! And don�
�t you ever tell them where I am!” I spat and started to get up off the bed. My goddamn parents. They started all the crap that had happened to me over the last two years. I could be in college, happy with Brian, instead of screwing random guys and getting my head kicked in. If I never saw them again, I’d be perfectly fine with that.
“Okay, okay… Jamie, we won’t talk about them,” Brian said quickly as he pulled me back down onto the bed. He held me gingerly, like a bomb that could go off and incinerate his helping hand. When I started to calm, he whispered into my hair, “Why didn’t you go to a shelter?”
“My turn to ask a question,” I reminded him. I felt him sigh, and his soft, warm breath tickled my hair before he nuzzled in closer.
“I know. Did you still want to know about my parents?” he murmured, and I nodded. He explained that he had been taken away from Richard and Carolyn after Emma’s parents had called the state. My heart broke for him as he glossed over the details of the investigation, and his face flushed when he mentioned an exam they did at the hospital. “When they came to get me from Hudson House, they asked if they could adopt me. So, Richard and Carolyn are now really my parents.” I could hear the smile and pride in his voice as he said it, and for the smallest instant, I envied him. Even after finding out about Brian’s homosexuality, they still wanted him.
Knowing my parents didn’t want me made me feel empty and alone.
I didn’t want to feel like that, not with Brian. Lifting my head from his shoulder, I pushed him back to rest against the pillows. Being with Brian was as easy as falling back into his arms. If it weren’t so dangerous, I’d never leave. Our legs entwined as our bodies pressed against each other, hips, chests, lips, in a kiss more about comfort than sex. His fingers stroked the back of my short hair, and I felt him whisper against my cheek.
“Why did you cut your hair, Jamie?”
I kissed him again to keep from answering. He didn’t need to know all the ugliness in my life. Knowing everything would just make him more determined to save me, and he couldn’t. But I would take our stolen moments together, as selfish as they were, and remember them when I needed to feel his love fill me.
The cell phone on the table chirped. That single, high-pitched noise threw Brian into action. He kissed me quickly and then jumped off the bed.
“It’s Mike. You need to go. I’m going to unlock the door and go in the closet in case he looks in here,” Brian said and pushed me toward the small bathroom. “I love you, Jamie, more than anything.” I nodded as I scrambled for the bathroom and wished I could tell him so much more. My pulse raced, and I could hear Steven pounding up the stairs to find me. I heard a small click from the other room and guessed that either Steven had looked in the room or Brian had closed the closet door. Either way, I turned on the water, washed my hands, and then took a few drinks from the faucet. There didn’t seem to be a trace of Brian on me, but I couldn’t take any chances.
The bathroom had no towel hanging from the rack, so I wiped my hands on my jeans and took a deep breath. When I opened the door and stepped into the hall, I nearly ran into Steven.
“Hey, babe,” he said, and I was relieved to see that he appeared relaxed and happy. “Did you do your scene yet?”
“No, I’m still waiting,” I replied and waited for him to head back downstairs. I didn’t want him to think I was in a hurry to get out of the hallway, though I hoped Brian waited for a while before coming out.
“Hey, Dylan.” I looked around Steven to see Mike coming up the stairs. He nodded to Steven as he walked past us and into the bathroom. I heard him lock the door behind him, and finally Steven turned for the stairs.
His heavy boots thudded down the first two stairs, and I felt like I could breathe again.
“OKAY, Dylan, we’ve had some requests for you to top in a scene,” Nick said two hours later as I stood waiting for instructions in the blue room. I looked over at him in surprise. I’d been working with Hartley for months, and all my scenes had been bottoming scenes. Steven said that happened because I looked so young, and I knew he was probably right. I’d turned nineteen, months before, but I still looked sixteen. They’d have to pair me up with someone who looked as young as I did. God, I bet it would be Brian.
“Jesse is going to bottom for you. He’s just getting ready in the bathroom,” he continued, answering my curious expression. I couldn’t really be pleased with nailing one of Brian’s close friends all afternoon, but I just had to be thankful it wasn’t Brian.
“Okay,” I said and moved over to sit on the bed and wait.
“You have topped before, right?” Nick asked with one brow raised. I glanced around and saw the other guys were watching me. A blush heated my face, and I cleared my throat before answering.
“Yeah, I’ve topped,” I replied. I’d done it once, when Brian and I made love, and I’d been terrified the entire time. I wouldn’t admit that to Nick or to any of the other guys in the room.
“Great…. And here comes Jesse, so we can get started,” he said as the bathroom door opened and the guy who had introduced himself to me as “Emilio” wandered into the room. If he was as nervous or uncomfortable as I felt, Emilio didn’t show it. He simply walked over to the bed and sat down next to me.
Crawling onto the bed on my knees, I watched as Emilio did the same. Both of us wore loose jeans and tight T-shirts but were barefoot. We faced each other, knelt at the center of the bed, and waited. When the cameras were ready, Nick gave us the okay to begin, and before I could breathe or even think, Emilio’s mouth covered mine. Closing my eyes, I felt his hands on either side of my neck, his thumbs on my cheeks. It felt different from the other guys I’d been with since starting with Hartley. His kiss was slow and sensual rather than being rushed or forced. My arms went around his thin shoulders as the kiss deepened, and, without having to think up a fantasy or bring up a memory, my body started to show interest in the way his lips and mouth moved.
“YOU okay, baby?” Emilio asked quietly afterward, and I had to think about my answer. No, I wasn’t okay. Pain and guilt caused my stomach to lurch, and I felt sick. The high from the pills Steven had given me before the shoot had worn off, and I wanted another one just so I didn’t have to feel. If I wasn’t careful, I’d turn into one of those addicts I’d seen on the street, and then no one would have a use for me anymore. Being on the streets terrified me even more than Steven did. Watching George being beaten to death, seeing the life leave his eyes while his blood pooled on the ground… I couldn’t go back to that.
“No,” I replied but didn’t elaborate. He nodded and wrapped his arms around me in a tight, comforting, almost awkward hug.
“Brian loves you more than anything, Jamie,” he whispered. “We’re all going to help you. Please don’t give up hope.” The sincerity and concern in his voice almost made me hope that what he said could be true. Then I thought about Steven’s voice as he told me he would kill anyone who tried to take me away. I felt a ghost of the pain from his violent penetration; that brutal sex was his way of reminding me that he owned me.
“I can’t give up what I’ve never had,” I told him, unsurprised that my voice sounded so defeated. Rolling off the bed, I dressed so I could find Steven before he came looking for me.
Twenty
“OKAY, it’s your turn…,” I told Brian as we sat on the couch in the blue room, hidden away from the rest of the guys. Since Nick had decided to shoot on Friday, Steven was at work, but Emilio and Alex were keeping an eye out anyway. Brian had just finished telling me about his two-day bus ride to San Diego. I still couldn’t believe that he had hopped on the bus just one day after receiving my letter. The whole point of sending it was so that he would move on with his life, not chase after me.
Resisting his sweet gestures when he was trying so hard turned out to be impossible, and being friends with Brian made me feel almost human again. I liked finding out things about his life I’d missed in the last two years. Back in Alabama, when we’d still had a fut
ure together, I had known everything about his life. Since we’d found each other again, it felt like he’d grown into a different person. Deep inside, he was still my Brian, but so many things about him had changed. He reached out and put his hand on my knee. The comfort I got from that simple touch surprised me, and I wrapped my fingers around his. Friends could be affectionate; I saw that with Alex all the time.
“How did you end up with him?” he asked quietly, and I knew he meant Steven. We had finally come to that one question I was most ashamed to answer. He’d already asked me about the drugs. I’d explained to him that sometimes it was different drugs, but I really only did them when I was shooting or when Steven wanted to party. I didn’t use them all the time, even if they did make things easier. When I was high, it was easier to escape the horror of my life. I didn’t want to tell Brian how easily I had been manipulated or about the stupid choices I’d made. But he’d been honest with me, and I owed him the same.
“About three days after I left the center, after I’d talked to my mom and knew I had nowhere to go, I met this guy on the street named George. He was an older guy who had been on the street a long time, and while he didn’t exactly take care of me, he taught me how to survive. During the days, we’d scavenge the neighborhood for food, and at night, we’d find a bridge or alley for shelter. For weeks, he taught me how to steal food from outdoor cafés before they bussed the tables and how to hide when bangers came around to hassle us. George was a real good guy, ex-army. Anyway, one night we were coming up an alley behind a deli that always threw out their extra food around midnight when we heard a noise. He told me to stay behind the dumpster and went to check it out. It turned out to be a group of guys trying to rape a young woman. When George tried to help, they beat him to death in the alley. I watched from behind the dumpster, too scared to come out,” I told him, feeling the shame rise up in me all over again for hiding while George died alone. Brian, my brave Brian who had saved a young girl at the bus station, would never understand what kind of a coward I was.
Destiny (Waiting for Forever) Page 25