The Theory of Deviance: Portland Rebels, Book 3

by Rebecca Grace Allen

  He took the tome from her hands and put it back in its shelf. “That’s not actually the Bible. It’s a hymnal. But yeah.”

  She ducked her chin. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s—” He sighed. He didn’t want her feeling bad. He wanted her to know him. To be understood by somebody, for once. “Were you ever teased as a kid?” At her nod, he said, “Me too. All the time. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Fourth grade was awful—bullies on the bus, on the playground. I was so lonely. It got better after I met Dean.”

  “That was when you met?”

  “I helped him with an answer to a question our teacher put him on the spot with, and that was it, friends for life. When Connor moved to town in high school and befriended me too, I felt invincible. But kids still bothered me when they weren’t around.” Mikey looked at the stained-glass windows, the ornate ceiling decorated with artwork. “Here, I got away from that. No one picked on me, and I never felt alone. I felt safe. Felt God’s love. So yeah, I believe His word is in the Bible. I believe He’s up there and is looking after us. It’s a lot more lonely to believe there’s no one in Heaven than to think there’s a God who’s simply asking me to follow His laws.”

  Krissy went silent for a moment, then asked, “So if you believe in God, and God created you, didn’t he make you this person?”

  Mikey sighed. It was a rationalization he’d used a hundred times before. He was born this way, God had decreed it, blah blah blah.

  “What do you believe?”

  She shrugged. “I believe there’s a God. At least I think I do. Everything I was taught about religion was simply stories—the Bible and Mother Goose and Disney all mixed together, tall tales with a moral at the end. This is just a pretty room to me.” She glanced at the ceiling. “I bet it has great acoustics though.”

  A short laugh burst out of Mikey’s lungs. Her humor sent relief sputtering through him like heat coming off a rusty radiator. “That’s actually what I like best about it here.”

  “The music?”

  “Yeah. Getting a bunch of kids to sing something spiritual is practically a celestial event.” But there was no way he could do that full time. Not when his thoughts were so unholy. “This place…it makes me feel like I belong. It’s where I still feel a connection to God, even if what I want is so wrong.”

  “You think what we did last night was wrong?”

  He couldn’t answer that. Didn’t want to. It wasn’t fair to her. “I can’t be bi, or gay, or—” he swallowed. Poly? Was that the term for what he was craving now? “—anything other than straight, and work here.”

  “Couldn’t you work at another church? One that’s a little more forward-thinking?”

  Mikey responded with a sharp shake of his head. There were a few parishes in town that boasted their acceptance, rainbow pride flags hanging on the doors, but there was no anonymity when you were a Pelletier in Portland.

  “People would talk. Word would get out. The company would suffer.”

  Her brow creased. “I don’t understand.”

  “My parents don’t want me to be openly bisexual because they think it’ll make them lose customers.”

  Her mouth fell open. “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s not. Sure, there’s a local LGBTQ community, but there’s the opposite side too. Parishioners here who talked about the marriage equality act like it was the beginning of the apocalypse. If I chose to be with a guy, it could hurt the business.” He whispered the last bit, imitating his mother, then sighed. “We’ve been arguing over it since I came out to them. Well more like they lecture, I listen until I can’t take it anymore. That’s why I’m always at Dean’s.”

  It was the other reason why his money sat in the bank. In case it ever got to be too much at home and he needed to bail.

  Krissy shook her head. “You have a lot more in common with Rafe than you realize.”

  Something unlatched inside Mikey. A door he was afraid of opening, a strain easing, but he wasn’t ready for it. It didn’t matter, though, because she was on to her next question.

  “Do Dean and Connor know?”

  Mikey often wondered if his buddies had a hunch about his orientation, but they’d never asked.

  “I don’t think so. And my parents aren’t trying to be awful. It’s not just about the business. They don’t want my life to be difficult. They’re trying to look out for me. And they paid for my college tuition and keep a roof over my head, so if I can make their lives easier, I want to.”

  If there was one commandment he believed in, it was the one about how to treat your parents. Honor thy father and mother and all.

  Krissy sighed and leaned back on the bench. “Well, you’re not the only one trying to please your parents.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t actually like yoga. I do it because my family asked me to, mostly since my therapist said it would help, but spending an hour in goddess pose doesn’t exactly cure an anxiety attack.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t funny.

  “I want to prove to them I’m okay, so I’m following the plan we all agreed to, even though my parents’ daily phone calls make me bonkers. Every day I have to rate my symptoms on a one-to-ten scale: ‘No, I haven’t had any mood spikes today. Yes, I remembered my pills.’ Whenever my sister comes to visit, she checks me over like I’m some specimen in a lab, and the way they all say ‘maybe acting isn’t the best idea’ does wonders for my confidence.” Krissy rolled her eyes, then shook her head. “I think they’re afraid of me—of what could happen if I have another episode. It’s because they care, but it’s not so awesome when the people who are supposed to love you make you feel like a patient fresh from the psych ward.”

  She made a face on the words psych ward, big violet eyes going wide, and the heavy reminder of what she’d been through pelted Mikey like hail. She’d undergone so much, yet she could still be silly, her smile pressing at her cheeks.

  She was so damn beautiful.

  “I started picking up the pieces the summer I met Rafe,” she continued. “He was the first person who made me feel like I was more than a walking, talking illness.”

  Mikey had yet to hear the finer points of how they’d gone from friends to lovers. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. “But Rafe prefers men.”

  “It’s just the way his cookie crumbles.”

  A cute joke, but now it was his turn to ask questions. “So why are you in this with him? Not that he’s not…attractive, but why aren’t you with someone who can be with you for real?”

  The smile fell away from her face.

  “I haven’t been stable enough for a relationship. I feel things too hard, like when I met you. I wanted to be with you so much, so quickly. My emotions can overwhelm me, and my anxiety can be pretty intense. I’ve usually got this nonstop buzz of worry going on in my head, like an AM radio stuck on a news station. If I avoid relationships, I have a better chance at avoiding the cycles.”

  “Cycles?”

  “The highs and lows. When I get happy, I’m super happy. When I’m down, I get incredibly depressed. Black holes, my therapist calls them. Like I’m at the bottom of a dark pit and I can’t climb out. I try to steer clear of that, but even still, sometimes I don’t know when I’m having a bad day like anyone else or when I’m manic. I’m always asking myself, is this the bipolar talking or is it me? And then there’s the sex part.”

  She chewed on her pink, plump lower lip. He was not going to get a hard-on in church. He wasn’t.

  “What sex part?”

  She wound her hands together. “The week I was hospitalized, I slept with a lot of guys. Five, I think. The doctors said it was because I was hypersexual—a symptom of the disease. I didn’t believe it at first because I was always pretty sexually curious, but looking back, they were right.” She sighed. Her leg b
ounced ceaselessly. “I brought one of the guys back to my dorm room and had sex with him right in front of my roommate. I called her to try and apologize, but she never called back. She won’t even talk to me now.”

  “But it’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

  The half shrug she gave him proved she didn’t.

  “It’s not like you had any control over it,” he said. “It’s something in your brain. There’s nothing you need to ask forgiveness for.”

  Krissy cocked her head to the side and pointed to the crucifix. “That’s true for you too.”

  Mikey reached out and lowered her hand. He appreciated the sentiment, but his issues were…different.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “Pleasure-seeking behavior is an indicator of an upswing, so I keep my sex drive locked up inside me, like a wild animal in a cage. Rafe crawls into it and lets me play in a way that’s safe. I mean, the fact that we don’t actually fuck could be why I’m even more wound up, but it helps.”

  Mikey could sense her restless energy, her all-too-familiar shame over desires. He’d thought that was his cross to bear, but knowing she carried something similar loosened some of the tension between his shoulders.

  “I understand why you didn’t tell me about it. Him.” Mikey shook his head. “You.”

  She offered him a meek smile, and he held his hand out. Krissy curled hers around it, then leaned her head on his arm.

  “Do your parents know?” he asked. “About you and Rafe?”

  “Ohhh, no. They think he’s gay.”

  “And they’re okay with that?”

  Her upward glance had her tiny, sharp chin digging into his biceps, but he didn’t mind.

  “Yes,” she replied, her tone gentle. “It’s why they let me move in with him. If anything, they see Rafe as safer. They’d see him as one giant symptom if they knew what was really going on.” She leaned her head back against his arm. “I’ve told them a version of the truth: that I’m not ready for a relationship, and I prefer spending my time with him.”

  It was a lot to absorb as it was, but the last line snagged at him, a weed he couldn’t pull.

  “If you don’t want a relationship, what do you feel about me?” he asked. “What did last night mean?”

  She sat up and turned sideways on the bench but kept their hands together, her eyes on his palm. “When I was a kid, my parents sent me to circus camp. The thing that scared me the most was the trapeze.”

  She walked her fingers along his as she talked. A touch over every indentation, like she needed to focus on something other than her words.

  “I loved swinging, but I was scared to let go, afraid the instructor on the other bar wouldn’t catch me. He kept telling me to turn my brain off, let myself fly, but I couldn’t. When I finally listened to him and flew off the bar, it was incredible. That place between trapezes, when you’re soaring and not holding onto anything—it was the most free I’d ever felt, and I realized how silly it was to have been scared, because there was always someone there to catch me.”

  She stopped moving her hand and looked up. Hey eyes were filled with so much raw emotion, it cut straight through him.

  “Being with you and Rafe last night, it was like that again. Like flying. Most of the time I’m chained to this disease, keeping myself rigid and sticking to my routine, but with the two of you there to catch me, I let go and felt…free.”

  It wasn’t exactly an answer, but wow. He couldn’t believe he’d made her feel like that.

  Mikey smiled, leaned in, and whispered, “I hate the circus.”

  Krissy laughed—guffawed was more the word to describe it—and Mikey beamed at having brought some humor into the situation, at the brightness that had returned to her face. She squeezed his hand.

  “Thank you for not hating me.”

  “Never was an option.” If anything, he was starting to realize he felt completely the opposite.

  Her hand still laced with his, she grabbed her jacket and stood, swinging her arm so his moved too. “Any chance you’re ready to go back to the apartment?”

  Something pressed at Mikey, an envious clench in his stomach over Krissy and Rafe’s situation that didn’t quite fit anymore. If anything, he wanted to be…part of it?

  “What do Rafe and I have in common?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not my story to tell. You’ll have to ask him.”

  Behind her, sunlight cascaded through the windows, lighting up her hair and shoulders, making her glow like his own personal guardian angel. Mikey wasn’t prepared to face Rafe, but anything he was looking for at this point couldn’t be found in a church. And he wasn’t sure it was absolution he wanted anymore.

  He stood up next to her. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Eight

  Rafe was relaxing on the armchair when Mikey and Krissy entered the apartment. He looked up from his phone, the outline of his muscular form visible beneath his dark jeans and long-sleeved white tee. He’d trimmed his beard and mustache while they were gone, and the clean lines by his sideburns made the angles of Rafe’s face even sharper, so masculine Mikey could feel it in his bones.

  “Everyone cleansed of their sins now?”

  His voice was sex and hot chocolate and a blanket on a cold day.

  “I’m better now,” Mikey said. “Thank you.”

  “Good. Although I personally found the idea of confession so ridiculous,” Rafe said as he stood. “It’s like the religious version of the Staples Easy Button. Bang! You’re forgiven.”

  Mikey chuckled. It was difficult not to laugh at the other man’s sarcasm. But Rafe’s gaze remained trained on him, and Mikey had to pause for a moment, his heartbeat skittering at the barely masked concern couched in those dark eyes. It caught him by surprise, but Mikey shook it off, taking Rafe’s look in the spirit he was sure it had been meant. He should’ve realized Rafe would be bothered by his disappearance too, given the state it put Krissy in.

  “Sorry I bolted. I didn’t mean to worry you both.”

  Rafe grinned. “It’s cool. I was only pissed because you have the truck keys, and we’ve got a theater tour to get to.”

  Krissy released Mikey’s hand and clapped. “I almost forgot. Let’s go!”

  As she skipped to the door, Rafe and Mikey exchanged glances. Rafe dipped his chin, a small move that said we cool now? Mikey nodded. It was an odd moment, one that was comforting and reminded him there was some kind of common ground between them.

  As well as the fact that they’d seen each other naked.

  They went down to the truck and made their way into the Old Port. The sidewalks were coated with chunks of snow and dirt, the already-darkening sky dappled with clouds. The doors to the theater were unlocked, and Mikey followed Krissy and Rafe inside.

  “How’d Merrick work this out?” he asked. “Aren’t they getting ready for tonight’s show?”

  “It’s Monday,” Krissy answered. “The theater’s dark today.”

  “You’ve arrived!”

  They all looked up the stairs. Merrick was at the landing by the mezzanine seats, sans the long black wig he’d worn in the performance. His natural hair was spiked and red, his ears a veritable Christmas tree of piercings. He slid down the banister and landed in front of Krissy, holding out his hand.

  “Are you ready for your tour, madame?”

  She giggled. “I am, fair sir.”

  He hooked her arm around his. “Good. The cast is waiting for you.”

  “They didn’t take the day off?”

  “Of course not. We’re theater people. We are each other’s family. The stage is our home.” Merrick glanced over his shoulder at Rafe. “Right, Rafael Elias Brigham?”

  That was Rafe’s full name? It was quite a mouthful. Faith-inspired too.

  Rafe chuckled. “Right, Godfrey
Merrick the Third.”

  Merrick winced and mimed a gag. “Don’t call me that.”

  He turned with a flourish and led Krissy toward the stage. Mikey hung a few paces back as he and Rafe followed them down the aisle, wanting to give Krissy room to explore.

  And daring to explore a little himself.

  “How do you and Merrick know one another?”

  Rafe took off his coat and draped it over his arm. “We were lovers,” he replied simply. “It didn’t work out, but we parted on good terms.” His brow was creased, his smile a bit further away than usual. “He was the first person I met when I got to New York. Made me feel like I had a home there.”

  “You didn’t have one anymore in Georgia?”

  Mikey knew he was being nosy, but he figured seeing the guy’s junk meant it was okay to ask about his hometown.

  Rafe’s pace slowed. He worked his jaw, as if he were recalling a punch and was testing to see if the spot was still tender. “No. My parents gave me my full inheritance as long as I promised to go away and never come back.”

  Mikey’s heart stuttered, as did his footsteps. “What?”

  Rafe stopped too, his eyes diamond hard. “They banished me because I wasn’t able to pray the bi away.”

  Oh. Shit. “What did they do to you?”

  Rafe dipped his head and continued walking.

  “I was raised Baptist, in the kind of church where being gay is considered a disease, or demonic possession. When I realized I liked men too, I pleaded for God to take it away from me. I thought if I prayed harder, the change would happen. It didn’t, of course, and the summer before I started at NYU, I asked my parents for help. They told me my feelings were ‘sinful but curable’.” Rafe launched into a brash southern accent as they ascended the few quick steps onto the stage. “‘Give your heart to the Lord, and walk away from temptation.’”

  Gone was the jovial, confident persona Mikey had assumed was the other man’s natural state. The timbre of Rafe’s voice chilled him to the bone.

  “They signed me up for three weeks of what they called therapy.” Rafe leaned against the wall and tightened his grip on his coat. “I made it through one before popping out my razor in the bathroom.”