by John Inman
Dilly’s eyes were ricocheting everywhere but where they should be. Since it was obvious he wasn’t going to answer, Puffer answered for him. “He did indeed.”
Boz pushed his chair back and stood up. He stepped around the table and pulled Dilly to his feet. When they were face-to-face, he wrapped his arms around Dilly, then pulled back far enough to gaze deep into Dilly’s eyes. Slowly, Dilly’s anger appeared to soften, and his hands came up to hug Boz back.
Boz glanced at Puffer and saw a tear rolling down the side of his busted snout. When Puffer sniffed, one of the Kleenex spears fell out of his nose and landed in his cup of scotch.
Boz, holding on tight, buried his face in Dilly’s hair.
“I love you too,” he said softly. “Wasn’t sure whether you wanted me to say it yet or not.”
Dilly’s words were barely audible. “I’ve always wanted you to say it. I just never thought you would.”
Boz tucked a finger under Dilly’s chin and lifted his face to better see his eyes. “Why? Why would you think that?”
“Yeah!” Puffer barked from the sidelines, sounding nasal and whiny, like his head was in a bucket. “Why would you thay that? You’re better than everybody in thith room! Bothh ith lucky to have you!” He blew his nose into a huge paisley handkerchief, then screamed, “Ow!” It must have hurt.
Dilly closed his eyes as if blocking them both out.
“He’s right, you know,” Boz murmured, just loud enough for Dilly to hear, which made Puffer lean in closer so he wouldn’t miss anything. “I am lucky to have you.” Boz reached up and ruffled a fingertip along Dilly’s lashes, moist now with emotion. “I’ll have a word with Bobby and get this straightened out. He won’t bother either one of you again. I promise.”
Yeah, right. How am I supposed to make him do that?
Chapter Thirty
HAVING NO idea that Bobby had paid a call on his ex’s boyfriend to tell him to stay away from Boz, Angel found himself standing outside the Leoni Italian Restaurant with a similar goal in mind. To tell Boz to stay away from Bobby. He had a general idea what time Boz Jenkins started work, so Angel waited beneath a lamppost on the corner, ten or fifteen feet from the lighted awning over the front door.
Boz came right when expected.
Angel stepped from the shadows and confronted him on the sidewalk. Not sure what was up, Boz tried to sidestep him and go on about his business. But Angel laid a hand on Boz’s arms and stopped him in his tracks.
“Hey! Who the heck are you?” Boz demanded, yanking his arm free and taking a step back. At the same time, he laid a hand over his back pocket as if thinking Angel was going to go for his wallet.
A deep sadness settled over Angel when he laid eyes on Bobby’s ex for the very first time. He was beautiful. Chico lindo. Golden skin. Pale, sun-bleached hair. The clean, narrow lines of a runner. Boz Jenkins was about as far as one could get from a penniless, muddy-skinned escapee from the Guate slums, as Bobby was always happy enough to call him. Angel understood Bobby’s anger now. He understood how he couldn’t get this man out of his brain. Who would be happy about leaving this gorgeous gringo’s bed and ending up with someone like Angel Ruiz, an illegal alien with no money and no future who had snuck into this country two years earlier with twelve pesos in his pocket and didn’t have much more than that now.
Angel stepped back, suddenly speechless. The uncertainty on his face must have given the man Bobby called Boz the idea that maybe he wasn’t a mugger after all.
“Did you want something?” Boz asked, striving for politeness. His eyes were still wary, but touched now with concern too. Angel couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking.
He did his best to rein in his Guatemalan accent. “I come about Bobby.”
The man in front of him froze like he’d been zapped with a Taser. “Bobby Mayfield?”
“Si. Yes. Bobby Mayfield.”
The young man’s eyes turned cool. “What about him, then?” Boz asked. “What’s he done now?”
Surprised, Angel said, “Nothing.”
And for the first time, Angel suddenly realized what he was doing. Fingers of fear ran up his spine. If Bobby ever found out he had confronted Bobby’s ex, he would kill him. And not figuratively either. He would literally beat him to death.
“I want you to tell Bobby it’s over between the two of you.” The words came out in such a rush, Angel almost swayed on his feet in his hurry to get them out. “I want you to tell him you don’t want him anymore.”
For the first time, a look of true anger crossed Boz Jenkins’ face. “I don’t want him anymore. He’s known it’s over between us for months, but he still won’t leave me alone.” Boz edged closer, taking Angel in from top to bottom. “Who are you? What does all this have to do with you?”
Angel’s momentum faltered. What he was about to say was going to sound either really desperate or really pathetic. Or maybe both. It took him a minute to utter the words, he was so ashamed of himself for having to speak them.
“I—I love him.”
Boz stood motionless, staring back. His gaze seemed to be focused on Angel’s mouth, and when they moved to his eyes, Angel saw concern in the look. To his surprise, Boz took his arm and led him to a bus bench a few feet away. There was no one else around, so Boz coaxed Angel down to the bench, where they sat side by side.
To his own horror, Angel found himself beginning to cry. Boz seemed as shocked by this development as Angel did. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Boz scooted closer on the bench and draped an arm over Angel’s shoulder. He spoke softly in Angel’s ear.
“What’s your name?” Boz asked.
Chasing a hiccup and still mortified by his own tears, Angel told him.
“Angel,” Boz stated gently. “I don’t think you know who you’re getting mixed up with. Bobby Mayfield is dangerous. And he can be cruel.” His hand came up and lightly touched the bruised place under Angel’s eye from the last beating Bobby administered. “But I think maybe you already know that.”
Angel nodded. He swallowed hard, impatiently wiping the tears from his cheeks. He fought to explain, his English becoming butchered a bit because he was so emotionally overwrought. “He only hits me because he’s unhappy about you. He can be—what’s the word?”
“Kind?” Boz ventured, but he looked extremely doubtful when he said it.
Angel refused to be swayed. “Yes. Kind.”
Boz was already shaking his head. “There’s no kindness in him, Angel. Trust me. I know.” He laid his hand on Angel’s knee. There was a bus coming, but since only the two of them were at the bus stop, Boz waved it on. As soon as the bus trundled past, he turned his attention back to Angel.
“Please believe me when I tell you, if you stay with Bobby, it will end badly. He’ll break your heart. Or worse, he’ll break a few bones while he’s at it. Now that he’s on meth, you can’t trust him. He had a cruel streak in him before, but now that he’s doing drugs, he really is a danger to himself and everybody around him.”
Boz leaned in closer, seeking eye contact, trying to make a connection. “Please believe me, Angel. The last person you want to get involved with is Bobby Mayfield.”
Angel opened his mouth, but Boz stopped him before he could speak.
“I know,” Boz said. “You love him. You told me already. Has he ever told you he loves you back?”
Angel’s gaze slipped to the pavement in front of him. He stared at a clump of trash in the gutter. Shame once again flooded through him. “N-no. And he won’t let me say the words.”
“And he never will,” Boz countered as gently as he could. “He only wanted me to say the words after I left him. And even then, it was a ploy to get me back. He didn’t want my love, Angel. He wanted to own me. Just like he probably thinks he owns you. Don’t let him do it. Don’t throw yourself away on someone who isn’t worth it. You’re better than he is. Try to remember that.”
Angel squeegeed the tears from his cheek with the h
eel of his hand. “How can you hate him so much when you once loved him?”
Boz cast a glance up and down the street as if seeking his answer there. When he didn’t find it, he turned back and took Angel’s hand again. “He beat and raped the love out of me a long time ago. Don’t let him do it to you too. Please.”
Having said what he had to say, Boz glanced back over his shoulder at the door leading into the restaurant. Patrons were already queuing up, waiting to go inside. It was obvious what Boz was thinking. He was going to be late for work.
“Go ahead,” Angel sighed. “Go to work.”
There was a new sadness in Boz’s eyes when he trained them on Angel yet again. His hand was still wrapped around Angel’s fingers. “Please,” Boz said, “don’t let him ruin your life like he almost ruined mine. I’m still having trouble getting away from him. Only a few days ago he attacked the man I’m in love with. He punched my boyfriend’s boss, and the guy is almost eighty years old. What kind of a person would do that?”
Angel felt the old familiar sadness sweep through him once again. And even he knew he was being a fool to feel jealousy as well. Still, the truth was the truth, as his grandmother in Guate used to say. To Boz, Angel said, “He must love you very much.”
“No,” Boz said. “He never loved me. He loves getting what he wants. Nothing else matters to him.”
For the third time in as many minutes, shame washed over Angel with such force that he almost couldn’t breathe. His tears were still falling. Through a struggle he wasn’t certain he would really win, he finally managed to mutter the only words he could think to say. “When he makes love to me, it’s wonderful.”
Boz looked unimpressed. “Yes. He’s a terrific fuck. Big dick, hot body. Knows all the moves. But fucking isn’t what love is. It’s nowhere close to being what love is.”
“Then what is it?” Angel pleaded, ignoring the tears now as they cascaded down his cheek. He was no longer ashamed of them. He no longer cared that Boz could see them. He had opened himself up to this man, this stranger. They shared a past, he and Boz. Somehow he knew instinctively that if anybody understood his tears, Boz did.
“Then what is love?” Angel asked again.
And to his surprise, Boz offered a small sad smile in return. He rose to his feet and stared down at Angel sitting on the bus stop bench in front of him.
“You’ll know when you find it,” Boz quietly answered. “You’ll recognize it by the gentleness in the other person, the trust you find in them, the way they open the door for you before charging in themselves. It’s a lot of little things, Angel. Even I can’t narrow it down to what it really is. But I do know one thing. You won’t find love anywhere near where Bobby Mayfield stands. That’s the best I can tell you.”
And with those words searing through him, crushing every hope he ever had, Angel watched Boz Jenkins walk away, slumped in thought.
Boz’s sadness was the final twist of a knife in Angel’s heart. And his own sadness came from knowing Boz was right.
Chapter Thirty-One
BOZ STUDIED Dilly across the room. He could tell Dilly knew something was up. Boz tried to make conversation, to maybe calm him down.
“Is Puffer all right?”
It worked. Dilly fought back a good-natured smirk. It had been a week since Bobby Mayfield swept into the Retro Record Shoppe and punched Puffer in the snoot. “He thinks his nose is healing crooked and it’s ruined his looks. I tried to tell him it was always crooked, and his looks were never that great anyway, but he won’t believe me.”
Boz buttoned up his jeans and pulled on a clean shirt. He was fresh out of the shower after he and Dilly had returned from walking the pets in the park.
“Why are you getting dressed?” Dilly asked. “I thought we were staying in.”
Boz parked himself on the edge of Dilly’s Murphy bed and tied his shoes. “You are staying in. But I have to go out for a while.”
Dilly glanced at the keys on the mattress beside him. “You’re taking your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you going?”
Boz stopped what he was doing and centered all his attention on Dilly, who was starting to look worried all over again. Boz figured he knew perfectly well where he was going, he just didn’t want to admit it.
“I have to talk to Bobby face-to-face. I have to get this straightened out. Make sure he leaves us alone. You stay here and watch the kids.” As usual, Grace and Leon were napping under the kitchen sink, both with a mouthful of teddy bear between them.
“What about Angel?” Dilly asked.
“What about Angel?” But Boz knew what was coming.
Dilly’s eyes were wide and wounded. “I don’t want him to get hurt either.”
Boz had told Dilly of the young Guatemalan boy who had sought him out in front of the restaurant. They both agreed that poor Angel would probably turn out to be another of Bobby’s victims, since nothing good could come to anyone who fell in love with Bobby Mayfield. Boz was testament to that.
He rose now and moved to where Dilly was standing in front of the couch. He eased him down to a sitting position and dropped to his knees at Dilly’s feet. Boz snuggled in between Dilly’s legs and wrapped his arms around his waist. When he was comfortable, he rested his chin on Dilly’s knee.
“I don’t know what I can do about Angel,” Boz tried to explain. “I don’t know him, other than the one time he spoke to me. I don’t know where to find him or anything about him. You don’t know him either. You’ve never even met him. What can we do, Dilly? If he’s in love with Bobby, nothing we say will make any difference. And nothing we say to Bobby will make any difference either.”
“True enough,” Dilly admitted, but he didn’t seem happy about it.
“It’s the drugs,” Boz sighed. “Nothing I say to Bobby is going to make a dent in that thick head of his. Certainly not about Angel, and probably not about us either. But I have to try.”
Dilly laid a hand to Boz’s cheek. “I’ve been thinking,” he began, then stopped, as if surprised he had spoken.
Boz nudged him to continue. So Dilly did. Reluctantly. It seemed there was something he needed to say, although it also seemed he really didn’t want to say it. So Boz listened closely, coaxing him through it, never taking his arms from around Dilly’s waist.
Dilly’s voice was husky, like it was after sex. But there was a different emotion at play here, Boz decided. He didn’t quite know what to make of it. All he knew was that he loved this pensive side of Dilly as much as he had loved every other aspect of him. Spending time with Dilly, loving Dilly, was like gradually peeling back the layers of an onion. The deeper you went, the closer you came to his heart. To his true essence. To the most delicious part of his being.
Boz nudged him again. “Tell me,” he prodded gently. “What’s on your mind?”
A gentle blush colored Dilly’s cheeks, but his gaze was unrelenting, centered solely on Boz’s face. It was as if he were torn between saying something that might make him look silly, but knew the words needed to be spoken anyway, no matter what the cost.
“I’ve been thinking about love,” Dilly murmured.
Boz smiled at that. “These days that’s all I ever think about.”
Dilly frowned. “I’m being serious.”
So Boz frowned too. “Actually, so am I. But you’re right. I’m sorry. Go on, baby. I won’t interrupt again.”
Appeased, Dilly closed his eyes, appearing to gather his thoughts. When he finally spoke, his voice was stronger, as if his commitment to what he wanted to say were set in stone now, and nothing would stop him from getting it out.
“It’s like the moon, Boz. Love, I mean. There’s two faces to it. It can be hopeful and sweet. As warm as sunlight on marble. A place that makes you happy every single minute. But then there’s another kind of love too. The other kind of love is cold and uninhabitable, a place you’d never want to live, with no happiness in it at all. It’s like being strand
ed on the dark side of the moon. Even when you’re not alone, you really are. Being with you is the first kind of love. Being with someone like Bobby Mayfield must be the second kind.”
“It is,” Boz said, his voice sounding sad even to his own ears. “I know. I’ve lived there.” He dug his chin in Dilly’s knee and pressed a fingertip to the softness of Dilly’s bottom lip. “I’m glad you think I’m the good kind of love.”
“Everything about you is good,” Dilly whispered back.
Almost immediately, a new terror rose in Dilly’s eyes. He tensed under Boz’s touch. “I want to come with you. I’m afraid you’ll get hurt. I don’t want you to be alone with him.”
Boz lifted Dilly’s hand and laid his lips to the back of it, breathing in the scent of Dilly’s flesh, absorbing the texture and heavenly warmth of his skin. He would know both sensations blindfolded by now, and even the simple act of kissing Dilly’s hand caused a stirring in his groin, as Dilly’s words had stirred his heart.
“I won’t let him get close enough to hurt me. I promise.”
Dilly thought about that. At last, a softer light ignited deep inside his eyes. A more playful light. “Don’t tell him it’s because of him acting like a dick that we finally got around to admitting we love each other. He might not find it as amusing as I do.”
Boz gave an exaggerated pout. “Trust me, I won’t. If he thought he accidentally did something beneficial to somebody, it would probably kill him.”
“In that case, tell him.”
“Now, now.”
“And tell him to stay away from Puffer.”
“Let me see if I can remember all this. Stop making gay guys fall in love with each other. Stop beating up old men. Stop being a stupid dick. Got it.” Still kneeling at Dilly’s feet, Boz casually checked his nails. “Anything else you’d like me to impart, your highness?”
Dilly managed an insincere smile. “No. Nothing else.”
“I won’t be long. Wait for me in bed. Naked. Flat on your back. Or flat on your belly. I don’t care. Just wait for me naked. It gives me something to look forward to.”