The Importance of Being Kevin

by Steven Harper

  The sun shone hot, and I was sweating both from the long ride and from nerves. The driveway curved past a four-story white mansion with massive steps and tall pillars out front. It seemed to stare down at me like an elephant deigning to notice a mosquito. I swallowed and automatically looked around for something to chain my bike to. Then I smacked my head. East-sider paranoia meets west-sider luxury. Though this place was so far past west side, it warped gravity.

  I left my pitiful little bike at the bottom of the steps and climbed toward the pillars, feeling very small and shabby. Maybe I should go around to the back door or something. Then I snorted. Back door? There were probably a hundred back doors, and which one led to Peter? I made myself climb the marble Mount Everest and approach the big door set back in the shade of those pillars. My heart sped up. I didn’t want to make a mistake and be fingered for a stupid east-sider, but was I supposed to ring or something? I had already talked to the intercom guy, so ringing seemed like overdoing it. And what if a butler opened the door? I didn’t have a name card or anything to give him like I’d seen rich people do on TV. On the other hand—

  The door whipped open when I approached. To my relief, it was Peter. His grass-green eyes were as wide as that starshine grin of his. He wore a yellow polo shirt and dark shorts and sandals I now realized probably cost more than my dad’s truck.

  “Kevin,” he said, a little too loud, and thrust out his hand. “Dennis told me you were at the gate. Come in.”

  “Uh… hi.” I shook his hand, and Peter hauled me inside. Cool air wafted around us, and the sunlight cut back as though someone had turned down a faucet. The entry foyer was huge and echoey. Shiny hardwood floors and high, airy ceilings, white walls and alcoves and staircases, tall windows and stained glass—a church married to a skyscraper. I didn’t see any other people.

  “It’s great to see you,” Peter enthused. “Really great.”

  I cocked my head, still at the door. Why was he acting so funny? “Yeah. I thought I’d drop by. You know, because of last night and stuff. I thought we could—”

  “Let’s go up to my room.” Peter said, again a little too brightly. “We can talk up there.”

  He led me upstairs through part of the house. I got more impressions—expensive silk rugs, museum statues, a room filled with more books than even Dad had read—before we arrived in a room that could have eaten mine ten times over. I blinked at the fireplace, the dinosaur-sized TV, the racks of video games, the living room furniture, the bed that could sleep five, and the glass doors that led onto a private deck with a hot tub on it.

  “My abode.” Peter gestured with false extravaganza-ness. “Have a seat wherever. Promise not to tell my parents I brought a boy up to my room. Ha-ha.”

  All I could say was “Wow” in a real small voice.

  “How about a snack or something to drink?” Peter got out his phone. “I can text the kitchen, and they’ll send something up. It’s no problem.”

  “I’m still recovering from the shock. This is your room?”

  “Look,” Peter said uncomfortably, “it’s just a house. No big deal.”

  “Just a house? Just a house? That’s like saying the Titanic was just a boat.” I laughed a little. “You related to the Morse family or something?”

  Peter looked away sheepishly. He rumpled his hair with one hand. I finally realized the clue fairy had been whacking me with a board for the last twenty minutes. “No fuck,” I gasped. “You’re a Morse? As in a Morse Plastic Morse?”

  “Caught.”

  “But… your last name is Finn.” I staggered, not altogether untheatrically, to the bed and sat down. Only later did I think the couch might have been a better choice, but who the hell has a couch in their bedroom?

  “Finn is my middle name. I’m named after my grandfather Peter, and when I was little, everyone called me Peter Finn to keep us separate. My family still calls me that, even though Grandpa died several years ago.” He shrugged. “I use Finn as my last name when I don’t want to spread around who I am.”

  I stared at him from the edge of the bed and tried to make sense of it all. It was like learning your favorite stuffed animal was a one-of-a-kind collector’s item or that the bike you bought at a police auction and usually left in the rain was a custom race job built in Holland. Peter continued to look away as though something on the deck fascinated him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said at last.

  Long pause. At last he replied, “Scared to.”

  Out of all the answers on the “List of Reasons My Boyfriend Wouldn’t Tell Me He’s a Bruce-Wayne Billionaire,” that particular response ranked somewhere after “I’m spending my entire fortune on a sex-change operation, so I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”

  “Scared?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Look, when you’re a Morse, you never know if people like you because of you or because you’re a Morse. With money.”

  “Money,” I echoed. Peter made the word money sound like dryer lint.

  “I wanted to keep quiet until I knew you better.” Sunlight slanting through the window got caught in Peter’s dark hair. “I didn’t want to scare you off or change the way you… the way I hoped you felt about me.”

  “Oh.” That made a weird kind of sense… I guessed. But it wasn’t easy to understand. What it cost to buy just the stuff in Peter’s room could support me and Dad for months and months. If I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t give a box full of cat crap what anyone thought of me. Bring it on.

  “So,” Peter said in a soft voice, “now you know my dirty little secret. Are we… okay?”

  I had never seen anyone with such broad shoulders look more like a scared puppy. He really was freaked about the idea I might be interested more in his money than in him. And I’d been worried he’d hate me because I lived in a single-wide. Suddenly it all seemed so ridiculous.

  A bubble of laughter burst out of me. “You gotta be kidding. Are we okay? I knew you were hiding something, but I was afraid it was… I don’t know… an alcoholic grandmother or a strange attraction to feet.” I flung myself backward on the bed. “This is a relief.”

  Peter sat next to me, still a little wary. “Really?”

  “Totally. I fell for Peter Finn, not Peter Moneyballs.” I sat back up and kicked off my crappy-ass shoes so I could wiggle my toes at him. “Unless you want some of these bad boys. In that case, I’m outta here.”

  “You’re a shit,” he said, laughing. “All right. You win. I was stupid.”

  “Yeah. But I was stupid because I thought you’d run away when you saw my house. We’re evenly stupid.”

  He let that pass. “So what brings you by? I mean, I’m glad you’re here, Kev, but—”

  “Two reasons. First….” I leaned in and kissed him for a long moment. The room vanished, and my world pulled in to just him. It was incredible, being able to do that without worrying someone might come along. When the kiss ended, I pressed my forehead against his and touched his hair. “You said you were looking forward to number seven.” My voice had dropped into a husky register even I didn’t recognize. My hands were a little shaky, and yeah—my crotch was tight and hard. “So seven.”

  Before I knew it, we were lying down on the bed, and our arms were around each other. I never thought I could feel so safe and excited at the same time. My hands wandered over Peter’s back and sides, across the solid muscle under his shirt. He explored my chest with his hands and touched my face. I could eat and drink this for the rest of my life.

  Peter’s hands started to move lower—down my stomach and lower still. I froze then like the green gazelle on the front lawn. I ached for him to keep going, but I was also scared. Should I touch him the same way? God, I wanted to. I tentatively touched his hard stomach, but the memory of pain pushed its way into my head, and my heart sped up. I didn’t know if it was from fear or excitement, and I felt a little sick. My dick ached. I wanted Peter’s hands on me, and I wanted to run away and hide fr
om them. My face was hot and my stomach was cold. Then Peter stopped and pulled his hand back. Relief and disappointment made a strange mix inside me. He lay back on the bed, and I faced him, my head propped on one hand. My heart slowed down.

  “Was that eight?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” he said.

  A silence stretched out between us, and more words built up inside me. It was like the sex situation a second ago—I wanted and didn’t want at the same time. But this was why I had come over, and I had to speak.

  “Peter,” I said at last, “what happened last night? After you left the theater? You were pretty mad.”

  He sat up and put his hands in his lap. Apprehension rumpled his face. That made me apprehensive.

  “I don’t know if I should tell you,” he said.

  Whenever people say that, it means they’re going to tell you, and you aren’t going to like it. I steeled myself. “Why not? I told you what happened to me. That was the second reason I came over here—to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m okay.” He twisted his hands in his lap. “Really, I’m—”

  “Holy shit!” I pulled his hands out of his lap. It was the first time I’d gotten a close look at them. They were way bigger than mine, and the knuckles were bruised and blue. A half-healed cut scored the back of his left middle finger. “Look at your hands. Did you… did Les…?”

  “Yeah.” Peter took his hands back. We sat side by side on the bed, our elbows resting on our knees in identical poses. “I pounded the shit out of him.”

  “Wow.” It was the second time I’d said that in this room. “You did that because of… what he did to me?”

  Peter’s jaw trembled, and he looked away. “I couldn’t let the son of a bitch get away with it. He won’t bother you anymore.”

  “What about the video?”

  “Grabbed his phone and deleted it. Les wasn’t in any condition to stop me.”

  “Huh.”

  We sat there in silence for a while longer. Peter wouldn’t meet my eyes. He looked like he was trying not to explode or melt or break into pieces. I wanted to touch him, but I felt… weird. The hands that a second ago were touching my face and skimming over my skin had, last night, smashed and broken Les Madigan. Les had planned to rip me up again, but Peter had gone to see the demon in my place.

  “I… thanks…,” I said in a small voice.

  A sigh came from the bottoms of his feet. He looked unnerved, like he’d just missed getting hit by a bus. “Okay.”

  “Peter?” I said. “Peter Finn? What is it?”

  “I was nervous. Shit, I was terrified.”

  “Of what?”

  He let out another long breath and seemed to get control of himself. “I thought you’d hate me when you found out. After what happened to that kid Robbie… I thought you’d hate someone who could get that angry.”

  “Oh.”

  I thought about that. I thought about Peter smashing Les’s smirking face, about Les begging for mercy and Peter hitting him again and again. Then I thought about Robbie. They weren’t the same. Maybe I deserved what Les had done to me, but I was still angry at him for doing it, and the image of Peter taking him apart only made me feel satisfied.

  “I’m not mad,” I said. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not. If you hurt Les… good. Maybe that’s wrong, but that’s the way I feel.” I gently took his bruised hand. “So we’re good. Hell, we’re awesome. Thank you, Peter Finn. Thank you for kicking the shit out of the guy who—” I’d said the R word aloud once and found I didn’t want to say it again. “—who hurt me.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He gave me a rough one-armed hug. “Look at us. Couple of emo boys. Come on. I’ll show you around, and we can grab some supper before rehearsal.”

  It turned out Peter’s parents weren’t home, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Except for “the help,” as Peter put it.

  “You have, like, servants?” I asked as we wandered down a massive staircase to the first floor. “Do they live here?”

  “A couple do,” Peter said. “Most of them live in town, though.”

  “Do they help you get dressed and stuff?” I asked.

  “No,” he scoffed. “Unless I have to get ready for something really complicated.”

  “I’ll help you get dressed,” I said with a wide grin. “Or undressed. Could be fun.”

  He stopped halfway down the stairs. “Don’t,” he said quietly.

  I stopped too. “Don’t what?”

  “Look, my family is really conservative. They donate mil—lots of money to political candidates on the right, and they don’t know I’m into guys. Okay? And if the media got hold of it, the whole Morse clan would go batshit nutso. They might cut me off or, worse, try to invalidate my trust fund. Anything you say in front of the help will get back to my parents too, so be careful around them. Publicly we have to be just friends, and that’s it.”

  That kind of hurt, though I got it. I mean, Dad didn’t know about me either. Who was I to judge?

  “Understood, sir.” I saluted.

  He rolled his eyes. “This way. You might like the art gallery.”

  “Art gallery?”

  Yep. They had an art gallery. Peter showed me paintings and sculptures by masters no one else got to see, though I didn’t recognize any of the names. Then we went swimming in their indoor/outdoor Olympic-sized swimming pool, complete with water slide, though I paid more attention to Peter in his bathing suit than I did to the water. We went riding on honest-to-fuck horses (though Peter actually rode while I just clung to my horse’s saddle and tried not to let my teeth mash together). And then we played video games in his room (though Peter kept cheating by rubbing the back of my neck and distracting me so I lost every game… and I didn’t care one bit). And then we rehearsed The Importance of Being Earnest (though Peter just wanted to watch me do some of Algy’s longer speeches). And then we had supper in the formal dining room (though it was only two of us at a table that seated twenty, and it was awesome homemade sausage-and-pepperoni pizza and deep-fried chicken fingers served by “the help” on white china with crystal, and afterward Peter admitted he’d texted the kitchen to do that in order to impress me, and whoa—he wanted to impress me).

  Later, that Dennis guy texted to say he’d brought Peter’s Mustang around, so we headed down to leave for rehearsal. I wondered what it would be like to grow up with invisible people who did stuff for you and never worry if the lights would stay on or if there would be heat in winter or if you had holes in your shoes. Going back to the single-wide library would be a major comedown after this place. The anger tiger made ugly noises inside me. I couldn’t even tell people Peter and I were seeing each other. Hell, even if I could, everyone would probably figure I was just digging for gold. Or plastic.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, more to distract myself than out of real curiosity as we passed a door. Peter stiffened and then sped up and took me past the room and faster down the hallway. It caught me off guard, and I had to hurry to catch up. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “It’s just…. That’s my sister’s room. Her name is Emily.”

  “You have a sister?” That caught me off guard again. “You never said you had a sister. Is she here?”

  He was almost running now. “Nah. Come on. I think Dennis put your bike in the trunk.”

  There was a shut-the-fuck-up note in his voice that made me nervous, but I shut the fuck up. We didn’t say a whole lot on the drive to rehearsal either. What was going on? I wanted to ask, but the hard look on Peter’s face was a little scary, so I said nothing. Maybe he and his sister didn’t get along. It wasn’t really my business, I guessed.

  We arrived at the theater in plenty of time for Iris’s 6:50 rehearsal rule. When we came inside, everyone who was on the schedule was already onstage—Thad, Joe, Meg, and Melissa. And Iris and Wayne, of course. I looked around apprehensively for Les and then remembered he probably wasn’t coming.
Or was he? Maybe he would resign as stage manager. That would be a huge relief.

  Everyone turned to look at us when we entered through the side door, and I got nervous all of a sudden. Something felt off. Did everyone know what had happened? I could tell Peter felt it too, and he brushed my arm.

  A woman I didn’t recognize was talking to Iris. She had brown hair twisted into a braid around her head, and she had a lean, athletic build. In contrast to all of us in our shorts and sweats and T-shirts, she wore a white blouse and snappy blue blazer. The woman noticed everyone looking at me and Peter, and she turned as well. I caught it then—the woman was a cop. After a while, you can just tell these things. Acid churned in my stomach, and fear turned my hands icy. I had violated probation somehow, and she was here to arrest me.

  “What’s going on?” Peter said.

  “This is Valerie Malloy,” Iris told us. “She’s a police detective.”

  My breath was coming fast now, and my insides cramped up. I should run away, find a place to hide.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Iris continued. “Last night—”

  “Thank you, Ms. Kaylo, I’ll take it from here,” Detective Malloy interrupted. She was standing in front of both of us now. Everyone else was staring with unabashed curiosity. My feet felt nailed to the floor. “Peter Finn Morse and Kevin Devereaux?”

  “Yeah,” Peter said. I nodded.

  “Mr. Devereaux, you’re a minor, which means I can’t question you without a parent or guardian present. I’ll have to talk to you later when I can arrange for your dad to be here. Mr. Morse, you’re nineteen and a legal adult, so I can talk to you now.”

  “But what’s happened?” I blurted out.

  “Last night at 10:45 p.m., the police received an anonymous tip. Officers arrived at the scene and found Les Madigan. He’d been severely beaten. His face was a mass of bruises and broken teeth.”