by KD Ellis
It was, unfortunately, the one thing he didn’t think Ian would be able to look past.
Teddy shivered and curled up in the center of the bed, dragging the blankets up and around himself to chase away the chill. He was going to have to tell Ian everything. He wanted to wait, to figure it out on his own, but Ian deserved honesty. Even if it meant that Ian was going to kick him out after. Even if it cost him his job at Envy.
He didn’t know how Ian would react to the news that Teddy was growing steadily more in debt to the same cartel that was responsible for his brother’s death. His breath caught in his throat. He’d never thought of it that way, but…was he funding the cartel? He’d always thought of it in terms of paying off a debt. A bad debt, a shitty loan, but…if he was funding them, did that make him responsible for the shit they got into?
Teddy tugged the blanket over his head, tears burning his eyes. How many other people had lost their brothers or best friends because of the cartel? He was so worried about what Ian would think of him, but now, he wasn’t sure he could even look himself in the mirror.
He was a horrible person and he deserved to die alone.
He reached his hand out from under the blanket, fumbling around on the nightstand for his phone. He dragged it under the covers and hit speed dial.
“Shiloh?”
* * * *
Teddy hadn’t visited Shiloh at the estate in over a year, but it still looked the same—the same wrought-iron fence, the same carefully trimmed grass, the same gilded door. And a good thing for Teddy, the same easy-to-climb trellis next to Shiloh’s bedroom window. He slipped inside easily, unnoticed by anyone but Shiloh.
Shiloh was waiting for him on his bed, lying sideways with his feet kicked up on the wall. He tipped his head back to stare at Teddy upside down. The column of his throat was long and slender but blighted by the darkness of bruises shaped like fingerprints.
“What happened?” Teddy instantly asked, rushing over, though he knew better than to touch. He didn’t need to, since Shiloh clearly knew what he was asking about. He immediately tugged up the collar of his shirt with a frown.
“Trick got carried away. That’s all,” Shiloh shrugged like it didn’t matter. Teddy still couldn’t make the dual images of Shiloh fit together. The spoiled rich kid with a fancy car and expensive clothes just didn’t meld with the one Teddy saw too often—the bitter, oft-bruised young man who sold his ass and throat for cash. But whenever Teddy asked why, Shiloh just shrugged the question off and answered, “Why not?”
There had to be more to the story. Teddy knew that Shiloh liked sex, but he couldn’t believe that his friend would turn to prostitution for the thrill. But it couldn’t be for money, either, since the jeans Shiloh wore cost more than a month’s rent. It was like putting together a puzzle upside down but missing half the pieces.
“Stop worrying,” Shiloh snapped. “I can see you thinking, you know, and you’re not here to talk about me, so spill.”
Teddy slumped down on the mattress and sighed. “I slept with Ian.” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but apparently his mouth bypassed his brain.
Shiloh’s brows lifted and he rolled onto his stomach. “All the details. Spill. Now. How was it? Are you going to do it again?”
“That’s not…” Teddy flushed. “It was good—better than good. Amazing, but…that’s not the issue. I want to do it again. I just… There’s something I haven’t told him and when I do, he’s going to hate me.”
“Nobody could hate you.” Shiloh rolled his eyes. “You’re a teddy bear.” Shiloh snickered, “Literally. Everyone just wants to grab you and squeeze you and pinch your cheeks. You’re such a boy that it’s not even funny.”
“Of course I’m a boy. I paid a lot of money to be a boy.” Teddy scowled. Being squeezable was not exactly a masculine trait, not in his mind.
“Not a boy, a Boy. You know…” Shiloh wagged his brows. “Like…be a good boy for Daddy? Come on, Teddy, I put it together ages ago.”
Teddy’s cheeks went hot and he groaned, burying his head into the covers. “You don’t have to make it sound so…so dirty.”
“It is dirty, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Honestly, I’m proud of you for being brave enough to go after what you want. You could have buried your head in the sand and kept having boring vanilla sex forever. There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone to take care of you.” Shiloh’s voice sounded so wistful that Teddy couldn’t help but lift his head to peek at him. There was a yearning so obvious in every line and plane of Shiloh’s face that Teddy wondered how he’d missed it for years. He’d always seen Shiloh as carefree and energetic, too buoyed by an inner fire to ever be tied down by anything. The look on his face, though, made Teddy reevaluate his friend’s desire.
“Do you… Is that something you want? Someday?” Teddy asked hesitantly.
Shiloh’s face closed down. “No. Of course not.” Teddy flinched at the harshness of his friend’s voice and Shiloh immediately softened it, reaching out to squeeze Teddy’s shoulder, “Not because it’s wrong, or…or because you have something to be ashamed of, just… Who would want a boy like me anyway? I’m a brat who fucks anything that moves. Not exactly good boy material.” Shiloh must have seen Teddy open his mouth to argue because he rushed onward, dropping his gaze from Teddy’s. “But you are. Ian would be lucky to claim you. I’m sure whatever you have to tell him, he’ll get past it. What did you do that’s so bad, anyway?”
Teddy’s palms grew clammy and his skin chilled. “I… You remember Ian’s brother, Lucas?”
“The one who killed himself?” Shiloh said after a few moments’ thought.
“He didn’t kill himself,” Teddy admitted, clenching the Egyptian cotton sheets. “He got involved with a cartel and they shot him.”
“Oh, shit,” Shiloh breathed.
“And…and I’ve been giving the cartel over ten thousand dollars a year for the past four years…” Teddy said the last on a whisper.
* * * *
It was nearing dawn when Teddy finally crept down the trellis and back out onto the streets. The walk to the bus stop passed in a blur. After he’d explained everything to Shiloh, his face had crumpled and they’d curled around each other, both pretending they weren’t crying, for nearly an hour. Teddy was crying because he was ashamed—ashamed that he’d been stupid enough to take the loan in the first place, that he’d never gone to the police after Lucas’ death, that he’d kept the secret from his best friend for so long.
Then he was crying because Shiloh had finally confessed his own secret. Teddy had always assumed that Shiloh had money. He drove a new Bugatti, wore designer clothing, bought makeup and lingerie on a whim. But apparently, the expensive car was in his father’s name, the designer clothing bought by his father’s secretary, the makeup and lingerie swiped on a card carefully monitored by his father’s accountant.
Shiloh had no money of his own because his father insisted he didn’t need it. After all, he didn’t pay rent on an apartment because his father said he was too immature to be trusted not to use it for parties or drugs. He didn’t have to pay for his tuition because his father would pay for college, as long as he went for business management. He had an allowance, but it was tied to a debit card that wouldn’t allow cash withdrawals, so every purchase he made, whether for shoes or condoms or a gas station cappuccino, was critiqued and criticized during his monthly sit-down with his father and the accountant. And Shiloh’s trust fund was untouchable until he was thirty.
Shiloh had finally, after they’d sat in silence for several long minutes, whispered the secret that broke Teddy’s heart. He sold his body because it was the only job he could get that his father wouldn’t find out about. Apparently, he’d tried teaching a dance class and his father had sent one of his goons—aka bodyguards—to drag him out in front of everyone. He didn’t even get paid for dancing at Envy, since he couldn’t put his social security number on the application without his dad finding out, so the onl
y money he pocketed was from tips.
Teddy didn’t know how to help his friend—and that killed him.
“A fine pair we both make, huh,” Teddy had finally said before he left. Shiloh’s eyes were red and puffy, like Teddy’s probably were as well, but he’d laughed.
The bus dropped Teddy off a few blocks from Envy, though he barely remembered getting on, and too soon, Teddy was standing outside the locked stairway door. He still hadn’t come up with the words he needed. He fiddled with his phone, tapping out a message and hovering over the send button several times before deleting it. Finally, he sucked up the threads of his courage and sent it before he could stop himself.
Downstairs, let me in? We need to talk.
Be there ASAP.
There was a brief pause, then his phone buzzed again.
Don’t leave.
It was only a few moments longer when he heard the lock tumble and the door was pulled open, revealing a very concerned-looking Ian, who tugged him into the stairwell and re-locked the door. Then Ian was pressing forward, crowding Teddy against the wall while his hands skimmed over his skin like he was searching for injuries.
“Are you okay? Where did you go, baby?” Ian asked, his voice gentle when he should have been angry, should have been yelling at Teddy for leaving without telling him.
“I…” Teddy closed his eyes, breath catching until he cleared his throat. “There’s something I have to talk to you about and you’re not going to like it. I…I got scared. I went to see Shiloh. I’m sorry. I should have told you I was leaving.”
“Yes, you should have,” Ian answered, his voice dark, but not, Teddy realized, with anger. He stroked his thumb over Teddy’s cheek. “Just because you covered them with makeup doesn’t make me forget about these bruises. Someone hurt you, baby, and until I know who, I don’t like the thought of you wandering around the city at night, unprotected.”
Teddy hunched, dropping his chin nearly to his chest. His hair fell between them like a curtain. “You…you won’t care so much when you hear what I have to tell you. I…I deserved them.”
Ian gripped his shoulders tightly, though not painfully. “No, you didn’t. I don’t care what you think you deserve, you don’t, baby. And nothing you tell me is going to make me think that, okay? Come upstairs.”
A tear slid down Teddy’s cheek. Ian said that now, but Teddy could still see Ian’s face in his memories—the way it had twisted in disgust that morning he’d seen the person Teddy really was, the selfish, weak man who’d rather let a man fuck him than take a beating. He should have said no, then maybe everything would be different. Maybe Ian wouldn’t have left, or…or maybe Teddy would have gone to the police station, battered but with his spine straight, not bowed like a coward beneath a thrusting body that Teddy barely remembered, blurred by the effects of the drug he’d allowed himself to be given.
Or, the small, rational voice in his head that sounded too much like Ian whispered, you’d have ended up like Lucas, swallowing a bullet.
Teddy allowed Ian to lead him upstairs and settle him onto the couch. He protested when Ian left him, until he said he was just getting Teddy something to drink. Guilt swelled further in his chest. He didn’t deserve Ian. Ian was going to hate him when he admitted what he’d been up to, and letting him take care of him now would surely only make it worse. He couldn’t force himself to stop him, though.
Ian returned a few minutes later and placed a large, steaming mug in Teddy’s shaking hands. The hot chocolate was dark and expensive, but small, rainbow marshmallows floated on top…Teddy’s favorite. Warmth that had nothing to do with the drink curled in his chest. Ian hated them, always had, so there was no reason to have them. Teddy imagined that Ian had stocked them just in case and smiled.
“There…that’s better,” Ian murmured. Rather than sit on the couch beside him, like he expected, or standing over him, looming like Teddy feared, Ian sat on the sturdy coffee table in front of him. It was close enough to the couch that Ian’s knees bracketed Teddy’s thighs, closing him in, surrounding him. Maybe it should have made him feel trapped but it didn’t.
It made him feel safe, and the thought was just enough to have him tightening his grip on the mug before setting it safely on the coffee table, just in case. Ian wouldn’t hit him, no matter how mad he was. Not on purpose, anyway. But Teddy also knew that if Ian got mad, he was large enough to hurt Teddy by accident.
“The reason I got these bruises is…is because I owe the cartel a lot of money and got behind on my payments.” Teddy said it before he could talk himself out of it or try and sugarcoat it.
Ian’s brown eyes blazed with lightning and he went still. Even his breath seeming to freeze in his lungs. Then he leaned forward, hands bracketing Teddy’s hips and digging into the couch. “I think you’d better start at the beginning.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ian hadn’t felt this angry in years. It seemed that every time he found something good, his happiness was shattered because of that goddamn cartel. He wanted to dismantle it, tear it apart with his very hands. They’d taken his brother from him. He refused to let them lay another finger on Teddy.
“I think you’d better start at the beginning.” Ian scowled, wondering how they’d managed to get their hooks on the boy in front of him. Because unlike his brother, who had always flirted too heavily with the wrong side of the law, Teddy was a good boy. Ian doubted he even jaywalked.
But Teddy flinched back from him, his pale skin growing even whiter, and Ian cursed himself for allowing his anger to color his voice. He gentled it and lifted one of his hands from where it was fisted against the leather to gently brush through Teddy’s hair. “Baby, I’m not mad at you, I promise. Just tell me what happened, okay?”
Teddy sucked in a breath, as though gasping in the oxygen would give him courage, and he nervously wet his lips. “You…you remember when I came to stay with you guys for a bit? Just, um…after high school?”
“How could I forget? I had to stare at your cute little ass traipsing down the hallway to the bathroom every morning.” Ian smiled, hoping it looked more honest then it felt. That had been a long few days, trying not to get caught staring at the younger man, and Ian had gotten far too acquainted with his hand in the shower.
Teddy’s skin pinked, a color that looked much better on him than the ghastly whiteness of his nerves. “Did Mama R—I mean, did your mother ever tell you why?”
“You can call her Mama. She misses you.” Ian knew he wasn’t lying, since his mother still spoke of Teddy often. Maybe it was time for him to finally visit. Since moving back, he hadn’t managed it yet, partly because he was busy with getting the club off the ground and laying the groundwork for his cover, but partly because he was afraid seeing her would bring up memories he didn’t want to have. “But no, she never told me. Just said you were having some problems at home.”
“Oh. Well, my mother was—is an alcoholic. She has been since I was a kid, and… Well, once my dad died, she lost her grip on it. She’d go through phases. Sometimes she was okay, but then she’d get worse and end up losing her job. I didn’t know it, but every time she got fired, she’d dip into the money that had been set aside for me from my father’s life insurance policy. It…it was the money we’d both planned on me using for my surgery.”
Teddy looked down, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and Ian’s heart broke a little. He remembered watching Teddy, both before and after his physical transition, and the thought that Teddy’s mother had knowingly almost prevented it from happening made him glad the woman had moved to a trailer park somewhere on the other side of the city a few years before. Otherwise, he didn’t think he could stop himself from storming over and banging on her door the next time he went to visit Mama. “That must have been horrible for you.”
“Yeah. I think what made it so hard was not knowing about it. I found out about it so close to my surgery date that there wasn’t much I could do, you know? And I knew that backing o
ut of the surgery until I could come up with the money again would make it look like I was having second thoughts, and…I was afraid the surgeon wouldn’t do it if I waited. I was in a really bad place, and Lucas saw me crying. He…he told me about this friend of his.”
Teddy trailed off, darting his gaze up to look at Ian, like he was afraid Ian would be angry that he’d brought up Lucas. And Ian was, but not in the way Teddy thought. He was angry at his brother for dragging Teddy into something that clearly neither of them had been prepared for. So Ian just schooled his face and nodded. “Go on.”
“This friend, his name was Julian. He said that he’d give me the money for the surgery, and that I wouldn’t have to pay it off for a while, and…it seemed like such a good deal, you know? I was never going to convince a bank to give me a loan, and it wasn’t like I could come up with the money that quick, not even if I picked up another job. So I took the deal, but…then things got strange. Julian raised the payments, and Lucas kept saying that he was acting weird. Like…on edge, and that he was involved with cocaine, and…I thought I’d finally convinced Lucas to go to the cops, but the next thing I knew…”
Teddy choked on a sob and bent forward, collapsing like a rag doll against Ian’s chest. “I didn’t know that they would do that. I didn’t mean to get him in trouble. I shouldn’t have said anything—”
“No, baby, no. It wasn’t your fault.” Ian stroked through Teddy’s hair, petting it while Teddy cried. “Lucas was in over his head. I’ve looked into it, you know…what happened. He was doing some really shady things and probably was already drowning before he even brought you to see Julian. It’s not your fault.”
That was one of the hardest things he’d had to come to terms with since investigating the cartel. In his head, his brother was a kid who didn’t know better, a causality of something he didn’t understand. Finding out his brother had been one of the cartel mules, helping sell drugs to the local schools, robbing convenience stores…whatever it took to keep his so-called ‘friends’, he’d had to come to terms with the fact that his brother wasn’t a victim. Eventually, if the cartel hadn’t gotten to him, the police probably would have.