by A R Steele
“As if it’s any of your business.” Lev took a step away, but he couldn’t seem to get away from Peyton’s gaze.
It was crazy that the man who had tortured him for so long was standing here right in front of Lev, and that he was pretending to be nice. Surely he knew Lev remembered all the horrible things he’d said and done. Lev would never forget, and he would never forgive him either.
“I’m serious. How are things? I’ve thought about you so often.” Peyton stepped forward and brushed an eyelash off his cheek. “Did you make it as an actor yet? I remember how much you used to love singing and dancing.”
Lev softened a tiny bit. Peyton remembered his passion. He’d never seemed to take it seriously, so Lev was surprised he still cared. “Not quite,” he said. “I have a similar job, though. It’s pretty cool.”
He wasn’t about to tell Peyton he was a male stripper. A faint wave of shame washed over him. He adored his work, but he could just imagine how Peyton would laugh if he knew. Peyton would probably have a few choice thoughts about stripping, and he wouldn’t hesitate to express them.
“I’m very happy for you,” Peyton said. He sounded sincere. “Everything is going well for me, too.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Lev said under his breath. He couldn’t seem to make his voice go any louder.
Peyton tilted his head and looked at Lev, his eye contact never wavering. “You can’t be happy for me?”
Lev’s body tensed, and he glared at Peyton. What the hell kind of question was that? Peyton had to have an idea of what he’d done to Lev. No one could just forget the way he’d treated him. Lev searched his mind for some examples of those atrocities, but he couldn’t seem to pick any out right now. With Peyton acting so pleasant, maybe he wasn’t as bad as Lev remembered.
“We should get coffee,” Peyton said. “What do you think?”
“I think that’s a terrible idea,” Lev said.
“Just to catch up,” Peyton said. “You know there’s no ulterior motive. I’m married now. I only want to see how you’re doing. I miss you, Lev. One coffee together. Tomorrow, eleven AM.”
The tension in Lev’s shoulders relaxed and he slumped, looking at the floor. The hold Peyton had over him was too strong for him to walk away. One coffee would be okay. Peyton said they were just going to catch up. It would end there – he promised that to himself. He was too smart to fall for Peyton’s tricks again.
“All right,” he whispered.
Twenty-One
The kitchen was less brightly lit than before. Austin glanced up at the ceiling, noticing that one of the bulbs had burned out. His mother hadn’t replaced it. She never did these things unless he reminded her.
“I’m going to get you a new light bulb before I go to work tonight,” Austin told her. “You can’t go sitting in the dark like this.”
“It’s hardly that bad,” Mom said defensively. “If it was, I would’ve already gotten a new light bulb.”
Austin shrugged and sat the case of sparkling water on the counter. Mom had an addiction to the stuff. It was too heavy for her to carry easily, so he brought some over whenever he came. “I’ll get it for you, it’s okay. I just wish you would pay attention to these things.”
“Well, sit down,” she said, gesturing at the table. The stove had a bubbling pot of soup on it. “I’ll make you a bowl. When is your brother going to come over for dinner, anyway?”
“He seems busy these days,” Austin said. “The club’s doing so well, it’s taking up all of his time.”
“He needs to show his face around here more often,” Mom said. “At least I have you to keep me company.”
More like to keep her from getting into trouble. For someone who should have been thirty years wiser than Austin, she sure had a talent for making bad decisions.
“Still talking to those guys on the Internet?” Austin asked.
“Here and there.” She placed a bowl in front of him, then went back to the stove. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
How was he supposed to not worry? His heart beat a little faster, and his fists clenched under the table as his mother served herself and returned to his side. “These men are no good for you, Mom. You should stay away from them.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Have you already forgotten about what happened with that jerk in Canada? That’s the reason your grandchildren aren’t going to have a college fund.”
She took a sip of water, pouting when she put the glass down. “As if I have grandchildren. Neither you or Trenton has given me any.”
“You need to get off that site, Mom. If you really need to meet a guy, do it in real life. What’s wrong with going to the church or the gym, like in the good old days? Or get one of your friends to set you up.”
“I met Hank in real life, and he scammed me,” she pointed out bitterly. She turned over her spoon, steam rising off the soup. It was still too hot to eat, and Austin guessed both of them were wishing they could eat the meal and be done with it. This conversation was simply awkward.
He softened his voice, wanting to make sure Mom knew he only wanted the best for her. “I’m trying to keep you safe,” he reminded her.
“I know.” She picked up her spoon and blew on it, finally putting it into her mouth. “You’re hardly one to be talking. Is your love life doing so well? When’s the last time you even dated?”
Austin raised an eyebrow. It was as if she’d been talking to Wright. Normally she left this topic alone.
He toyed with the food in his bowl. “I date.”
“Oh, really?”
Damn, she knew him too well. “There might be someone in my life,” he admitted. “But the guy in question, well… he has some walls up.”
When he looked up, his mother’s eyes were lit up. She moved forward in her seat, pushing her bowl aside. “That’s the first time in years I’ve heard you talk about being interested in anybody. Forget the walls. You need to go for this.”
Austin shrugged. “I’ll try, but I don’t know. What if he doesn’t want to let those walls down?”
“Why, it’s your job to bring them down.”
“I don’t know,” Austin said. His mother had good intentions, but she didn’t understand. “I think those walls are up to keep him from getting hurt. That’s all I want more than anything, to keep him safe.”
Slowly, his mother shook her head. “It’s not possible to keep everybody safe,” she told him. Her voice rang with a confidence he usually didn’t hear in her. “Those walls would be up to protect him from the wrong people. But you’re not that person. You’re not going to hurt him.”
“But what if I do? I want him to be okay more than I want to be with him.”
“I didn’t raise you to give up on somebody so easily,” she told him. “You can’t keep everybody safe.”
Twenty-Two
Lev sailed along the streets, cruising at a low speed. His foot came down every few seconds, and he pushed just hard enough to keep going at a moderate pace. Show tunes rang in his ear buds, and he was barely restraining himself from singing along. As it stood, he was lip-synching pretty hard.
A familiar Mustang pulled up at his side. He paused and watched the window roll down. Austin sat there, his double-pierced eyebrow raised. “You’re running pretty late.”
Lev frowned, pulling out his phone from his pocket. Austin was correct. He hadn’t realized how late it was getting, and if he kept going like this, he was going to be at least five minutes behind. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll pick up my pace.”
Austin let him get a few feet ahead, then drove slowly forward and pulled up beside Lev again. “I could give you a ride,” he said through the car window.
Lev looked around. His skateboard was most likely not going to get him there on time. If he accepted the ride, he would actually be a few minutes early. “Fine,” he said. “But we’re not talking about anything.”
“We can ride in silence, then.”
>
A minute passed. Lev tried not to look at Austin, but it was impossible when seven pieces of metal were glimmering in the corner of his eye. And all of the jewelry only accentuated the strong lines of Austin’s brow and jaw.
“You never spend this much time with your mouth shut, do you?” Austin said. “Must feel pretty weird for you.”
“And yet you’re the one who started to talk,” Lev pointed out.
“Fair enough… brat,” Austin said. But there was affection in his tone. “Why don’t we do this? I’ll talk, you listen.”
“I can do that.”
Austin glanced over at him before clicking on the turn signal. “We’ll see about that.” He pulled the car into the next lane as he spoke again. “I’m worried about my mom. She keeps getting scammed, and I don’t know why it’s happening. She’s so gullible. She’s lost so much already, but she never seems to learn from her mistakes.”
That wasn’t what Lev had expected him to say. Unsure of how to react, he nodded.
“My brother doesn’t seem to care too much lately,” Austin said. “He used to come see her more often, but things have changed in the past few months. He spends all his time alone. At least, I think he’s alone. He doesn’t show his face at Mom’s apartment, anyway.”
“He seems pretty close with Brentley,” Lev put in. “Do you think those changes are since Brentley showed up?”
Austin huffed out a laugh. “Thought you were supposed to keep quiet. I knew you couldn’t do it.” His face went serious again, and he said, “Maybe I should ask Brentley. They do seem close. Trenton hardly seems to care about what happens to the club anymore. He used to be obsessed with it, and now he doesn’t even mind putting two guys on the stage at the same time.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Lev said. “The customers are going to pick up on those partners being partners off the stage, too. Trenton used to be so tough on everyone, and now it’s like it’s all fun and games for him.”
“Well, enough about me,” Austin said. “How’s your family? Since you’re talking now, and everything.”
Lev gave him a bitter chuckle. “It’s your fault that I’m talking. You tricked me into it. Fine, I’ll bite. My aunt is doing fine, aside from the heart attack she almost had when she saw you on the couch that time. She recovered enough to give me a pep talk last night.”
“How long have you been living with her?”
“It’s been a few years now.” Lev wasn’t even sure how long. He preferred to not think about the time before.
“Why’d you decide to move in with her?” Austin asked.
“I didn’t have much choice. My mom hadn’t paid the rent in our apartment in six months or so, and that was how long it took for us to get evicted. Aunt Sandra doesn’t charge me for rent.” She knew Lev’s mom well enough to not trust her as a tenant, but she took pity on Lev and let him move in.
“So your family is a mess, too.”
“You can say that again,” Lev sighed. “My dad left suddenly when I was six. Haven’t heard from him since. And I don’t know if my mom was an irresponsible wreck before that, but she sure turned into one. Somehow that didn’t reduce the crazy Jewish guilt she inflicted on me. At least my aunt is around and sane. I’m a lot luckier than some people.”
“My dad took off, too,” Austin said. “I was fifteen. It wasn’t fun, especially when she started getting taken advantage of by the men she dated after.”
Lev straightened his skateboard on his knees. Peyton had never spoken to him like this, like an equal. He couldn’t recall a single serious conversation they’d had in their entire six months together. Peyton was all about the sex, and if Lev ever didn’t feel like having it, he imagined Peyton would have gotten up and walked away.
When Lev had first met Peyton, it was… intense, to say the least. Peyton was so good-looking, and his personality was forceful. Just sitting on the bar stool across from him, Lev was overwhelmed. Peyton heaped compliments on him – to be fair, mostly about his looks. Still, he made Lev feel special.
They only hooked up the second time they met. Peyton drove Lev onto a quiet road late at night and took him into the back seat of his car. Lev was nervous for some reason he couldn’t remember now, but he didn’t have an easy way to leave. He let Peyton do what he wanted. He assumed Peyton was always that rough.
A few days went by without contact. Then Peyton asked to see Lev again. Lev thought about saying no, but he didn’t have a good reason to. So even when he left Lev wincing in pain after their encounter, Lev let it slide.
“Ever think your shitty home life could be why you went for a guy like that ex of yours?” Austin asked.
Lev’s eyes went wide and he gripped the edges of his skateboard. “What are you talking about?”
“Just an idea.”
“I don’t see why you care.”
“I like you,” Austin said bluntly. He reached over and put his hand over Lev’s.
Lev’s fingers were tight on the skateboard, and they only tightened more at first. After a moment, though, he relaxed. He longed to turn his hand up so they would be palm against palm and he could interlace his fingers with Austin’s, but he didn’t.
“I want to make sure you don’t get hurt,” Austin added, giving Lev’s hand a squeeze before taking his away.
Lev sat back in his seat, pulling the skateboard right into him. Why did Austin have to go and ruin the moment? He still wanted to protect Lev, and Lev didn’t need his protection. Lev was just as grown up as Austin, and he couldn’t see why Austin thought he was so weak. He didn’t need anyone to take care of him.
The car turned again while Lev was deep in thought, and he saw they were turning into the strip club parking lot. He sighed as Austin pulled into a parking spot. He didn’t really feel like going in and putting on a smile and acting like the carefree, flamboyant guy his friends knew. He definitely didn’t feel like seducing women and turning them on.
Austin put his hand on Lev’s again. As the soft warmth wrapped around Lev’s fingers, Lev looked into his eyes. They shone with affection, and maybe more than that.
Something inside Lev shifted. There was so much pain in him, and Austin wanted to offer him comfort. He leaned in, still staring into Austin’s eyes. “Thank you for the ride.”
Austin leaned in, too. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Lev wondered why he was resisting him… why they were resisting each other.
“You’re welcome,” Austin finally said.
They swung their doors open at the same time and got out of the car. Looking at the front door, Lev sighed again. Austin must have heard it, because he put his arm around him and pulled him in tightly. It wasn’t a romantic hug, not exactly, but it lasted several seconds longer than any two straight guys would have hugged.
They took a step toward the door, Austin’s arm still around Lev.
A giggle erupted in the crisp night air, then another. The trilling female laughter came from behind them.
Lev squirmed out from under Austin’s arm and spun around, his heart in his throat.
A small group of customers had just gotten out of a car.
Twenty-Three
With only empty space under Austin’s arm, he dropped it quickly to his side. He wondered what those girls had seen. He hadn’t heard their car pulling in, too distracted by his proximity to a certain shaggy-haired twink. But those gasps and giggles were all he could hear now.
“You don’t think they figured it out, do you?” he murmured to Lev.
“I don’t know if there’s anything to figure out.” Lev gave him a long glance and slipped inside.
Great, leaving him out here to deal with the aftermath of whatever those girls had seen. Austin stood in front of the door and hooked the velvet rope across it. “Club’s not opening for another few minutes, ladies.”
There were four of them, all skinny blondes with painted-on red lips. Impossibly white teeth flashed as one’s eyes swept up and do
wn Austin’s body. She didn’t look intimidated, unlike so many of the other people who came here. Instead, she simply looked amused.
“No problem,” she said. “We can wait out here. I’m sure you can keep us entertained in the meantime.”
“You can stand in line,” Austin suggested, flexing his arms subtly to make his biceps bulge.
“That doesn’t sound too fun,” another girl said. “Maybe your friend should come back out here. We liked him, too.”
Austin was pretty sure at this point that they’d seen something. They couldn’t know much about what was going on, seeing as he didn’t know much himself, but they had clearly figured out that something was up between him and Lev.
He shook his head, more at himself than at them. After all the effort it’d taken to get this place off the ground, it might get all messed up now that it was finally starting to succeed. What would these women think if they knew what went on behind the scenes at the Tool Shed?
“You can stand in line,” he said.
A few more women arrived behind them, and that meant the night was officially beginning. The first group giggled more as he took their IDs.
The only blessing was that they didn’t seem completely sure about what they had seen. Austin knew he would have to be careful regardless. He was on edge for the rest of the night, and he was almost rude to the customers that came in. Luckily, that was part of his job description. He was keeping the place safe for everybody, so he was allowed to be a little curt.
“How’s everything going?” Trenton asked when he swung by late in the evening. Brentley was glued to his side, as per usual.
“Everything is good,” Austin said. His eyes darted around, and he decided it was a safe enough time to speak. No one was in sight. “The only thing is, I think these customers might catch on about the, um, sexual proclivities of the men in this place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t give me that, big brother.” Austin nearly snorted as he called Trenton that. He stood a good three inches taller than him, as well as having a whole lot more muscle.