Cross Island

by Santino Hassell

  “Yo, what’s up with you?” Victor turned down the radio all the way. “You’re all in your head over there.”

  “Nothing, I’m just mulling things over. Have you been checking the cameras around the house?”

  He gave me a dull look. “I’d have told you if anything weird was coming up. Me and Chester both get pinged by the system if someone sets off the motion sensor on the cameras. It would also start recording.”

  “What if they stayed just out of range of motion detectors but close enough that the camera caught a foot or a rustle of movement?” I pressed.

  “We review the tapes very week even if we don’t get pinged.”

  “Did you review this week’s videos yet?”

  “Not yet, but I can shoot him a message to do it now. We usually go over them together when we debrief every few days.” Victor eased to a stop at a red light and gave me another long steady glare. “I feel like I’m missing something here. Why are you suddenly so pressed about the stalker? What happened?”

  There was a whole stereotype about lawyers being shady people who lied as a second nature, but I didn’t consider dishonesty to be part of my skillset. On the other hand, I tended to be brutally honest to a fault. What I was used to doing was evaluating information and deciding what would positively or negatively impact a situation. In this case, telling Victor about the messages would result in him wanting to either shut down the correspondence or take it over himself.

  In most other cases, I would have agreed. The past six months had changed that for me. Legally, interacting with a suspect was generally a no-no, but I’d sat and watched the QFindr staff be harassed and threatened for months. Because we’d been unable to track down the trolls and harassers directly, we’d settled for getting Travis as much as we could. Yes, I’d been somewhat satisfied to make an example of him, but clearly he hadn’t given up. And I was tired of settling.

  I wanted to handle this my way even if lying to Victor made my stomach go sour.

  “I’ve been thinking about Travis a lot more lately. He has to be enraged and desperate right now, and I feel stupid for not considering him as a suspect before.”

  Victor nodded slowly, those big dark eyes of his studying me and searching for deception. My poker face won the day, and he eventually turned his attention back to the road. “I’ll shoot Chester a message.”

  He continued driving and I continued staring at his profile. He really was a massive piece of eye candy. Even with the scars, the attitude, and the permanent scowl, he was downright lovely. That mouth of his… Good fucking Lord, that mouth had been made by some perverse body part artisan who’d excelled in creating sexual desperation in gay men. It was certainly working on me.

  Despite living together, the situation had not become the sex bacchanal my filthy midnight fantasies featured. Our day-to-day had defaulted to normal with zero awkwardness or changes except for one fevered kiss that had led to another sloppy blowjob after a second sparring session. He wasn’t as practiced as the usual men I picked up off apps, and I loved that about him. His eagerness and hunger. The way he tried to resist at first before giving in with motherfucking gusto.

  “Stop lookin’ at me.”

  I smirked. “No.”

  Victor obviously tried to hide a smile. “Mind telling me why we’re going to Downtown Brooklyn?”

  Ah… I’d been so caught up in one omission that I’d forgotten the original white lie that had put us in the vehicle. Now, I couldn’t bring myself to withhold information for him again. “You may not like this.”

  Victor’s brow crashed down.

  “At the wedding, your sister approached me and said she wanted to surprise you on your birthday.” I smiled just slightly. “Well, today’s your birthday.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news regarding your internal calendar, but you’re wrong. It’s today.”

  Victor’s expression didn’t change. He looked, as Aiden would have said, like someone had pissed in his cereal. “What the fuck? Why does she give two shits about my birthday? Where are we even—” Realization dawned across his face, and some of the hostile skepticism disappeared. “Did she tell you to take me to Junior’s?”

  “Yes. Well. She asked me to get you to Junior’s so she could surprise you.”

  “So, she’s there?”

  “Well, I assume so after we drove in all this traffic. I haven’t exactly followed up today.”

  Victor’s hands tightened around the wheel. “Man…”

  A knot of worry formed in my stomach. “Did I cross a line?” When he didn’t answer, the knot tightened. For weeks now, I’d been quietly acknowledging our closeness. After we’d had sex, I’d acknowledged the charge between us whenever we touched. But this anxiety at the notion of pissing him off a little too much only reminded me of my fear of him quitting and walking away from the assignment. And me.

  Normally, losing acquaintances or casual lovers fazed me as much as the wax and wane of the moon. After Michael, I’d accepted the fact that my life might become a revolving door of men. But Victor walking away? That wasn’t something I was willing to accept just yet.

  “She seemed upset about the lack of communication between you two, and she admitted she knows you don’t want to talk to her. So, she brought me in.”

  “So… you conspired with her to take away my agency?”

  Shit. “Listen, I’m sorry, Victor. Turn the car around.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re right. I crossed the line. If you did this to me, I’d have been enraged.”

  “No shit. You’d have ripped my nuts off,” he muttered. “But after driving in all this fucking traffic, there is no way I’m turning around without some cheesecake.”

  “Okay.” I tried to leave it there, but avoidable uncertainties weren’t my forte. “Are you upset with me?”

  Victor glanced at me at yet another red light. “I was trying to be, but not really. Mostly because it seems like you were trying to do the right thing, and I get the impression you don’t go out of your way to do favors for people a whole lot. So, I should feel touched, right?”

  Relief soared through me. I settled against the seat and looked out the window again, recognizing the street signs enough to know we were only a couple minutes away. I hadn’t been to Brooklyn much since I was a kid, but some things never faded with time.

  “I asked you a question,” he griped. “Does that mean I’m fucking special?”

  “I thought it was rhetorical.”

  “No. I am dead serious.”

  I couldn’t repress yet another smirk. “Did you quit saying deadass because I kept making fun of you?”

  “Nah, I’m used to your bullying by now.” Victor reached out to poke my side. I tried to evade, and he managed to get his fingers beneath my open coat to tickle me. “Just answer.”

  After shoving his hand away, and peering around as he parked, I said, “Victor, if you can’t tell by now that I treat you differently than most other people, you’re terrifyingly unobservant. It’s a pretty terrible flaw in a bodyguard.”

  He scoffed and opened his door. “Get out of the car.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed his arm before he could step out and pulled him halfway across the center console. He turned back, and I took the opportunity to lean much closer than I normally would with people we knew in the vicinity. “If this goes badly, I’m sorry. I should have told you regardless of what she wanted to do. Ultimately, I barely know her and you and I are…”

  Victor leaned in again, managing to look guarded and curious all at once. He was the only person I’d ever met who could simultaneously show a desire for affection but be somewhat foreboding about it. “Yeah?”

  Saying he was my bodyguard slash friend with benefits was a mouthful. “You’re my walking conflict of interest.”

  Victor barked out a short laugh. “I can live with that.”

  ***

  Victor<
br />
  My whole thing with Junior’s had started when me and Steph were little kids. It was the first and only time I could remember our parents taking me out for my birthday, so it had stood out in my mind as the most magical day in my life. Other kids had Disney World, and I had cheesecake in Brooklyn.

  After that, birthdays had gone downhill. The drugs had gotten worse, and any time family had come through to throw one of us a party, we’d collected some cash as gifts only to have it snatched up by my dad as soon as everyone went home. After a while, they were never even home. The rest of the Quinones family scattered, and so did our parents.

  But I’d never shut my mouth about Junior’s. Even at my hardest, as a teenager, I’d talk about how I wanted to go back. For whatever reason, I never had. Now here we were.

  It was smaller than I’d remembered it being, and a little dingier and tackier. It wasn’t dirty or anything, but the childhood shine of glowing orange chairs and happy people serving deserts was busted up by the reality of a restaurant that was crowded and hectic with guests and people buying cakes for the holidays.

  “Vic!”

  Stephanie’s voice rose above the din of noise in the restaurant and drew my attention to the bar. She was sitting on the edge, waving at me, and flanked by Angel, Tonya, and Meredith. The tension in my shoulders instantly eased at the sight of Tonya and Mere. I walked forward with a little more confidence and checked over my shoulder to make sure Clive was following. He didn’t look thrilled, but he was right behind me with his usual indifferent expression.

  “Hey,” I mumbled, drawing Stephanie into a brief hug. “This is weird.”

  Angel threw me an exasperated look. “We just wanted to buy you some cheesecake.”

  “Oh, so you were in on this too?” I asked.

  “We talked about it together,” Stephanie said. “I wanted to do something for you, but we’ve never exchanged presents, and this…”

  “Was what I’ve been harping on forever? I’m surprised you remembered.”

  Stephanie frowned. “Dude, I practically—” She broke off, took a deep breath, then pasted on a smile. “Whatever, of course I remembered.”

  “Okay, but what were you about to say?”

  Her smile became strained, but I kept watching her and waiting. After a beat, Angel got to his feet and jerked his head at the others. “Let’s go get a table.”

  Mere and Tonya greeted and hugged me before following Angel. It was only Clive who hesitated long enough for Stephanie to seem taken aback. The surprise turned to astonishment when Clive looked at me directly and asked, “Are you okay with all this?”

  It wasn’t so much that I was surprised by Clive showing concern, it was that I was surprised by him doing it blatantly in front of other people. My mouth twisted up into a tiny smile, and I jerked my head. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  He nodded, looked between me and Steph, then followed the others to the table. I stared after him, admiring the way his ass looked in his jeans, and the breadth of his shoulders in that black coat. Man, he was a fucking ten. Forget ten, he was a twenty.

  “Victor.”

  That tone snapped my attention back to Steph. She was watching me with a knowing look on her face, arms crossed over the Northface jacket she wore.

  “What?”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about this with me, but I wish you would trust me.” She held up a hand and stepped closer. “Before you shut me down by reminding me about how I’ve kept my distance, can you just give me a chance? I want a relationship with you, Vic. It’s killing me that I’ve iced you out and driven you away.”

  The weird thing about my relationship with my big sister was that I could resent the hell out of her for years but as soon as she gave me a miserably guilty look and admitted some wrongdoing, I felt like shit. My instant instinct was to reassure her and make her feel better because after all, wasn’t all of this my fault, anyway?

  “Can we talk outside for a second?” I asked. “I need a smoke.”

  Stephanie looped her arm through mine and proceeded to drag my ass out of the big orange restaurant. The wind was colder and sharper after having been in the too-warm space, and the snowflakes had grown larger and wetter. I despised it after years of dealing with the snow and cold of Chicago, but Stephanie’s eyes lit up.

  I ruffled her hair, dodged a swat, and shoved a cigarette in my mouth. “So, what do you want from my life, sis?”

  “Before I grill you on certain topics, I wanted to apologize.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat and bounced on the balls of her feet. “When you left, I did my best to get my life together.”

  “Without me holding you back?”

  She hesitated for a second then lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t want to sound like a coldhearted asshole, but Victor… it was rough being your sister. You were aggressive, you were mean, and my friends were terrified of you. The friends who’d kept me sane and happy and safe through our fucked up childhood. How did you expect me to feel when suddenly that wasn’t something that was tearing me apart anymore?”

  I wanted to be defensive or hurt, but I couldn’t be. She was right.

  “I can see that,” I said softly. “I wouldn’t miss me either.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant!” Stephanie moved closer to me, but I couldn’t tell if she was trying to show affection or trying to use me as a shield against the snow. “I knew I didn’t have to worry about you being hurt, getting arrested, or hurting someone else while you were in Chicago with tio. And when I found out you’d gone to Job Corps? I cried in relief. Ask Angel. He was there.”

  I lit the cigarette, hunching out of the wind, and avoided looking her in the eye as I processed that statement. If I chose to believe her, it changed my perspective on several things… Primarily the way she’d kept her distance while I was gone. I could see her thinking no news was good news and not wanting to burst that optimistic bubble. It was how we’d thought of our parents as kids.

  “What about when I came back?”

  Stephanie nodded as if she’d expected the question. “I was caught off guard. And you came during a time when I was in a mostly good place, and… as fucked up as this sounds? You were a reminder of our past. Not just you and Raymond and Shawn, but our parents, the drugs, how we don’t even know where they ended up…”

  She shivered when she said it, teeth chattering so hard I drew her closer into a half-hug.

  “It’s okay,” I said roughly. “I get it.”

  “Vic, we only ever had each other growing up. It’s not okay that I pushed you away.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah, well, sis, when I say I get it? I get it. That’s what happens to me when I see your boy Raymond.”

  Stephanie looked at me, her eyes opening wide.

  “I don’t hate him,” I said. “But when I look at him, I think… about Shawn. That night you and Angel found me with him on the ground. How he ran out thinking… he was gonna confront Ray for me.” Talking about it still tightened my chest, but it didn’t take my breath. It didn’t make me panic. It wasn’t fresh anymore. I’d worked it out of my system with Clive. “So, yeah, I get it.”

  She searched my face for another moment before pulling me into yet another hug. “Thank you for telling me that.”

  A faint smile crossed my face. “Yeah, well, I’ve gotten better at saying shit out loud.”

  “I’m glad.” She took a deep breath. “And I’m glad you get it. Seeing you brought so much back, and I needed time. And apparently I took so much time that you decided I was your enemy and started avoiding me.”

  “I’m just not trying to run after people who want nothing to do with me.”

  “Okay, I get that, but I want to be in your life, Victor Jesus Quinones. I love you, stupid. You are my brother, and I’m proud of you.”

  A lump formed in my throat that I struggled to swallow. Crying hadn’t been on the agenda when I’d stepped out of the car, but now my eyes were burning. I g
lared into the wind as though it were the cause. “I’m proud of you too, Steph. You’re, like, my fuckin’ role model.”

  She burst out laughing. “Shut up. That is not true.”

  “Yeah, it is. You always were. How we came from the same shitty family, and you have a whole college degree and a real job and a bomb apartment, and I’ve literally never done anything but couch surf with other people?”

  Her smile faded. “Just because we came from the same place doesn’t mean we had the same experience. And you forget—I had supportive friends who became my fam. You had people like Shawn.”

  I cringed. “Right.”

  Stephanie watched me smoke, seeming to bide her time or pick her words. After I finished my cigarette and flicked it away, she cleared her throat.

  “Can I ask you about—”

  “Please enough about Raymond. You—” I crossed my arms over my chest and powered through. “Look, you already figured it out, right? I don’t need to talk about it. You knew why I acted that way, and you probably know I hate myself for it now. So what’s the point of rehashing it?”

  “We don’t have to,” she said quickly. “But if you gave me permission to tell him… Maybe you two could become friends?”

  I shot her a warning look. “You’re jumping way ahead, sis. I’m not ready for that yet.”

  Stephanie seemed mollified by the “yet” and nodded. “Then can I ask you about Clive?”

  Considering I’d eyefucked him right in front of her, I had zero surprise at the direction this was taking. What did surprise me was the lack of anxiety about her knowing. For the first time, my back didn’t straighten and my defenses didn’t go up at the idea of someone learning the truth. I didn’t know if it was because I’d finally said it out loud and the world hadn’t ended, or because I was starting to come to terms with the fact that my gayness hadn’t caused Shawn’s death. Having zero reaction to her question felt like a milestone.

  “You can ask, but I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “There’s something going on that really should not be going on, but…”

  “YOLO?”

  I stared at her flatly. “Whack.”