Bad Influence

by K.A. Mitchell

  The conversations faded, and Gavin cleared his throat. “Silver, I spoke to the lawyer today.”

  Ah. A setup. All the stuff about having a cookout today because Jamie had to work Memorial Day weekend was a cover so there was a good crowd for the latest intervention.

  “Okay,” Silver answered cautiously. It couldn’t be really bad news, or Gavin wouldn’t have given that speech about learning people could be nice without you blowing them or whatever.

  “They’re working out a plea to avoid any jail time, but he feels the judge would be more inclined to look favorably at it if you were working on a GED.”

  Gavin used a lot of pretty words, but Silver cut through it. School or jail.

  Even conscious of how far out on a limb these people had already gone for him, Silver didn’t remember a whole lot of difference in terms of boredom between sitting in class or sitting in a cell. “I don’t want to take adult-ed classes with a bunch of losers.”

  Jamie snorted. Silver glared. Gavin said, “Perhaps a tutor.”

  “Quinn’s a teacher. Couldn’t Quinn tutor him?” Eli offered.

  “Uh.” Quinn didn’t sound particularly enthused about that.

  “Zeb could,” Silver put in.

  Gavin’s gaze felt like it went right through Silver’s brain and picked out all the ideas attached to what he’d hoped was an innocent-sounding suggestion.

  Eli’s look was suspicious, but for a different reason. “We’re talking actual studying this time, Silver. Not the fun kind.”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Silver sighed. “Look, he said he was sorry for getting me arrested, and he’d do anything to fix it.” He avoided Gavin’s eyes. Eli’s belief in the whole epic-love thing should help. “Please, Mom, we’ll work here at the house where you can keep an eye on us.” It wasn’t as if Silver’s plans involved actually having sex with Zeb, only making him want it. Want what they’d had so he could know what it felt like to lose it.

  “Will you ask the lawyer about that, Gavin?” Eli ignored the rest of it.

  “I will. The sooner things are official, the better,” Gavin agreed.

  “I can call him.” Silver hoped his smile didn’t look as fake as it felt. “You’ve got his number, right, Quinn?”

  WITH EVERYONE grabbing something, it didn’t take as long to get stuff back into the house as it had taken Eli and Silver to haul everything out. He wished he’d have that kind of help when he worked lunch tomorrow. But when Silver went back for the stuff that had been left by the grill, he was surprised to see Gavin wiping off the table.

  “Is this weird for you? Doing a maid’s job?”

  Gavin gave Silver a look like he was trying to figure out if Silver was serious. “Amazingly enough, I’ve applied a damp cloth to a flat surface in order to clean it a few other times in my life.”

  The guy was touchy. If Silver had that kind of money, he’d never do his own cleaning. He’d hire someone to follow him around that he could hand shit to. The touchiness could be Jamie getting under Gavin’s skin. Like that wasn’t bound to happen sooner rather than later.

  Or maybe there was a problem with communication. Though they were both sarcastic, Gavin was a lot quieter. They’d both be happier if one of them said something.

  And Silver owed Gavin. Giving him the 411 on his boyfriend’s issues was the least Silver could do.

  “You really like him? Jamie?” Silver asked.

  Gavin straightened immediately. “Ah—”

  Silver held up his hands. “Relax. I’m not hitting on you.” Though that car was something. “Unless…?” He let it trail off hopefully.

  “No.” Gavin’s voice was firm.

  “So. Do you?”

  A tiny smile teased the corners of Gavin’s mouth. “I do.”

  “Well, maybe you need to tell him that. He seems kind of weird about the idea of you guys being a couple.”

  “Does he?” Gavin sounded like that was something to be amused by rather than a problem.

  “Christ. I just said that.” What the hell was the point of trying to help people? Silver grabbed the spatula and tongs Eli had sent him out for and stomped back into the house.

  Jamie was doing the dishes, and Silver was only too glad to dump the utensils into the soapy sink so the water sloshed.

  “Thanks for the shower, brat.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Teenagers,” Jamie said in disgust. “Reminds me. How’s your buddy’s car? He get a new solenoid?”

  “Yeah, I think,” Silver muttered, guilt knotting the muscles of his spine until he felt himself shrinking. When Eli had thrown Silver a birthday party, Silver had wheedled a ride out of Marco. But when they left, the car wouldn’t start until Jamie did something involving sneering, snarling, and sparks in the engine. Predictably, Marco’s control-freak older brother had acted like it was Marco’s fault that the piece-of-shit car had something wrong with it when they got it back, leaving Marco carless for weeks. Marco had sent a bunch of texts lately, but Silver hadn’t answered.

  He tapped out a quick How’re you doing? text to Marco.

  “You think?” Jamie asked. “You guys seemed tight enough at the party.”

  What the hell planet was Jamie on that he thought Silver and Marco were tight? He probably only worried about Silver hitting on Gavin. “Seriously? Are you giving me boyfriend advice when you don’t even know if you’ve got one?”

  “Suit yourself.” Jamie turned sharply. “The fuck do I know is right,” he muttered under his breath.

  Silver remembered he was trying to do Gavin a solid and pushed away the irritation brought on by heat and guilt about blowing Marco off and by being in the same room with Jamie.

  Silver found a dish towel in a drawer and took a glass off the counter. “You guys are good.”

  “Huh?” Jamie snapped his head back around.

  “I watched. He’s really into you.”

  Jamie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Putting the glass away in a cabinet, Silver reached for another one to dry. “Maybe you should have like a relationship talk. Like ‘where do you see this going’ or whatever?”

  “Yeah. No.” Jamie let the soapy water drain out of the sink. His voice wasn’t as gruff as it usually was when he said, “So, your buddy. He got an issue with you being positive?”

  “None of his business. He’s just a friend.”

  “Still. Must be hard.”

  Silver shrugged. He didn’t plan on fucking anyone anytime soon. If he did, he’d worry about it then.

  Marco’s pissed-off answer of Why? Need a ride somewhere? came back two hours later while Silver was tucked up in a chair, headphones on as he poked around on the tablet and tried to ignore Quinn and Eli on the couch. They weren’t fucking or making out. That would have been easier to deal with. They weren’t cuddling, exactly. Quinn was reading a book, and Eli was watching something on Bravo that had to do with clothes.

  But they were touching in little ways. Quinn’s arm along the back of the couch by Eli’s shoulders, Eli running a hand along Quinn’s thigh or through his hair every once in a while. It was disgusting. Not the casual affection between them, but Silver’s reaction. The way he was wrestling with a great big messy, hungry ball of envy. Hiding behind the headphones and tablet wasn’t working anymore, couldn’t keep him from driving his nails into his palms because he wanted someone to touch him like that, in a way that didn’t mean anything while it still meant everything.

  He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Good night.” Quinn glanced up and blinked as if his eyes were refocusing.

  Eli offered a smile. “Night. Don’t forget to call Zeb tomorrow. About tutoring.” He added with an eyebrow waggle.

  Silver shut himself in his room and sprawled on the bed. Could he get more pathetic? Cowering in his room at nine thirty. He hadn’t been to bed as early as nine thirty since middle school.

  Rolling onto his stomach, he pulled out his phone a
nd texted Marco back. Sorry been out of touch. Got busted. Just got out. Funny how it was close to the truth. His lying muscles would get all flabby if he kept sticking so close to the truth.

  Marco’s answer was immediate this time. Busted?

  For a guy who lived in a part of the city that made Silver nervous, Marco could be hella naive.

  Cops picked me up. Fake ID.

  Puñeta! Fucking pendejos. You okay?

  Marco also loved drama. And any chance to be seen as more badass than he was. If he really wanted to stir up shit, he could tell his extremely scary older brother about having a taste for dick, but Marco wasn’t that stupid.

  Fine. Laying low. That was an understatement right now.

  Want to go out?

  No, Silver did not. When he’d hit the bed, he’d realized he was tired. The idea of actually falling asleep and staying that way was a sweet promise. If Marco’s car didn’t work, it was three bus transfers to meet him on West Eager Street—and then the same crap back up, assuming there were buses running. No one had told him he couldn’t go out. Jamie’s warning had only extended to skipping out on bail, not being chained up in Mount Washington.

  And even if this soft bed in a nice house was just an illusion of safety that Silver shouldn’t learn to count on, it was good enough for right now.

  Silver propped himself up on one elbow. Can’t. No ID. Don’t want to get picked up again.

  No club. Party. Carro bien.

  Silver was hesitant to rely on Marco’s description of the car as fine. Laying low.

  Aguafiestas.

  Silver wasn’t sure if that was a spell-check disaster or a description of the party being wet, so he sent a question mark back.

  Rain on the party. Always. Marco sent a pouting emoticon. No go alone.

  Silver sighed. He felt like a giant wet blanket, all right. Supposing Gavin’s lawyer got him off, Silver couldn’t hide out in Eli’s spare bedroom for the rest of his life.

  He tapped out his answer. OK.

  Chapter Seven

  AS SOON as they stepped off the elevator, Silver smelled disaster. It wasn’t only the burnt-carpet reek of a meth pipe and some overly pungent sex. There was an overlying reek that raised the hackles on the back of his neck.

  If it wouldn’t have been a cliché of epic proportions, he would have leaned down and muttered I have a bad feeling about this in Marco’s ear. Silver knew all his friend could see was the gleaming chrome and modernist leather and steel Bauhaus furniture of the loft space, but Silver had been raised by snobs, and it only took a quick glance to tell that Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich hadn’t been anywhere near the rent-by-the-week living room set. And the clothes were trying a little too hard.

  Going to so much effort to sustain a lie was warning enough. When a guy with a rug barely covering his balding scalp threw an arm around each of them and claimed, “I didn’t know Heaven delivered, but you are the answer to my prayers,” Silver figured even Marco would have seen enough to start backing for the door.

  Instead, Marco ducked and patted the guy’s arm. “My prayer is to have a Cuba libre. You can help me?” Marco batted his thick-lashed eyes.

  Silver rolled his as the guy went to get Marco’s drink. “What the fuck? Did you look at him? You liked him pinching your ass?”

  “Free drinks, cuate. Not all of them can look like that, sí?”

  “Get your own rum and Coke.” Silver pointed at the bar.

  “Aw yeah.” Marco’s accent disappeared under a perfect imitation of a Chesapeake drawl.

  Silver grabbed his arm. “If you put it down, get a fresh one, and don’t drink anything someone hands you.”

  Marco shook him off. “You are not my brother. O mi novio. Am ‘just your ride.’” He gave Silver a shove. “Vete a la chingada.”

  Silver wanted to follow him, but the pain and longing that shook Marco’s voice when he said Silver wasn’t his boyfriend kept Silver glued to that spot. He couldn’t be. Not only for Marco, but anyone right now. In fact, Silver couldn’t imagine a scenario where he didn’t end up dying alone. And per Marco’s instructions, Silver would be glad to fuck himself rather than look as pathetic as that future made him feel.

  He hoped his expression was more aloof than worried as he leaned against a support beam near the bar. He caught glimpses of Marco’s curly black hair, but his friend was too short to keep a close watch on in the dim light. The next time he spotted him, there was cloud of smoke around Marco’s head, but after an initial burst of anxiety, Silver realized it was only a blunt between Marco’s lips.

  Weed didn’t worry Silver; the idea of a crystal pipe in Marco’s hands did. And not just because Marco would be too fucked-up to drive him home. Silver had seen enough tweaked-out hustlers; he didn’t want to see Marco dropping down that hole. It had never held any allure for Silver. His life was fucked enough without dragging drug addiction into it.

  For all Marco’s pretended hood-rat bad-assery, his overbearing brother had seen to it that Marco was about as streetwise as Silver had been when he got off the Greyhound down on Haines Street.

  Rather than dealing with a come-on from a guy way older than Quinn and nowhere near as hot, Silver took out his phone and pretended to text. When he realized it had been a good fifteen minutes since he’d caught a glimpse of Marco, Silver was tapping at the keyboard for real.

  Despite the streaming ambient music in the main area, Silver would have heard Marco’s antique-car-horn text tone if he was there. His phone was never off.

  Silver searched around every partial wall, finding two not-Marco twinks getting felt up—and down—by some creepy guys. On the back deck, Silver spotted a thick neck and gunmetal brush cut above a yellow polo collar. Party like this, that could only be Todd Pike, the producer from the spanking website. Knowing that guy was here doubled the urgency to grab Marco and get the fuck out of here.

  When no one answered a pounding on the bathroom door, Silver dug out an old hotel room key he kept in his wallet and used it to push in the cheap door lock.

  Marco’s jeans were falling around his hips, shirt up around his neck, as the douchebag who’d greeted them when they walked in licked his way down Marco’s chest.

  “Hey, sorry. Gotta take a dump. Like, now.” Silver reached for Marco.

  Toupee guy scrambled to his feet. “Get the fuck out.”

  “Sure, okay. I’ll just do it in the kitchen sink. I think that’s what someone else did. Smells like it.”

  “What the hell?” The guy yanked his own pants over his hips and charged out of the bathroom.

  Marco blinked, eyes unfocused as Silver grabbed his arm and shook him. “We have to go. Now.”

  Marco pulled free. “No. You run out on the party alone this time. Some hijo de puta ex-novio make you cry again? Vete a la mierda.” Marco shoved Silver toward the door. “I wanna get laid.”

  “Do you want to be raped?”

  “Not rape when I want it.” Marco draped himself on Silver’s side, planting a wet kiss on his neck.

  Like Marco was able to know what he wanted now. Sometimes his brother Timo’s protectiveness did more to risk Marco than it did keep him safe. Silver was sure Marco’s sisters weren’t innocent enough to take drinks from skeezy guys.

  Silver peeled Marco off but kept a grip on his shoulder, tipping his chin up to study his face. “What did he give you?”

  “Rum. Amigo make Cuba libre estupendo. Not taste the diet.”

  “I bet. That’s the same asshole who grabbed our asses when we got off the elevator. You want to fuck him?”

  “He is… nice.”

  “He’s a….” Silver searched for one of Marco’s favorite insults. “…pendejo.” Silver dragged Marco out of the bathroom. “Look around. Fifteen minutes ago, was there anyone here remotely hot?”

  “Mmmm. I get to pick?” Marco cuddled up against Silver’s side.

  Jesus. Even fresh out of New Freedom, Silver hadn’t been this stupid. “Marco. He drugged
you. You ever hear of a roofie?”

  Marco looked at him blankly.

  Senorita Kaminski’s Spanish class had never covered date rape drugs on a vocab sheet. Maybe she saved it for senior year.

  “Liquid X,” Silver explained. Marco smiled. “Sí. Bueno.”

  “No. It’s bad. Gimme your keys. I’ll take you home.”

  “No. Arrecho.” Marco wrapped his arms around a support post.

  “Huh?” Senorita Kaminski should have spent more time on the slang and less on the conjugations. Sure as fuck would have come in handy right about now.

  “Arrecho,” Marco whined. “Need to come. Necesito que me agarres.” The grind of his hips against the beam was all the context Silver needed for translation.

  Fear and desperation were tying knots in Silver’s intestines. He could make it out of here no problem, but he couldn’t leave Marco.

  Silver placed a soft kiss behind Marco’s ear. “Okay. You come with me.” Kissing him again, Silver fished Marco’s keys from his jeans. “And I’ll blow you when we get there.”

  “¿De veras?”

  “Yup.” Silver threaded him through a few predators lurking near the door.

  One of them was Pike. He might have been a bottom-feeder, but he had charm, and even sober, Marco might fall for a play.

  “Behave now,” Silver murmured when Marco winked at the Bad Boys Real Tears producer. Pike might decide Marco would rather be here. And Silver didn’t know if he could fix that mess.

  Marco came to a halt, eyeing the stretch of yellow polyester across Pike’s shoulders. “¿Tu prometes?” He demanded of Silver. “Bésame.”

  Silver made not-kissing an art form in his hustling days. Kissing still felt more intimate than sex. Avoiding it hadn’t been difficult. That wasn’t what they wanted his mouth for. Hating himself, he turned Marco’s face toward him and kissed him.

  Marco’s tongue drew his in, hungry, desperate. Silver doled out calculated encouragement, firm pressure, a few sweeps of his tongue between Marco’s lips, and a hand stroking his back.