by Lolly Walter
Joe scratched at the back of his neck until he realized that move probably made him look like a liar before he’d even started lying. He put his hand down.
“I’m going to train him. He’ll be my new partner. I’m really sorry, Bea. I begged Boggs not to split up you and me. You know how he is.”
Bea’s eyes flitted to Devin before they narrowed at Joe. “When does it start? Us not being partners anymore.”
“Now, I guess. I’ve got to train him. I’m really sorry, Bea.”
Bea nodded. “And he’s sleeping with you, right?”
“No,” Devin said.
“Yes.” Joe raised a finger behind his back, hoping Devin would get the message. “Boggs wants him with me all the time.” He lowered his voice. “I know we were… I could spend some time out there with you for a little—”
Bea shoved Joe aside and grabbed the blue suitcase that housed all her worldly possessions. “I’ll get out of your new boy’s way, Joe. Forget it.”
The suitcase slammed against the door frame as Bea made a hasty departure. Everyone in the open sleeping room of the flat stopped talking and stared at Bea storming away. Joe shut the door before all those eyes turned to him.
Back inside the safety of his room, he laid his forehead against the door and let out a huge breath. “Damn.”
“Why did you lie to her?”
Joe whirled. He’d forgotten Devin was in the room. He could give lots of reasons for the lie, but right now, not explaining anything sounded better.
“I’ll tell you later. First, let’s get a shower and some food.”
“Tell me now.”
Joe shook his head and gathered his toiletry bag and a change of clothes. “Later. Remember what I promised. Warm showers. Good food.”
Devin’s stomach rumbled, and Joe knew he’d won.
***
Devin complained about the lack of privacy in the communal shower, though he stayed in there, scrubbing his skin pink, his head thrown back under the spray, long after Joe had finished cleaning away his own sweat. Joe couldn’t very well leave after he’d made such a big deal about staying close, so he stood there, wet, naked, and shrivel-fingered next to his new charge, summoning all his patience. They only left after a rowdy gang of boys came in and made no bones about staring at Devin’s blond hair and white-boy skin. Joe bit his tongue to keep from chuckling at how fast Devin wrapped a towel around his ass.
Devin also complained about the food in the cafeteria, but he devoured all the enchiladas Cook slapped on his plate and sopped up the meat gravy with an extra tortilla. When he finished, he watched every bite Joe forked into his own mouth, and Joe made sure to eat slowly. The food here was better than he had ever tasted, at least that he could remember, and after five years, he still didn’t take hot, delicious meals for granted.
“You gonna eat that last piece of bread?” Devin’s hand hovered at the edge of Joe’s tray.
Joe eyed his tortilla and his tray, where the tip of Devin’s index finger brushed the silverware compartment. His first thought was to stab Devin’s hand with his fork and cram the whole tortilla into his mouth. He’d done it before when he was smaller and people had come after his food.
A slight tremor rocked Devin’s fingers, and Joe handed over the tortilla.
Devin tore it into strips and rolled the strips into balls. Each time he popped one into his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and he exhaled heavily.
The fresh bread really was a luxury. The Flats’ rooftop greenhouses supplied vegetables and even some fruit, but bread and meat, like drinking water, had to be imported from America. These days, the sound of the food delivery craft landing on the roof was enough to make Joe’s stomach rumble.
When Devin finished chewing the last tortilla ball, Joe stood. “Let’s go.”
Without a word, Devin mimicked Joe’s actions, washing his tray and replacing it in the tray rack, wiping down his spot on the table, and following out the double doors of the cafeteria back toward the sleeping quarters of A-floor.
Devin stopped in front of a metal door across from the bathrooms, midway between the dorm and the cafeteria. “What’s in here?”
“Gym and medic. We’ll start there tomorrow morning.” Gym training would be fun, even with Devin. Hitting the weights was the only thing Joe had ever found close to as appealing as running. “For now, come back to the dorm and I’ll introduce you to everyone. No more than arm’s reach away from me.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Remember those guys in the shower who wanted a piece of your gringo scalp?” Joe glanced back to see a hint of alarm in Devin’s eyes. “They’re the nice boys.”
“Whatever.”
Joe snorted, his hand already on the heavy metal pull that would open the door into the sleeping quarters. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, big guy. No more than arm’s length apart.”
Inside, most of the A teams were gathered for the evening. Lights out would be called soon.
Over to the left, shoved in the far corner near Joe’s room, the runners had styled a seating area with four torn and taped black vinyl couches arranged in a square. A few teams sat there, but most were scattered about, hanging out in various states of relaxation on the mattresses that lined the edges of the room. Some were listening to music, a few were screwing, two slept, and in the opposite corner, four sat playing poker around a dilapidated old card table. Bea sat on a mattress and flipped off Devin with both hands.
Joe headed for the couches. Let everyone else come to him. As he made his way over, Trig set his guitar aside and tucked little Roxy tighter into his body to make room on the best couch.
“Going to touch you,” Joe murmured so only Devin could hear, and he gripped his new partner’s forearm and sat him on the couch next to Roxy. Joe sat on the couch arm. He didn’t want to crowd Devin, but he needed to stay close. He also liked having his head a little higher than everyone else’s. With practiced indifference, he surveyed the room and wasn’t surprised that everyone except Bea had their eyes on his new partner. Joe stuck his feet on the couch at Devin’s thigh and got to work on introductions.
He hadn’t been sure about how the other runners would react to having a white man in their ranks. He was also worried that Devin would be a prejudiced bigot.
For a moment, Devin hesitated, and Joe shifted, ready to spring from the couch and drag Devin back to his room if any hint of racist garbage escaped his mouth, but the only thing that happened was Devin shook hands with Trig and showed a big, white-toothed grin to Roxy.
Devin gestured to Ebony. “Congratulations on your, um.”
Ebony patted her enormous round belly. “Thanks, sugar. Me and Zeke can’t wait to meet him or her.”
“I didn’t know any white boys were left,” Aubrey said, her eyes wide as she studied Devin.
Marcus patted Aubrey’s arm and wiggled his brows. “White-boy dicks work the same as the rest of ours, hermana. You should check us out sometime.”
“But white-boy dicks bring in more money, hermano. And no, thanks.” Aubrey nudged at Dottie until she could scoot farther along the couch and increase space between herself and Marcus.
Devin shifted at Joe’s feet. His smile wasn’t quite so bright now.
“We need to turn in for the night,” Joe said. Everyone waited for him to elaborate, give some reason, but he had learned long ago that he led better, got questioned less, when he kept to few words and even fewer explanations. “Come on, Devin.”
At the door to their private room, Devin bowed his head close to Joe’s. “Your girl’s watching you. You gonna say something to her?”
Joe shook his head, let them in, and closed the door behind him. He turned both locks and sat on the mattress to take off his shoes. He untied and loosened his shoestrings before slipping the shoes off and setting them next to his crate. He had shimmied a sock halfway down his calf when he caught sight of Devin leaning against the door, toeing off a shoe.
“Take b
etter care of your shoes. They only give you two pairs a year. Without them, you’re a dead man.”
“I’m the only white person here, huh?” Devin didn’t unlace his other shoe to get it off, but he did set them both neatly next to his trash bag of belongings.
Devin’s ignorance surprised Joe. Citing the dwindling population, shortage of water, and the unbearable heat, the newly formed New American government had withdrawn from Texas shortly after Joe was born. They’d urged the few remaining white southerners to move north. A wall along the 35th parallel marked the country’s new southern boundary. For a while in Joe’s early teens, Texas had tried its hand at independence, but the last he had heard, it was considered an American territory again.
“White men took their white wives and their white babies and left for the north years ago, man, before The Change got so bad. Aside from Boggs and our clients, I haven’t seen a white person before you in nine years. In books, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can find you a crate for your stuff.”
Devin settled next to Joe’s crate and rested his back on the wall. He nudged Joe’s knee with his toe. “Is that why you ditched your girlfriend and lied about it? What that girl said about white boy dicks?”
“You talk too much.”
“It is, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have done that. She’s a pretty girl.”
Joe pulled his t-shirt over his head and lay back to unfasten his jeans. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. Just a friend. My partner.”
“But you fucked her.”
“So?”
“Doesn’t that mean something? Fucking?”
Devin’s eyes were so intense, and for once, there wasn’t that hard, heavy wall around him. His face was open and innocent, and Joe didn’t understand the pity that welled up inside him at the sight. He pursed his lips and tried to think of a way to explain. “You understand our job?”
“We let rich people from the north act out their fantasies, chase us around like we’re criminals or whatever, right?” Devin clasped his hands around his knees and squeezed so tightly his knuckles turned white. Whiter. “That’s what that boss guy told me. ‘Flights of Fantasy deals in dream fulfillment.’”
“And you understand that a lot of the time our clients’ fantasies involve sex?”
Devin didn’t answer. His eyes made a circle of the room, and he ended up glaring at his own feet. Joe wasn’t prone to gentleness or concern, but he touched Devin’s knee with his toe, the same way Devin had done to him.
“It’s okay. None of us like it, but we do what we have to in order to survive. That’s what you’re doing, too.” The lights flickered. Devin jumped to his feet, and Joe smiled. “It’s the curfew warning. We have ten minutes until the power goes out. Gives people time to take a last pee and get to their beds.”
“Get up, then. I have to piss.”
Joe stretched out on the bed and put his hands behind his head. “There are so many advantages to having a private room. Pee out the window.”
“You’re shitting me.”
Joe got off the bed, opened the window, and let fly. The heat of Devin’s body was magnified in the tight space as a second stream joined Joe’s.
“Piss on you, Flights of Fantasy,” Joe whispered.
“Piss on rich fuckers. Piss on them all.”
“Amen.”
They shared a quiet laugh and closed the window. Devin stripped down to his underwear, and Joe motioned for him to get in bed.
“You sleep against the wall. I’ve been here longer, and I don’t want to scrape my back on the bricks.”
“I told you, I’m no fag.”
And like that, the spell of comfort and familiarity was broken.
“I don’t want to have sex with you. I want you to be well-rested enough to begin training tomorrow. You’ll be sore if you don’t sleep in the bed.”
“Floor’s fine.” Devin grabbed the pillow from his garbage bag and tossed it down. He hesitated for a moment, then laid out his discarded t-shirt and jeans and crept on top of them. “See?”
“Have no blanket.”
“Don’t need one.”
Joe lay on the mattress and made a big production of stretching and pulling the cover up to his chin. “Suit yourself, but you’d better be able to keep up tomorrow.”
“Won’t be a problem.”
Joe rolled onto his side to face Devin just as the lights went out and they were plunged into darkness. Few buildings in Austin had electricity, and almost all of them shut off the power at night. The only light came from the quarter moon and the twinkling stars.
“You sleep on floors up in the hills?” Joe asked.
“You fuck girls without caring about them?”
Joe found he didn’t want to see Devin’s face anymore. He turned toward the wall. “It’s the life, Devin.”
***
Sunlight filtered slow and dim through the windows when Joe woke the next morning. Next to him, Devin’s hulking shoulder rose up from under the blanket, the bare skin pebbled with goosebumps. Joe smirked and pulled the blanket over their shoulders. So the floor had proved too much for his macho new partner? Good.
Despite Devin’s reluctance to answer last night, Joe figured the guy had slept pretty comfortably up in the hills. The houses there had security measures, even without electricity, and Joe had heard stories that many places still had furniture from before the rich owners had fled north. Had Devin come from a rich place? If he had, what had brought him down into the bowels of the city?
Curiosity warred with detachment. When runners made it up to A rank, Joe had always been content to let them tell him as little or as much as they wanted about where they’d been. Most of them eventually told a lot, but Joe had never sought out the stories or found them all that compelling. They tended to follow the same storyline: The runner had been abandoned and starving and too tired of whoring himself out for next to nothing. That’s what Flights of Fantasy offered their employees — a little more than next to nothing. Joe scoffed at himself. The life was despicable, but he didn’t have a better option, not yet, not until he’d saved enough to head north and find his dad.
But Devin, he was a different story. Had to be. White boys didn’t exist in the south these days. White boys, if they did exist, didn’t walk down from the relative safety of the hills and into the viper’s nest of scammers and criminals that was the city.
With an indistinct mumble, Devin rolled over and wrapped his arm around Joe, who tensed. It wasn’t that he minded the contact; he was accustomed to the comfort of sleeping next to Bea. But Devin might have a fit if he woke that way, and Joe didn’t want to start the day having to deflect a punch from his new partner. He tumbled off the edge of the mattress and dressed before waking Devin by tapping their feet together.
“Rise and shine, big guy. Training starts now.”
Devin stirred and patted the mattress. He frowned and sat up so abruptly that Joe jumped away from him. They watched each other, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, until Devin ran a hand down his face and threw back his head. “Shit.”
“Thought it was all a bad dream?”
“Still fucking girls you don’t care about?”
“Get dressed.” Joe threw Devin his clothes and relieved himself out the window while Devin dressed. He made an effort to give Devin space, and he ignored the jab about sex. Devin would learn soon enough. When Devin had laced his shoes, Joe headed for the door.
Along with a handful of others, Bea stood in the common area. Her blond hair was tied high in a ponytail, and she was wearing tennis shoes. She must be training a new partner, too.
“BeaBea,” Joe said, nodding and walking toward her. He’d put off the conversation last night, thinking he’d give her time to cool off. Today, maybe they could smooth things over.
“Joesy.” Bea lifted her chin. The clipped greeting was delivered more to the ceiling than Joe.
“Are you training your new partner, too?”
Bea raised a brow but didn’t
make eye contact as she answered. “You know Victor from B?”
Joe’s breath caught. Not Victor. He shivered, then schooled his reaction. Victor from B was a burly, violent jerk. He’d enjoy the fake rape scenes. Joe swallowed his apology. Saying he was sorry wouldn’t help Bea.
“Yeah. He, um—”
“Cram it, Joe. Go fuck your meal ticket.” Bea shoved Devin and walked away.
“Bitch,” Devin whispered.
Joe sighed. “You know who’s the bitch in this situation, Devin. Come on.”
The tips of Devin’s fingers slipped over the back of Joe’s elbow. Joe closed his eyes, shook his head, and led Devin from the room.
Two
The gym at home had offered far more than this tiny little shithouse of a gym with a few free weights and a lone, ancient treadmill. Devin had enjoyed watching Joe’s eyes pop when he’d been able to bench the max weight. It hadn’t even been a challenge. He hadn’t had much to do for most of his life, hidden away in his parents’ home, and he’d gotten very good at being very strong.
He hadn’t gotten good at running, though. The treadmill in the gym at home was powered by electricity, and he’d been about ten when that had gone off for good. And Tanner had never let him go outside, not to run, not for anything, not even in the huge backyard where no one would see him.
“The bad guys, they’ll get you, Devin. They’ll take you away from me, and I won’t be able to stop them. The only way to be safe is to stay inside.”
Devin had pouted whenever Tanner had told him this. But he’d also believed his brother.
“Hey big boy, no daydreaming. Run.”
Startled from his memory, Devin picked up the pace and glared at Joe, who bumped the rail of the treadmill a couple of times with the side of his fist and pointed at the display, like Devin should know what the hell the numbers there meant. Devin rolled his eyes, but he was too winded to tell Joe to fuck off.
Sweat dripped down Devin’s face and into his eyes and off his chin. From a mirrored wall, his reflection stared back at him, growing redder and sweatier every minute. This had to end soon. His chest burned, his socks were drenched, and his balls were beginning to chafe.
