There was no mistaking the focal point of the room, a queen-size mattress on the floor on the same wall as the dresser. In contrast to everything else, it was made up neatly, the sheets tucked underneath and a geometric comforter spread on top. Two pillows were propped against the wall, which served as the headboard.
A lump formed in Will’s throat. Not because of the bed or the shambles Joey lived in, but because no matter who walked into this dismal room, their eye would be immediately drawn to the stuffed dragon lovingly propped against the pillows. The little, purple warrior held his ground in an obvious last ditch effort to fight off its bleak surroundings and the onslaught of adulthood. Will’s eyes shot to Joey, who ducked his head, the dark swoop of fringe falling to obscure his face, but not before Will caught the blush staining his pale skin. Joey was embarrassed, but Will was touched beyond words and had to acknowledge it.
“You kept the dragon.”
Joey bent and swiped it off the bed, juggling it carelessly, as if it meant nothing.
“Yeah, well, I liked it.”
Will smiled. “I’m glad.” He looked around. The driving beat of the music could still be heard and the occasional loud shout from the bar below. “So, you live here, huh?”
Joey shrugged.
“They don’t charge me much and all I have to do is help clean the bar.”
Will nodded. The polite thing to do would be to smile and say what a great deal that was, but… shit. The kid lived here. He pivoted in a circle, trying to find one nice thing to comment on, but the truth was, the nicest thing in the entire place was that damn dragon, the one Joey was now carefully repositioning in its place of honor. He stood up and tossed his head to adjust his bangs. Those violet eyes…
“You want something to drink?”
“Um, sure. That’d be great.” If you can spare it, Will wanted to add, but didn’t. Joey walked over to the fridge and bent down.
“Coke or Sprite? I have a can of each.”
Jesus.
“Or if you want some other kind, I can run down to the bar. I get pop free. Or, I can get you a real drink, you know, alcohol, if you want it.”
“Sprite.” Will stuck out his hand. “Sprite’s great, unless you want it.”
“No.” Joey handed Will the cold, blue and green can and clutched the red one to his chest and smiled. “I was hoping you’d pick Sprite. Coke’s all I drink.”
“Then why even have Sprite?” Not that it mattered, but Will wondered.
Joey’s smile faded. “One of the guys likes it so I try to keep some here for him.”
“Other people live here with you?” Will looked around again, confused as hell. Guys? Where do they sleep?
“No. Just… I sometimes have friends…”
What? You have friends what? The few pieces of the Joey-puzzle he had so far were creating a horrible picture in Will’s mind. He had to keep reminding himself this was none of his business. He had no right to pry into this young man’s life. He couldn’t help it. He had to know if what he was thinking was true. “Is Carl one of your friends?”
Joey nodded.
“Yeah.”
Chapter Six
“Are you turning tricks?”
Joey’s mouth gaped open. How could he think that? He looked around and tried to see everything from Will’s perspective. He looked at the room, thought about the scene with Carl, looked at himself, head to toe in leather and black, then at Will, all clean and healthy, strong and pure. He bowed his head and hid behind the fringe. He didn’t want Will to think of him that way.
“Are you?” Will closed the gap between them and smoothed the hair from his face. With no veil between them, Joey gazed into the green pools of Will’s eyes.
“No,” he said. “They don’t… They don’t pay me.”
Will let out a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Will said. He motioned to the sofa. “Can we sit?”
Joey shrugged. “Sure.” He walked over and plopped down and Will sat next to him. Deja vu all over again. His heart sped up. He couldn’t believe Will was here. But why? Why would he have come up here with him?
Oh.
He looked at Will, who had repositioned himself to face Joey, one arm slung along the top of the sofa. Why would he be any different? All the men came to the bar looking for the same thing; and Will hadn’t come to the bar tonight looking for Joey. Duh. Well, Joey had pride, and as much as he really wanted to do those kinds of things with Will, he couldn’t. He’d be the last person on earth to see Joey’s deformity.
“I can’t hook-up with you.”
Will’s emerald eyes grew wide over the rim of his Sprite and he sputtered, spraying Joey with a sticky mist. Joey giggled as he wiped his vest with the long sleeve of his black t-shirt. Will looked contrite. “I, um, I wasn’t expecting that. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just thought I should tell you,” Joey said.
“Well… thanks?”
Joey laughed.
“Except, maybe I should be offended,” Will said with a wry laugh.
Joey turned serious. “No. Don’t be offended.”
“Well, you’ve got me kind of curious now, to be honest. So, you’ll hook-up with Carl, but not me? Dude…”
“Carl’s nobody special.” Joey shrugged. “He’s just one of the few who actually talks to me. He’s okay.” He fidgeted beneath Will’s gaze, the intense scrutiny making him nervous.
“He’s not your boyfriend then?”
“No. Just a guy.” Joey never had an actual boyfriend, the type to hold hands with or just cuddle on the couch, but he didn’t want to admit that to someone like Will.
“I looked for you, you know, every Saturday. I always wondered what became of you.”
“You did?” Joey didn’t mean to have said it so happily or to be sitting there with a big, dopey grin on his face, but he couldn’t help it. Will laughed at him, but Joey didn’t care. Will had thought about him!
“Yeah.” Will smiled. “I did.”
“I thought about you too. A lot.”
Something in the air changed between them and Joey knew Will felt it too. He swallowed and licked his dry lips and Will did the same. He wanted Will to kiss him - he wanted it more than anything. Kissing was special. It was something he seldom got to do. If he and Will kissed, could Joey stop there? It’d be hard, but he’d have to keep anything else from happening. Will coaxed his bangs aside again, his fingers leaving a trail of heat in their wake.
“Your eyes were brown before.”
Joey couldn’t speak so he just nodded. Surely Will knew these were contacts.
“I liked your eyes. They were soulful. Why the contacts?”
“Purple, I… I like purple,” Joey whispered.
He thought he might melt from the sheer intensity of Will’s green gaze. Will’s lips came within a hair’s breadth of his own and then stopped. Joey held his breath.
“I want to kiss you. Can I?”
Joey didn’t remember saying, ‘yes’, but he must have, because Will’s lips brushed his before pressing and parting in a quest for more. This was nothing like the other times. It was soft and gentle and his tongue tasted sweet, like Sprite. His breathing was heavy but controlled. When strong arms enveloped him and pulled him close, Joey surrendered. He’d never felt so safe, so precious. Wrapped in Will’s arms, feeling warm and blissfully cherished for the first time in his life, he let out a little whimper.
The moment he did, Will pushed him away. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about putting an end to things.
Chapter Seven
Joey’s violet eyes screamed in hurt and rejection before hiding behind his long, black lashes. He scrambled away from Will, stopped only by the ragged arm of the sofa. Will reached toward him, but Joey curved in on himself to avoid his touch.
“Jesus.” Will cursed himself, running his hand through his hair. �
�Kid. Joey. Josiah…”
Joey glared back at him. “Don’t call me that.”
“Okay. Shit.” Will huffed in frustration. This had all gone horribly wrong. What was he thinking, kissing this kid that he hardly knew? Just because he’d haunted him all these years didn’t give him a license to maul.
“Look, I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?”
The quiet question caught him off guard and he sputtered for a moment.
“Why? Which reason do you want? How about ‘I hardly know you’ for starters?”
Joey looked at him sideways through his bangs and shrugged with one shoulder. Huh.
“Okay, since that doesn’t seem to matter, how about ‘you hardly know me.”
“I know enough,” Joey mumbled, but Will heard it.
“Ya’ think? What makes you think after spending a grand total of, what… an hour maybe… with me over the course of five years, that you know me?”
Joey sat up, his spine straightening, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. His shoulders uncurled and became broader as he stood and turned to face Will. Long arms unfurled like wings as he reached to run his hands thru his hair. No longer the gothic teen, Joey towered over Will, looking every bit the man he was. Will shrank into the cushions of the natty sofa as Joey’s shouts drowned out the music still filtering up from downstairs. His colorful eyes glowed brighter as they flared in anger and all kinds of other things Will couldn’t decipher.
“What makes me think that? Because you swooped in one day and gave hope to a sixteen year old, queer kid with cancer who was scared out of his fucking mind. Because you handed him that stuffed animal over there and gave him something to hold on to. Because you didn’t care that he was queer.” He lowered his voice. “And I don’t mean just gay, either.” The blazing fire within him seemed to fizzle and die; the glorious phoenix returning once again to the ashes. His shoulders slumped and he seemed to deflate before Will’s eyes. He now had to strain to hear the next words.
“Because you walked in tonight and didn’t see the freak at the end of the bar. You just saw someone you thought you knew. Because when you kissed me…”
He didn’t finish that thought. He spun and walked to the ‘kitchen’ and kicked the mini-fridge before leaning on the counter, head hung. Will rose to go to him, but stopped mid-way. This is exactly what had happened a moment ago. He had no right to take Joey in his arms, no matter how bad he wanted to.
“Joey…”
Joey turned, his eyes glistening. “Because when you kissed me, I felt it.”
Will didn’t ask what he meant. He didn’t need to. He’d felt ‘it’, too.
“For the first time ever, I felt something when someone kissed me. Not like the cold pecks on the cheek from my mom, or the awkward kiss behind the field house from Lizzy MacIntire, or the stinking, beer-breath kisses from…”
He trailed off, lost steam.
Will tried finishing for him. “Carl?”
Joey shrugged and shook his head as it dropped, breaking eye contact. “Any of them.”
Everything in Will him screamed at him to go to Joey - to take him in his arms and hold him - but he took a step closer and reached for his hand instead. Joey clasped it in a death-grip and whispered, “Don’t tell me I don’t know you, Will, because you’re the only thing I’ve ever been 100% sure of.”
Joey was fragile. That was blatantly obvious, but Will suspected inside his porcelain shell raged the heart of a warrior. He swallowed and squeezed Joey’s hand. “Then give me a chance to get to know you, too, okay? Because I’d really like to.”
Joey raised his head and studied him before nodding.
“Yeah, okay.”
Will released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He wanted out of this room, this depressing space, where everything he looked at made him shudder and imagine some awful scenario involving this beautiful young man. “Let’s get out of here. Wanna’ grab some dinner?”
Joey’s face lit up at the mention of food, but just as quickly, he shook his head. “I don’t really eat out much.” Will’s eyes landed on the hotplate and a mutilated box of Captain Crunch. By the looks of it, he didn’t eat ‘in’ all that much, either.
“My treat. First thing I need to know about you. Do you eat meat?”
Chapter Eight
Joey felt out of place in the posh, downtown steakhouse. He’d heard of Messina’s, of course, but he’d never been inside. Will, however, had to be a regular customer there, because everyone seemed to know him and they were quickly ushered - ahead of other customers, even - to a large booth at the back of the restaurant. The hostess - Will called her Trish - handed them heavy, leather-bound menus that felt more like a book. Joey had been aware of people gawking at him as they’d made their way across the dining room, his leather club clothes and assault boots completely out of place in the high-end dining room. After scooting into the booth, he glanced out from under his bangs. No one was paying him any attention. He was used to both reactions.
He pretended to read the menu, but couldn’t help watching Will instead. Why would he bring him someplace nice like this? Someplace he’d have to explain - to people he knew - why he’d brought a freak to dinner?
“You should be looking at the menu. The waiter will be here any second. You can stare at me all you want after we order.”
The blood rushed to Joey’s face and he ducked behind the big menu. “I wasn’t staring,” he grumbled.
Will laughed. “You mumble when you lie. Got it. See? Learned something new about you already.”
He raised the menu higher so Will wouldn’t see him grin.
The waiter came and they placed their orders. Will studied him and Joey fidgeted, feeling off-kilter and lightheaded. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had anything but Coke today and the smell of wood-fired meat was making his stomach growl.
“Relax, Joey. You look like you’re waiting for a mob hit or something.”
Joey slumped, but then immediately straightened and smoothed the tablecloth. “It’s just… this is a nicer place than I’m used to. It’s fancy. Everyone’s in suits.”
Will looked around and shrugged. “It’s just a restaurant. No different than Steak N’ Shake. Just better decorating, different menu, lower lighting, and higher prices. I didn’t bring you here for any of that anyway. I brought you here because I know we’ll get a good meal and because I want to get to know you.”
“Why?” The question was out before Joey could stop it. Will seemed surprised.
“Because I like you?”
“How do you know? If you don’t know me?” He had no clue why he was being such a dick. It was like his subconscious was trying to drive Will away, when, in truth, that’s the last thing he wanted to do.
“Fair point, well played.”
“Why would you bring me someplace like this?”
“You don’t like it?”
“No! I mean, yes! It’s… nice! It’s just, people know you here.”
“So?”
“Why wouldn’t you go somewhere no one knows you.”
“What the hell difference does it make?” Will scrunched his face in confusion.
“So you don’t have to, you know… explain.”
“Explain what?”
“Me,” Joey whispered and fidgeted with his place setting. Will reached across the table and took Joey’s hands in his. Joey looked up in shock, but Will’s expression was calm. The waiter came with their salads and Joey frantically tried to pull his hands out of Will’s, but Will didn’t release them until he absolutely had to, in order to make room for their plates. The waiter placed their salads and a basket of rolls wrapped in a linen napkin on the table and took a step back.
“Can I get you anything else right now, Will?”
“No, thank you, Trevor,” Will said and the waiter vanished. Will immediately turned his attention back to Joey. “Why in the hell would I have to explain you to an
yone?”
Seriously? He couldn’t be that clueless, could he? Was Will really going to make him spell it out? Joey huffed in frustration. “Look at you.” He waved a hand at Will before sweeping his arm in an arc that encompassed the entire room. “Look at everyone else in here - like you.” He looked at Will and tried not to shrink. “Now, look at me.”
Will studied him for an uncomfortably long minute, never breaking eye contact. Then, to Joey’s shock, he leaned way out of the booth and eyeballed Joey’s entire length, his gaze raking slowly up and down. Will returned to a normal sitting position and leaned in, lowering his already deep voice.
“Thanks for that little opportunity. I’ve been dying to check you out all night, but I wasn’t going to be quite that obvious about it.”
A minute ago, Joey was blushing at his own self-consciousness, but when he met Will’s heated gaze, the blood rushed to his cock, making his inappropriate attire even more inappropriate. He squirmed in an effort to discretely adjust himself, but Will’s sultry smile told him it was no use.
Chapter Nine
Will would’ve laughed if the moment wasn’t so serious. Joey was gaping at him like he had two heads. He didn’t, of course, unless you counted the one that was now sitting up, taking notice of the full-body scan he’d just performed at Joey’s request and Joey’s delicious reaction to it. He needed to calm the fuck down. He knew exactly what Joey was insinuating, but he wanted to make sure there was no mistaking what he was about to tell him.
Dragons Page 2
