“I have no comment.”
“Is it true that you cheated on him?”
“No.”
“Is it true that you stole money from him?”
“No!”
“Is it true that you’re bad in bed?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I think he’s made his opinion clear. What would you like to say to him about that?”
“Whatever it is, I’ll say it to him, not you.”
“Did you hurt him during sex? We hear you’re quite rough.”
“What?” He knew better than to give her that much of a reaction, but it was too late. He bit back his first instinct, which was to ask if Julian had said that, both because it was too close to engaging with the reporter and because there was no way on earth Julian had said that. “No. I don’t hurt people—no.”
“Is it because you’re the father of Bo Thomas’s baby? Does Julian hate kids?”
“Julian likes kids, and anyway I’m not the father.”
“Is it true that—”
“Look, no matter what you say, even if you happen to be right, I’m going to deny it, so save your breath.”
The woman’s gleeful smile didn’t falter. “So I’m right about something?”
“No.”
“This is your second major break-up in the last year. Is it a drug problem?”
“No.”
“Are you going to try to get Julian back?”
Rafi brushed a hand against the weight of Julian’s bracelet in his pocket. “Yes. I am.”
His phone rang. Another unknown number, and hadn’t that gotten him in enough trouble, but it was better than talking to the reporter. “Hello?”
“Thank God,” said an unfamiliar voice. “This is Tasha, Julian’s bodyguard, do you remember me? Is Julian there with you?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No? Look, I can’t get ahold of Julian and it’s an emergency—”
“You think he’s answering my calls?” The reporter was inching closer, trying to hear. Rafi put out a hand and glared to keep her back.
“He always answers your calls,” Tasha said, matter-of-fact and confused.
“You’re a bit out of the loop, Tasha.” Which was extremely strange, wasn’t it, when Tasha’s job was to look after Julian? “What’s the emergency? Is someone hurt?”
“Um,” Tasha said, her voice wavering, and Rafi realized abruptly that she was on the verge of tears, “I’m not sure. Aaron is locked in the bathroom with at least three different methods of killing himself, and I don’t think he’s done anything yet but he will if I call the police, and the only person he’ll talk to is Julian.”
This was so far from anything Rafi had expected to hear that he just gaped at the phone.
“Is that Julian on the phone?” the reporter asked. “Is he hurt? Who’s hurt, Rafi?”
“Would you shut up?” Rafi snapped.
“He’s probably at his apartment and just not answering his phone,” Tasha was saying. “I tried to send Lyle but he can’t get away from Uncle Eddie right now—someone robbed the guy or something and he’s freaking out. Please, can you just go find Julian? Aaron is…This could end really badly. Please.”
The elevator stopped at the ground floor. Rafi darted out as the doors opened, turning not toward the pool but the garage.
He didn’t owe anything in particular to Aaron or Tasha. Perhaps this was just a jerk’s excuse to impose himself on his ex. But someone’s life might be at stake, and…it was one thing for Julian not to answer Rafi’s calls, but his own bodyguard?
“I’ll find him,” Rafi said, and hung up the phone.
* * * *
Rafi found Julian before he even reached his glittering mistake of an apartment building—saw him on the sidewalk two blocks away from it, feeling his way along a wall with blood on his face and shirt. Rafi slammed on the brakes, parked semi-legally along the nearest stretch of sidewalk, and leaped out of the car.
“Julian?”
Julian didn’t try to run away; as stiffly as he was standing, Rafi thought he might not be capable of it. He had his eyes closed, as if gathering strength, but when Rafi approached he opened them, crossing his arms over his chest and lounging with studied casualness against the wall. People on the sidewalk were doing double-takes as they passed, possibly recognizing him, definitely seeing the blood.
“Well, if it isn’t my boyfriend,” Julian drawled.
“Julian, are you hurt? What happened?” He looked even worse on closer examination. Blood was smeared all over his hands, on his face, and seeping in two places through the torn remains of his shirt. His hair hung loose and tangled, and he was all over grimy and scuffed, as if he’d been rolling on the ground.
“I’m fine,” Julian said. “Though it’s none of your concern either way.”
“Of course it’s my concern! Julian, you’re bleeding—”
“Don’t touch me,” Julian snapped, jerking away when Rafi reached for him. The movement unbalanced his casual lounge, and he staggered, tried to catch himself against the wall—would have fallen, except that Rafi caught him.
“I get that you don’t want me here,” Rafi said. “But you are seriously hurt. You either let me help you, or I call for an ambulance. It’s up to you.”
Julian hissed between his teeth, but stopped fighting and let Rafi’s arm remain around him. That felt better than it had any right to. “The bodega on the corner. They know me there, and they’ll have a first aid kit.”
Rafi helped him along the sidewalk, as much as Julian would let him. “What happened? Were you in an accident?”
“A fight. You should see the other guy.” Julian’s smile was a little giddy. “That was a joke. The other guy was a ceramic flowerpot shaped like a chicken.”
“…Did you hit your head?”
“I don’t think so, but I certainly hit everything else.”
When they reached the bodega, the wide-eyed proprietor let them into a tiny storage room and brought the first aid kit, along with, at Julian’s request, orange juice and a hot dog.
“The dizziness is due to hypoglycemia, not blood loss,” Julian said matter-of-factly. “I’ll be fine once I’ve eaten.”
“A hot dog isn’t going to make you stop bleeding. How do you get this shirt off?” The crisscrossing black straps seemed specifically designed to stymie his hands.
“Just tear it. You’re good at that.”
They made the mutual mistake of letting their eyes meet, and the wash of memory was almost more than Rafi could bear. In that moment, there was nothing he wouldn’t have traded to go back just one day—
Julian looked away. “It’s ruined anyway, you can’t make it any worse.”
“In a broom closet, tearing off your clothes. Nice way to spend an afternoon.” He took the shirt in both hands, ripped it neatly in half, and pulled away the pieces.
Julian had enough blood left to blush. That was encouraging.
It had looked worse than it was, Rafi thought as he began to clean and bandage the wounds. There were a dozen scattered cuts, but only two that deep enough to worry much about, on the left side of his torso. The blood on Julian’s face, he found when he cleaned it carefully away, was not from any wound there; probably just transfer from his scraped-up hands.
“Who did this to you? A mugger?”
Julian shook his head. “Playing hide-and-seek with paparazzi isn’t nearly as much fun by yourself, it turns out. Especially when the damn tree branch breaks.” He turned away and gulped down the last of his orange juice.
“You fell? From how high? And landed on the…ceramic chicken? I think you should get checked out.”
“Not happening.”
“I guess that’s your choice,” Rafi said reluctantly. “As it happens, I did come find you for a reason.” He told Julian about Tasha’s phone call.
Julian combed fingers through his hair, looking overwhelmed. “Aaron is having a crisis, Christian i
s apparently missing, and I’m…” He gestured down at himself. “Not a great day for my uncle’s stable.”
“Or your uncle, either. Tasha said something about him being robbed.”
Rafi wasn’t sure exactly what thoughts were clicking into place behind Julian’s eyes, but they seemed to be disturbing ones. “I think I should talk to Aaron.”
* * * *
Aaron and Tasha had a room at the Pierre Hotel, and Rafi had a lot of questions about that, but this wasn’t the time to ask them. Tasha raised her eyebrows at Julian’s torn slacks and the hot pink tank top he’d bought at the bodega, but waved them inside.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Gault,” Tasha said, and Rafi wondered if she were clinging to etiquette for lack of anything else. She was dressed for a day off, in a cute yellow blouse and jeans, which made her look like a different person than the buttoned-down bodyguard Rafi had first met. She led them through the richly-appointed hotel room to the bathroom door. “Aaron is in there. He has a variety of pills, and a razor, and I heard him fill the tub a few hours ago. He was still responding to me until about ten minutes ago; he won’t talk to me now, but I think he’s still moving around in there.”
“Have you contacted anyone else for help?” Julian asked, pressing his ear against the door.
“No. Maybe I should have, but he begged me not to, swore he’d hurt himself if I did.” Tasha rubbed her face, looking exhausted.
“Aaron,” Julian called through the door. “You wanted to talk to me, here I am.”
There was no answer. No sound of motion at all.
“Aaron?” Tasha shouted, and pounded on the door. Nothing.
“Screw this,” Rafi said, and kicked in the door.
The bathroom was huge and gleaming. Its central feature was a large soaking tub—where Aaron Pratt lay motionless in a pool of scarlet up to his chin.
Tasha and Julian rushed past Rafi and were already dragging Aaron out of the water before he could react.
“Towels,” Julian snapped, pointing at a pile of them beneath the sink. Rafi spilled them onto the floor to lay Aaron across, followed by smaller hand-towels to wrap around his bleeding wrists.
Tasha was talking, a barely-coherent stream of words composed equally of swearing and endearments, pleading and demands, partly at Aaron and partly at God. The terror in her voice was painful to hear.
“Aaron,” Julian said loudly, and delivered a brisk, businesslike slap to his cheek.
Aaron flinched and groaned. Tasha began to cry.
* * * *
Once Aaron was fully conscious, dried off, and wrapped in a robe with layers of towels still tight around his wrists, Rafi carried him to the bed. Staying in the room with the bloody tub would do no good for anyone’s state of mind.
“You need a hospital,” Tasha said, sitting beside Aaron on the bed with her arm tight around him.
Aaron, looking wet and small and much younger than—what was he, nineteen?—huddled into Tasha’s arms. “No. No hospital. It’d be all over the tabloids in an hour.”
A couple days ago, Rafi would have thought that was a stupid reason to risk one’s life. He could sympathize a lot more, now.
“We’ll call the concierge,” Julian said, his tone brooking no argument. “I’m sure they’ll know a doctor willing to make a house call.”
“You may need a blood transfusion,” Tasha said.
Aaron hesitated, then nodded.
“Tasha, go make the call please,” Julian said.
Tasha looked at him, startled and indignant, a clear I’m a little busy here in her gaze.
“I want to speak with Aaron alone,” Julian said. “I think he might prefer that too.”
Another hesitant nod from Aaron. Looking pained, Tasha kissed his forehead, then reluctantly disentangled from him and stepped into the next room to use the phone.
Rafi moved toward the door, only for Julian’s voice to stop him.
“I’d prefer for Rafael to stay, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” Aaron said dully. “It doesn’t matter.”
No surprise that Aaron didn't care what Rafi knew, as opposed to Tasha, but—Julian wanted him to stay? He’d pulled up a chair to the side of the bed, and sat as regal there as ever, tank top and all. Yet his eyes, when he looked up at Rafi, did not match that body language. Julian was shaken, and didn’t want to be left alone with this frightened boy.
Rafi pulled up a second chair, sitting close enough to Julian for their knees to touch. Julian let them.
“All right, Aaron,” Julian said. “You wanted to talk to me. Why?”
Aaron, watching the direction Tasha had gone, spoke hardly above a whisper. “Because your name was on the list.”
“What list?”
“The one Chris found.”
“Christian?” The subliminal hum in Julian’s body heightened, his bare shoulders tensing. “What are you talking about, what did he find?”
Aaron gestured weakly, seemed to be trying to gather his thoughts, his words. “Okay, so, I’ve been staying at Uncle Eddie’s the last couple nights? While my place was frickin’ fumigated? And this morning I caught Christian going through Uncle Eddie’s stuff. I started to tell him off for it, but then he showed me what he found.”
“Which was?”
“A list of names. Handwritten, old paper. Your name was right at the top. Mine further down. And a bunch of others. All boys Uncle Eddie worked with in some way, back when I was a kid. Before that, even. Chris, he said he listened in on a phone conversation with Uncle Eddie and some old British lady. She was saying he’d never get away with it and she wouldn’t let him hurt you anymore—you, specifically, so you know that got Christian’s attention. Said she’d finally figured out what the list was. It was a list of Uncle Eddie’s boys. ‘Boys like me and you,’ that was what Chris said. Did you know?” A bit of fire returned to Aaron’s features, angry and hurting. “Did you know there were others? He always told me I was the only one. That he loved me. That I was special. I think he told Chris that, too, only Chris wasn’t fool enough to believe him.” He sagged back against the pillows again. “I believed him.”
Rafi became aware of his own hands on his face, covering his nose and mouth as if he were breathing into a bag. Surely Aaron wasn’t saying…surely Rafi was misinterpreting something.
“You still believed him? Even after he stopped having sex with you?” Julian’s voice was clipped, cold, expressionless—but the rest of him was white and trembling, drawing in on himself. His knee pulled away from Rafi’s.
“Relationships evolve,” Aaron said woodenly.
Julian shook his head, swallowing hard. “Where is Christian now?”
“I don’t know. He took the list and bugged out.”
“And you got yourself a hotel room to kill yourself in.”
“We already had the hotel room.” Tasha was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, chin raised as if daring Julian to comment on it. “We both had a few days off, and thought…” She trailed off, rubbing her face again. “Aaron, what if I hadn’t gotten here early? What would I have found?”
Aaron’s stony expression dissolved into abrupt tears. “I’m sorry, Tasha. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Tasha rushed to the bed and pulled Aaron into her arms.
“Let’s give them a moment,” Julian said, rising from his chair. He passed Rafi without touching him, walking not into the sitting room but back into the bathroom. Rafi followed.
* * * *
Julian felt steadier with a door between himself and Aaron, at least until his gaze landed on the bathtub full of blood. Thanks to Rafi, the door wouldn’t stay closed; Julian leaned against it, and slid down to the hard floor, knees drawn up his chest.
Rafi stood over him, looking sick. “Your name was on the list.”
The list. There was an entire list of them, of boys Uncle Eddie had abused. On old paper; this was the outdated list. How much longer would the newest version be?
; Boys like us, Christian had said to Aaron.
“Christian,” Julian said, choking on the word. “I thought I was protecting him. I thought he was safe. What did I miss? Why didn’t I know?”
Rafi didn’t answer. Of course not. There wasn’t any answer.
Words continued to spill out. “I asked him about Christian once,” Julian said. “Uncle. He said of course not. Said that what he and I had was special, that he’d never felt that way about anyone else. I think he thought I was jealous.” He shuddered. “I wasn’t. I’m not as big a fool as Aaron. But fool enough to believe him. I can’t believe I believed him.” Julian was digging his fingernails into his own shoulders; they would draw blood any second. He deserved to bleed, deserved to hurt.
Rafi knelt in front of him and gently pulled his hands away.
Julian gave a choking sob. “You can still touch me? I can barely stand to touch myself.” It was Rafi’s skin his nails bit into now, digging into his wrists, but Rafi didn’t flinch, only cupped Julian’s cheek in one hand.
“What do you need from me?” Rafi said. “Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
I need a long shower. I need my family back. I need a dark corner to hide in. I need you to pin me to the wall and make me forget anyone else has ever touched me. I need you to not be my uncle’s spy. Julian was still gripping Rafi’s wrists, eyes closed as he tried to calm himself, to think.
“What kind of arrangement do you have with my uncle?” he asked. “I don’t care what it is, just tell me the truth.”
“There’s no arrangement,” Rafi said without hesitation. “There never was. I was in the process of telling your uncle to stuff himself when you interrupted.”
He looked sincere, guileless; he always did. He was either an exceptional liar, or he wasn’t a liar at all. Could Julian have misinterpreted what he heard? He re-ran the memory of the conversation in his head. “You’d like for me to be your pipeline, right? Feeding you information about Julian’s activities, feelings, decisions…” Had that really been the lilt of an offer in his voice, or sarcasm and disgust?
Hope sparked in Julian’s chest.
“You want to look through my phone?” Rafi pulled one hand away, pushed his phone into Julian’s hands. “Look. Eddie’s not even in my contacts, because I didn’t want to talk to him.”
Star Bright Page 23
