Bad Company

by K.A. Mitchell

Yolanda was pouring beans in the roaster and filling tanks. She did look ready to start snapping her fingers along with her directions, the way she had yesterday during the lunch rush.

  Yolanda grabbed the arm Brandi had freed and led Kellan behind the counter. “Kellan. Good. You can work the register this morning.” Her Spanish accent was thicker today, maybe because she was in such a hurry. “The prices are all listed on the side there.” She tapped her dark red fingernail on the laminated paper. “You take the money and make their change. The register will tell you how much. Sandra, show him. If there’s a charge, Sandra will do it. You call her.”

  Sandra murmured and pointed at the keys, but other than figuring out what the drinks actually were when the customers got to him, it wasn’t much different from hitting keys on a calculator.

  “Of all days for the bakery truck to be late—” A beeping interrupted Yolanda, and she and Sandra rushed off to the kitchen.

  They knew what they were doing, so Kellan stayed out of their way and tried to memorize the numbers and the items on the card. If he put it into a singsong rhythm, it wasn’t that hard. The bakery items went into only two price categories—regular and special—and someone’s tiny print gave examples of what each was underneath. He tapped his fingers lightly on the keys, getting the beats right. The only problem would be special orders, like extra shots of espresso or syrup. At least he didn’t have to be the one making the half-skinny, half-soy, mocha and caramel, no-foam latte Kimmie had always demanded of the production assistants.

  Yolanda unlocked the door, and the customers streamed in. The first five girls were in matching school uniforms, which made Kellan think his guess was right. They all ordered vanilla coffee milkshakes, which had Sandra and Brandi gritting their teeth because they required a lot of individual work. Each of them paid separately with a twenty, which depleted Kellan’s cash drawer, but then they each dropped two ones in the tip jar that read Support Counter Intelligence with a shy “Thanks, Kellan.”

  It wasn’t until after the third girl had tipped and stepped aside to murmur with her friends that Kellan realized he wasn’t wearing a name tag. He kept eye contact with the next girl as he rang in her order and gave out her change. She blushed but still thanked him and dropped money in the tip jar.

  The other five girls only dropped their coin change, but they were less shy about eye contact and about using his name. A few people he guessed were regulars came in after the underage stalker parade, but the two groups of girls clustered at the end of the coffee bar and kept watching him.

  Whether they wanted to get a look at someone who’d been on TV or to see a gay guy in his natural habitat, Kellan felt like he was in a zoo exhibit. Five more people came, the last two looking his way. Yolanda moved behind him, muttering, “Hiring you as a favor for Nate is working better than his promise of free ad space for a week.”

  Kellan remembered Nate throwing around the word whore last night. He’d bargained for Kellan’s job, which given Nate’s overexaggerated morals was kind of a shock, in a nice way. And it wasn’t that Kellan minded the job. If people wanted to stare—well, it wasn’t that different from his life before. They were just staring for another reason. He smiled back at the customers, turning up the charm, and more bills and change landed in the tip jar. Brandi gave him a friendly punch on his arm when someone tossed in a five.

  By the time the coffee and pastry crowd had slowed to a trickle of people who stayed to sit and drink in front of laptops at the various tables, the huge jar was half-full and Kellan had only had to ask Sandra for help with the register once. Kellan couldn’t remember ever getting something right like that the first time before. It was nice. The girls were nice. Yolanda was nice. And when Terrell strolled in and made a sexy whistle at the sight of the tip jar, his comments about Kellan shaking his ass for tips had them all laughing as Kellan acted it out.

  Kellan wished the lunch crowd would start soon, because wiping down the empty tables gave him too much time to go back to wondering about where things stood with Nate, and if he wanted to actually find out—those things.

  Nate would think it was a joke if Kellan flirted like Eli or Terrell, and Kellan couldn’t see Nate being wowed with flowers or presents, not that Kellan had money to buy him something. It was weird to try to figure out how to get someone in bed with you when they were already there. Especially when you weren’t sure what would happen and whether you wanted it to.

  Kellan looked up from the table he was cleaning to see a black Town Car block the spot in front of the fire hydrant across the street. He already had a sick sensation in his stomach before he saw his dad’s driver get out of the car.

  Instead of opening the door for Geoffrey, though, Shepherd kept walking, across the street and into the café. Kellan wiped the table again and waited.

  “Mr. Brooks?” Shepherd held out a cell phone.

  With a sigh, Kellan dropped the rag and put the phone to his ear. He knew one thing. There wouldn’t be an apology on the other end of the phone.

  “Kellan, please hold for your father,” his dad’s secretary said in the polite tone he’d heard so many times before his dad started screaming in his ear.

  There was a longer pause than usual; then, instead of screaming, his father’s voice was pitched low and even. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Looking for someone to make a man out of me, like you said.”

  Mission accomplished, Shepherd moved away to order coffee and give Kellan privacy. Most of the people who worked for Geoffrey were nice enough. It was his dad who was a dick.

  “By pretending you’re queer?”

  “Did it look like I was faking it?”

  His dad made a sound like he was in pain. Kellan would rather hear screaming.

  “And you think that these latest theatrics of yours will make me want to have you under my roof again?”

  “I don’t care. Didn’t you read the paper? See my message for you?”

  “Yes, the Gray boy’s paper. You realize he’s only using you to strike at me.”

  “Right. Because he wasn’t my best friend for most of my life.”

  “That was over a decade ago. You don’t have any friends, Kellan. You’ve seen to that all by yourself, no matter how you may choose to blame or punish me.”

  Kellan slapped the rag against the table. “I’m punishing you?” His voice got high, almost cracked, and he was furious with himself—and with his fucking father for still being able to do this to him.

  “You were told to stay out of the papers. The company is undertaking a major venture right now, and I don’t have time for one of your hysterical episodes.”

  “You’re calling me hysterical and you don’t think I’m really gay?”

  His father ignored that. “I will not have my son as the latest public exhibit of homosexuality. You will stop your most recent venture into drama and stay out of sight.”

  “Or what? You’ll throw me out? Cut me off?”

  “I wonder how eager your friend would be to help you out with your scheme if it affected the distribution of his newspaper.”

  “Try something else, Dad. If you were going to go after Nate, you’d have done it before this after all the stuff he’s written about you.”

  “Perhaps. But everyone has their vulnerabilities. Like that little café Shepherd found you in. I’m out of patience, Kellan.” His father disconnected.

  There was no point in pushing the Callback button. Geoffrey Brooks always got the last word. Kellan stared out the window, though his eyes wouldn’t quite focus. Finally, he took a deep breath and found Shepherd waiting patiently while he sipped his coffee. Kellan crossed over and handed the phone to Shepherd.

  “You’re a nice guy, Shep. But you work for a major fucking asshole.”

  Kellan walked through the kitchen and out the back door, stopping to lean against the sun-warmed bricks. No matter how many long, deep breaths he took, he still felt that break high up in his throat, and
when he lifted his hand, he was surprised that it wasn’t trembling.

  “Kellan?”

  He looked down at Brandi standing next to him.

  Terrell stuck his head out of the door. “Told you he didn’t smoke.”

  “Are you okay?” Brandi asked.

  “The man’s still not dealing with you coming out, right?” Terrell added.

  That was one way to put it. “Right.”

  “Take your time,” Brandi said and went back inside.

  He’d worked there for one day—less than eight hours total—and they actually cared about him. Not the Kellan with money to burn or a reality TV star girlfriend, just him.

  Now his dad would call someone at city hall, and Manna Café would get hounded by the health inspector, or suddenly there’d be a water main that had to be replaced under the sidewalk in front, blocking the door. Kellan didn’t know who owned the place, but he wasn’t about to let Brandi and everyone else lose their jobs because of his dad.

  He had to quit.

  He found Yolanda in her office and explained what had happened, what he knew his father was capable of.

  “Thank you, Kellan. If you need a recommendation anywhere, have them call me. I’ll send a check for your hours to Nate at the paper.”

  “Thanks.”

  When he turned away from her tiny desk, he found Brandi and Terrell in the door.

  “We cashed out the tip jar.” Brandi handed him forty-eight dollars. “It was mostly for you anyway.”

  No way had that jar held that much money. They must have made up the rest from what they had on them. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Well, we are the people in your gayborhood.” Terrell winked.

  Sandra held up a bakery bag. “I packed you a lunch.”

  Kellan surprised them both by lifting her up in a big hug. Had he really only known them for a few hours?

  Brandi hugged him next, and then Terrell used his hip to nudge her away and take her place.

  “If you guys ever get tired of the same old thing….” Terrell whispered, adding to the offer with a slide of his hips.

  Kellan laughed and thumped him on the back.

  Terrell gave him a funny look as they separated. “I can see why Brandi was confused. That’s some mixed-signal shit you got going there.”

  Kellan shrugged. “It’s all kind of new to me.”

  Terrell tipped his head in a wordless whatever-you-say-man kind of way.

  AFTER KELLAN left the café, he walked without any direction in mind. His shoulder blades itched with the idea that Shep or some other spy from his dad was stalking his heels, ready to lay down a threat against any place he went, but he never saw anyone when he turned back to look.

  Sandra had stacked so much turkey, ham, and cheese between the bagel slices that he had a hard time pressing the halves together as he ate, but after two hours of aimless wandering in Oldtown, he was hungry again. He tried not to think of the long trip back up as he headed toward the harbor and some fast food, but Mickey D prices were much more in line with his financial standing than any of the cafés in the fixed-up parts of the city.

  He was about halfway back up when the clouds blew in, a quick, sudden, soaking shower. He’d been planning to find some place to get clothes, and when he saw the Goodwill store sign ahead, he knew he’d found something in his price range. He ducked in, shaking the rain out of his hair, wiping his face on his already-soaked sleeve.

  The woman behind the counter looked him over and went back to thumbing through a magazine. A vicious combination of shame and guilt floated the burger in his stomach on waves of acid. He shouldn’t be in here when other people needed it, and yet his cheeks flamed with the knowledge that he was one of those people. Needy people. People who had to buy a pack of underwear marked “irregular.” What made underwear irregular? Did it have an extra leg hole?

  The jeans—at least the ones that looked new—were between five and ten dollars. The ones that would fit him were all ten. He held them up to check the length and grabbed a few T-shirts and a pack of socks. Maybe when Yolanda sent the check, Kellan could afford some “regular” underwear.

  He couldn’t look the woman in the eye as he paid out most of the cash he had left. Everything in the store had a funny mold-stale-cigarette smell to it. Maybe he could find a laundromat on the way home and blow the rest of the five dollars in his pocket, but he would rather deal with the smell than give up the rest of his cash. He thought the people he used to hang out with were too focused on money. They should try living without it and see how much they thought about it then.

  When he started up the stairs to Nate’s apartment, a complaining, simple rotation of guitar chords made him think someone, probably Nate, had a folk-music station on. But it was Nate, sitting on his sofa, making a painstaking effort at the basic GDC chords of what might have been “Margaritaville,” except that he had trouble on the chorus.

  Kellan kicked off his shoes. “You know, if you can play an F chord, you could play Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted.’” Nate had always liked Bon Jovi, though they were totally old when compared to Dave Matthews. That should have been an indicator of gayness, Kellan realized now. It had been more about crushing on a good-looking singer than the music.

  Nate glanced up for a second. “I’ve tried, but—”

  “I could show you.” Kellan tossed his shirt next to the basket where Nate kept his mail, remembered the wearing-clothes rule, rolled his eyes, and pulled a T-shirt out of the bag. Despite being soaked, he was hot from his long walk back uphill.

  “You can play?” Nate tried the chorus again, but the G to D shift on “woman” got him every time. He stopped and turned the guitar over on his lap. “Wait. Why are you back? I thought you worked until closing.”

  This was another reason Kellan had spent all that time wandering around. Because Nate was probably not going to listen to much after I quit, and Kellan wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. He’d had enough from his dad today.

  He filled a glass of water from the tap and looked around for Yin. “I quit.”

  Nate put the guitar on the sofa, effectively blocking Kellan from having a seat anywhere but on the floor. “Why?”

  Maybe Kellan had been hoping for a fight with someone, because the fact that Nate was waiting and listening pissed Kellan off as much as a sigh would have.

  “My dad called.”

  “The café?”

  “He sent his driver to track me down and hand off a cell phone.”

  Nate made a disgusted sound and shook his head.

  “So my dad was having a fit about me being a freak show—he doesn’t believe I’m actually gay, by the way, even if I was kissing that Gray boy—and threatened to use one of his contacts in city hall to screw things up for the café.”

  “Why didn’t he threaten the paper?”

  “I think he’d have already come after you if he thought he could.”

  “Thanks for thinking of me.”

  “I didn’t want the people there to lose their jobs, so I quit.”

  “How mature and unselfish of you.”

  “How stuck up and dickish of you to point that out. I already have an asshole for a dad, man. Don’t really need you to be one too.”

  Nate picked up his guitar and settled it back over his lap. His fingers squeaked as he shifted them on the frets, but he didn’t strum it. “Are we done now? You pissed your father off; he noticed. When do you leave?”

  “What happened to my two months?”

  “What do you want, Kellan?”

  “I thought we worked that out. You were letting me stay here until—”

  “Until you could show your dad he couldn’t control you.” Nate’s fingers squeaked over the strings again, making the hair on the back of Kellan’s neck stand up.

  “So you’re going back on the deal.”

  “I think if you ask your mom, she’ll let you have enough money to find a place to live, and you can find a job.” Nate looked up, eyes wide a
nd dark behind the lenses of his glasses, and then quickly looked away, picking at a string.

  The sound and the way Nate was chicken-shitting his way out of this pissed Kellan off.

  He strode over and stood in front of Nate, close enough that the neck of the guitar was an inch from Kellan’s thigh. “I stuck with every one of your rules. And the point of this was to put pressure on my dad for his homophobia. So you’re backing out, and I want to know why.”

  A weird kind of energy held him there. Not only a maybe-I-want-sex thing or a c’mon-and-fight-me thing. Nate was right. Kellan had made his point, and he probably could get money out of his mom if he had to—if Nate would give him enough money to go find her. But as much as today—his dad, quitting, the rain, and Goodwill—had sucked, Kellan didn’t want to—couldn’t walk away.

  Cutting Nate out of his life once had been hard. Doing it now would leave a bigger scab for his brain to pick at when things got too quiet. He wished Nate would get off that couch and shove him back, kiss him, maybe more. There was no way he could leave without knowing where this was going.

  Chapter Twelve

  NATE BACKED down again. “Okay. I guess we should find you another job, then.”

  “Yeah,” Kellan said without enthusiasm. “We can get right on it. Unless you want me to show you that F chord now?”

  Things were weird enough without Kellan getting close enough to correct his fingering—on the frets. “Not right now.” Nate put the guitar in its case but didn’t shut it.

  “Mind if I take a shower?”

  “Go ahead.” Please. Get out of the range of temptation and get—naked and wet.

  As soon as the bathroom door closed behind Kellan, Nate dove for the desk drawer that held his cookies. The mouthful of thick frosting didn’t do a thing to take his mind off what was in his bathtub. If Nate didn’t stop trying to sublimate like this, the already too-soft edges on his hips from his desk job were going to turn into bona-fide love handles. Who knew that three days of Kellan’s company could turn Nate into a textbook case for every neurosis he’d studied in Psych 101.