by Evelyn Drake
Such words weren’t often spoken in their house and Kyle let them hang in the air unchallenged as they enjoyed their breakfast together in companionable silence.
After breakfast, he tackled a couple of the chores he’d been promising to take care of for the last few months. Then he ran a couple of errands for Monica. He did it all with his phone in his room. He liked to unplug now and then. He liked to feel free, and somehow carrying that tiny rectangle around in his pocket felt like a tether to a world that sometimes wanted too much.
By the time the day had passed into early afternoon, he was ready for a second shower. He sat heavily on his bed and checked his phone. Three missed calls, all from Ella, one of the dancers. But she’d left no voicemails.
He had the phone numbers of all the girls who worked at the club, and not just because they sometimes had sex. He had their numbers, and they his, in case they needed him to bounce some customer giving them problems at or away from the club. On rare occasions, overly amorous customers would follow the girls home, and Kyle would head over to convince them that that was not a good idea.
As for the sex, that almost always happened at the club or just after having gotten off work. It wasn’t something he brought into the rest of his life. He gave the girls what they wanted, but it never crossed the line into relationship.
They’d ask him to do what his body was made to do, and it had not occurred to Kyle that it was okay to say no. Not until Tobias’s questions, anyway. Why? Why did you fuck them? And Tobias was right.
He didn’t have to.
The fact that Ella was trying so hard to reach him was probably not a booty call. Something was wrong.
Kyle worked through his phone to call Ella back, but before he could finish, it rang and Ella’s name flashed onto its screen. He swiped to accept the call.
“Ella, everything okay?”
“Kyle!” her frantic voice called out.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Kyle sat up straight on the edge of his bed. Every muscle in his body tensed, ready for a fight.
“That let that lunatic out! He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us all!”
“Who? They let who out?”
“That Therman guy, the one that was always drooling over Victoria. He liked Ginger, too. Did you know that? Now Ginger is dead!”
“Wait. What?” Kyle’s heart stopped and then pounded painfully to life again with erratic, hard thuds that threatened to steal his breath as his skin broke out in a prickly sweat.
“Yeah, she died on the way to the hospital last night. But before that, that sicko Therman got out of jail. He got out of jail and then went straight to the club and attacked Ginger.” Her voice broke into sobs. “I don’t want to be next.”
“You won’t be. Everything’s going to be okay,” Kyle soothed.
“You can’t say that. You don’t know that,” Ella challenged, and Kyle knew her words to be true. If he just had some way of baiting Therman, maybe he could put a stop to him once and for all.
Ginger… dead.
“Can you come over?” Ella’s weak voice asked.
“Yeah, of course. I can’t stay, but I can come over. Do you have any friends you can stay with or someone you can call to stay with you?”
“I’m calling you…” Ella answered, an edge in her voice.
Kyle did a mental face-palm. Of course.
“Just sit tight, and I’ll be there soon,” Kyle said. He couldn’t stay with her. He wouldn’t. His life was moving forward and if he wasn’t there to be a part of it, his chance at something more than what he had would pass him by.
That thought caused the air in his room to go stale. Though his chest moved and his lungs worked, it didn’t feel as if he were getting any oxygen.
“Shower. Take a shower,” Kyle said, prodding himself into action. “Then Ella’s. Then home for dinner with Monica and Tobias. One, two, three… I can do that. I’ve got this.”
Oxygen seemed to reach his body and brain again as he moved into action. He showered, dressed in jeans and a plain, lightweight sweatshirt and headed for the door.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he called out as he opened the door only to be met with a quick reprimand from Monica to get his ass back home by the time their guest arrived. He answered with a dutiful, “Yes, ma’am,” before locking the door behind him.
He did the math in his head as he drove. Twenty minutes to Ella’s, twenty minutes back. That’s forty minutes. That gives an hour and twenty minutes to get Ella situated and safe.
He broke a few speed limits to shave a minute or two off of his estimations on his way to Ella’s place. When he got there, he parked outside her apartment complex and got out of his car, taking a pause to remember which apartment was hers. When she stepped onto her small apartment’s balcony and waved, he headed up the stairs, taking two at a time.
She had the door open after the first rap of his knuckles, then the slam of her body as she threw herself against him had Kyle taking a step backwards.
Pulling away, Ella did a quick glance in both directions, her expression like that of hunted prey, then she grabbed Kyle’s hand and pulled him into the apartment.
Slamming her door and putting her back to it as if she could keep whatever was beyond it at bay, and she flipped the lock.
“I’m so glad you came,” she said, smiling wide but a little out of breath.
“Ella, come and sit and tell me what’s going on,” Kyle said, taking the few steps needed to reach the wicker-style sofa and chair. She’s totally wired. Gotta get her talking and calm. He wondered if she’d been dipping into pharmaceuticals. If she had, it looked as if it were doing more harm than good in leveling out her mood.
Kyle sat in the chair adjacent to the sofa, anticipating Ella to take the sofa when she came over, but instead she made room for herself on his lap. She simply positioned herself and began to sit, forcing Kyle to lean back and get his arms out of her way or else come off as unfriendly.
Once settled, she slipped her arms around Kyle’s neck and leaned in. “I knew you’d come. I knew it,” she said into his neck before giving his sensitive skin a kiss with coral painted lips.
She pulled away just far enough that Kyle could look down into her face, and she tilted her mouth up to meet him in a kiss. Burying her face in his neck, she said, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Then, hopping off of his lap, she headed for the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner? We could order in some Chinese.”
“Ella,” Kyle said, “I can’t stay.”
“We have a choice between that little place up the street or the fancier place around the corner. Both places deliver, and I love the hot and sour soup from the place up the street.”
Kyle stood and followed her halfway to the kitchen. “Ella, I’m sorry. I’ve got some family things tonight and I can’t stay.”
This time she stopped, turned and crossed her arms over her ample chest, giving him an icy glare.
“I want you to be safe, Ella. It’s important to me. You’re important to me,” Kyle said, walking forward until he was able to unlace her arms and hold her hands in his.
Ella melted, a sheepish smile pulling at her lips.
“I understand you not wanting to be here alone,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead and tucking it behind her ear.
Ella’s eyes got big and dreamy as she looked up into his face, hanging on his every word.
“I care about you,” Kyle said, holding the tip of her chin in his fingers. “That’s why we have to make sure you’re okay beyond just the right now. I can’t be with you all the time. I’ve got obligations to others.”
Her face soured again, but this time less severe.
“Do you have friends or family you could stay with? Or, someone who could come stay with you? Tobi”—Kyle changed what he was about to say, letting the start of Tobias’s name hang in midair—“the detective hunting for the killer is narrowing in. He’s goin
g to catch who’s doing this soon.”
Ella’s forehead pursed between her eyes and her eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you,” she said, leaning back the tiniest bit as if to move away without stepping away.
“It’s true. He’s getting closer all the time. They’re going to have this solved soon. Then they’ll put the murderer behind bars and everyone will be safe again.” Kyle cupped Ella’s face and she leaned her cheek into the palm of his hand, a small smile returning to lips.
“Do you promise?”
“I do,” Kyle said, and then leaned down automatically when her body shifted to stretch up to kiss him.
It all felt so perfunctory to him, he realized as he mirrored her body’s request with an answering move of his own. And without wanting any of it to happen, he took her in his arms and kissed her.
Just because she expected him to. She wanted it of him, and he was supposed to want it back.
Ella’s body was warm against his. She was soft and curvy, and he could feel her breasts pressing into his chest. But, there was nothing more to it. It was the pressure of flesh being pressed against flesh. It was matter of fact. It was biology, it wasn’t chemical.
Tobias was chemical.
This was… habit. And not just that, but a self-destructive one. How had he never seen it? Or perhaps he had, but he hadn’t acknowledged it until Tobias had pressed him, over and over, into realization.
Kyle pulled away enough to look into Ella’s eyes. “Is there someone we can call? Or can I take you to a friend’s house?”
Ella twirled her finger against Kyle’s chest before letting her touch drift lower and then slide up under his sweatshirt. There, her delicate hand came to rest on his sculpted abs.
“Couldn’t we do that later?” she asked, looking up at him from beneath long eyelashes. “Right now it’s just you and me. I’ve got a super comfy bed and we could lay around naked eating take-out later. Let me make you come, baby.” Her cheeks turned the pink of hot want, and she bit the corner of her lip as she arched her back to press her breasts into him.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” Kyle said, untangling himself from her until he was able to step away, breaking contact all together.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Ella said, her tone flat but her look venomous. She looked like a viper that was reared back, ready to strike.
“Is there someone you can call?” Kyle asked again, shoving his hands in his pockets as a way of saying that his body was closed for business.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” she said again, her voice growing louder as her hands balled into fists at the ends of her rigidly straight arms pressed to her sides.
“Ella, I want to be here for you, but I have obligations.”
“I don’t want your obligations,” she yelled, “I want you to fuck me!” Her face turned beet red.
How much of a jerk can I be? She’s afraid for her life—and someone is killing people!
“I don’t want to. I can’t. I’m sorry,” Kyle said, stepping away. “I’ve got someone.”
Ella’s face shifted into stunned rage, and Kyle had to admit that he was surprised by what he’d said himself.
I don’t have somebody… But he knew that wasn’t true anymore.
“Who? Who!” Ella screamed with rage, stepping forward but Kyle stepped back, maintaining the distance between them. When Kyle didn’t answer, she screamed again, “Who? Who’s the bitch? Who!”
“Ella, you need to stop this right now,” Kyle said, lifting up an arm in warning as he took a fighter’s stance of one leg back. The warning did no good as Ella grabbed the nearest hard and throwable item near her—a small vase—and threw it at Kyle. Her aim was good and Kyle had to bat it out of the way, mid air, to keep it from hitting him in the face.
“Fuck me!” she screamed, stamping her foot.
“No!” Kyle roared back, shocked at the turn that things had taken. “Never again.”
It was like a flip switched within Ella. She became calm, serene even, but it was the type of cold serenity of beautiful ice sculpture found in the wild. “Go,” she said, pointing an arm and extended finger at the door.
Kyle didn’t try to smooth things over. It was time to go. He had his window to leave without triggering any further conflict, and he took it.
Downstairs, back in his car, he felt exhausted as his hands gripped the wheel and he stared up at the apartment building. While his six mile jog earlier that day had been invigorating, he felt like he’d just made a sprint for his life that had left him drained.
“What the fuck just happened?” She’d always been fun to be around. She’d never been like this. It was like the moment she didn’t get what she wanted from him, he was dead to her.
And that feeling was all too familiar. It made his gut churn.
He put the car in gear, all the while keeping an eye on the path from the apartment building in case she came charging out at him like a rampaging rhino.
“I led her on,” he whispered to himself. “I let her think there was a chance of something more. This is my fault—but I can set it right.” That it could be Ella’s fault was a thought he didn’t want to consider, even though he knew it was true.
But if what happened was his fault, he could take action to do something about it. He could make changes. He could fix the problem—he could fix himself—so that that type of misunderstanding never happened again.
And, he never wanted that type of misunderstanding again. He already knew he didn’t want to share his body with any of the women from the club anymore. He’d tasted what it was like to have more, and he couldn’t go back.
He could never go back.
“I’m gay,” Kyle said to himself, in a whisper. “I can’t do that anymore. Tobias is right.”
No matter what his parents thought of it, it was the truth.
15
Tobias
The streetlights provided the neighborhood with a welcoming glow as Tobias arrived to Kyle’s house at 8:15 with a bottle of wine in hand. He was running fifteen minutes late, and he pulled at his collar with a crooked finger in an attempt to alleviate his nerves.
Tobias knew, that in essence, he’d been invited home by Kyle to meet the “folks”—even if that constituted an old woman who had saved him from a life of hell when he was almost an adult versus the people who had raised him from childhood. Everyone had their own definition of family, and Tobias was about to meet Kyle’s.
Tobias thought of his own family, or rather, the eclectic group of people who moved in and out of his life. The definition of who his family was always seemed to be evolving and changing. The only stability he’d known in his life had been the years he’d spent living with Kyle as his step-brother with the man and woman who Tobias had called Mom and Dad.
The door of Kyle’s bungalow cottage opened and Tobias came face to face with a woman barely over 5’1 and maybe—just maybe—100 pounds in weight. Yet, her eyes were sharp, and she stood with the straight back of a steel girder. The gentle curls that played around the edges of her face were a color somewhere between gray and apricot, and the soft lines that decorated her face gave a look of life-lived rather than one of regrets.
“Tobias!” Monica exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air the way a football ref would do to indicate a touchdown.
Tobias hadn’t known what he’d expected when he arrived, but it wasn’t this, and Monica’s enthusiastic reception had him smiling before he knew he was smiling.
“Monica, I presume,” he said and extended a hand. When Monica accepted it, placing her own hand in his, he held her fingers as he bent deep to kiss the back of her hand. On cue, she giggled like a young school girl, her cheeks turning pink. She jerked her hand away and gave him a rebuking hand wave.
“Go on, then. You get in here… Kyle!”—she called over her shoulder—“company is here!”
Tobias realized with a sudden start that he was glad that she had not called out that Kyle’s boyfriend had a
rrived. From the twinkle in her eye, Tobias knew that she was just the type to do such a thing, but thankfully she had taken pity on them.
Stepping into the foyer, Tobias was greeted by the most amazing of aromas, and to his embarrassment, his stomach growled.
“Well, that’s a compliment if I ever heard one,” Monica teased, giving him a wink.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tobias said, feeling his face heat. He extended the bottle of wine. “I brought this for you.” Why didn’t I bring flowers? He mentally flogged himself for the oversight, but as Monica’s eyes lit up at the gesture, he didn’t feel so bad.
“No, no… don’t give that to me. You take that on in to Kyle.” She clasped her hands in front of her middle, and she was smiling from ear to ear. “He’s in the kitchen through there.” She indicated the way.
Everything about her told Tobias that she would not be following and that she was sending him off to be alone with Kyle.
Shrewd woman. Shrewd, shrewd woman. Tobias found himself suddenly envious of Kyle. He had so much.
Taking his leave of Monica, Tobias headed into the kitchen where he found Kyle dicing romaine hearts in tight, julienne cuts. Sweet red and orange peppers sat nearby, waiting to take their turn.
“Hi,” Kyle said, the color in his cheeks deepening.
He’s so damned cute!
“I brought this,” Tobias said, holding out the bottle of wine.
“Oh, that’s perfect! It will go great with the beef stroganoff Monica made.” Kyle put down his knife and wiped his hands on the half-apron he wore around his waist. His expression grew pensive as he reached for the bottle of wine. “Do you need to leave by any time in particular? I know that the investigation is still going. I mean, it’s still going, right?”
“Yeah—I mean, no. I won’t have to rush off,” Tobias said and was rewarded by Kyle’s shy smile. “The case is still ongoing, but unless I get called out on new information”—he opted to use “information” as a euphemism for murder—“then the evening is mine.” That Tobias would be using his time to build—or destroy—a case against Kyle as the killer also went unsaid.
