by Trina Solet
"You have another lead for me?" Blake asked, and JC shook his head. "Then I want to talk to him."
Blake pulled some money from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over. That got JC to agree. "I'll put the word out. Tell me where you'll be. Pietro will either show up looking for you or he won't."
"Sunny Shores Motel, room 214." That was the room next door to Blake's. There was no room 213. Dee had pointed that out to Finn when they were there.
There was no more information to be had so the three of them got the hell out of there.
"What happens when this guy goes to 214?" Finn asked once they were outside.
Blake used his flashlight to light the way for them as they walked to the fence. He sounded gloomy as he explained.
"He'll knock. 214 is empty so he won't get an answer." Blake's dour mood wasn't surprising since their search was a bust so far.
"This Reese, who is he looking for? And who is looking for him?" Dee wondered. She wasn't asking who Reese was and, more importantly, what he and Blake were to each other though both she and Finn were dying to know.
"Don't know who he is looking for, but maybe this guy is why Reese is in town," Blake said. "His family doesn't live here any more. They never hear from him, and they don't want to."
"That's terrible," Dee said.
"Reese had a shitty family too," Blake told them.
"What do you mean too?" Finn said though it was obvious what he meant. "Our family isn't shitty."
"We'll have to agree to disagree," Blake said. Then just as they got to their cars, he stopped. "I need to find him."
"You will," Dee assured him, seeing how down he looked.
Blake nodded vaguely and opened his car door, ready to get behind the wheel.
"Are we calling it a night?" Finn asked.
"I am," Blake told him. "I have to wait for that Pietro to show up."
"Sleep with the big flashlight under your pillow just in case," Dee told him.
While Dee drove back into town, Finn was full of so many questions. The biggest one was turning from a question to an educated guess. Blake was gay, or at least he was gay for this Reese guy.
"Blake is gay," Finn said to test his theory on Dee.
"Agreed," she said cheerfully and turned to Finn with a smile.
Maybe Blake wasn't the nicest guy in the world, or the ideal big brother, but he did have being gay in his favor.
Chapter 4
Once he was back inside his motel room, Blake slumped against the door as he shut it. There was no denying that this had been one of the strangest days of his life. He was chasing after Reese while his brother and sister were chasing after him. And damn, they were tenacious. The last time he was pursued that hard, it was by Reese. Those two could give him a run for his money.
All day Blake felt like Reese had been just around the next corner. But talking to Stew and JC made him think that Reese might be more out of reach than ever. Who was Reese looking for? What the hell was he up to?
Tired and wrung out emotionally, Blake didn't even take off his shoes as he lay on the bed. His eyes threatened to close but he didn't let them. There was no telling when this Pietro guy might show up. Blake couldn't afford to be caught napping. Good thing there were always noises from the outside to snap him out of it if he started to doze off. Cars passed by on the busy street. People came and went from the other rooms at all hours. Since any of those sounds might mean that he had a visitor, Blake didn't have too much trouble staying awake. It was a lot harder to keep himself from drifting back to his high school days, where memories of Reese waited.
In the school hallways, Reese's bright eyes needled him constantly. Blake told himself to ignore him, but he couldn't get used to being pinned down by that blue-eyed stare. That's why he noticed right away when one day Reese wasn't there to eyeball him.
Reese should have been coming up the hall as Blake went to his science class. Where was he? Blake looked around for him as if they had a prearranged meeting and Reese was a no-show. What the hell? Blake didn't want to have anything to do with him, but he kept frantically searching for him anyway.
The bell for the start of class rang, and he still kept looking for Reese. As he poked around, Blake had to stay out of the way of any patrolling high school prison guards. He knew one place where they weren't likely to go – the side corridor where the labs were. The labs weren't used that much because of budget issues. They were kept locked but were always being broken into. He could picture Reese being cornered in one of them. Fuck!
As Blake went that way, he tried the doors. All of them were locked until he reached the last one. Blake noticed that the lock had been forced. Taking a deep breath, he pushed at the door. At first, pushing had no effect so he shoved hard. He heard something break behind the door as it flew open.
Ready for anything, Blake barged in. As he stood there geared up for a fight, he saw that two goth girls were holding Reese against his will. OK. That wasn't what he expected to see. Reese was standing on one of the long lab tables, and the girls were trying to pull him down.
"I guess I'm interrupting?" Blake had to ask because he really didn't know what he was doing or what was going on.
"Are we up for a foursome," one of the girls asked the other. She was the blonde. Blake didn't know her name, but he had seen the two girls around school, always together or with other goth kids.
The other girl scowled at Blake before turning back to Reese. "No way. He's a piece of white bread. Kick him out, Simone."
"And what am I?" Reese asked, jumping off the table and landing on the opposite side from the two aggressive goth girls.
"You have that girly vibe we like," the girl with extremely black hair told him as she chased him around the lab table and Reese evaded her.
"I think it's just a matter of seconds before we all get suspended or expelled or something," Blake said pointing at the door, which was now wide open.
"Patty, we better go. He isn't up for it anyway. We should pick someone else to be our slave. He's no good," Simone said.
"Fine," Patty huffed. She glared at both Blake and Reese as she trudged out with her friend.
"That's not normal goth behavior," Reese said, pointing after them. Then he gave Blake one of his sharp looks. "And thanks for coming to my rescue."
"I was just passing by," Blake claimed as he left the lab and closed the door after Reese joined him on the other side.
"To go where?" Reese asked.
He had him there. That corridor was a dead end. Blake didn't even bother answering. With Reese following, he made his way toward the main hall so he could get to his class late.
"Just give it up," Reese whispered as they both stopped to make sure the coast was clear. "Why resist me so hard? You don't have a single real friend in this school. You might as well hang with me."
"That's not a step up," Blake told him.
At the corner leading to the main hall, the two of them were standing close, making sure no one was around.
"I admit it's more of a lateral move, but I'm bored with being bored by myself," Reese said from behind him.
"Those two girls were offering to make your life interesting," Blake pointed out.
"Too interesting. Don't you want to watch my back?" Reese asked.
"No." Blake would have said no even if Reese didn't make it sound so seductive.
Reese tried again. "Think of it as a friendship of convenience."
Without answering him, Blake sneaked away to his science class. He thought that walking away made it pretty clear that he wasn't going to take him up on his offer, but that didn't stop Reese.
Two days later, Reese and the two goth girls showed up at Blake's house. It was ten o'clock at night and their loud knocking and yelling "Blake" and "white bread" made his mother threaten to call the police.
"There's a party, and we're kidnapping you," Reese announced when Blake opened the front door and found him and the girls standing on his porch.
/> "In that case, I'll tell my mother to definitely call the police. Are you guys friends now?" Blake asked after a moment of not believing his eyes.
"Sure. Why not?" Patty said. "Now move your ass, white bread."
"Come on. You know they don't take no for an answer," Reese told him.
Blake couldn't deny that he was tempted and intrigued. They might even be taking him to a sex party, maybe a goth, bondage sex party.
When they got there, it turned out to be just a regular party in someone's basement. Cheap beer was served in red plastic cups, and some guy was throwing up in the corner.
"You look disappointed," Reese accused him. "What were you hoping for?"
"More nudity, less vomit," Blake admitted.
He noticed that the girls had already ditched them to talk to some other goth kids. Blake was looking around, taking stock of who else was there – no one popular or who ever hoped to be. It was a party full of the barely tolerated and the picked on.
Reese was also checking things out. "This looks like a fringe kids' party. I estimate the budget is two rusted pennies and an old shoe. You might want to keep your expectations low because the vomit to nudity ratio is going to be kind of high," Reese informed him.
With that to look forward to, Blake and Reese got drunk on cheap beer and stumbled home together. They puked in the bushes, and a friendship was born out of boredom and Reese being impossible to resist. Blake remembered how easy it was to be with him but always with an undercurrent he didn't understand. He was so stupid then. Without a clue about what was starting between them, he drunkenly leaned on Reese with an arm over his shoulder.
"I'll always have your back," he lied, but Reese smiled at him like he believed him. What kind of idiot believes a drunken promise from a spineless coward like him?
Chapter 5
After a mostly sleepless night in his motel bed, Blake got ready for more waiting. That's when loud knocking made him jump up and head for the door. After hearing his name being called, he swung the door wide. His two stalker siblings were back at the crack of dawn.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Blake asked them as they barged in.
"We brought you breakfast," Dee Dee said, holding up a bag of doughnuts. "And coffee."
"You're lucky she didn't drink it all on the way," Finn told him. He had his own coffee cup in hand.
"I'm not some kind of coffeeholic," Dee Dee said.
"The first step is admitting you have a problem." Finn looked around the motel room. "Hmm. It's both better and worse than I expected. Not as many bugs and rat droppings but more pot smoke, BO, and bodily fluid aroma than I would like," he said of the room.
"You're probably just smelling yourself," Dee Dee told him.
"I'm minty fresh and freshly deodorized." Finn lifted his arms as if he expected someone to sniff him.
"It's too early for this," Blake said and took the coffee that Dee Dee brought him.
She peered at him closely. "You don't look like you slept at all."
"Did you really expect this guy to show up in the middle of the night?" Finn wondered and offered Blake a glazed doughnut.
He took it then said, "Whenever he shows up, you two can't be here. Thanks for breakfast. Now get out."
"No way. You can't see this guy by yourself. He's bad news. The goatee guy pretty much told you so," Finn pointed out and took a seat on Blake's bed.
"Finn, you're not my bodyguard," Blake informed him.
"Of course not. I plan to run away at the first sign of trouble. Dee is the bodyguard," Finn said pointing at her as she put up her fists.
Since they refused to leave, all three of them sat on Blake's bed to finish off the doughnuts. That's when the twins started asking him questions.
"So who is this Reese guy?" Finn wanted to know.
Dee Dee waited for the answer eagerly while wiping powdered sugar from her chin.
Blake shrugged. "He's a guy I'm looking for who is looking for someone else," he grumbled, not planning to say any more.
"Jealous?" Finn sounded like he had already guessed who Reese was to Blake.
Blake didn't deny it. Someone was important enough to bring Reese back to Meadowview. Blake couldn't help being jealous of that man. He also wondered if the twins had already figured out he was gay.
"So Reese is your boyfriend or your ex?" Dee Dee said, answering that question.
"Not exactly." Blake didn't want to explain.
"But she's in the ballpark," Finn said. "Our big brother is a man on a quest. Very romantic. I like it."
"Be serious," Dee Dee told him.
"You be serious. Oh, you're already doing that. Good job, Dee." Finn patted her on the head.
"Someone has to be the good one," Dee Dee said, swiping at his hand.
Blake refused to get into his relationship with Reese so Dee Dee moved on to a different line of questioning.
"Why Adler?" Dee Dee asked.
That seemed like a safer topic, so Blake told her, "I didn't want to be either of my parents' son. Adler was my grandmother's maiden name. She was a sweet lady. I remember going with her to buy toys for underprivileged children right before Christmas. I got to pick them out. My mom would tell her to stop wasting her money. Grandma would say, 'This little bit of money is going to bring so much happiness to a little boy or girl. How much happiness has your money bought you?' When she died, she left a huge hole in my life. I cherished her so I decided to take on her name after I left home."
"Our Grandma Xin Qian is like that too," Dee Dee said. "She volunteers for everything."
"You mean she volunteers to yell at everyone," Finn said.
"She is pretty harsh, but she just wants everyone to work as hard as she does," Dee Dee said in their grandmother's defense.
"That's impossible. The woman is a machine. Seriously, she isn't human. When I went with her to volunteer, it almost killed me," Finn said to Blake as if he expected his sympathy.
Ignoring him, Dee Dee continued her questioning. "So what happened. I mean, Dad never talked about you. If we asked, he would get mad."
That wasn't a question Blake could answer. "I don't actually know that much about it. He tossed me out of his life along with my mother. She did something to piss him off. I know there was an affair, but I don't know if there was more to it."
"So what if she did something? You are his son without a doubt," Finn said, pointing to his face.
"I'm also my mother's son. I guess that mattered more." Blake shrugged.
He couldn't explain what his father did. At five, Blake couldn't understand it, and he still didn't. No matter how old he was, he would probably never understand him. Whenever he put himself in his father's place and imagined turning his back on a five year old child and leaving him to a mother like his, the act seemed monstrous.
Since they were so eager to know, Blake told the twins what he remembered.
"When it happened, I was about to start kindergarten at Prescott Elementary, where all the little rich kids went to school." Blake remembered how his school uniform was hanging on his closet door, pressed and ready for him. The navy blue blazer with the school emblem and the clip-on tie seemed so grown up to him. That's how he knew kindergarten was a big deal.
"We went there," Dee Dee volunteered.
"Of course you did." The two of them had lived the life he was supposed to live, but somehow Blake couldn't be bitter about it. "I was excited to go. My nanny told me I would make lots of friends. Then one morning, I was hustled out of bed early. My mother and I were packed up and moved out of the house." It was shocking and frightening, but Blake didn't have as much trouble settling into his new life as his mother did. "I went to Meadowview Elementary, just a regular school, but not according to my mother. She talked about it like it was a hellhole. She kept going on and on about how horrible it was, like I would be murdered if I went there. I was scared to death. On the first day of kindergarten, I kept looking around, wondering what was going to happen to me in
this terrible place." Blake chuckled. It took him half a day to realize that there was nothing to fear.
When he tried to tell his mother that his school was nice, she said, "Don't be ridiculous! You'll be out of there as soon as your father gives us more money. You'll be going to your real school soon."
It never happened. There was no more money from his father, and his mother's boyfriends' generosity never extended far enough to pay for little Blake's private school fees.
So many years later, Blake remembered his first day of kindergarten better than what came before that. His life in his father's house was a blur – the huge, opulent house, the nannies, the piano lessons, his mother and father hardly ever home, the play dates with other kids who lived in big houses and had nannies.
Then it all came to an end. As a five-year-old, Blake was cut off from everything he had known. He never saw his father. He and his mother lived in a broken down, old house that smelled funny and made scary noises at night. There were no nannies to take care of Blake, and to cry and quit when his mother was mean to them. He thought that maybe his mother would play with him now or watch TV with him like his nannies used to, but she never wanted to.
"We lost everything! Don't you understand?" she yelled.
Blake didn't understand. He still had his mother and she was pretty. Even if she wasn't nice, she was still his mother. Only he never saw his father any more. Not ever. Not even just to pat him on the head when Blake went up to him to show him a drawing or a new toy.
A knock on the door of the motel room next to his brought Blake out of his reverie. He stood up and went out to see if it was the man he was expecting. Stepping outside the motel room door, Blake saw a guy wearing a leather jacket. He was leaning against the railing opposite 214. The guy, who was short and wiry with bleached, close-cropped hair, regarded Blake coolly.
"I guess someone gave me the wrong room number," the man said after looking Blake up and down. He had to be Pietro, and JC must have given him Blake's description. Pietro moved as if to go inside his motel room.
