Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  “Volunteer me?”

  Baz’s body went rigid, lips thinning into a line. “I can’t take you yelling at me any more tonight.”

  Wrecked Baz was fading, which meant so was Elijah’s empathy. “Tough. Tell me anyway.”

  Baz stared at Elijah, expression blank. Those fucking glasses. “If I tell you, you’ll move into the White House? As soon as possible?”

  Yes, because it had been so much bullshit, his defiant insistence he would go off and live anywhere else. Except he wasn’t giving in so easily. “I’ll think about it.”

  “No. If I tell you, you’re moving in. Tomorrow.”

  Elijah let go of Baz to fold his arms over his chest. “I’ll think about it.”

  Baz scowled and mimicked Elijah’s pose. And said nothing, only stared at Elijah, waiting for him to fold.

  Jesusgod, Elijah wanted to shake the fucker. “Why the hell do you care if I move in or not?”

  “Because I care, all right?” He ran a hand through his hair, and the filtered gold light played over his face, casting shadows, making him seem like a demon emerging from hell to glimpse heaven. “Because you should be here. They want you here. You wanted to be here, until I fucked up. I want you here.” When he glared at Elijah, the streetlight glinted on his rims, completing the demonic image. “Snark all you need to, but it’s true. So get it over with, then agree you’ll move in, and I’ll tell you what I was going to ask you. You’ll get testy about that too, which is fine. I’ll stand here, and you can hurl whatever you want at me. But first you’re promising to move in.”

  The whole thing was so insane Elijah didn’t know where to start. He considered giving him the finger and escaping up the stairs, at this point ready to wake up Mina and let her keep his demon at bay.

  Except Baz had sunk to wrecked again. Sighing, Elijah pulled out a cigarette and scowled at Baz as he lit it. When Baz motioned for the pack, Elijah arched an eyebrow. “They’re GPC menthols.”

  “I’ll buy you a carton of Davidoffs tomorrow, but for now, let me at the damn nicotine.”

  Elijah had no idea what the fuck a Davidoff was. Probably some rich-person cigarette. Rolling his eyes, he passed over the pack and the lighter. Baz tapped out a cigarette, lit it and took a long, slow drag. He made a slight face as he exhaled, but he gave no commentary on the poor quality of Elijah’s tobacco.

  “I can’t get into the full details, but the short version is my mom is making me haul ass to Chicago this weekend for some fancy fundraiser. She wants me to have a…date. She tried to set me up with someone herself, but I told her no.” He ashed the tip of his cigarette. “I kind of…told her I’d bring you.”

  By the middle of the speech, Elijah had seen this coming, but the admission still left him dizzy. He smoked for almost a minute before replying. “So it’s a joke, right? I’m supposed to be the bumpkin you use to—”

  “What? No. No.” Baz frowned at him, annoyed. “Why the fuck—how much of an asshole do you think I am?”

  Elijah blew smoke at his face.

  Baz held up his hands and grimaced before sucking on his own cigarette with intensity. “Fine. I had that coming. I’m a jerk. And you’re going to tell me no. I don’t have any idea how to convince you, because you turn me so goddamn inside out I’m not going to try. But fuck this idea I’d make fun of you.”

  Why did you say you’d bring me? “I don’t have the right clothes.”

  Baz waved this away. “Whatever. I’d buy the clothes.”

  “I don’t know how the forks work and whatnot.”

  “It’s probably not a fork-focused thing, and if it is, learning that takes ten minutes.” Baz glanced at Elijah as he drew once more on his cigarette. “These are your only objections? Forks and clothes?”

  The night was warm, but Elijah hugged himself as if he were cold. “Why don’t you ask Aaron? He’d look good on your arm.”

  “Giles would deck me.”

  Giles would deck him. Elijah dropped his cigarette on the ground and rubbed it out with his toe. He immediately lit up a new one. “I work this weekend.”

  “I’ll help you find someone to cover.”

  “I don’t know anyone in Chicago. If you abandon me, I have nowhere to go.”

  “I won’t abandon you. But if I were to, you’ll be driving my car. You could drive yourself here. If you want backup, I’ll toss in a five-hundred-dollar prepaid Visa card.”

  Elijah’s lungs were protesting from too much nicotine, but he kept smoking anyway. “This isn’t a joke. You really did ignore me for over a month, then ask me to be your date to the prom.”

  “Fundraiser. And, yes. Sorry.”

  This was way too Carrie for comfort. Elijah scrambled out of the metaphor. “I can’t. Sid never went to a fundraiser with Nancy. It’s not in our script. Sorry.”

  “Sid and Nancy is not our script. Neither one of us is very punk rock.” He tapped his leg thoughtfully, making the smoke tendril from his cigarette dance. “Can’t find a better metaphor. Trying to build something off the fundraiser thing, but all I can get is The Princess Diaries.”

  The streetlight caught Baz’s hair, making the brown gleam almost blond. The breeze ruffled it at the same time, sending some cottonwood whorls like magical dust around him.

  “Howl,” Elijah said before he could stop his mouth. “You’re Howl Pendragon.”

  Baz grinned. “Ha. Now that metaphor I like. With the Tesla as my moving castle? Howl doesn’t drive either. And you’re Sophie. Refusing to see your own beauty, blocking any attempts to undo your curse.”

  Elijah glowered. “You expect me to get your heart back for you from a fire demon? Or be your servant while you run around making girls cry?”

  “I’ll do my own cleaning, and Calcifer can keep my heart in the fireplace. Unless you agree to go with me to Chicago. Then I’ll put it in the frunk.”

  Baz smiled, making the Howl’s Moving Castle theme soar in Elijah’s head. His heart was on the ground between them. “Okay,” he said.

  And that was that.

  Chapter Seven

  Elijah lay awake until four in the morning, staring at the ceiling of Mina’s living room while thoughts ping-ponged around his brain.

  He understood, objectively, he’d stood in the alley and let Baz make Howl’s Moving Castle associations before agreeing to go to some fundraiser thing in Chicago. What he didn’t understand was why.

  Probably it would all be a moot point because it was only a few days until the weekend, and you had to put in for time off a week in advance in the cafeteria. Besides, what would Pastor say when he heard about this nonsense?

  Except Pastor had been all over Elijah getting away. And running off for a Chicago weekend would be exactly the sort of thing Liz would champion.

  Whatever. It was one of Baz’s stupid larks. If Elijah went down to breakfast, Baz would ignore him as usual, not pull out a map and a set of pushpins. He’d think of someone better to take as his date to the big, fancy shindig.

  It would be fun, though. Could be a movie. Get in a car with a hot guy, road trip to Chicago, put on a tux, dance, and…well.

  Elijah burrowed deeper into the covers, feeling hollow and foolish. Fuck, why had he said yes?

  Because he seemed as if he cared. Because you’re such a sad fucking sack, you’d go down for anybody you thought might so much as pretend to notice you.

  Gritting his teeth, Elijah closed his pillow around his head and turned his face into the back of the couch, pleading with his brain to shut the fuck off and let him sleep.

  Wouldn’t you fucking know it, he had another one of his half-nightmare, half-flashbacks of Journey to God, the reparative therapy hellhole his parents made him endure once he gave up living on the streets. As he slept, Elijah knelt in a dream-fuck version of the prayer circle, cold and hungry as he faked redemption—that part
had been real, but the swooping, batlike shadows tearing at him were his subconscious’s own invention. When he woke, he was drenched in sweat and spiked with adrenaline.

  It was six thirty in the morning. He’d slept two and a half whole hours, and though he was groggy and slightly nauseated, Elijah could tell he was done resting for the foreseeable future.

  Mina had a coffee maker in her mini-kitchen, but Elijah didn’t want to wake her, so he padded downstairs to the main house and started up the pot beside the stove. The White House was silent, all mechanical clicks and whirrs of appliances, and after his dream, he was jumpy. He nipped out to have a cigarette while the coffee brewed, and as he sat on the bench in the garden, he thought about his dream.

  He wasn’t scarred or anything by the reparative therapy. Well, no more than was standard, he assumed. It might have been different if he’d gone actually thinking he could pray away his gay, but since he went as part of his grand scam, he’d felt more like James Bond than Oliver Twist. Ever since the shooting, though, he’d dreamed of camp, all fucked up and weird. It pissed him off.

  The bats were kind of cool, though. Maybe he should write them down. He took a deep toke of his cigarette, letting the nicotine expand his brain. Yeah. For the fantasy story, obviously. He knew just the part where the scene would go. The hero in the cellar, chained to the rock, demon shadows swooping around him to draw out his terror.

  Fuck, that would be pretty cool. He smoked an extra cigarette and let the edited scene play out in his mind. He always saw his writing as a movie in his head, and this bit he would pay cash to see on the screen. Normally he’d scold himself for thinking of this, not the porny stuff he should be writing, but hey. At least he could write. Too bad he hadn’t brought his laptop along.

  Maybe he could find some paper and a pen in the kitchen. After depositing his spent cigarette into the tin can he used as an ashtray, Elijah went into the house.

  Baz sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee as he tapped at an open MacBook Pro.

  He didn’t say anything, and as far as Elijah could tell he didn’t look away from his screen. The careful architecture of the bat-swooping dungeon scene crashed like broken glass on the floor of Elijah’s mental headspace, and he scowled as he poured himself a mug of coffee.

  Christ. Why did he have to be up now? Yes, it was his house too, and he actually paid rent. But seriously, now? And fucking hell, here it was, goddamned silent treatment all over again. If it weren’t so early, Elijah would call Pastor and go home. If it weren’t so far, he’d walk.

  Trip to Chicago. Date to the fundraiser. Whatever. Nothing but a crock of shit.

  “So when did you want to leave?”

  Elijah almost dropped the carafe. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Baz in his same position at the computer, but he also noticed a rigidity in his shoulders. Turning around, Elijah fumbled the glass pot into place. “What—what do you mean?”

  Baz didn’t look up from the computer, or if he did, he hid it behind his glasses. “The fundraiser isn’t until Saturday, but it takes six hours to drive, so we should leave tomorrow. Could leave today.”

  Six hours? “Can’t we fly?” We’re actually going?

  Baz shrugged a shoulder. “Could. Planes suck, though.”

  Elijah hadn’t ever been on one, so he wouldn’t know. Part of him wanted to pop that cherry, part of him worried he’d have some sort of freakout and get kicked off the plane.

  “It’s a pretty drive through Wisconsin.” Clearing his throat, Baz shifted in his seat as he pushed the laptop away. “If we left today, we’d have more time to shop. Otherwise it’ll be crammed into the day we drive or the day of the thing itself.”

  Shop? Oh. Right. Fancy clothes for the fundraiser. And let’s not forget fork lessons. Elijah gripped the handle of his mug, staring into its inky depths. “Probably best to miss as little work as possible.”

  “We’ll find someone to cover. Pastor will help.”

  The idea of roping Pastor into this—fuck, simply telling him about this—made everything too real. “I don’t know. I think maybe this whole thing is a bad idea. I should stay, earn money.”

  “Forget the money.”

  Elijah glared at him. “Easy for you to say.”

  A tic formed in Baz’s cheek. He shut the computer and glared right back, or ostensibly he did. Fucking sunglasses. He looked as if he wanted to say something but kept swallowing it.

  Elijah gripped the mug so hard he thought he might break it. If he offers to pay me to be his date at the fundraiser, I’m throwing this coffee at his head.

  Baz threw up his hands. “Fine. If you don’t want to go, say so.”

  God, Elijah hated how this guy could tie him up inside. “I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I said I shouldn’t. I need to make money. Be responsible.”

  “You have enough money in your fund for school. More than enough.”

  “Yes, and my fund makes me want to throw up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and still rising. Somebody, one person, put twenty-five thousand in just the other day. I could go to school twice with what’s in that account. I don’t understand where it all came from. Who all these people are. I owe all of them. I don’t know what I owe them. Just that I do and have no way to ever pay them back.”

  “You don’t need to pay anybody back. You certainly don’t owe penance in the school cafeteria.”

  “What the fuck would you know about it?”

  He snorted. “Penance? I know plenty.”

  Elijah clutched his coffee to his belly, sloshing some on his pajama pants. He stared at the floor, feeling angry, anxious and hollow. “I don’t want it. The money. The help. But I don’t have any choice. I have to take it. But I don’t know what to do with it.” Tears pricked his eyes, and he shut them. Tight.

  When he heard the scrape of Baz’s chair, his stomach flipped over. He tried to drink his coffee, but his hand shook. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Baz’s bare feet appeared in front of his own. Hands took the coffee cup away.

  Elijah wrapped his arms around his belly and kept staring at the floor, except now he stared at Baz’s groin and feet. “You don’t understand.”

  “The fuck I don’t. Ever since that goddamned night when I was sixteen, I’ve had bubble wrap around me. Yeah, I was a privileged rich kid, but after I was the tragic rich kid. My whole family and all my friends live to wipe my ass. Poor Sebastian. Don’t upset him. But don’t let him hurt himself. Don’t let anything happen. You want to talk about feeling like you owe somebody? Every goddamn day they all remind me I’m the boy who lived. Then they want to know why I can’t move on.”

  Baz was so close each breath Elijah drew was Baz-scented. Night sweat and coffee and a whisper of morning breath, lingering detergent and old deodorant not cutting the mustard anymore. How fucked up was he? Baz was baring his soul, and all Elijah wanted to do was lick him.

  When Baz put a hand on Elijah’s hip, Elijah had to grip the counter to keep from leaning into him. Talk. Stop being such a fucking mopey tool. “Why…why do you…” want me? “Why…me?”

  On Elijah’s hip, Baz’s thumb made a slow circle. “I don’t know.” Slower circles. Like a massage. Four inches from Elijah’s groin. “I don’t know.”

  Elijah dug his fingernails into the Formica. “You’re going to be a jerk again. And then we’ll be in the middle of the fucking desert or something.”

  “No deserts in Illinois.”

  “Fine. You’ll leave me in a cornfield.”

  “You’re the only one who can drive. You can leave me in the cornfield.”

  “Like I would.”

  “You would, actually. I think… I think that might be why. Why…you.”

  Elijah’s cock was an iron bar in his pajama pants. A glance down re
vealed it was as obvious as it felt. “Stop it. I can’t think when you do that.”

  Baz’s only answer was a quirk of his lips and more kneading.

  Elijah let go of the counter and tried to knock Baz’s hand away, but snake that he was, Baz shifted his grip to Elijah’s aching cock. When Elijah parted his lips on a groan, Baz ducked and caught Elijah’s mouth, stealing inside.

  Common sense cracked and broke apart as Baz pressed him into the counter, stroking his cock through his pants until he forewent all pretense and slipped his hand past the elastic. Sobriety made one last stab, reminding Elijah these were the pajama pants Liz had bought him. He had work tomorrow morning. Honest work, for humble wages. Tonight he’d watch more Netflix with Liz and Pastor. A good life. What he’d said he wanted. Stability. Honest people.

  Sane people, who didn’t run hot and cold on him every five fucking minutes.

  Except maybe Elijah was as sick as his old man insisted, because in the face of Baz’s sensual assault and wicked promises of a clean getaway, it was all he wanted. Even if he did get left in the middle of a cornfield.

  No. Don’t be stupid. Stay here. Be good. You do owe these people, and you can’t repay them by running off like a vapid twink in short shorts following a fat ten-incher.

  He’d put his hands on Baz’s chest and was going to push him away when voices came from the other room. They both froze as Aaron and Giles giggled and spoke sleepily to one another. Heading toward the kitchen.

  Elijah pushed away.

  Baz gripped him by the arm and dragged him into the pantry.

  Elijah sputtered, shoving and fighting to get free, but Baz crowded him against a shelf full of cans. Outside in the kitchen, Giles and Aaron banged pans, opened the fridge and murmured innuendo between pauses to make out. Fuck this. Elijah opened his mouth to complain loudly enough to get their attention.

  He stopped as Baz removed his glasses and set them on a shelf.