Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  Elijah scooted forward on his seat, away from Baz’s hand. “I have to work. I have to earn my keep.”

  Too late, he realized it had been the wrong thing to say. Liz got that look in her eye, right about the same time Baz settled his hand on Elijah’s ass.

  “Elijah, you owe us nothing. You’re more than covered for school as far as finances go. You should get away. A trip to Chicago would be terribly exciting.”

  Elijah made one last-ditch effort. “The cafeteria is counting on me.”

  “Robert will be happy to deal with it for you.” Liz reached across the table and tapped Elijah playfully on the nose. “You should go. You could use an adventure.”

  “What am I taking care of?” Pastor Schulz came into the kitchen, making a beeline for the brownies.

  Baz gave his pretty speech about the fundraiser, Liz effused about what a wonderful idea it was, Pastor agreed and insisted it wouldn’t be any trouble to get Elijah out of the cafeteria job, and somehow it was all decided despite Elijah trying, multiple times, to object. In fact, when Baz admitted he wanted to take off by noon, Liz herded Elijah upstairs to help him pack.

  Elijah couldn’t make any headway in his protest, even one-on-one.

  “You and Sebastian both need this. The pair of you are overdue for some relaxation, and you’re good together.” Liz sighed as she tucked Elijah’s underwear into the side pocket of a carry-on bag. “I know he can come off the wrong way, but…” She paused with a roll of socks in her hand. “His stories are his own to tell. All I can say is when he came to campus with Gloria to see if it was a fit, Robert brought them here for dinner. He was polite, charming—and so lonely. He broke my heart.”

  How Baz could be lonely with his eight-million choir-member posse and herd of willing conquests, Elijah couldn’t guess. “It doesn’t look right, me running off with him.”

  Liz pished over her shoulder as she pulled T-shirts and jeans from Elijah’s drawers. “For heaven’s sake, this isn’t a Jane Austen novel. Don’t start about the money, either. People didn’t give you money so you’d work like a dog and live like a monk. He’s not going to let you spend anything anyway.” When Elijah tried to protest, she held up a hand. “Do you know what you’ve yet to say to me? Liz, I don’t want to go. Nothing here or downstairs has been anything but why other people think you shouldn’t go. If you don’t want to go, say so. But don’t you dare say no for anyone but you.”

  “I can’t leave today.”

  “Why not? If you’re worried about the cafeteria, we’ll find the manager before you go. If I know Robert, though, he’s already called and squared things away.” She set aside the clothes and took Elijah’s hands. “Sweetheart. Do you want to go?”

  It was the grandmother look. Elijah was toast. He moved his gaze to the floor, but it was too late. “I’m worried I’m going to make an idiot of myself. That he’ll be sorry he asked me.”

  “Sweetheart.” Cupping his cheeks, she lifted his face to be level with hers. “He won’t be sorry. Don’t you know he’s sweet on you?”

  Only Liz could use the phrase sweet on you and make Elijah melt, not roll his eyes. “He runs so hot and cold. I don’t know if I want him sweet on me.”

  “Yes, you do.” She winked, released him with a kiss on his forehead and resumed packing. “Pack up your laptop. Maybe you’ll get some writing done.”

  Elijah meant to protest, but somehow he didn’t. Somehow he ended up helping Liz put together a suitcase, which did include his laptop. Despite his protestations, she pressed five twenty-dollar bills into his hand. They couldn’t leave, though, until she packed them a barrage of snacks. She sent them out to put Elijah’s things into the Tesla while Robert fetched the perfect cooler from the basement.

  Baz tried to carry Elijah’s suitcase, which Elijah shut down immediately, clutching the bag to his chest as he went to the car. He waited at the frunk for Baz to open it, but he didn’t. Baz sat on the hood instead, his mouth set in a grim line.

  “If you truly don’t want to go, tell me. If you don’t trust me, or it’s too much, or you aren’t into it—say it.”

  Elijah dropped the suitcase on the driveway, catching it at the last second to soften the impact as he remembered the laptop. It softened his fury too, because he’d been ready to deck Baz. “You just spent an hour making sure I couldn’t get out of it.”

  Baz’s lips thinned. “Yeah. I…realized. Which is why I’m apologizing. Sorry. If you don’t want to go, we won’t.”

  Elijah still wanted to hit him. He also wanted to press his face into Baz’s chest and hope for arms to wrap around him. For Baz to chuckle darkly and make some kind of innuendo. Because those touches on his shoulder, hip and back continued to burn. And his mouth ached for more kisses like the one in Baz’s room.

  With the sun’s angle, Elijah could see Baz’s eyes behind the lenses. The outline, anyway. They crinkled slightly, despite the glasses, despite the house and huge leafy maple casting full shadow over them.

  Elijah tightened his arms against his midsection. Yes, he wanted an adventure with Baz. He wanted it so much he had to work not to drool. Which was why he was so terrified. What happened if something he wanted this much turned to ash in his hands?

  He lifted his face to Baz’s gaze. “Why me?”

  Baz hesitated. Eventually he sighed, and Elijah could practically see the walls coming down. “Because you don’t look at me the way anyone else does. You act as if I’m a real person.” His lips quirked, like he was going to smile but gave up. “I want to have that to myself for a while.”

  Elijah’s heart tried to turn over, but he wouldn’t let it.

  Baz smiled. A real smile, soft and almost shy.

  There wasn’t any stopping Elijah’s heart now. It rolled over, stuck out its tongue and showed its belly. Elijah gave in—to his heart, to Baz and to the urge to sag against him.

  He didn’t drool when Baz put his arms around him. But he did melt as surely as if he were a block of ice being embraced by the sun.

  Chapter Eight

  The first hour was weird.

  Baz felt naked after the not-really-but-sort-of throwdown in the driveway, which didn’t combine well with the realization he’d propelled himself to this point mostly on being textbook oppositional defiant. Except for the last part where he said the truth. A truth Elijah had responded to, which should have made him happy but mostly left him feeling like somebody’d peeled him to his titanium skeleton and hooked it up to his TENS unit.

  His instinct was to deflect with some ribbing, but Elijah was already driving the Tesla like a nervous granny. Rocking the boat probably wasn’t the best course of action. Plus his conversation topics were severely limited. Teasing was out, and so was Tell me about your childhood. Fuck, pretty much everything but the last few months was too grim for entry chatter. What was left? How’s your talk therapy going? What’s the prognosis on your fucked-up parents?

  In shifting to give his hip some relief, he spied the cooler and wicker hamper in the backseat, and he relaxed. Bingo.

  “Which of Liz’s treats is your favorite?”

  Elijah flicked his gaze from the road. “Sugar cookies.” He slid his right hand lower on the wheel, relaxing his grip slightly.

  “Mmm. Good choice. Speaking personally, my heart belongs to her red velvet cupcakes.”

  The tiniest quirk of a smile. “They’re good, but the sugar cookies will always be my favorite.” His hand tightened again, not much, but enough to make Baz notice. “She made them the first night. When they brought me home from the hospital after…my parents.”

  Oh, okay. They were gonna go there. “They’re good people. Pretty much walked me through my first year. I wasn’t in the White House right off, and if I needed some space, Pastor would pick me up any hour of the day or night, or Liz, if he was unavailable. Marius was my roommate, and he was great from
word go, but it still took me a while to ease into things.”

  “It blows my mind how different I feel from last summer.” He let one hand fall off the wheel, but it remained poised and ready to leap into action. “More put together, like I know the dance moves of how to go to school. But it’s weird. Not having parents around. Not fighting them. I don’t miss it, obviously, but sometimes it seems as if somebody took away all my body armor and cranked the lighting.”

  Baz leaned against the headrest. “Yeah. Wish I could tell you it went away.”

  The pause went on too long, and Baz was about to say something benign, such as was the music okay, when Elijah started talking once more.

  “Pastor told me it’s kind of PTSD.” His lips thinned, and he swallowed as if he had something nasty in his throat. “I keep getting panic attacks. Not all the time. For no fucking reason, either, usually. Pisses me off.”

  “I never went in for panic attacks as a rule. I was more random fits of rage.” Baz tried to step on the rest, but Sia sang sweetly about how big girls cry, and the gently winding road through beautiful valleys said, Come on. Get it out, it’ll feel good. “I’ve figured out how to manage those, but I can’t quite quit pushing people away when they get too close. The nicer they are, the more right they seem, the more I want them gone. Doesn’t make any fucking sense, but there it is.”

  Elijah huffed a bitter laugh through his nose. “Yes it does.”

  Baz raised his eyebrows. “Okay, tell me.”

  “Because if you let them in, you have to feel.” His jaw tightened. “If they fuck you over, it hurts ten times worse than if you’d kept them out. And it’s not as if you don’t have other shit to manage. There are only so many wounds you can take, and at some point you have to cut your losses and circle the wagons.”

  Baz stared out the windshield. “Fucking lonely way to be.”

  “Yes.”

  They went quiet, but this time it wasn’t weird or awkward. They watched things go by, commenting on random bits of scenery, rolling their eyes together at the massive yellow JESUS billboard outside a small town near the Minneapolis-Wisconsin border, laughing when Baz pointed out it looked like a giant cuss, as if the town had fucking had it and was letting the highway know. When Elijah remarked he wished he had a coffee, Baz poured some from the giant thermos Liz had stowed in the back. He distributed some baked goods too, a brownie for himself and a liberal pile of sugar cookies for Elijah.

  “How do we charge on the road?” Elijah glanced at the dash.

  “There are PlugShare stations all over the place. You practically trip over them. And if we didn’t have one, we’d pay somebody to use a regular plug. This thing costs nothing at all to run. But as it happens, we’ll be stopping at the Supercharger station in Wisconsin. Either Mauston or Madison.”

  “Is one better than the other?”

  “Not really. We push it to get to Madison, but from the readout, your mileage stats say it won’t be a problem. Conversely, it’s a harder push to get to Barrington Hills from Mauston, but again—not going to be an issue. Also, I’m serious, the PlugShares are everywhere.”

  “Why go to the super-thing then?”

  “Because it’s free and fast. Thirty minutes, and we’ll be good to go for another two hundred miles, give or take. Free of charge. Pun intended.”

  “Thirty minutes.” Elijah had both hands on the wheel, but they flexed this time in a way that made Baz’s focus narrow, especially with the tone of voice he used to finish his thought. “That’s…a nice break.”

  Yes. Yes it was.

  This silence was charged, thoughts of those upcoming thirty minutes better than any Supercharger. Baz used the transit time to search for a hotel close to the charging spots, and since Mauston had one just off the road from the charging place, he declared it the winner.

  Elijah lost some of his sexual tension as he ogled the Supercharger while Baz set up the charge, but when Baz took his hand and indicated the hotel across the road, Elijah was back in the game.

  “I hope they have a room.” He double-timed with Baz along the grassy bank.

  “I booked ahead.”

  Elijah’s index finger slipped onto Baz’s wrist. “Excellent.”

  They didn’t say a word from the front desk to the door, but as soon as Baz threw the lock, they were on each other. Hot mouths in the foyer, trembling hands fighting to get clothing out of the way. Once Elijah got Baz’s shirt off, he licked his collarbone, whimpering when Baz’s finger breached his crack.

  “Ungh.” Elijah set his teeth on Baz’s shoulder, digging fingernails into his back. Hobbled by jeans at his knees, he spread his legs as best he could, pushing into Baz’s burrowing fingers.

  Baz ran his tongue down Elijah’s ear as he breached the rim of Elijah’s hole. “What do you want, baby?”

  He tensed as Baz pressed the tip of his finger in dry. “Dirty. I want it fucking dirty.”

  “Mmm.” Baz nipped Elijah’s lobe, kneaded a handful of ass, then slapped it. “On the bed, head at the bottom.”

  He helped Elijah out of his clothes and indulged in a moment’s admiration as his lover lay naked and sprawled on the comforter. He took off his jeans and boxers but left on his shirt before jacking himself slowly, anticipating what was coming. Elijah stared up at him, quivering, his expression needy.

  Digging into his jeans, Baz tossed the lube he’d swiped from his toiletry bag onto the bed by Elijah’s ass before kneeling over Elijah’s face, presenting his ass inches from Elijah’s mouth.

  “Oh fuck,” Elijah whispered, and went in.

  Baz did too. He allowed himself a second to trip out from the joy of Elijah’s tongue in his ass, lapping at his crack, and then he greased his fingers and went in. Balls, taint, nudging around the hole. Groaning and rocking back as Elijah whimpered and chased his finger as he licked deep into Baz’s ass. When Baz finally gave it to him, Elijah moaned and started nipping and sucking.

  Baz drew hard enough on Elijah’s thigh to leave a mark. I’ll give you dirty, honey.

  They kept it at that, rimming and fingering and raking fingernail marks over each other until Elijah whispered he was close. Baz had intended to stay on top, but his hip was hella pissed now, so he flopped on his back, handed Elijah the lube and told him to knock himself out.

  Now Elijah straddled Baz’s hips. Slicking his long cock as he ground his balls against Baz’s, Elijah stared at him like he wanted to eat him raw. Which, technically, he just had. Baz ran a hand down Elijah’s chest, tracing his sternum before tugging at each of his nipples.

  Elijah greased them both and closed their cocks tight in his fist. Bracing his other arm beside Baz’s head, he licked into Baz’s mouth and started to fuck.

  Their kiss became a war, a bruising, biting battle for control as they ground their pelvises together and Elijah jacked their cocks. When Elijah began to shake and whimper, Baz dug his fingers in, nipped at Elijah’s chin and neck and murmured dirty encouragement.

  “Come for me. Let everybody in the hotel hear us fucking.” He slipped a hand to Elijah’s ass. “You’re so dirty, baby. So. Fucking. Dirty.”

  He watched Elijah’s face as he came, spurting over his hand and the hem of Baz’s shirt. He held out as long as he could, taking in the sight of Elijah Prince letting go until Baz had no choice but to follow.

  They left the room forty minutes after they’d entered it, sated and loose hipped, arms around each other as they wove their way to the Supercharger. Once in the car, their hands kept brushing over the console, and Baz couldn’t help noticing Elijah laughed more often, more easily. He felt pretty smug, because what had begun as a selfish enterprise clearly was good for Elijah.

  Except as they approached the northwestern burbs of Chicago, a thought occurred to Baz, and some of his proud glow receded.

  “Oh—hey. I forgot to mention something.”<
br />
  Elijah, who was back in granny mode with heavier city traffic, didn’t seem to realize he’d spoken. “I’ve never driven in a city before.”

  “Stay in your lane and leave just less than a car length in the space ahead of you.”

  “Why less than?”

  “If you leave a full space, someone will fill it.”

  Grumbling, Elijah hunched over the wheel. “I don’t like driving in cities.”

  They were less than twenty minutes from the house. Baz had to tell him now. He thought about calling for a Starbucks break, but it occurred to him he had better cover when Elijah was fighting traffic. “I have something I need to explain.”

  Elijah flipped the bird at someone who proved Baz’s point about too much space between cars. “So explain.”

  “When I told my mom I was bringing my own date, I had to sell it. She clearly had plans for getting me the perfect Ken doll. So I had to make it clear it wasn’t an option, and there was only one way to do that.”

  Elijah’s hands tightened on the wheel. “How?”

  “I told her you were my boyfriend.”

  The Tesla swerved and slowed abruptly before Elijah put his foot on the accelerator. He gripped the wheel tightly as he turned his head long enough to glare at Baz. “You want to kill us? Keep making stupid jokes while I’m driving.”

  “I’m not joking.”

  No swerve this time, but Baz decided he was glad he’d done this here, not in a coffee shop where Elijah’s fit would have witnesses. “Why the hell would you tell her that?” An angry tic formed in his cheek. “I’d demand to know why you didn’t tell me when you lured me into this, but it’s obvious. And despicable, by the way.”

  Baz shifted his gaze out the passenger-side window. “I wanted you to come. And it’s not a big deal.”

  “It’s a pretty damn big deal, and I’d have told you no if I’d known.”

  Lovely thought, that being Baz’s boyfriend was a deal breaker. He traced his finger along the window seam. “I’ll book you a flight home.”