Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  Unlike his mother’s house, there was no overarching theme of money, more this delighted me and I took it home. There were bits of funky china, a brass penis statue, several framed photos of Baz, Marius and Damien in goofy poses, one of the three of them in drag. A black feather boa draped across a shelf full of figurines. Elijah didn’t recognize most of them, but he did spy a Pazu catching Sheeta figure from Castle in the Sky and an absolutely stunning sculpture of Howl in half-bird form gently touching the chin of a gray-haired Sophie. There was some Japanese hot guy in a tuxedo with tails biting on the edge of his glove and basically inviting the people watching him to undress and start masturbating, but Elijah didn’t know who the figure was meant to be.

  The shelves were almost all figures and carefully arranged mementoes, but stuff was everywhere: electronics, hats, Mardi Gras masks, several tiaras. The walls were filled with framed posters for anime movies and shows, foreign art films, choir tours.

  There was a fire escape visible through the window too—Elijah knew it was functional because he’d stared at it while he chain-smoked out back. It was one of those where the stairs descended as you walked down them, with a small drop ladder at the end. He considered, quite seriously, making a run to it.

  Before he could, Baz closed the door and pressed Elijah against it. He tipped his glasses to the top of his head, letting Elijah see how annoyed he was.

  “Don’t hurt your eyes,” Elijah said, wishing for the shield back.

  “I’ll worry about my eyes. You tell me why you won’t move in with me.”

  Elijah tried to get mad, but it was difficult with Baz glaring at him. “I already told you. It’s dumb. Nobody moves in together this fast.”

  “We’re not most people.”

  What lovely bullshit. “What happens if I want a break from you?”

  It was a legitimate question. A rational question. The hurt in Baz’s gaze, however, still made Elijah feel guilty. “It’s a big house.”

  Elijah refused to cower. It was hard, because Baz’s eyes were pretty. Lots of streaks in the iris. “What if I want a break to sleep by myself?”

  “You tell me, and I sleep on the couch.”

  Like Baz would ever meekly leave without wheedling first. “You can’t be the one to leave. You have the light thing.”

  “I’ll rig up the living room. Or camp out in the practice room. Just stay here. Please.”

  “Why, Baz? I moved into the house. I’ll be down the hall.”

  “I want you here.”

  With all your other things. Elijah opened his mouth to point out he was human, not objet d’art, but then Baz touched his chin with his index finger, and everything went still.

  There was no way Baz was consciously mimicking the pose of the Howl’s Moving Castle figurine, yet this was exactly what he was doing. Elijah’s imagination completed the shadows into dark wings, but otherwise it was the same: shorter, hesitant Elijah standing before the taller, hunched, aching Baz, tentatively trying to capture his attention.

  On a shelf the pose was charming, but to live it out, Elijah discovered, was more than simply intense. It was a lens. A moment of clarity—or, perhaps, a delusion of clarity. With the single finger holding him more firmly than any direct grip, Elijah was convinced Baz did not mean him to be a thing. The Tesla might move, but this was Baz’s castle. This room was his home, his safe space.

  It didn’t matter that everyone had told him Baz wasn’t serious. That was a smokescreen. He didn’t want to take risks, but he was now. He wanted Elijah. Not as a trophy. As company.

  Please be in my home with me.

  Elijah shut his eyes. “Tell me again this isn’t you bored. Because it will hurt me if you’re only fucking around.”

  “I’ve told you several times now. I’ve shown you.”

  He had. Elijah couldn’t argue with this, but he couldn’t open his eyes, either. “I don’t owe you this. And agreeing isn’t some contract. I get to leave if I’m not happy. Even if that makes you unhappy.”

  “No, you don’t owe me anything. I owe you for Chicago.” His nose nuzzled Elijah’s timidly. “Please don’t demand your own room. I’ll do everything I can to keep you happy.”

  With a sigh, Elijah nodded. “Okay.”

  The finger at his chin trailed along his jaw as Baz’s hips closed in on Elijah’s and his mouth moved down Elijah’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  Elijah pushed his hands up Baz’s chest to loop them behind his neck as he settled in for a kiss. What began as a sensual sealing of an understanding soon became making out. Elijah let go of the last of his resistance, yielding to Baz’s groping hands. He wanted to hook his leg over Baz’s hip, but he could obviously only do the one, and he worried if even that would be too much. So when Baz peeled him off the door, Elijah did the pivot toward the bed for them.

  When Baz caught the knob on the way and cracked the door open, however, Elijah balked. “What are you—?”

  Baz swallowed the objection and pushed Elijah the rest of the way to the bed. Leaving the door ajar.

  Elijah fought to object, but Baz pinned him to the mattress, stole his breath, torturing him so when he was able to make sounds, they were only groans and gasps. Through it all, Elijah stole glances at the door, certain Aaron or Giles would be standing there, mouth hanging open. His brain wouldn’t let him imagine Mina.

  Baz chuckled. “You can pretend all day long you don’t like knowing they can hear. I was with you on the patio and balcony when you got off on being done in the open.”

  Baz teased first one nipple, then the other, until Elijah arched and thrashed against the bed. “But not…these people.”

  “Yes, these people. That’s the biggest thrill of all.”

  As Elijah protested weakly, Baz made exaggerated mwahahaha sounds along Elijah’s sternum. He climbed off Elijah’s legs to get to his cock, and Elijah opened his knees, not wanting to get in anybody’s way. He couldn’t stop watching the door, though, so he missed everything Baz was doing—until a cold, slick finger pushed into him at the same time a hot mouth engulfed his cock.

  He cried out—way too loud, and as the finger turned, pushing deeper to find X marks the spot, Elijah’s cry became a dirty moan.

  Downstairs, everything went quiet.

  “Oh God, they heard,” Elijah whispered. In Baz’s mouth, his cock got a little harder.

  Baz hummed around it before pulling off, staring up at Elijah with a wicked grin. “Absolutely they did. Let them hear some more.”

  Elijah tried to resist him, but Baz had become adept at wringing noises out of Elijah, and it didn’t take much. The sensation was plenty, but the fucking open door. That got him in the gut.

  What were they saying? What did they think? Elijah moaned on the downstroke, high on the dark thrill of being bad.

  Baz blew his brains out, finger fucked him until he burned, turned him over to fuck him. Elijah lifted his hips for the pillow, spread his knees and got hot all over in the hope-terror someone might finally come upstairs to see what was going on. He gave Baz everything he asked for, his body, his obedience, and his porn-dubbed cries and grunts.

  But, he reminded himself, this was simply Baz showing off. Marking territory. It didn’t mean they were going to have Walter and Kelly’s Disney wedding or compose songs together like Giles and Aaron. It meant Baz had successfully identified and executed Elijah’s exhibitionist kink and was attached to the idea of having him around for a while. And for now, Elijah was attached to that idea too.

  He cried out as he came on the sheets and Baz came inside his ass. He collapsed on the mattress and went obediently into the baby spoon after Baz shut the door, took off his glasses and climbed behind Elijah.

  When they finally went downstairs half an hour later, they wore different clothes, their hair was disheveled, and Elijah’s neck was full of hickeys. Mina had gone to
her room, and Aaron and Giles sat together on the sofa, appearing somewhat ruffled. In fact, Aaron’s shirt was on inside out. Aaron bit the corner of his lip, an abashed I know you know I know sort of look in his eye. No doubt at some point it was hard to tell who was hollering, Elijah or Aaron.

  Elijah felt vaguely anxious and unsettled despite the proof that as long as he was with Baz, he’d clearly be getting the best sex of his life. He ended up writing for three hours solid that evening, zoning out into a personal time warp on the floor in the corner of the ballroom, until Mina put a plate of spaghetti next to him. He blinked at it, as if he’d forgotten what food was, but his stomach remembered well enough.

  He glanced up at her, wanting to say thanks, but he felt woozy, his head still half in his manuscript. She was probably going to yell.

  She didn’t, though. Crouching beside him, she kissed his cheek and glanced at his screen with a smile. “Oh, the fantasy one. Interesting.”

  Usually Elijah hissed at anyone who tried to read his work in progress. It still made him lurch inside when Mina saw, but she truly was an exception. “I wrote a short too. The start of one, anyway. Crazy kinky.”

  She smoothed hair away from his face, her expression thoughtful. “I have to say, I was dubious about the two of you, but if it’s getting you writing again, I’m fully on board.”

  Elijah wanted to deny the Lifetime original movie Adventures With Baz was the reason he’d uncorked, but he was pretty sure she was right. “He’ll get bored of it any second.”

  “Maybe he’ll get bored. Maybe not.” She nodded at the screen as she rose. “Until you find out, ride the wave. Get some story out of the stress, and enjoy the sex. Just be safe, okay? Baz has been around the block.”

  Elijah focused on stuffing spaghetti in his mouth, hoping marinara would hide his guilty expression.

  Chapter Twelve

  If Baz had known Marius was going to stare at him all through lunch like he’d grown an extra head, he’d have stayed at the White House.

  Three days after returning to Saint Timothy after his weekend with Elijah, he’d taken Uber to the U of M campus. Baz read up on first-year medical school on the way in—MS-1, he now knew, was the lingo—and he was ready to commiserate about gross anatomy, pathology and biochem. That’s not what happened, though. Marius demanded all the details about Chicago, so Baz told him, and now Marius looked as if Baz had announced his return from Mars.

  Probably this was because he’d casually slipped in there that he and Elijah were dating. And rooming together.

  “You’re dating. Actually dating.”

  Baz poked a fry into ketchup and glared at Marius. “Is it so impossible to believe I might be in a relationship?”

  “Yes.”

  Baz tossed down the fry. “Fine. I’ll admit it’s not my usual.”

  “I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying I’m surprised.” Marius slouched in his booth seat, still studying Baz as if he were part of an experiment. “I guess I shouldn’t be. You don’t do anything halfway. Why court him cautiously, when you could move in together?”

  “Did you fake your freakout so you could interrogate me?”

  “No.” Marius’s stunned amusement evaporated. “Oh my God, Baz. It’s going to be insane. So crazy bad. The schedule is unreal, and the workload.” He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I have no idea how I’m going to do it all. I mean, I will never do laundry again. Or cook a meal. Which means my budget is all off. And my idea I could pick up some weekend job is out.”

  Fucking money. Baz wished he could give Marius a grand or two, but he’d never take it. “What about your roommates? Can you work out some kind of communal thing for laundry and so on?”

  “That’s funny. Really fucking funny. They’re so loud and insane. I’m going to have to study at the library. So I’m going to pay through the nose to only sleep there, and with earplugs.”

  Now Baz was stressed. “Come back to the White House.”

  “I can’t do a half-hour commute. In addition to gas and paying to park, I’d lose all that time. If I could use it to study, it’d be fine.”

  “You need a med-student roommate. Or someone else who has as intense a schedule as you. Or people who aren’t assholes.”

  Marius sloshed his beer in circles before downing the dregs and pouring himself a new glass. “Trust me, I’m looking. I don’t know that I’ll find anything, though. And if I do, I’ve still got to break my lease.”

  The problem plagued Baz through the rest of their meal, and once they’d said their goodbyes, he wandered campus a bit instead of calling Uber for a ride home. There had to be another way for Marius. In fact, he felt like he almost had it, and if he limped one more time around the block, he’d find it.

  It took two blocks, and he’d blown out his hip, but he’d figured it out. After snagging a Starbucks, he settled into its sidewalk seating and pulled up his contacts on his phone. Walter Davidson answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Sebastian. I mean—Baz.”

  “This a good time?”

  “Perfect. I’m walking out of the library, trying to figure out how to kill the hours until Kelly’s done with his summer class. What’s up?”

  Baz glanced around, searching for something to ID where he was. “Well, I’m at the Starbucks in the Radisson on campus. You want some coffee?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll pop over on the train. Give me ten minutes, and your next latte’s on me.”

  Baz took some ibuprofen and an oxycodone while he waited. By the time Walter hopped off the commuter rail in front of the cafe, Baz was still feeling pain, but he didn’t care so much.

  He rose as Walter came up to him, and they did the gay-boy kissy thing before getting in line. Once they had their drinks, Walter adding a sandwich, they settled into a table. While Walter ate, Baz calculated his best point of entry.

  “So you guys still live near campus, right? Aaron says you moved in June.”

  Walter nodded as he wiped his mouth and finished chewing. “Yeah. We moved to this two-bedroom in Seward. It’s nothing great, but it’s close to campus, the train, and it comes with a washer and dryer. There’s a Pizza Lucé two blocks away, so I’m going to be fat as fuck, but I’ll die happy.”

  Two bedroom. Baz did a mental fist pump. “Seward’s pretty expensive, right? That’s the big liberal district, and close to campus, everything must be at a premium.”

  Walter grimaced. “No shit. I had us upgrade, so we have a study in mild grime for the pleasure of fifteen hundred dollars instead of a nightmare of rat semen for an even grand. It means Kelly has to find a second job and I have to beg my old man for an allowance increase, but you do what you have to, I guess.”

  Baz didn’t have to lift a finger. This was setting itself up. “Would you guys be open to a roommate?”

  “Theoretically, yes, that was the plan in taking the two bedroom, but we got cold feet. Who wants to room with a newlywed gay couple?”

  “What if it was someone who came pre-vetted? Someone I could promise is so LGBT friendly he chews me out over my PC faux pas? He would basically be there to pay rent, sleep, be friendly over coffee on his way out the door and occasionally forget his laundry in the washer.”

  Walter put down his sandwich. “Where is this unicorn?”

  Smiling, Baz sipped his latte, nibbled on his cookie and fixed everybody’s problems.

  By the time Kelly texted Walter to find out where he was, Marius was on his way over, and soon Kelly was too. Another round of lattes had the three potential roommates forming a more perfect union, and as they arranged a meeting at the apartment, Baz acknowledged his work here was done. Because he could get Stephan to discover a sub-leaser without Marius knowing it had happened.

  As he pulled up the Uber app, though, he felt an unexpected pang of…something, and he closed it again. He opened the text cli
ent instead.

  You busy, babe?

  He didn’t realize how tense he’d become waiting for a reply from Elijah until it arrived. I was writing, but mostly in circles at this point. What’s up?

  Through his glasses, Baz glanced up at Kelly’s and Walter’s smiling faces. Kelly had moved his chair so close to his husband he was practically in his lap. It made Baz ache.

  I’m on the U of M campus, saving the world. NBD. He hesitated before plowing ahead. I was gonna ask if you could give me a lift, but I don’t want to bug you if you’re working.

  A total lie. He really wanted a ride. The thought of sitting in the back seat of a stranger’s car for a half hour hollowed him out.

  If there’s dinner in it for me, I could be persuaded.

  Baz had to bite the corner of his lip as joy expanded inside him. “Hey, Lucas. I mean—Davidson. What was the pizza place you said was making you fat?”

  “Pizza Lucé on Franklin.”

  “Thanks. Elijah’s bringing the Tesla in so I don’t have to Uber.”

  Kelly beamed. “Sounds wonderful. We could all go, unless you’d rather be alone.”

  “Company’s good.” He ignored the subtle smile from Marius and replied to Elijah. I have good pizza on standby.

  Excellent. Where am I meeting you, exactly?

  “Is it okay if I tag along to your apartment while I wait for my ride?”

  Walter glanced at his husband before nodding. “Of course. We can all go together right now, if that works for you, Marius.”

  As they rose from their chairs, Baz texted Elijah Walter and Kelly’s address, and the emptiness faded to a dull roar, a hollow filled with the shape of a saucy, dark-haired boyfriend.

  It weirded Elijah out to drive the Tesla on his own. What if he wrecked it? Baz’s reply was always “Insurance much?” Except Elijah didn’t believe for a second the loss of the car would be anything but huge for Baz.