Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  The security guys balked, and several suits came over with hands extended, as if to push them back, but Susan had her crew aim the cameras at them, and Laurie simply smiled serenely as Ed moved in front of them to become their personal bulldozer. Soon they were at the front door, where an angry Stephan and Giselle stood ready for battle.

  “Where in the world have you—?” Stephan went white as he spied the camera aimed on him. “Turn that off. Turn that off.”

  Laurie stepped around a bristling Ed and extended his hand to Stephan. “Laurie Parker. I’m sure you’ve heard of my parents, Albert and Caroline, and their foundation. My godfather, Oliver Thompson, has had so many good things to say about Gloria.”

  Stephan paused before composing himself warily. “Sebastian, it’s wonderful to have you back. Is there some reason you saw fit to bring the press?”

  Baz ignored him as he scanned the room. He saw most of his housemates huddled around the couch, looking pissed off and concerned, but not his boyfriend. “Where’s Elijah?”

  “He’s in your room.” This came from Lejla on the stairs. “He’s pretty upset.”

  Baz pushed through the wall of aides, and when they tried to detain him, Ed came to his side. “I’m sure he’s fine,” he assured Baz as they hustled up the stairs.

  But nobody answered when they knocked on the door, or when Baz pounded on it and pleaded with Elijah to open up.

  “Relax,” Ed urged when Baz started to lose his shit. “Do you have a key for this?”

  Baz was pretty sure he had a universal skeleton key—in his room. Along with all kinds of substances to abuse. “We need to break it.”

  Brian appeared behind them. “What about the fire escape?”

  Baz pretty much leapt down the stairs, wanting to punch Stephan in the face on the way by, but he was on the other side of the room, getting his ass politely handed to him by Laurie, on camera. Baz barreled out the door to the patio, hoping to hell he’d find Elijah, but there were just more security goons keeping a watchful eye on who the hell knew what. He wanted to climb the fire escape, but Lejla wouldn’t let him. She had Ed hoist her up to the drop ladder, and she scurried up the iron stairs to the window. “The light’s on—oh, the window is open.” She leaned into the room, called out, then shook her head at the contingency on the ground. “He’s not in here. I think he came out this way, though.”

  All the house residents were home now, and a great deal of the security—Ed barked out orders for everyone to start looking for Elijah. They spanned through the yard and into the street, calling his name, pulling out their phones to call and text him.

  Baz did his best to think like Elijah and attempt a guess as to where and why he might have gone. Mostly his brain cycled through a manic urge to bring him home.

  Aaron took his arm. “It’s okay. We’ll find him.”

  Baz gripped his own leg. Fuck his hip, he wasn’t sitting this out, even if he had to limp to Canada. “What happened? Why would he take off?”

  Mina, who had been calling into the yard, answered with steel in her gaze. “Those fuckheads reamed him out, basically threatened him if he didn’t tell where you were. We got up in their grill, but Elijah went upstairs. We thought he was checking out to avoid this bullshit.” Her face fell. “I’m so sorry, we should have done better.”

  “How long ago did he go upstairs? What did he take?” How many drugs? God, Baz was flushing all of them down the fucking toilet.

  Lejla climbed into the room, poked around and reemerged. “Looks like his backpack, maybe a sweatshirt. His phone’s on the dresser.”

  “Is there somewhere he would go?” Ed asked.

  “Pastor Schulz, maybe.” Baz didn’t know. He swayed on his feet and swallowed more panic.

  Someone made a call to Pastor, which was a dead end, so they resumed their search. Giselle came out and approached Baz, but the others held her back, and he let them. He had to find Elijah. Had to tell him. Had to make sure he was okay.

  But he was nowhere. Baz knew he should follow the others into the streets, but he couldn’t make himself go, and Ed kept urging him in a gentle voice to stay close, to be home base. We’ll find him, everyone kept saying.

  But no one did.

  Baz leaned against a tree behind the garage. “This is all my fault.”

  Ed rubbed his back. “It isn’t.”

  “It’s my stupid family. I should have come home earlier. I shouldn’t have stayed away.”

  “We’re going to find him. Laurie’s making some calls.”

  “I want him to come home,” Baz whispered. “I need him, Ed. I can’t function without him. I don’t want to.” He tightened his fingers into his hair, tugged. “I feel sick that I let fucking Stephan and Giselle drive him away. I want to fucking kill them.”

  “We’ll deal with them next. Come inside with me a minute and rest. Have a drink of water. Take some deep breaths.”

  “I’m staying here.” Baz clung to the tree. “He’s not in the house. He went this way. I’m staying here until somebody finds him or he comes back.”

  “Fair enough. But I’m going inside to get you a chair and a bottle of water, okay?” Ed glanced around, frowning. “Damn it, they’ve all gone. It’s only us here.”

  “I’m fine.” Baz wasn’t, but he was fine enough to stand there for five minutes. “I’m not leaving.”

  Ed squeezed Baz’s biceps. “I’ll be right back.”

  Baz watched him go, scanning the darkness in the vain hope Elijah would pop up once it was just the two of them. “Elijah, please.” He clung to the tree, feeling like his guts were spilling out at his feet. “Whatever they said, it’s bullshit. Come back so I can fix it. Please.”

  Silence, except for car doors and calls for Elijah in the distance. It sounded as if more press had arrived on the lawn. Baz shut his eyes.

  “Elijah Prince, come home. I need you. You need me. Don’t make me go through this again. I don’t want to lose you. Not even for an hour.” He let out a ragged breath. “I love you, dammit. I love you more than anything or anyone else I’ve ever known.”

  There was, of course, no reply. Despondent, defeated, Baz sank to the ground, to his knees. His soul hollowing out, he stared dully into the bushes behind the garage.

  Stared at something in the bushes behind the garage.

  Pulling off his glasses, Baz crawled forward, blinking at the play of lights on his vision, focusing like hell on the shadows. He didn’t know what to hope for, what to think, so he didn’t—he only kept moving, until his vision adjusted and he came close enough to confirm, yes, there was a person sitting in the patch of mud behind the shrubbery. A small, dark-haired person with his knees drawn to his chest, staring at Baz with shame and fear.

  Elijah wasn’t crying, which was somehow worse. It was Baz’s blender freakout magnified a thousand times. A panic attack. A bad one. An emotional retreat he couldn’t quite maneuver his way through. Drug-free from the look of him, which meant everything was dialed to eleven.

  But he was here. He wasn’t bleeding, and he was here. Baz could help him.

  When Ed came around the corner of the house, Baz shot out a hand, stilling him. “Ed, I need you to bring my car around to the alley.” He fished in his pocket for his key fob and tossed it on the ground between them. “The Tesla. Put your foot on the brake to start it. Bring it around without anyone else coming, please. No press. No goons. Nobody else from the house. Tell Laurie what’s going on, and Giles and the others, but they have to stay inside. Everybody needs to give us space.”

  “Okay.” Ed sounded unsure. “Baz, have you—is he there?”

  “Yes. But I need you to get us away from here for a bit,” Baz replied, still staring right at Elijah. “You and me and him. Absolutely nobody else. I’d do it myself, if I could drive.”

  Ed relaxed. “Okay.” He came close enough t
o pick up the keys, glancing toward the bushes, but there was no way he’d see anything from where he was. “It might be a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine. We’re in no rush.”

  When Ed left, Baz put his glasses on and moved closer. Elijah stayed where he was, but he didn’t look away.

  Baz didn’t either. “Let me take you for a drive. Let me get you somewhere safe.”

  Elijah’s eyes filled with tears, and some spilled down his cheek.

  Baz climbed in enough to put a hand where Elijah could grab it. “Either you come out and let me take you away from here, or I come in to you. Your call.”

  More tears escaped. Elijah blinked, let the rest fall. Then he took Baz’s hand, helped pull himself out of the bushes. Out of the darkness and into the safety of Baz’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It took Ed almost fifteen minutes to get the Tesla into the alley. No one else came but Ed, which was good because Baz understood there was no way in hell Elijah could take any additional people right now.

  Elijah allowed himself to be removed from his hiding place and ushered into the Tesla, but he was wooden-limbed and jumpy, even once they were ensconced together in the backseat. Baz wrapped his body around his boyfriend and met Ed’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

  “Head east on Tenth Street.” He leaned between the seats to punch at the display. “I’ll find it on Google Maps and let it navigate you there.”

  He set up the coordinates for the lake, then pulled out his phone, turned it on and used the Tesla app to run the stereo. When he settled into the seat, drawing Elijah in close once more, the opening theme of Howl’s Moving Castle soundtrack played softly through the speakers.

  Tentative fingers closed over Baz’s sleeve, tensing and releasing a few times before settling on his forearm.

  Baz kissed Elijah’s hairline. When this made Elijah shudder a sigh, Baz held his lips gently in place, as if he could draw the stress out through the contact. It almost seemed to work. Some of the tension leached out of Elijah, his body less rigid, his breathing more normal.

  Once they were at the lake, Ed dropped the key fob on the seat and left the car, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Only when they were alone did Elijah finally speak. “I think I’m crazy like my mom and dad.”

  “Not even close, baby.”

  “I feel crazy.” His voice shook. His hands tightened into fists that he drew to his body as he curled tighter into a ball on Baz’s lap. “It’s all too loud. Everything is too much. I want to run. Go. I don’t know where. I want to walk to California. Swim to China. Go.” His laugh was brief and bitter. “I got as far as the garage. I’m a mess. All fucked up.”

  “You’re not fucked up.”

  “I am the goddamned definition of fucked up. I melted down in a goddamned hedge, and I don’t know why.” He threw up his hands, but though his eyes glistened, no more tears fell. “It was all a fucking waste. All the planning with Walter’s firm, everybody standing up for me, you getting—” He covered his mouth with his hand, shutting his eyes as tears fell. Baz tried to touch his arm, but Elijah shook him off, eyes open and glaring as the escaped tears sank into his skin. “What the hell was it for? I’m too fucked up. My parents were right—”

  “Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence.”

  “I am fucked up. Are you not listening? I fought for years to get free of them, to win, and I’m king of a goddamned trash pile.”

  “You’re no king, you’re a Prince.”

  The quip should have at least taken some of the wind out of his sails, but Elijah was so worked up he made his own weather now. “Of what?”

  Baz took off his glasses and put them in the back window. Catching Elijah’s cheek with trembling fingers, Baz looked Elijah in the eye. “You’re the Prince of my heart.”

  Elijah stared at him. His angry expression melted, but not into romantic goo. More melted wax, the face of an ugly cry without the tears.

  “Why?” Elijah asked at last, in a rough whisper. “I’m so fucked up. Why would you want me?”

  Baz nodded at the lake glistening in the moonlight. “You know how many times friends have dragged me out to somewhere so I could vomit out a remix of everything you just said?”

  “You aren’t vomiting anything now.” Elijah pulled a sarcastic smile. “Are you telling me it gets better?”

  “No. Wounds are wounds. Shit that happened remains shit that happened. You get better, though. Maybe you’re forever decamped on the Island of Misfit Toys, but you’re better.” He stroked Elijah’s hair. “I’m saying I’m better with you. I should probably be noble and tell you I’ll let you go if it’s what you want, but I’m a spoiled, selfish brat. I’ll follow you, beg you, bribe you to stay. Because you’re the first one to make it to my island. I don’t want to let you leave.”

  Elijah melted out of the ugly and into…Elijah. “You have too many metaphors going. First we were Sid and Nancy, then we were Howl’s Moving Castle, and now we’re Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

  “How about we be Baz and Elijah, together forever?”

  Elijah moved closer, into the circle of Baz’s arms. “Prince of your heart, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Elijah rested his head on Baz’s shoulder, settling in. “You really don’t care that I’m a mess?”

  Shutting his eyes, Baz rubbed his cheek on Elijah’s temple. “Sometimes I think it’s my favorite part.”

  “I still want to run away. I can’t, but I want to.”

  “I’d take you. Anywhere you want to go. Anytime you want to leave.”

  Elijah punched him lightly in the shoulder he wasn’t leaning on. “You would not.”

  “I would. In a hot second. For you.”

  “But they’d be pissed.”

  “Too fucking bad. They’ve been on my ass for just shy of a decade to find a purpose for my life. They have to put up with whatever I decide that is. Whenever I fucking find it.”

  “So I’m your purpose?”

  Baz glanced away. “You don’t have to sound so incredulous.”

  Elijah pulled Baz’s face back. His gaze might as well have been a laser peel. “You were serious? Because if you’re fucking with me—”

  Baz sat up too, taking Elijah’s face in his hands. “I would never fuck with you. Why do you think that? Why do you always think that?”

  “Because people go out of their way to tell me you will. You’ve done it to everyone else, over and over.”

  “Yeah, well, everyone else isn’t you.” Baz let his hands fall to Elijah’s shoulders. “What you said about feeling like people saved you only to be disappointed you were broken—I’ve felt that since I was sixteen. I started calling myself Baz instead of Sebastian because Sebastian Acker was a snotty prick who thought his family’s wealth and network would take care of him. Baz knows all the money and connection in the world can’t replace some things. He will never be as strong as he wants, or as stable. This is the way survival is, for him.” He pressed his cheek to Elijah’s hair. “All I know is for me, being with you, taking care of you, fills up my holes. I don’t want to stop.”

  Elijah’s hands had moved to Baz’s back, and they tensed. “I—I like you. A lot. But sometimes it makes me nervous, and I don’t know if I can—”

  Baz lifted his head enough to still Elijah’s lips with a kiss. It lingered longer than he’d originally intended, and when he drew back, he nuzzled Elijah’s nose. “We have different curses. We have to undo our own spells.”

  “It makes me feel shitty and alone. I don’t want to be alone.” He sagged. “But I think maybe I have to be. Even in a crowd of people, my heart will always ache.”

  The statement resonated in the furthest hollows of Baz’s soul. “Then we’ll be lonely hearts together.”

  Elijah shudder
ed and caressed Baz’s neck. “I don’t want to feel anymore. Not today. I’m tired of feelings.”

  “Let me take you somewhere so you can rest. Ed will drive us anywhere. Tell me where you want to go, and we’re there.”

  “Home.” Elijah’s voice was small, exhausted. “I want to go home. To the White House. With you.”

  Baz kissed his hair. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  Elijah regretted his request to go to the White House as soon as they arrived. The driveway was clogged with cars and news vans and those bright lights reporters stood under.

  Ed sighed and gestured at the house. They’d stopped far enough away nobody had seen them yet. “What now, guys?”

  “Pull around to the back again.” Baz stroked Elijah’s hair. “Turn down this side street, and they might not see us.”

  Nobody did. There was a security guy near the garage, but he only nodded gruffly at Baz as the three of them approached. When they headed toward the door, though, Elijah withdrew.

  “I can’t. Not with everybody there.”

  He’d hoped Baz would say they could go up the fire escape, but he only put his arm around Elijah and drew him forward. “We’ll walk straight to the stairs. No passing go.”

  “I locked the door.”

  “We’ll send someone to open it.”

  He wanted to fight more, but he didn’t have it in him. He couldn’t put up walls, couldn’t fight, couldn’t snark.

  You’re the Prince of my heart.

  I love you more than anything or anyone else I’ve ever known.

  All eyes were on them as they came into the living room, but before they got far, Baz took something out of his jacket and pressed it into Elijah’s hand. His spare glasses. The reddish-brown ones, which were his outside-in-daytime ones. Elijah slipped them on, grateful. He stumbled, because damn, those things were practically blackout-strength. But they hid his eyes, became his mask as Baz navigated them through the room. Their housemates tried to approach, but they kept their distance when Baz gestured them back. The reporters and the political operatives were a different story entirely.