When Eli heard Quinn come in the front door, the laptop clock showed 8:45. Halloween was three days away. Eli’s favorite holiday. It could get a little wild, but he was looking forward to hitting the bars with Quinn. Quinn could wear one of those T-shirts that said “This is my costume,” if he didn’t want to get dressed up. Before Eli could mention it, Quinn stuck his head in the living room.
“Hey. Did you eat already?”
“Yeah, sorry. I made spaghetti and meatballs. It’s in the fridge.”
With both of his genetic donors working until six or seven, Eli had been making his own meals since he could reach the fridge door. But he hadn’t had a regular dining companion since he’d left his best friend’s house. This was the first time he’d sat alone at Quinn’s kitchen table. After a few minutes of feeling weird, he’d gotten up to eat by the sink.
Quinn came in from the hall, rubbing the back of his neck. Eli’s stomach tensed. He hadn’t done anything to be guilty about, hadn’t so much as left a dish in the sink, but some instinct warned him that whatever Quinn had to say, Eli wasn’t going to like it. He mentally started packing.
Quinn sat on the couch next to him and the tension turned to a complicated macramé knot design.
Quinn finally stopped squeezing the back of his neck. “I’ll bet you don’t miss those house meetings with your roommates.” Clunky intro as always. That was Quinn.
“Except I have the feeling this is about to turn into one.” Eli closed the computer and slid it between them.
Quinn didn’t offer a denial. “I know they told you to move out.” He turned enough to watch Eli. “The note you got. It fell out of your pocket and I read it.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t anything to get upset about, and maybe Quinn knowing that was why he hadn’t said anything about the way more of Eli’s stuff kept appearing in the house. But Eli felt like a cartoon character with a ten-ton weight dangling on a string over his head; he had to fight the urge to look up.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
There it was. Time for the do you expect to live here now conversation. Eli tucked a leg under him. “Remember when I said I’d go to the baptism, we agreed you owed me a favor.”
Quinn didn’t say anything.
“So what about a place to stay for awhile?” Eli had thrown out that question dozens of times. Why was it so hard with Quinn on the other end of it?
“How long?”
What the fuck did that mean? Suddenly there was a time limit on being boyfriends? Didn’t they get more than two weeks to figure out if this worked? Eli knew lots of guys who’d gone home together one night from a bar and one of them never left. In spite of swallowing down the sticky lump in his throat, there was a hitch in his voice. “Until I find someplace else.”
“Someone else?”
Eli stood up. “That’s just fucking bitchy.” Especially when Eli had turned down the gym bunny on the bus. “I was going to say while we’re going out, but since there’s a limit on it now…” He had to stop and take a breath. Shit. This hurt a lot more than he thought it could. “A month? Fuck, I’ll sleep on the couch if you’re sick of me already. I picked up a little work.”
“Listen. If you don’t— I’m not—” Quinn was having trouble getting things out too, not that Eli gave a fuck. “Maybe we went a little fast. Alyssa’s been wanting to move out of her parents’ house, but she wants a roommate. You guys could find a place, I’m sure she could cover the security deposit and—”
“Alyssa? Your ex-sister-in-law, Alyssa?” Why did it always come back to that fucking family? Like a bunch of weeds popping up everywhere. “Why can’t I stay with you?”
“I like having you here, but—”
“So this is where you say we can still be friends? If you didn’t want me here, why didn’t you say something before?”
“Before you moved all your clothes here and stuffed them in my spare room?”
Before I started thinking we were a couple. But he wasn’t giving Quinn a chance to tell Eli how pathetic and immature that dream had been. “Fine. I’m sorry. Gimme a few days and they’ll be gone again.”
“Where?”
“Why should you care? Not with your ex-sister-in-law, that’s for sure. I’ve got more sense than to get sucked into all that bullshit family drama. Don’t you get it? We queers need to make our own families. They’ll never really want us.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Oh, I’m hearing you really clearly. I wish I wasn’t.”
“I love you, Eli.”
A sharp stick punched the air from his diaphragm, and Eli felt his eyes go wide with shock. “You sure have a funny way of showing it. If you—then what the fuck is this all about?”
“Because I want you to be with me because you want to be. Not because you have to. Because you don’t have any other choice.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The screech burst as the pain twisted inside. Eli winced, watched Quinn rub his head like the sound had scraped his skull. Good. Eli kept right on yelling as he walked toward Quinn. “You think because I told you I used to trick for a place to sleep that I’m doing it now? That the whole reason I carted all my shit to your boring box up here in Nowheresville, two fucking buses from a decent cup of coffee, is because I like your mattress? Fuck you.” Eli spun around and sprinted up the stairs to pack.
Quinn stomped up right behind him. “Of course I don’t think that. But I want this—us—to go right. I don’t want—”
Eli looked up from where he was shoving toiletries into his backpack. “You seriously think I’m going to wake up in ten years and decide I’m straight?” He moved to the bedroom and jammed as many clothes as he could on top. Quinn could throw the rest out. Fuck him.
He turned to Quinn again. “I know Peter fucked you over good, but maybe you should try to keep it from ruining the rest of your life.”
“I am.” Quinn got loud now, a deep rumble that he softened quickly. “I know. Eli, don’t leave like this. I called Alyssa.”
“You already called Alyssa. Of course you did.” Eli snapped the flap closed on the pack. “You wanted to know about deal breakers? This is one on an epic level.”
“Wait. How is this ignoring you?”
“It’s one hundred fucking percent ignoring me.” Eli pushed past him to run back down the stairs. Something inside Eli was scratching, burning at him so that he could barely breathe. He suspected it was tears, and he was not shedding his first in five years in front of Quinn. “You made up your mind about me, made your fucking plan, and I’m just supposed to go with that? Fuck that.” He hitched his backpack over his shoulders. “And fuck you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve learned a lot since the breeders threw me out. I’ve got the hang of homelessness by now.”
“I’m not throwing you out.”
“Tell yourself whatever you want since you sure as hell aren’t listening to me.”
Quinn’s throat worked. Eli closed his eyes.
“Can I—drive you somewhere?”
“Thanks for twisting the knife.” Eli tightened his jaw against the burning trying to escape through his throat. “By the way, just to make things clear, this is us breaking up. So when the next hot guy hits on me on the Seven bus, I’m taking him up on it. And you can fucking ignore that too.”
“Please, Eli, let me drive you where you’re going.”
“No thanks, Daddy. I can handle it all on my own.”
Chapter Sixteen
Quinn sank onto a chair and waited for the familiar numbness to kick in. It would. It always had. Yeah, he’d get mad, he might throw things at times, but after the explosion, everything would reset. And Quinn would find a way to get through it with a smile on his face. It was better finding out now that Eli wasn’t ready—didn’t feel the same way. Maybe after they’d both cooled down, when Quinn could be rational and not—as Eli had put it—fucking bitchy, then they could see if—
Light and pain splintered Quinn’s skull, driving him out of the chair and onto his knees. The warning prickle of pain had been there when Eli started screaming at him. Because Quinn had suggested Eli was using him for a convenient place to stay. Was the accusation off? Wasn’t that exactly what Quinn had told himself? That history would repeat itself because he was so easy to overlook, so easy to leave behind?
Eli wasn’t going to calm down. Every minute would give him a million more reasons to never trust Quinn again. Quinn was good at ignoring his instincts. He’d ignored the one that told him he wasn’t just sick until it was almost too late. Ignored the one that told him Peter was cheating. Damned if he was going to ignore this one too. He swallowed as much codeine as he could handle and still drive, and took off to find Eli.
He wasn’t at the bus stop, though, or anywhere along the streets that would take him to it. How fucking long had Quinn been sitting there like an idiot, thinking losing Eli was something he could just tune out, lock away?
After circling the block near the closest bus stop, Quinn started following the bus route downtown, trying to paste on a veneer of calm. Eli had been angry and walked fast. He’d already caught the bus and was downtown, headed for his friends’ place. Quinn could catch him there.
Kellan didn’t answer the buzz through the speaker, but looked down from the second-floor window. A minute later, Quinn heard his feet pounding down the stairs.
“Yeah?” Kellan’s face was blank.
“I’m looking for Eli.”
“Did you lose him?”
Kellan’s anger stirred hope. Maybe Eli was here. Safe.
Quinn found a smile somewhere deep inside and forced it to his lips. “He— We had a— Look, I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“Why? Did you hurt him?” Kellan handled himself loosely, not like a fighter at all, but Quinn could tell the man wouldn’t hesitate to come out swinging if he thought his friend was hurt.
And Quinn had hurt him. Stupidly. “Have you seen him?”
“Nope. Guess you should have been more careful, man.” Kellan shut the door.
It was just past midnight. Quinn hit every bar he could think of, found the tall, thin, platinum-blond friend who shrugged and said he hadn’t seen Eli since they were at the restaurant together. Desperation even had Quinn at Eli’s old apartment, and after a few acidic remarks from Marcy, Sam, the girl with the piercings, said, “When you see Eli, ask him what he wants me to do with his mattress. We’ve got someone taking the room next month.”
Christ, and she was the one Eli liked.
Quinn drove through the city. The area near The Arena never looked safe, but an hour after the bars closed, it made all the hair on Quinn’s body stand at attention. I’ve got the hang of homelessness by now. Through eyes narrowed by the pain in his head, Quinn saw them. People hunched low in doorways. Standing around under an overpass. There were a couple of times between friends when I walked all night, slept in the library during the day.
Was that what Eli was doing now? Because Quinn had let those doubts back in? But Eli walking all night had been before Eli had Nate and Kellan. Maybe he hadn’t gotten there yet when Quinn stopped by, or Kellan was under orders to tell Quinn to go fuck himself. Quinn had to believe that, because anything else tore a hole in his gut that hurt far more than the shards of glass under his scalp.
By dawn, he was almost out of gas. He parked around the corner from Nate’s apartment. At a decent hour, he’d try them again. If that failed, he was going to call up Jamie and beg, grovel and plead to get an off-the-record GPS search on Eli’s phone. He wasn’t sure a police diver could pull it off, but Jamie had to have some favor he could call in. Quinn would owe him forever, proclaim Marine superiority over the Navy, anything to know Eli was safe.
Something was tickling Eli’s face. He smacked at it and rolled on his side, into the sofa cushions, trying to bury his miserable existence back in sleep.
“Wake up, Goldilocks.”
“Shut the fuck up, Nate.” Eli reached behind him and threw a pillow in the direction of the voice. Maybe talking about finding the just-right man and bed had figured prominently in his rant when Nate had picked him up in answer to a pathetic late-night phone call. After Eli’s walk of rage had taken him way past the bus stop he knew, he’d found himself in some weird little pocket of industrial buildings and called for help.
Of course, Nate couldn’t let the Goldilocks thing go now. “So what you’re saying is the guy’s a bear? He didn’t look that chunky to me.”
Without turning, Eli felt around for one of his boots on the floor and tossed that too.
“Give him a break.” Kellan’s voice came from directly over him.
Eli squinted up to find Kellan holding Yin like a baby. It had probably been her tail that had woken him up. “Sorry, Yin.” Eli shut his eyes again. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to get off the couch,” Nate said.
“Nope, not enough sleep. Wake me in a hundred years.”
“You’re mixing up your fairy tales, princess. Get off the couch.”
“Why? Life sucks.”
“Damn it. I forgot to buy hats for the pity party.” Nate dragged Eli’s legs off the couch and sat down.
Kellan propped him up from the other side, and Yin walked across Eli’s lap. He absolutely was not going to cry.
“So what did he do? Should I go kick his ass?” Kellan asked.
“One: I’m not a girl, Kellan, and two: of the three of us, who was the only one who didn’t need hospital care after the bashers jumped us?”
Kellan rolled his eyes. “I didn’t call you a girl. You ga—you guys are so sensitive about that shit.”
“And straight guys aren’t?” Nate leaned across Eli to look at Kellan.
“Me, now, thank you,” Eli said. “I realize it’s hard for you to handle giving up the princess crown, Nate.”
“I should have let you sob into the couch cushions all day.” But Nate put his arm around Eli, and Eli didn’t try to wiggle away. “So?”
“So, he said he loved me and then he told me to move out. Or maybe he told me to move out and then he said he loved me.”
“And what did you say?” Kellan asked.
“I left.”
“Silently?” Nate gave Eli’s shoulder a squeeze. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Whose side are you on?” Eli slammed his shoulders back against the couch, but Nate kept the arm around him.
“Yours, always.”
Kellan tapped Eli’s knee. “What did you say when he said he loved you?”
Eli thought about it for a minute. “That he had a funny way of showing it.”
Kellan winced.
“What was I supposed to say?”
“Eli, are you in love with this guy?” Nate’s question was gentle. Probably defaulted to his advice-columnist mode.
“What part of moving in with him and turning down other guys and making him dinner and taking his advice about a job doesn’t answer that?”
“The part with actual words, babe,” Nate said.
“Do you guys? I mean, I’ve never heard you guys say it.”
Nate stood up and pulled Kellan to his feet. “I love you.”
Kellan grinned. “Yeah, you do.” And they kissed. Long. With tongues. Until Yin took off and Eli was looking for something else to throw at them. All he had left was his phone and that wasn’t happening, so he pulled the blanket over his head.
“It doesn’t matter if I love him anyway,” Eli said under the fuzzy protection from disgustingly happy people. “If he really loved me, he’d have been over here looking for me already.” Like that would happen. Quinn was probably happy to slide back into his old routine.
“Uh, yeah. He would.” Kellan’s voice had that tone in it that usually meant he was blushing.
“What?” Eli pushed the blanket off. Yup. Kellan’s cheeks were red.
“He showed up while I was picking you up,” Nat
e said.
Eli dug under the couch for his other boot, remembered he didn’t have jeans on and went looking for them. “And?”
“I wouldn’t let him in. Told him you weren’t here.” Kellan shrugged. “You weren’t. Yet.”
Eli got his jeans buttoned and sank back onto the couch. “Probably only his sense of responsibility. Like he’d do for one of his students or for someone in that goddamned family.”
“If a sense of duty leaves a guy looking like he’s just been kicked in the nuts, maybe,” Kellan said.
“Really.” Eli jammed his boots on and pulled out his phone to check for messages before tucking it away again.
“Eli.” Nate stood in front of the door. “You didn’t answer the question. Are you in love with this guy?”
Maybe. How was Eli supposed to know? “Does it feel like you’re excited but mostly nauseous? And does the thought of never kissing him again because it’s too fucked up make you think dying is a good plan?”
“Love?” Nate asked.
Eli nodded.
“Yeah, it does,” Kellan answered.
“Okay.” Eli took a deep breath. “Then I really wasn’t ever in love with you, Nate.”
“I’m sure he’ll get over it.” Kellan kissed Eli’s cheek.
Quinn dozed off, jerking awake with a start to find himself in the car—at ten in the morning. On a weekday. He vaguely remembered calling in sick for the first time in five years as he was dry swallowing codeine. Eli. He started the car and drove around the block. He’d just thought of one last place to check before appealing for mercy from Nate or Jamie.
He hoped the fact that he found a spot in a garage close to the Inner Harbor was a sign that his instinct was right. Despite the mob of school kids on their way to the aquarium and the people running for work with their coffees, Quinn saw him. Standing straight in front of the railing, dark hair blowing around in the late fall wind. Beautiful. Sexy. Safe. And pray God, his.
If he didn’t think he might startle Eli right over the railing into the bay, Quinn would have run. As it was, he couldn’t stop himself from dragging Eli into a tight hug, face buried in his neck to breathe in his smell, force the imprint of his body onto Quinn’s.
Bad Boyfriend Page 17
