Foolish Me

by Tinnean

  Wills had yanked on his arm. “That isn’t his name anymore! And he doesn’t do that!”

  “Let him go, Matheson,” Vince said. “Detective Jim and his cohorts are going to leave now, aren’t you?”

  Cohorts? Then that meant they were cops as well, and JR and Pat hadn’t been in the sort of danger I’d feared. They probably would have wound up in a group home until Wills got them out, but now there was no need for them to go anywhere. He… we… would take care of them.

  The other two cops scowled at Vince but nodded. They didn’t help Jim to his feet.

  “I’m gonna catch you alone one day,” Jim snarled at Wills. “And when I do, you’re dead meat!”

  “Yeah, you already said that.” Wills didn’t seem too impressed.

  Jim had a hair-trigger temper. None of the rent boys had ever challenged his authority, but I’d happened to see him once when a perp gave him grief, and it hadn’t been pretty.

  Before I could beg Wills to watch his step, Vince said, “Theo, get the boys out of here.”

  “Okay, Vince.” His tone of voice didn’t give me any choice. “Wills, I’ll take them home.”

  “Okay. And Jar, call Dad and let him know you’re with us.”

  “Yes, Wills.” The poor kid looked scared spitless, and Pat looked even worse, and only part of that was due to a black eye and bruised cheek. They’d need something hot and sweet to drink.

  “C’mon, guys.” I led them to where I’d parked the Corvair and unlocked the doors. “Get in.” JR rode shotgun while Pat took the backseat. I eased the car out of the lot and headed for home. “You want to tell me what happened?” I asked as I rolled up to a light.

  “My… my father found out I’m gay,” Pat said, sounding miserable.

  I jammed on the brakes, and the guy behind me leaned on his horn. “Son of a bitch,” I spat and rolled down the window with jerky motions. “Fuck you, the light’s red!” I shouted at the asshole. I rolled the window back up and looked over my shoulder at Pat. “You?” According to Wills, Pat was the Don Juan of Edmund Margeson High School, every father’s worst nightmare when it came to their daughters because of his bad-boy reputation.

  He shrugged. “I guess you could say I’m bi, but I always preferred guys. I just knew what would happen if my father found out.”

  “And he was right. Look what happened.”

  “JR….” There was a warning in Pat’s voice. He didn’t want to talk about it? Well, at least Poppa had never hit me.

  “Theo.” JR touched my shoulder. “The light changed.”

  “Okay.” I stepped on the gas pedal before the asshole behind us could lean on his horn again, and drove us home.

  I UNLOCKED the door to our apartment and pushed back the door. “JR, the bathroom is straight ahead and to the left. Pat, the half bath is just down there. When you’re done, meet me in the kitchen. Just follow your noses. I’ll be making you some hot chocolate.”

  I filled a pan with milk and put it on the stove to simmer. Miss Su sat expectantly at my feet.

  “Sorry, puss. No milk for you.” She stared up at me with her big blue eyes. “How about a slice of turkey breast instead?”

  “Mrrow.” She seemed to think that was a good idea.

  “Okay, then.” I took the package from the meat tray, peeled off a slice, and tore it into small pieces for her. “Here you go.” I watched as she nibbled at it daintily, thought about the boys in the other rooms, and sighed. “Daddy isn’t going to be happy about this!”

  FROM THE way the front door slammed shut, I knew I was right. Wills was seriously upset. I tried to head off the boys so I could calm him down, but they got there before me. Pat looked like he was bracing himself for another punch. As for JR, he was pale, but he faced his brother unwaveringly.

  Miss Su was unaware of the undercurrents. She hurled herself into Wills’s arms. “I’m sorry, Miss Su. I don’t have time for you now.” He put her down.

  “I’m… I’m so sorry, Wills,” JR managed to say.

  Wills scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? Winding up in juvie would have been the least of it!”

  “That—that was my fault, Wills.” Pat actually put himself between JR and Wills. “It was my idea to come to DC.”

  “What did you do to make a vice cop think you were soliciting him?”

  “I didn’t know he was a vice cop!”

  “Don’t tell me you were playing footsy with him in the neighboring stall!”

  “Okay.” But Pat stared down at his fingers as if he’d never seen anything so fascinating before, and of course none of us believed him.

  “Jesus, what were you thinking?” Wills demanded.

  “I… uh… I thought he was kind of cute.”

  “Are you out of your mind? He has to be at least twice your age!”

  I remembered Franky, and I shivered.

  “He had kind eyes.”

  “So you came on to him? Why? You’re straight!”

  “Uh… not exactly. I mean, I might be, but—”

  “But you might not be.” Wills looked nonplussed. “What about you, John Robert? Are you going to tell me you’re gay too?”

  “What? No! I mean, I know I’m straight!”

  “So I’m safe in assuming you weren’t running away with Damien to find love’s young dream?”

  “I didn’t ask JR to come with me!” Pat said with some bravado, but then his face fell and he looked like he was going to cry. “This isn’t his fault.”

  JR stood beside Pat. “Pat’s my friend! You’d have done the same for Michael, Wills! And don’t think Dad never worried about that!”

  Wills’s cheeks turned bright red. This wasn’t getting us anywhere. I stepped behind him and dug my fingers into his shoulders, kneading the muscles. “They haven’t eaten in hours, babe. And if I know Vince, neither have you. Cut them a little slack for now, okay?”

  A shudder rippled through his body. “Okay. Theo’s right. I’m going to shower and change, and then we’ll have dinner and you can tell me why you did such a—why you did this.”

  “Yes, Wills.” JR sounded hopeful, and Wills patted his shoulder and left the room.

  “This isn’t Cambridge,” I murmured. “Really bad things could have happened to you both.”

  “I know,” JR said. “I’ve… it’s just he’s never been mad at me.”

  “This is all my fault. My father was right. I’d—” Pat’s voice cracked and he looked away. “I’d be better off dead!” he finished.

  “No, you wouldn’t!” JR whirled on him. “And don’t you ever say such a stupid thing again! Wills is mad, but he loves me, and he’ll get over it.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t love me. He’s got no reason to, and now….”

  “Come into the kitchen with me. The hot chocolate should be cool enough now that you won’t burn your mouths. And I’ll get dinner started. How do cheeseburgers sound?”

  THE COOKTOP had a grill between the four burners, and I put four half-pound hamburger patties on it. “Do me a favor and keep an eye on these. I want to see how Wills is doing.”

  “I know how to cook.” It was Pat who said that. “Just give me a spatula. And tell me where the cheese is.”

  “It’s in the meat tray. JR, the hamburger buns are in the freezer. There’s a package of corn niblets in there also, and french fries. Oh, and don’t let Miss Su have any cheese. It upsets her tummy.”

  “TELL ME why you decided you had to come to DC,” Wills said to Pat when we’d sat down to dinner.

  “You live here.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “JR talks about you all the time, about how cool your life here is. I thought I could make a life here too.”

  “Obviously you haven’t thought.” Wills frowned at him. “Patrick, I’m twenty-seven. I’ve got a college degree and a decent-paying job. DC is unbelievably expensive. How were you planning on supporting yourself?”

  “Um�
� I thought maybe I could find a nice guy who’d—”

  “Oh, Jesus! Julia Roberts should be shot for Pretty Woman!” I couldn’t believe how naïve he was. “You know what you would have found, Patrick? A guy who would tell you he loved you and wanted to take care of you, but after a couple of months he’d start telling you money was really tight and he needed you to do this one little thing for him, and he’d never ask it of you again, and if you loved him you’d do it. But it’s not just the one time, it’s over and over and….” My breath hitched and caught in my throat.

  “It’s okay, babe.” Wills took my hand and held it. He lowered his voice so only I heard. “It’s over.”

  JR had his head down, studying the cheeseburger. Pat, though… he stared at me, his expression horrified.

  Oh, hell. I’d just outed myself to him.

  And then Wills said, “Theo had some friends that happened to.”

  Pat just nodded and didn’t seem prepared to challenge Wills.

  “Okay, what made you decide you had to leave home, Patrick?” Wills took the ketchup and squirted it over his fries.

  We listened as Pat, aka Damien, revealed how he’d kept a journal, which his father had found and read. The old pervert enjoyed reading what Pat did with his numerous conquests, but when he discovered one of those conquests was a boy, and that boy had topped his son….

  “Did this boy hurt you?”

  “No. It was… it was awesome.” He stared at Wills, then flushed and turned his gaze to me. “Better than the girls. I… I had to talk him into it, though. He said I was a player and that he had no intention of being a notch on my bedpost.”

  “Who was it?” JR offered him the bowl of corn.

  “I’m not going to out him.”

  “Is he going to out you?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought of that. I just knew I got hard every time I was near him. Whatever happens, it was worth it.” But then he deflated. “But I can’t go home again.”

  “Wills?” I reached for his hand, and when he nodded, I said to Pat, “You can stay with us until you decide the best thing to do.”

  “No, I can’t put you out like that!” Pat looked on the verge of tears again.

  “Are you sure you can’t go home? That your father was absolutely serious?” I asked. “You see, my father did the same thing, but years later he told me he hadn’t meant it.”

  “Oh, yeah, he meant it.” Pat’s words were as hopeless as his expression. Poor little boy. “You were never over when he went on one of his rants, JR, but he blames homosexuals for everything, including the disaster that’s the Big Dig. Last year he blamed them for Chicago winning the Oscars over Gangs of New York. I… uh… I never told him about Wills. He’d have made me stop being your friend.”

  “You’re strangling your cheeseburger, Wills,” I told him.

  He put it down on his plate. “Suppose his father accuses us of corrupting his son? The last thing I want is to spend our honeymoon behind bars.”

  “Don’t worry about it, babe.” I gripped his hand. “I know a lawyer who can help us.”

  “Uh… no, that’s okay.” He leaned close so he could whisper in my ear, “I’m sorry, babe, but I don’t want someone you used to know brought into this.”

  I realized what was bothering him, and I took his hand again and squeezed it. “Alan was one of Paul’s clients. He’s a whiz.”

  “If you say so.” He turned back to Pat and scowled as he studied the bruises on his face. “Tell me, Patrick, has your father hit you before?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure. He’s usually more careful about it so it doesn’t show.”

  None of us said anything for a long minute. Then JR punched Pat’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Pat shrugged. “There wasn’t anything to tell.”

  “Oh, no?” JR demanded.

  “What could you have done? He’s my dad. If they took me away I’d wind up in foster care. I’ll still probably wind up that way.”

  “Not if we can help it.” JR didn’t look like a little boy lost anymore. “You’re coming home with me, Pat, and once I tell Dad what happened, he’ll do something.”

  Wills frowned, and I patted his shoulder. “Okay, kiddies, we’ll let tomorrow deal with tomorrow. Pat, you can bed down in my office. There’s a couch in there, and it’s comfortable. You’re about Wills’s size, and he’s got some clothes that should fit you. JR, you’re more my size. I’ll find some sweats you can sleep in. The spare bedroom, babe?”

  “Yeah. Theo, would you mind seeing they get home all right? I’ve got a job I can’t get out of.”

  “Sure. Not a problem.”

  “Thanks, babe. I’ll book a flight for the three of you. Oh fuck. Miss Su!”

  “The ladies downstairs will keep an eye on her.”

  “Then I’ll call Dad and let him know what’s going on.”

  “Um… dessert, Wills?” JR asked.

  “What’s for dessert, Theo?”

  “I’ve got orange angel food cake with berries. Just like the chef at Raphael’s makes.”

  “Yum!” JR’s expression brightened.

  “Okay, after you two help Theo clear off the table, you can each have a slice. And save a slice for me too, babe!”

  PAT DISAPPEARED into the dining room with the tray that held the cake, plates, and forks. I’d started a pot of coffee earlier, and now, while JR rinsed off the dishes, I filled a carafe.

  “The Cascade is under the sink. Would you take care of it, please? I’ll bring the coffee into the dining room for your brother.” I remembered from Memorial Day that JR preferred milk, so I took a carton of milk out of the fridge and poured it into a pitcher. “Oh, and bring a couple of coffee cups and glasses.”

  “Okay, Theo.” He cleared his throat. “The thing is, Pat prefers coffee.”

  “I think the last thing he needs tonight is caffeine.”

  “Okay,” he said again, and he went back to loading the dishwasher.

  “Thanks.” I made my way into the dining room, where Pat was putting out the place settings.

  “Uh… Theo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry.” His gaze was on the table.

  “For what?”

  “It was you you were talking about at dinner, wasn’t it? You didn’t have a friend who was willing to go with you when you ran away, whose family would take you in.”

  I just stared at him, and he swallowed. Each plate, each fork went just so.

  “Does William’s dad know about it?”

  I continued to keep silent.

  “I promise I’ll never say a word about it, but….”

  “But?”

  “That guy broke your heart, didn’t he?”

  I’d thought he had, at the time.

  “Did he… did he make you go out on the streets?”

  I couldn’t answer that truthfully. I didn’t know Pat. He could spill what I told him maliciously or completely by accident, but no matter how it happened, I couldn’t afford to have that information come out.

  “Look, Pat, let me lay it on the line for you.” I worried my lower lip. I’d have to come up with some cock-and-bull story. “I’m an accountant.”

  “Uh… yeah?”

  “No, that isn’t a non sequitur. Some of my clients are rent boys.”

  “Yeah?” His eyes widened, as if I were talking about some new species. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “How’d you meet them?”

  I sighed. “I put an ad in a local LGBT newsletter.”

  “Wow!”

  “I got to know them fairly well—”

  “Did you… did you have sex with them?”

  “You mean did I pay for it? No. That would have been unethical.” His eyes grew huge. “What? You think rent boys don’t have any ethics? The ones I know are more honorable than a lot of the people who buy them.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I waved aside his apology. “A
nyway, they told me stories…. A lot of them were tossed out because they were gay and their families couldn’t or wouldn’t accept it. Little boys—oh, maybe not agewise—from white-collar families, from blue-collar families, with no way to support themselves other than selling their bodies. When you’re safe in your own room, it might sound hot, but when you’re out on the street, having no choice but to go from one man to another, doing whatever they want you to…. It’s just sad. Don’t ever put yourself into that situation, Pat.”

  “But your father threw you out.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “So how….” His cheeks were scarlet by this time, and he didn’t finish the question I’d have had to lie like a rug to answer. He glanced at me from under his lashes. “But then you met Wills.”

  And how could I explain that?

  Fortunately, at that moment, Wills came in, wearing a jacket, and I sent a questioning glance his way. “Babe?”

  “I called Dad to let him know you’d be taking Jar and Patrick home tomorrow, but Jill told me he booked a flight down as soon as Jar called. He’s at Dulles now,” he said, and I saw his car keys in his hand. “I’m going to pick him up. When we get back I’ll cancel your flight.”

  “I’ll walk you to the door. Pat, tell JR to join you here. You can have a glass of milk and a piece of cake.”

  He looked like he’d object to the milk, but I waited him out, and he gave up.

  Once he was out of the room, I slung my arm around Wills’s neck and murmured, “What a mess.”

  “Tell me about it.” We walked to the front door. “I hate being mad at JR.”

  I kissed his ear and couldn’t resist sticking my tongue in it, pleased when he shivered. “I think he’ll get over it. It means a lot to him that you care so much.”

  He blew out a breath and shook his head but said, “I shouldn’t be too long. Dad’s gonna need the spare bedroom. Set up the couch in my office for JR.”

  “I’ll get right on it. Drive carefully.”

  “Always do,” he murmured against my lips. A soft caress to my cheek and he was gone.

  Chapter 25