by A. M. Arthur
They finally dressed and ended up in the kitchen to figure out lunch. Neither of them had any patience to cook, so Jaime found a menu for the nearest pizza place that delivered.
“What do you like?” he asked.
Alessandro scanned the menu’s offerings of specialty pizzas and individual toppings. “I like almost anything. You?”
“No peppers or onions or olives, but anything else.”
“We could just stay away from the veggies altogether and get a Five Meats?”
He glanced over a description of the five meats. “Sounds good.”
Alessandro wandered around the downstairs while Jaime phoned in the order, then gave them his debit-card number to pay for it. Task complete, he found Alessandro staring at the living room bookshelves.
“You have a crazy amount of books,” Alessandro said. He sounded impressed.
“Blame my heart. All I could really do was read. The library couldn’t keep up, so Shannon would go to thrift stores and yards sales all over the county, buying cheap books by the boxful so I wouldn’t get bored. When I was seventeen, she brought home a set of books written about fifty years ago that detailed American history from 1800 to 1850. It’s what started my obsession with history and made me want to study and teach it.”
“Do you still have those books?”
Jaime pointed to six leather volumes on the far bottom shelf. “Right there. We’ve donated a lot of books back over the years, but some I’ve insisted on keeping.”
Alessandro squatted in front of the bookshelf. His long fingers grazed the spines of the history volumes that had given Jaime so much focus and a plan for his future. Jaime couldn’t help wondering what Alessandro’s plans were. Few people made a career out of being a waiter in a breakfast shop.
“Do you have a lot of stuff like that?” Alessandro asked.
“Stuff like what?”
“That you’ve kept around since you were a kid?”
“Not from when I was really young, but Shannon is a bit of a pack rat. There’s a lot of boxes in the attic she saved from our mother’s old house, plus years’ worth of report cards and crap like that.”
The attic was a few steps past crammed, actually, because Shannon couldn’t seem to part with any of Mom’s old things. After she died, they’d packed up clothes, jewelry, pots and pans and every knickknack, and stored them while Shannon sold the old house. Then those boxes went into the attic here and hadn’t been touched since. They kept holiday decorations in the upstairs spare room because there was no space in the attic.
“Don’t you keep things that are important to you?” Jaime asked.
Alessandro shrugged as he stood back up, still scanning the books. “I try to not let things get too important. I was moved around a lot my first year in foster care. I had a ton of anger over my parents’ situation, because I didn’t understand what was going on most of the time. I was still learning to speak English well, because all they spoke at home was Portuguese.”
“May I ask what happened to your parents?”
“Mama got sick. We had no insurance and no way to pay for treatment, so she died. Pneumonia, they said. Somehow the authorities got wind that Papa was illegal, so they deported him. Since I was born here, but had no other relatives, I was put into the system.”
Jaime wanted to say he was sorry, but he doubted the platitude would mean much to Alessandro. It surprised him how similar their family histories were, and how easily Jaime could have ended up a foster kid if Shannon hadn’t been in his life.
“My early foster families didn’t know how to handle me,” Alessandro continued, “so I’d get moved to another place with an empty bed.” His fingers ghosted across another ceramic figurine. “You didn’t get a lot of warning before moves, and it helped to be able to pack quickly. I learned to keep my life pared down to one suitcase. If it didn’t fit, it got left behind.”
An odd pang of sadness hit Jaime hard in the chest. He couldn’t imagine trying to stuff his life into a single suitcase, any more than he could imagine what it was like for a kid to have no roots, no safe place. Jaime had been sick a lot, but he never once lacked for a place to stay or a family member who loved him. “Even now? One suitcase?”
“Everything I brought from my apartment in the city fit into one suitcase, so yeah, I guess so.” Alessandro turned to face him, his dark eyes full of some nameless emotion. “The stuff I left behind is all replaceable. It’s not like I owned much, anyhow.”
Jaime had no idea what to say. The overstuffed house and its garage sale chic seemed somehow ritzy and overdone compared to what Alessandro was used to. Not that Alessandro had complained, and he didn’t seem to be complaining now—just stating simple facts in that no-nonsense way of his. Maybe that was why Alessandro had been a little distant all night, only ninety percent engaged.
Was he holding back because, in the end, they were just too different for this to be anything except Sex Education 101?
The thought made Jaime’s heart sink. And then the doorbell nearly made him jump out of his skin.
* * *
Alessandro hung back in the kitchen while Jaime went to collect lunch. They’d ordered from a local pizza place, and even though there was nothing salacious about his being at Jaime’s house at noon on a Sunday, he didn’t want to accidentally make Jaime’s life more difficult. Justin had already gotten in his face about hanging with Alessandro, and Alessandro wouldn’t let a random, long-ago run-in on a country road come back to hurt Jaime.
Just the idea of Justin so much as threatening Jaime, much less actually hurting him, made Alessandro’s blood boil.
“Dude, what did the chair do?” Jaime asked. He stood just inside the kitchen with the red-and-white pizza box clutched in both hands, and stared at him with unconcealed confusion.
Alessandro released the death grip he’d had on the back of one of the stools, unsure when he’d grabbed it so tightly. “Nothing, sorry. I got lost in thought.”
“Must have been some thought.” Jaime stayed near the archway, watching him with curiosity now, maybe even a small amount of wariness.
He gave a start when it hit him—Jaime was nervous, and it was all his own stupid fault for not controlling his temper better. He’d let old anger combine with new emotions, triggered by Justin and his smug face, and it had gotten the better of him. He felt so safe in Jaime’s house, with him nearby, and he’d let his guard down. Let his anger hang out in a way he’d stopped doing a long, long time ago. Being around Jaime was bad for his self-control, and not just in bed.
Shannon saved them from more awkward stares by busting through the front door with a loud, “That smells fantastic! Enough to share?”
Tension shattered with the sound of her voice. Jaime put the pizza on the counter, then dug into the cupboards for paper plates. Alessandro braced for Shannon’s entrance, expecting some kind of knowing look or odd tension. She had to know exactly why she’d been asked to stay away overnight, and this was the part he’d been dreading.
She breezed into the kitchen with her familiar, broad grin firmly in place. “Please tell me there are no mushrooms,” she said, going straight for the pizza box.
“Just lots of meat,” Jaime replied.
“Meat, huh?” She flipped open the lid, which released a waft of spice and tomato. She plucked off a piece of pepperoni and popped it into her mouth. “Haven’t gotten enough yet?”
Alessandro wanted to crawl under the table and hide. Jaime earned mad respect by giving his sister a deadpan look and asking, “No, why? Have you?”
Shannon coughed and choked on the pepperoni. Jaime popped the tab on a can of Coke, then handed it to her. He winked at Alessandro. They settled down to eat without further commentary. After wolfing down three slices of the meat-laden pizza, Alessandro excused himself to take a piss. The downstairs bathroom was just outside the kitchen, beneath the stairs.
As he pulled the door shut, Shannon stage-whispered, “You look kind of bow-legged, Bug.
You get what you wanted?”
“Shut up,” Jaime said.
Alessandro pulled the door shut with an audible click, glad to be alone in the small bathroom so no one could see his red, proud face.
* * *
Alessandro let himself into a quiet house and headed right for the kitchen. The spicy sausage on the pizza had left him craving water like he’d run five miles in the summertime. Tony was sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of books and copied work pages, scribbling something on one of the printouts. He glared at his homework like it had insulted him, but didn’t acknowledge Alessandro’s arrival.
The faint trickle of laughter caught Alessandro’s attention. He wandered over to the wide windows that looked over the backyard. Eunice and Molly had put a blanket out in the middle of the grass and were having a tea party with Molly’s stuffed panda bear. Molly had been the one laughing, and the sight of her toothy grin made his heart swell. He watched them for several minutes, admiring the way Eunice pulled Molly out of her own head and into something as simple as afternoon tea, and wishing he had that touch.
The water pitcher was still mostly full, so he poured a glass and put it back without refilling it.
Proving himself to be a master of impeccable timing, Tony waited until Alessandro had taken a long drink and was about to swallow before coming out with, “So did you get laid last night?”
Alessandro choked and sputtered. Water burned his nose, which made his eyes tear up. He spat into the sink so he could suck air into his seizing lungs. He wiped his face on a dishtowel before he turned around to face the sneaky little brat.
Tony watched him with an innocent expression, his dark eyes wide in perfectly feigned concern. Alessandro could see the kid’s devil horns tilting his halo to the side.
“Did I do what?” Alessandro asked.
“Joe Parsons says when his big brother doesn’t come home at night, it’s because he’s out getting laid,” Tony said, as though it was the most perfectly reasonable thing in the world. “Is that why you stayed out last night?”
He didn’t know a lot about Tony’s old life, only that he never had a strong male figure in his life, and Tony seemed intent on taking everything this Joe Parsons kid said as gospel. Until Alessandro found out just who Joe Parsons was, he needed to know more about the things the kid was telling his foster brother.
He slid into the chair across from Tony. “How old is Joe Parsons?”
“Twelve.” Tony puffed up his chest and preened, obviously proud of having a friend so much older than himself.
“Do you know what ‘getting laid’ means?”
The tops of Tony’s cheeks pinked up. “I guess so.”
“So you have no idea.”
“I do too!” His cheeks got darker, this time from irritation. Tony wanted so badly to be tough and to impress his peers, especially the older kids. And Alessandro had no idea what the ten-year-old had been exposed to—other than words like “queer” and “laid.”
“Did Joe tell you what it means when his brother gets laid? What laid is slang for?”
“For getting sex.”
Alessandro blinked at the odd phrasing. “Getting sex?”
“Yeah.” Tony straightened up in his chair, clearly excited to show off some of his knowledge. “It means a girl’s gonna give it up, so Joe’s brother Andy gets sex.”
He kind of wanted to bang his head on the kitchen table. “Tony, is everything you know about sex from what Joe says his brother does?”
“Sure.” Tony pulled a face. “Not like I’m gonna ask Eunice about it. That’s gross.”
“Why is it gross? Eunice is pretty smart.”
“Yeah, well, she’s an old girl, and you don’t talk to girls about sex.”
“Okay.” Alessandro could understand that, and he’d had Sully around to give him the birds-and-bees talk. “How about you and I make a deal? How about if you have a question about sex, you come to me? We’ll talk man-to-man.”
Tony shrugged. “What about when you’re not here?”
“Like when I’m at work?”
“No, like when you leave.”
He studied the boy he’d known for two weeks and already thought of as a brother—a brother who was used to everyone in his life leaving. His mother was dead; his father was in jail. Alessandro had gone through something very similar at almost the same age. Tony wanted to connect to people, to make friends and relationships, but all he’d really been taught was that people left. Alessandro had left Eunice’s house years ago, long before Tony came into her life, and Tony had no reason to think he’d hang around.
“I’m not going anywhere, Tony,” Alessandro said. “I can’t promise I’ll be here forever, but I promise if you need to talk to me, no matter where either one of us is, we’ll talk. Okay?”
Tony watched him through narrowed eyes, clearly trying to see the lie. “We’ll see. So did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Get laid, like I asked?”
Alessandro contemplated his answer. He really didn’t want to lie to Tony, but he also didn’t want to have to deal with the inevitable gay-sex conversation. “I didn’t get laid, but I did have sex last night.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Respect.”
“I don’t get it.”
He leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. Tony was still young, but he had to ask. “Tony, have you had sex yet?”
“Ew, gross. No.” Tony’s enthusiastic denial and grimace testified to his honesty.
“Okay, good, you’re way too young to be having sex, anyway. But I’m guessing you know the mechanics.”
“Sure I do.” He started to say more, then caught himself. If Alessandro had to put money on a scenario, he’d guess that Joe had exposed his so-called friends to some online porn.
“Well, sex is better when you actually like and respect the person you’re with. It’s best when the two people love each other.”
Tony made another epic face. “Love is dumb.”
He wasn’t sure if that was coming from Tony’s personal history, or from the fact that he was ten and girls still had cooties. So he didn’t argue the point. “You asked.”
“So are you in love?”
“No.” Alessandro didn’t have to ponder his answer. He liked Jaime, and he wanted to get to know him better, but he wasn’t in love with him. He didn’t think it would be hard to do so; he just couldn’t let it happen.
“But you like her?”
He couldn’t make himself correct the “her.” “I do.”
Tony tapped the capped end of his pen against his chin, his thoughts perfectly hidden behind a flat expression. Then he shrugged and ducked his head, returning to his homework like they weren’t in the middle of a conversation.
Alessandro sipped his water, half-afraid of another verbal sneak attack, but Tony seemed intent on ignoring him now that he’d gotten all of his questions out. Alessandro wasn’t done asking his own questions; he was smart enough to not push, though. Tony would only push back or shut down. Baby steps…
In the meantime, he’d find out who Joe and Andy Parsons were, and what kind of influence they might be on Tony. Whether Tony liked it or not, he now had a nosy big brother.
Chapter Nine
Despite the casual lunch conversation the day before, Alessandro went into the bakery on Monday morning expecting awkwardness with Shannon. She greeted him like she had every morning the previous week, with a wide smile and flour-coated apron, and then started rattling off the muffin specials. Not a single expression, look or comment suggested she had any kind of opinion on the fact that he’d relieved her little brother of his virginity two days earlier.
It was both startling and comforting. He liked Shannon and he liked his job. He also really liked Jaime, and he didn’t want to mess any of those things up—especially as he was likely staying in town for the foreseeable future.
The morning passed quickly. He’d become a fast
expert at pouring coffee, taking orders, delivering plates and keeping conversations going at multiple tables. Occasionally someone would remember him from high school, offer wary smile, and by the end of their stay leave a hefty tip. He didn’t regret charming people out of their money. In some ways, he was making up for being such an asshole years ago. He wanted people to know he’d changed, that he was no longer a troublemaker or a punk.
He plunked the last oatmeal-cranberry muffin down on table four, along with a bowl of homemade granola, and gave the woman sitting there a toothy grin. “Can I get you anything else?” he asked.
“I’ll let you know.” She leaned forward, wide eyes intent on his face in a familiar way. She looked like she wanted to reach out and caress his hand.
Flirting with girls wasn’t usually his style, but her bill total was small enough that extra attention might mean another dollar tip. “Please do.” He drawled out the monosyllabic words into at least three.
The doorbell dinged. He looked up to greet the latest arrivals. His grin widened when Jaime came inside with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Their eyes met, and he’d be damned if he didn’t feel something warm stir in his stomach, a deep-down feeling that he was very glad to see Jaime again today.
“Hey, man.” He glanced at the clock—a little after eleven.
“Thought I’d do some studying here.” Jaime moved toward an empty booth. “The park’s kind of noisy today.”
Alessandro followed him. “Coffee?”
“Actually, orange juice would be better.”
“Anything to eat?”
“I’m good.”
Half-a-dozen naughty replies to those two words caught in his throat. He made an agreeable sound, then went to fetch the glass of OJ. The rest of the hour moved at a snail’s pace. Having Jaime there not only distracted him, it made time slow down to a crawl because he couldn’t do more than occasionally glance his way or offer more OJ. They hadn’t actually discussed the particulars of their arrangement, but openly flirting in Shannon’s shop was a universally bad idea.
