Determination (41 page)

My bail was set at $250,000, 10 percent of which my father pulled out of one of his investment accounts and paid the court so I could go home. I didn’t know what I would have done without him—

sat in jail until trial, I guess. When they finally released me an hour later, I ran to my father and threw my arms around him. He held me for a long time and just repeated over and over that everything would be okay. Next, I pulled Brian into my arms. I didn’t kiss him because hygiene hadn’t been a huge priority for my previous night’s accommodations, but I nuzzled into his neck while Alex and Mike both rubbed my back.

I couldn’t even tell them what their support and love meant to me.

“Come on, baby, let’s get you home. You look exhausted,” Brian whispered in my ear and kept his arm around my shoulders as my dad led us out of the courthouse and to his waiting car. I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see it, even when it picked me up from my detox procedure in rehab. Mike and Alex disappeared, and I assumed they went to Mike’s Jeep, but Brian crawled right into the backseat with me and pulled my head onto his shoulder. As he stroked the back of my head, I drifted in and out of sleep as we sped home.

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Jamie Mayfield

Twenty-Three

MY LIFE is a daze, I cannot sleep.

Tears blind me in a haze, falling as I weep.

My head ached, and I closed my eyes against the pain as I tried to come up with another line for the poem. I wanted to write novels, not pen meaningless verse. Poetry held its appeal, just not for me. Even back in high school when they had made us read it, I’d thought it was pointless. Unfortunately, in order to get through my college degree, I needed to take the class, which meant perseverance. Though when I started to look through the pedigrees of some of my favorite authors, I found a degree wasn’t necessarily required for writing fiction. In fact, my very favorite author had a degree in physics, not English.

I was also counting the days until my court date, which had been set for six weeks out. If I were a religious man, I’d have been praying for my lawyer to make a deal with the DA, but as it was, I just had to wait, worry, and hope.

“Hey, Jamie!” Looking around the small common area, I spotted Kate and Greg walking hand in hand toward me. Happy for the distraction, I slapped my laptop closed and smiled as they dropped into seats beside me.

“I’m glad to see you guys. This poetry class is kicking my ass.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what poetry has to do with sports journalism,” Greg complained as he brushed Kate’s hair back from her face with a soft smile that contradicted his exasperated tone. She smiled back, and for the first time in months, my heart didn’t hurt, because I’d Determination

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see Brian in just a few hours. Being in porn did have one advantage—

nontraditional working hours. For the last week, he’d picked me up from school every day and spent a couple of hours with me at home. He worked on his laptop editing scenes, making schedules, and checking his e-mail while I worked on my homework. Though we’d often gotten distracted with things like kissing or a midafternoon blow job, I loved being close to him.

“Maybe they want us to experience all different kinds of writing.

Who knows, maybe you harbor a secret ambition to become a poet,”

Kate teased, and Greg rolled his eyes.

“Just because I’m a wrestler, that doesn’t make me a fag,” he chastised, and I bristled at the term. And for once, I’d just had enough.

“You know what, Greg? Not all fags write poetry.” The angry tone of my voice, full of biting sarcasm, must have hit home because he paled while Kate just stared. I picked up my laptop, not bothering to put it back in its bag, and walked away. It took only seconds for Greg to catch up with me, Kate close at his heels.

“Jamie, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know you were gay,” he stammered as he followed me down the hall. Kate asked me to stop, so with a heavy sigh, I leaned against the wall and looked up at him. It killed me that I’d never be able to escape the taunts and the painful words. Since I left the center, I’d kind of been insulated from it because I’d spent all my time with my gay friends or my father.

Greg’s painful reminder that I still wasn’t accepted because of my love for Brian pissed me off.

“So, if you knew I was gay, you wouldn’t have said it. But you would have still thought it, Greg. You’ve spent time with me outside of class. Am I really all that different?” I asked. “It’s obvious in the way you gravitate around her that you love Kate. My boyfriend and I are the same way. We’ve been in love since our junior year of high school, and he means everything to me. How is our relationship less real than yours?”

“It isn’t, Jamie,” Kate said as she reached out to hand me the book of sonnets I’d accidentally left on the chair. “Greg rarely thinks before he speaks, and sometimes things come out that he didn’t intend.

That particular thought is just a product of being a dumb jock. It’s no 270

Jamie Mayfield

excuse, but it’s a reason. We have gay friends we went to high school with, and he doesn’t treat them any different than his straight friends. It was a stupid thing to say.” She glared at Greg, who looked genuinely sorry.

“I am sorry, and Kate is right, sometimes my mouth moves faster than my brain. That crap flies around the locker room because some of the guys are terrified people will think they’re gay because they roll around on a mat with other guys. Who knows, maybe they are. I don’t care one way or the other. I just want to do my thing, get my degree, marry my girl, and get our lives started. You know?” he asked and held out a hand. I shook it, not altogether convinced.

“Jamie, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. What’s his name?”

Kate asked when I started to put my laptop back in my messenger bag and ignore the awkwardness that had crept down the hall like a fog.

“His name is Brian,” I said quietly and fastened the top of the bag.

“Maybe you and Brian could get together with Greg and me for dinner this weekend? Greg’s treat because he’s an idiot,” she said with an amusing glare at her boyfriend, who had the good sense to nod his agreement.

“I’ll talk to him about it,” I told her without giving her any kind of commitment. I didn’t know if I wanted to subject Brian to an entire night of Greg’s company.

“ARE you sure you want to do this?” I asked Brian as he sat on my bed watching me trying to pick out a shirt for the stupid dinner we’d agreed to with Kate and Greg. When I’d relayed the content of the conversation we’d had at school, Brian looked troubled. I could tell he was thinking about the beating he’d endured in high school at the hands of guys who were afraid of him because of his sexuality. Though he had achieved his black belt in the last year, Brian never wanted to actually use his skills against someone else. In his heart, he didn’t like violence but understood it was a necessary tool to defend himself.

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“I want to meet your friends. Besides, it gets me away from the boardinghouse. I’m pretty sure Emilio is going to put arsenic in my coffee one day very soon,” he said, and I looked up to see if he was joking, but the sadness in his eyes told me Em still hurt because of our reunion. He’d even mentioned moving away from the boardinghouse a few times, but Leo always talked him into staying.

“Damn it, I hate that he got hurt. I should have tried harder to make him understand that it never would have worked with us. I mean yes, I’m attracted to him,” I started, and Brian raised one eyebrow at me so I moved over to the bed and kissed him, slowly but thoroughly.

“He’s cute, Brian, but he’s not you.”

“Am I cute?” he asked with a frisky grin as he flipped me onto my back and nuzzled my neck. God, I loved the easy playfulness that always existed between us. He smelled like the beach and the ocean and sunshine.

“You’re hot as homemade sin,” I murmured over his head with the feel of his teeth on my skin.

“I’ll show you sin.”

“KATE just sent me a text. They’re running a little late,” I told Brian as we waited in the Jeep he’d picked up from the used car dealership earlier in the day. It didn’t take much thought to figure out why he’d chosen a Jeep. He’d spent more time in Mike’s Jeep than any other vehicle in the last few years. Brian absolutely loved his Jeep and had talked of nothing else on the ride over. I smiled at his enthusiasm when he asked if I wanted to christen the back seat.

“No problem. How was school?” Brian’s hand drifted from the ignition he’d just turned off to my leg. The gesture wasn’t overtly sexual—in fact, I felt comforted—but my body stirred in response anyway. His hand didn’t move from my leg even when a couple passed us and walked toward the restaurant. In the early twilight, we were hardly hidden in the Jeep with the top down, but Brian didn’t seem to care who saw us. I liked that we could be free to be with each other 272

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here in Hillcrest. No one batted an eye, even if we walked down the street holding hands.

“It was fine. My writing class is getting more interesting while the other two are just tedious. I hate reading Shakespeare, and the poetry crap is just painful.” I leaned over the center console to kiss him lightly just below the ear. He rewarded me with a sweet shiver, and I laughed softly against his cheek before resting my head on his shoulder. We sat there for several long minutes, looking up at the restaurant on the other side of the curb from where we sat. Huge palm trees partially obscured the colorful sign welcoming customers to the cantina and shaded the small patio area where couples sat in the midafternoon sun. One couple in particular caught my attention by the way the dark-haired Latino threw his head back in a fake laugh as he looked around in apparent boredom.

“Is that…?” Brian asked, and I squeezed his hand, glad we had waited in the Jeep. Emilio put his hand on his date’s arm and gave him a knowing look. The older man, in his early forties with a good body but slightly receding hairline, dropped his other hand to Em’s knee and called for the check.

“Yeah, it’s Em.”

“I hate it when he does that.” The sadness in Brian’s voice mirrored my own defeated tone. “He’ll go through five or six guys in a week just so he doesn’t have to feel alone. It’s gotten worse since Mike found Alex, because he and Mike were sex buddies for a long time, and Em always wanted it to be more than it was.” My phone chirped, and I checked the display.

“They’re through the accident on the highway. They’ll be here in about ten minutes,” I read from my phone, and Brian sighed.

“As much as I love him, I’m really hoping Em is gone by then. I don’t want to deal with him today.” Brian’s face, unguarded in that moment, looked tired and drawn. I reached up and stroked his cheek with my fingers. He put his hand over mine, held it against his face, and closed his eyes. His light stubble scratched against my skin, and I tried to remember the last time I’d felt that on Brian.

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“You look tired, baby,” I whispered into the murmur of background noise on the otherwise quiet street. He smiled against my palm and opened his eyes.

“Thanks.” He smirked, and the humor returned to his eyes while he held my gaze.

“Are you having problems sleeping?” I asked, unwilling to let him brush off my concern with jokes. He closed his eyes again and nuzzled against my hand with a small smile.

“There just aren’t enough hours in the day, babe. I’m okay,” he said and shrugged off the conversation. Guilt welled in my stomach.

There weren’t enough hours in the day because of the time he spent with me. Not just hanging out at the house, but picking me up from school or taking me to the doctor as he’d done last week. We’d only been back together for a month, but already my presence was a disruption in his life.

“Whatever you’re thinking, just stop right there,” Brian said sternly and sat up straighter in the Jeep’s bucket seat, smacking his knee against the steering wheel. He flinched but didn’t comment as he reached out to put his hand on the back of my neck.

“We don’t have to spend so much time together, if—”

He stopped me with a kiss.

“You are the most important thing in my life. I’m just trying to figure out how to balance it all, that’s it. I’ll make it work. I don’t get to see you as much as I want to as it is,” he said as he squeezed the back of my neck gently and pulled me forward into a slow kiss. I couldn’t stop the quiet moan as it left my lips and he caught it with his own. He was the most important thing in my life too. I could change anything in my life, anything except him.

“You don’t have to make it work alone, honey. We’re a team, remember? After dinner maybe we can talk about how we can make it better together,” I suggested, and he nodded into another quiet kiss. We sat back with his arm over the back of my seat as he played with the overgrown curls at the nape of my neck. When I looked up to the cantina, I saw that Em and his
date
were gone. I wondered if he’d seen us kissing and decided it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

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Jamie Mayfield