Cross Island Read online

  He frowned. “Why Tonya?”

  “He… was always, in his words, protective of me and Stephanie. He didn’t like it when he realized Steph was bi and used to make all these threatening comments about Tonya. And this was when we were much younger. It made me nervous or whatever, so I tried to get Tonya and Steph to stop fooling around just so he’d stop fixating. It worked, but I made myself look like an entire asshole.” I shook my head, disgusted with my past self. “Anyway, it got worse when it was about me and Ray because… one day I messed up and said Ray’s name while Shawn was fucking me. He got mad and wanted to put an end to it.”

  “It meaning… Ray?”

  I looked away. “Yeah. We had a bad fight over it, and he went into rage mode, you know? Just couldn’t hear shit besides the fact that I was trying to protect Raymond. It was during a time when Shawn was supposed to be laying low due to some shit with another gang, but he left the building in this blind rage.”

  I could remember that night so clearly. The way he’d shouted at me and wrecked his own place, threatening to beat the shit out of me if I didn’t agree that everything would be fine if only Ray was gone. For the first time, he’d scared me, and I’d wondered if all along I’d underestimated him. Or maybe I hadn’t, and it had been me that had pushed him to that point. If I’d never confessed and started sleeping with him while still obsessed with Ray, he’d have never snapped and run out that night.

  Swallowing thickly, I continued. “I called Stephanie to warn her to keep Ray out of the park, then followed Shawn. I made it a block before I heard gunshots.” I dug my fingers into my arms, staring hard at Clive’s empty glass. “Someone shot him near the old hospital, just outside the park. They’d been waiting on him to leave. He’d known they would be, but still ran out. Because of me.”

  “Good God, Victor.” Clive got up to switch to the couch, sitting next to me with his warm hand on my shoulder. He was so close I could smell his cologne. Or maybe it was the other guys’ cologne. “I had no idea this story was going here. I apologize.”

  “Don’t.” I shook my head. “I’ve never talked about it. Ever.”

  He squeezed my shoulder, fingers digging into the tense muscle. “Does it feel good to talk about it?”

  “Yeah.” Him touching me was a good distraction from just about everything else. Instead of reliving that moment with all the helpless self-loathing and anger that had plagued me for years, I just felt him. “It feels good.”

  We locked eyes for a moment, neither of us speaking or looking away. Then his gaze flicked to my mouth, and his hand slowly dropped.

  “It’s my turn,” I said roughly. “You ready?”

  “Yes. Always.

  “Good. Cuz I get like two.”

  His mouth twitched. “Ask away.”

  “Did he dump you for Nunzio?”

  “No. I was stupid in love with Michael even though I knew he probably should be with Nunzio. But I knew he would never leave me, and I knew I would never be able to stay away from him if he was still trying to make an effort, so I…” Clive’s lip curled. “I told him I’d been cheating on him all along and dumped his ass. I knew if I did it that way, he wouldn’t look back. He could move on, and I’d get a clean break that I couldn’t come back from even if I wanted to.”

  I simultaneously couldn’t believe what I was hearing and could see exactly how that had gone down. “So, you hurt your own self just to set his ass free?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now he’s married.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re still hurting yourself by being a reckless asshole because you think no one gives a shit about you? Maybe you even wonder if someone would really care if something happened. Or you don’t think anything will happen since no one gives enough of a fuck one way or the other.”

  Clive looked at me sharply, denial written all over his handsome face. Instead of coming back at me and denying it, he shrugged. “Maybe so.”

  “I can relate.”

  Clive’s laugh was unexpected, but it filled the room. He kept laughing as he mirrored my pose, slumping on the couch beside me until our thighs pressed together.

  “We’re both destructive and lonely. Michael is married while I bounce between one useless hookup after another, and his brother is newly out as queer and practically married to a man himself while you remain resentful and alone.” Clive inhaled deeply. He didn’t even ask if I’d been with anyone after Shawn. He just knew. And he was right. I’d been celibate for the past four years. “What a pair we are, Victor. What a fucked up pair.”

  “Better a pair than being fucked up all by yourself, right?”

  Clive glanced over at me, a wan smile on his face. “Right.”

  Cross Island, ch 8

  Chapter Eight

  Clive

  “Are you fucking him yet?” Aiden demanded a week later.

  It was such an Aiden thing to ask. Well, it was also an Oli thing to ask, but Oli wasn’t nearly as comfortable with asking me personal questions as his soon-to-be brother-in-law. Likely because it was Aiden who I’d drunkenly kissed after a gala over a year ago when he and Jace had still been open, and it was he who I’d begun drunkenly spilling my guts to after the fact.

  On the one hand it felt good to have someone to talk to, but on the other hand… it was hard to talk to a person who was optimistic to the point of being flippant. Or dismissive. I could be tolerant to it, but today was not that day.

  “You’re not funny.” I continued systemically rejecting the requested changes a new advertiser had requested on our standard agreement. “I don’t even know why you would say that.”

  “C’mon, Clive.”

  The tip of my red pen dug harder into the printed pages.

  “You think I’m gonna leave just because you abuse that stack of papers?”

  I took a deep breath and capped the pen. It was only once I glanced at the clock and slowly, purposefully, put everything away, did I look up at my hulking friend. He was spectacularly frat boy today—necktie loose and crooked, top couple of buttons undone, and his red hair messy enough to match the stubble on his face. My annoyance faded in the face of his rakish smile and waggling eyebrows.

  “You realize this is an inappropriate conversation?”

  “Bruh. We nearly fucked that one time.”

  “Shut the door and be quiet.”

  Aiden complied, grinning in anticipation for something juicy. It was amazing how such a big tough guy from Far Rock could transform into something awkwardly trapped between a giddy schoolboy and a gossipy old person. “So, tell me everything.”

  “We’re not sleeping together. That’s everything.”

  He looked down at me, maybe waiting for a punchline or a change in answer, then sucked his teeth. “You made me shut the door for that?”

  I smirked. “What did you expect?”

  “Clive.” Aiden pressed his palms on the desk and stared at me incredulously. “He’s been shacked up in your house for almost a month.”

  “And? Is there a new time limit on how long it takes for a straight man to bend over for a gay man if they’re in the same place?”

  Aiden pursed his lips and twisted them to the side.

  “What?” I asked, going for bored but sounding more defensive than anything. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “That motherfucker is not straight, and you know it.”

  The walls began forming around me—ice cold and completely opaque. As much as I liked Aiden, we weren’t going here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You serious? I asked Chris why Vic stays clocking Raymond the way he does, and the story he told me matched up perfectly with the closeted assholes who used to fuck me and Jace back in Rockaway.” Aiden jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The guy may be repressed or closeted, but he reminds me of the big tough dudes who’d posture all day long right before begging me to turn them out—”

  “You have no idea wha
t you’re talking about, and you need to shut the hell up.”

  For the first time since I’d met him, Aiden’s mouth snapped shut.

  “This isn’t an identity guessing game. You don’t get to stand there in your five-thousand-dollar-suit that you don’t take care of, in your multi-million-dollar office building, and laugh and smirk about the potential identity of a twenty-four-year old man who has gone through hell.” I pushed away from my desk and stood. “We don’t have to label everyone, Aiden. And you don’t have to know about everyone’s sex lives. You don’t need to concern yourself with anything about Victor except whether he’s doing the job Kenneth Stone hired him to do.”

  Aiden cocked his head. “Done?”

  “I want to knock you out when you use that tone, but yes.”

  He rolled his eyes and held up a finger. “First of all? This suit is not over a thousand dollars let alone five. You think Jace lets me buy that shit?”

  “Jace buys imported fedoras.”

  “Right, and treats them like his children. He knows I treat my clothes like shit, so I save the good stuff for special occasions.” Aiden held up another finger. “Second—I wasn’t playing whack-a-mole with labels or some shit. I just recognized the signs based on my past experiences as a dude who used to fuck with closeted homos and made assumptions. Plus—”

  “Did you share these assumptions with other people?”

  “No, I did not, counselor. Stop being so overprotective. Dang.” Aiden was smirking again, and it was starting to annoy me, but I let him continue. “Plus, one of my employees told me in an awed voice that you and Vic were flirting in the breakroom.”

  I stared at him.

  “Hey, don’t kill the messenger. It was told to me that you and big dog were in the breakroom, and you were teasing him about whipping up his protein shakes and making a mess, and he smeared some on your nose like some shit out of that movie Witness.”

  “That movie Witness,” I repeated dryly. “The one with the Mormons?”

  “Excuse you, they were Amish.”

  “I wasn’t flirting. I was taunting.” I could feel my nostrils flaring but tried to keep a calm face. “There is a difference between mocking someone’s foolishness and wanting to use their protein shake as lube in the breakroom.”

  “Look, she didn’t say anything like that, so why don’t you keep your sick fantasies to yourself?”

  I was going to kill him. It was going to happen right here and right now.

  “Come on, babe,” Aiden said, sounding exasperated. “It’s me. You can tell me anything. I’m not going to repeat it to Oli or Caleb.”

  “What about your husband and lover?”

  Aiden’s mouth thinned for a split second. “I consider Chris my husband as well, just so you know. Fuck legal paperwork. He’s ours for life.”

  His fierce tone was heated enough to melt some of my icy walls. It was impossible to stay irritated at someone as loveable as Aiden. He was too much like a big ginger teddy bear that had come to life with the sheer intent of being all up in everyone’s business with a helping hand. Even when you didn’t want it.

  “If I confide in you, I’m trusting you to keep it to this room, Aiden. Including Jace and Chris.”

  He looked absolutely miserable for a moment, but then nodded. Aiden was one of the most loyal people I’d ever met, and I knew he would never break a promise, but it was still hard for me to tell Victor’s business. Over the past week, since the incident with the stalker, we’d grown close in a way I hadn’t experienced since college.

  I was surrounded by people who had close friendships with other queer people, and who advocated strongly for the viewpoint that queer people should seek out each other, but I’d always felt isolated. Out of the loop. Part of that was because of my mean demeanor. I’d taken it on as a shield early on in my career in corporate law to fit in with the good ole boys. I’d managed there, but it had affected every other part of my life.

  So, other than Michael, I’d had no friends. Now I had Aiden, but I still viewed him as my employer above all else. Victor was different. We understood each other. We spoke openly and frankly with each other. And somehow, somewhere, we’d both realized we could talk freely without fear of judgement.

  “I enjoy his company.”

  Aiden looked up at the ceiling. “You enjoy his company.”

  “Yes,” I said, again sounding defensive. “We’re not sleeping together, so stop getting your hopes up for a sex story. All we’ve done is share details about our lives. He’s a quiet intense man, so it’s not like we’re gabbing away every night, but when we do talk it’s meaningful. Also…” I toyed with wording before deciding that I honestly did not care. “It’s nice to spend time with someone who understands what it’s like to grow up in our skin while being queer. It’s different for you, Caleb, and Oli than it is for me.”

  “Without a doubt,” Aiden said, nodding. “But what about Michael? Didn’t he get it?”

  “He did, and it’s one of the things I liked about him. The difference is that with me and Victor, I feel like we’re having a discussion or a debate. With Michael, if I didn’t agree with him, he shut it down and didn’t engage.”

  “Yeah, I could see that.” Aiden looked over his shoulder through the glass walls surrounding my little bubble. “So, it’s just friendship then? I still think that’s awesome, man. That kid used to stand out there looking like he had the world on his shoulders, and now he—well he still looks like that, but I’ve seen him crack an actual smile in the past few days.”

  Probably because he’d come out to me, and a little of that burden had lightened. Or maybe that was just me projecting and wanting our budding friendship to be as meaningful to him as it was to me. I’d always known I was lonely, but the gravity of it hadn’t hit me until I wasn’t alone anymore.

  “He has a long way to go in my opinion.”

  I walked out from around the desk and looked out at the rest of the office. From my position, I could see Victor standing by the hall that branched between the back of the office and the lobby. Even at work, he never strayed far from my side. At first, it had enraged me. Now, I didn’t mind it. In fact, when I was taking a break from the endless contracts, agreements, and complaints, I’d begun watching him from the safety of my office. The fact of the matter was that he was eye candy, and I very much enjoyed that view.

  I also enjoyed the moments when I caught him looking at me instead of that godforksaken poster of Raymond Rodriguez. It had been taken during the now famous QFindr promotional photo shoot, and Raymond looked gorgeous in it with his messy manbun and high cheekbones, but it had to be torture for Victor. Besides that, I preferred him looking at me. When caught, he’d quickly avert his eyes and cross his arms over his chest as if that would protect him from an allegation of checking me out. For someone so physically powerful and emotionally hardened, he could be shockingly vulnerable and insecure.

  “I do want to discuss something else relating to Victor.”

  Aiden nodded. “What’s up?”

  I remained focused on my bodyguard, and the way he positioned himself in the hallway so half of him was slightly shadowed. Did he do that deliberately to spare others the sight of his scarred face and aggressively crawling tattoos, or was it habit? Was it a subconscious desire to not be observed by the yuppies and hipsters trotting around the office? Or maybe I was reading too much into this, and fixating the way I always did when…

  Clearing my throat, I turned to Aiden again. “I don’t feel comfortable with the bodyguard thing, and I want to end it.”

  His brows shot up. “Clive, you just had the cops out to your house this past week.”

  “And those same cops looked at us stupid because we had zero proof that the person who was lurking across the street was there for me and not some other reason. We didn’t even file a report.”

  “So, now you agree with the cops that it was probably nothing, and you don’t want the manpower?”

  Anno
yance tinged his voice, and I couldn’t even blame him for it. They’d fought me to get protection, and I was once again pushing back.

  “I’m not saying that, because I do believe the person across the street was watching me. Victor thinks that same person has been watching my house every night.”

  Now it was Aiden’s turn to look at me stupid. “Okay…”

  “I don’t want to end his service because I think the threat is not existent. I want to end his service because the idea of him risking his life to protect mine makes me extremely uncomfortable.” I crossed my arms over my chest, mirroring a Victor-esque pose with my shoulders pushed back. “I honestly believe I’d have more of a chance of luring the stalker if I was still living there alone. They may feel bolder without this man shadowing me everywhere, and may make a stupid mistake.”

  Aiden’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You want to use yourself as bait?”

  I started to say no, then realized that was exactly what I was suggesting. “I’m merely pointing out that we’ll never catch this person if they’re too afraid to approach me. The object of this should not be for a person to creep on me without them having the ability to get close enough to physically harm me. The object should be rooting this bastard out and having him jailed. And I have more of a chance of making that happen if I’m alone than while being guarded by Victor.”

  “The object is to keep you safe.” Aiden’s voice had gone from even to thunderous. Through the window, I saw Victor glance our way. “Clive, if you pull this shit, I will personally come stand on your porch every night.”

  He was pushing his luck. He had to know, and yet he wasn’t backing down.

  “Threatening to take away my agency by forcing your presence on me—”

  “I’m not trying to take shit! I’m just trying to keep you safe.” Aiden began pacing the office, his shoulders hunched. He happened to hazard a glance out the window and seemed to notice Victor staring us down. “Victor has your back one hundred percent, Clive. He even looks ready to come put me in my place if I don’t stop getting loud with you.”