Bad Company (17 page)

Top
and
bottom
hadn’t been a part of Kellan’s vocabulary any more than
frottage
before tonight, but he was pretty sure he understood the definitions. And what it meant about Nate, the fucking control freak.

“No. Look, Eli, remember how Nate said he told you that me coming out wasn’t real, that I was just trying to get back at my dad?”

“Yeah, but—”

“That was true. At first. I knew Nate was gay, and I didn’t have a problem with it, and I knew it would make my dad shit a brick, but then I—well, it’s different now. I don’t know when, but it got real.”

Eli put a hand on Kellan’s cheek, face suddenly serious and intent. “Wow. What’s that like? Figuring out you’re—gay? Bi?”

Kellan shrugged off the exact definition, since he wasn’t sure a nice rack wouldn’t still raise a flagpole, but as far as he was concerned, Nate was all that mattered. “What was it like for you?”

“I didn’t have to figure it out. I always knew. It was a surprise to me that other people were straight and had a problem with it.”

Kellan thought about it. “It’s like soda. Like you’ve always loved tangerine-coconut, and someone says try the black cherry and you think, that’s okay for some people but not for me, but then you see the black cherry and suddenly it looks really good and you taste it and damn, it might actually be what you always wanted.”

“That should have gone in the interview.” Nate came up behind them.

Kellan turned, cheeks flushing. He hoped Nate hadn’t heard the part about the top-bottom stuff.

“Cherry soda, huh?” Nate said.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Nate nodded, a smile breaking across his lips and the look in his eyes that said he got it, he believed it, and maybe all this bullshit about gay/not-gay was going to go away.

Kellan followed the urge in those eyes and leaned into Nate’s kiss. Kellan was getting into it enough to forget about everything but how nice it was to be kissing Nate, when Eli gasped.

“Fuck me. You’re a virgin.”

“Excuse me?” Kellan turned back.

“Eli, shut up,” Nate said through clenched teeth.

Eli turned Kellan back to face him. “Pay attention now, Kellan. This is advice from a total nellie bottom. The first time hurts like a bitch. You’re going to think you sat on a fire hydrant. Well, okay, sometimes that happens more than the first time. But you have to remember, it’s so worth it. Because once it’s in and he knows what he’s doing—and trust me, Nate knows what he’s doing—it’s really good.”

Throughout Eli’s advice Nate had been trying to find a way to get between them, but short of reaching through Kellan and clapping his hands over Eli’s mouth, there wasn’t anything Nate could do.

When Eli paused, Nate snapped, “Christ, Eli, we had sex once.”

“Yeah, but you fucked me three times.” Eli held up four fingers. “See, what you want to do, Kellan, is relax, which you think is kind of impossible at the time, but if you use your muscles to take him in, that makes it easier in the end.” Eli’s eyes widened and then he burst into laughter. “In the end.”

“Jesus, I’m going to kill him.”

“Nate, c’mon. He’s…” Kellan leaned over, though whether he could manage to get loud enough for Nate to hear him without Eli hearing too was up for grabs. “He got drunk because he’s upset about you.”

“Me? That was four months ago.”

“Never mind, Kellan.” Eli put a hand on Kellan’s arm. “He’s a prick. In fact, I was only ever in love with his cock. Now, remember my advice and you boys have fun. I need to find someone else to fantasize about.”

Kellan looked at Nate.

“I know. We can’t leave him like this.” Nate sighed. “You keep track of him, and I’ll call a cab.”

Chapter Nineteen

Nate was starting to think he’d need to run an account with the cab company. Before Kellan moved in, he’d call a cab maybe twice a year unless there was some kind of
Rag
-related emergency. His brain backed up along that train of thought.
Before Kellan moved in.

Kellan had moved in, and according to Kellan, they were officially…dating? Boyfriends? Lovers? Nate wasn’t going to dig at that. Because applying any kind of rational thought to the idea of Kellan having fallen in—infatuation, and deciding he was gay enough to have sex with Nate, ruined the incredible high of touching something that felt damned close to perfect.

Eli didn’t give them much trouble or, as Nate remembered the look of panic in Kellan’s eyes at the idea of getting fucked, any
more
trouble as they walked him out of the club. Nate had the idea that Eli wasn’t quite as drunk as he was acting, that he liked being rescued, and despite his putting a few more hours between Nate and whatever parts of Kellan he was going to get at tonight, Nate didn’t mind playing knight-errant.

If Kellan was even half right about Eli being hung up on Nate, he owed it to Eli for not having made it clear that a repeat—let alone a relationship—wasn’t ever happening.

As they stepped out of the alley, Eli was taking advantage of his exaggeratedly compromised balance to cop a feel, using his arm around Nate’s back to slide a hand over his chest and rub a nipple. Based on Kellan’s lurch and cry of “Hey, now,” Nate suspected Eli’s other hand had wandered lower.

“I’m thinking three-way, right? It would probably be easier on Kellan if he had his dick in my ass the first time you fucked him. It’d be a hell of a way to get your cherry popped.”

An electric shock of desire zapped Nate’s balls. Brain on a conscience-free feed of Kellan caught between two male bodies, pleasure jolting through them as they all moved together. At the same time came an icy shower of jealousy, an irrational need to be the only one ever allowed to hear the sounds Kellan made while fucking, while being fucked. And if Kellan was going to fuck anyone…

“Thanks for the offer, man, but I’m sure Nate and I will work something out.”

Between the HiDef stream of Kellan porn in his head and the distraction of dealing with Eli, the first thing Nate knew about the attack was a hard shove that sent him flying toward the street, face first into a parking sign. His cheek exploded with pain, at the same time he heard the sound of a fist hit flesh.

“Laugh now, faggots.”

Nate straightened up. Just before his cheek went blissfully numb, he felt the wetness of blood, and then he grabbed at the guy who was punching Eli in the ribs. The same three punks from before. It had to be. Kellan shoved one of them off him, but an arm around Nate’s neck yanked him from the man holding Eli. At least Eli had gotten free of them for a minute.

While he still had some breath, Nate yelled to Eli, “Run. Get help. Call 911.” The last bit got choked off as the guy behind him tightened his grip.

“Fuck that.” Eli slammed his head up into one asshole’s chin then kicked him in the balls. The guy dropped, and it was two on three. The guy on Nate’s back got in a rabbit punch on his kidneys, and then Eli did a fancy kick thing to the guy’s hip that loosened his chokehold, but he still dragged Nate on top of him as he fell.

Kellan punched the man in the face, and he finally released Nate. Kellan swung again to knock the guy flat, but the punk Kellan had been fighting managed to get in a good swing to Kellan’s mouth. Nate was climbing to his feet to face another assault, but headlights flashed along the dead-end street, and the three bashers took off.

The cab pulled up close then started to drive away, but Kellan jumped in front of it.

Nate opened the door and they climbed in. Kellan was cradling his wrist in his lap and cursing.

Eli leaned toward the plastic partition. “Maryland General.”

“No,” Nate said.

“Yes. You need stitches and Kellan—”

“I think I fucking broke my hand.”

“Thinks he broke his fucking hand,” Eli finished.

“I don’t need stitches.” Nate put his hand up to his face. It throbbed now, an occasional sharp twinge when he moved his jaw, but when he looked down his hand was covered with blood.

“It’s still bleeding and it’s right under your eye,” Eli explained.

Kellan was hunched against the door, muttering a constant stream of obscenities.

“When did you get so sober?” Nate asked.

“Right about the time the adrenaline kicked in. Thank God for those assholes in high school and getting someone to teach me how to fight.”

Yeah, Nate had been the one who needed a physical rescue. Not much different from when he was in high school. He put take a self-defense course on his ever-lengthening list of resolutions.

The cops came while the doctor was stitching Nate’s cheek. He’d been informed he was lucky the cheekbone hadn’t broken when the metal edge of the signpost split it open.

Nate told the cops what had happened, but he couldn’t give much of a description. White men around twenty, all with dark hair, one with a scruffy beard, all wearing black hooded sweatshirts. Nate hadn’t been looking at their faces, but at Eli and Kellan.

Eli came in while the nurse ran through the wound-care instructions. “Kellan’s back from X-ray. He was really going on about pain, so they gave him something to shut him up. Morphine, I think, in case they have to set it. His ring finger was dislocated.”

Nate followed him into Kellan’s curtained cubicle. He was grinning and staring at his hand, which looked more bloated than Elton John.

“Any more news?”

“Nope,” Kellan said cheerfully.

“Oh yeah,” Eli said. “Morphine. He was a big baby and the nurse felt sorry for him.”

“It seriously fucking hurt, man.” Kellan met Nate’s eyes. “You look better. Still kind of like a Halloween mask, though.”

Nate’s hand went to his cheek, a solid block of ice from the lidocaine shot. “It’s only eight stitches.”

“Maybe you’ll look like a pirate after.”

“Fuck, he’s stoned,” Eli said unnecessarily.

The doctor came in. “There’s a small bone chip from the dislocation, but no other damage. Probably only a bad sprain.”

The doctor’s accent had Nate placing him as from somewhere in the Balkans but couldn’t guess on how to spell the name the doctor rattled off.

“What do you do for your work?”

“Um…help out at rehab places.”

“So no fine motor coordination? Do you play an instrument? The piano?”

Kellan looked like he had to think about that.

“The guitar,” Nate answered for him. “He works as an assistant to a recreational therapist. He plays the guitar as part of his job.”

“Hmm,” offered the doctor.

Kellan held up his hands like he was playing the air guitar. “Good thing it’s not the fret hand.”

“I will put a splint on the finger, but you must take these X-rays to an orthopedic doctor as soon as possible.”

“Sure thing,” Kellan said.

Nate wondered if Kellan wouldn’t have given a thumbs-up to an amputation order while floating on morphine. He couldn’t imagine what kind of scene Kellan had put up to get a shot. They hadn’t offered Nate as much as a Tylenol.

The splint went on, though Kellan was disappointed that it wasn’t, as he put it, his give-the-bird finger, and an aide came to tell them they were going nowhere until the social worker had been to see them.

“Right, no insurance. Jesus, we should have put your dad down as a responsible party. He probably wouldn’t even notice the bill.”

“Fuck him. I’ll pay it.”

“You’ve got three grand in the bank? And another couple for the ortho?” Nate asked.

Kellan blinked at him as if surprised by the news that medical care was neither cheap nor automatic.

The Medicaid paperwork took longer than the rest of the trip to the ER, but after Kellan had given his life history and awkwardly scrawled his name at the bottom of a promise to be financially responsible for the rest of the bill, they were finally free.

They took another cab and dropped Eli off first. He’d managed to escape with only a couple of bruises, including a darkening one on his jaw. A punch to his mouth wasn’t enough to slow down its movement at all as he told them it was a good thing he hadn’t been hurt since his insurance with the paper still didn’t kick in for another month. Like Nate could fix that. He wasn’t the owner.

Getting Kellan up the stairs wasn’t too hard, though Nate doubted Kellan would remember anything about the trip. Nate dumped him on the still-unmade bed where he landed with an ominous clank of the metal supports.

Kellan lay there laughing for a few minutes and then propped himself up on his elbows, muttered an “Ow” and then flopped back again. “Aren’t you going to undress me?”

“You can do that yourself.”

Kellan held up his splinted hand. “At least get my sneakers.”

With a sigh, Nate bent down and untied the laces then pulled off the shoes.

“And this button.” Kellan gestured at his fly.

Nate looked at Kellan’s face as he reached out to unbutton Kellan’s jeans. “What is this, an interactive strip tease?”

Kellan laughed and thrust his hips up. “The zipper?”

“You’re pushing it, Brooks.” Nate pulled the zipper down, but before he could draw back, Kellan’s good hand shot out and caught Nate’s wrist.

“Yeah. Right where I want you.”

“Kellan, I don’t know if now—”

“It’s okay. I know.” Kellan dragged Nate’s hand until it covered the bulge under the cotton.

Nate’s fingers curved around the heat and the length, before sliding under the waistband to get his palm on the skin. Oh God, Kellan’s skin. His cock. Nate licked his lips.

“Fuck me. C’mon, Nate, do it now. I’m feeling no pain.”

Goddamn Eli.

“No.”

With his good hand, Kellan pulled Nate on top of him. “Yes. C’mon, man. You owe it to me. I can’t jerk off with this thing on, and I got it saving your ass.”

“Eli might have saved my ass too.”
Which doesn’t stop me wanting to kick his for putting the fear of anal sex into you.

Kellan reached up and cupped Nate’s face. “I should have been there all those other times too. In high school. I’m sorry about that. I was freaked out.”

“It’s okay.”

Hearing Kellan’s stoned confession made Nate’s stomach squirm with embarrassment. He didn’t want Kellan saying—or doing—anything he wouldn’t do sober.