Conquest (20 page)

Granted, the last time he’d gone shopping for a vehicle, he and Kenny had cruised around in Kenny’s battered old Honda Civic as they scoured every used car lot on the South Side looking for a truck. So rolling into a Porsche dealer in a Ferrari 612 was a pretty mind-blowing experience. It led to further astonishment when Evan climbed into his new metallic black, fully loaded Cayenne Turbo S and tossed him the Ferrari keys. And he had been so excited the night before when Evan let him drive it to pick up Chinese food for dinner. That was nothing compared to being able to get on the gas on the highway.

But as much fun as playing with the cars was, it served as a distraction that gave Evan an excuse to not talk about himself all day. When evening came and Evan suggested they go for a swim, they wrestled in the water, one thing led to another, and before Jesse knew it, all opportunities to learn about him had passed.

This morning in the museum, he asked Evan if he would come with him to the studio on Monday, to which Evan replied, “Look at that crazy lookin’ turtle,” as he strolled away to inspect the fossilized prehistoric creature. Despite feeling a twinge of discouragement at Evan’s elusive ways, he was far from admitting defeat.

Evan pushed his Yankees cap up so it rested on the top of his head and leaned back on the step behind him. “This was a pretty good idea.”

“I was afraid you’d be bored. You really liked it?” “Yeah, those dinosaur bones were pretty cool. I like stuff like that.”

 

Jesse looked at Evan through his sunglasses. “What other kind of stuff do you like?”

Evan turned to him with a smirk. “You know, since we’ve already slept together, you don’t have to pretend to be interested in my likes and dislikes.”

Jesse exhaled a frustrated sigh. “You’re really difficult, you know that? Do you ever just answer a question?”

“I didn’t think I had to. You grew up reading all the little music mags. I bet you already know my favorite food and color.”

Jesse shook his head and chopped at the frozen lemonade with the plastic spoon.
Evan watched his frustrated movements, then smiled. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me anything about yourself that’s not music related.” “I like the Giants and the Yankees.”

“I like the Bears and the White Sox, big freakin’ whoop. C’mon.”

 

“Okay. I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate.” “That’s fine,” Jesse grumbled. “I don’t need to know anything about you outside of the bedroom, anyway.”

Evan leaned toward him, putting his lips to Jesse’s ear. “No? Then how’s this? I love how noisy you are when we play. All those sexy little sounds you make get me so hot.” He let out a throaty moan and flicked his tongue over the two earrings in Jesse’s right earlobe. “And you’re so gorgeous, I want you all the time.”

“Damn it,” Jesse breathed out. “I’ve been half up all day, now I could crack diamonds. Thanks.”

“You were more than half up in the ancient Egyptian section,” Evan whispered.
“I can’t believe you groped me in front of the mummies.”

“You did tell me you had fantasies about doing it anywhere, anytime, and I know those poor crusty guys haven’t seen anything that good in two thousand years.”

Jesse laughed and shoved him away. “You have the most twisted sense of humor! Now tell me anything that’s not related to music
or
sex.”

“You just killed eighty percent of my personality right there! You already know I like cars, and I’d say that’s a good ten percent. And I’m really serious about the dark chocolate thing. Good dark chocolate is really important to me, so I’d chock that up to another two.”

“Evan,” Jesse growled.

Evan burst out laughing. “You must be really serious! The only time you say my full name is when I’m working you really good and you’re screaming it out.”

Jesse’s efforts to maintain a serious countenance faded, and he chuckled.

“Alright,” Evan said, still laughing softly. “Something that’s not music or sex related. I’m going to have to go back pretty far to find anything that meets those requirements.” He took the frozen lemonade cup out of Jesse’s hand and ate a couple bites. He paused, thinking with the spoon in his mouth, then whipped it out. “I know. I was almost held back in the first grade because my teachers didn’t think I was ready to move on.”

“What?” Jesse said, shocked. “Why not?”
“I wasn’t a very good reader.”

“I can’t picture you struggling at school with how intelligent you are. Why weren’t you held back?”

“My dad threw a fit, so the school pushed me through. It was one of only two times that I ever saw him get really upset. My mom thought it might be good for me to be held back, but he stood up for me saying the teachers and the school were the problem, not me. The truth is, written words confused me because I was so used to reading music. While other kids were reading
The Pokey Little Puppy
, I was picking apart ‘Fur Elise.’”

Jesse stared at him. That certainly helped him to understand why Evan was such a loner. Even at so young an age, Evan’s talent isolated him from his peers. He caught what Evan had said about his father, and asked, “What was the other time your dad got upset?”

Evan looked out over the glassy waters of Chicago Harbor. Jesse could see his eyes from the side of his sunglasses and

could tell from their distant look that Evan was replaying the memory, probably deciding if he wanted to share it or not. He watched Evan’s gaze lower behind his sunglasses, the forlorn expression he’d seen before flickered across his face. He suddenly felt selfish for pushing him to talk and was about to tell him to forget it when Evan cleared his throat.

“It was the summer I was sixteen. The guy across the street from our townhouse was washing his new Harley in the street, and I was standing inside our house watching him. I was so focused on him, I didn’t notice that my dad had walked up behind me until he asked, ‘Did Anthony get a new bike?’ I freaked out. Here I was getting hard over the neighbor guy, and there’s my dad. I was so embarrassed that I just blurted out, ‘yeah,’ and took off upstairs to hide in my room.

“My dad came up, whipped open my bedroom door and yelled, ‘What just happened down there?’ I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Now I wasn’t just embarrassed to all hell, I was shocked that my dad was mad at me and I thought for sure he had figured it out, and I was right. He stormed across my room, took my face in both hands, put his face in mine, and said, ‘Don’t ever run and hide from me like that again.’ Then he wrapped his arms around me, and said, ‘Human feeling has complexities that can’t be understood. The only thing you can do is try to be true to what’s in your heart. Always do that and I’ll always be proud of you. And there’s nothing you could ever do to make me not love you.’”

Evan finished the memory and stared down at the steps. He hadn’t talked about his father to anyone since he had died, and never shared what happened between them that day. Loss started to tighten his chest, then stopped as Jesse’s hand fell on his. Jesse slid across the step until they were sitting so close their legs, the sides of their hips, their arms and shoulders touched.

“He sounds really cool,” Jesse said, his voice soft with compassion.

 

“Yeah. He was from England, and he had some pretty good success singing in operas over there until he moved here.”

“What was his name?”
“Ethan.”
“Your middle name.”

Evan smiled at him. “You remembered. I’m impressed Jesse Michael.”

Jesse laughed. “Don’t call me that. I’ll feel like I’m in trouble.”
Evan rocked affectionately against him. “So what about you? I bet the worst grade you ever got was an A minus.”

“As if I’d get a lowly A minus. Haven’t you figured out that I’m a genius yet?”

 

“I know two places you’re a genius. One’s behind a mic. Can you guess where the other is?”

Jesse winked and kissed the air toward him. “School came really easy for me. When I was in elementary school, I went through a bunch of tests that said I was gifted. My teachers tried telling my parents that I needed to be in accelerated schooling, but my dad wouldn’t listen. He said I’d outgrow it and fall back in line with the other kids in a couple years, but I never did. You’d think a professor at a community college would be a little more into his own kid’s education, but he had always pretty much ignored me unless I did something wrong.

“Brandon thinks our dad hated him worse because he’d always fight with him, but I look at it that our dad cared more about him because he at least took the time to bitch at him. I think he could tell early on that I was going to turn out to be gay and thought I wasn’t worth the effort from day one, but he still had some hope for Brandon. If you asked Brandon now, he’d deny he’s ever done anything to try to please our father, but that’s probably why Brandon was screwed up for so long, trying to come to terms with his sexuality, and bounced between guys and girls for a few years before he realized he couldn’t force himself to be straight or bi.”

Evan gazed at Jesse, too stunned to speak. He couldn’t imagine what it was like growing up with such a poor father when his own had been so dear to him, but what shocked him more was the carefree way Jesse talked about the situation, as if discussing last night’s baseball game. It seemed Jesse accepted his father’s disownment, but a person didn’t get over being rejected by their parent. The scar may become easier to hide with time, but it was always there.

“So anyway,” Jesse continued, “I was in advanced classes and even they were easy for me, but I’ve always loved to read and study history, especially ancient Greece. With my grades and high SAT scores, I got a full academic scholarship to Purdue, but I passed it up to pursue music fulltime, and that’s when my dad jacked me in the cheek and threw me out. Not that it mattered. I had already been planning to move in with Brandon after I graduated high school.”

Evan looked at the partially melted frozen lemonade cup he had forgotten he was holding and took a bite in an attempt to cool the fury rising in him that anyone would hit Jesse. Deciding it’d be best to change the topic, he stood up and held his hand down to him. “Let’s go into the fish house. I’m starving, and I bet for the right price, they’ll throw just about anything on a plate in there.”

Jesse rolled his eyes and took Evan’s hand. “Do you know how many endangered species the Shedd has?”
“I guess they’d be the more expensive dishes.”

Jesse chuckled under his breath. “That’s not even funny.” “Then why are you laughing?”
“Out of pity that you’d make so bad a joke.”

Jesse tried to duck when Evan moved to rumple his hair, but was too slow. He sighed, looking up at the messed up cluster of hair hanging above his eyes, and did his best to fix it with his fingers. He dropped his hands and Evan slid his arm around his waist. Jesse matched the movement. He noticed a group of people looking at them, then quickly averting their eyes, only to peek back at them in a weak effort to be sneaky.

“People are looking at us weird,” Jesse said.

“Well, we’re probably giving them a mixed signal trying to figure out if we’re really good friends or lovers.” Evan moved his arm from Jesse’s back and shoved his hand into the back pocket of Jesse’s jeans furthest from him. “There. That should clear up any confusion.”

With each stride, Jesse felt Evan’s hand pressing against his left butt cheek, and as much as he wanted Evan to keep his hand there, he felt nervous for Evan knowing how closely he had guarded his sexuality. “Aren’t you worried someone will recognize you? I mean, the hat and sunglasses are
not
that slick of a disguise.”

“I’m not worried about it.” They began climbing the stairs to the Shedd Aquarium, and Evan clamped his fingers onto Jesse’s ass cheek. “And I thought your ass felt good when we were walking. It’s so firm when you’re going up stairs. I think tomorrow we’ll go out shopping for a stair-stepper so I can sit in a chair behind it and watch you work out.”

As they mounted the last step, Evan pulled his hand away to retrieve money for their entrance.

Jesse moved in close to him. “And if you’re a good boy, I’ll do it naked for you. I’ll climb it until I’m panting and dripping in sweat, then you can grab me, throw me over the bench-press, and ride me as hard as you did the other day.”

Evan breathed a heated sigh over Jesse’s lips. “Now I’m the one that could smash a diamond to dust.”
Jesse gave him a smug grin and strolled into the aquarium. He walked to a large gallery and stood looking at the brightly colored fish, the small ones darting about, the larger ones drifting through the water with lazy swishes of tails and fins. Evan stepped up behind him. His lips brushed the back of Jesse’s neck in a whisper soft kiss.

They turned from the gallery of tropical fish and worked their way to the underwater viewing gallery in the Oceanarium section to see the Pacific white-sided dolphins and beluga whales.

Evan turned his head to look at Jesse, watching his eyes follow the sea creatures. No matter how much he looked at them, they were still the darkest, deepest blue he had ever seen, like twilight when night was about to take full claim of the sky from the sun. All the people he had ever met, all the places he traveled, and never had he seen eyes of such royal indigo. Then to have those stunning eyes accentuated by hair of rich ebony. How could one person be so exquisitely beautiful? He caressed his fingertips down Jesse’s arm.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You want to know something else about me?”

 

Jesse faced him and nodded.

“I’ve never done anything like this before, just hung out with someone I was sleeping with. If I wasn’t screwing them, I didn’t care to be around them. I’m almost twenty-seven years old and I’ve never been in a real relationship.”

A smile touched Jesse’s lips. He put his arm around Evan’s shoulders. “Neither have I. I guess this is one more first we’re experiencing together.”

Evan wrapped his arm around Jesse’s waist and leaned his weight against him.

 

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Jesse listened to Evan’s breathing next to him in bed and knew he was still awake. During their day at the museum and the aquarium, he never thought he would get so much joy from hearing someone talk about themselves as he got when Evan finally started to open up, even though there was one topic he still adamantly dodged.