Lonely Hearts (27 page)

The advisor pointed to the infernal PowerPoint. “We're not telling you to say you're single. But if asked about your relationship with Mr. Prince, deflect to your mother. The young man isn't exactly on trial, I know, but that business with his father is grisly and not the kind of image we're after. Project a more, shall we say,
carefree
image and maybe make a joke about how you're not ready to settle down. Because
you
track wonderfully as an eligible bachelor. We might be able to get you a spread in
Out
or
The Advocate
.”

Behind the safety of his glasses, Baz shut his eyes as he drew a breath. Looking the man squarely in the eye, he smiled and shut the laptop. “Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

He rose from the sofa, grabbed his jacket from the closet and beat it the hell out of the suite.

They chased him, of course. The aides, advisors, Stephan—there were a few lower-grade reporters lurking in the lobby of the hotel too, and when they saw Gloria Barnett Acker's son fleeing the hotel with the potential senator's entourage chasing him, the press descended like locusts. “
Mr. Acker, Sebastian—where are you going?
”

He had no idea. He had absolutely no fucking idea.

He thumbed through his phone with a shaking hand, but it was the middle of a Thursday afternoon, and nobody was around. Elijah was in class, same with the rest of the White House residents. Even if they weren't, he couldn't subject them to this.

His phone buzzed with calls and texts—Stephan, his mom, his
dad
. Baz turned it off, stuffed it into his pocket and hailed a cab, all but jumping in front of it. It felt like a movie chase as he shut the door and the mob following him threatened to swallow the car.

“What the hell?” the cabbie said, as faces pressed to all the windows, most of them angry, all of them hungry.

Baz ignored them and thrust a hundred-dollar bill at the front seat. “Just drive. Please. Go.
Please.
”

The man did. Slowly at first, but as the people on the car moved away, the driver sped up, until they were clear of the hotel and the crush.

“You some kind of celebrity?”

Baz's head hurt. His hip killed him from running. He wanted to go home, but they'd look for him there. He wanted to punch somebody, and cry, and curl in a ball in the back of a closet. All at once.

He wanted Elijah—who his mom's advisors wanted him to disavow.

“You okay, kid? Where do you want me to take you?”

He couldn't bring this circus to the White House. He could go to Pastor, or Liz. He almost gave the cabbie those directions. But as they passed a billboard, a new idea hit him. He
did
have somewhere else to go, somewhere nobody would ever find him.

Staring at the smiling children on the billboard, he said, “Take me to Halcyon Center.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Baz found Ed in the weight room. When he saw Baz's face, Ed paused long enough to tell the kids to remember to spot each other and pulled Baz into an office. “What's wrong? What happened? Did something happen to you? Do I need to call the police? Take you to a hospital?”

Baz's laugh cracked in the middle, and he reached under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. This was so fucked up. So fucking,
fucking
fucked up.

It took him five minutes, but he was able to spew out the overall gist. It was hard because Ed had absolutely zero context. He hadn't known Baz's mother was the possible senate candidate he'd vaguely heard about on the news. He knew his family was well off, but no, Ed hadn't realized Baz was part of
those
Barnetts. Baz fumbled most trying to explain the summons and what they'd asked of him.

Ed was furious. “So you're telling me they demanded you show up in the middle of the school day, didn't give you any advance warning what it was about, tossed you to a bunch of handlers, and told you how to spin one of the most personal, painful events of your life? To add insult to injury, they told you your boyfriend didn't fit their tidy profile so you should pretend he didn't exist? Jesus. I can't believe you didn't deck them.”

“Escape seemed the better part of valor. I'm pissed at my parents, but I don't want to tank Mom's campaign.”

“I'm sorry, kid, but
fuck
your mom's campaign.” Perching on the edge of a desk, Ed wiped a grimace away. “Christ, is it true, about you getting attacked, your boyfriend killed because of your uncle's stance on LGBT issues?”

Baz nodded, gaze on the floor. “The attacker was fringe, but yeah.”

“That's all kinds of awful. What a fucking shit deal, going out on your damn birthday and getting disabled for life because your uncle took a stand. But it's
your
shit deal, man.
You
get to decide if and when and how you talk about it. Not some slimy political advisor. And as for Elijah—I haven't met him yet, but you seem pretty serious about him.”

“I love him. I haven't told him, but I do.” Baz hunched forward in the chair, elbows on his knees. “My attack is one thing. My reluctance to address it is mostly pride and not wanting to go to a bad place. But Elijah's the only reason I made it through this summer alive. He's
everything
, Ed. I would give up every other thing in my life to keep him. And they wanted me to toss him aside.”

Baz shut his eyes as the fury and sick sensation that request inspired rolled through him again. “Fuck, what if he finds out about this? There's all this crap with his dad's trial, a bunch of right-wing fuckheads writing blogs about how Elijah is a manipulative asshole who essentially deserved to be shot. He doesn't ever come out and say it, but sometimes I know he
believes
that shit. Then my fucking mother's Storm-the-Senate team basically says they want me to join in.” He pushed his fingers into his hair and tugged. “Fucking
hell
, I want to scream. My head hurts, and my shoulder and hip are on fire—and I have no meds, no TENS unit, nothing. I don't know where I'm supposed to go now. They'll be all over the house. I should go, help diffuse it—”

“Hey. Slow down. Relax. You're going to be okay. We're going to figure out who needs to be called, and I'm calling them, and you're coming to my place and resting until you're calm and don't hurt so badly.”

“I can't, they—”

“They can fuck off. I'll get word to your friends, but if any of your parents' handlers try to come over and muscle you home, I'm calling for backup. A line of semipro football players ought to do the trick.” He rubbed gentle circles between Baz's shoulder blades. “Come on. We've got to walk over to the studio to get my car and tell Laurie what's up, and then it's a big fat narcotic, a sedative if I can scare one up, an ice pack and some measured electrical pulses. Because I bet you and I have the same set of painkillers, or close enough to count, and my TENS unit is in fighting shape. I'll toss in a couple Jucy Lucys if you're feeling like molten cheeseburgers, and beer if that doesn't fuck you up while you're on narcotics.”

Baz should have protested, but he was so sore, so exhausted and so lost it was too hard to fight Ed. He let Ed escort him across the street to a small building of painted white brick. Inside kids laughed as they followed the instructions of a male dancer slightly older than Ed, doing ballet at the front of the room before a row of mirrors. When the instructor saw Ed, he smiled, told the class to take a five-minute break and came over to kiss Ed on the lips.

“Hey, hon.” Ed gestured to Baz. “This is the kid for the internship I've been telling you about. Baz, this is Laurie. Laurie, this is Baz.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Laurie shook Baz's hand. He got a better look at Baz and added, “Is everything okay?”

“He needs to borrow some of my stash and sit in the dark for a bit. I'm stealing the car. You okay to take a cab home, or should I come and get you later?”

“Oh, I'll find my own ride.” Laurie smiled kindly at Baz. “I hope you feel better.”

Ed packed Baz into a car, drove him to a loft apartment not far from the studio. Herded him into a bed smelling like Ed and his husband. Brought Baz some Vicodin and ibuprofen, a Benadryl and a TENS unit. Once Baz had those in his system, Ed sat beside the bed on a chair, notebook and pen in hand.

“Tell me who I'm calling. Names, phone numbers. If you can pick a few who can call the others, do.”

“Elijah for sure. But don't make him call anyone. Have…Damien be the other contact. He knows all the numbers to call. Marius would be better, but he's probably still in school.” Baz stared at the ceiling through his sunglasses—the bedside lamp was on while Ed took notes. “I should check my phone. I turned it off before because it was blowing up.”

“Nope. You don't get it back until you've rested and eaten. If there's someone else you want me to call for you, tell me now, but otherwise let them take care of it. You were a mess when you walked into my weight room. You're only marginally better now. You're letting me handle this, got it?”

Nothing in Ed's voice hinted he'd allow discussion on this point, so Baz gave the numbers, took off his glasses and went to sleep. He didn't think he was tired, but one second he was thinking how he'd never sleep, and the next Ed shook him gently, saying he had dinner waiting for him.

Laurie puttered in the kitchen, smiling and waving as Ed put takeout on plates and Baz collapsed on a barstool by the counter. “Doing any better?”

Baz nodded carefully. His head still pounded a little, but he didn't feel so frayed around the edges. He shifted the TENS pads from his hip to his neck. “Did I hear something about a beer?”

They moved to TV trays in the living room area, ate greasy cheese-stuffed burgers and chatted. Laurie asked how Baz liked his internship, which got them talking about volunteering and philanthropy, and eventually they discovered they had a mutual acquaintance—Oliver Thompson was one of Baz's mother's oldest friends, and he was Laurie's godfather.

“If you're serious about pursuing a career in Twin Cities philanthropy, I
have
to hook the two of you up. Oliver has his fingers in every pie, and he could set you up like
that
.” Laurie snapped his fingers in emphasis. “You let me know when you want to meet.”

“I will.” Mentioning his mother, though, brought Baz back to reality. “Did you get ahold of Damien? Elijah?”

“Damien, yes, Elijah not yet.”

Baz had been ready to camp out on Ed's sofa for the night, but the thought of Elijah made him itch to get to Saint Timothy. When he glanced at the clock on the microwave, though, he thought of another question. “Did my mom call?”

Ed pulled out Baz's phone. He didn't pass it over, turning it on and scrolling through Baz's missed calls himself.

Shaking his head, he put the phone down with a grimace.

Baz sat quietly, letting that sink in. That when the chips were down, when he flipped out and bolted into the unknown, his mom would carry through with the political opportunity. Baz could wait.

Except Baz was done waiting. Utterly, completely done.

Elijah was in the middle of Intro to British Literature when his phone started buzzing.

The first time he ignored it, but after the third buzz on his ass, he pulled his phone out to see who was trying so hard to reach him. He didn't know the number, but whoever it was kept calling. He shut his phone off and did his best to focus on his class. Once it was done, he ducked into a quiet hallway and turned his phone on to check his voicemails.

He had thirteen, and four times as many texts. All of the messages said the same thing.
Baz is missing. Do you know where he is?

Giles's phone went to voicemail, but Aaron picked up. “Hey. We've been trying to get ahold of you.”

No shit. “What's wrong with Baz? What do they mean, he's missing? He went into Saint Paul to see his mom. Did he not make it?”
Is he okay? Is he hurt?

“I don't know. I think so, but something happened, and now they're looking for him.”

Elijah slumped against the wall, dizzy and sick. “Have they called the police? Where are his parents, at the White House?”

“I honestly don't know anything, only that this guy named Stephan keeps calling me, and the suits who usually escort us all took off at once.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“Do you have any more classes?”

“No. Just choir.” Which he was so skipping, and fuck the attendance policy. Where was Baz?

“Good. Come over and be in the student lounge with us, and we'll brainstorm this. Do you want me to come get you? Where are you?”

It was on the tip of Elijah's tongue to refuse the offer, but he really did feel sick and slightly crazed. “If you don't mind. I'm in the humanities wing of Fletcher Hall. Back hallway by the stairs leading to the auditorium.”

“Be there in five.”

When they hung up, Elijah went through the rest of his texts, desperate to find one from Baz, but there was only the note he'd sent earlier about going to see his mom. Elijah jotted out a quick
Where are you? Please call me
, considered adding more before squelching the idea and scanned through the rest. There were several unknown numbers, though, and after one voicemail and two reporter texts, Elijah deleted everything unread.

Soon after that, Aaron appeared on the stairs, and Elijah about burst out of his skin in his eagerness to get the fuck out of there. “We have to go look for him. I don't know where to look, but I have to do
something
. I know I'll miss choir, but I don't care.”

“Nussy won't mind—there seems to be a special rule for Baz. Can I go with you?”

Elijah had sudden images of the entire White House turning the Tesla into a clown car. “Yes, but only if it's
just
you.”

“Come on. We can go the back way to the White House.”

They crossed the street like thieves escaping a jewel heist. Nobody was in sight, no press, no security goons, nobody at all. Elijah was starting to feel ridiculous about how
Mission: Impossible
they were being—and then they rounded the corner to the White House.

The driveway was full of cars—the Tesla and Giles's car were completely blocked in. The suits who usually escorted them silently around campus huddled in groups, looking grim.

Aaron glanced sidelong at Elijah. “Um. This is intense. What do you want to do?”

Elijah wanted to get to Baz. “Maybe we can use a side street and call a cab, or Uber. Or Walter.”

“Something tells me anyone who knows Baz is getting this same insanity right now. I think we should stick to a cab.”

They slipped into the alley, but before they could escape, one of the suits saw them, called out “
Hey!
” and it was over.

Aaron hadn't been kidding about intense. The suits grilled them about why they were taking off. When Aaron said they were looking for Baz, the suits told them they were handling the search and asked them repeatedly if they'd had any contact with Baz or anyone he was with.

“I think we should go to choir rehearsal,” Aaron suggested when they were finally able to escape the suits. “We're clearly not going to get away to the Cities—these guys are going to follow us. We might as well go sing it out.”

Elijah didn't want to sing it out, but with no other real recourse, that's exactly what he did. Virtually all their songs had a religious bent, which drove Aaron crazy but Elijah secretly enjoyed. They were working on a song for the homecoming concert, “What Wondrous Love Is This?” with eight-part harmony, totally a cappella. It wasn't all fancy and jazzy like the Ambassadors or Salvo, but Elijah loved it. It reminded him of going to church with Pastor Schulz, or the services when he was young, when his brother was alive and his parents had been merely gruff and stern.

Today he pushed his heart into the song, willing the music to bleed off some of his crazy.
When I was sinking down, sinking down
—that was now, holy fuck. The idea of Baz being in trouble, being out of his reach—yes, he would take divine intervention from
anybody
to get him home. The last verse made him choke.

And when from death I'm free.
He told himself not to get overly dramatic, Baz wasn't in any danger of dying, but he was all hyped up now, and the minor key and swelling harmony of the choir got to him.

Come back to me, Baz. I need you. So much. I don't want to, but I do. More than I can say, more than I know how to manage. Please come make everything okay again. Like you always do.