Signs of Life (30 page)

Jeremy twisted his lips up in a parody of a smile, and he reached out and ran the backs of his fingers down Kai’s cheek.
I wish you’d just fucked him. It would have hurt less.
When Kai gasped and stepped back, his face even more stricken, Jeremy realized dully he’d spoken aloud. He wanted to apologize, but he didn’t have it in him at the moment, so he just turned and jogged away.

“GO AFTER
him, Kai.”

Loren’s voice was low, insistent, penetrating through the noise in Kai’s head. Kai stared after Jeremy’s retreating figure, his heart thundering in reaction, his whole body trembling from shock and emotion.

“Kai, you need to go after him
now
, talk to him. Don’t give him a chance to get those shields up. You’ll never get back in.”

“How did I fuck this up so bad, Loren?” Kai asked, anguished. “I just wanted to protect him, to love him. I thought I was doing the right thing!”

Loren took Kai’s shoulders gently in his big hands, looking down into his eyes. “Don’t tell
me
this, tell him. And that exact phrase is something I should have been saying to you for months.” Loren pulled Kai to him and held him close. “It’ll be okay, Kai. He loves you. He just needs you to let him show it.”

Kai wrapped his arms around Loren’s firm waist and hung on, burying his face against his chest. “He
has
been showing it; it’s in everything he does. But you’ve been my rock for so long, Loren. I just—I don’t—”

“I’m your comfort zone, Kai,” Loren said softly, smoothing his hand over Kai’s hair. “And you’re mine. I’ve known that for a long time, and if you’re honest with yourself, so have you. You need to let him be your best friend now, and you and I need to move on.”

Kai clutched him tighter for a moment. “Why can’t I have you both?”

Loren hummed and leaned down to kiss the top of Kai’s head. “You’ll always have my friendship, Kai, and no one can ever take away what we’ve gone through together, what we’ve been to each other. But you need more now, and so do I. It’s obvious that Jeremy is it for you, baby. The man fucking adores you.”

Kai pulled away, and wiped his hand across his eyes. “I know he does, and I don’t want to lose him, Loren.”

“You won’t,” Loren assured him. “Go to him now and talk to him. Let him in.”

Kai nodded and they headed back inside, Kai realizing with a jolt they’d been standing on his front porch this entire time. Loren hadn’t seemed to care, his number-one priority being to comfort him. Maybe Loren turned a corner too, when Kai wasn’t looking.

As if reading his mind, Loren said, pulling on his coat and boots, “I’m moving to Phoenix, Kai.”

Kai went to him and put his hand on Loren’s shoulder, forgetting his own troubles for one split second. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Loren slumped against the wall and sighed heavily. “I have to. I’ve lost so much time already, and he—he needs me.”

“He’s a very lucky man,” Kai said quietly. “Take care of yourself, though. Nothing about this is going to be easy.”

Loren stood up straight and squared his shoulders with determination. “It won’t be easy, but it’s going to be worth it, Kai.”

“Love always is,” Kai whispered, and then pain roared through him again as he thought of Jeremy. He felt his face begin to crumple, and Loren grasped his upper arms gently.

“Go to your man now, Kai. Let him hold you up when you need it.” He leaned down and kissed Kai softly on the cheek. “I’ll catch ya on the flip side.”

KAI LET
himself into Jeremy’s cabin with his key, not even knowing if he had gotten home yet. He listened for a moment, not hearing anything, then headed instinctively to the patio. Sure enough Kai caught sight of Jeremy’s tall figure as he leaned against the glass wall, looking out at the quiet, snowy forest.

He didn’t think, just came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist, burying his face in the junction between Jeremy’s neck and shoulder. Kai inhaled deeply, smelling laundry soap from his T-shirt and the woodsy scent Jeremy favored in the shower. After stiffening for one heart-stopping minute as if getting ready to push Kai away, Jeremy rested his arms on Kai’s where they were locked around his waist, and leaned back against him.

Kai kissed his cheek, then said softly, “Last night after I got home from work, I got a call from my assistant principal, Dave Murphy. He told me that Shauna was at Mercy Hospital, in the ICU, on life support.”

Jeremy immediately turned in Kai’s arms and wrapped him up tight, pulling Kai against him. He didn’t say a word. Kai sagged against him, letting Jeremy support almost his entire weight as he just held on.

After a minute Kai said, his voice muffled against Jeremy’s chest, “I went over to the hospital, but of course as non-family they wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t even let me see her. When I was walking back out to the parking garage, I saw a cop that I know, a friend of Loren’s, and I went up to him and asked him if he had any idea what happened.”

Kai felt tears start up in his eyes, and his voice grew more ragged. “It turns out that he was one of the—one of the responding officers.” He sniffed, hot tears flooding the front of Jeremy’s T-shirt.

Jeremy kissed his hair and whispered, “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“The mom’s boyfriend was stinking drunk. Shauna’s son Dante tripped and fell, started crying. The mom said that the asshole picked up a—picked up a goddamn baseball bat and went after the kid. Shauna got between them, and he bashed her head in with the bat, fracturing her skull.”

Kai felt a shudder run through Jeremy’s body, and he tightened his hold on him, realizing in an instant they were now holding each other up.

“She’s alive, Jeremy, but might be brain damaged.”

“Oh God,” Jeremy whispered.

Kai continued on, “It’s just a waiting game to see how badly her brain was injured. They have her in an induced coma, machines breathing for her, and there’s—there’s nothing anybody can do but wait.”

“I’m so sorry, Kai,” Jeremy whispered hoarsely.

“That bright, beautiful girl,” Kai gasped out. “Talented and kind. Wanted to make a better life for her and her son, that’s all she wanted. And a drunk piece of shit took it all away. Oh fuck, Jeremy. Fucking hell.”

Jeremy just held him while Kai shuddered in his arms, weeks of pent-up worry and anxiety spilling over in a huge wave of emotion.

“What do you need, Kai? Tell me what you need,” Jeremy murmured.

Kai scrubbed his hands over his face, his eyes burning, his head pounding. “I could use some sleep. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

When they reached the bedroom, Kai washed his face and brushed his teeth while Jeremy closed the blinds and made the room as dark as possible. Kai trudged over to the bed, where he found a glass of ice water and ibuprofen waiting for him. He swallowed some gratefully, wincing as his head throbbed worse with every movement, and collapsed down into the bed. Jeremy pulled him close and spooned up behind him, and Kai finally drifted off into a shallow, restive doze.

He woke sometime later, disoriented and anxious, and he heard Jeremy whisper, “Shhh,” in his ear, rubbing his hand soothingly up and down Kai’s chest.

Suddenly craving the contact, Kai turned and desperately pulled Jeremy’s mouth to his, sucking and nipping at his lips, moaning, “Please,” not even sure what he was begging for.

Jeremy eased him to his back, then kissed his way down Kai’s chest to his belly, where he nuzzled the trail of hair below Kai’s navel.

“You don’t have to, Jeremy,” Kai whispered, even as he bent his knees and let them fall to the sides, caressing Jeremy’s hair and cheek with his fingers.

“Let me take care of you,” Jeremy whispered back, stroking Kai’s cock with firm yet gentle pulls, kissing his way across Kai’s abdomen and groin, mouthing his balls until Kai was fully erect, the tip slick with arousal.

“Lie back and close your eyes, love,” Jeremy murmured. “Just feel.” Kai obeyed, letting his eyes drift shut, feeling Jeremy slowly caressing his way up his shaft with his lips and tongue, where Jeremy licked around the head, groaning in quiet appreciation when he took Kai’s flavor onto his tongue. He brushed his lips across the straining tip, making Kai catch his breath before slowly engulfing Kai’s cock in tight, wet heat.

There was no sound in the room except for the soft sucking noise of Jeremy’s mouth sliding up and down, Kai’s hitching breaths and the rustling of sheets as Kai writhed under his ministrations. Ragged breaths soon turned to gasps, then to moans as Kai arched his back and exploded down Jeremy’s throat. Jeremy hummed as he drank Kai down, then licked him clean. Exhausted by pleasure, his body thrumming, Kai finally slid into a healing sleep, held tightly in his boyfriend’s arms.

WHEN KAI
woke again, it was late afternoon, almost evening, and he was alone in the bed. He sat up and swung his legs over the side, groaning as his head throbbed anew and the room spun. It was like the worst hangover ever along with gritty sandpaper eyes. He found the glass of now-tepid water and popped a few more ibuprofen, wincing as just the movement of tipping his head back to swallow made nausea well up in his throat.

He shuffled his way to the kitchen, where Jeremy was sitting at the island with his laptop and a mug of what looked like hot tea. When he looked up and caught sight of him, he leaped up from the barstool he was perched on and guided Kai to a chair at the small kitchen table, then grabbed the teakettle and poured him a mug of his own. Kai sipped it gratefully, enjoying the tang of lemon on his tongue as the ibuprofen started to kick in and made the headache slowly recede, the tea settling his stomach.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything?” Jeremy asked quietly. “Let me scramble you an egg and make you some dry toast. It’ll help.”

Kai nodded, and soon Jeremy set a plate before him with some steaming eggs sprinkled with cheese and a piece of thick sourdough toast. Kai managed to eat half of it before pushing the plate away, and he realized with relief he felt much more human again.

Jeremy held out his hand and they retreated to the living room, where Kai settled in one of the thick leather recliners with his feet up, a fresh mug of tea on the side table. Jeremy curled up on one of the adjoining loveseats and turned on the TV, flipping channels until he found a mindless action movie, the volume on low. They just hung out, Kai dozing off at one point and waking up to find Jeremy working busily on his laptop.

When he noticed Kai was awake, he set his computer aside and leaned over and took Kai’s hand, squeezing it gently.

“You okay?” he asked softly. “Do you need anything?”

Kai shook his head. “No, I don’t need anything, thanks. And I’m okay. I pretty much just needed to sleep. What time is it?”

“About 10:00 p.m., I think. Tomorrow morning I can run you over to the hospital if you want.”

Kai shook his head again, saying, “There’s nothing I can do there, and I don’t really belong. I’m not family, and I don’t know her mother. Shauna was my student, and earlier I was lying here trying to figure out why I was taking this so hard.”

Jeremy squeezed his fingers again encouragingly, and Kai went on, “I just really wanted her to make it, you know, make it out of that cycle of poverty and violence. She had—has potential. She had the motivation, and she’s smart. I think she symbolized for me all the girls I’ve known that didn’t even have the chance to try, both in my past and as my students. I wanted her to be the one, and she could have done it. She could have done it, Jeremy.”

“It’s okay to grieve for that loss at the same time you grieve for her personally, Kai,” Jeremy said softly.

“So many girls,” Kai whispered. “Trapped in that cycle, pregnant too young. Taught that they’re not worth anything more than to be some loser’s bitch.”

He took a deep breath, then went on, “Right before we were all busted and sent away, my brother and some of the other crew came back to the house covered in blood. I mean, their faces were speckled with it, there were huge patches of it on their clothes, their knuckles were torn and bleeding.”

Jeremy got up and perched on the arm of Kai’s recliner, carding his fingers gently through Kai’s hair. “What had happened?”

“They’d run into, quote, some disgusting faggots, unquote, leaving a restaurant. Apparently they were walking arm in arm or holding hands, something like that, so my crew knew these guys were pillow biters. Followed them for several blocks until Antonio picked up a brick and smashed it into the back of one of the guys’ heads. They beat them, and I have no idea if they died or not. From the amount of blood I saw—”

Kai shuddered. “They came back drunk, ranting against gays, and somebody pointed me out. ‘Look at L’il Slick! He so pretty, put a dress and high heels on him and he could be somebody’s bitch.’ Antonio walked over and leaned over me where I was sitting on the couch and said, ‘You a filthy faggot, Slick? ’Cause I ain’t never seen you fuckin’ no pussy.’ He was covered in blood and it was still wet, so wet that I could smell it, the rust. I was terrified.” He shuddered again, and Jeremy pulled him close.

“Just then some of the girls who usually hung out with us walked in, hoping to score some drugs. Antonio said they could have a dime bag if one of them fucked me and proved I wasn’t a fruit. They weren’t all that enthused because I was just a kid and a low-ranking
pendejo
. But I was desperate, and I convinced one of them, hoping like hell the guys didn’t notice that I picked the most slender, most boyish-looking one.”

“Did you—”

“Did I fuck her? Yeah, I got through it while the guys cheered me on, bowing to peer pressure not to use a condom because it was a badge of honor to knock up a ho, a
macho
thing, make her your bitch. We got pinched not too long after that, and I never saw her again. I could have made her pregnant that night, Jeremy. And she would have been alone, trapped. None of those girls ever got abortions. I used her, and bonus, I might have fucked up her life and created another little gangbanger to carry the torch.”