Too Stupid to Live(Romancelandia) (34 page)

Ian stood up. “Oh my God, I have to fix this.”

“Goddamn right you do. Now, you’re supposed to meet us for dinner before the concert in an hour and a half, so—”

“Concert?”

“
Please
tell me you didn’t forget about the Exposed Innerds concert tonight?”

Hell
. “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

Nik sighed, as if he needed to gather strength. “Sam’s expecting you not to show, but you will, Ian. Won’t you?”

Ian nodded firmly, bumping his chin on the receiver. “Yes.”

“Okay, then this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to make reservations for two at a very nice restaurant—”

“Oh, I’ve done that,” he interrupted, relieved.

“—for 6 p.m.,” Nik continued.

“I’ll change them.”

“And then you’re going to meet us for dinner at five thirty at the Club Monaco, but
ask
Sam to please have dinner with you, alone.”

“Give me the Goddamned phone, Nikky,” Jurgen said in a voice so low and sexy not even Ian was completely immune.

It was very disturbing.

Nik’s breathing got ragged. “Bye, Ian. Jurgen wants to talk to you now. Oh, and I’ve upgraded you from bastard to ‘dumbassed bastard,’” he added quickly.

“Ian?” Jurgen asked. “Don’t fuck this up. Sam’s your Nik.”

Click
.

A half hour later, Ian was just about ready to leave work. He’d called the restaurant and pled for a new reservation, refusing to hang up until he got it. Since it was casual Friday, he didn’t need to change; he could just meet Sam at the Monaco. Should he bring flowers? Was that lame? He texted Jurgen quickly, instructing him to ask Nik.

“Hey, Dalton, you’re fine driving yourself, right?” he called out the door, stuffing his paperwork in files so he could find it on Monday. “I need to pick up Sam for dinner and—”

“Ian?” Dalton stood in the doorway, looking uncertain. “There’s someone here to see you. He seems anxious,” he added quietly.

“I can’t see anyone
now
,” Ian whispered. “Tell him he has to make an appointment.”

“I said that,” Dalton whispered back. “But he keeps
insisting
.”

Someone walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder at Ian. It was Tierney. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week.

“Dude, I really need to talk to you. I’m, um, I’m sorry. For last weekend.”

For fuck’s sake
. Ian gritted his teeth and exhaled through them. He stared at Tierney a second, then looked at his watch. Four forty. “You have a half hour, dude, that’s it.”

“Fine. Whatever time you can give me.”

Ian closed his eyes and shook his head. “Gimme a minute.” He looked up to see Tierney’s eyes flicker down the back of Dalton’s neck. Something about that look didn’t sit right with him, and he said harshly, “Just have a seat out there and wait for me.” He stared at Tierney until the man moved. Then he looked at Dalton. “Can you go a little early and wait for them? Then if I’m a couple minutes late . . . please?”

Dalton smiled reassuringly. Ian got the feeling he had some ideas about what was going on. “Of course. I’ll leave in five minutes. Don’t worry.”

“Having a hard time with that,” Ian muttered after Dalton turned and left.

For some unexplained reason, Nik and Jurgen needed to do something alone, so Sam had waited for Miller at his place, then gave directions while Miller drove them to the Monaco. It took forever to find a place to park, about five blocks from the club. They trekked toward it mostly in silence. As well as feeling sort of numb to everything, Sam didn’t feel much like talking. He only roused himself to tell Miller when it was time to cross a street or something.

“Turn here, it’s a shortcut,” Sam said, indicating an alleyway between two buildings. He saw the club entrance across the street at the other end. Some blond guy was standing there, looking around. Waiting for his friends, Sam guessed. Miller nodded and turned. He seemed a little nervous and had been since he’d picked Sam up. Sam was starting to have suspicions about that.

“I don’t think Nik is trying to set us up,” he blurted. He immediately felt his ears heat. Of course he’d said that, because he was a dorky, awkward social misfit who’d never have a boyfriend again and hadn’t been cute enough or sexy enough or
something
enough to keep around the one chance he had at—

“Nik’s kinda weird, you know?” Miller said. “He thinks we’re both in
need
, and maybe if he hooks us up we can help each other out. He doesn’t get it. Whatever it is you need, I ain’t it, and vice versa. No offense.”

“None taken.” Sam said, before beginning his defense of his best friend. Then he thought it over. “Yeah, he hasn’t really figured out giving emotional support yet. He’s much better at receiving it.”

“He tries, though. More than he used to be able to do.”

“He’s really changed since meeting Jurgen, hasn’t he?”

Sam didn’t expect Miller to have much of an answer. After all, other than high school, Miller hadn’t had a lot of contact with Nik. But Miller stopped halfway down the alleyway, turning to Sam. “Seems different to me. When I met him again last summer, he seemed just like he was ten years before. Snippy but so damned cute it about made my eyes cross. Sorta like one of those snarly lapdogs little old ladies carry around in their purse.”

Sam laughed so hard he snorted something out his nose. Thank God there was a handy brick wall for him to lean his shoulders against until the tears stopped rolling down his face and he could catch his breath.

Miller stood in front of him, grinning. “Guess that was kinda funny.”

And I really needed to laugh
. “Tell me,” Sam gasped, “how he’s—”
giggle
“—different.” He wiped his eyes.

“He doesn’t walk like he owns the world anymore. More like the world owns him. Not in a bad way, but like he found his place or something.” Miller looked thoughtfully down the alley toward the street.

“Oh,” Sam said, sobering up. “That’s . . . about right.”

“You know, as much of a brat as he could be in high school, he was pretty good to me. He put up with my stupid crush, and he never told anyone. I made a fool of myself ’bout fifty times over with him, but he never got sick enough of my B.S. to hurt me or tell everyone.”

“The city I grew up in wasn’t very big, but I never got the kind of shit Nik did. I can’t even imagine what hell they would have put you through if you’d been out, since you were sort of ‘one of them’ . . .” Sam trailed off. Miller was still looking at the street, but his whole face had changed from thoughtful to alarming.

“Speak of the devil,” he said softly.

Sam looked, expecting to see Nik and Jurgen. It wasn’t them. “Miller?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that an
actual
pickup truck full of gay-bashing rednecks?”

“Sam, you need to run. They’re here for me,” Miller said, turning to face the threat squarely.

“But how did they—”

“I might have done something stupid a day or two ago.”

“Miller, is that your
boooyfriend
?” the driver shouted out the window. Sam could hear the
screech
of the parking brake when the guy set it. He opened the door, and Sam watched his gut spill out in front of him as he climbed down. The guy in the passenger seat was getting out, too, coming around the front.

“Get the fuck outta here, Sam,” Miller said quietly. Sam heard the threads of fear in his voice.

He swallowed. “No,” he said shakily. “It’s my first gay-bashing. I wouldn’t want to miss it.” He wasn’t as scared as he would have expected. The numbness that had settled over him earlier was good for
something
.

“That’s not funny,” Miller hissed.

Sam ignored him, watching the guys vault out of the bed of the truck like good ol’ red-blooded—straight—American boys. Some of them had difficulty—they’d stopped going to football practice or whatever about ten years ago, and Sam bet there’d been a lot of beer and potato chips between then and now.

Predictably, the one who looked like he worked out was the one with the baseball bat.

“If I live through this, it’ll make a really good scene in a book,” Sam whispered.

Miller turned toward him, eyes huge. “For God’s sake Sam, get the hell outta here! You can’t help me, and these guys could actually
kill
you.”

The rednecks overheard Miller. “Oh, we won’t kill your girlfriend, Miller. S’not nice to pick on someone weaker, don’t cha know. Not like he can hurt any of us,” the driver sneered. The other bashers laughed at his wit. The driver looked pleased with himself and hitched his waistband up a couple inches. It immediately slunk back below his belly, and his gut popped back out, taking its rightful place in the world.

Sam felt a white-hot flash of fear and adrenaline that burned away all his numbness. He’d seen Marley’s waistband do that about a million times, right after Marley insulted him. “I can’t, huh?” He sneered right back, reaching for his back pocket, so mad his fingers trembled.

Everyone froze, and Sam could feel the tension in the air. And—
yes
!—the fear. These fuckers were afraid of him!

But why
?

“You got a
gun
?” Miller mumbled out the side of his mouth.

“No! Where would I get a gun?” Sam whispered, pulling out his cell phone.

It was like waving a red flag at a group of bulls. The redneck herd charged them. Sam had never texted so fast in his life.
Thumbs of fury
, he thought, giggling hysterically while listening to feet pound toward him.

He got off a message to Nik, the last person he’d texted.
Getting bashed in alley behind drugstore
. Shit, what if he thought it was a line from an Exposed Innerds song? No time to worry about that. He only got partway through texting Ian when someone punched him in the chest so hard his feet left the ground, and he landed on his back.

Oh, so
this
is what it’s like to get the breath knocked out of you
. He lay on his side, blinking, trying to remember how to breathe while he watched Miller get his ass kicked.

Miller wasn’t a huge guy, but the height he did have was muscle-bound. Sam was no expert, but it looked like Miller did some damage before the five guys surrounding him got him on the ground and started kicking him. He was pretty sure that meant Miller was losing.

It was incredibly brutal. Sam may have been the original ninety-pound weakling, but he couldn’t just watch a guy get kicked in the gut and kidneys by an endless stream of pointy-toed cowboy boots and not
do
something. He struggled up on his arms as soon as he got his breath back. He was on wobbly legs when the guy with the baseball bat raised it over his head, ready to crack open Miller’s skull.

Sam didn’t think—he just jumped the guy, grabbing the arm with the bat. He got thrown off immediately, but at least he’d distracted the batter. He could tell because the batter now turned and came for him.
Oh, that was fucking stupid
. Except not, because otherwise Miller could have died.

On the other hand, now the guy with the bat wanted to smash Sam’s head in. The rest of the redneck horde had stopped kicking Miller to spectate. Sam leapt to his feet and started backing away, hands in front of him, like he was trying to placate a bear. Which he’d rather be doing, given the choice.

“Here, faggot-faggot-faggot,” the guy sang out. “Come and get the bat. Maybe, if you’re a cooperative little faggot, you can take it up the ass instead of on the
cabeza
.”

Like that was some kind of choice? “No fucking way!”

The guy shrugged, holding the bat in a swinger’s stance. “Up to you,
boy
.”

Shit
. What did one do in this situation? Go down fighting? Make peace with one’s creator? Backing away slowly seemed like a good option. But every time Sam took a step back, Slugger took a step forward. After about thirty seconds of that, he swung. Sam cringed and squeezed his eyes shut, but nothing smashed in his face. Laughter taunted him.