Worth a Thousand Words (2 page)

“Not now. I’ll eat later.” He winced at the hard sound of his ruined voice. The doctors said with time and rest, he’d recover, and perhaps sing again. The songs only mattered if he could sing them to his god. He—

“Ray, sweetie—” the high, shrill tones reverberated against the edges of his teeth and the back of his throat beating into his heart, his eyes, his heart, his heart, his heart…

“I said no. Can’t you understand that? Can’t you understand anything?” Somehow, he was on his feet, hands throbbing from impact with the door and now pressed flat against the solid wood. A ragged, growling, near-roar sprang from his throat.

Silence, and then the thick sound of his mother speaking came to Raymond. He could imagine her there, her chin firmed up bravely. Her voice thickened like that when she spoke through tears. Her face would be wet—he stroked the door lightly—with hot, hot, hot tears. She’d have little snot bubbles escaping from her nose, and her complexion would be blotchy. The sound of soft weeping crept around the edges and under the bottom of the door. Raymond pressed his hands harder against the wood, pressed until the tips of his fingers grew white with strain. He found the rough patch on the door, the one he’d carved there when he was seventeen, and rubbed, rubbed, rubbed his face until the skin of his cheek tore, and the suffocating pressure in his head began to ease. He drew in a trembling breath.

“Sorry, mama, sorry, sorry... I don’t feel so good. My head aches again, and I fell outta bed last night and split my cheek open. I’ll—I’ll come out later and eat. Don’t worry, mama, don’t worry, don’t worry.”

A warm wetness slipped over the tip of his left thumb where it rested against the door below the burning place on his cheek. Raymond pushed back off the door. “It’s okay, mama. I’m writing to Sergeant Soto. Remember him? He said I should look him up when I got back to the states, and well, they have a real nice VA hospital up there in Syracuse where he lives now. I think, maybe Sergeant Soto might could put me up for a bit, just until I can manage on my own. I’m writing to make sure it’s all set up, mama. I don’t wanna be a burden on you. Pretty as you are, mama, you’re not a young woman no more. I’m gonna go let the VA docs help me out. And then, when I’m all better I’ll come get you mama. I’ll come, I’ll come, I swear.”

Raymond backed away from the door. The low snuffles of weeping still crept under the door, but he didn’t mind. Mama would be safe, and Sergeant Soto… he belonged to Raymond. Everything would be better once Raymond could touch him, touch him, touch him. He eased down into his desk chair, rocking slowly as he settled back into the darkly quiet comfort of stoking the slippery edge of the picture frame. He crooned quietly to the man in the picture, rubbing his thumb along the back of the frame. The deeply red color from his cheek would look so pretty all along the edges of the frame. Raymond smeared all that was on his thumb easily over the numerous rusty brown streaks already there. Then he lifted his hand, running one finger at a time over the wound on his face. Drawing a shiny red heart on the surface of the glass, he crooned gently to his god, his lover, his, his, his savior.

Adrien propped his cell phone precariously on his shoulder. Eyeing the enormous black cat sprawled in the center of his supposed infallible date-night romantically chic table for two array, he considered pulling his carefully messy hair right out by the roots.

“Crap. Michael Clarke Duncan, you get off my table this minute. Right. This. Minute.”
Muted chuckles from the vicinity of his bare shoulder snapped Adrien’s attention away from the big black cat and back to his conversation with his friend, Benji. Michael Clarke Duncan sneered through his wellgroomed whiskers at Adrien, his heavy tail shedding at least a pound of tiny black hairs on the white table cloth with every thud amidst the cobalt and white dishes.
“Stop laughing, Benji. This is serious. I wasn’t even awake yet. Well, duh, of course I’d been dreaming about Devon. My sheets still smell like Drakkar. Yep, I was moaning, sighing, yelling at the cat, and making suggestive arm motions. Nope, he didn’t miss a thing. Sam got every bit of the whole thing on video… again. Oh. Oh. Viral, huh? Well, at least we know if Sam flunks out of nursing school he has a future in indie film.”
Hoots and snorts blasted from the tiny speaker at the top of his phone. Adrien listened for a moment, one hand on his hip, and the other making general shooing motions at the ginormous tom-cat lording it over his crappy dining room table.
“Listen, Benji, I have to finish getting dressed and figure out how to—oh, ha fucking ha. No, I won’t wondertwin with you for Halloween. Dick. That is so last viral video of me. I’ll call you—no—better yet, you call me later when you get this hilarity out of your system. I did not say that—Sam did. I just held my fist up to him. Right, and then he said he couldn’t believe I just tried to Wonder-Twin him, and that it wasn’t even cool when we were kids.”
The laughter turned to gasping and louder snorts. Adrien stamped his foot.
“Oh, forget you. When you get a grip, I have a legitimate level two Glitter Alert going on over here—I can so call one for reasons of extreme embarrassment and possible de-boyfriending by the best thing that ever happened to me. Grrrrr. Call me back.”
Adrien hung up the phone. There really wasn’t a way to hang up hard enough to get that satisfying “I hung up on you, so there!” feeling with a smartphone. Clutching the phone tightly in his hand, he took two steps to the side and very carefully placed the rotten phone on the bookshelf at the edge of the living room. Then Adrien took two large steps back toward the center of the open space, threw his hands in the air and danced around in a screaming little naked circle. Sam, the spawn of Satan, of course walked in while Adrien was mid-scream. The bratty bastard even had his shiny red iPad at the ready.
“Hah. Gold, bro, solid gold. That’ll keep me in cherry cokes for the rest of the semester without having to hit mom and pops up for a loan. You really do love me, don’t you?” Sam’s iPad gleamed mockingly at Adrien, the shiny red back and staring video camera lens seeming to snicker at him.
“Oh god, Sam, for Christ’s sake, I’m naked here.”
Adrien’s voice rose up from his normal light tenor by an entire octave. Michael Clarke Duncan yowled, lifted himself ponderously to his feet and with a flick of his tail, picked his way regally to the edge of the table closest to Sam.
“Bro, your fortuitous nakedness is exactly why this particular video clip is so valuable.”
Sam turned his bright hazel eyes from intense scrutiny of his iPad’s screen to wink roguishly at Adrien. Stomping his foot, Adrien whirled around, storming into his bedroom with as much dignity as he could muster with his generous rear end jiggling every step of the way. His brother’s husky, taunting laughter chased him.

Devon eyed his former squad-member and current friend warily over his first java of the day. When he’d agreed to meet Rose for one last breakfast on-campus before the end of the semester, he imagined a relaxing half an hour to an hour of eating, bullshitting about their respective classes and maybe a little grilling about his newly fledged relationship with Rose’s high school buddy.

“What exactly do you mean, Rose, when you say— and I quote—it’s not what it looks like?”
Michael Phillip Rose scooted his chair back slightly.

“Listen, Sarge… I haven’t forgotten how hot your

temper runs about certain things. I just wanted to warn you before you heard some of the rumors… Adrien is not a rent-boy, a stripper, or a porn star. He just has a brother with very little concept of real life consequences and a really shitty sense of humor.”
Devon spewed hot coffee over the dinning hall’s table-top, narrowly missing Rose.
“W-what the hell are you talking about?”
Rose grunted, pushing his sandy blond hair off his forehead. He picked up a forkful of omelet, cheese and sautéed peppers dripping from it. He raised his eyes from the fluffy yellow golden bite on his utensil to meet Devon’s gaze.
“Another YouTube video of Adrien just went viral. Um, and some really suggestive stills got posted on Tumblr. The stills have been reblogged about, I dunno, fifty or sixty times.”
The omelet in Devon’s stomach gained forty pounds, and damned if the thing didn’t grow spikes as well. He sure as shit could suddenly taste the hot metallic bite of iron at the back of his throat.
“Is that why you invited me for breakfast?”
Rose’s honey brown eyebrows drew together over his classic Roman nose. The color of his eyes shifted to a shade mostly of brown and yellow. Only a hint of his normally dominant multi-hued blue remained.
“Fuck you, Sarge. We’re gonna pretend you didn’t say that, and then get back to what we’re gonna do about the Jimenez boys.”
A low hissing sound filled the air. Devon shook his head to clear it. The sound came again, louder and more insistent, curling through the air on clouds of espresso scented steam. Ah. The sound came from the high-end coffee machine the dining facility had installed in the corner of the service area, just inside the archway from the table where he and Rose sat.
Looking over at the tall, thin blond working the machine, Devon automatically compared the man’s face to Adrien’s. Where the unknown blond guy had a sallow, unhealthy cast to his features Adrien burst with life. From his glossy, wayward curls to the high curve of his cheekbones, and down to the double handful of fun that made up Adrien’s delightfully plump ass Devon’s man was perfection. He grunted, shifting in his seat as he turned his gaze back to Rose.
“Both of them? What, is some creeper stalking them both? Is that how Adrien ended up on YouTube? How does his brother having crap humor affect that?”
Rose’s mouth drew into a taut line. A small tic began to jump rhythmically beneath his right eye.
“I wish this was caused by some third party. That would be easier to deal with. No, fucking Sam Jimenez Jr. thinks it’s hilarious to put clips of Adrien doing crazy shit up on YouTube. He’s been doing it since we were all in school together. He has a whole channel devoted to the many pratfalls that are part of daily life with Adrien… and Sam doesn’t usually cross the line into being truly inappropriate, or I’d have dealt with him already. He— damned twit—put up a video this morning of Adrien stroking the snake. I caught it on my way out the door to meet you. And before you watch it, I’ll remind you that Adrien’s cat is named Michael. He’s not talking to me on the video, Sarge. I wouldn’t do that to either of you. I was… otherwise occupied last night, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. Also, I’ve never been with Adrien… I’ve had my eye on someone else for a while now.”
Devon pushed the congealing remnants of his breakfast away. He took a sip of his coffee, letting the bitter goodness sit in his mouth for a moment. Swallowing, he reached out and tapped a blunt nailed finger next to Rose’s half full plate. “Eat up, buddy. We need to get to a computer somewhere private so I can assess this situation.”
Rose rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Sarge. I just told you the situation.”
Devon shook his head, his innards coiling like a hungry python around some injured prey animal.
“You gave me an incomplete assessment. I know the subject matter of the video. I don’t know what the responses look like yet. I also don’t know if Adrien was identifiable in the video.”
Rose paled slightly. “Oh shit. You can see his face for about ten seconds at the beginning.”
Hot bile burned up the back of Devon’s throat. He leveled a steady gaze at Rose. “Damn. Is his brother trying to get Adrien hurt?”
Rose pushed his tray aside as well. “No. Dammit, no. Sam loves his brother. He would never hurt Adrien on purpose. He’s just… stupid.”
Devon thought for a minute, weighing out all his options. “Come on. We’ll go to the security office. I can access the video there, and talk to my boss about getting my schedule rearranged.”
Rose shook his head. “Get your schedule changed? Why?”
Devon curbed the impulse to smack Rose over the top of his head. “If this video is as enticing as I imagine, then Adrien may need someone with him for a while. Once I see the video, and the comments, I’ll be able to decide if I need to be around to drop him off and pick him up from work.”
Rose whistled. “Geez, Sarge, you really think it’ll be that bad? Adrien can handle himself pretty well.”
Devon glared at him, the muscles in the back of his neck pulling so tight they seemed on the verge of snapping.
“Imagine a little guy, out and proud, hotter than Brent Corrigan but without the star status and the protection that affords… and then imagine an amateur porn video starring him is circulating. How ugly do you think it could get?”
Rose made a low noise air whooshing out of his mouth like someone had planted a fist in his gut with the specific purpose of making him exhale as fast and as hard as possible. There was a pause as he drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
Devon nodded. “Jesus, Kid, it’s a wonder you made it through high school without having to kill someone if this is the kinda shit your buddies get up to on a regular basis.”
Rose nodded silently.
Devon stood to his feet. “You ready to go?”
Rose sprang to his feet. “Yeah, I’m ready. We better find out how bad it is quick. Adrien is due to work a short shift at the mall this afternoon.”