“Maybe a rain check,” Eric suggested.

  “Sure. Maybe.” It didn’t sound all that promising, and a moment later, Eric was left alone in the quiet kitchen with his best friend, whom he didn’t know nearly as well as he thought he had, and Marianne, her arm around Angel’s waist like she was holding him up.

  “Stay and eat with us,” she said softly.

  Eric looked from her to Angel, met his friend’s eye, and the uncertainty he saw there almost knocked him over. “Yeah.” He stretched a smile over his face, knowing it looked false but needing to try. “Sure. That’d be good.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Angel seemed to sag with relief.

  Chapter Four

  “HE’S AVOIDING me,” Eric complained to Angel. They were huddled over french fries, eggs, and bacon in a diner midway between their apartments. It was a late breakfast shared between the two of them on a Saturday morning, a rarity since first Marianne, then Dwayne, had moved in with Angel.

  “He’s decompressing.”

  “From what?”

  “Telling people that shit is a big deal to him. Even hinting that he was taking my rap is not something he does lightly.” Angel dipped a fry in the little paper tub of ketchup on his plate, swirled it around in his egg yolk, and popped it into his mouth. The troubled look hadn’t left his eyes since the dinner Eric had shared with him and Marianne almost a week ago. “I think sometimes… everything he went through in there… I think he wishes he had done it. At least it would be worth what he paid.”

  “Tell me what happened?”

  Angel shoved a fry into the tiny paper ketchup cup, then into his mouth. The shock of him eating with his fingers, eating ketchup, stilled Eric. For a moment Angel chewed thoughtfully. “When you’re fourteen, in the hood?” He glanced up at Eric. “It’s a different world, man. You don’t even know.”

  Eric wasn’t about to argue the point. He didn’t go to the neighborhood where Angel grew up. Ever.

  “I didn’t listen to Dwayne. Thought I knew better because he had this weak-ass rep, you know? He didn’t fight, stayed out of trouble. People disrespected him. I maybe shouldn’t have cared about those people’s opinions, but I was a fucking kid. I didn’t know shit. I got in with the wrong kids. Made stupid choices.” More fries got swept through the ketchup and vanished into his mouth.

  “We were on this train trestle. It was a stupid dare, and I was stupid enough to think it mattered. We got out there, and then he tried to jump me, and… man, I don’t even know. He was high or something. Not right. I mean, I hit him a couple of times. It was him or me, you know? I—”

  He stared at his half-empty plate for a long time.

  “Anyway, he went down, groanin’ and spewin’ how his dad was going to bury me and shit. It was all bullshit and stupid kid posturing. Then the train.” He swallowed hard and blinked a few times while Eric waited. “I ran for the platform halfway across. The other kid panicked. He froze. I would have gone back for him, but Dwayne shoved me onto my ass and tried. The kid just….” Angel shrugged, but his hands shook and he dropped the fries he’d been holding. “He jumped. Maybe he thought he’d have a better chance falling than getting run over. I don’t know. He could have made it. If he’d run. If he’d tried. If Dwayne could have gotten to him in time. If he hadn’t been so worried about me. I don’t know.”

  With a shiver, Angel pulled a napkin from the dispenser and methodically wiped down each finger, keeping his eyes on his task as he spoke. “I don’t know how the cops got there so fast. Maybe the train guy called them. Maybe someone saw us up there. But they were there and cuffing me for pushing the kid off the trestle, and Dwayne, he just… said he did it. To protect me.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”

  Angel met his gaze, staring like Eric had just asked why the sky was purple. “Two black kids on a train bridge in the middle of the night and a dead white kid at the bottom. You do that math, dude. One of us was goin’ down. I’m fucking lucky they bought Dwayne’s story and it wasn’t both of us. Lucky the kid wasn’t the mayor’s son or something but someone the police already knew was a thug to begin with, or I’d be in the same boat as Dwayne.”

  Eric came from a white upper-middle-class family. He loved his parents, respected his older brother, and doted on his younger sister. He didn’t think he would ever go to jail for any of them. They tolerated his ambiguous sexuality as long as he only ever brought girls home to family dinner, and indulged his “basketball whim,” as his father put it. All the while reminding him he was on the fast track to a medical degree and personal practice, neither of which he particularly wanted. It was just easier not to argue.

  He had no frame of reference for a world where color and class dictated the entire course of a life, and said so.

  Angel just snorted and went back to eating his fries.

  Eric watched Angel pick up his fork and begin to eat again. He knew precisely how he did this: five fries, each double-dipped in egg yolk; a bite of bacon; sip of coffee; and repeat until the egg yolk was gone. Then he’d fold the white twice, spear it and eat it, and start on the next egg. The leftover fries he’d douse in salt and vinegar and eat with his fork. Eric had watched the ritual dozens of times. He knew Angel drank vodka and orange juice almost exclusively when they went out but didn’t touch drugs, not even painkillers for a headache. He always tied his left shoe first. It was a superstition thing. He won more games that way, apparently. He read a lot, hated chemistry, and loved biology. He was going to be a botanical engineer. Whatever that was.

  He had killed someone. Or at least felt responsible for someone dying.

  Eric tried to fit this new piece of information into his image of his friend. A fry stopped, posed halfway to Angel’s lips. “What?”

  Eric shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Setting the fork with the fry down gently, Angel sat back in his seat and rested his hand on the table beside his plate. “What does it change, Eric? Now you know?”

  “Doesn’t change anything.”

  “Really?”

  “He went to jail for you.”

  “I’ve lived with that every day since. So if he needs a place to stay, someone to vouch for him to get that stupid, dangerous, shit-paying bike job, I’ve got his back. If he needs to bring a guy home once in a while and get his rocks off, forget some of the shit he went through, I don’t razz him about it.”

  “I can’t imagine doing that for someone.”

  Angel picked up his fork. “Then stay away from him, because he doesn’t need anyone else using him.”

  Eric nodded, sure Angel was right. But it didn’t stop him thinking about Dwayne or wanting him more than ever.

  “Why was it okay to try to hook me up with him before I knew?” Eric asked after their plates had been taken away and they sat sipping their coffee.

  “When he was flirting with you and I thought he wanted a nice bit of ass, that was one thing. He doesn’t just tell people about our past. Maybe he thought you already knew.”

  “Yeah, why didn’t I already know?”

  Angel shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe….” He sat back with a sigh. “I got a new dad, new neighbors, and a free pass to a new school where the only black kids were athletes.” He glared at Eric for a half second, then grinned. “Then this white dude shows up at practice one day. Only white guy on the team, and fuck me if he doesn’t listen to Coach and take notes, and act like the other guys on the team might be able to teach him shit he didn’t already know.”

  Eric shrugged. “So I’m freakishly tall”—he met Angel’s gaze—“for a white dude.”

  They both grinned.

  “I wanted to play ball,” he said. “Maybe mostly because my father didn’t want me to, but I had to stay on the team. I couldn’t get benched or he’d have pulled the plug on it.”

  “And you think you don’t know a world where class and skin color matter?” Angel asked.

  “Hadn’t thought about it like that.”

  Angel chuckled. “’Course you didn’t.”

  “But I’m still not good enough for Dwayne.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t good enough. Just that—”

  “Just that it’s okay to whore me out to him for a quickie, but I’m not good enough for him for anything more serious.”

  Angel sat up from where he was leaning back on his side of the red vinyl booth with one foot up. He dropped it to the floor and sat forward. “That isn’t what I said, Eric.”

  “Yeah, Angel, it kind of is.”

  “Look, I know you. You flit around from one cute thing to the next. As soon as you get them, you want something else. Anything else. Especially what you can’t have. He’s trying to get his life back together. A life that got screwed up because I was a stupid-ass punk and he cared enough to help me when no one else did. And no one was there for him that was smart or brave enough to stop him taking the fall I should have taken.”

  “So what? You think I’ll fuck him and leave him?”

  Angel shrugged, but he didn’t shy away from the glare Eric had leveled at him. “It’s part of your pattern, dude. You only fuck the ones you think are disposable. Never the ones you really want.”

  Eric flopped back into his own seat. A hunk of overlong hair dropped into his eyes, and he tossed it aside with a flip of his head. “I haven’t fucked him yet.”

  Angel’s gaze still didn’t falter, and Eric couldn’t remember ever seeing him so serious. “Why?”

  “Because. I—” Eric scowled and pushed his coffee cup around in a circle. “I don’t know.”

  Angel snorted. “Well, that’s convincing.”

  “Seriously.” Now Eric leaned forward, hands wrapped around his coffee mug. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t even want to fuck him.”

  Angel lifted one eyebrow as he sipped his drink, never looking away from Eric’s face.

  “Okay.” Eric held up a hand. “Okay. Not entirely true. But I don’t just want to get into his pants. At first that’s all it was, though I never would have admitted it. His attitude stinks. Or I thought it did. Now it just seems….”

  “Defensive?” Angel supplied.

  “I guess.” Eric drained his coffee as the waitress approached, and she refilled both their mugs. “Thanks.”

  She gave him a brilliant smile.

  He barely noticed, his thoughts still on Dwayne. “How long—?”

  “It was a ten-year sentence for manslaughter. He got out after six. Went home for about six months, couldn’t find a job, and the neighborhood doesn’t exactly lend itself to going straight, you know?”

  He didn’t, but Eric nodded to keep him talking.

  “He stopped with Mom awhile, and when I suggested he come visit, he said no. I think he thought he’d just bring the shit with him, but I told him no one here knew about my past. No one would know anything but that he was my cousin. Still, he didn’t want to come. Then someone he was in with found him there, looked him up or whatever, and he got scared. I don’t think he’d ever admit that, but he sure changed his mind in a hurry. He said the guy got nabbed again, for possession or something, and as soon as the cops had him, Dwayne hightailed it outta there. A buddy of mine worked at the courier place. He said the owner was pretty sympathetic to guys like Dwayne, so I hooked him up with the job, and he managed to convince parole he’d be better off here, with a place to stay and a job, than there with nothing.” Angel rubbed his thumb over the rim of his mug. “He’s doing good, Eric. But he’s skittish. Doesn’t sleep well, doesn’t always bring the most savory people home.

  “When we were kids and I was jerk enough to think it was any of my business, I asked him once and he told me he didn’t bottom. That he didn’t like it. Now? Any time one of his tricks leaves, he’s the one walking funny. He’s the one in a foul mood for days. He doesn’t like to talk about what happened.” Angel gave a short, sharp snort. “Who would, right? But it messed him up. He used to be so funny. Always smiling. Now… everything about him is sharp. Brittle.”

  They sat in silence until the waitress came back with the coffeepot and the bill. Eric paid, and they wandered outside into the bright near-afternoon sun. Eric flipped his sunglasses from the top of his head down over his eyes. “Will you tell him something for me?”

  Angel shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets, and kicked a pebble down the street in front of them.

  “Just tell him I meant it about the rain check.”

  Angel kicked the pebble and remained noncommittal.

  Chapter Five

  LUNCH THE next day was a greasy burger and soggy fries at the diner on the ground floor of Eric’s building. He didn’t cook, and another bowl of cereal or piece of toast didn’t appeal in the least. He was just poking at the mess when the bell over the door rang. He looked up to see Dwayne glancing around the joint. As soon as those dark eyes fixed on him, Eric felt heat curl in his belly. He let the top bun of his burger fall from where he had it pinched between his fingers, and wiped his hands on his napkin.

  “Hey.” Dwayne sauntered over, his hips swaying, his customary grin in place, but his eyes were deep and brooding.

  “Hi.” Eric indicated the seat across from him. “How’d you find me?”

  Dwayne tilted his head. “You not wanting to be found?”

  “No. Just… wondering. Have a seat.”

  “Angel.” Dwayne slid into the booth across from Eric. “Gave me your address. Told me you eat here sometimes. You didn’t answer your door, so I figured no harm in trying, right?”

  Eric nodded. “Right.”

  Dwayne pulled the sugar shaker out of the wire basket next to the wall and proceeded to pour a pile of it onto the table. He eyed Eric’s plate and asked in a rather dubious voice, “So what’s good here?”

  Eric grimaced. “Not much. You hungry?”

  “I could eat.” He paused. “But maybe not that. Had enough slop in the joint to know I don’t ever want it again.” He pushed the sugar pile around with his baby finger. Shapes appeared outlined in the white crystals: a square manipulated into a circle, then into a star.

  Eric bit his lip. “We could go somewhere else.”

  Dwayne carefully erased his work by pushing the sugar back into a heap, then started over. “Like to eat food I cooked myself.” He picked up Eric’s fork and poked at the limp fries with it. “Angel and Marianne needed some time, ya know?” Abandoning the fork like an empty flag pole in the mound of fries, he went back to shifting the sugar around the dark melamine of the tabletop, and a heart appeared.

  “I see.” Eric thought fast, but he knew he had no food in his apartment and said so. He watched the heart take form and wondered if it was in relation to Angel and Marianne or something else.

  “There’s a market just down the block,” Dwayne suggested. He drew an arrow protruding out the side of the heart. “If you got a stove.”

  “Sure.” Eric swallowed hard. “I do.”

  “Light a few candles and it could be a right proper fucking Valentine’s date,” Dwayne said, his voice thick with something that could have been sarcasm except for the low tone, the way his eyes didn’t spark with that snarky light Eric was used to seeing.

  “Huh.” Eric was finding it hard to speak. His mouth was dry, his thoughts scattered like the grains of sugar fanning out from the crooked heart Dwayne had sketched. “Is it the fourteenth already?”

  Almost black eyes peered up through thick, long lashes. Dwayne shrugged. He poised his hand to sweep the sugar away, but Eric stopped him. They stared at each other for a long minute.

  Eric nodded once. “Okay.”

  Dwayne waved the waitress over, and she sauntered up to the table, heavy boots thunking on the painted cement floor.

  She snapped her gum, tucked her notepad into her apron, and set a hand on one bony hip. “Yeah?”

  “We’re done here,” Eric told her.

  “Not hungry today, baby?” she asked, winking at Eric.

  “Thought I was.” He plunked a twenty onto the table. “That cover it?”

  She shrugged. “Sure.” She dragged her gaze heavily to Dwayne and snapped her gum again, making no move to remove Eric’s untouched meal or the twenty.

  Eric sighed. “Jo, this is Dwayne. Dwayne, this is Jo. She lives next door. You can ignore her. She passes judgment on everyone she sees me with.”

  “Just looking out for ya, babe.”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “You ready?” he asked Dwayne.

  Dwayne said nothing as he rose and headed for the door.

  “He’s a cutie,” Jo whispered.

  “Be nice.”

  “Always am.” She winked again and sauntered off as Eric hurried to catch up to Dwayne.

  They wandered amicably through the market, speaking only to establish what food they liked and what wine went with what. It felt like a proper date, nerves and awkward silences and all, and Eric couldn’t tell what to make of it. His palms kept sweating every time he remembered how Dwayne’s callouses felt: against the back of his neck, sliding up his side, wrapped tight around his wrist.

  He shivered and ran a hand over the back of his neck. Sweat gathered there too, and he had to wipe it away on his jeans. His heart sped up a tick, and he glanced at Dwayne, who walked next to him, studying the crowded shelves.

  “You okay?” Dwayne asked without so much as glancing at him.

  “Yeah.” Eric sped up his steps slightly. “Fine.”

  A hard grip fastened around his wrist, and he stopped in his tracks to look down. Dwayne’s thick, strong fingers circled his wrist. The grip was hard, painful almost, but had the strange effect of stilling the fluttering in Eric’s gut. He stared at the line of sharp contrast between them and breathed.

  “Better?” Dwayne crowded closer until Eric’s back fetched against the end of a rack of bread. His shoulder brushed the wall and he realized they were in a tight, inconspicuous back corner of the bakery section.

  It was better, oddly so, and he finally met Dwayne’s eyes. “Yeah.”

 

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