Lonely Hearts (19 page)

Yeah, what a nice bite in the ass. “What keeps you from living as female?”

“People who dump beets on me. I've figured out how much I can wear without getting too much teasing, but it makes me crazy. Sometimes I don't realize how much I've girled-out until I'm a mile out the door. Lejla is subversive. She changes how I dress when I'm not looking, and if I deliberately hold her back, I end up sobbing in a toilet stall.”

“Have you seen a doctor? Have you been diagnosed with gender dysphoria?”

“My parents don't know, and I'm not ready to tell them.” Tears were wiped away. “I mean—they're not like Elijah's. But they wouldn't understand. They're nervous enough thinking I'm gay.”

What a lovely dead end. Baz ran a hand through his hair. “Well—shit. I'm no psychologist, but I'm pretty sure you've thrown up some red flags. Subconsciously dressing as the gender you feel you are being the biggest one.”

More silence. It was making Baz crazy not knowing what name or pronoun to assign. Why the hell it mattered, he didn't know. It
didn't
matter. Was he going to treat the person in front of him any different as a Lewis instead of a Lejla, or vice versa? No, but—well, that was the thing, wasn't it? It didn't matter, except it really fucking did.

Gender was such a fuckjob. What made Elijah attractive to Baz? Why was Mina not on the menu? He refused to believe it was her tits. It must be something else. Pheromones. Or maybe it was all genderfuck.
Born naked, and the rest is drag
, like RuPaul said. Maybe they were all warped by details. Maybe orientation and gender and even attraction were a thousandfold more complicated than anybody wanted to admit.

What about the underwear, indeed.

Baz cleared his throat. “There's got to be a support group in the Cities.”

“I don't have a car. I barely have enough money to go to a movie. The college fund my parents saved for me crashed right before they had to start cashing out, which is why I stayed on campus to work. So unless the support group comes with free bus service—”

“I have a car, and a—boyfriend who can drive it.” He hated how he still tripped over the word
boyfriend
.

His companion frowned. “You can't drive your own car?”

“I have severe retinal damage and photophobia. I was legal to drive for about twelve hours.” He paused, tasting the rest of it before he spit it out. “I got beat up, and my sight and some chronic pain are the casualties.”

Shock, horror, sorrow—but thank fuck, no pity. Empathy, maybe. A little fear. Made sense. Talk about
it could happen to you
. “I'm so sorry. That's why—the glasses. I had no idea.”

“It is what it is.” He rubbed his neck, sighed and held out his hand. “Look—I don't want to budge into your life. We don't really know each other yet. But you strike me as somebody who could use some backup. What I'm saying is, I'm offering. Elijah too. If you stay for dinner, I'm pretty sure you'll have more people in your posse.”

He ached at the way this offer of friendship made his guest nervous, not reassured. “Why would you do that? Why would anyone do that?”

Because Elijah brought you home.
“Because getting beets dumped on your head for wearing a
Kiki's Delivery Service
shirt and a bow in your hair sucks.”

Tension, quick and tight as a whip. “So you're helping because you feel sorry for me?”

“No. Never.” He paused to attempt a rephrase. “I can't exactly explain myself, but it's sure as hell not because I pity you. You're Elijah's friend, to start. That comes with certain perks. This is one of them.”

“But I barely know him. We smoke together at work, is all. I was never sure he liked me much.”

Noise on the stairs stopped them both, and seconds later Elijah appeared, fists full of Target bags. He deposited them in a small sea of red and white around the chair before withdrawing, wrapping his arms over his stomach. “I got some things. Different kinds. You can keep whatever you want.”

He set Baz's keys and a wad of fifties on the dresser. Baz raised an eyebrow.

Elijah lifted his chin defiantly and started for the door. “We'll leave you to get dressed.”

Baz followed, but on the way out he couldn't resist whispering to Lewis, “I think he likes you.”

Once Baz closed the door, Elijah dragged him into the communal bathroom. “I used my money. The stuff from the fund.” Elijah leaned on the sink, but when Baz caught his hand, he sort of melted against Baz's body. “It was the first time it didn't make me queasy to spend it. I went a little crazy.”

Baz faced the mirror, which presented a full-on view of himself: too tall, slumped from a day of headaches and hip pain, eyes hidden behind his shades, Elijah's dark-haired, wiry body wrapped around him. Elijah hugging him. Holding himself close. Baz holding him right back.

The sight hit him in the gut. He flipped the lock to the door, threw the switches so the main light went out and the bathroom swelled with red glow. Then took off his glasses and set them on the counter.

Elijah opened his mouth to say more, but Baz quieted him with a nuzzle against the side of his head. “Shh. I want to look at us for a second. Without the fucking glasses.”

Wordlessly, Elijah complied, but when Baz caught him trying to peek, he shifted his good hip to let him have a better view. They stood a long time that way, silent, holding each other, staring into the mirror.

“I like your eyes.” Elijah stroked Baz's arm, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “I see them as brown even with the shades, in my mind. I love the fragmented colors in your iris.”

Ungh.
Baz cleared his suddenly thick throat. “Th-thanks.”

They didn't say anything else. They didn't kiss, not so much a brush of the lips. And yet while he stood there, like the hug in the bedroom, Baz knew this strange, crystalline moment would ring in his head light years longer than any blow job. Even being topped beautifully in a freaky moose hotel. This was…tender. Aching. Perfect.

Mind-bendingly dangerous.

As they left the bathroom and went to talk to Aaron and Giles as they heard them arrive—well past the half-life of the tenderness—Baz had no urge to run. He didn't panic.

Okay, he panicked a little. But not because it freaked him out to be close. Because he'd found a new terror—the acknowledgment he wanted something to stay.

Chapter Fifteen

Elijah had been prepared for a wide palate of Lewis/Lejlas to come down the stairs, but it still surprised him to see his friend so butched up Elijah felt a bit femmy. Male sweats, hoodie, no makeup, the gender neutral white faux Keds Elijah had thrown in at the last minute, not the faintly glittery flip-flops.

Lewis hung out on the stairs in the shadows. Mina and Aaron and Giles sat with Baz, eager for an introduction and chance to show their support after hearing the story, but Elijah didn't give one yet, meeting Lewis on the landing in hopes of an explanation.

Lewis averted his gaze. “I need to get to my dorm. Didn't feel like any additional attention.” Shifted a tightly packed pair of Target bags, glanced at Elijah. “You said…it was okay to keep some of the clothes?”

“Keep all of them, if you want. You don't have to go right away, either. You could have worn what you wanted and changed. We ordered subs. They should be here any second. Will you stay and meet everyone?”

Lewis leaned into the wall, looking pale and tired, eyes red and puffy from crying. “I don't have it in me right now. Sorry.”

“Let us give you a ride at least.” When Lewis balked, Elijah crowded a little, hating how he felt like the flip side of when Aaron had badgered
him
into accepting help. “You've got all this stuff to carry. And Baz is going to be all managing mother bear, wanting to make sure you're okay.”

Lewis sighed. “I just…need to be alone tonight. It's nothing personal.”

Alone for the night Elijah could live with. But he wasn't relinquishing his new friend without getting some digits first.

He did get them, in the loading zone of Titus while Baz retrieved the bags out of the frunk. The three of them went up the stairs together, Baz and Elijah ignoring Lewis's protests that an escort was unnecessary. They got a lot of stares, but half of them were for the Tesla and most of the others went to Baz.

“Ah, Titus.” Baz swung one of the Target bags over his shoulder and tipped his head back to take in the building as they approached the side door. “How I haven't missed thee.”

“You lived here too?” Elijah glanced around the familiar stairwell, flashing to last year when he roomed with Aaron. And dodged the Campus Crusaders, and hoped to hell his parents didn't find out what he was up to.

“Yep. First floor, room to the right of the showers. Shacked up with Marius until we moved to the White House at semester. Thought I won the roommate lottery, but it turns out my mother had her assistant comb through every freshman until he found the one
most suitable
.”

Lewis stepped aside to let someone pass on the stairway. “I'm in Silas again for the school year, but Titus is the only male dorm open for the summer. So it's mostly me and the football team and four international students.”

The full impact of what this truth meant for a second-year student struggling with gender identity hit Elijah as they opened the door to Lewis's floor to a cacophony of male shouts and laughter. Wide-shouldered football players passed casually between rooms, though through one pair of doors simply a football made the journey back and forth. Cries of
dude
and
what the fuck, man?
and
you dumb shit
bounced around as comfortable camaraderie. The men weren't all large, but they were the kind of bark-chewing, back-slapping
bros
only a college locker room could germinate. Young men alone in close environment, playing out the politics and pressures of their team in fifty-year-old buildings composed of concrete blocks and linoleum floors. First years terrified to be away from home, but desperate not to let anyone know how afraid they were. Sophomores eager to stake a place of dominance, juniors and newly minted seniors defending roles previously carved.

The barking calls and whoops put all of Elijah's senses on alert. Lewis took a different approach, pulling the hoodie fully forward, rounding shoulders and economizing movements, as if becoming invisible were an option. Lewis wove through the obstacle course of traditional masculinity like a wraith, hugging the wall, favoring shadows and falling behind Baz and Elijah to use them as human shields.

Baz was Baz. He used every inch of his height and pushed his sunglasses higher on his nose with a practiced air. Each of the guys loitering in the halls noticed him, as they were meant to, and by and large they parted the sea for him. Most shuffled into their rooms, the rest making themselves less conspicuous, leaning over to murmur to a
bro
who was too new to have gotten the memo. A few bruisers held their own, arms folded and quietly making it known they'd throw down if challenged, but nothing more. Baz didn't challenge, so nothing happened except the hallway got quiet and he walked without encumbrance, all the way until Lewis tugged Elijah's sleeve and murmured they'd reached their destination.

Elijah didn't ask if he could come in. He almost pushed Lewis out of the way to make it inside, collapsing into the corner by the closet as he stared, wide-eyed, at Lewis. When the door
snicked
closed behind Baz, Elijah erupted. “Holy fucking shit,
this
is what you're living with?”

Shrugging, Lewis hunkered into the hoodie. “It's not as bad as it looks. They call me names, mostly. Maybe a shove if I don't watch where I walk, and I have to be mindful when I go to the bathroom. I shower when they're at practice though. It's only for another month, until I'm back in Silas.”

“Who's your roommate?” This came from Baz, who toured the room idly, scanning the walls. They were mostly bare, though he paused at a bulletin-board collage.

“None now. Don't know who for the fall.” Lewis shrugged. “Some freshman, probably. The guy I had last year found somebody else.”

But Lewis hadn't, of course.

Baz hadn't moved from the bulletin board. “You're a serious disciple of Studio Ghibli, I see. Favorite film?”

Lewis straightened, body posture calming as the two of them stood before the carefully cut out and arranged anime display. “Everything Miyazaki does is brilliant. I love all of them for different reasons. But probably…
Spirited Away
and
Nausicaä
. And
Princess Mononoke
. Well—and
My Neighbor Totoro
, because you have to start with the foundation. But I don't want you to think I disrespect
From Up on Poppy Hill
or
The Wind Rises
. They're all different shades of perfection, really.”

“Favorite character?”

This time Lewis didn't hesitate. “Nausicaä. Though I will always hold a seat for Ponyo too.”

Baz traced the image of a gray-haired boy inside the tail of a white dragon. “I'm pretty much team Haku, but you're right about Ponyo. Have you seen the Japanese versions, or only the English dubs?”

“A few in Japanese. My public library had some of the discs, and I got
Spirited Away
,
Howl's Moving Castle
and
Nausicaä
as gifts, but I've watched most on torrents.”

“I have all of them, including the Japanese release of
Spirited Away
on Blu-ray. Next time you're bored, let me know, and we'll have a marathon.”

Lewis blushed. “That would be awesome. Thanks.”

Uncapping a dry erase marker, Baz wrote his name and cell on the whiteboard above the desk. “We'll leave you alone like you asked, but you'll call us, right, if you need anything? Or if you simply change your mind and want company? Doesn't matter how late. Elijah never turns down an excuse to drive the Tesla.”

Elijah resented this portrait of himself, but he stifled his objection when he saw how the comment made Lewis quietly hopeful. “Okay. Thanks.”

Baz deposited the bags he carried on the bed. “Tell Lejla she did you proud, okay? And have her tell you the same thing.”

Lewis said nothing, but it was clear Baz had found exactly the right thing to say. This left Elijah not knowing how to follow up, so he fumbled a quick kiss on his friend's cheek, hoping the gesture wasn't stupid as fuck, and murmured “Take care of yourself” as he followed Baz into the hall.

The troglodyte who'd dumped beets on Lejla's head stood in the middle of the path to the exit.

It was possible to get past him, but not without standing sideways and essentially executing a kind of shuffling genuflect around his elbows. His bent arms framed bulked-out abs straining a Saint Timothy Trojans green-and-white jersey with the factory folds still in place. He glared at Baz with beady eyes from beneath a buzz cut, an iron stare declaring no slicked-up guy in sunglasses was intimidating
him
.

Elijah tried not to panic, but he stepped closer to Baz, glancing up at him in an attempt to communicate a silent
that's the beet asshole
, but Baz didn't so much as slow his stride. The other residents of the hall shuffled to the periphery, uninterested in taking a side but eager to see how it played out. Some of the guys seemed uneasy, some confused and some pissed, like they'd never battle Baz personally but wouldn't mind seeing him knocked down a peg or three.

Elijah's choices were duck around the asshole his fingers still urged to pull apart or take point beside Baz and hope bullies bounced off Baz as well as bullets. He chose the latter option and pasted on bored, discourage-the-trick face.

Baz slowed as he approached the roadblock, regarding the man-mountain with the same disinterest he would a mannequin display. He was
very
careful not to so much as let his breath brush the freshman—but he angled his head to the side and raked his gaze up and down, going so far as to tip his glasses so it was abundantly clear he was inspecting a piece of meat. “Passable, I suppose, but bulk's never done much for me.”

Someone murmured
shit
as the thug's beady eyes opened as wide as they'd go. Mr. Bulk tensed, elbows coming down as fists formed over his midsection. “What the fuck?”

Tension swelled in the corridor, but Baz ignored it, straightening and laying his right palm in a rather affected gesture over his heart. “Dear me. How embarrassing. I must have misinterpreted. My
apologies
. Usually when a man goes to this much trouble to get my attention, he…well, wants my attention, if you know what I mean.”

The freshman flushed with confused, dangerous rage. His right fist rose automatically, but the panicked murmurs around him gave him pause. Elijah could see the thoughts forming on his face.
Why aren't the others joining in? Why aren't we beating up this faggot together?

Baz remained where he was, but his demeanor became concentrated, his casual comments laced with quiet steel. “The creases in your jersey tell me you're new here. So before you say or, worse,
do
things you'll regret, I suggest you do a little homework. But don't think this is a threat,
exactly
. Just because I'm from Chicago doesn't mean I'm with the mob or anything.” He laughed, and the sound managed to make even Elijah wonder if maybe, somehow, Baz
was
connected to some kind of revenge-thirsty organized-crime outfit.

The thug didn't lower his fist, but he held still, regarding Baz as if he were a viper ready to go for the throat at any second.

“Tell you what.” Baz tucked his elbows into his side and held out his hands, an arrogant CEO declaring to his nest of peons
we're all equals here
. “I remember what it's like to be new, to need to impress the guys and make new friends. So you're going to be
my
friend. You're going to help me take care of one of my friends.” He indicated Lewis's closed door with a nod. “Lewis has a difficult time fitting in, same as you. I hear there was a
terrible
run-in today with some pencil-dicked asshole who thinks it's fun to laugh at someone else's expense. Do me a favor and watch out for Lewis. Because people who upset my friends are always sorry.”

The freshman blinked at Baz, his expression still confused but now carefully blank.

Baz nodded, as if to say
yes, it's all settled now, everybody move on.
He resumed his stride, patting the meathead absently on the shoulder as he blithely nudged him out of the way and led Elijah down the hall. “Looking great, guys. First pregame meal's on me.”

Silence enveloped them until the stairwell door closed behind them, but before Elijah could let out his breath on a
What the fucking fuck?
Baz caught his elbow and led him with purpose to the exit.

“Game face stays on, no stopping or slowing.” He kept his breezy CEO smile in place as they passed a group of football players on the stairs, then covered the distance between the building entrance and the Tesla. The cluster of guys broke away as Baz approached and the door handles popped out, but Baz didn't break character as he pulled his seat belt into place and fumbled with the dashboard controls. “No big deal, simply start the car and pull out like you do this every day.”

Elijah wanted to protest he thought he was going to throw up, but Baz had the moonroof open and Maino blasting “Here Comes Trouble”, so Elijah swallowed his freakout and did as he was told.

It was cool, he'd admit, the way people watched them as they peeled silently away, Maino's rap a perfect soundtrack to their badass exit. As soon as they were clear of the dorm, though, Elijah pulled onto a side street, parked the car under the canopy of an oak tree and melted into his seat.

“
What the hell.
” He aimed a glare at Baz, but he was so overwhelmed all he could do was collapse against the wheel. “You fucking lunatic. I thought we were going to be smears on bathroom tile.”

Baz snorted, pinching the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in his seat. “Never. Only four guys didn't know who I was, and the lead asshole didn't have any friends. The only cache he has was from providing their lunchtime entertainment, which I now turned into a big fat streak of trouble. He was never going to hit me, not without encouragement. So I didn't give him any.”