WICKED BOY (10) (Patreon)

"I can't believe I'm in Huxley right now," Tamela is seething, her words spat nearly to fast to dissect, "in the middle of the night. I can't believe that you'd get this drunk in some seedy motel,"  she takes a moment to compose herself, takes a deep breath, then flares into another fit, "I also can't believe I had to hear where you disappeared to from Isaac of all people!"

"Tamela." I groan, leaning my overheated skull against her passenger-side window. Waking up to her fists rapping against my motel door, an hour after my confrontation with Ez and finally falling asleep, was not the best cure for a burgeoning hangover.  "Quieter, please."

"I loathe Isaac!"

"You just dragged me out of bed at four am."  I smile a bit at her childish rivalry, but wince at another drum of pain at my temple, "... No lecturing, please."

"Oh," She laughs in a calloused way, "No lecturing? You're such a little heathen.  You didn't even think to tell me where you were at in case some weirdo kidnapped you?" She sighs, reaching to undo the top button of her work-slacks.

"No one kidnapped me."

The drive feels longer leaving than it did coming, and we're still in Huxley's crosshairs.

"Well.  They could've!  All I saw was you and that fuckboy Lucas — running around in the sprinklers yelling, and then poof! You were missing for a week."

"Well.  Still.  I wasn't kidnapped."  I offer, smile broadening as she glares.  "And technically, I wasn't missing.  I was just visiting."

"Visting who?  Don't get cheeky with me."  Her cheeks inflate with a pout,  "Isaac totally rubbed it in too, that rotten little fruitcake. I rather like the idea of knowing where my best friend is at." She purses her lips. "I should know before Isaac, at least."

"I know.  Jokes aside, I meant to call you, I just." I blink away the desire to sleep. "Time just sort of got away from me."

"Oh, while you were making nice with the prostitute and his sister?" Tamela snorts. "Speaking of that, I'd also like for you never to mention that vulgar man's name again. What a story.  The nerve of him — to proposition you like that. The absolute balls."

"Ez?" I say. I wonder if it's to jog her memory — or maybe to irritate her further. I'm not the most pleasant when I'm under the influence of alcohol. "Ez and Daphne?"

Tamela shudders.

"I said not to mention his name again!"  The road is empty and grey against her bright headlights, trees thinning at the tops and disappearing into the night sky. The stars aren't as easy to see, hidden in the smog from the nearing city I call home, and it's many manufactured lights.    "He could've seriously hurt you, Milan.  Or — just think of the press — what if someone told your dad, or someone who hates your dad, that you were talking to a prostitute of all things."

I groan, rolling down the window and drinking in the fresh air. I am going to vomit on her Lexus.

"Ez' didn't seem like he was all that threatening, or out to slander any insurance company CEOs," I frown, elbow against the door to cradle my head with one hand, the other in my lap. I'm still in Ez's pajamas. "and he's not a prostitute.  He's an escort."

"Sugar baby. Escort. Fucking prostitute. All. The. Same. Thing.  They want money." She shakes her head. "You look like money.  And Ez is not a step up and in the right direction from Lucas, my friend. Not at all."

A few moments pass, moments where I mull over that statement.  I couldn't find anything necessarily — untrue in it.

"It was weird. It's not like television. Not like — the slums and the back-alley muggings and all that." I shrug. "It was peaceful. The food was good.  Daphne was nice — and..."

"Yeah? What about Ez and his 'business' card?  The muscles?" She waves over to my less than imposing frame, "you said he had tattoos? A herd of burly men who responded to him just, like," she mimics the flick of his fingers from before, "shoo, huge manservants. Your presence is no longer desired."

"I feel like... You're envisioning him totally wrong." I feel exhausted; it could've gone worse — why didn't it go worse? "I definitely expected worse — or more. I feel like..."

Tamela is trying to pair her music to the radio, now, waving her phone under it irritably. Her eyes widen in shock as she registers my mumbling.

"More? Worse?" Her expression matches mine, she huffs at our silent backdrop, "this place gives me the creeps. Huxley is dangerous, Milan. It's dangerous, and you went there looking — hoping for danger, and that scares the shit out of me, you know? Why do you do that? Why do you want that?"

I think of Ez. I think of how he just knew what it took months for Tamela to see.  I sink into my seat.  I wonder if the smell of detergent and Huxley air — the faintness of cigarettes on my pajama top, if that was the entirety of Ez.  I touch my breast-pocket, where the outline of his card is.

"I could be your new Lucas."

"I didn't even find danger," I whisper. I hope it doesn't sound disappointed. "I mean — that guy. He's in like... I don't know, shouldn't he have been — more aggressive? He just talked at me. He just — made fun of me, I guess."

Tamela inhales sharply.

"Stop. Just stop talking about him. He doesn't exist anymore. You said there was blood in his eye? He was probably fresh from a fight." She shakes her head, "Violent.  Shady.  And you don't get mixed up with guys like that."

"...It was fine."

Tamela sighs, running one hand over her shaven head.  She twists her small, diamond earring, lost in a rancid thought that makes her nose wrinkle in distaste.

"... It didn't go any worse than it did because you are a joke to him."  She whispers.  "You weren't a threat, and he had no interest in you. You're probably their — their inside joke for the rest of tonight.  I hate that.  I hate the idea of you being hurt."

I think of Ez's last words to me, and wonder if that qualifies as an interest. I wonder, quietly, if I should mull any deeper over it — if I should share anything more profound with the woman next to me. If I should tell her, I've been hurt for years.   Before Lucas.  Years after him. 

The men in my life always seem to hurt me the most. 

You look like money.

That's all there is to Ez.

You look like money.

That's all there was to Lucas.

"Probably," lack of sleep is catching up to me, and I yawn pitifully, "It doesn't matter anyway."

"It doesn't. You're right." She waves a finger in my direction, almost like she's scolding a toddler. "Ugh. I've been worrying all week, just to find you all fascinated with this Ez of all people."

"You didn't need to worry," I sit up, trying to wake myself, "it was — it was fine.  And there's no fascination.  Really."

"I just... You set up shop next to an escort service, Milan." She sighs as her music finally connects,  "from what you've said — forgive me since I'm still relatively unseasoned by Huxley and it's loveliness. But you? You roomed it at an actual, known, escort service's motel — and the worst part of it, you talk like it was vacation.  I'm just trying to wrap my head around it."

"I just," I shake my head. "I just needed to clear my head.  I don't know what you want me to tell you.  I think — I need to wrap my head around it too."

"I," she sighs, "I know. I know that."

"Mm, but — what does that mean?"  I laugh.  I think of how fast I can down a bottle of vodka.  How far I can run when confronted with a problem.  "... Clearing my head." I blink, voice uneven and turn towards her. She shrugs softly. "When it always fills right back up?"

"I wouldn't know," she leans back in her seat, picking at the ruffles on her shirt's edge. It looks uncomfortable, pressed and ironed beneath a blazer that's fitted too snugly. I don't want to follow her back into that life — back into my same life, "I — wish there was some sort of advice I could give you.  I worry about you."

"I think," I swallow, "I think I'm a little lost, sometimes."

"Maybe you just need some guidance,"  Tamela says this gently, touches the top of my thigh, delivers a soft pat to it.  "A little direction.  A good friend.  Someone to — listen to you, to... Keep you company when you want to run."

She smiles at me earnestly, her dark eyes misted with concern.  I turn my head towards the window.

"Right."

But I don't want to lean on Tamela.  I don't want to open myself up; I don't want to give her all my unpleasant parts.  There's a fear — a fear that she'll take them without return, or judge them as callously as Huxley — and then one day turn and leave like Lucas, carrying my dirty secrets like ammunition to harm me.

I frown. 

I think of Daphne and her wide smile — her brashness, her loud laugh, her inviting warmth.  I think of Ez, his nasty grin, his calculating eyes — the ability to read my ugliness straight away. 

And the business card feels like it's burning a hole in my pocket.  

--

Previous Chapter  |  Next Chapter  | First Chapter