Bad Company

  “Cherry soda, huh?” Nate said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” Nate nodded, a smile breaking across his lips and the look in his eyes that said he got it, he believed it, and maybe all this bullshit about gay/not-gay was going to go away.

  Kellan followed the urge in those eyes and leaned into Nate’s kiss. Kellan was getting into it enough to forget about everything but how nice it was to be kissing Nate, when Eli gasped.

  “Fuck me. You’re a virgin.”

  “Excuse me?” Kellan turned back.

  “Eli, shut up,” Nate said through clenched teeth.

  Eli turned Kellan back to face him. “Pay attention now, Kellan. This is advice from a total nellie bottom. The first time hurts like a bitch. You’re going to think you sat on a fire hydrant. Well, okay, sometimes that happens more than the first time. But you have to remember, it’s so worth it. Because once it’s in and he knows what he’s doing—and trust me, Nate knows what he’s doing—it’s really good.”

  Throughout Eli’s advice Nate had been trying to find a way to get between them, but short of reaching through Kellan and clapping his hands over Eli’s mouth, there wasn’t anything Nate could do.

  When Eli paused, Nate snapped, “Christ, Eli, we had sex once.”

  “Yeah, but you fucked me three times.” Eli held up four fingers. “See, what you want to do, Kellan, is relax, which you think is kind of impossible at the time, but if you use your muscles to take him in, that makes it easier in the end.” Eli’s eyes widened and then he burst into laughter. “In the end.”

  “Jesus, I’m going to kill him.”

  “Nate, c’mon. He’s….” Kellan leaned over, though whether he could manage to get loud enough for Nate to hear him without Eli hearing too was up for grabs. “He got drunk because he’s upset about you.”

  “Me? That was four months ago.”

  “Never mind, Kellan.” Eli put a hand on Kellan’s arm. “He’s a prick. In fact, I was only ever in love with his cock. Now, remember my advice and you boys have fun. I need to find someone else to fantasize about.”

  Kellan looked at Nate.

  “I know. We can’t leave him like this.” Nate sighed. “You keep track of him, and I’ll call a cab.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  NATE WAS starting to think he’d need to run an account with the cab company. Before Kellan moved in, he’d call a cab maybe twice a year unless there was some kind of Rag-related emergency. His brain backed up along that train of thought. Before Kellan moved in.

  Kellan had moved in, and according to Kellan, they were officially… dating? Boyfriends? Lovers? Nate wasn’t going to dig at that. Because applying any kind of rational thought to the idea of Kellan having fallen in—infatuation, and deciding he was gay enough to have sex with Nate, ruined the incredible high of touching something that felt damned close to perfect.

  Eli didn’t give them much trouble or, as Nate remembered the look of panic in Kellan’s eyes at the idea of getting fucked, any more trouble as they walked him out of the club. Nate had the idea that Eli wasn’t quite as drunk as he was acting, that he liked being rescued, and despite his putting a few more hours between Nate and whatever parts of Kellan he was going to get at tonight, Nate didn’t mind playing knight-errant.

  If Kellan was even half right about Eli being hung up on Nate, he owed it to Eli for not having made it clear that a repeat—let alone a relationship—wasn’t ever happening.

  As they stepped out of the alley, Eli was taking advantage of his exaggeratedly compromised balance to cop a feel, using his arm around Nate’s back to slide a hand over his chest and rub a nipple. Based on Kellan’s lurch and cry of “Hey, now,” Nate suspected Eli’s other hand had wandered lower.

  “I’m thinking three-way, right? It would probably be easier on Kellan if he had his dick in my ass the first time you fucked him. It’d be a hell of a way to get your cherry popped.”

  An electric shock of desire zapped Nate’s balls. Brain on a conscience-free feed of Kellan caught between two male bodies, pleasure jolting through them as they all moved together. At the same time came an icy shower of jealousy, an irrational need to be the only one ever allowed to hear the sounds Kellan made while fucking, while being fucked. And if Kellan was going to fuck anyone….

  “Thanks for the offer, man, but I’m sure Nate and I will work something out.”

  Between the hi-def stream of Kellan porn in his head and the distraction of dealing with Eli, the first thing Nate knew about the attack was a hard shove that sent him flying toward the street, face-first into a parking sign. His cheek exploded with pain at the same time he heard the sound of a fist hitting flesh.

  “Laugh now, faggots.”

  Nate straightened up. Just before his cheek went blissfully numb, he felt the wetness of blood, and then he grabbed at the guy who was punching Eli in the ribs. The same three punks from before. It had to be. Kellan shoved one of them off Nate, but an arm around Nate’s neck yanked him from the man holding Eli. At least Eli had gotten free of them for a minute.

  While he still had some breath, Nate yelled to Eli, “Run. Get help. Call 911.” The last bit got choked off as the guy behind him tightened his grip.

  “Fuck that.” Eli slammed his head up into one asshole’s chin, then kicked him in the balls. The guy dropped, and it was two on three. The guy on Nate’s back got in a rabbit punch on his kidneys, and then Eli did a fancy kick thing to the guy’s hip that loosened his chokehold, but he still dragged Nate on top of himself as he fell.

  Kellan punched the man in the face, and he finally released Nate. Kellan swung again to knock the guy flat, but the punk Kellan had been fighting managed to get in a good swing to Kellan’s mouth. Nate was climbing to his feet to face another assault, but headlights flashed along the dead-end street, and the three bashers took off.

  The cab pulled up close, then started to drive away, but Kellan jumped in front of it.

  Nate opened the door and they climbed in. Kellan was cradling his wrist in his lap and cursing. Eli leaned toward the plastic partition. “Maryland General.”

  “No,” Nate said.

  “Yes. You need stitches and Kellan—”

  “I think I fucking broke my hand.”

  “Thinks he broke his fucking hand,” Eli finished.

  “I don’t need stitches.” Nate put his hand up to his face. It throbbed now, an occasional sharp twinge when he moved his jaw, but when he looked down, his hand was covered with blood.

  “It’s still bleeding, and it’s right under your eye,” Eli explained.

  Kellan was hunched against the door, muttering a constant stream of obscenities. “When did you get so sober?” Nate asked.

  “Right about the time the adrenaline kicked in. Thank God for those assholes in high school and getting someone to teach me how to fight.”

  Yeah, Nate had been the one who needed a physical rescue. Not much different from when he was in high school. He put “take a self-defense course” on his ever-lengthening list of resolutions.

  THE COPS came while the doctor was stitching Nate’s cheek. He’d been informed he was lucky the cheekbone hadn’t broken when the metal edge of the signpost split it open.

  Nate told the cops what had happened, but he couldn’t give much of a description. White men around twenty, all with dark hair, one with a scruffy beard, all wearing black hooded sweatshirts. Nate hadn’t been looking at their faces, but at Eli and Kellan.

  Eli came in while the nurse ran through the wound-care instructions. “Kellan’s back from X-ray. He was really going on about pain, so they gave him something to shut him up. Morphine, I think, in case they have to set it. His ring finger was dislocated.”

  Nate followed him into Kellan’s curtained cubicle. He was grinning and staring at his hand, which looked more bloated than Elton John.

  “Any more news?”

  “Nope,” Kellan said cheerfully.

  “Oh yeah,” Eli said. “Morphin
e. He was a big baby and the nurse felt sorry for him.”

  “It seriously fucking hurt, man.” Kellan met Nate’s eyes. “You look better. Still kind of like a Halloween mask, though.”

  Nate’s hand went to his cheek, a solid block of ice from the lidocaine shot. “It’s only eight stitches.”

  “Maybe you’ll look like a pirate after.”

  “Fuck, he’s stoned,” Eli said unnecessarily.

  The doctor came in. “There’s a small bone chip from the dislocation, but no other damage. Probably only a bad sprain.”

  The doctor’s accent had Nate placing him as from somewhere in the Balkans, but he couldn’t guess on how to spell the name the doctor rattled off.

  “What do you do for your work?”

  “Um… help out at rehab places.”

  “So no fine motor coordination? Do you play an instrument? The piano?” Kellan looked like he had to think about that.

  “The guitar,” Nate answered for him. “He works as an assistant to a recreational therapist. He plays the guitar as part of his job.”

  “Hmm,” offered the doctor.

  Kellan held up his hands like he was playing the air guitar. “Good thing it’s not the fret hand.”

  “I will put a splint on the finger, but you must take these X-rays to an orthopedic doctor as soon as possible.”

  “Sure thing,” Kellan said.

  Nate wondered if Kellan would have given a thumbs-up to an amputation order while floating on morphine. He couldn’t imagine what kind of scene Kellan had put up to get a shot. They hadn’t offered Nate as much as a Tylenol.

  The splint went on, though Kellan was disappointed that it wasn’t, as he put it, his give-the-bird finger, and an aide came to tell them they were going nowhere until the social worker had been to see them. “Right, no insurance. Jesus, we should have put your dad down as a responsible party. He probably wouldn’t even notice the bill.”

  “Fuck him. I’ll pay it.”

  “You’ve got three grand in the bank? And another couple for the ortho?” Nate asked.

  Kellan blinked at him as if surprised by the news that medical care was neither cheap nor automatic.

  The Medicaid paperwork took longer than the rest of the trip to the ER, but after Kellan had given his life history and awkwardly scrawled his name at the bottom of a promise to be financially responsible for the rest of the bill, they were finally free.

  They took another cab and dropped Eli off first. He’d managed to escape with only a couple of bruises, including a darkening one on his jaw. A punch to his mouth wasn’t enough to slow down its movement at all as he told them it was a good thing he hadn’t been hurt since his insurance with the paper still didn’t kick in for another month. Like Nate could fix that. He wasn’t the owner.

  Getting Kellan up the stairs wasn’t too hard, though Nate doubted Kellan would remember anything about the trip. Nate dumped him on the still-unmade bed, where he landed with an ominous clank of the metal supports.

  Kellan lay there laughing for a few minutes and then propped himself up on his elbows, muttered an “Ow,” and then flopped back again. “Aren’t you going to undress me?”

  “You can do that yourself.”

  Kellan held up his splinted hand. “At least get my sneakers.”

  With a sigh Nate bent down and untied the laces, then pulled off the shoes.

  “And this button.” Kellan gestured at his fly.

  Nate looked at Kellan’s face as he reached out to unbutton Kellan’s jeans. “What is this, an interactive strip tease?”

  Kellan laughed and thrust his hips up. “The zipper?”

  “You’re pushing it, Brooks.” Nate pulled the zipper down, but before he could draw back, Kellan’s good hand shot out and caught Nate’s wrist.

  “Yeah. Right where I want you.”

  “Kellan, I don’t know if now—”

  “It’s okay. I know.” Kellan dragged Nate’s hand until it covered the bulge under the cotton.

  Nate’s fingers curved around the heat and the length before sliding under the waistband to get his palm on the skin. Oh God, Kellan’s skin. His cock. Nate licked his lips.

  “Fuck me. C’mon, Nate, do it now. I’m feeling no pain.” Goddamn Eli.

  “No.”

  With his good hand, Kellan pulled Nate on top of him. “Yes. C’mon, man. You owe it to me. I can’t jerk off with this thing on, and I got it saving your ass.”

  “Eli might have saved my ass too.” Which doesn’t stop me wanting to kick his for putting the fear of anal sex into you.

  Kellan reached up and cupped Nate’s face. “I should have been there all those other times too. In high school. I’m sorry about that. I was freaked out.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Hearing Kellan’s stoned confession made Nate’s stomach squirm with embarrassment. He didn’t want Kellan saying—or doing—anything he wouldn’t do sober.

  “No, it wasn’t. You were the best friend—the only real friend I ever had.”

  “Okay. Why don’t you try to sleep now?”

  “You didn’t take off my pants.”

  “Fine.” Nate pushed to his feet and tugged Kellan’s pants off his legs. “Need to pee?”

  “Nope.” Kellan reached for Nate again.

  He let himself be dragged down against Kellan’s chest, but when Kellan started grinding up into Nate’s crotch, he rolled off to the side. “No sex.”

  “Why not? Please.” Kellan gazed up with soft, pleading eyes. “I want you to fuck me. Want you in me.”

  Nate could see how Kellan had managed to get a dose of a highly controlled substance out of the ER staff, but Nate drew the line at fucking someone who was in no condition to give consent. “Kellan, you’re too high to think straight.”

  Kellan laughed. “Don’t want to think straight. I want a guy to fuck me in the ass. That’s not very straight.”

  “It’s not going to hurt that much.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve had bigger things than my dick in my ass.”

  “You can fuck your own ass?”

  “No. I mean, if you take your time, it won’t hurt.”

  “Yeah, like you’d ever do it, ya control freak. Eli told me you don’t bottom.”

  It sounded so strange coming from Kellan. He should be talking about some girl’s boobs or a basketball score, not discussing sexual roles.

  “I have.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “No. If you won’t gimme sex, you have to at least talk to me about it.” Kellan hooked one of his legs over Nate’s.

  “My first boyfriend in college always topped.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Malcolm.”

  “Like the X guy? Was he black?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “I figured out how much of a control freak I was.”

  “And now you always top.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Pretty much?” Kellan lifted his head. “So does that mean if you won’t fuck me because I’m high, I could fuck you because you’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Damn.” Kellan dropped his head back against the mattress.

  “Here.” Nate grabbed a pillow and gently lifted Kellan’s arm. “You’re supposed to keep that elevated.”

  “I’m kind of nervous about it.”

  Nate decided to ignore what he knew Kellan meant. “Your hand will be fine.”

  “No, I mean about you fucking me.”

  But they were going there anyway. “Oh, baby, I’m going to make you love it.”

  “So do it now.”

  “If you still want to in the morning, I’ll fuck you until you find a new religion.”

  “You’re kind of different when you’re talking about sex. You really let loose.”

  Sex had always been the one thing Nate could be sure of. He wanted it, th
e other guy wanted it. From the first guy he’d blown sneaking around in high school, to Malcolm showing Nate about everything his body could do, right on up to now, sex was the one thing Nate never questioned. Until Kellan came along, there was no right or wrong about it, no wondering about why or what it meant. Now his only sure ground was quicksand. Kellan begging to get fucked, Kellan claiming Nate was what he wanted when Kellan had been the one to shove Nate away with both hands.

  “You never talk dirty?”

  “Not really.” Kellan grinned. “But I like it when you do it.”

  Maybe there was an easy answer to this. Nate swung a leg over Kellan’s hips and looked down at him. “You like me telling you what to do?”

  Kellan nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing while his hips bucked up against Nate’s ass.

  “So if I do something you don’t want, you’ll tell me?”

  “Duh. So does this mean you’ll fuck me now? I keep thinking about it, and I kind of want to get it over with.”

  “Get it over with?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “It’s not an initiation. It won’t make you any more gay, you know.”

  Kellan sighed so hard it blew through Nate’s hair. “Why is that still even a question?” He sighed again, eyes blinking like he was on the edge of sleep. “I walked away from five million dollars for you.”

  “Five hundred thousand.”

  Kellan shook his head, lashes fluttering. “Five mil. Dad upped it when I wouldn’t give in. So you’d better be worth it.” Another sigh and Kellan was asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  KELLAN SLEPT through the night and into the morning. Quan Yin curled into a ball next to him, her head on his uninjured arm, and snored softly. A few thicker gasps from Kellan had her shifting, but altogether, their little chorus made Nate smile as he made himself breakfast.

  Nate found a contact number for the recreational therapist and called to let him know Kellan would be unable to play for a while. The guy, Jeff, sounded more concerned about Kellan’s injury than whether he would be coming to work, which only showed that Kellan’s charm was universal. Jeff told Nate to tell his boyfriend—his boyfriend—that even if he couldn’t play the guitar, they’d be happy to have him come in and help out with the clients.