Foolish Me

Chapter 1I never thought anyone would love me. How could they, when Franky, the one man I’d been certain loved me, had showed me the only thing I had to offer was my youth and my body? Of course a good many men did love me—physically—but that was because from the time I was fifteen and my father threw me out of the house for being gay, I’d been a rent boy. And then I’d met William Matheson. Wills…of the ordinary brown suits and nothing special haircuts…someone I shouldn’t have looked at twice. But I did. Something about his warm, chocolate brown eyes brought my gaze back to him again and again. I couldn’t say I fell in love with him at first sight…as much as I might have yearned for it, what rent boy would ever believe s**t like that? But I did. I’d asked him to move in with me, hoping but never believing…. And now…Now we were living together. * * * * Through too many years—those years when I’d been a rent boy—I’d learned to keep my mouth shut, stifling any curiosity I might have about my clients. Wills wasn’t a client, had never been a client. He was my lover, but… Old habits die hard. Oh, I knew Wills was a troubleshooter who dealt with computers, and his company was in DC, but I’d never questioned him about it or about why, on occasion, he carried a gun. He traveled throughout the country, and some of those areas probably weren’t too safe. Mark Vincent, his boss, worked him like a son of a gun. Weekends, holidays, early morning, late into the night, long weeks away without any or minimal contact…. And that was something else I never questioned. * * * * It was Indian summer, and the weather was warm and dry. We’d been living together since we’d returned to DC from visiting his family on Memorial Day. For a change Wills had the weekend off. After an early dinner at Raphael’s the evening before and then taking in a concert, where I’d bought him the group’s T-shirt, we’d come home and f****d like bunnies. I was looking forward to a long, lazy Saturday in bed, where eventually we’d do more of the same. I was drifting in and out of a dream where instead of meeting Franky the day my father had thrown me out, I’d looked up to see Wills standing there, smiling at me and holding out his hand for me to take. But when I reached out for it, suddenly it was gone—he was gone—and I was alone. “Wills? Wills?” I woke up to realize I was alone. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Where was he? I clambered out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went looking for him. I found him standing outside the front door of the apartment he shared with me. He did look good, shirtless, his treasure trail disappearing beneath the waistband of the low slung sweats he himself wore. I blinked. “Wills, what the f**k…?” Tucked into the back of his sweatpants was his gun. “Mr. Vincent is grinding his coffee.” “Huh?” What did that have to do with Wills having his gun on him? I looked past him to where Vince sat on the stairs leading up to his attic apartment he rented from me and offered him a confused smile. “How come?” “I have no idea. You want to ask him?” I scrubbed my scalp and blinked. It was too freaking early for this. Still…“Vince? Why are you grinding coffee on the stairs?” “I have a houseguest. I didn’t want the noise to wake him.” Okay. That made sense. I still hadn’t met the man, but Wills had run into him on the stairs once or twice when Vince had been taking him up to the attic apartment. “What does he look like, babe?” I’d asked, curious as to what kind of man Mark Vincent would actually bring to his own home. Wills had got that blank look, and then shrugged. “Oh, just your average, everyday-looking kind of guy.” Before I could press for more details, like height, weight, age, eye and hair color, and did it seem as if this guy cared about Vince, Wills’s lips had curled into the half grin that made me weak in the knees—I’d always thought that was a bunch of bullshit until the first time he’d turned it on me and my knees had become like jelly—and he’d given me an actual come-hither look and sauntered into the bedroom, lazily stripping off one article of clothing after another. My c**k had hardened, my tongue hung out, and I’d forgotten all about Vince’s friend. Now Vince set aside the grinder, his expression thoughtful. “Theo, I need a favor.” “You’ve got it.” I still felt I owed him for what he’d done for Paul. Vince claimed he’d had nothing to do with the death of the bastard who’d put Paul in the hospital last spring, but either way Shaw, or whatever the f**k his name really was, was dead, blown up when he’d tried to get into Vince’s apartment, which was why Vince was back here living in the attic apartment that had been his before he’d moved to Forest Heights. There was also the matter of the fee Paul had been rooked out of. An envelope addressed to him had come in the mail while he was still in the hospital. It contained a cashier’s check for fifteen hundred dollars. I’d had the feeling Vince was behind it, but he’d denied it when I’d asked him, and I’d dropped the subject. If he didn’t want anyone to know he was a sweetheart of a guy, his secret was safe with us. “What can I do for you?” “I’ve bought a condo in Aspen Reach. The woman who used to own it liked pink, and—” “Jesus! Don’t tell me you bought Delilah Carson’s place.” I’d heard through the grapevine it was on the market. I could have talked to the other rent boys and come up with a down payment for it, because Delilah had been well-liked by all of us, but her next of kin were real sleazes. They’d descended like vultures, turned their noses up at her possessions, and put the condo up for sale for three quarters of a million dollars. But a condo where a vicious murder had been committed? No one seemed to want it, and they’d had to keep dropping the price. I hoped Vince hadn’t been taken to the cleaners. “You’re familiar with it?” Vince asked. “Are you kidding? I was there!” I felt bad when I thought about how Delilah’s life had been snuffed out. She’d deserved better than that. “You were there, babe?” Wills had been lounging against the wall, looking amused, but at that, he straightened, his expression abruptly unamused. “Well, we’d tricked with her once or twice, and she called to ask if we’d mind working a threesome with her.” I wasn’t thrilled about what I’d done to support myself, but that was part of me. I would never deny it. “When was this?” His voice was as cold as the look on his face. “Oh, around the beginning of the year. Maybe a little earlier. So?” Wills spat a curse under his breath. He rarely swore. I felt my gut clench. I’d known it was going to happen sooner or later. I’d known it. Living with him was everything I’d always dreamed having a lover—a partner—would be. The s*x was great, but it was the little things he did for me…making repairs around the house, bringing home takeout when he knew I didn’t feel like cooking, going grocery shopping with me when I did, rubbing my feet when I complained they hurt… Having someone this special wasn’t supposed to happen to someone like me, though, someone who, while it turned out I wasn’t a murderer, had spent almost half my life peddling my ass. So I’d kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It seemed the other shoe had just dropped. “Oh, what? You’re worried I may have been f****d?” I wanted to strike back at him for making me believe he didn’t care about what I had done. “That was my job, smart guy! But just to set your mind at ease, I wasn’t f****d. That time.” I emphasized the fact that other times I had been f****d, and Wills turned pale. That’s right, bleed a little, asshole. The way I was bleeding. “I was in her crawl space, and I filmed it. Spike got to f**k this gorgeous babe’s ass while she deep throated Pretty Boy, and the two of them kissed while the john jerked off. Hot stuff, I wanna tell you. I made them a copy. They took it with them, but if you want me to look for the original…You could take it with you on one of your troubleshooting trips out of town and jerk off yourself.” “Don’t bother.” Just two words, but it was like having a bucket of ice water tossed in my face. “Mr. Vincent.” He nodded to his boss, then went back into the apartment. I could tell from the way he was walking that he was more than pissed. Well, what the f**k did he have to be pissed about? And what right did he have to be…to be… “Y’see, Vince?” My throat felt clogged with tears. “I knew he was living in a dream world. It’s dawning on him what I did, and he can’t deal with it.” “You think so?” “What else am I to think?” I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry. “Bascopolis, her murder was all over the front page of every newspaper in town around the beginning of the year.” Vincent sounded impatient. “You think maybe he was worried you could have been in her condo at the same time she was killed? That maybe it could have been your body found there as well?” “Yeah, but—” “You said you were up in the crawl space? How come?” “He was a new client. Delilah said she was a little unsure of him. After he left, she laughed and said she felt really silly about at how nervous the set up beforehand had made her, but I could see she was still nervous. I asked her if she wanted me to make copies of the tape. She said yes, and Spike begged me to make one for him and Pretty Boy too.” I tore at a cuticle. “She was dead before I had the chance to give her the original and the other copies.” “Yeah, well—” “Funny thing. I happened to see a picture of him in the Post a couple of weeks later.” If I thought about something else, talked about something else, maybe my heart would stop feeling as if it was cracking into bits. “Who, the john?” “Yeah. He was with the Pres in the photo, and he had his clothes on, but it was him.” I forced myself to laugh. I didn’t want anyone, not even Vince, to know how I was hurting. “And y’know what was even funnier?” “No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” I kept laughing. If I stopped…“The Pres was commending him for being such a morally upright member of the CIA.” The john who liked to wear long red wigs and women’s pink underwear. “Really.” For some reason that interested him. “Do you happen to remember his name?” “No. Sorry. You know I’m not into politics.” “What happened to the original tape?” I waved my hand vaguely. “It’s around somewhere.” “Mind looking for it for me?” “Sure.” I couldn’t imagine why he wanted it. He’d never struck me as the kind of man who got off on porn, but I’d never questioned the preferences of my clients, and even if Vince wasn’t a client, it was his business. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” “Uh…” I gnawed on my lip. I couldn’t stand the thought of Wills being willing to wash his hands of me. “You really think Wills was worried about me?” I should have been embarrassed by the hopefulness in my voice, but this meant too much to me. “I…I never even thought of that.” “Yeah, well, check with him before you start assuming you know what he’s thinking.” “Yeah, you’re right.” Had I been that wrong, or was I clutching at straws? “Oh, good luck with the condo. It really was pink.” Pink walls, pink carpeting, pink everything. I’d never known there were so many different shades of pink. “Thanks. It still is. If you have some time, would you be interested in overseeing the redecorating?” “I’d get to choose the colors and arrange all that neat furniture you bought? You bet!” Ever since I’d gone to Rockville with him and helped him select the furniture, I’d been itching to get my hands on it. And it would help distract me. “I’ll go to Home Depot and pick up some paint chips. Maybe I’ll pick up some power tools too. For Wills.” That should work. He’d loved the jigsaw his father had given him for his birthday a few weeks before. I’d give him a present, and he’d forget all about me having been a rent boy. “See ya, Vince,” I tossed over my shoulder as I hurried back into the apartment. Wills was in the kitchen, fussing with the coffee maker. He refused to meet my eyes. “Here, let me do that before you break it.” He turned away, still not meeting my eyes. “Look, Matheson. I was what I was. I can’t change that.” I’d sell my soul if I could. “I’m sorry it’s got your shorts in a twist, but…” Please don’t leave me. He spun around and stared at me, and I swallowed hard. There was anguish in his eyes. “D’you…d’you think I care two shits about what you did? What bothers me is how easily you…You could have been killed, Theo. I…I saw—” The pictures in the newspapers? Yeah. They had been graphic and gruesome. After seeing the first newspaper, I’d thrown it out and refused to allow any of them in the house. “Oh, babe. I’m sorry. I thought…” I put my arms around him, and for a long moment he held himself stiffly. But then a massive shudder ran through him, and his arms came around me. “You thought I’d walk out of your life. I won’t. I’m not going anywhere, Theo.” I wanted to ask if he’d promise, but that was stupid, not to mention juvenile. Instead I cleared my throat and asked, “What do you want for breakfast?” “You know what I really want? I want to go back to bed and pretend I never got out of it because it sounded like a machine gun was going off outside our front door.” We’d seen enough action movies to know what a machine gun sounded like. “Okay, then, let’s go. I was having a really good dream too. Maybe I can get it back.” I took his hand and led him back into the bedroom. “What was it about?” “You.” “Yeah?” A blush ran from mid-chest up to his hairline. He put his gun away, stripped off his sweatpants, and got back into bed. He patted the spot beside him. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”