Beyond Complicated (29 page)

Downstairs, I climbed into the back of Seth's BMW sedan expecting Kel to sit in front. I was tired, physicaly and emotionaly now, hungry for real food and I wanted to take another shower to wash the hospital smel off of me. I didn't protest when Kel slid in next to me for the drive back to Seth's apartment, I assumed. I mean we never exactly used my place and Seth's just felt more like ours. I let Kel pul me into his arms. I rested my head against his shoulder. "Can we get food? Al I've had to eat is tasteless roasted chicken or turkey cutlets. I need something with flavor and no cherry Jel-O. What is up with the cherry Jel-O? I haven't eaten that since I was a kid." Kel snorted.

"Okay, since you were a kid."

"I was never a kid. I was born an adult." He played with my hair, his tone dead serious. I thought about his life as I knew it, the incredibly smal part of it.

And after the diaper years I had to agree. He always seemed so much older than his young years. At four he was serious in a way that perplexed my mother. At ten he was so much more mature than I was at twenty-seven. It wasn't until recently that he started acting his age.

I held him to me, burying my face in his hair, inhaling his scent. I could see Seth watching us in the rearview. His eyes, cautious, curious. "What-A-Burger al right with you? It's on the way."

I nodded and leaned back against the seat, Kel's gentle hands exploring me as if he had to check every part of me to make sure I was whole. "I'm sorry you had a rough childhood," I said, finaly trying to make my body forget that his hands were so damned…

"yeah, baby, right there." He found a spot on my neck that I loved to have kissed. He smiled against my neck and latched on. Seth's gaze caught mine in the mirror, he smiled.

"The usual?" he asked, seeming to know us both wel enough to know what our usual would be at a burger place. Double with everything for me. Same for Kel, except for tomato. We both grunted a yeah.

It was a good thing Seth's car had limousine tinting in back, because by the time the order came out the window I was half naked with two fists ful of blond hair. I tried not to moan as I scooted low in the seat, moving toward the door. Kel folowed, his mouth on me, sucking me as if he couldn't get enough of me. Seth angled the mirror down and I could see his eyes on me as we stopped at the lights.

Traffic was light for a Monday night, we made it home in less than twenty minutes. Seth parked the car in his lot and after turning off the car he leaned over the seat. He reached for my hand and held it as I came, shooting Kel's mouth ful of scalding heat. Too much for him to swalow. He gagged at the force and cum spewed onto me. I didn't care. I lay breathless while he licked me clean.

Inside the apartment, we ate, and avoiding anything that had to do with the weekend then we stripped each other and stumbled to the bed. I needed to reconnect with them. Both of them. They were gentle. Al sweet caresses and lingering kisses. Kel took me first while Seth held me in his arms. They kissed over my head, whispered sweet encouragement to each other and to me. 'I love you' was said so many times. I love you, I love you, I love you. Kel puled out of me to finish and I licked him clean. I expected Seth to take his place, instead he roled me onto my back and positioned himself across my legs. His favorite position.

He rode me, slowly, his mouth next to mine, his sweet cries al for me and when he got close he leaned back for Kel to take him in his mouth. I finished inside him at the same time he fel limp onto my chest. Kel shared his spunky kisses with us. When we finaly turned off the lamp, it was nearly midnight. I didn't remember anything after that. I was warm and tucked safely between my men. Life couldn't get any better than this.

I would remember that two days later when I sat at a truck stop just off I-95 somewhere in Maryland. I'd picked up a new phone with a new number and left my old one on the nightstand in my room along with a note for the people I loved. I hadn't shed a tear yet but I knew once I made it to New York the enormity of what I'd done would sink in. But for now, this was best. Everyone would be fine. In time they would accept that this was the right thing to do. In time. In time I would alow myself to remember. But for now, I locked away the memory of that last night together and I puled back onto the interstate.

November in New York City was cold as hel.

I was colder than I ever remembered being in my life.

Inside and out. Thanksgiving was so close. Only a few days away now. And the closer the day came, the colder I became. "Liam, dammit, man, look at me!"

I looked up, my gaze locked with Caden's. His brown eyes were a shade off pissed. "Sorry," I said again.

"Just be stil and look at me, I want to see your pretty face while I work." Caden leaned over the top of the ladder he'd positioned above the bed and focused his camera. No sound came, but I could tel he was clicking shot after shot. "Turn your head to the left.

Hand on your chest. No don't move your legs I want…

that, hold it there."

I'd been with Caden for the better part of three weeks now as one job after another came open. The first for an actual fashion magazine, not a catalog or a gay men's mag, but a fashion mag, I'd worn clothes.

And now I wore a satin bed sheet and a smile. Okay, the smile was optional. Caden wanted me hard and shit it wasn't working. I felt like meat on a buffet. And I was cold. His damned studio was freezing, the portable heaters did little to penetrate the cold. Nipples hard, that I could do, but the dick wasn't cooperating and Caden was losing his patience. I'd begun to loathe him days ago.

"Liam, open your eyes. Work with me just a little, please." I heard him sigh, I also heard footsteps echoing in the large room. Caden's assistant was on a dinner run. "It's about time you showed up. I caled you nearly a week ago. He's been difficult. Wel, helo there, gorgeous." I heard Caden's tone change and the camera whirred quickly. I looked up to see Seth and Kel standing not far away and my heart raced franticaly.

"He's always difficult. There were last minute things to see to. Kely had finals. We couldn't drop everything because he's difficult." There was indifference in his voice.

I reached for the sheet, I was done for the day.

Possibly for good. "If you touch that sheet I wil come down there and kick your ass. Now lie down and look pretty. It's what I hired you to do."

"Fuck you, Caden," I said, but I didn't touch the sheet. Caden was a pissy little Italian with a bad attitude. You didn't cross Caden. You did what Caden told you to do and Caden would make you a star.

Cross Caden and you didn't work. It was how it worked.

"Not

my

type,

sweetie,

unless

you

spontaneously grew a set of tits I'm not even half interested." Caden twisted on the ladder, his camera now trained on the two blonds standing together. "Seth, who's your rent-boy and can I play with him for a while? I'l pay him for his time, of course."

"What's a rent-boy?" Kel cocked his head to stare up at Caden, aware of the camera on him he seemed to glow with the attention.

"You are kidding me, right? And that accent, oh, sweetie, are you for real? Seth, he's kidding, right?"

"'Fraid not, he's a smal town colege boy, not a big city prostitute. And he's mine so get your mind out of the gutter. He's not doing any of your skin mags."

"I have a deal with Ralph Lauren coming up.

How tal are you, sweetie? How much do you weigh?

Are those muscles in your thighs everywhere or just below the waist?"

"Six even, one seventy-five and I guess, what the hel is going on here?"

"And he's a natural blond too, oh be stil my heart. I want him, Seth. Strictly fashion, no skin. Maybe shirtless. Does he have any tats or piercings?"

"No," I shouted over the sound of Caden having an artistic orgasm. "Not him. Seth. Get him out of here."

"Oh, wel, look at you. Mr Freeze has a fire inside his heart after al." Caden turned the camera back to me. I could see his finger working the shutter. "Liam is mama bear and the twink is her cub. So what does that make Seth now? Papa bear? Ooh, kinky." He stopped clicking and looked at the camera. "Damn, battery died. Going to get a new camera, don't you fucking move from that spot."

Caden climbed down the ladder and went to stand beside Seth, they exchanged a few words and then Caden left the room. "Why are you here? How did you find me?"

"Caden caled on Monday. Wanted me to come see about you. I told him you were a big boy.

Why'd you leave? Your family is busted up. And… shit, Liam, if I weren't afraid of Caden I'd haul your ass out of that bed and kick it right now."

"You know why I left. It's best this way." I shivered, growing cold inside as I watched Kel's eyes.

He didn't speak. He just looked hurt. And that made my heart ache.

"Why? Because you said so? Who is this self-exile best for? Your family is stil dealing with the falout. Kel is stil dealing with his messed up family. You leaving didn't stop any of that. It just… I've thought a great many things about you in the past, but I never once thought of you as cowardly. And this is pure cowardice, Liam."

"I'm not going back." I knew it was pathetic. I couldn't face the truth. I knew I was a coward. "I have nothing left there. The rumors wil die down and people wil forget. Everyone is better off—"

"Bulshit!" This time it was Kel who spoke. The vehemence in his voice shocked me into silence. "You have everything there. Your whole life is there. Whether you want to admit that or not. I'm there. I thought you loved me. I thought you'd stay, for me. But that night, we brought you home, you said you loved us. Both of us. The whole time we made love, you were planning to leave. You fucking left me, Liam, again. When I needed you the most. You just fucking walked out on me. And Seth."

"I knew you would be fine, you have each other, you'l get over me. It's for the best." But it wasn't.

I knew this deep inside. I knew it when I packed my car and drove away. "And why did Caden cal you in the first place?"

"Maybe he was worried about you. Maybe if you looked in the damned mirror you'd see what the rest of us see. You've lost weight. You look thin, you're too pale, and you're not happy. Do you have any idea how expressive your face is? Your goddamned eyes.

Solid dul black. He sees it. I see it."

"The fucking camera loves him, and this new brooding Liam is hot as hel, but it's not you, sweetie. I caled Seth. I didn't know you two were split. I'm sorry." Caden came back with a new camera and climbed his damned ladder. "Ah, there's color in your face now, and fire in your eyes. That's it, sweetie, look at me just like that." He started flicking the camera again while I stared at him. "Lift your arm behind your head.

Not that one—"

"You know what, fuck this shit, I'm done. I'm freezing and I'm not lying here while the three of you harass the hel out of me."

"Then I'l take the boy, he's worth three of you anyway. Young, blond, with a kiler body. I'l make him rich. And he won't remember you, old man. Either one of them. Go on."

"I don't want him corrupted. I won't let you—"

"I get it, you love him, enough to tear me a new one, but Seth has him. My, my, Yin and Yang fighting over a boy-toy. I thought the two of you were joined at the hip. I thought the two of you were forever. You let some rent-boy come between you?"

"He's not a rent-boy, and he didn't come between us. He's ours, both of ours. Ours. And I'm theirs."

"Then why are you up here freezing your miserable ass off while they are back in Florida worrying about you?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," I shouted, aware that he'd yet to put the camera down.

What the hel was he seeing through that thing?

"Realy. And why are you suddenly alive? You came alive the second they walked into the room. You hadn't even seen them yet and you lost that hang dog look you've worn the past couple of weeks. Look, Liam, I love you, you're so goddamned gorgeous it isn't even funny, but, sweetie, nothing is worth this much suffering. Talk to them. Both of them. We'l finish up this shoot and then I'm kicking you out. It's for the best."

"For who, you?"

"Seth, right side and don't take the suit off—my god, when did you become a suit? Kid, left side, leather and suit, shit." I had no idea what Caden was up to but Seth set a knee on the bed, anger in his eyes. Kel didn't move, he looked up at Caden with indecision in his eyes.

"What are you up to?" I narrowed my eyes as I stared into his lens. "It won't work."

"It already has, your dick is rock hard and your eyes are shooting blue fire. Seth lay your head on his shoulder, put your hand on his hip, don't move the sheet, yeah, that looks great. What's your name, sweetie?" Caden turned the camera on Kel as he spoke.

"Kely, I don't…" he seemed so young and so lost.

"Do you love him?" Caden asked softly, from his lofty spot where he played God.

"Yes, he's my world, I need him. We need him.

Seth and I aren't whole without him."

"Then, you need to convince him, not me. He's a captive audience. My gift. Convince him."

Kely, because that's what he caled himself, crawled onto the bed slowly, uncertainty in his eyes.