Breaking the Rules (25 page)

“Why don’t you just say what they want to hear?” Ben asked. “I mean, just to get
out
of here …”

“They make you chant things,” the boy said. “Over and over again. Like
These urges I feel aren’t natural
. And
My feelings are bad and wrong, and if I don’t stop them, then I am working hand in hand with the devil …
Oh, here’s a good one.
My parents are ashamed of me, but I will work to make them proud
. I don’t need to chant that—the first
part—forty thousand times, day in and day out, to know that it’s true. I say,
My parents are ashamed of me, but not half as much as I’m ashamed of them
. Maybe you can do it, new boy. Maybe you can repeat their lies, and get out of here undamaged. But they keep you hungry, and they don’t let you sleep, and they freeze you in tubs of ice, and heat you in saunas until your brain feels cooked, and then the things they make you tell yourself start sounding like they might be true and … Don’t bother trying to kill yourself. It doesn’t work.”

He held up his bandaged arms so Ben could see them better. “Not that I actually wanted to die. In fact, I have real incentive to live. Two words: Clark Volborg loves me, too. Okay, that was more than two words, but you get the picture. I thought slitting my wrists would get me into a real hospital with real doctors with real degrees who would actually help me escape. But my parents signed off on a form that … See, I’m a high flight risk, so they opted—completely—for inhouse care. God help me if I get appendicitis. God help me …”

“What’s your name?” Ben asked softly.

“My old name or my new one?”

“You have a new name?” Ben asked.

“You will, too,” the boy told him. “They’ll give you one, or maybe use your middle name. My middle name was Devereaux, which, let’s face it, was just too gay. So they call me Chip, which is pretty stupid. Like Chip isn’t totally gay, too. Although, look at me. You could call me Motherfucker Tittylover, and because that was
my
name? It would be
totally
gay.”

“What’s your real name?” Ben asked.

“Peter Sinclair, the fucking third, of the Greenwich Sinclairs. But don’t bother, we’ll both get demerits if you use it. I see you got the double cuff. That’ll change to a single after they give you the full list of don’ts. As in don’t whack off unless you’re in the special whack-off stall in the bathroom—it’s plastered with pictures of naked women. All those breasts, it’s disconcerting, and you’ve got to keep your eyes open, and yes, there’s a camera. They’ll be watching. Particularly Weird
Don. He’s probably monitoring our camera right now—you are
so
his type.” He laughed. “Look at you, you believe me. Well, you
should
believe me about Weird Don. But the whack-off stall? This is an abstinence-only program,
son
, and abstinence means abstinence. You so much as scratch your balls and you’ll be walking around with your hands cuffed behind your back, faster than you can sing a chorus of ‘It’s Raining Men.’

“Of course, rumor has it that the abstinence rule is dropped during the last week, right before graduation. They give you Viagra and they bring in these girls and—You have a boyfriend?”

Ben shook his head. “No.”

“So maybe it’ll be okay with you,” Peter said. “To hook up with some twenty-dollar whore for a five-minute session, just to get the hell out of here. The drugs’ll make it happen, and you can lie back, close your eyes, and think of England. But me, I made a promise to Clark. I made a
vow …
”

He started to cry, a soft, keening sound that he tried to hide, that sent chills down Ben’s back.

“I’m getting out of here,” Ben said. “Soon. My sister, she’s going to come get me.”

The quiet weeping turned to forced laughter. “Dream on, new boy. Because unless she’s got an AK-47, she won’t get past the front door. If she can even find the front door …”

“She’ll find me,” Ben whispered. “I know she will.”

But as Peter Sinclair the fucking third finally fell silent, as his breathing turned from ragged to slow and steady, Ben had his doubts.

The call came around 0115, as Eden dozed beside him in the front seat of the rental car.

At around 2100, Izzy had driven them over to the main road to get coffee and sandwiches, to gas up the car, and take a bathroom break—but in truth to find an ATM, and a drugstore to buy more condoms,
since they’d used the only one he’d had. When they’d returned, Eden’s mother still wasn’t home.

And as eager as he was to break open the entire box of condoms and give his loving wife the replay that she claimed she wanted, it was obvious that she was struggling to keep her eyes open after a hard day of dancing naked for the teeming masses.

Still, she’d fought it, until he’d convinced her to go to sleep by promising her he’d wake her in a few hours to take a shift watching the house. Which, of course, he didn’t do. She wasn’t the only liar in the car.

As Izzy’s cell rang in the darkness, Eden awoke, taking a sharp breath in as she realized where she was and who she was with and remembering—no doubt—what she’d recently done with him.

“It’s Dan,” Izzy told her as she pushed her hair back from her face. He answered the call. “Yo,” he said, “Gillman. I’m here with your sister. I’ve got you on speaker.”

“Great.” Danny sounded exhausted and as if there was nothing about this situation that was even remotely great. Still, Izzy gave him points for trying. “Jenn and I are in a cab, on the way to JFK. Our flight gets into Las Vegas a little before 0900.”

“You want me to pick you up?” Izzy asked.

Dan sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you. That would be terrific. World Airlines, flight 576. Although … I assume you’ve got a rental? Not your truck?”

“It’s a rental,” Izzy told him. “Considering I came straight from Germany, getting my truck would’ve been—”

“Does it seat five?” Dan asked. “Comfortably? I mean, enough to make the road-trip back to San Diego?”

“Hmm,” Izzy said as turned around to look at the backseat, even as Eden said, “Yes. We can absolutely make it work. Ben’s really skinny. You
are
talking about the four of us and Ben. Please say yes.”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “I just spoke to Ivette.”

“Oh, thank God!” Eden clasped her hands and brought them up
to her mouth, like someone who’d just been told by an expert from the
Antiques Roadshow
that Great-Grandpa’s collection of outhouse seats was worth fifty thousand dollars.

“She’s been working as a home health aide,” Dan continued as tears filled Eden’s eyes, “and her current client, well, he’s dying. He thinks she’s his dead wife, and he wants her there, so … She’s been pulling a lot of around-the-clock shifts. Who knew she had that in her? Anyway, I got her to agree that Ben would be better off with me, living down in San Diego. So …”

The tears overflowed. “Thank you. Oh, Danny, thank you.”

“I, uh, didn’t mention you.”

Eden nodded as she fiercely wiped her eyes, as she sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “That’s probably best.”

She didn’t let it show in her voice, but Izzy didn’t miss the regret and disappointment that flashed across her face as she struggled to rein in her emotions. In a family filled with massive fuck-ups, she was perceived to be the black sheep and always would be. Although Ben, being gay, had to be running a close second these days. Dan, however, was the golden boy and clearly had retained that elevated status with their mother.

That had to be hard as hell not to resent, but she didn’t. She was obviously beyond grateful that Danny had appeared and used his shining superpowers to help her set their little brother free.

And Izzy couldn’t help himself. He reached for her, gently smoothing her hair back from her face, tucking a stray strand behind her ear, as Danny’s voice continued from the tiny speaker of his phone.

“But I am going to count on you, Eden,” her brother told her, tightly, stiffly, almost formally, as she turned and looked at Izzy—an expression that he couldn’t read on her impossibly pretty face. “To be there. To take care of him when I’m not around. To keep him out of trouble. To keep yourself out of trouble, too.”

And okay, that was a pretty dickish thing to say. Izzy made a face, but Eden turned away, pulling free from Izzy’s hand as she nodded, even though Dan couldn’t possibly see her.

“I know,” she said. “I will.”

“Maybe you’ll do for Ben what you couldn’t do for yourself,” Dan said, which was a
really
dickish thing to say.

But Izzy held his tongue as Eden said, “Danny, I promise—”

He brushed it off. “We’ll talk more when I get there. Is your place big enough for us to stay with you while we’re in town?”

“There’s a pullout couch, in the living room,” she said, glancing over at Izzy again, almost apologetically this time. “I don’t know how comfortable it is, but … You can have the bedroom.”

“That’s not necessary,” Dan said. “And it’s only for one night. We’ll leave for San Diego in the morning, but I’m looking to save money, so … A three-bedroom apartment won’t be cheap.”

Three-bedroom? Wait a minute. Was Dan expecting Eden to live with him and Ben, too? Somehow Izzy had imagined Dan sharing a place with his brother, and Eden having her own separate apartment.

Or—yeah—moving back in with him.

Holy shit, sometime between
Oh, yes
and
Oh, YES
, Izzy had apparently gotten a little ahead of himself.

“I’ve got some savings,” Eden was telling her brother, clearly on board with the whole three-bedroom apartment plan, which left Izzy absolutely out in the cold and crying bitter tears into his pillow as he remained decidedly alone and unlaid. Unless she was actually thinking they could all live together like some really dysfunctional version of
Full House
. “Plus, I’m working full-time. I’ll help pay the bills. And if we need to, Ben and I can share a room.”

And … Izzy was back to weeping and unlaid. Okay, then. She definitely wasn’t factoring him into any of her plans. Good to know.

“We’ll talk when I get there,” Dan said again.

“What about Ben?” Eden asked. “Where is he? Can we go pick him up?”

“He’s at a place called Crossroads, right there in Las Vegas. I’ve already spoken to them. Ivette made arrangements for Ben to be released to me, so … We’ll go there directly from the airport. Look, we’re here, I gotta go. We’ll see you in a few.”

“Thank you,” Eden said again, but Dan had already cut the connection.

Izzy pocketed his phone. And then there they sat, in the darkness.

“Thank God,” she murmured again, and he knew she was, once again, fighting tears.

“You know,” Izzy finally said, “sometimes it’s okay to let loose. Sometimes the news is just too freaking miraculous.”

She laughed, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “It
is
miraculous, isn’t it? I almost can’t believe it could be this easy.”

“Every now and then,” Izzy told her, “the good guys catch a break.” He put the car into gear and eased away from the curb. “No point sitting here anymore. Shall we … get that room at Caesars Palace?”

She snorted her disgust. “I’m
not
going to make you spend that kind of money when I have a perfectly good apartment.”

Izzy cleared his throat. “One that you haven’t exactly invited me to.”

“We’re still married,” she reminded him. “Which makes half of everything I own yours. Not that I own the apartment …”

“Does that include half of your stripper money?” he asked, not just because he was an asshole, but because he was currently a jealous asshole. He was here to save the day in return for a whole lot of steaming-hot sex, only the day had been saved very nicely without him.

Eden looked at him sharply. It
was
the deal they’d made, back before they’d taken their vows. She’d even signed a prenup. Half of everything that was hers was his, and none of what was his would ever belong to her.

He’d had no intention of ever upholding the agreement. He’d only drafted and signed the damn thing because she was adamant about not taking advantage of him. She’d insisted upon it, because the truth was that she only married him for his health care and for the chance to give her baby his name.

Not that either of them had ever expected her to come into any great sums of cash.

But now, as she sat in the car beside him, she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Of course.”

It was clear his days were numbered. Still, if he were going to take whatever he could get for as long as he could get it, he’d have to work to be a whole lot less peevish.

“Yeah,” he said, “no, sweetheart, see, I was kidding. It was just a bad joke.”

“We had a deal,” Eden told him quietly.

“I’m not going to take your money,” he said. “That’s not what I want, okay?” He looked over at her as he pulled out onto the main road, and she was watching him. “You know what I want.”

She nodded. And then she reached over and put her hand on his package, grabbing hold of him right through his pants.

“I know because I want it, too,” she said, her voice even huskier than usual. “How about you drive this thing a little faster?”

Neesha woke up with a jolt as the apartment door slammed shut, and her heart pounded as she realized that she was no longer alone.

She’d left the light on in the kitchen—the dim one over the stove. It was enough for her to see that it was Ben’s sister Eden who’d come home, and she wasn’t alone. She was with the big man that Neesha had seen out on the sidewalk. He’d found her and … He’d bought her apparently, because he was kissing her and touching her as if he owned her.

Eden was pulling off her clothes as if she couldn’t wait for it to be over with—Neesha knew what that was like. She slipped off the couch and huddled behind its arm, near the wall, praying that she wouldn’t have to witness Eden’s shame.

But the man started to laugh. “Hey,” he said. “Sweetheart. Slow down. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s do this right. You got a bed in here, somewhere? Because as tempting as it might be to knock your pictures off the walls and/or get a rug burn on my ass—”