The Broken Triangle (27 page)

Maybe.

Pushing aside his vague discontent, he settled down to blow Riley, knowing it would put Riley in a good mood and make him less likely to push Vin into a decision Vin wasn’t ready to make. Living over the bar worked for him. He was getting the place to look better, and it was the way he wanted it to be. Riley’s loft was already perfect—an impersonal, professional version of perfect that left Vin cold.

Dump though it was, Patrick’s basement was crammed with personality, from the poster-covered walls to the gaudy splashes of color from his clothes hanging from a stretched rope because Patrick didn’t own a closet.

“Honey, I came out of one once,”
he’d said when Vin had asked him about it,
“and I’m never going back in, not even my clothes. This way they get air, and the creases drop out.”

An iron was something else on the list of items Patrick lived without, but so did Vin, for that matter.

Riley’s hand resting on his head brought his attention back to his current task. He knew he could make Riley come in three minutes tops, and once he had, they could relax for the evening, just take it easy and not talk so much. Vin didn’t want to argue. He wanted peaceful, happy times, with lots of laughing. Like when he and Patrick hung out, except with a boyfriend.

“Yeah, like that. You’re so hot when you suck my dick.” Riley’s fingers twisted in Vin’s hair, pulling it harder than was comfortable. He might be into the pain that came with piercings and tattoos, but he didn’t like it with his sex. “Christ, yeah.”

Vin’s lips were slick with saliva, and he had to remember to breathe on the upstroke if he wanted to breathe at all. Riley’s hips lifted, not that he could do much with Vin’s weight draped partly over his lap, and Vin could tell he was getting close to coming. He got his hand around the base of Riley’s cock to provide a little more stimulation that way, and Riley groaned, bitter fluid flooding Vin’s mouth.

He couldn’t rid himself of the belief it was rude not to swallow, so he choked it down and wiped his mouth as he pulled back, glancing up at Riley. “How was that? Was it good?”

“Are you kidding? Of course it was good. You’re good.” Riley petted his hair affectionately. “My sweet little boyfriend.”

“I’m not little,” Vin protested.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Riley stretched to grab some tissues from the nearby box and wiped himself as Vin moved out of the way. “Should I do you?”

Vin was only half-hard; he’d been too distracted to be into it. “Maybe later,” he said diplomatically. Riley might suggest fucking him again, and that wasn’t high on his list of turn-ons. “Want to watch TV?”

“I was thinking we could meet a couple of the guys for drinks later,” Riley said.

“I have to work tonight,” Vin reminded him.

Riley shrugged offhandedly, then gave a sigh as theatrical as any of Patrick’s. “I guess I’ll go on my own, then.”

The sigh rasped Vin’s nerves. “Look, I know it’s not ideal, but it’s my job. Would you be getting this pissed off if I worked in a restaurant? Because their hours are as bad as mine.”

“I just don’t see why you can’t be more ambitious. Why you’re settling for awful hours, crappy pay, and a dive to work in.”

Stung by the insult to a place he considered home, Vin retorted, “The Square Peg is not a dive!” He remembered something Ben had once said and repeated it. “It’s the heart of the neighborhood and a safe place for people like us.”

Riley flicked his fingers dismissively. “I don’t need to go to a gay bar to feel safe, and I don’t know why your bosses insist on limiting themselves with that label. Getting a reputation for being somewhere to go to get picked up isn’t helping them or the neighborhood. It’s no wonder—”

“What?” Vin demanded, dull dismay choking him as he finished Riley’s sentence in his head.
Let me be wrong, God, please.
“No wonder what?”

“That some people,” Riley said carefully, “think it would have been better if the place wasn’t there. It’s not the right neighborhood for a place like that.”

“Some people?” Vin hitched himself a few inches away from Riley, putting space between them but not yet ready to get up and leave. Not yet. “At least have the balls to say what you really mean.”

“Fine. Tony Carter and his friends. I’m not saying what Marco did is excusable, because it’s not. I’m saying I can understand how he got the idea that he was doing people a favor. Places like that encourage the kind of stuff we should be avoiding.”

Screw it. Vin stood, so angry he wanted to hit something. Someone. “What kind of stuff? Feeling safe? Being able to have a couple of drinks with some friends without worrying that some homophobe is going to beat you up because you touched your boyfriend’s knee?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it!” Riley stood too, bouncing on his toes as if he was preparing to fight.

“Then what
do
you mean? Spell it out! I didn’t go to college like you. Didn’t get to vacation around the world expanding my cultural horizons or whatever you said it did.” Words heated by resentment boiled over, sputtering out of his mouth, old wounds, imperfectly healed, bleeding again. “What did your friends call me at school? Half wetback, all loser? How many times did they say that around you, and you grinned and let it go?”

Riley’s mouth hung open for a moment. He had a piece of cashew stuck between two teeth, Vin noted absently. “Wait, what? You know I stuck up for you when they were being racist assholes, and anyway, that was years ago! Why are you bringing it up now? Jesus, let it go.”

“I can’t,” Vin said. “I don’t even think I want to.”

“You can. You’re making yourself crazy over nothing.” Riley didn’t seem to know whether to plead with him or be mad. “This isn’t a big a deal. Being gay isn’t as important as other stuff.”

“What?” Vin gaped at him. “Who are you?”

“Same guy I’ve always been.” Riley spread his hands out at his sides,
love me or leave me
, and his heart sinking, Vin knew his choice was made. “Don’t be so unreasonable.”

“I’m not being unreasonable,” Vin said. “And if you’re the same guy you’ve always been, then I’ve been wrong all this time. We aren’t right for each other at all.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” Riley went from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye, folding his arms across his chest in a gesture of rejection. “Fine! You’re too screwed up for me, anyway. At least now I can go to Marco’s appeal without worrying how you’ll react.”

“His what?” Vin took a step back. He couldn’t breathe past the clog of emotions in his chest, a hard mass of it, making his heart hammer erratically. He could still taste Riley when he swallowed, the acrid tang of spunk lingering as it always did. The abrupt change left him feeling humiliated. He’d serviced Riley, placating him with a blowjob. He wanted to spit out the bitterness, leave Riley’s white carpet stained. “How can he appeal? He did it!”

“Not to get released, just a sentence reduction or better conditions. They’re basing it on extenuating circumstances. State of mind at the time. Peer pressure.” Riley shrugged as if it didn’t make much difference which option Marco’s lawyer went for. “They want me as a character witness.”

Vin wasn’t naive. Arson was a federal crime, and Marco wasn’t getting out of his punishment, but there were ways to lessen the ordeal for those with influence and the money to back it up.

A rich kid with a powerful father was in a cell, surrounded by men who’d see him as fresh meat to fuck with and bully.
Can’t have that. Let’s pull strings, agree he’s been naughty, let his sentence get reduced, his stay in prison be as comfortable as it gets.

“And you were going to do it?”

“It came up in conversation,” Riley said, evading the question. “We were friends, you know. Not recently, but at one point. I’m loyal to my friends.”

“This is about your father and his business, not you and Marco.” Vin’s chest felt heavy with grief, but somehow it was easier to breathe now. He stood tall and straight, head up, shoulders back. “You’re the perfect witness for them if you cooperate. Gay. Dating me. No one could say you were biased toward Marco. Whatever you said to help him would count double because you’ve got every reason to hate him.”

“I’d never say he was in the right for doing what he did. That was fucked-up. But they’re not going to ask me. They don’t care what I think about that, just what I know about his morals or whatever.”

“Yeah, burning down a business and almost killing a bunch of people, including me, makes him a paragon of morality.” Vin didn’t try to hide the bitterness he felt.

“He screwed up, but that doesn’t mean he should be in prison. He could do community service or something, you know, to make up for it.”

“There’s nothing that will make up for it. Shane almost died. If you could have seen the look on Ben’s face—” Vin shook his head. “Never mind. I forgot. You don’t care, because the Square Peg is, what, a dive bar?” He couldn’t believe this was happening. To go from that moment when he’d seen Riley again at the bar, that perfect moment of hope and clarity, to this in the space of two months was killing him. “I was stupid, wasn’t I?”

“What do you mean?” Riley tilted his head, frowning.

“Thinking this could work, you and me. It can’t. We’re too different.”

“We don’t have to be,” Riley said. “Your life, it could be different.”

“You mean more like yours.”

“I mean more normal. You’re not stupid. You could have any job you wanted, a regular job. Move in with me, get a nicer car…”

“I don’t want to change,” Vin said, as bleak and cold as the weather. “I like who I am. I thought you did too.”

“I did,” Riley said, then winced as the words registered. “I mean, I do.”

“Not enough.” Vin went over to the door. He slipped on his winter boots and his jacket, then wrapped his scarf around his neck while Riley watched him from a couple of feet away.

“So that’s it? You’re ending it?”

“You did that.”

Riley took a few steps toward Vin, then paused, irresolute. “Years of waiting for me and you got bored with me after two months?”

“No. Not bored.” Vin hesitated, his hand on the door. “And if it helps, I’m not angry with you. Just disappointed. And more with myself for not seeing you clearly. You were nice to me at school, and I thought that meant something. Maybe it did. But I gave you too much credit for it.”

“Fine,” Riley snapped. “But don’t think you can come crawling back in a couple of days when you realize what a mistake you made, because when you leave, that’s it. It’s over.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Vin made himself open the door and walk down the hallway without looking back.

He knew who he was. No way was he changing. Not for Riley, not for anyone. He’d decided what to do, and he was standing by that decision.

No matter how much it hurt.

He felt too terrible to appreciate it when his van started despite the freezing temperatures, and he barely noticed that his hands were ice-cold. It was a relief to pull into his space in the tiny parking lot behind the Square Peg and feel like he was home. The bar welcomed him with warmth and the smell of hops and lime juice.

“Hey, Vin! You’re early. Your shift doesn’t start until—” Shelly got a look at his face and stopped dead in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”

Vin hadn’t realized he was so transparent. “Riley and I broke up.”

“What?” She sounded horrified. “Sit down. I’ll get you a ginger ale.”

His teeth were chattering, not from cold but a nervous chill. The people closest to him gave him curious looks but didn’t comment. Shelly glared at them anyway and put her arm around Vin’s shoulders, shepherding him to a quiet table in a corner. “There. Or do you want to go up to your place?”

It would be so quiet up there. Quiet and empty. He shook his head. “The drink would be great, thanks.”

Shelly patted his arm and left.

His drink arrived on a tray carried by Dave, along with a bowl of vegetable soup and a warm buttered roll on a plate. Dave sat down across from Vin and pushed the soup closer when Vin didn’t touch it. “Go on. Homemade. You’ll like it.”

“W-will I?” He’d take a spoonful and end up wearing it if he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.

“Yeah. You will.” Dave sounded so definite about it that Vin picked up the spoon and scooped up some broth with chunks of potato and carrot in it. He tried again, this time getting liquid, and sipped. It warmed his mouth, and the act of swallowing helped to calm him, but he felt frozen, as if his body had been injected with whatever the dentist used before he drilled into a cavity.

“More.” Dave could be as bossy as Ben in a quiet way. Vin nodded obediently because it was easier than arguing, and drank his soup in small, careful sips, pretending it was important not to spill a drop. The bread was harder to deal with, but he washed it down with the ginger ale.

Dave sighed. “Okay, now you don’t look like you’re about to pass out. Good.”

“It was such a shock,” Vin tried to explain.

“Two-timing you? Deciding he wasn’t gay after all? Moving to Europe?”

Dave’s deadpan delivery of options was funny, but Vin didn’t let himself smile. Hysteria would follow, and he worked here. He didn’t want the customers pointing him out as that flake who caused a scene in the bar.

“The asshole who set fire to the place is appealing to get his sentence reduced. Riley’s going to testify about what a great guy he is.” Saying it, Vin felt ashamed, tainted by association. “He doesn’t even believe that. It’s business. His dad and Marco’s work together. Scratch each other’s backs. Riley’s doing this for money.” He turned the spoon in his hand, cheap metal, but the handle was clean and bright. “That makes it worse.”

“Yeah.” Dave glanced back past the bar toward the office. “Don’t tell Shane, unless you really want something to be shocked about.”

“I wouldn’t,” Vin assured him. “But he’ll hear about it anyway. If it works, at least.”

Dave nodded at Shelly. “Yeah. I’m gonna get back to work before these guys start rioting over a lack of fries and mozzarella sticks. You hang out down here if it helps.”