Wild Summer (8 page)

A cloud of dry ice glowed as it flowed out from the stage and around the tables and chairs at the front. A figure appeared on the stage—a winged apparition, head bowed, arms crossed over a slight chest, still as a statue. As the lights slowly began to glow brighter, the figure looked up and began to move his delicate wings, dispersing the dry ice, and then, hesitantly, he began to dance.

Crash stared. Even though the figure’s hair was black, and he had enough makeup on to be almost unrecognizable, Crash knew it was Summer. It was the way he moved, the way he held himself, the fucking indestructible bright thread that glowed between them.

Crash was aware of Lou turning his head to look back across the table at him, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the stage—he wouldn’t look away if the whole place was burning down.

The sudden hand on his arm almost had him snapping out a completely out-of-character retort. But if Lou noticed, he didn’t let on.

“You stare at the boy like that, you’d better watch out for his boyfriend.”

Lou inclined his head toward the back of the room, to where Ren, looking completely unchanged since the last time Crash had seen him, was leaning languidly back against the wall, watching Summer’s performance. “I’ve heard he can get quite nasty.”

Swallowing hard, Crash looked back at Summer. Fear and memories filled his head, and he had to remind himself he wasn’t a kid any longer. He was an adult now, so much stronger and taller than the kid that he’d been. The kid too scared to stand up for himself and Summer. Even though he couldn’t hear the music, he knew the beat Summer danced to as he stretched his arms into the air, naked beneath the thin buttonless shirt he was wearing. It was hardly a surprise that Summer was still with Ren, but Crash just didn’t know what on earth he was going to do now. He could hardly walk up to Summer as he was performing, or go find him backstage after and risk Ren walking in on them and Summer suffering the consequences. What if Summer saw him now and fucked up his performance? Crash was sure Ren would go ballistic. He could wait outside until Summer finished. But it was likely that Ren would be with him then too.

For the first time, Crash regretted coming here. He was certain Summer would want nothing to do with him—he was still with Ren, after all. Anything could have caused the bruises on his face.

And then he remembered Tom’s words before he walked away, and the uneasiness inside him refused to be placated. Tom seemed to care for Summer, and Summer had trusted him enough to tell him about Crash. Maybe Tom would help him.

Letting himself have one long last look, drinking in as much of the beautiful boy on stage as his memory would allow—but knowing he would never have enough, even if he spent all his days like this—Crash slipped out of his chair and backed away from the table. The whole room was watching Summer’s act now. Even the bartenders had stopped their endless glass wiping to stand and watch. As carefully as he could, Crash backed into the door that led to the kitchens and edged himself through the skinny opening he’d made, hoping no one—especially not Ren—would notice.

After the darkness of the club, the kitchens were bright, busy, and unbearably hot. Tom was loading the dishwashers in an alcove. He looked up in surprise when Crash said his name.

“You’re a good friend to Summer, right?”

“Yes,” Tom said, straightening up and wiping his hands on the dishcloth tucked in his pocket. “Though I don’t see him outside of work because, well… it’s difficult.” He paused. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I just… it might get him into trouble seeing me…. Could you give him something from me?” Shakily Crash scribbled down his phone number, where he was staying, and what time he was leaving tomorrow. He added a few other words as well—words he hoped to God Tom wasn’t nosy enough to read. Once he’d finished, he folded the paper into a tiny square.

Tom took it and smiled—the smile seemed to be an honest one. He didn’t look like someone who would go running to Ren—he didn’t even work for the man—and he looked as though he knew something of Summer’s troubles.

“I’ll put it in his dressing room if I don’t catch him on my break,” he said.

Crash walked back to his hotel room in a daze. Guilt still loomed large, and his conscience berated him that he’d left the club because he was afraid and that he should have stayed and spoken to Summer face-to-face—a note could get lost, fall into the wrong hands. This was the coward’s way out. Walking away was the easy thing to do.

Except it wasn’t. He would much rather have spoken to Summer, and now he would have to nervously wait, not knowing if the reason Summer didn’t call was because he couldn’t or because he didn’t want to.

The hotel smelled airless and stale. Kicking off his shoes, Crash sank back onto the bed, laying his hands out above his head and staring up at the shadowed ceiling. He rested his phone on his chest so he would feel its vibration—if it did vibrate—and waited. He didn’t imagine sleep would ever come.

Before….

“I
WOULD
ask you to stay out here,” Summer said, pushing Christopher gently against the wall of the alley.

The way Summer’s skinny hipbones were digging into the top of Christopher’s thigh gave him a hard-on. “But I know you’re not going to. I know you’ll follow me down there anyway.” Summer smiled with his eyes, all light and mischief, and Christopher knew he didn’t mind, really. “Just… let me do the talking in there, all right? You don’t need to be my knight in shining armor, okay? They don’t always treat me nicely, but I can handle it. I’m a big boy. I’m just biding my time before I can get Sky out of this place.”

Summer looked around at the alleyway, at the sun’s brightness above them. “Trust me,” he mouthed, locking his beautiful eyes on Christopher’s.

And how could Christopher not?

A squat, bald-headed bouncer stood at the entrance to the club. Summer spoke briefly to him, and he let them pass, fixing his pale blue eyes on Christopher as if memorizing his face.

After being outside in the sunshine, it took a moment for Christopher’s eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the club. The carpet was dark beneath their feet, and equally dark flock wallpaper lined the stairs—Christopher let his fingers trace the shape of it as they descended, fear bunching up in his stomach. He didn’t like this place. And what Summer had said about them not treating him nicely here made him want to take Summer’s hand and suggest they forget the whole thing. He’d rather live without his meager belongings than risk Summer being hurt by anyone. But it felt too late now. They were in the club. It was too late to run.

At the bottom of the stairs, Summer pushed open a door into the heart of the club. The room was large, with a stage at one end, tables and chairs forming an arc around it, and a bar at the side. Two men in their thirties were at the bar, but the rest of the room was empty.

Summer turned his head and spoke so quickly Christopher almost missed the words. “The guy with red hair is Ren. I’ll get your stuff. Wait here.”

But how could Christopher wait there when Summer looked so tense and terrified?

He followed right behind, watching the way Ren turned as they approached, looking Summer up and down. As soon as they were close enough, Ren’s arm snaked out and grasped Summer roughly around the waist, dragging him close and claiming his mouth.

Feeling sick, Christopher looked away. Part of it was jealousy—and he hated that he felt that way—but part of it was also that he couldn’t bear to see Summer pushed around as if he didn’t have a choice.

“Who is this?” Ren asked, abruptly ending the kiss.

He gestured at Christopher dismissively, hard eyes glaring, one hand possessively rubbing the crease of Summer’s backside through his jeans. With his long red hair tied in a ponytail and his narrowed blue eyes, he was striking and as cold as ice.

“Christopher,” Christopher replied.

“I didn’t ask you!” Ren’s eyes flashed, and his hand came out so quickly Christopher was unable to avoid the blow.

He cupped his mouth in shock, tasting blood. It didn’t even occur to him to retaliate. He was already tall and strong, and he should have been able to put up a pretty good fight. But he just stood there.

Pushing Ren’s arm away, Summer looked utterly distraught as his eyes darted between them. Christopher could see he was pleading with Ren, but he could only catch the odd word or phrase, like “please… don’t… just wants his stuff… he’s just a baby… I promise….”

“You been fucking him?” Ren now directed his anger at Summer.

Vigorously, Summer shook his head. But perhaps whatever was between them was as obvious to everyone else as it was to Christopher.

“Want to see a little show, Christopher? Want to see how easy this little slut is?”

Summer shook his head, and Ren slapped him. Some protective urge Christopher had never felt before flared in his chest, but his legs refused to move him forward to shove Ren away like he wanted to. The man who’d been talking to Ren moved to grab Christopher from behind. Christopher tried to struggle out of his tight grasp, but he could barely hold himself up, and he was forced to watch as Ren turned Summer around to face Christopher and pulled his T-shirt off over his head, exposing Summer’s bare chest. With one hand he stroked the front of Summer’s trousers, and with the other he pulled one of Summer’s nipple rings so hard the flesh around it pulled taut, and Summer arched away from him.

Christopher bowed his head, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to disappear. It was the worst moment of his short life. Someone he cared for deeply was being hurt, and he couldn’t do anything.

The man holding Christopher jerked his head up, slapping him until he opened his eyes. He caught Summer’s gaze and held it, watching how determined not to cry he looked even as tears spilled down his cheeks. Summer’s expression right then would stay with him always.

It would haunt him.

Ren played, and Summer’s body responded. Christopher had never seen anyone turned on by pain. And Summer looked torn apart, humiliated, yet unable to stop his body’s reaction.

“He likes it rough,” Ren sneered at Christopher. “Perhaps you should stick around until later on, then you can see how rough it can get. A little pain is a turn-on….”

But when Ren pulled Summer’s hair, Summer looked as though he was in more than a little pain.

“Stop it!” Christopher yelled, distraught, momentarily squeezing his eyes shut again, unable to watch Summer being used as if he were nothing.

Without warning Ren stopped and shoved Summer away so hard he stumbled against a table and fell to the floor. Looking disinterested, Ren flung a plastic bag at Christopher. The bag contained his wallet and phone—the things Summer had stolen yesterday.

Yesterday seemed so fucking far away now.

“Get out of here,” Ren said, raising his hands as if he were shooing animals.

Immediately the arms holding Christopher withdrew, though Ren’s booted foot delivered a swift kick to his stomach, leaving him curled into a ball, winded.

After hurriedly swiping the bag off the floor in front of him, Summer grabbed Christopher’s arm and, with inhuman strength, dragged him across the floor to the stairwell, barely letting Christopher get to his feet.

Christopher just felt numb.

He was aware of ascending the stairwell, walking past the bouncer, of being outside in the painful sunlight, of walking a twisting turn of steps, of stopping, the greasy alley wall against his back… but it didn’t mean anything. Nothing meant anything.

Summer was standing in front of him, breathing like he was running from something. His gold eyes were staring so hard at Christopher, they could strip flesh from bone with their intensity.

Christopher felt as though he were in a dream. Everything seemed so unreal and distant.

“Why do you let him treat you like that?” he asked.

It was entirely the wrong thing to say, but it was the thought in Christopher’s heart, and the only one to make it past the wave of numbness he was riding—numbness that blanketed his guilt and the powerlessness he felt. He should have just hugged Summer. But he didn’t understand why Summer would allow Ren to do that, and from Summer’s general anxiety, he surmised it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.

“Fuck you! Just. Fuck!” Summer exploded. His hands went to his head as if he were trying to hold himself together. He opened his mouth as though he were screaming, his beautiful features twisting with anger and pain and hurt. “You know nothing about my life!”

He slammed his hands into Christopher’s chest, then threw the plastic bag containing his belongings across the alleyway. It was as though a hurricane was whipping up, Summer becoming lost to its forces. “Leave! Fuck off! I never want to see you again! Never!”

Summer shoved him away, pushed him again and again, looking more and more distraught each time, before he turned and ran back down the alley and into the club.

It was only once Summer had gone that what had happened truly hit Christopher. Like a bomb had detonated in his chest, he slid down the wall and wrapped his arms around himself to try and hold on as the pain ripped through him. He should have reacted, done something, but he hadn’t, and now Summer was gone. The boy whose life he’d saved—the one whose life he wanted to be responsible for, the one he’d fallen so hard for—never wanted to see him again.

His heart fractured.

The break was so deep, he didn’t think it would ever heal.

Now… (four years later)

C
RASH
WOKE
with a start, blinking at the hazy light that filtered through the thin flowery curtains into the room. Patting his chest, he checked for his phone, but it was no longer there—it had slipped to the floor. He picked it up and glanced at the time, trying to ignore the crushing disappointment that there were no messages, that Summer had not tried to contact him.