Riot Boy

Katey Hawthorne

www.loose-id.com

Riot Boy
Copyright © November 2011 by Katey Hawthorne

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eISBN 978-1-61118-631-4

Editor: Raven McKnight

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Clash and Arthur Rimbaud for the inspiration, Raven and John for making

sense of it, and Balaji for letting me tell him these stories on long road trips.

Chapter One

A glittering array of beautiful people, and there I was staring, with my hands stuf-

fed into my pockets. Some preppy, short-haired boy in a tight button-down danced by and

winked at me. He smelled overpoweringly of body spray and clutched an orange cocktail.

I grinned, but all I could think was: Get off my lawn, you little bastard.

Susanne grabbed my arm. “Etienne, drink. Let’s get your blood flowing.”

I let her drag me around, since that’s what big sisters are for. That and forcing you

to be sociable, even after you’ve told them repeatedly that you don’t need to “get back out

there.”

My blood was already flowing, though. The speakers spewed questionable remixes but

of songs I liked, at least. (Currently “Atomic” by Blondie. Everyone loves a stereotype.) The

people-watching was good too, all that jumping and grinding and great hormonal stupidity.

It was mostly men, though there was a handful of straight girls looking to dance without

getting hit on, lesbians on the prowl, and couples like Susanne and Lucy.

Suse was in jeans and a girly Steelers T-shirt, but Lucy was, as she called it, tarted up.

While she ordered drinks, I glanced around for some new people to watch. A few couples

caught my eye at one end of the bar—new, flirting, horny, awkward.

I didn’t miss the game, but I was surprised that it called up as many good memories

as bad. The red-hot look. The first kiss. The promise of something new, maybe something

better—or maybe just an experience.

My last first kiss had been with Paul. Almost three years ago.

“I feel old,” I said.

Susanne glared. “Um, I just turned thirty.”

Katey Hawthorne

“Ancient.”

She punched my arm.

I looked to the other end of the bar. Now those guys didn’t belong. Black and white

clothes, hair gel, skinny pants, and tattoos for all, metal in their faces for some. One of

the metal-free guys looked up, eyes flashing with the electric blue glow above the bar, and

caught my glance. He smiled, wolfish and cunning, his long bangs falling artfully over his

face, tight gray T-shirt stenciled in black spray paint to read RIOT GEAR.

An old trick from the Clash—good taste. I was out of practice with the eye-fucking,

but it’s funny how fast it comes back when someone’s worth a good, hard look. Handsome

somewhere under that hair, all hard lines and broad shoulders but lean like a panther.

Took me a good five seconds to realize his eyes were so striking because they were painted

up with black liner.

“Don’t flirt with the gutter trash, Et.” Susanne elbowed me in the ribs.

“You introduced me to punk at twelve. If I’m looking at—”

“It was a phase.”

Lucy shoved a martini into my hand.

“Thanks,” I said, eyeing the drink. “Guess it’s better than that orange crap I just saw

some kid drinking.”

“James Bond drinks this crap, so stuff it.” Lucy pursed her lips.

Susanne said, “Now find someone less dirty to get up on, little brother, and I will be on

the floor with my hot girlfriend.”

Our older brother, Marcel? Possibly the straightest man in the world. Susanne sus-

pects Mom dropped him on his head.

“For the record, Bond does vodka martinis,” I said. But I took her advice—or halfway

took it, at least—and stopped eying riot boy. Not that he’d be interested; I usually attracted

the baby-faced businessmen with hard-ons for douchey singer-songwriters, not the blazin-

gly hot punk rock idolaters.

Riot Boy

I floated around the edges of the floor, slowly warming to room temperature, literally

and figuratively, until the buzz and hormones began to feel like a homecoming. Eventually

some old friends waved me over for a drink in a corner—which was great until they asked

what happened with Paul.

I lied and said the split had been amicable, but I made my excuses soon after that. I

was on my way back to the bar when someone grabbed my hand. When I looked over my

shoulder, I met pale, charcoal-lined eyes and an insouciant smirk.

Riot boy. He nodded in the direction of the dance floor.

My mind faltered. My response was automatic. I nodded.

He pulled me into the throng, his long, cool fingers twisting between mine with stran-

ge familiarity. Black tattoos snaked around his lean, muscled arms—a half sleeve on the

upper right and words, half-hidden by his T-shirt, down the triceps of the left. Everyone

was beautiful under those lights, but no one wore a T-shirt and ratty jeans quite like him.

They clung like he was wet, highlighting his perfect V shape. This close, I could see that my

initial panther analogy had been dead-on; long cords of muscle played down his back, and

his ass was too perfect to be real—plenty of definition, rounded just right. I idly imagined

sidling up to him and fitting it into the curve of my hips.

Yes, I suddenly saw the world through that blue-green haze particular to the situati-

on. Alcohol: check. Strange hot guy: check. Loud music: check. The smell of sweat, despe-

ration, and bad decisions: check.

When he found a good spot, he turned and came close, one arm snaking around my

neck. He started to move, laying the other hand against my chest, then trailing his fingers

up to my shoulder. It stayed there, palm flattened, appreciative.

My ego, which had been half convinced this was all a cruel joke, inflated just enough

to stand on its own. I thought about trying to talk, to ask his name and what the hell he

was doing, but the music didn’t allow for it. The track transitioned—Depeche Mode, God

help us all—and he smirked again. Whether that meant he approved or thought it was crap

Katey Hawthorne

didn’t really matter.

He pressed closer, his whole hard front against me and his arm tightening around my

neck. The cold metal of his belt buckle pushed up my shirt, clinking against the button of

my fly. He smelled like cigarettes, shampoo, and bourbon. I put my arm around his waist

without even realizing it, and he felt like—

Like an armful of beautiful guy. An unexpected thought surprised me: Who cares what

his name is?

When the bass started its heavy, regular pulse, one of his legs slipped between mine.

His thigh pushed against my crotch, and my blood roared. My cock swelled, warm against

someone else for the first time in too long. I couldn’t hide it, not with him plastered all over

me.

He felt it. He angled his hips so I could feel him filling out his supertight pants too. His

breath on my face when he put his forehead to mine was cold, somehow, and had that same

smell of smoke and liquor.

I heard his voice then, low and soft. “You are fucking hot, boy.”

Then he kissed me. Kissed me like you kiss someone you’ve known forever but haven’t

seen in years, his hand now in my back pocket. His lower lip was full and soft, his mouth

pliable; his bourbon-smoke tongue licked at mine, then gently along the edge of my bottom

lip. It was slow, deliberate. A demonstration.

He grabbed my ass and shifted tight against me, tongue curling to tickle the roof of

my mouth. Unthinking, I sucked at it, tilting my head to get nearer. God, how did my hand

get into his back pocket? There wasn’t even room for what he was packing, and it felt even

better than it looked.

He closed off the kiss, then, his lips just barely touching mine, said, “Oh, sweetheart.”

Paul used to say I was too much of a sweetheart. But I didn’t feel so sweet just then. I

felt kind of ridiculous, actually, but it was nice to be reminded it was possible.

He pulled back and met my eyes, licking his lips with that clever pink tongue. Then

Riot Boy

his attention darted to something over my shoulder. He grimaced. Before I could follow his

gaze, he leaned forward again, lips to my ear, saying, “Gotta go for a second, sweetheart.

I’ll find you later.”

“Yeah,” I said, disappointment twisting my guts. He kissed me one last time, close-

mouthed but lingering, and swatted my ass as he started through the crowd. I turned to

follow him with my eyes. To my surprise, someone was actually waving for him at the edge

of the floor, an older guy wearing, of all idiotic things, sunglasses.

That was either an insult or a relief, depending on whether he started making out

with the guy. Then again, he’d looked pretty unhappy to see—

“Jesus, Et!” Susanne tugged at my arm, and I ducked so she could speak into my ear.

“You’re gonna need deloused.”

I rolled my eyes and stood straight again, but riot boy had disappeared with his sun-

glasses-at-night friend. The only thing left to reassure me I wasn’t losing my mind was a

lingering tightness across the crotch of my pants and the phantom imprint of his lips on

mine.

“Come on, this is gross tonight. Let’s get out of here and go to Penny’s for drinks.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go dancing.”

She pulled me to the bar, that Mom Look on her face. She waved for another drink

and, when I went for my wallet, waved me off. “I’m buying, kid. That was the deal. Now,

what were you saying?”

“I said, you wanted to come in the first place.”

“And you didn’t, until that little skank got up on you. Did I really see you making out

with him?”

“Don’t be gross, Suse.”

“You’re the one who was tongue-wrestling a dirtball.”

“No, I mean, don’t be gross by making me talk to you about it. Let’s just hang out for

a while. Since we’re here.”

Katey Hawthorne

She rolled her eyes. Not that it took someone who’d known me in diapers to see through

me. “Okay, one more drink and we’re out, right?”

“Whatever you say, princess.”

She made a face, paid the bartender, and tried to keep me from watching for riot boy

for the next twenty minutes.

* * * *

I had a raging headache the next morning, of course. I didn’t have to work until eleven,

but I liked to get up, head to the Main Street Café, and read my paper without feeling rus-

hed. When Paul had been around, it had been my only real hour to myself. I’d have to settle

for a half hour today, but at least I was just in time to grab the last copy of the Post-Gazette.

And thank God I had cash, because my credit card was gone.

I paid, took my customary table next to the window, and turned out the contents of

my wallet. Bank card was good—not that there was much in the account, after my fourth

month of paying rent on my own, but enough to be a relief all the same. License, no prob-

lem. Pictures of the niece and nephew just where I’d left them. Library card, super-special

grocery card, every other useless card in the world stowed safely in its little slot. Hell, I

hadn’t even lost any money.

But my MasterCard was just gone. I racked my brain as I put everything away again,

trying to recall when I’d seen it last. I hadn’t even gotten it out at the club—or had I? That

had been a lot of gin, as my head was reminding me, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t bought

any of it myse—

“Etienne Fletcher.”

I looked up. My mouth fell open.

Riot boy.

And unlike most people the morning after, he looked even better now than he had in

the shadowy, drunken haze of the club. Lean and long-limbed, mad dark hair, bright eyes

outlined in black. Today he wore a tight, faded TOWN CALLED MALICE T-shirt with the

Riot Boy

sleeves ripped off, showing off his tattoos. Not to mention his arms.

I couldn’t believe I’d actually made out with him, brief though it had been. I tried to

fight it, but I flushed like a teenager.

He swung into the chair across the table; the smell of cigarettes and hair product fol-

lowed. “What kinda name is that?”

“Etienne or…?”

He leaned one elbow on the table, the one with a sleeve on the upper half of the arm.

It was just twisting designs, all black, dizzying spirals, but more nouveau than tribal.

“Etienne.”

“Well, you’re pronouncing it like you know.” I smiled. And then I wondered why the

hell I was smiling and how the hell this had happened. As in, why would we run into each

other this morning, of all mornings, when I was pretty sure I’d never seen him before? I

would’ve remembered him. Or I would’ve remembered his ass in those pants, anyhow.

Hang on. What were we talking about? “But, uh—”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a little black card, which he put on the

table between us. “Think you dropped this.”

My MasterCard.

Sure, I could’ve just dropped it somewhere, and in the writhing crush of the late-night

zombie horde, he might’ve just happened to be the one to pick it up. And someone who

knew me might’ve just happened to tell him who I was and how to find me.

But all I could think of was his hand in my back pocket. The one where I kept my wal-

let.

He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest and tossing his head as if to get his

hair out of his eyes. Absurd, seeing as his hair probably wouldn’t have moved in a hurrica-

ne. “No, don’t thank me, really.”

“Thanks,” I said automatically.

That same grin.

Katey Hawthorne

Now I remembered the taste of his tongue, the feeling of his heavy belt buckle clinking

against the button of my fly. I shifted in my seat. “How—”

“Found it.”

“How’d you know it was mine?”

“Because you left it right where you were sitting. I asked the bartender if it belonged

to the Abercrombie and Fitch brunet. He knew exactly who I meant.”

I stuttered, first trying to find a reason to believe him. Then, once I realized I was only

doing so because I was flattered, trying to find a reason not to believe him. Even if I had,

in my near stupor, gotten out my card while talking to Susanne, what kind of bartender

wouldn’t have just assumed I’d come back for it? Why would he let some random punk ass

walk out with it?

But if said random punk ass really had stolen it, why the hell would he bring it back

to me? In person?

Finally I said, “Oh. Right. I mean, thanks.”

He smirked yet again. His lips were pale pink in the sunlight through the picture win-

dow, bowed with that sensitive plumpness that had made kissing him so damn delicious.

His eyes crinkled at the corners, just the faintest hint of lines to come. “Who’d you leave

with last night?”

I was surprised into telling the absolute truth. “Um, no one. What’s your name again?”

“I never told you.”

“What?”

“I know it’s kinda trite, but you can’t ask for my name again when I never told you

what it was in the first place.”

My mouth fell open, but not because I had anything to say.

He held out one hand, grinning again. “Brady Sinclair.”

I took it. It was long-fingered and strong and cold—I remembered that from last night

too. “What kind of name is that?”

Riot Boy

“Always thought it was kinda hot, myself.”

Caught off guard, I laughed. This guy was either completely insane or completely fas-

cinating. Not that the two were mutually exclusive. Just that one was always dangerous,

the other only mostly dangerous.

Bearing that in mind, I declined to rise to the bait. I slipped my card into my wallet

and asked, “You here for coffee or…?”

“Or to bother you while you try to read your paper? Some from column A, some from

column B. So who’d you leave with, really?”

“Does my sister count?”

His eyes narrowed.

Beyond weird. The guy had probably picked my pocket, and here I was asking, “Why?

Who’d you leave with?”

“No one. Guy I wanted to leave with left early. Walked right out the door with a couple

o’ rug-munchers and left me high and dry. Motherfucker had a body to die for too.”

I didn’t bother wondering why he’d asked me with whom I’d left if he’d seen me walk

out with Suse and Lucy. Just like that, I knew exactly why I was still having this idiotic

conversation: it was the most sustained attention I’d had from a man since that last god-

awful night with Paul.

The night when we’d had the most incredible sex ever. Right before he told me he’d

been cheating on me.

Brady asked, “You got a job?”

“Yeah. Manager at Henderson’s.” I nodded out the window.

“Books, that’s cool. What you got there?” He pointed at my coffee.

“Americano. Uh, want some?”

“Thanks.” He took it, sipped, and smiled. “Black, huh? I think I like you, Etienne.”

“I’m flattered.” But I had reached my threshold. It had been a bizarre twenty-four

hours, and I couldn’t handle much more before my head finally exploded. “I should proba-

Katey Hawthorne

bly get to the store, though.”

“Okay.” He leaned back again, eyeing me over my own coffee. “But I’m only gonna

track you down once, Etienne Fletcher. Twice would just be creepy and desperate.”

Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t

— “You…want my number?”

Yep. I did it.

“Thought you’d never ask.” Still holding my coffee, he approached a middle-aged wo-

man pecking away at a laptop nearby. “Excuse me. Can I borrow your pen?”

She obliged, and he swaggered back to me with a heavy clomp-clomp of his Docs. He

held out the inside of his right forearm and put the pen in my hand. “I got some blank space

right here. Go for it.”

I stood, tucked my wallet into my pocket, and wrote my number—my actual number—

down his radial artery, thinking the whole time that this guy was trouble. Trouble like I’d

never seen before.

Then again, that was probably why I did it. Well, that and the obvious. The smell

beneath the cigarette smoke reminded me of last night, of that clean hair-product smell.

And he had some really fine arms. Kind of like those long legs. Wouldn’t mind having those

wrapped around my—

Focus, Etienne

. “You got a job, Brady?”

“Yeah, I got a job.”

I finished writing and looked up.

“I’m in a band.” He raised black eyebrows and stuck out his sharp chin, as if daring me

to argue that this was not, in fact, a job.

But it was the only one I could imagine him having, really. “You the singer?”

“Bass.”

Waste of an attitude, but I said, “Nice.” I handed the pen back, this time paying better

attention to his hands. I couldn’t see the fingertips of the left—he still held my coffee in

Riot Boy

it—but it was a likely story, judging by their size and shape. Explained the arms too.

He tucked the pen into his back pocket.

“Uh, you gonna give that back?”

“Right. Habit.” He fixed me with a predatory grin that made my blood rush everywhe-

re but my brain. “Check you later, Etienne.”

He turned around, laid the pen on the older lady’s table with a polite, “Thanks, ma’am,”

and sauntered out, sipping contentedly at my café Americano.

I belatedly remembered to look at his left triceps, now that he was conveniently sleevel-

ess. It said, in stencil-style lettering: You Really Got Me.

That and the five seconds I got to watch that tight little ass before he got to the door

were definitely worth the three bucks I’d spent on the coffee. Maybe even worth the hang-

over.

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Two

Friday rolled around again, no word from riot boy—not that I expected it. After work

and the gym, I’d been spending my nights with a box of surprisingly decent Malbec and a

new edition of Rimbaud’s complete works. Good wine to put my body to sleep, beautiful—or

at least honest—words to wake up my mind. Simple, quiet, extreme bliss.

Those were the nights Paul had never given me, not without a healthy dose of passive-

aggressive crap. I’d been able to steal my morning hour because he worked early, but the

evenings, God, it was good to have them back. Even right after I kicked him out, when I

was still mired in retro-adolescent angst over the betrayal situation, I’d been happy about

that.

Anyhow, the conversation was better with Rimbaud than it had ever been with Paul.

I tried explaining that, but Susanne seemed to think this was no way for a young man

to live. We met up at the gym like usual, and then she dragged me down to happy hour—

and if you ever want to do something harrowing, go to a bar with half of your local police

force. The good news: there’s always a designated driver. The bad news: you know they all

have guns on them somewhere.

I told her about Brady Sinclair and my MasterCard—after she promised to keep it off

the record—and her reaction was: “Shut the fuck up.”

“I know. How did he even do it?”

“Happens more often than you’d think. I knew he looked skanky.”

“Being a thief doesn’t make you a skank.”

“Being dirty and getting up on random guys makes you a skank, kid. Being a thief just

makes it worse.”

“Wait, didn’t you tell me to go out and get up on some random guys? Was that or was

Riot Boy

that not the idea of going to a club?”

She closed her eyes. “Oh my God. You are not thinking about this.”

“What?”

Eyes open again, and now she was making the Mom Face. “Tell me you didn’t make a

date with him.”

“I didn’t make a date with him.”

“You have his number?”

“I don’t have his number.”

“He has yours?”

The obnoxious kid brother in me kicked in. “Maybe.”

“Etienne, I swear to God.” She propped her chin up on one hand, elbow on the table.

“You have the worst taste in men.”

“Paul had good points.” I would’ve been hard-pressed to name them. It was more an

auto-defense mechanism I hadn’t quite switched off yet.

“Look, I was nice the whole time you were with him, but Paul was a manipulative little

jag-off. Not to mention he cheated on you.”

I smiled. “Touché.”

“Please don’t go out with this guy. He stole your credit card. Your sister is a cop.”

“He might not have. Anyhow, he didn’t use it.”

“Etienne.”

I held up both hands, laughing. “He’s not going to call. Out of my league.”

“Please. There has to be some vanity in there somewhere.”

“Are you for real?”

“So all that lifting, that’s not because it gets you laid, huh?”

“Neither of us has sex. Ever. In fact, you don’t even know what that word means.”

“It’s like you stopped aging at twelve, I swear.”

“Must be a family thing.”

Katey Hawthorne

* * * *

Around dinnertime, I was coming off the buzz she’d made sure I had and feeling a lot

less content. Susanne, she was my best friend. But goddamn, she knew how to depress me.

Well, it wasn’t her. Just that she made me think about things I otherwise suppressed

pretty well on my own.

Like Paul being a manipulative jag-off. Also, cheating on me.

I’d thrown the window open to let in the slight breeze, but it was still warm, even shir-

tless. I considered turning on the air, but no—too comfortable with my Agatha Christie.

There was a banal example of the kind of contented laziness Paul could never abide; the

thought tripled my resolve to sit there and sweat. Fiction, fantasy, and a wanton disregard

for anything resembling ambition. No, I did not require my own private island and a twel-

ve-car garage. A little apartment on the edges of Pittsburgh did very nicely for me, thanks.

Still one picture of the two of us in the apartment, and it was on the end table, wat-

ching me pretend to read. Taken a couple of years ago, when things had been new. When it

was enough that we both liked wine and sex—because, gosh, no one else in the whole world

likes those two things. Meant to be together, right?

I probably had more in common with riot boy—Brady, if that was even his name. Sure,

he was a thieving punk ass, but rebellion was interesting, at least. Insane, but in a way I

sort of envied. To just walk up to a complete stranger and get on him like that… Sure, it

was in the service of stealing a wallet, but that made it all the more audacious.

You are fucking hot, boy

. The memory of him, the smell of him, the feeling of his thigh

in those skinny pants, came back hard. My dick began stiffening; I readjusted it absently

so it filled out my right pants leg.

I should’ve stayed. I should’ve waited for him to come back to me, should’ve taken him

into the bathroom like some goddamn movie star and nailed him against the inside of a

stall. The things I would do for him, he couldn’t imagine. Or maybe he could. Maybe that

was what he’d meant, that he wanted—

Riot Boy

My erection became insistent. I rubbed at it, but slowly, shifting my hips with denied

impatience. Not the same as the feeling of him, of an all-too-brief dry fuck through our clo-

thes. But I closed my eyes and remembered, sliding down into the couch and spreading my

legs. The move pulled at my jeans, trapping my straining cock tight against my thigh. I felt

myself up and down, thinking of him rubbing off on it, and his cold breath in my ear. You

are fucking hot. Sweetheart.

He didn’t even exist. He’d just disappeared, and there was nothing I could do. But if I

ever saw him again, I was going to do it. Take him somewhere and put him against a wall

and—

I unzipped.

And the phone rang, of course.

I fumbled about the table, knocked over the picture of Paul and me, but eventually got

hold of the damn handset. Strange number but local.

My heart, already pounding—apparently in my cock—sped up. I answered with,

“Yeah?”

“Etienne?”

I sat up so fast my head swam. “Yeah. This is…?”

“Brady. What, you thought I washed your number off? Joke’s on you. Rock stars never

bathe.”

Inexplicably, I flushed and zipped my pants back up. Like he’d walked into my apart-

ment and caught me at it. “Right. I forgot.”

“You like punk?”

“Sure, yeah. I’m a rebel.”

“Thought so. Can you make it to the Flowers?”

I glanced around for the clock, head still spinning but no longer swimming, at least.

It was ten p.m. “Tonight?”

“Yeah. We’re on at midnight.”

Katey Hawthorne

“I’ll be there.” I smiled at the appropriateness of it all. Hard to imagine this particular

man calling me up for dinner and a movie. “This your number?”

“Nah, number at the bar. It’s a hole in the wall. I’ll find ya.”

I hesitated, not quite confused enough to ignore the obvious evasion in that reply.

“Okay.”

“Tell ’em your name at the door. I’ll put you on the list.”

“Wow. I’m moving up in the world.” Got some blood back in my brain too. Finally.

“Better believe it, sweetheart.”

* * * *

The Flowers was a dive with a reputation for decent local music and cheap draught

beer. I liked the look of the place, always had—the kind of chipped-brick establishment

that oozed credibility. When I was younger, we used to drop by now and then and hear a

friend of a friend play, but after college I grew more attached to my apartment. And when

I’d gone out for the last few years, it had been wherever Paul, in his infinite yuppiness, had

wanted to go.

It had a light-up marquee over the door. On one side was a permanent sign with ni-

neteen sixties lettering and fat, stylized flowers announcing its name. On the other side,

translucent red letters proclaimed TONIGHT: WILLOUGHBY SPIT.

I laughed, and the knot of nerves in my middle untangled a little.

The spillover was decent since it was one of those warm early-fall nights, a mixed bag

of aging punks and preppy college types smoking on the sidewalk. I considered just paying

the door guy, but curiosity got the better of me, and I told him my name. He waved me

inside without collecting the cover, and when I ducked in, I met with an even more impres-

sive crowd of sedate, cocktail-sipping, band-T-shirt-wearing kids. I ordered a Fox draught

and tucked myself into a table against a wall.

They came on fashionably late to an eager crowd—a few girls in the front played the

groupies, even—and I was surprised to recognize all of them except the drummer, the lone

Riot Boy

woman on stage. Hard to say what she looked like, as she had a gorgeous cascade of dark

blue hair covering most of her face, but the sharp line of her jaw and her incredible arms

were scary hot. I briefly regretted not asking Suse to come with me—a course of action I’d

considered, then abandoned because it was so last-minute. This woman was a sixteen-year-

old Susanne’s dream.

The guitar player and singer had been at the club with Brady. The former was a

scrawny blond guy, probably the youngest of them, with his lip pierced a few times. The

singer was kind of short but built like a brick shithouse. Both of them wore vintage-looking

Fenders and creatively ripped T-shirts.

Brady had a Rickenbacker bass slung across his back. He turned away from the au-

dience so the hot pink sticker on it was easy to read: LIPSTICK LESBIAN. I started out

chuckling but ended laughing out loud; he carried a little stuffed animal—looked like a

fox or a squirrel, something with a bushy tail—and set it on top of the amp behind his mic

stand. As he turned again, he adjusted his guitar and plucked at it a few times.

Damn, he could fill out those T-shirts. Tonight it was a plain white job to which he’d

obviously applied a can of red spray paint and a stencil that read EVERYBODY’S HAPPY

NOWADAYS. I felt a renewed gratitude for Susanne’s punk phase—at least I knew it was

a Buzzcocks reference.

I was still grinning like a jackass when he found my eyes.

He lifted his chin and shoved his tongue through his teeth, grinning right back.

The lights picked up on the stage, and the guitarist launched into “All Day and All of

the Night” at a breakneck pace. Somehow the singer made it an angry song—he had a way

of growling things that made the hair on my arms stand up. Brady even sang backup, and

hell, I don’t know. It’s not exactly a complicated bass line, but he looked pretty goddamn

hot with his head bobbing up and down and his hand sliding over the fret board like that.

I’d just been asked out by a rock star.

A rock star who moonlighted as a pickpocket. But hey, no one’s perfect.

Katey Hawthorne

There was hardly time to breathe while they were onstage. The singer didn’t say much

apart from “thank you” or “this is one of ours.” At one point he introduced the band—his

name was evidently Tyler Willoughby—but that was it. There were one or two songs of

medium tempo, but for the most part it continued in the frenzied vein, about half covers

and half theirs, all of them exceptionally tight. The covers were well chosen (including

“Everybody’s Happy Nowadays,” of course—man, Brady’s fingers could fly); the original

stuff was, if not brilliant, suitably sarcastic and loud.

Proving once more that punk is more about the attitude than anything else. And that,

they had. A wonder all four of them fit on that tiny stage.

They played for about an hour and a half before Brady piped up to say, “Thanks, y’all.

We’re fucking off after this one, but it’s been fun. Come back next time, and Tyler will take

off his clothes.”

This met with wild cheers and Tyler flipping him off. All four of them onstage laughed,

and they finished with the New York Dolls’ “Trash.” Which I enjoyed in spite of a sudden

preoccupation with where the hell he could’ve acquired that unaffected way of saying “y’all”

in Western Pennsylvania.

“Yinz,” and I wouldn’t bat an eyelash. (Yes, it’s a real thing.) But not “y’all.”

More cheering and several inappropriate propositions from the little crowd, and they

were out, stuffed animal and all. The lights came up, and when I looked around, the bar

was full of satisfied faces.

I was polishing off a third beer and enjoying the classic rock pouring out of the spea-

kers when Brady appeared. He’d switched from boots to a ratty pair of Chuck Taylors but

was otherwise unchanged from the stage. He stopped when a few people hailed him with

high fives or handshakes, smiling and slapping people on the back, but more than once he

held up his hand as if refusing a drink or making excuses.

He didn’t even say hello when he finally got to me. He just threw one leg over my lap

Riot Boy

and sat down facing me, then put both of his palms against my chest, cold through my

shirt, and leaned forward until his lips were almost against mine. “Thanks for coming, su-

gar,” he whispered so I could feel his mouth moving.

I kissed him because what else was there to do? His weight in my lap sent me reeling,

surprising and sudden, and that ass. I ran one hand up his thigh and then around to feel

it, all the while aware that it was inappropriate and that it was idiotic of me to even have

the thought, given that sitting on my dick was his idea of hello.

He licked at my bottom lip like he had on the dance floor. My blood, already heading

that direction, all rushed between my legs.

He sat back just a little to say, “Like it?”

For a second I thought he meant did I like that his legs were halfway wrapped around

me or that he was good enough to drive me crazy with just one kiss. But then, with delibe-

ration typical of multiple beers and a lack of blood to the brain, I realized that he meant the

show. “Yeah. You’re great.”

He smirked and got off me, then sank into the chair on the other side, pulling it close

enough to lean against my arm. “Didn’t see that coming, huh?” He waved for a bartender.

“Didn’t know what to expect,” I admitted. “But these kids would eat you alive if you

massacred the Buzzcocks.”

His smile went a little crooked, and he looked me up and down.

Obviously my straight-edge attire and floppy seventies hair had convinced him I was

full of shit. “I know who the Buzzcocks are, yes.”

“No offense. Everybody lies, sweetheart.”

So life had been trying to show me lately. “I don’t.”

He leaned one elbow on the table, turning to bring us face-to-face. This should’ve

forced us apart, but instead he threw his legs over my lap, letting them dangle on the other

side, his ass pressed against my thigh.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect, no, but I was definitely okay with what I’d gotten.

Katey Hawthorne

It was weird, but mostly in that “why is this so comfortable?” way.

He asked, “What’s your favorite Buzzcocks song?”

“Uh, is it too obvious if I say ‘Ever Fallen in Love’?”

“Nah, it’s a good one.”

Also happened to be the story of my life, but I didn’t feel the need to tell hot and inex-

plicably interested rock star guy about my pathetic life. “How about you?”

“‘Orgasm Addict.’”

I opened my mouth, feeling that I should say something clever, something dripping

with innuendo. When a bartender showed up with an amber-colored something, straight

up, and put it in front of Brady, I almost sighed in relief.

“Thanks. I owe ya, darlin’.” That time it wasn’t so much what he said but the twang in

it that caught my attention.

Definitely not from around here.

“Can I have another—and whatever he’s having?”

She seemed agreeable and headed off after he said his thank-yous. He upended the

drink and knocked half of it back the second she was gone, then made a face. Not like it

burned but like he was underwhelmed by it in general.

I was about to ask what it was when he said, “I already lied to you once.”

“Just once?”

“Gimme time. I stole that credit card. But you know that.”

“Why’d you bring it back, then?”

He shrugged. “You got a sweet face. I can almost believe you don’t lie. Haven’t thought

that about anyone in a long time.”

I tried to recall him saying anything serious to me yet, failed, and looked for the punch

line. But he was just looking at me, elbow still on the table, drink in his other hand. Frosty

glass. Hadn’t noticed that before.

“Plus, I wasn’t kidding about the body. You got shoulders like Hercules, and I’m pretty

Riot Boy

sure you’re packing porn-star cock.”

I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so busy flushing. “Uh, not, I mean—”

“Okay, be shy, but just tell me you’re a top.”

Just when my dick had settled down too. “I, uh…”

“Fuck, you’re adorable.” He finished his drink just as the bartender brought us two

more. Then he went on, “So I was thinking about it that night at the club, and I thought,

well, I could take this card and have myself a party. Or I could find out who Etienne Flet-

cher is, invite him to a show, and try my luck. I can get another credit card. Sweet face, hot

body, harder to find.”

Still a little mystified and starting to get the feeling he was being outrageous just to

see how much it’d take to get me there, I laughed again. “Did you escape from a hospital or

something?”

“Twice. Fuckers don’t know when to quit.” He winked and applied himself to his new

drink, which also seemed frosty in patches. He went on, “Why’d you come to some dive bar

to hear a possibly shitty local band?”

“Good question.”

“Can I guess?” He pointed at me with his little glass. Definitely whisky, probably bour-

bon.

“Sure.”

“Because you want to fuck me.”

It wasn’t so much that his shock value had worn off, just that it was true. “Well, yeah.

But we all think of that a hundred times a day. That’s nothing new. You’re just interesting.

Apart from that.”

“No one’s interesting apart from that.”

“You are.”

He laughed and leaned back. “You’re unreal, Etienne. I just like saying that name—

Etienne

. Really, where’d it come from?”

Katey Hawthorne

I hit up my new beer before replying, “My mom’s French.”

“Speak French?”

“Like a three-year-old.”

“Say something.”

I ran through my stock of available phrases, most of which involved a lot of swearing.

Mom had meant to teach us to speak properly, but, as with most first-generation kids, all

we’d retained was the good stuff. “About what?”

“About”—his gaze flickered around until it came to rest on the abandoned stage—

“music.”

“What about it?”

“How I sell it for drinks.” He held his up and gave it a shake for emphasis.

Nothing really came to mind except what I’d been reading the night before: Rimbaud’s

Une Saison en Enfer

. So I said, “‘À qui me louer? Quelle bête faut-il adorer? Quelle sainte

image attaque-t-on? Quels cœurs briserai-je? Quel mensonge dois-je tenir? Dans quel sang

marcher?

’”

About halfway through, he closed his eyes. He kept them closed when he asked, “That’s

nice. What is it?” His lips remained parted after he’d spoken, and for a moment I could only

stare. That face, beautiful skin, high cheekbones, like some kind of punk doll. His long,

dark eyelashes, the curve of his neck, his shell pink mouth slightly open in anticipation.

My earlier fantasy flooded back, bathing me in embarrassment and adrenaline. An urge

to take his face in my hands, back him against the wall, and kiss him everywhere nearly

overpowered me.

If he could do that to me without saying a word, then what could he do if he actually

tried?

I licked my lips and forced a reply. “It’s a famous Rimbaud quotation.”

“I know that name.” He opened his eyes. A pause and a smirk. “And no, I don’t think

you mean Sylvester Stallone.”

Riot Boy

“I didn’t—”

He cut me off, grinning. “‘Ghetto Defendant.’ Clash song, off Combat Rock. Ginsberg’s

talking about Jean Arthur Rimbaud in it.”

In my defense, the only Clash album I ever owned was London Calling—Suse never

liked Combat Rock. “Oh.”

“What’s it mean?”

I tried to come up with the best translation, the one that felt right. “‘To whom shall I

hire myself out? What beast should I worship? What holy image is to be attacked? What

hearts shall I break? What lie must I cling to? In what blood tread?’”

A sigh. “Fuck, that got me hard.” He adjusted his package with one hand and knocked

back half his drink with the other.

That had been exactly my first reaction to it, years ago. Still was, if I was thinking

about it instead of reciting. Another urge to put him against the wall tore through me, this

time so hard I gripped the edge of the table to keep from giving in.

I said, “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

“Then what are we still sitting here for?

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Three

We were making out before we got into my apartment, our mouths connected in a

frenzied exchange of liquor, smoke, and spit. I locked the door behind us, then pinned him

to it and applied both hands to feeling him up. His skin was cool under his shirt, stretched

tight over long muscles, shifting and flexing as he rolled against me. He parted his legs,

and I took the invitation, fitting my hips between his thighs. I pushed in and up until he

rose slightly against the door. The thrill started in my cock, already up and pressed tight

to his, and ripped all through me, right to my fingertips. He closed his eyes and sighed, his

head falling back to hit the door. His hand tangled in my hair.

I grinned, sliding one hand up higher and higher under his shirt, the other pulling

at his belt. The look on his face, like he was in heaven already… And God, he really was

beautiful. The way he panted, his mouth open and pink—

How the hell had this even happened? I laughed. “Okay, I really never, ever do this.”

He opened his eyes. “Everyone says that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You think a guy who gets laid all the time is gonna pull that shit I pulled, tracking

you down the other day? That is desperation, Etienne.”

By that time, the hand I’d had in his belt had ventured upward. I ran my fingers down

his cheek, brushed back his bangs. They were surprisingly soft to the touch. “But you’re

beautiful.”

He kissed me again, hard and fast, making this sound in his throat that was halfway

between a growl and a whimper. His hand, still down the back of my pants, pulled me

against him. “Say that again.”

I mumbled into his lips, “You’re beautiful?”

Riot Boy

“Yeah, but like you mean it.” His hand clenched in my hair. He rolled his hips, this

time quickly. “Like last time.”

“You’re beautiful.”

He crushed his lips into mine and took his hand from my hair. He tucked it into my

waistband at the side, moving around to the front—

I pulled back, stopped pushing him against the door. He popped my button, unzip-

ped me, and put his hand down my jeans. He flattened his palm, rubbed the length of my

erection; his hand was cold through the cotton, dragging it over me. I swelled again, every

muscle in me burning with anticipation. I leaned my forehead against his, sighed into his

lips. Oh, God, to feel like this, to want someone so much, to be so completely—

“Now say you want to—to fuck me.” His voice cracked at the end, not quite adolescent

but close enough to make my stomach drop. His mouth found mine; the kiss was different

again, desperate. Starving.

Whoa.

I put my hands on either side of his face, trying to slow myself down. Something was

wrong, but it was hard to say what, with him on my dick like that. “Brady—”

“You can lie to me. I don’t give a fuck.” He laughed into my mouth, actually laughed,

and felt all the way up my cock, over the head, then back again. “Just make it sound good.”

Now it was my turn to close off the kiss. I pulled back, my head spinning. My body, litt-

le pinpricks of heat and ecstasy racing after his eager hand, told me to tear off his clothes,

turn him around, and live out that fantasy from earlier—had it been just a few hours? But

something else held me back—that hitch in his voice, the words on his tongue, the despe-

ration in that kiss. “Wait. Hey.” I kept my hands on his face, turning it up and holding it a

few inches away.

His dark eyelashes fluttered like trapped insects. His mouth, red with violent kisses,

opened, breathed frost against my lips. He pulled his hand out of my shorts and put both

of them at my side, just under my shirt.

Katey Hawthorne

They were so cold, like he’d been holding ice. I nearly jumped at the sensation; my

cock, the perverse thing, pounded hard in my shorts, missing it.

Was this the same guy who’d followed me onto the dance floor? The same guy who’d

told me an hour ago that I’d come into that bar because I wanted him?

Oh my God, he was so beautiful.

And so—

Fucked up.

I didn’t know what to say, but I had to say something, anything, other than what he

was asking. “Your hands are freezing.”

A deep breath hitched in his chest. I felt it in mine, saw it in his face. He mumbled,

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I kissed him again, slid one of my hands down, over his neck, to his tensed

shoulder, then down his flat, hard chest.

He pulled away suddenly, back still to the door, sliding sideways. “Fuck, I should go.”

Something in the back of my head shouted, You really should.

But I leaned in for another kiss, making sure not to trap him again. He was about the

same height but not as broad, and I didn’t want to remind him of it. Like he’d slip through

my fingers, disappear if I held him too tight. “Don’t.”

He kissed me back. His thumb slipped into the elastic of my boxer-briefs, but he didn’t

move nearer.

Lips still touching his, I said, “Please stay.”

He kissed me again, and this time he curled his fingers around the waistband to give

me a little tug. His lips parted under mine now, soft and yielding. I leaned forward more,

and he tilted his face to match the angle. He covered my fingers with his as I touched his

cheek.

His hand had warmed slightly. So had his breath.

I knew it was stupid. In that much, at least, I made the decision fully informed. But I

Riot Boy

would’ve done almost anything to convince him to stay—just not if he asked for it like that.

Jesus Christ.

Eventually we both leaned against the door, kissing slow and hot, one of his hands

back in my hair, the other still tucked safely into my shorts. I echoed his posture almost

unconsciously, one hand against his cheek, thumb caressing his jaw, his neck, his face,

the other thumb in his belt. Only our mouths were connected otherwise, though my chest

might have touched his when we breathed, and my open fly clinked against his belt buckle.

When I felt he was calm again, I pulled away just far enough to speak. My lips felt

almost bruised but in a wonderful way. “I thought about this. A lot.”

He tilted his face up, let his lips touch mine but just barely. When my fingers brushed

his cheek again, he turned into it, eyes fluttering closed.

More. He needed more.

“When you called, I was thinking about it. Just unzipped my pants and everything.”

Finally he smiled. “Shut up.”

“It’s true.” I smiled back.

“What’d you think about?”

“Pinning you to a wall.”

His lips parted, still smiling.

“I was thinking, ‘That guy, he got up on me, and now he’ll never call, and I’ll sit here

and jerk off every time I think of him, and maybe he never even really existed, and I’m just

out of my mind.’”

“You are.” He kissed me again, mouth closed, with that little sound in his throat again.

I moved my other hand upward, under his shirt and against his side. He sighed and

moved nearer, pressing his front to mine.

Now I could almost think—enough to feel his reactions for what they were, anyway.

They spoke of some emotion, some ferocious need. That was why he hadn’t left, because he

needed it for more than the obvious reasons. That was also why he’d wanted to leave—he’d

Katey Hawthorne

thought he’d been found out.

But there was more to it. I’d heard the crack in his voice. Felt the desperation in his

kiss. Both were gone, but the memory lodged in the front of my mind.

Did he think I wouldn’t see it if he grabbed my dick and told me to fuck him? What if

I had been someone else, someone who’d use him up and forget him?

What if that was what he wanted, just so he never had to see me, never had to think

of it again?

I said, “Don’t just disappear again. Let me give you a reason to come back, at least.”

“If you were smart, you’d tell me to fuck off.”

“I’m an idiot. And you’re beautiful.”

I could count all the men I’d ever slept with on both hands, but Paul had been the

last and the longest. He used to look at me in a particular way, lick his lips, check out my

package. When I saw it, I’d get hard instantly—a dog in his experiment, wagging my tail.

When he said he was sorry, he’d been wrong, he loved me, and he wanted to stay to-

gether and work it out, I heard what he was thinking instead: “I love you” meant “I love

sex with you.” We were terrible together in every way but bed, and I guess he thought that

should be enough. No matter how I annoyed him, no matter how we argued, he always

wanted to screw.

Don’t misunderstand me. There’s a lot to be said for knowing what buttons to push.

His body could convince me to forget sometimes, but I’d known I didn’t like him long before

the end. And who wants to sit around pushing buttons all night if it’s no fun anymore, even

if there’s some small, fleeting payoff in the end?

That’s called a job. And I already had one.

I didn’t know Brady’s buttons; that was part of it. But my God, I wanted to. In that

moment, looking at him sprawled naked, pale in the dark and tangling up with my sheets,

I couldn’t recall ever wanting to know how another person worked quite so badly. It wasn’t

deep or meaningful; I just ached to make him happy. He needed it, and I happened to have

Riot Boy

extra at that exact moment in my life. Happened to remember what it was like not to.

He reached for me, wriggling like even the touch of the sheets was good. I watched for

a long moment, standing just above him—his long limbs, his flushed cock angling upward,

his open mouth, his bright eyes.

I crawled into bed on all fours and rested an arm on either side of his torso. He turned

his face up, meeting me for a kiss. When he started to rise as if to come nearer, I buried my

face in the softest part of his neck, just where his pulse thumped hard under my tongue,

and pinned him to the pillow. His arm moved beneath me, but I flattened it to the bed

again, my palm against the inside of his wrist—cool skin, softer than expected. I sucked at

his neck, kept my hand at his wrist until I could feel the pulse in both. Then I moved my

hand up over the soft part of his forearm, where I’d written my number once upon a time. I

reached the crook of his elbow, and he arched his back, gave a little purr deep in his throat.

I felt it against my lips as much as heard it.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I pulled my mouth away, hungry for more, and kissed his collarbone. Then lower,

where it met its counterpart just beneath his throat, the other tender, vulnerable place. I

moved my hand up, running the backs of my fingers along the hard curve of his biceps, up

into his armpit—

He laughed.

I smiled and kissed him again. My fingers played over his shoulder, the pretty inden-

tation just where it met with his pectoral, then down the edge of it. I sat up on my elbow

and kissed his chest. A soft, dark fringe of hair met my lips, and I moved again, found his

nipple, pink and erect, just as my fingers reached the other. I kissed and pinched gently.

That sound again, the low whimper combined with a growl. His legs parted farther,

knees angling outward. His back arched; his belly tightened. When he gripped the sheets

beneath him, his knuckles were white.

My cock dripped, pressed into the sheet, begging for more sensation with every pull of

Katey Hawthorne

the fabric, every movement I made. My mouth watered. I sucked at his skin, tasting salt,

dry sweat: the taste of him under the stage lights, asking to be adored.

That, I could do.

I sat up, resituated myself so I was on my knees between his legs. He propped himself

up on his elbows, and I lifted him slightly so he could scoot backward and lean against the

pillow and headboard. I crawled forward until my knees pressed against his ass, my hands

on either side of his chest, just beneath his arms. He reached up, both hands on my shoul-

ders, and just felt me.

I leaned forward a little more until I could feel his cock against my belly. When he ope-

ned his mouth—maybe to say something, maybe not—I kissed it hard. Then I smiled, sat

back on my heels, and pressed my face against his stomach, kissing just above his navel,

then licking, then sucking.

His ass lifted off the bed, pressing his erection into me.

I started at the back of his knee and ran my hand up the soft inside of his thigh. When

I reached his groin, I brushed downward, felt the place where his leg creased inward to

meet his ass.

He let his head fall back against the pillow, sighing.

I explored the supple hardness of the spot for long seconds. Kissed his belly, just near

the artistic jut of his hip bone. Then up a little, just above it and more to the side, where the

V of muscle met the hip to create a soft spot. He squirmed and sighed again, impossibly im-

patient, impossibly content. When I moved back down, my hair brushed his cock; it moved.

The game was meant to go on until I had kissed most of him. Until I knew every spot

that would make him purr. But I couldn’t deny either of us a second longer.

I let my fingers trail steadily up his leg. As they brushed against his sac, already

pulled up tight, I licked the head of his cock clean with a flick of my tongue.

The first thing out of his mouth the whole time was a divine little “Ah!”

Oh, God, he tasted good.

Riot Boy

I backed up, stretched out between his legs so my heavy erection was trapped against

the bed. I ran back down the inside of his thigh with one hand, to the soft spot behind his

knee; with the other I cupped his balls. I licked down the middle, the taste of his sweat

heavy and sweet, then took one into my mouth completely.

He groaned, shifting his hips in vain. I ran my tongue all over him, spit as much as I

could, and rubbed it around, all the while touching, tickling at his skin.

I licked every bit of him, his sac, his taint, stopping just short of his asshole. He wrigg-

led when I came near, angled his hips for better access. His legs tightened up, still spread

wide. He whimpered, growled.

I buried my dick in the mattress, seeing spots. He wanted me, right that second. I

could slick it up and bury it in that tight ass balls-deep, and he’d love me for it. Love me

for fucking him senseless. Love me for my stiff cock and my pure unscrupulousness in the

name of mindless sex.

“You can lie to me. I don’t give a fuck. Just make it sound good.”

I thrust down into the mattress again, groaned with the heat it generated down low

in my spine, and applied all my darkest thoughts, all that hot energy, to sucking Brady off.

I rubbed my spit all over him, circling his asshole, then pushing up with just a fingertip

when I went down. He was a straight, gorgeous six inches or so, but I couldn’t quite get all

of him in me; the back of my throat had a bad habit of fighting back. I got enough that he

was writhing and panting in just seconds, anyhow. Letting him fill me up, the taste of his

pleasure teasing me.

He rocked his hips, and I sped up. I exhaled when his cock swelled, took him in as far

as I could, relaxing my throat. His hands tore at the sheets; his legs shook; his ass lifted off

the bed. He didn’t say a word, just came in my mouth with a gasp. I swallowed before he

was done, and he gave a low “Mmm, unh” kind of sound. His cock pounded with his pulse;

he shot off more, and I swallowed again.

I could’ve done it over and over all night just for the satisfaction of tasting him. And

Katey Hawthorne

God, he must’ve needed it, because that was a long one.

He sat up, his stomach curling in on itself, and touched my face.

I looked up, let his slowly deflating cock go, and dragged the back of my hand over my

mouth.

Still panting, he said, “Come here.” He held out one hand.

I stretched out at his side, but he kept pulling at me, arranging me until I was on my

knees beside him, and he was slouched against the headboard, about eye level with my de-

sperate cock. He took it in one hand, stroked the length of it so I had to grab the headboard

just to stay upright. Again, and I closed my eyes, bit my lip, trying to think of something

else—anything else—to make it last a little longer.

When I opened them again, my dick was about an inch from his lips. He kissed it,

licked me once, then pulled at my leg as if to suggest I straddle him.

The second I complied, spread over him in the most obscene way imaginable, he ope-

ned wide and took the head into his mouth.

I gripped the headboard so hard the metal bars creaked. So warm, so wet, those lips,

that—

His tongue flicked over me, circled my head. His hand grabbed for my ass, pulled me

toward him.

At first I didn’t move. My brain was too busy exploding to understand.

He readjusted his position, sliding down farther, and took more of me in. This time

he didn’t grab my ass so much as smack it—a bright sting that cut through the thrill and

magnified it—then squeeze and pull forward.

The natural impulse was to jerk into his mouth, but I fought it, gritting my teeth.

His fingers dug into my ass. Goddamn, he had some strong hands. He looked up with

those black-lined, bright blue eyes, his tongue flicking over me again. And then he sat for-

ward, took more of me in. And more. And then—

Jesus Christ, that wet, sucking sensation closing in around me. The kick was so inten-

Riot Boy

se that, at first, I didn’t even notice he had six inches of my dick in his mouth like it was

nothing.

His fingers dug in again with a shock of pain, and he dragged me closer.

Now I shoved forward with my hips, burying my cock in him.

He closed his eyes and growled—his throat vibrated, my cock vibrated, and I almost

blacked out. I pulled back. Again, he squeezed my ass, and I thrust into him. Now he

brought his free hand up to my hip and used both of them to keep me moving, but by then I

had gotten the message. A little more guidance, him pushing me back when he needed air,

then pulling to get me going again, some serious encouragement from his soft, wet tongue,

his relaxed throat, his hands—suddenly cold again, that crazy heightening of sensation

wherever they went. I hung on to the top bar of the headboard with both hands and leaned

back so I could watch myself fuck his mouth.

Never in my life had I seen anything like it—outside of a movie, anyhow. Just the idea

would’ve gotten me off in ten seconds, no actual blowjob required. The feeling of so much of

my cock, swollen and frantic, buried so deep in that hot, slick place inside him, just opening

up his throat and—

It was divine, but even in that state, I was too aware of his likely discomfort, no matter

how happy he seemed. Lucky thing I didn’t have to make any decisions; my orgasm came

on like a freight train. I arched my back; he sat up and took me in, intensifying the climax

just at the high point, when it was like a goddamn supernova inside me, vibrating for one

perfect second—

Right down his throat. He swallowed—I felt him swallow—and shuddered.

When it was finally over, he let me go. I crawled off him and fell at his side, breathing

hard.

He swallowed again, coughed once, and stretched out next to me. Literally stretched,

like a cat getting up from a long nap, hands over his head, back arching high. His cock had

begun to stiffen again, lazy and still slightly wet against his leg.

Katey Hawthorne

Oh, God. What had I just done? That…

Was not appropriate first-night behavior. At all.

“Mmm, that was fucking hot,” he said. No, purred. He was purring again and smiling.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“That’s for me to know and you to exploit, sweetheart.”

There were several ways I could’ve felt right then. I could’ve laughed, for obvious re-

asons. I could’ve been relieved, because he was so suddenly back to—well, back to what I

thought of as normal. I could’ve been confused or annoyed or scared. The list went on and

on the longer I stared at him. But in that single, rare moment I was seeing him without

thinking of how much I wanted to get into his pants, all I really recognized was that I wan-

ted to kiss him again. For a really long time.

“I think you might be insane, Brady. Like, certifiably.”

“Sexy, innit?”

“Absolutely.” So I kissed him again. For a really long time.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke to the feeling of him running his fingers

through the hair on my chest. His head was on my shoulder, but I pulled back enough to

see his eyes were open. He’d washed off the eyeliner—said he hated “waking up looking

like a goth kid”—but didn’t look so different. A little more fresh-faced but still a goddamn

punk.

“Why are you awake?” I asked.

“Thinking. That was kind of amazing,” he said.

Half asleep was still sufficiently awake to be flattered, I guess. “Yeah?”

“No, not kind of. You spent all that time just feeling me. What’s that about?”

At first I thought he was joking. But he didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile, and so I answe-

red, “Wanted to see what you liked. Where you wanted me to touch you.”

“What’d I tell you?”

“Not everything, but some things.” I traced an X with my finger in the crook of his

Riot Boy

elbow.

He smiled. “Yeah.”

I ran the finger up to the beginning of his swirling nouveau sleeve tattoo. “What are

these for?”

“For me.”

“Yeah, but what do they mean?”

“Nothing means anything in a postmodern world, Etienne.”

I smiled, thinking of Une Saison en Enfer again: Il faut être absolument moderne.

We must be absolutely modern.

Definitely a poet for the punks. Hardly a serious sentence passed their lips without

leaving that irony aftertaste.

“Everything is disposable.” He threw his arm over my middle.

“Not everything.”

“Not these. That’s the idea. These are choices I made. Part of me forever.”

I kissed his sweet-smelling hair. “You never regret anything? Never want to take it

back?”

“All the fucking time. But not these.”

“What about the Kinks lyrics?”

“‘You really got me.’ Same thing. And I think I’d like to be had, you know?” And before

I could reply that I didn’t, precisely, he said, “You really want to do this again? Like, find

the rest of those spots I like?”

“Yeah. That enough reason to come back?”

“Mmm-hmm. But I wasn’t supposed to have one.”

“I know. But I’m glad.”

He smiled and closed his eyes.

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Four

I smiled before I even opened my eyes the next morning.

Then I did open them, saw the dent from his head in the pillow, and stopped smiling.

A thorough search of the apartment confirmed my suspicions. No trace of Brady except for

a little note on the fridge where I kept a pad for grocery reminders:

You can leave messages at the Flowers. I’ll get them. Borrowed your Rimbaud.—B

Even that was more than I had any right to expect. I didn’t know him, but I knew that

much. Anyhow, if he had borrowed something, that implied that he meant to bring it back.

I was covering for the weekend manager that day, but I scribbled out a note and

crumpled it into my pocket on my way out—early, hoping a good walk would clear my head

of him. The weather had cooled sometime in the middle of the night, injecting a sharpness

into the afternoon, with the light trying to slant too early and rain threatening from the

north. The town was half asleep, the shops indolent, the restaurants sluggish. The chilly

air on my face did the job.

I fingered the note in my pocket and wondered if it had really happened. The music,

the kissing, the hitch in his voice. The bed, his sighs, the taste of him. His mouth, his tat-

toos, his weird, broke-ass beauty.

Even in the depleting fall sunshine, I could recall the events, the emotions and sen-

sations that had passed in the dark. Rationally, I knew I should be wary. He was clearly

damaged, used up in ways my relatively sheltered and cared-for existence didn’t allow me

to fathom. But now that I knew for certain it was there, it was so much less disturbing than

the suspicion of some unnamable potential trouble had been.

And not just because he could deep throat like a pro, either. Nice bonus, anyone would

Riot Boy

agree, but no. It never occurred to me not to leave him a note, not once, because even if it

took me forever—as I suspected it would—I had to know Brady Sinclair.

I made it to the cracked sidewalk outside the Flowers and belatedly realized the door

was probably locked so early in the day. But it swung open at a tentative push. The barten-

der—I had some vague impression that his name was Ed—looked up and nodded.

It was different in the light too. The age of the furniture, the smallness of the stage, it

all stood out, but in a good way. I smiled and approached the bar. “Hate to bother you. Ed,

right?”

“Yeah.”

“Etienne. Is Brady Sinclair going to be around?”

“He stops by. They practice here sometimes.” He raised watery dark eyes and inspec-

ted me as if I might be one of the shadier characters to have entered his bar. “I don’t know

anything about him, though. No address or—”

“No, he’s…he’s a friend.” I dug the note out of my pocket, feeling almost guilty in the

face of his defensiveness. “He said I could leave him a message here.”

“Sure, kid.” This, though he wasn’t awfully old himself. Younger than my parents,

certainly. He reached out, took the note with two fingers, and put it under the bar without

looking at it.

I wished I’d thought to put it in an envelope.

“I’ll make sure he sees it. Etienne, right?” He pronounced it in that American way that

I’ve always liked but that drove Mom crazy.

I was out the door with a nod and a “Yeah, thanks.”

It wasn’t much, but last night had proven that less was going to be more when it came

to Brady. So all I’d written was:

Brady,

You disappeared again. I’d think I was crazy, except my Rimbaud is gone and my

sheets smell like rock star.

Katey Hawthorne

At least give me your number.

Etienne

* * * *

Susanne called me the next morning before I left for work—which meant she was al-

ready at the station—using her worried-mom voice. “So, I did a background check.”

“Isn’t this abuse of power?

“Anyone can get a background check, kid. And Brady Sinclair doesn’t exist.”

“That’s the impression I get.”

“No, I mean, there is no Brady Sinclair in Pittsburgh. No driver’s license, no apart-

ment, no house, no car, no job, no nothing.”

“No record, then. So that’s good.”

“Et—”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well, nothing, really. Not yet. But—”

“Exactly. So he doesn’t have a Pennsylvania license. Pretty sure he’s not from here. He

has an accent sometimes.”

“What kind?”

“The hot kind.” I smirked, even though she wasn’t there to see it. “Maybe he’s in wit-

ness protection or something.”

“Get outta here.”

“Relax, super-cop. It’s not like he’s moving in tomorrow. He’s just a guy I may or may

not see sometimes.”

“Oh, God, you went out with him.”

“Have you checked up on everyone I’ve ever dated?”

“Yes. And Gina when she and Marcel got engaged. And she didn’t steal his credit card.”

“Well, he made it out of my apartment the other night without stealing anything.”

Borrowing wasn’t stealing, right?

Riot Boy

“He knows where you live now? Oh, kid, you’re killing me. At least tell me his birth-

day. Or his social security—”

“How would I even know…?” I stopped myself. Engaging the madness only gave it a

foothold. “Suse, deep breath. Remember how you always swore you wouldn’t become an

overprotective, crazy Mom-type? You’re almost there.”

Eventually she relented, in a sulky kind of big-sister way, and I started out the door

to walk down to work. I stepped out into the fall morning and nearly tripped over a brown

paper bag on my welcome mat. I ducked, opened it, and pulled out a pair of metal hand-

cuffs—the novelty sex-shop kind, not the actual cop kind—with a note attached.

Sorry, sweetheart, only real people have phones. Try these next time, if you don’t want

me to disappear.—B

Which may have been the best “turned down for a phone number” moment in the his-

tory of mankind.

* * * *

The more I thought about it, the more I knew Susanne, neurotic though she was, was

right. It was beyond weird in this day and age for someone in his midtwenties not to have

some kind of electronic trail leading to his current city of residence. And all the disappea-

ring, the coming and going… Hell, maybe he really didn’t have a phone to his name. The

number should’ve shown up if he did, right? Did that mean he wasn’t who he said he was,

that Brady wasn’t even his real name, maybe?

It should’ve bothered me more than it did, but I believed what I’d told Suse. I liked

him. He was screwed up and lovely, and I’d be happy to make him happy anytime he wan-

ted. But I couldn’t see—or didn’t want to see—how I could be in any danger whether his

name was Brady Sinclair or Lord Henry Wotten.

Who knew if he’d call again, anyhow? It had been two days, and I didn’t expect to hear

a thing for a few more, if I heard at all. I wanted to; I thought about it roughly every three

seconds. For the first time in my life, I became a compulsive phone-checker.

Katey Hawthorne

But it wasn’t miserable. It just…was. The joys of no longer being sixteen, I guess. Not

much perspective but enough to keep me from being intolerable to my coworkers.

When my shift was over, I said my good-byes, slipped out the door, and turned around

to walk home.

And there he was.

The night was our first really chilly one. The leaves had started to turn, hanging like

mad jewels over the hills and rivers, and I’d thought to bring a jacket. But Brady leaned

against the brick wall in a thin baby-pink T-shirt and a pair of hole-riddled jeans. Cigarette

in hand, eyes on me, comfortable as could be.

So much for not being sixteen anymore. My throat sort of closed up, and I grinned so

hard it hurt. I went straight to him, noticing that his shirt wasn’t just pink; it also had a

black screen-printed Debbie Harry on it and heralded: BLONDIE.

“Hey, handsome,” he said.

“Back atcha. Nice shirt.”

“Reminded me of you.”

I leaned with one shoulder against the wall, facing him, close. The smell of his cigaret-

tes and hair product gave me that inexplicable rush. “I’m definitely not blond.”

“I always remember what was playing when something interesting happens.” He su-

cked in another drag. “It was ‘Atomic’ when I spotted you at the bar.” Then he breathed out

the smoke.

I would’ve attacked him right there if he hadn’t been enjoying that cigarette so much.

A thought I’d had that night, though in another context entirely, reoccurred: Who cares

what his name is?

“Yeah, it was.”

“Good tune.” He held up my Rimbaud, which had been tucked against his side. “Brought

your book.”

“Like it?”

“Yeah. Prose more than poetry. The thing about the seminary was sick.” He grinned.

Riot Boy

Un cœur sous une soutane

. Sacrilege and one masturbation joke after the other.

“Should’ve known you’d like that. You can have it, if you want. I have another edition.”

He smiled and flicked his cigarette into the middle of the silent street. “I could just

steal my own.”

“Mon cher enfant terrible.” Not so much in the traumatic Jean Cocteau sense, but in

the original, more general sense, Brady must embody the term.

He must’ve agreed; he came near and kissed me close-lipped.

I ran a hand through his hair. He was cool to the touch, but he usually was. My hand

was much colder.

He said, still leaning into me, “So this is me, coming back.”

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes and put my forehead to his. Vanity, pride, lust, name your sin,

but it was magic to hear him say it. “Wanna do it again?”

“Shit that good is always bad for your health.”

“We’re all gonna die. Might as well go out happy.”

He kissed me again, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out his pack as if to

prove the point. We separated so he could hand me a cigarette and get another for himself,

then light them with a beat-up Zippo sporting a Penguins logo.

I’d bet a hundred bucks it wasn’t his and that its owner didn’t even miss it yet.

Been a while since I’d smoked, but it felt nice to be reckless again, just for a while. The

tightening in my throat, the taste in my mouth, the faint head rush. Very Brady. “Can I

take you to dinner?”

“What for?”

“I like food. I like you. Seems like the natural progression of things. You afraid I’ll ex-

pect you to put out or something?”

“Terrified. But yeah, I guess it’s a good day to let you take me out.”

“Because it’s Wednesday?”

“Because it’s my birthday.”

Katey Hawthorne

“Seriously?”

“I’m twenty-five as of three hours ago.” He smirked around his cigarette. “But I’ll be

whatever age you want, sweetheart.”

I kissed his cheek, threw my arm over his shoulders, and started steering him toward

my favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian place.

* * * *

He had a million and one stories about the band: Tyler and his OCD tendencies and

preshow group meditation; the guitarist, Franz, and his crazy-ass girlfriend, the leader of

their groupies; Melissa, the drummer-songwriter, and her chain-smoking and nymphoma-

nia. Good thing we were tucked away in one of those tall booths like a couple of gangsters

in a Scorsese film, or we probably would’ve been kicked out for disturbing the peace with

our laughing.

I liked that he eyed the carafe of house Chianti with extreme suspicion before finally

giving in to its charms.

I’d nearly finished my linguine by the time I remembered that he might not be who

he said he was. I also remembered that he could very easily disappear if I asked the wrong

questions. Priorities arranged themselves, and I asked, “So, really, that’s what you do?

You’re a bass player?”

“Mostly. You’ve been the victim of both my occupations. Not qualified for much else.”

He ate faster than me and had somehow torn through a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs

without it multiplying on him like a mogwai in water. His birthday tiramisu was already

waiting for him.

“You like ’em?”

He shrugged. “I don’t hate being a thief, I guess. I’m good at it, and it can be fun. The

music, no other reason to do it but love.”

“Could get a break. Make it a career.”

“Fuck that.” He laughed and picked up his fat wineglass. “It just keeps me content

Riot Boy

until the cigarettes finally kill me. Like you said, I just wanna go out happy.”

Though I’d only downed three glasses myself, this seemed profound. “You guys are

good, though.”

“We’re good at being a rip-off band, yeah. It’s a great time, if you want to be unoriginal.

You can only get a break by screwing the right people.” He gestured with the glass as he

spoke. “I like being unoriginal, and I like screwing who I want to screw, so it’s not for me.

That shit you said, ‘To whom shall I hire myself out?’ That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

I smiled. “I hardly ever say the right thing.”

“You always say the right thing.” His gaze dropped to his bowl.

I understood, since he seemed to have the same habit of saying things I liked too. But

it still made my throat tighten. I took a drink to clear it. “Can I ask a serious question?”

He looked up through his eyelashes. “You can ask, yeah.”

“Why Willoughby Spit?”

“Tyler’s a spitter.” He laughed with me and made a strange gesture, running one fin-

ger over the edge of his dessert plate in a half circle. “Nah, he’s straight as an arrow. But

there’s this place near Norfolk called Willoughby Spit. We drove by on our way to a gig in

Virginia Beach once. Thought he was being clever, seeing as it’s his last name. You know,

Willoughby.”

“Almost clever.”

“Almost ain’t doing.” And there was that twang again.

“God save us from almost.” I considered asking where he was from, but when I glanced

down at the square confection in front of him again, the plate was ringed with frost. I

blinked, wondering if the dim light and wine were having more of an effect than I’d rea-

lized.

His foot hooked around the back of mine under the table, and he grinned at me, poking

his tongue between his teeth. “We can endure anything but mediocrity, huh?”

“Who said that?”

Katey Hawthorne

“I dunno. Seems like the kind of bullshit lots of people say to sound clever. Like Oscar

Wilde. Or that little fucker Rimbaud.”

I laughed and went back to eating, and he tucked into his unusual birthday cake with

the enthusiasm of a sugar-starved five-year-old.

Eventually, I got up to hit the bathroom. I was there maybe five minutes—okay, I was

making sure there was nothing stuck between my teeth and finger-combing my mop of hair

a little, I admit—and developed a plan to let our food settle before I dragged him back into

bed. We’d hop in the car and head up to Mt. Washington, check out the nighttime view of

downtown, and let him fall in love with my city’s lit-up skyline. I got the impression he’d

been in Pittsburgh for a while, so he’d probably seen the famous view, but he hadn’t been

there with me. And hell, I fell in love all over again every time I saw it.

But when I returned, I spotted the tops of two unfamiliar heads in the booth where I

was supposed to be: one dark, the other dark and gray. The seats were high, but I could see

Brady’s eyes. He glanced up like he’d been waiting for me and shook his head once. Then

back to the mysterious pair across from him.

Something alien and cold took root in my belly. I advanced, but the alarm in his eyes

kept me moving slowly. It helped that he refused to look at me, even once I moved comple-

tely into his field of vision. His baby blue eyes were narrowed, fixed on the two men across

from him.

One of them—the older man, judging by the roughness of his voice—was saying so-

mething about “—anytime. Open arms, Brady.”

“Fuck your open arms, Jim. Look, my friend’s going to be back any second now, so…”

He made a “wrap it up” gesture.

The nearer man leaned forward so I could see his long hair, parted in the middle, the

same black-coffee color as Brady’s. “You didn’t forget how to use your stuff, did you, man?”

A definite Southern feeling to the cadence of his words, slathered all over the sound of a

smile. “These sleepers castrate you?”

Riot Boy

“You came all the way up here to ask me if I know what I am?”

Now the young voice lowered, got hot. “If you knew what you were, you’d be with us.”

Brady leaned over the table, planting both palms flat on it. He looked a lot scarier

than a punk in a pink shirt had any right to look. His jaw was set so the angles of his face,

instead of seeming pretty, were mean and sharp. “Piss. Off.”

“Maybe we should wait until your friend comes back,” the young guy said. “Show him

what you are.”

A muscle in Brady’s jaw twitched.

I’d had about enough by then. I took a step forward—

And the table burst into flames. The plates had been cleared except for Brady’s des-

sert, but it wasn’t that or the lone napkin. It was the actual surface of the table, foot-tall

tongues of flame licking upward like the goddamn burning bush, orange and white and

blue by turns.

The sudden wash of heat over my face, perversely enough, froze me. Either they’d lit

a match after surreptitiously soaking the table in gasoline, or there had been PCP in that

linguine.

To my deepening shock, Brady only leaned forward, hands still on the table—nearly

the flames. “Knock it off, Mal,” he said through his teeth. Fire shadows flicked across his

face, lit up his eyes. In that hysterical “nothing makes sense” way, I thought he looked like

some lovely infernal imp.

The young guy—Mal?—leaned forward too, and his hand was immersed in the flame.

Orange, hot all around him, like his skin was on fire, and he didn’t seem to notice. “You

used to be fun, man.”

The fire wasn’t moving. They should both have been lit up like torches, especially this

Mal in his long-sleeved jacket. Inexplicably, the blaze seemed to be dissipating in spots; it

took me a few beats to realize that those spots were exactly where Brady had shoved his

hands into the flames.

Katey Hawthorne

I considered screaming or yelling or throwing myself at him and pulling him away,

but it was just so goddamn impossible I was halfway convinced of the PCP theory. It all

happened so fast, too fast for me to understand. I just stood there, enthralled.

Young guy singsonged, “How about you knock it off, Brady?”

Brady bared his teeth, and the flames died down, at least on his half of the table. A

coating of silvery frost clung to the edge nearest to him.

The flames on the other side turned blue. The surge of heat slapped against my face.

“Someone’s gonna see.” Brady growled, jaw still clenched. His hands balled into fists

halfway across the table, pounding down. “I live here, you—”

The air went translucent in front of him, delicate, sparkling patterns flashing all at

once and then gone. It was like flying through a cloud in an airplane: a brief look at heaven,

an imagined cold clamminess on your skin, and nothing but crystals left on your window

when you’re through.

The fire was gone when it passed. Brady slumped back in his seat, head hanging but

eyes still staring hard through his bangs. He finished his sentence. “—pricks.”

His skin, at least on his arms, had gone so pale that the blue of his veins was evident

from where I stood. And Jesus Christ, was that frost on his fingers?

“So you haven’t forgotten,” the older voice said.

Brady stole a glance over their heads, catching my eyes again. This finally woke me

up, but he gave another curt shake of his head.

Screw that. I realized my hands had been clenched the whole time. They were shaking.

So were my knees. I hoped to God it didn’t show as I came forward.

“Sorry, but this ain’t your home. You just…” The young guy trailed off as he noticed

me. I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye—unshaven, trendy-tight clothes. Scruffy

bastard.

The older man wore sunglasses. Him, I recognized.

The table was unharmed. But the air smelled like a storm, crackling and extreme in

Riot Boy

my nose, on my face.

Brady hugged himself tight but met my gaze defiantly.

The interlopers spilled from the booth. The younger guy said, “Not gonna introduce

us?”

Brady flipped him off. His fingernail was vivid white with frost, glittering.

I turned to offer them the ass-kicking of a lifetime—mind, I was still barely capable of

coherent thought—but they were already halfway out.

Brady did about the last thing I expected then: he started shoveling tiramisu into his

mouth like someone was going to take it away. “I guess you want to know what the hell just

happened,” he said around it.

Yes.

And no.

And “Hell yes.”

* * * *

I forgot all about that silly romantic Mt. Washington plan.

He swore he’d be fine, but a shower would help him warm up faster. When he finished,

he emerged from my bathroom scrubbed pink and gorgeous, the dark blue of his veins sa-

fely hidden again. His hair lay flat against his forehead, his eyes bright without the usual

rings of liner as he stalked into the living room wearing nothing but his obscenely low-cut

skinny jeans. Barefoot and long-limbed and still a little bit wet, displaying a fine trail of

dark hair that led all the way down his flat belly.

He left his dirty clothes tied up with his belt in a little ball on one of the bar stools,

then flung himself down beside me on the couch. Now I smelled my soap on him, but also

somehow his own scent. Maybe it was the smoke on his breath. Maybe it was just his skin.

My fingers twitched to touch it, to feel it soft from the shower.

It wasn’t that I’d been scared for him, even though his arms had been cold as a block of

ice not fifteen minutes before. He’d been so calm about it, so composed, but something was

Katey Hawthorne

wrong somehow. Like someone had held him up to a light and it turned out he was made

of paper after all. Like I could see through him.

From a rational point of view, my reaction didn’t make sense. I’m not really a cuddly

guy, but all I wanted to do was wrap him up and hold him.

First things first, though.

“Much better,” he said.

I handed him a sugar-filled energy drink. He’d said that would help too. There had

been a vague and somewhat garbled explanation about energy expenditure and photon ma-

nipulation, but since it made very little sense, I’d just concentrated on getting him home.

Now my head returned to spinning. A million questions. But which ones were the right

ones?

“Thanks, sweetheart.” He chugged half his drink and looked around, mostly at the

bookshelves lining the wall, then the single candle on the coffee table, then back again.

After dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, he said, “I don’t feel like I’m in the

same world here. Like your universe has different rules.”

Funny, coming from him. “What’s that mean?”

“It’s this weird pocket of reality that’s got you all over it. In the books, in the couch, in

your bed. Everything smells like you.” He leaned forward, put his lips against my cheek,

and took a deep breath. Hesitating.

I kissed him. He tasted like citrus, still vaguely cool, but the rest of his body was

warm. His hair clung wetly between our foreheads.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “Feels like you.”

I reached up and brushed his face. “That bad or good?”

He turned in to my touch. “Good. Safe.”

I paused, feeling his eyelashes flutter against my face. A mad butterfly, unpredictable,

it could dive and swoop, ascend or descend, and disappear. Or I could crush it by accident

with my clumsy attempts to help it.

Riot Boy

Save it.

But if he hadn’t wanted to talk, he would’ve gone home after showering, not come out

here to kiss me. I asked, “So, now can you tell me?”

“Might as well go the whole nine yards.” He sat up straight, took another drink, and

threw his legs over my lap. Then he held up both hands. One held the electric yellow bottle;

the other was empty, palm facing me. As I watched, a delicate silver lattice of frost crept

over the bottle, up and up, like his glass after the show at the Flowers, like his food earlier.

What was happening in his free hand was stranger still. A tiny cloud gathered about

his fingers and palm, thin in some places and barely translucent in others. He pushed it

forward until it touched my arm.

The left side of my body broke out in goose bumps. Like walking through that freezing,

high-altitude cloud. “What is it?”

He withdrew his hand, but the bottle remained icy. “There are some people—” He

stopped and bit down on his tongue as if rethinking his approach. Then, “We call ourselves

awakened

. Our brains and bodies work…well, more. We do different stuff like this by ma-

nipulating electromagnetic fields. It runs in families.”

“You, um, read minds and stuff?” It was one of those moments when I had some idea

what to expect yet couldn’t quite wrap my head around it once it was out there.

He smiled, but it was crooked and halfhearted. “No, thank God. Some people are pure

kinetic—as in, we can either speed up or slow down the molecules in things with it, kind of

like, you know, lasers. But invisible except on infrared. That makes for increased heat or

cold, depending. Some people do pure electrical energy too—that’s wild. Me, I just freeze

things. Air included.”

“Like Iceman?”

“I wish it was that badass.” He snorted and took another drink. “I’m about average,

strengthwise, but it wears me out when I have to take on both of them. Better now.”

Still unable to completely fathom what I was hearing, I fumbled for something resem-

Katey Hawthorne

bling an intelligent question. Couldn’t stop staring at his hands, though they’d returned to

normal. “Are there a lot of you?”

He chewed at the inside of his cheek, watching me in silence for a few beats. “No. We

don’t really have worldwide numbers, but we’re pretty tight-knit on a local basis. We know

each other—families and stuff.”

“So, not like Iceman but like superheroes all the same?”

“Sometimes, but that pisses us off. We’re supposed to fly under the radar. Sometimes

you get good firefighters, park rangers, cops, doctors—things where you can use your abi-

lities without attracting attention.” A short pause, still watching me, weighing my reac-

tion—which at the moment was to sit and listen intently. He flexed the fingers of his free

hand. “But even then you need to have some extreme control. I’m below average in that

department.”

I reached out for his hand, still cool to the touch. Our fingers wound together, my mind

whirring frantically while he chewed at his cheek again.

“We don’t talk to sleepers—that’s what we call the rest of you—about it. If it got out,

it’d probably end really badly. For us.”

“You’re talking about it like we’re different.”

“You’re not. Not in any important way. I mean, there are some physical differences,

but we’re human, I swear.”

I smiled. “I noticed.”

He licked his lips and sat a little straighter. His fingers warmed quickly in mine. “I

know it’s freaky at first. But it’s really not a big—”

“I’ve seen you do it before,” I said before he could dig that hole too deep. Back off, give

him space, let him get comfortable, circle back around. “To drinks and things. I just didn’t

realize.”

“Why would you?” He blew at his damp bangs and slumped again. Long creases ap-

peared along his stomach where he curved in on himself. It was all I could do not to pull

Riot Boy

him close and trace them, feel him all over again, but he continued, “I shouldn’t have done

that in front of you, but I’m a lazy bastard.”

“Never would’ve known,” I repeated.

He squeezed my fingers, hesitated, then swung his legs off me. “So maybe I should—”

“When you touch me, are you cold on purpose?”

Another flick of his tongue over his lips. “Sometimes. To make it feel, you know, more.”

“Yeah. I know.”

A twitch of a smile. “Sometimes I’m cold because I just used it on something else. It

takes me a while to warm up again since I’m not very good at it and I hardly ever notice

cold.”

“Wow. That’s…” I trailed off, unable to find the word.

He leaned forward as if getting ready to stand.

I settled on, “Awesome.”

He paused, staring.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t expect this reaction.”

“You just told me you have superpowers.” My eyebrows rose, as much in amazement

at his issues as disbelief that I should ever have occasion to utter that sentence. “What did

you expect?”

“Fear. Loathing.”

“And here I thought you were smart.”

Then, finally, he grinned and settled back into the couch.

I knew it’d be useless, maybe even counterproductive, but my head was still spinning.

I cleared my throat and said, “So, if I were to ask you who that was back at the restau-

rant…?”

He looked down and away, the muscle in his jaw working again. I wished I knew him

better so I could say whether that heartbreaking look was anger, fear, or sadness.

Katey Hawthorne

On the one hand, I was desperate to know the whole story; on the other, if I’d wanted

him to stay last time, it was nothing compared to how I felt right then. Whoever that older

man was, he’d brought a friend this time, and the encounter hadn’t been exactly amiable.

Brady didn’t seem scared, but he was screwed up enough that I wasn’t sure I’d know the

difference.

“Okay. Later.” I leaned forward to kiss him again.

He kissed me back, tilting into it and resting his free hand on my thigh. It was brief,

and when he drew back, his eyes were narrowed, his head cocked.

I smiled. “You’ll disappear.” I knew his crooked smile for an admission of guilt. “One

question at a time.” One more kiss, then I stood to head to the bathroom. But I paused to

look at him again.

He was finishing another long drink. He set the bottle on the coffee table, barely an

inch still sloshing at the bottom, and asked, “What?”

“I need to piss,” I said.

“I ain’t stoppin’ you,” he drawled with over-the-top Southernness.

I eyed his dirty clothes. “I’m wondering if you’ll be here when I come back.”

He stared up at me for a long, silent moment. Then he licked his lips and said, “Well,

there’s one way to be sure.”

“What’s that?”

“Better get those handcuffs, huh?”

I laughed. Unbelievable how his mind worked. He offered his wrists and looked up at

me expectantly. A rush of blood stopped me laughing. “You’re not serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

Before I knew it, I was standing over him, leaning down, and pinning him to the couch

cushions. He turned his face up; his mouth found mine. A little bit desperate again, but no

more than I was. I wanted to eat him alive, holding his face up like that, licking at the back

of his teeth, tasting him.

Riot Boy

When we stopped, we were both smiling. He gave a little laugh and said, “I trust you,

Et. It’s me I’m not real sure about.”

“You hardly know me.”

“I know enough. Sounds like you do too.”

“Just enough to think you’ll disappear.”

“I panic. It’s what I do.” His smile was almost sheepish.

I brushed his bottom lip—God, it was so sweet—with my thumb. It seemed like a se-

rious conversation, even more serious than the one we’d just had, but I wanted to laugh.

“And now?”

“Won’t matter if you chain me to the fucking radiator, will it?”

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Five

Took me forever to piss, seeing as I had to wait for my dick to settle down. But it was

more than worth it when I came back to him. Just sitting there, his tattooed right arm

raised over his head to accommodate the chain trailing from the defunct steam radiator

behind the couch to the glittering cuff at his wrist. The rest of him draped lazily over half

the couch, his left hand resting on his bare stomach, wide shoulders relaxed and moving

faintly with his breath. He was sunk deep into the cushions with his head reclining against

his bound arm, his legs spread wide, perfectly at ease. The outline of a full-on erection bet-

ween his legs was startling by contrast.

Like it had turned him on, just waiting for me.

He knocked me breathless, but I somehow managed an appreciative, “Goddamn, Bra-

dy.”

“Looks natural, huh?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“How long does it take to piss, anyhow? I’m dying out here.” He squirmed, lifting his

ass and arching his back a little.

“Technical difficulties.” My cock, which had returned to attention the second I’d seen

him, experienced yet another surge. I saw spots. “Looks like waiting suits you, though.”

He licked his lips, still grinning.

I took a few steps nearer but restrained myself—somehow. Even looking at him was so

unreal, something perverse in me wanted to drag it out. “I think you like it, even.”

“Love it. How about you?”

“Thinking of throwing away the key.”

He leaned his cheek against his arm again and adjusted his swollen cock with his free

Riot Boy

hand. He left his hand where it was, rubbed at his cock through his jeans, and squirmed

some more. “Mmm, c’mere.”

Jesus. A few more steps before I could stop myself. I reached into my back pocket and

produced the key.

“And put that shit away.”

“Okay, but…” I let it trail off, leaving the key on the coffee table as I knelt on the

couch beside him. When he sat up, I leaned forward and kissed him, bracing myself with

one hand on the back of the couch, wrapped around his cuffed wrist. I made it quick—I

could hardly breathe, so it wasn’t a conscious choice—and when I pulled away, he bit down

gently on my bottom lip. I gasped but managed to finish the sentence. “Pretty sure the guy

with the key gets to make the demands.”

His breath went ragged; he gripped the arm of the couch, white-knuckled. He leaned

up and forward but couldn’t conveniently reach me when I settled back. “Guess I need some

training.” He smirked. “You up to it?”

In spite of my dick’s distracting efforts to bust out of my pants, I did wonder how wise

this was, considering his royal fucked-upness. I had a quicksilver flash of conscience that

made me question whether I really wanted to go down this road with him, to take respon-

sibility for whatever came next.

He worried me when he was intense. But just now he obviously wanted to be distrac-

ted, and God, when he grinned like that…

I finished the train of thought out loud. “You don’t scare me, boy.” I kissed him again,

one hand still on his, the other flat against my own thigh. This time I pressed closer,

pushing him back into the cushion. He wriggled beside me, driving his thigh into my knees,

edging himself nearer with his free arm. His laughter ended with a moan into my mouth as

he turned his head to get a better angle. A few seconds, mouths attached as if permanent-

ly, and I felt his hand on my thigh, moving up. It nearly reached my cock before I realized

what was happening.

Katey Hawthorne

I grabbed for his wrist and held it away, pulled back, and raised my eyebrows.

He licked his lips.

My pulse pounded between my legs, my breath leaving me in a rush. But I smiled and

shook my head.

He chuckled, low and evil, and arched his back again.

If it was already this difficult, how the hell would I keep it up? My brain was useless;

all it could come up with was to make him suffer more than I did. I stood, just out of reach,

and pulled off my shirt.

His gaze ran up and down me. I dropped my shirt on the couch, and he reached for his

own button.

I stepped up so I was standing between his knees and caught his wrist. “Behave your-

self. Hate to leave you waiting till I can find another pair of cuffs.”

He closed his eyes and relaxed, pulling on the cuffs so they clinked against the radia-

tor. His grin lit up the room. “Ah, that’s—”

I placed two fingers over his lips. “I got this. Just—promise me you’ll say if it starts to

hurt your arm, okay?”

“Promise.” He kissed my fingers as I pulled them away. I pushed the coffee table back

so I could get to my knees in front of him, then popped his fly and unzipped him.

No underwear. Should’ve expected it, seeing as he’d just gotten out of the shower, and

it wasn’t like he could’ve hidden them, low and tight as those pants were. My pulse quicke-

ned—I felt it all over but especially in my dick. The blotches reappeared behind my eyes as

I pulled down his pants, but my vision cleared just in time to see him settling back down.

His eyes fixed on mine, legs wide, cock standing thick and naked and perfect. One arm still

stretched over his head, turning his whole posture into something hot and languid, like a

beautiful, bored man posing for a class of uninterested art students.

Chained to my fucking radiator. The wonderful absurdity of it almost made me laugh.

I moved as close as possible, knees against the front of the couch, his on either side of

Riot Boy

me. I pushed them farther apart, as far as they’d go, until he was wide open.

His free hand clutched the armrest, knuckles pale.

I put my hands on his hips, sank my fingertips into the soft, warm feeling of freshly

scrubbed skin. No, there was no doubt: no matter what kind of icy supernatural something-

or-other ran through his veins, Brady was perfectly, beautifully human. Better than hu-

man. I held him there for a long moment, gaze locked with his, making it clear that I wan-

ted him. And that I wanted him right where I had him.

His chest rose and fell once quickly, then paused. His mouth opened.

I smiled, still holding him, and lowered my head. I tossed my hair out of my face so he

could get a good look and started licking. First his groin, up high at the inside of his thigh,

until I came close to his sac; then I switched to the other side. Up and around, and this time

I ran my tongue over his balls, slow and very, very wet. His stomach tightened; I could feel

it in my palms, in my fingers. A stolen glance showed him biting his lip, panting. Watching.

I grinned and did it all over again. Then I went down, my face practically buried in

the cushion, stopping just before my tongue reached his ass. He made a faint sound, like

swallowing a groan. I wondered if I was meant to keep him quiet as well as still but was

enjoying the licking too much to bother. Back up again, yet again, one more time. His legs

quivered.

I slid both hands downward, paused at his thighs, and pushed myself up. Another

glance—he was torn between smiling and screaming.

Perfect.

I went down again, this time licking his balls more thoroughly until they were good

and wet and then slipping up to the base of his cock. His thighs went taut; the cuff clinked

against the radiator. I kept moving, up and up, occasionally pulling my tongue back in to

taste and rewet, until it finally reached that slit just beneath the head. I lingered there,

flattened my tongue against him, and wrapped one hand around his cock to hold it steady.

It was dripping, but he held still, swallowing whatever noise wanted to escape. I clea-

Katey Hawthorne

ned him off with long, slow licks. I closed my eyes, remembering the last time, how quiet

he’d been, that little “ah” sound he made, what this taste—different tonight, with his sweat

washed away, but still sweet—meant. I drew my tongue back in, pressed both lips against

him, and opened my mouth just a little, like I meant to take him.

My own cock begged for attention, hot in my jeans. I leaned forward and trapped it

against the couch.

Maybe he knew; maybe he just couldn’t take it anymore. He shifted his hips and scoo-

ted forward.

I stopped, pulled away, and looked up at him.

He grinned, poking his tongue between his teeth.

Cheeky bastard. I had to readjust a few things, but I sat back on my heels, grinning

right back.

He made an impatient growl low in his throat.

I shook my head and rose, eyes sweeping over him, top to bottom and back again. His

attention stayed fixed on what was right in front of him; my package was level with his

eyes, though he leaned back. Possibilities fluttered through my mind.

I unzipped my jeans and pushed them down around my hips, letting him get a good

look at my hard cock, held against my thigh by short black boxer-briefs.

His eyes went wider, and his stomach tightened, like he wanted to sit up.

Since he didn’t, I pushed my pants down just an inch farther, revealing the pink head,

fat against my bare leg. I couldn’t see, but I could feel that it was slick.

He sat up, pulling forward and clattering cuffs, lips parted as if to kiss it. The chain

wouldn’t let him near enough. His free hand gripped the couch cushion again.

The things I wanted to do to him defied description, defied me. I laughed and said,

“Ouch.”

He laughed too and licked his lips. His mouth opened, this time looking as though he’d

speak, but he bit his lip instead. Looked up once more through his thick black eyelashes.

Riot Boy

The hell with his name, the hell with his past, with everything. I didn’t care who he

was, only that he was perfect.

It took me a second to realize he was waiting for me and then another second to rea-

lize what for. “Oh. Sorry.” I would’ve flushed if I’d had the blood to spare. Stupid, I wasn’t

supposed to apologize for—Dammit. “I mean, you need to say something?”

He nodded, still chewing on his bottom lip.

“Go ahead.”

“I fucking need it.”

Visions of the other night, of his lips around me, of fucking his throat, nearly caused

me to black out. “Need what?”

“That amazing cock.” A heavy breath, and his mouth remained slack. “Goddamn, I

would ride that so hard.”

Whoa.

I mean, just—

Whoa.

He licked his lips yet again. “At least a taste. Please. I’m fucking begging you.”

I tried to stop myself, but I took a step forward, drawn to those lips, that sweet, warm

place inside him…

He leaned forward again, and this time I was just near enough. He stopped, his lips an

inch away, his breath warm against my skin. He looked up. Waiting.

I knew I was supposed to keep up the act, but I couldn’t help brushing his ear, his

cheek, his lips with my fingers.

He took this for approval and leaned in the last little bit, mouthing my shaft through

my boxer-briefs. Kissing me, then moving down half an inch, kissing again, down, kissing,

licking, opening his mouth, down, hot breath, hot tongue, down, sucking, down, wet, down,

face against the gaping zipper.

I held still, fascinated, my heartbeat loud in my ears, cock thrilling, body practically

Katey Hawthorne

vibrating with anticipation. Desperate to have him, desperate to give myself to him. And

then he came to the hem of my shorts, sighed wetly, giving me another hit of bliss.

His lips touched the hot, naked dickhead, feather light.

I ran my fingers through his damp hair and exhaled, head falling backward, looking

up at the ceiling and seeing nothing but stars.

A slick sensation, warm and clever—him licking me off. The feeling became a wash

of heat and black ecstasy, him teasing for long seconds and then finally daring to open his

mouth against me, like he’d take in what little he could reach.

I told myself to stop him. Don’t disappoint. The game’s not over.

His head turned at an awkward angle, and he pulled hard against the cuffs so his arm

strained visibly. His lips around the very tip of me, sucking. I sighed, the spiraling thrill

almost too much—

His free hand lodged itself in the waistband of my shorts, tugging down.

It snapped me out of it, if only just. Wrong, all wrong. This wasn’t about me—it was

about him. Making Brady feel. That was what I wanted.

I stepped backward, out of his reach. My cock ached for him, dripping, barely restrai-

ned. My shorts were soaked at the hem, and not from me. His mouth. So hot for someone

so cold.

His lips were still parted. His eyelashes fluttered; his hand went back to the couch.

And then he grinned.

I put two fingers under his chin and lifted his face. But no matter what he tried, he

couldn’t get close enough to put his gorgeous mouth on me again. I swallowed hard but

found it easy to return the grin. “Oh, Brady.” I tried to pull a disappointed face.

He laughed soundlessly, leaning back so his chained wrist was directly over his head

again. His free hand flattened against his own thigh, but he didn’t dare to move. His smirk

was a challenge.

Voice a lot lower and rougher than usual, I said, “You going to behave?”

Riot Boy

He chuckled, hot, also rough. “Mmm-hmm. Promise, this time.”

“You sure about that?”

“Anything you say, sweetheart.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“You’re pretty good at being a cruel fuck, you know that?” The grin, the laughter, the

arching of his back. He knew goddamn well it was killing me, but he sure seemed to appre-

ciate the effort.

I stood, head spinning, blood on fire. God help me, I was laughing too. “Turn around.

On your knees.”

He hopped right to it, clanking and rattling until his elbows were planted on top of the

couch, his back to me, his knees buried in the cushions and his ass on his feet.

I kicked off my pants but kept the shorts, with some minor adjustments. I grabbed his

hips and lifted him so he was up on his knees, then guided his ass nearer to me. He spread

his knees, but I tapped at the insides of his thighs, moving them farther and farther apart

until he was wide open before me, still leaning forward, ass out and up.

I stood back to admire him, rubbing my cock again. Far more than the head stuck out

of my shorts by then. He arched his back and looked over his shoulder, then grinned and

pulled against the cuffs, rattling them with impatience. But he stayed exactly as I had

placed him otherwise.

I laid a finger at the nape of his neck, felt the fine hairs there, the ridge of his back-

bone, the softness of his skin. Then down, following his spine, down and down, into the

small of his back.

His ass went up. His legs quivered. His back arched harder.

I stepped nearer, cupping one hard, round ass cheek with the palm of my hand, and

put my lips against his ear. My dick raged, so close to his eager backside; I pressed it into

him briefly. He sighed and threw his head back.

That, right there, was hotter than anything else. Just him, happy, feeling it, lost in it.

Katey Hawthorne

The rush it gave me was almost overwhelming. I whispered, “You are beautiful.”

He started to rub against me, but I dropped to my knees again, this time burying my

face in his backside and licking his balls, then up, up, and straight to his asshole. His legs,

already wide apart, tried to move farther. I circled his hole with my tongue, hands all over

his legs, his ass, anything I could reach. Again and again, around and around, him bucking

and growling, tasting like sex and soap, me pressing up and in harder and harder. I cup-

ped his balls, stroked them, burying my cock in the front of the couch again. Wet, licking,

pressing, rubbing, harder, faster. He shuddered; he whimpered; he begged without words.

I reached between his legs, took his dick in hand, and started pumping it slow and

tight, as much as the angle would allow. I pushed the tip of my tongue into him, moving it

back and forth.

His unchained hand fumbled—I only noticed after the fact that he’d grabbed my dis-

carded shirt—and two seconds later he arched harder than ever, pressing down into me. I

pushed my tongue up, kept jerking him slow, bringing it out little by little.

His whole body shuddered at once. A single little “Fuck” escaped his lips. He came

spectacularly into my shirt, in my hand, against my tongue.

I licked his asshole a few times for good measure, though he’d already collapsed, his

head on his arm against the back of the couch. Then I sat back, wiped my mouth, and en-

joyed the picture spent and worn-out Brady made from behind.

Amazing. No other word, no other feeling for it.

“Fuck,” he said again, muffled by the cushions. The T-shirt moved in his hand, an ob-

vious attempt to collect the mess and save my couch.

As if I cared. For this feeling, I’d buy a new couch every week.

I stood, head reeling dangerously—so much so I wasn’t even sure I could pin him down

and screw him right there even if I thought it was a good idea. If my dick got anywhere

near him right then, it was over.

I needed a minute. My first attempt at being stern had come off…well, okay. I didn’t

Riot Boy

want it to turn into an embarrassment.

I smacked his ass, then retrieved the key from the table.

He was breathing hard, looking over his shoulder, and laughing. “Unh, I can’t feel my

legs. That was epic.”

“Happy birthday.” I somehow managed to crawl onto the couch beside him and made

to unlock him.

“But—”

“I got what I wanted.” My hand was shaking, but I got the key into the lock, and it

opened with a click. “You did good, baby. Might be trainable yet.”

When he pulled his hand free, I took his arm and pressed the inside of his wrist to my

lips. The pulse beat faintly; I licked at it.

His eyes flashed, though he was still in almost the exact same position, holding a mes-

sy shirt to his cock and leaning against the back of the couch on his knees. He smirked.

“You better take those goddamn shorts off right quick. If I have to do it, they’re getting torn

in half.”

So he asked me to distract him with moderately kinky sex and certainly distracted

me. Being familiar with manipulation, I knew that wasn’t what this was. Manipulation is

covert—or attempts to be—by nature. Brady was honest about what he wanted. Always.

I was more than happy myself. If I couldn’t have answers, I at least wanted to have

him near. Maybe I was just pretending I could have answers someday. Maybe it didn’t

really matter, because I wanted him so bad I would’ve put up with any amount of unreaso-

nable confusion.

In fact, he made much more sense to me that night than he ever had before. The

pseudo-superhero thing was daunting, I admit. But it seemed to explain things too—things

about the past he was so reluctant to discuss, things about his forced flippancy, things

about the hateful people dogging him.

Whatever they wanted, it had to be about this frosty thing of his. Whoever they were,

Katey Hawthorne

they clearly meant something to him. I couldn’t forget that look on his face when I’d asked,

the one that spoke of some emotion I’d never seen in him before. But what could I do if I

couldn’t convince him to stay with me?

These new revelations, of course, only led to more questions. It all seemed so impossi-

ble. Impossible but undeniable. It existed; so did he. I knew what had happened, what I’d

seen. It was. He was.

And I wanted more.

So, yes, maybe I just wanted him that bad. Maybe I was too fascinated, too addicted

to stop. Maybe I thought I could help him. Protect him. Hell, I don’t know, love him. He

needed all three, obviously.

I wanted it. He wanted it. What else mattered?

Some restless movement of his woke me in the night. I’d gotten used to sleeping alone

quickly; it was strange—though not in a bad way—to have someone sharing my bed again.

I opened my eyes, and he was watching me.

“You ever sleep, Brady?”

“Yeah, in, like, three-hour shifts.”

“Sounds irritating.”

“It’s miserable.”

“You’re contemplating again?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“How come you never fuck me?”

I laughed. If I’d been more awake, I probably would’ve been alarmed or at least a little

perplexed by the question. “How is twice never?”

“You’re such a nice boy, Etienne.”

“No. I’m a cruel fuck in training.” I pulled him close.

He laughed, and his face burrowed between my neck and the pillow, naked body

Riot Boy

pressed to mine. My dick stirred but without urgency. I took a deep breath into his hair,

petted his side, stopping at the good spots on the way down to the arc of his hip, then back

up. A thought occurred. “If I fuck you now, you won’t need to come back.”

“I’m already addicted to your cock. Stick it in me, and I’ll be hanging around like a

damn junkie. But, uh, you want to, right?”

I chuckled and kissed his forehead, eyes drifting closed, cock swelling hot against his

leg. “You have no idea.”

He rubbed against it eagerly. “Yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He kissed me, then vanished under the covers. By the time his mouth found my erec-

tion, I had figured out where he was going, but it was still a bit of a surprise, all things

considered.

Yes, maybe we should’ve been having more critical conversations. But at that moment,

he was more than I needed and everything I wanted. Important conversations would have

to wait until Brady was goddamn good and ready.

Or at least in a better position to speak, anyhow.

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Six

Of course, Brady was gone before I woke. I saw him a few more times that week. He

turned up at work again, looking a little sheepish, no doubt because he thought things

might be weird. After all, he’d had a frost-versus-fire war with a couple of stalkers right in

front of me. Understandable concern, but I convinced him to relax as we sat up on Mt. Wa-

shington, chain-smoking and watching the city darken, then light up: the Duquesne incline

crawling up and down the fire-colored hillside below, Heinz Field and PNC Park coming

to life, the fountain at the Point changing colors, the parapetted skyline transforming into

something magic. Falling in love with the city—I saw it in his eyes that he felt it too, and

probably not for the first time. Then Friday night at the Flowers—they weren’t playing, but

some friends were. I sat with Melissa, the nympho drummer, and Brady, talking music and

slamming beers until we were too drunk to screw.

We made up for it Saturday afternoon when we finally came to, though. While we were

eating incredible take-out pierogies and watching old Poirot episodes to recover, I did ma-

nage to ask him if he’d heard from the stalkers again.

“Nah, they must’ve gone home.” He paused, chewed at his lip, and then offered, “Vir-

ginia.”

“Wondered where you picked up that accent.”

“Glass houses, honey. You should hear yourself sometime.”

I smiled but wasn’t prepared to let it drop. “So, what’s up in Virginia?”

“It’s family bullshit. No big deal, just a pain in my ass.”

That explained, well, a lot, actually. Factoring in the way he avoided my eyes, the

downturn at the corners of his mouth, and that look creeping into his eyes again…

I had a better grasp on his body language and facial expressions by then. It wasn’t

Riot Boy

anger. It wasn’t fear. It almost had to be sadness.

He went on, slow and thoughtful. “I been thinking about it, and I think they wanted

you to see what I am. They probably would’ve liked the whole damn town to see, but you

were enough.”

“Why?”

“They want me to have to leave.”

My throat tightened. “Any particular reason?”

“How much did you hear?”

“Something about open arms.”

“There you go, then, huh?”

I supposed I saw his point. Of course, I wasn’t satisfied; it was just enough to know

that those waters ran deep—at least as deep as I’d imagined they might. I’d backed him

into confessing that much, but I didn’t want to back him into a panic. On the one hand, I

couldn’t help him if I didn’t know what he was dealing with. On the other, whoever said

he wanted my help? No, all that mattered was that he knew I cared, that he could tell me

anything if he decided he needed to.

And so I left it there.

Otherwise, apart from a new eagerness to frost my beer mug when it had gone war-

mish or run a freezing finger down my spine to give me chills, not a lot changed with him.

I looked for information on these awakened types the whole week, of course, which just

turned up a lot of crank conspiracy theory sites, almost entirely devoted to decrying the evil

inherent in those who manipulate energy. Theories ranging from alien origins to demonic

heritage to their being just plain old serial killers appeared across the world, it seemed—

no more or less supportable or supported than those on extraterrestrials in ancient Egypt.

Hard to take anything I read on the topic seriously, but I could understand Brady’s point

about flying under the radar, at least.

Thursday I went to Mom and Dad’s for the Steelers game, as was the family ritual

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when it wasn’t Susanne’s weekend to use the season tickets she split with another officer

and her husband. To my shock and amazement, she didn’t ask about Brady until halftime,

when Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. I’d been sure she’d want to get Mom involved in

her Campaign Against Brady Sinclair too, but both parents seemed blessedly unaware of

his existence.

“Come out with us tomorrow night,” she said.

“Got plans,” I replied.

Lucy shot me a sharp look. Then she got up, ostensibly to refill the veggie dip but re-

ally to avoid a Fletcher family argument.

“Not with the thief.” Suse leaned back, folding her arms over her Polamalu jersey.

“That’d offend me more if it wasn’t true. Yes, with Brady.”

“If that’s even his name.” She pulled the dreaded Mom Face more and more these days.

But the Steelers were winning, and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. After my week of

fruitless searching, I couldn’t help but think her background-check idea might actually be

a good one in his case, just on a personal-safety level. I wasn’t any closer to telling her his

birthday, but that I’d even entertained the thought told me that I was more than a little

worried. No matter what he said, family doesn’t stalk family or threaten to set restaurants

on fire over some harmless spat. That was restraining-order territory.

Maybe I was overreacting, though. I’d had a friend in junior high who used to get

into bloody-knuckled fights with his brothers over the remote; maybe indoor conflagrations

really were the usual family bullshit for Brady. Maybe the way he shut down whenever

they came up, the way he couldn’t talk about it, really was just because the whole thing

depressed him. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to live with his family anymore. That’d

depress anyone, no matter how justified. But especially someone like Brady, someone who

wanted so badly just to be loved—by a nameless crowd or in bed. It was the first thing I’d

discovered about him. The cornerstone of his personality.

The thought was particularly resonant as I sat in the living room where I’d watched

Riot Boy

Saturday-morning cartoons with Marcel and Susanne growing up. Hell, I still watched

them out of a sense of nostalgia as much as a genuine fondness for SpongeBob. Whenever

Marcel brought the family up for a visit, we brought his kids in on the action. What kind of

fucked-up thing would have to happen to ruin this, our little world, our family?

My thoughtful silence softened Susanne, incredibly enough. She frowned and slumped

into the couch. “I’m sorry, kid. I love you. And you haven’t said much since, er, Paul. I keep

thinking this is some weird self-destructive rebound fantasy or an attempt to regain your

free-and-easy teenage years. Or both.”

“I wasn’t that easy.” Then I remembered who I was talking to. “Right, never mind.

Why don’t you come with me tomorrow night?”

It was an impulse decision. She was a good cop for a reason: instinct. And what could

it hurt, just letting her meet him? Maybe it was cheesy and pathetic, but I was sure Bra-

dy—whoever he was and whatever he was into—was a good guy. I’d seen enough of him to

know.

I wanted her to see him too.

She made a face. “On your date?”

“His band’s playing at the Flowers at midnight.”

“That’s a late start, even on a Friday.”

“Come on. You can relive your free-and-easy teenage years.”

“Okay, I was easy.”

I winced. “Brought that on myself. But I want you to meet him.”

She made a face. She clearly didn’t like what that implied, but I knew she couldn’t

resist. “Honestly?”

“You’ll like him. And even if you don’t, you’ll like the band.”

She sighed. “Don’t ever say I don’t love you.”

* * * *

Susanne grimaced over her beer. “Willoughby Spit.” That pretty much said it all.

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Lucy snerked and kicked me under the table. She was tarted up again and looking

great. Suse had on a Penguins T-shirt this time, but it was a fitted girly blue one, so it set

off her eyes. She only wore that color when she wanted to make a good impression; how-

ever, since I liked my limbs intact, I kept the observation to myself. Lucy wasn’t complai-

ning, either.

“They’re good, I promise,” I said.

“So you say.” Lucy winked and looked over my shoulder. Her mouth fell open, and then

she laughed. “Oh, God.”

Before I could investigate, there were arms twined around my neck and lips against

my ear. A kiss, then Brady said, “Hey, sweetheart.”

As he pulled away, I turned, grinning ear to ear. “Hey, Brady—”

I halted when I saw his shirt, mostly because I was laughing too hard to continue. My

face went hot, from 98.6 to 200 degrees in a second flat. It wasn’t the only part of my ana-

tomy to react, either.

The shirt was white and clinging, hot as hell on him, of course. But stenciled in spray

paint across the chest in the usual blocky lettering were the words FUCK ME, ETIENNE.

“Tried to convince the band to change our name, but they didn’t go for it. I settled for

the shirt.” He smirked, slipping into the chair next to me. He reached across the table for

Suse’s hand. “You must be Susanne.”

Her eyebrows had just about disappeared into her hairline, but she laughed and took

his hand. “You expecting us?”

“No, but you’re too gorgeous not to be Et’s sister. Nice to meet you,” he said. When Suse

relinquished her grip on his hand, he held it out to her girlfriend. “That makes you Lucy.”

“Hello, Brady,” she said, smirking right back at him. “I’ve heard all about you.”

“Bad stuff?”

She grinned.

“It’s all true,” he said.

Riot Boy

I coughed to clear my throat, cheeks still blazing. “Are you supposed to be out here?”

“You’re gonna hurt my feelings,” he said. “Yeah. Tyler’s pissed, but screw him. I wan-

ted to warn you that Eddie won’t let you pay for drinks. Don’t argue, ’cause he’s a right

hellcat when he puts his mind to it.”

“Brady—”

He kissed me to shut me up. “If it was just you, it’d be okay. But these two”—he poin-

ted to Suse and Lucy—“are guests, and that wouldn’t be polite. I gotta go before Tyler’s

head explodes. See you after?”

“Oh, yes,” Lucy agreed. “We’ll be here.”

Brady stood, ran his fingers through my hair to muss it, and left.

My cheeks still hadn’t cooled. When Suse and Lucy focused on me again, I even started

to squirm.

“He’s cuter than I expected,” Susanne admitted.

“I like him,” Lucy announced.

“Shut up.”

Lucy ignored her, as usual. “Et, I’ve never seen you grin like that.”

Susanne snorted. “Doesn’t have anything to do with that shirt, does it?”

“I like his shirt too,” said Lucy.

“That makes two of us.” And I took a long, cold drink of my beer to try to calm myself

the hell down.

Naturally, he worked his magic on them. First by being in a decent band, then by

spending the evening getting them free drinks and making them howl with stories of his

neurotic bandmates. They left in a taxi, drunk and giggling and hanging all over each

other, and Brady dragged me into the back to “get his shit together.” Apparently there was

going to be a late-night after-show band meeting, so it was the closest we could get to a few

minutes alone for a while.

What passed for a dressing room was more like a large walk-in closet or perhaps a

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dorm room. Not much but a ragged couch passed down from the seventies puking up its

own guts, a vanity groaning under the weight of ancient makeup, a bunch of overstuffed

clothing racks, a changing screen in the corner, and a long, cluttered counter along one

wall. There must have been a door at one time, but not even the hinges remained.

He fell back into the couch and started taking off his boots. I noticed his little stuffed

fox and scooped it up, then hugged it in the crook of my arm.

He said, “Behold the secret life of a suburban rock star.”

“What happened to the door?”

“Dunno, never seen it.” He nodded at the fox. “That’s George.”

I squeezed George once more before respectfully returning him to his perch.

“Think your sister liked the show?”

“Yeah. I think she liked you.”

“In spite of my shirt.” He stuck the tip of his tongue through his teeth.

“Lucy liked the shirt. Not as much as me, but she liked it.”

He’d kicked off his boots by that time. The moment he stood, I kissed him, then backed

him up against the counter. As usual, he acquiesced to perfection, licking at my teeth and

pulling me against him hard.

I said, “Can’t be a real groupie till you’ve made out in the dressing room, right?”

He replied by hopping up onto the counter so he could wrap his legs around me. I as-

sisted, then laid one hand on his thigh and brought the other up to his face; our mouths

found each other again quickly. At first it was just kissing, kind of slow and hot, like usu-

al. His fingertips, artificially cold, toyed with the hair at the nape of my neck and slipped

downward to tickle my spine. His ass scooted forward until he was wrapped around me

tight, his bare feet hooked behind my back. I was just thinking how lonely it would be that

night—tasting his tongue and knowing I’d miss it later—when his fingers started pulling

at the button of my fly.

I laughed into his lips and moved off just enough to say, “The door doesn’t even exist,

Riot Boy

let alone lock.”

“Fuck it. I need this.” In case I was wondering what, exactly, his hand snaked down

the front of my jeans and rubbed my swelling cock.

“Ah.” I leaned into him, knees going weak. “Oh my God.”

“Come on, Etienne,” he whispered. “I made the shirt and everything.”

I chuckled. “We can’t do it here.”

“Aww.” He reluctantly pulled his hand out of my pants.

“It’s got to be somewhere I can do the job thoroughly.” I took his face in both hands and

kissed him, long and openmouthed, until he melted against me again. “Somewhere you can

swear as loud as you want.”

He grinned and squirmed against me. “Handcuffs?”

“Anything you want.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Anything.”

“That’s worth waiting for. But while we’re here anyway…” He slipped off the counter,

wedging himself between it and me and rubbing off on me at the same time. “Come on, I’ll

be fast. Almost came in my pants just now.”

I laughed again, which he took for agreement. He wasted no time dragging me behind

the changing screen in the corner. A quick glance over the top to check for passersby, and

then I undid his belt and yanked it free in one quick motion. I went for the zipper.

No underwear.

“Jesus Christ, Brady.”

“Ah, I thought you’d like that.”

More laughter. “You planned for this?”

“Of course I fucking did. You gonna give it to me, or what?”

I turned him around to face the wall in reply and dragged his jeans down over his ass.

He wriggled out of them and leaned forward, palms against the wall, leaving me sta-

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ring at him—still in his FUCK ME, ETIENNE T-shirt but bare-assed and waiting.

My fly was still undone, and I couldn’t resist kicking off my jeans and leaning against

him, arranging my dick—straining through my shorts—in the split of that remarkable ass.

I kissed the back of his neck and wound my arms around him. His response was to rub up

on me, opening up a little farther. I took his stiff cock in one hand and started out slow; he

squirmed on my dick and voiced a little moan, then, “Unh, yeah.”

I stroked him, kissed him, and he angled his ass to give me a thrill with every jerk,

until my cock was so hot I could’ve come just like that. But no, I didn’t make that mistake

anymore—it was all about him. I pulled back a little, spit on my fingers, and rubbed them

in a tight circle around his asshole.

He shuddered, his hands curling into fists against the wall, and arched his back shar-

ply. “Yeah, ah fuck…”

I picked up speed, pressing my still-thickening cock into the back of his thigh as I

went. His whole body caught my rhythm. I milked it from both ends, pushed every button

I knew at once to get it out of him, fast and hard.

“Oh, yeah, mmmnnnn…” He hit the wall with one fist and came with a sigh.

I held him tight, kissing him while he finished and recovered. When I finally let him

go, he shook himself a little. I rearranged myself against him, laughing as I looked down

over his shoulder. “So much for the wall.”

“It’s probably seen worse.” He laughed too, breathless. “Your turn.”

Before I could respond, he was on his knees, ripping down my shorts. He pushed me

back against the opposite wall and went straight for my cock, swallowed it. Jesus, had to

be halfway down his throat.

I groaned at the white-hot thrill and let my head fall back, eyelids fluttering. God, he

was incredible. He was magnificent. He was—

“Brady?” said an alien voice.

My eyes snapped open; I tried to pull away.

Riot Boy

His fingers bored into my hips as he went down again, causing tiny stars to explode

behind my eyes. Then up, then down. Never broke his rhythm.

I peeked over the screen to see Tyler at the dressing room entrance. He had one eyeb-

row cocked but didn’t seem too concerned to find me alone where I had no business being.

He asked, “Have you seen Brady around? Bass player, jacked-up hair, tattoos?”

“Um, he—”

Brady chose that precise moment to start stroking my balls, still sucking me off fast

and hard.

“Uh…” I blinked, trying to clear my head, face on fire, but Jesus, he was—

Tyler took an inquisitive step into the room. “You okay, man?”

I had no idea what I was trying to say. “He…uh…”

A wave of heat burned through me. His mouth was so hot, and he was so, so good at

that, and—

Brady backed off, leaving my dick standing there, dripping and pink. He looked up,

making the most hilariously annoyed face, and said, “Goddammit, Tyler, I got a cock down

my throat here. Can it wait?”

Tyler closed his eyes. “You must be Etienne.”

“Um…” I would’ve had an answer, but Brady licked me at the strategic moment, so all

I got was, “Unh—yeah. Hi.”

I was going to die of embarrassment. As soon as I had a little blood in my brain, any-

how.

“Yeah, nice to meet you.” Tyler turned his back, but before he escaped into the hall, he

shouted back at us, “Hey slut-bag, when you’re done choking on a dick, we have a meeting.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Brady went down on me again, shoving me straight back into his throat.

I laughed and burned and groaned, clawing at the wall behind me. Rational thought

or trying to sort out the appropriate emotion for the situation had to wait until I finally

came down his throat. My knees shaking and my body thrumming, I practically slid down

Katey Hawthorne

the wall when he let me go.

Following which event we both laughed so hard we ended up in a half-naked, well-

spent pile on the floor.

* * * *

As predicted, I was mortified when Tyler and I were really introduced just before I

went home. But he seemed to think it was hilarious, so at least we’d entertained him.

The whole episode was representative of my mood for the rest of that week. I walked

around with a dopey grin on my face that more than one of my coworkers commented on. A

few of them had seen Brady either loitering outside the shop or when he stopped in during

the day, and they’d figured everything out. I didn’t mind; I loved my job for surrounding

me with books, but the people were a nice perk too. I was just laughing off a comment one

of my coworkers had lobbed at me over a stack of books—Nancy had taken to calling me

sweetheart

—when I turned and saw about the last person I expected.

The smile must’ve slipped off my face, but I tried to restore it. Professionalism, that

sort of thing. “Paul. Hi.”

He smiled back. It was a great smile, the kind that looked genuine even when it wasn’t.

All courtesy and light. Helped that he was good-looking, in that gentlemanly, low-key way.

Not as impressive as it had once been. But it felt as though I hadn’t thought of him in

a long time. I’d forgotten what he looked like, in the detailed sense.

“How’s it going, Et?”

“Okay.” I let my smile go wry. “You know, daydreaming, the usual.”

He gave a little chuckle, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his flat-front khakis.

“Don’t be like that.”

“You’re right. Bad customer service.” By that point, I knew my smile would be more

lopsided than anything else.

He laughed, and for a moment I was pleased to think he was in one of his friendlier

moods. But he crushed that illusion, moving nearer and getting a familiar serious look in

Riot Boy

his eyes. They were hazel, the green ring around the center bright enough to be shocking.

I used to think it made him look sincere; now I just noted it with vague appreciation. Oh,

that’s why I put up with him for so long.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ve just been working some things out. Prioritizing, thin-

king about what’s really important.”

I paused, vaguely baffled. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why would I expect you

to call?”

He shrugged. “I just feel like we left things in a bad place.”

I stepped back, looking for cues in his body language that’d tell me…something. “Well,

you cheated on me. And then you accused me of driving you to it by being a loser.” Which,

again, I had not thought of in a long time. Maybe that was why my voice was so level and

my mind so clear, even in the face of this apparent lapse of his usual, stoic sanity. “And

then you begged for forgiveness, and I kicked you out.”

At long last, he had acquired the grace to at least look ashamed of himself. He lowered

his gaze and cleared his throat.

“I’m just saying, it’s hard to believe it took you this long to realize that was a bad

place.”

“We were together a long time. We should be friends,” he said.

How could I adequately express just how absurd this was? How uninterested I was in

having him back in my life? How weird it was that someone who so plainly disliked eve-

rything about me would even consider such a thing?

I’d never wished for poetry of my own before, but right then I would’ve given a lot to

be better with words.

He caught my eye. “Let me take you out for a drink after work. I’ve been thinking—”

“Are you lonely?”

Paul didn’t ask for things unless he absolutely had to. Paul expected things, and if

they didn’t happen, he sulked until you figured it out on your own and gave them to him.

Katey Hawthorne

If you could hold out for a month, maybe—just maybe—he might actually tell you what he

wanted. Which would be a relief, if he didn’t sulk for another week because you’d made him

say it out loud.

Logically, I could only assume what he wanted now was company. And he’d been

forced, by some strange and no doubt uninteresting turn of events, to ask for it. From me,

of all people.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s not what I’d—”

“Yes, you are.”

He smiled, slow and sweet. He hated being called out—except when it was his plan all

along. “Okay. That’s one way to put it.”

“This is going to sound awful, but that’s what it was like being with you for three

years. Lonely.” Written, the words look bitter, but my voice was even and my mind still

clear.

His brow furrowed. “We were together all the time, though.”

For another long second, I just stared at him, astounded.

When I trusted myself to respond, I almost laughed. “It’s my fault for hiding out in my

little world. But I did try to show you, and you didn’t want to see it. You practically bricked

me up in there, and then you hated me for it.”

“I would never hate you. I just—”

“Don’t.” I’d always thought myself the clueless one, but no. Remarkable what four

months can do for your clarity, really. “You actively disliked everything that made me hap-

py, and I knew it. I should’ve ended it, but I’m an idiot. So I got trapped with the one guy I

couldn’t talk to, and that—that—is lonely. So forgive me if I’m not exactly jumping to save

you now it’s your turn. That’s not my job anymore.”

He just stood there, cheeks flaring pink, his long, pale eyelashes fluttering stupidly.

I suddenly understood the expression about getting something off your chest. It felt like I

could exhale after a century of holding my breath.

Riot Boy

And then he said it. “Are you seeing someone?”

By then I couldn’t help it—I laughed out loud. “Yeah. I’ve been having a mind-blowing

affair with Arthur Rimbaud since the night you moved out. Been happy ever since.”

I wasn’t just seeing someone, anyhow. It was Brady. He wasn’t the reason I was over

Paul, but it would have been disingenuous to say I’d have been as forthcoming about it

without Brady’s particular brand of bluntness in my life. That really had felt good. Wow.

He’d be so proud when I told him.

Paul stared, clearly trying to decide if I was screwing with him or not.

I tried to tone down my smile. He was a bastard, but he must’ve already figured that

much out, or he wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I didn’t need to rub it in. “Are

you here to buy a book or to make nice with me?”

His eyebrows rose.

Huh. Go figure. I said, “Didn’t see that coming.”

With no change in expression, no particular inflection, he said, “You’re the only person

in the world who wouldn’t, after that conversation.”

I didn’t know if that was an insult or a compliment. When it came to Paul, there wasn’t

much of a difference. “Well, not to be vague: nothing you could ever say or do would make

me want to be your friend, let alone anything more. You overestimated my sweetness and

underestimated my self-respect. We’re done.”

He looked to the floor. “We can at least be civil.”

“Sure. Can I help you find something, then?”

“What do you recommend?”

“The self-help section’s over there.”

“Etienne—”

Thank God the bell jingled to indicate a customer wanting to check out. That meant I

got to leave him there, staring wistfully at the self-help section with his hands still in his

pockets, looking like a lost teenager.

Katey Hawthorne

I’d never disagreed with Susanne, but now I actively agreed.

The guy was kind of a manipulative little jag-off.

Riot Boy

Chapter Seven

“How’s your week?”

“Good. Convinced a few people to go indie instead of buying bestsellers. Drank too

much coffee.” I took a sip of my Americano to illustrate. “Told off my ex-boyfriend—and I

have you to thank for that.”

“How do you figure?”

“You just do things. Say things. Thought I’d try it on.”

“Bet it looked good on you.” Brady grinned, one elbow leaning on my customary table

as he drew frosty circles on the lid of his own coffee. Never met someone who liked cold

coffee—not iced but just cooled off—like him. “Was it the baby face in that picture?”

“There’s a…? Oh, right. On the end table. Yeah, that’s him.”

“Facedown too. Must be a real douche bag.”

“Is it facedown?”

“Yeah. Always has been. I just looked out of curiosity. Cute but kinda vanilla. I’m hot-

ter.” He looked up. “Right?”

“Are you for real?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Yes. You are hotter by miles. Also smarter, funnier, and better in bed, before you ask.”

“No shit? Better in bed?” He shifted in his seat.

My dick began commandeering blood just like that. I still didn’t know him entirely,

maybe. But I knew his body, and I knew what that little movement meant.

He hunched closer over the table. “Don’t act so surprised. I oughtta track that guy

down and thank his dumb ass for whatever he did to lose you.”

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“How do you know it wasn’t me?”

“It was either him, or he’s crazier than a shithouse rat. You’re way too fucking sexy.

Hell, I’m even thinking about getting a phone.”

“Okay, I know that’s a compliment, but I don’t quite get it. How does that indicate

extreme sexiness?”

“Well, you know how I can’t sleep sometimes?” He cocked an eyebrow.

That familiar compulsion to pin him against the nearest wall boiled up in me. “Yeah.”

“I think about what I could be doing if I was with you instead. I get all kinds of great

ideas in the middle of a sleepless night. Just think if I could call you up and beg you to let

me in.”

“That’s pretty sexy,” I had to admit.

“Quiet in here today.” He licked his lips. “Grab that bathroom key from the register,

and I’ll show you—”

He paused midsentence when he looked to the window. The expression on his face

went from playfully predatory to crestfallen in an instant. My heart, which had been poun-

ding like mad, grew heavy.

“Ah, shit,” he said.

I followed his gaze to see the dark-haired youngish guy—Brady’s “family problem”—

tapping on the window.

Things had been so perfect that I guess I’d let myself believe they’d really gone away,

delivered unto me the truth about Brady Sinclair and his frosty magic and disappeared

into the ether. Now it came rushing back.

“I better go talk to him.”

“Who is he, exactly?”

He sighed, blowing upward at his bangs, but it was more than annoyance. There was

that fretful and unaccustomed downturn to his lips that I’d come to associate with sadness.

His gaze was restless as it lit first on me, then the table, then the window, then the coffee,

Riot Boy

then back again, in a way that was perhaps even more disturbing. Something wild and

cold. “My cousin. Malory.”

“And the other guy?”

“Uncle Jim. Jesus, he better not be here too. Sick of this shit.” He stood, adjusting his

package and flipping the guy off at the same time, as if to let him know what he’d inter-

rupted.

I looked up again to see him flip Brady off in reply and turn his back to lean against

the window.

My hands tightened into fists, but I hid them under the table. “You said they want you

to leave town? To go home with them?”

“I’ll tell you the whole tragic tale tonight, okay? You gonna be home?”

“Yeah. But I don’t under—”

“Sweetheart, it’s not that I don’t want you to come. Just, the less they know about you,

the better.” He leaned down and kissed me quickly. “It’s not a big thing. Okay if I come by

about eight?”

I nodded. He bit at his lip, and that weird something in his face, his eyes, made my

heart hurt. Like uncertainty. Fight or flight. Or freeze.

I wanted to argue, but before I could think of a good objection—such as, perhaps, their

setting things on fire last time he met up with them, his obvious reluctance to talk about

them at all, or their inappropriate and creepy habit of stalking him—he was out the door

and pointing down the street with an unlit cigarette. Whatever hung in the air between

the cousins was heavy. It pushed them apart and pulled them together, their eyes not quite

able to meet, their hands fidgety.

I tried to imagine Marcel and me in their position, or Suse and me, or any of us and

one of our handful of cousins scattered across the world. But I couldn’t fathom it. I watched

them walk away—identical gait, identical build, almost, except Brady’s shoulders were

wider and his hair shorter.

Katey Hawthorne

But all I could hear was: “They want me to have to leave.” All I could see was that weird

expression on his face—and not depression either. I’d seen it before, that first night when

he’d almost left. Something like it the last time he’d confronted this Malory, though I’d

chalked it up to the effort of extinguishing a fire on that occasion.

That was what panic looked like.

I fidgeted for a minute, my body and brain equally confused about what the hell had

just happened. Then I stood, threw away the rest of my coffee, and started down the street

after them.

I would’ve passed right by the alley if Malory hadn’t been yelling.

“—great life! No house, no car, no identity, no job. Far as I can see, all you have is some

J. Crew-looking—”

“He’s a sleeper, and you know it. He’s not a part of this shit, Mal.”

I flattened myself against the wall around the corner from them. Now I could smell the

smoke from Brady’s Camels, hear the quaver in his voice. That particular vibration struck

an answering string in my mind. “You can lie to me. I don’t give a fuck.”

Things started to come together, but I was too busy eavesdropping to sort it all out. On

the one hand, I wanted to interrupt, to drag that little bastard Mal out of the alley by the

scruff of his neck and shake him stupid. For interrupting our coffee, for torturing Brady,

for starting a fire in the middle of a damn Italian restaurant. The violence of the impulse

was so foreign, I couldn’t even figure that much out. I just wanted to hurt him, even if I had

no idea how.

On the other hand, whatever was going on obviously wasn’t going to come to a happy

resolution. Brady was a runner by his own admission. Whatever issues he had with his fa-

mily, whatever instilled in him this need to flee, he needed to face it his way. Who the hell

was I to interfere?

Just some guy who fed him poetry and pasta in return for music and laughs.

Just some guy he wanted to fuck.

Riot Boy

So I waited, hands still clenched in the pockets of my track jacket. Unwilling to inter-

rupt but unwilling to leave, knowing what this guy could do.

This is when a rational human being might’ve asked, “But what, exactly, can I do

against someone who can call up fire out of thin air?”

It was also the limit of my capacity

for reason just then.

I had time enough to turn all this over in my mind before Mal made another reply, this

time in a calmer voice. “He’s part of it if someone makes him. I know he saw us last time.”

Quiet for a few seconds, and I drew my fists out of my pockets.

Then Mal continued, voice even lower so I had to strain to hear. “But you’re still here

having a sweet little afternoon date, huh?”

“No thanks to you, fuck-o.”

“You either told him, or he’s as dumb as he looks.”

There was a skid of rubber soles and a lot of rustling, then a sound like meat slamming

against the brick.

I couldn’t help it. I looked around the corner to see Brady crushing his cousin against

the wall, Mal’s collar crumpled in his fist.

Mal grinned—something like Brady at his most wicked, but nowhere near as char-

ming. “Hey, remember when you used to show that kind of loyalty for me? For your own

flesh and blood?”

Brady let him go and took a few steps backward, glaring cold and bright blue.

Mal held out his hands in front of him as if in surrender, leaning comfortably against

the filthy wall. “Just come home for a week. See the plan. It’s in and out, man, I swear, but

it’s a big one.”

Brady flexed his hands. His nails glittered with ice, though I never would’ve noticed if

I hadn’t been looking for it. His gaze shifted, restless.

Panicked.

Mal seemed to deflate. He hung his head. “We can’t do it without you. Just once more,

Katey Hawthorne

I swear. Then we’re out of the game.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Brady turned as if to leave the alley.

My eyes caught his; his mouth fell open.

“Don’t you dare walk away.” Mal clapped him on the shoulder and spun him around.

Brady knocked his arm away and raised a fist.

“You’re gonna fight me?” Mal spat, literally; I could see it flying. “Me? I’m all you got,

dickhead.”

“You gonna—” Brady’s voice cracked. “Gonna give me a choice?”

Mal’s mouth twisted. It wasn’t just anger in him, not by miles. If Brady’s voice had

cracked, Mal’s was shattered when he said, “You abandoned me. You owe me this.”

“Fuck you.”

I think Brady said something else there too, but I couldn’t hear. There was a great

whooshing

sound, and a wall of fire flashed to life between them, roiling outward like a

digitally manufactured Hollywood explosion. The force of it lifted Brady off his feet and

knocked him backward ass-first, arms and legs splayed, head thrown back.

I was in the alley before that—not as a result of any conscious decision on my part,

because I’m still not sure how I got there—and I just barely kept his skull from cracking

against the pavement by sliding on my knees and catching his shoulders. Even through his

zip-up hoodie, the cold rolled off him like a block of dry ice, and his hands were coated in

sparkling white frost. His gaze met mine but skittishly refused to hold it. He let me help

him to his feet, though.

Mal held up one hand, a little ball of fire floating just above it, arms flexing and mur-

der in his eyes. They were dark gray-green, stormy—nothing like Brady’s.

I had never known what it was to really, truly be hated. But it occurred to me that this

guy was actually capable of killing me.

Brady shoved me behind him. “Get out, Et.”

“Yeah, Et.” Mal sneered, though his focus never left his cousin, flashing with his own

Riot Boy

fire. “It’s hot up in here.”

“They do have prisons that hold people like you, you know.” The words were level, ne-

arly sarcastic, but I heard the quiver in Brady’s voice again.

Mal’s fire, I swear to God, intensified to bright white. It raced all over his hands, up

his arms, and then gathered into an even larger globe between us. The force of it, the heat

parched my face, almost staggered me.

Then I felt the cold radiating from Brady just in front of me, forcing it away. “Get back,

Et. I mean it. This is gonna hurt.”

“Get back, Et,” Mal mocked, high-pitched. The fire jumped. The heat surged forward;

the cold answered it. The smell of ozone crackled in the air.

I took about two steps backward but couldn’t make myself leave him.

“How many times have we tried this, asshole?” Brady snarled. “You can’t beat me.”

“You been gone a long time, cuz.” Mal made the last word an insult. “I been practicing

while you been faking it.”

The cold flared, seeping through my jeans, my jacket, leaching the warmth from my

muscles. My nose went numb.

“Call it off, Mal. Go home.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, just me and—”

“Then fucking leave.”

The heat cut through the cold. The fire climbed so high, it seemed to engulf Mal’s who-

le body.

Brady staggered backward, frost creeping over his hoodie, his breath hanging in fro-

zen clouds in the air. He planted his feet and held out his hands, spreading them wide,

shaking, mist rolling off his fingers. Still, the fire came closer, closer.

My blood rushed so loud in my ears, it drowned out all other sound. I searched the

alley for something, anything, to help, my bones aching with cold. A few half-broken bricks

were stacked in front of the narrow door behind me. I stooped and grabbed a couple, my

Katey Hawthorne

hand shaking so badly I dropped one and nearly ripped off a fingernail fumbling to get it

back. Then I stood and chucked it past Brady’s head—right into the fire.

It hit something. There was a grunt, and the fire guttered.

I sent the other chunk of brick right after it, which got me an angry “The fuck?” and

another flicker for my efforts. This time, Brady was on it. He leaped forward, hands still

out in front of him, growling with effort.

The cold physically battered me backward; it was just as much an explosion as the fire

had been, centered around Brady and rushing out from him like a crushing wave, like a

frigid mushroom cloud, accompanied by a sudden, sharp flash of white light. Frost sliced

through fire in the split second it faltered, revealing a doubled-over Mal.

I closed my eyes against the razor-sharp iciness, staggering away. I sucked in air, and

my lungs seized, frost-burned. My eyelids might’ve frozen shut. I tripped over the bricks,

slammed into the nearest wall, and cracked the back of my head painfully before I finally

steadied myself against it.

When I could pry my eyes open, a perfect circle of frost shimmered on the ground, the

center of which was Brady on hands and knees, head hanging low. Tiny icicles clung to the

brick walls, winter-sharp and pretty. Mal was flat on his back, eyes closed, lips an alarming

shade of grayish pink, although his chest moved up and down evenly.

Brady’s arms quivered, his elbows bowed, ready to give.

I stumbled to his side and pulled him into my lap. Though I felt as if I’d just spent

an hour in a meat locker, the pure cold surrounding him still soaked through my clothes,

squeezing a shiver out of me. Little crystals of frost glinted in his hair, poking into my chin

and neck as I tugged him up to sit. He breathed, frigid but steady. His eyelashes sparkled

with moisture, suspended like tiny diamonds. The tangled spiderweb of his dark blue veins

crawled across his face.

“That was cheating,” he whispered, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his discolo-

red lips.

Riot Boy

“Hang on.” I hardly recognized my own voice. “I’ll call 911—”

He grabbed my hand before I could. “We’re fine. Happens all the time.”

Mal stirred and tried to lift his head. His eyes opened, sought out Brady’s. Then he

closed them again, let his head hit the ground, and took a deep, shaky breath. In a weak,

almost laughing whisper, he said, “I hate you, Brady.”

Brady inclined his head to look at him, coughed out a laugh of his own, and, as since-

rely as I’d ever heard him say anything, replied, “I love you too, man.”

This time when Mal laughed, it was a little bit hysterical. Like a man about to collapse

into uncontrollable sobs.

Brady inhaled deeply. His attention fixed on me again. “Just take me home and put

me in the bath.”

“Will he…?”

“Take me home, Et. Please.”

Katey Hawthorne

Chapter Eight

We left Mal sitting up in the alley, weak and something near to desperate but regai-

ning his color. I dragged Brady home and drew a hot bath. His eyelids drooped low; he

scarfed three candy bars and chugged several energy drinks, sitting on the closed toilet and

letting the steam rise up to warm his face. Silent, staring, half-asleep.

I helped him into the bath and left him soaking there, his veins finally receding from

view, his skin flushing with life again, his eyes closed and a faint smile on his face. I wande-

red into the kitchen to stare at the counter, my hands bunched into fists, reliving the whole

god-awful, incredible scene again and again. Amazed by all the things I’d never suspected

in my twenty-eight years. Appalled by all the things I’d accepted at face value—both then

and now.

And I tried not to wonder what he’d do next. What it all meant.

Whether he’d have disappeared if I hadn’t followed him into that alley. Whether they

would’ve knocked each other unconscious—or worse, whether Mal would’ve won—and

Brady’s panic would’ve taken him far, far away. Back to them. Or away from it all. Whe-

ther that would’ve been better for him.

The memory of it—his blue veins, his bloodless lips, his frost-rimed fingernails and

eyelashes—left splinters in my heart. The memory of him telling the guy who’d just tried to

incinerate him in an alley that he loved him, the distinctive vibration of reluctant sincerity

in his voice.

That made it easy, too easy, to imagine Susanne and me, Marcel and me, in their

place. My head was throbbing by the time I heard the patter of his bare feet coming down

the hall at long last.

He stood just beyond the influence of the kitchen light, but I could see the skin around

Riot Boy

the winding black tattoos at his arm, his torso rising out of the white towel around his

waist, was pink from the heat of the bath.

I sighed away a ball of tension in my neck. “Better?”

He hesitated at the threshold, his jaw working. I had time to look him over, really look.

His hair was all wrong, clinging to his forehead. His eyes were clear and bright but sunken,

his shoulders hunched, his weight on one foot, the other curled up like a little kid digging

out a rock with his toe.

I hadn’t realized how much like a corpse he’d looked, all cold like that, until I saw him

warm and alive again. Those splinters dug deeper and shattered my heart belatedly; an

overpowering rush of emotion that had been held at bay first by adrenaline and then by

mind-numbing worry swept through me at last.

I could only be grateful I was sitting down when it happened.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He took a step forward into the light and peered around the kitchen

like he’d never seen it before. “So, I guess I should piss off now. Unless…”

I eyed him up and down, silently replying, You’re pissing off over my dead body. How

I’d accomplish this, I wasn’t really sure, but I had to keep him with me until he rested, at

least. Handcuffs weren’t an appropriate option this time, and I didn’t want to know what

it said about us that they ever were. “Unless?”

He shrugged and scratched at the back of his neck. “I don’t know. You want to fuck or

something?”

I looked him over again, half-naked in my hall, digging at his imaginary rock, head

hanging, lips too pale. After that. I wasn’t considering his proposition. I was just trying to

figure out why he’d suggest such a bizarre course of action.

When I didn’t answer right off, he said, “Least a guy can do, huh?”

I closed my eyes tight, face heating. I didn’t have the emotional filters in place to deny

the welling anger. A long, deep breath, and I opened them again. “Just to clarify, are you

implying that I require sex as payment for the use of my hot water?”

Katey Hawthorne

“Well, no. I mean, you did kinda save my ass too.” He tried to grin. It faltered mise-

rably.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I was on my feet with the bar stool rocking behind me,

but that was as far as I got. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I wanted to do—I was still a little

rusty at the rage thing—but I was pretty sure it was unpleasant.

“Uh, sort of?”

And then it all just tumbled out of me at once. Everything that had been building over

the last month with him, exploding in my kitchen at the worst possible moment. “You—you

are unbelievable, Brady. You steal. You lie. You disappear whenever it goddamn suits you.

And I sit here and wait politely for you to decide you might like to see me again. I accept

whatever bullshit half-assed stories you concoct about your life, even when it’s completely

insane and potentially life-threatening—”

He winced.

I took another deep breath. “I’m not—I’m not saying it’s some huge sacrifice. Those are

my choices, and I would make them over again without a second thought. I’m just saying, I

keep doing any stupid thing you ask just so I can be with you and”—I struggled to find the

words—“and that is what you think of me?”

His jaw worked again. He avoided looking at me directly in that wild, panicky way.

But it would’ve hurt more to let him go on thinking idiotic shit like that than to shove

the truth down his throat once and for all. “Asking me to cuff you to the radiator and have

my way with you in a dressing room—that doesn’t make up for you jerking me around the

rest of the time.”

“Thought you liked the radiator scenario.”

I actually paused long enough to think, Yeah, I really did. Then I came back to my

senses and sputtered, “That is not the point.”

“Okay, I’ll go.” He took a step backward.

“No, you won’t.”

Riot Boy

He gawked but finally looked straight at me. There was a long pause, wherein I ima-

gined he was thinking of the cleverest, most indifferent-sounding way to tell me to fuck off.

But I wasn’t giving him the chance. “You were half-dead an hour ago; you’re going

nowhere. All I’m trying to say is that just because you’re damaged, it doesn’t mean you get

to be a prick. I don’t deserve it, and you know it.”

Look at grown-up Etienne, standing up for himself all over the place.

And hell, Brady only had himself to blame if he didn’t like it.

He shifted his weight to his other foot but still held my eyes. “I’m sorry. I just said it

because I, um, thought it might be nice. I could use a little…” He moved his head back and

forth in a sort of “you know” gesture.

Yep. Still wanted to do something unpleasant. And hug him. Which was admittedly a

very pleasant idea, just not enough to blot out the rest of my emotions.

“You didn’t look too happy when I offered. So I just thought I’d, you know, make a joke

out of it.”

I had to close my eyes again, and this time I leaned on the counter for support. Was

he, in all earnestness, implying that he still had any doubt in his mind that I wanted him?

After all that?

I very nearly laughed—in a hysterical way. “Jesus, Brady. What is wrong with you?”

“Uh, my ego is a big black hole of suck that can never be filled up?”

Last time I date a musician. Or a punk. Or a thief. Or a superhero. Or someone too hot

for me. Or—

Okay, that line of thought was not helping. “I worship the ground you walk on, okay?

Now get your hot ass to bed, and we’ll talk about this mess with your family tomorrow.”

He looked down.

I went to him, took him by the shoulders, turned him around, and steered him down

the hall. “I figured most of it out on my own already. Just try to sleep. Please.”

Katey Hawthorne

“Yeah. Okay.” We’d reached the end of the hall and my bedroom door by then, so he

turned to face me.

He didn’t smell like him, more like my body wash and shampoo. I said, “’Night.”

“Yeah.” He closed his mouth, then opened it, obviously thinking something he wasn’t

saying.

I don’t know if he saw in my face that I really, really didn’t want him to, or if he just

thought better of it himself. Either way, he didn’t ask me to come with him.

It wasn’t that I was still angry. I was just a little bit of everything right then. I was

raw. I didn’t regret my eruption, which surprised me, but I knew it didn’t make it any more

likely that he’d stick around. And that thought, combined with sheer emotional exhausti-

on, made me ache.

I didn’t want to kiss him. Touch him. It was too close, too dangerous just then.

But I wouldn’t have been able to say no if he asked. Really asked.

He said, “’Night, Et.”

“Rimbaud’s on the nightstand.” I went back down the hall.

I spent the next few hours pretending to watch TV while I wondered what the hell I

was going to do with myself when he disappeared this time.

When I woke to a gray dawn, a painful crick in my neck after spending the night on the

couch, and the TV droning on about nothing, he was gone. So was my Rimbaud.

I read his note on the fridge with bleary eyes:

Skipping town for a few days to deal with this bullshit. I’m sorry, sweetheart. You don’t

deserve this, either.

Ah! je suis tellement délaissé que j’offre à n’importe quelle divine image des élans vers

la perfection.

You’re my perfection.

—B

Riot Boy

The quote was from Une Saison en Enfer, a few lines after the “To whom shall I hire

myself out”

bit I’d recited that first night. A vague and crappy translation would be: “Ah!

I’m so all alone that I offer to any divine image at all a striving for perfection.”

* * * *

To say I was a basket case would have been an understatement. To attempt to de-

monstrate the kind of wild mood swings and endless chasing of my mental tail that would

illustrate the true depth and breadth of my incipient madness would be tedious. There is

nothing so awful as being unable to help someone you care about—unless it’s knowing the

one way you might help them could potentially make things worse, if it were to go awry.

But Susanne wasn’t just a cop or an overprotective big sister—she was my best friend.

The few days we hadn’t spoken felt like a lifetime, considering what I’d just seen. When I

heard her voice again, I spilled. His birthday, the names of his cousin and uncle. I omitted

only what had happened with them and what I suspected, and of course mentioned nothing

about the whole awakened complication. Bad enough that she knew I was scared.

For about an hour after I’d given her the information, I regretted the creepiness of it

all. Felt like I’d violated his trust unforgivably.

A few hours after that, I decided that was bullshit. I wasn’t just some guy he wanted

to fuck. Even if he didn’t care about me—and I knew he did, beyond a doubt—Mal had a

point. I was a part of it if someone made me. And he had.

I wasn’t about to sit on my ass waiting for information that might never come. I had to

do what I could. Creepy, yes, indisputably. But I was beyond caring.

She called me before the sun went down again, not much more than twenty-four hours

after I’d scraped him up off the pavement, cold and gray and icy.

I greeted her with “What did you find?”

“Brady Owen Claremont,” she said. I swallowed hard. “Of Richmond, Virginia. Has a

record that goes back to juvenile—and you don’t want to know the kinds of strings I pulled

to get that. First conviction of many at thirteen. Almost all of them are for theft or attemp-

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ted theft. He was booked for assault once, but…”

“Whatever you’re about to say, it can’t possibly be worse than the scenarios I’ve been

inventing all afternoon.”

“There’s not much info. Judge ruled in his favor, but his own father was the plaintiff.

Said father’s record is…” She paused. “Something else. Died in a car accident five years

ago, apparently.”

Our father wore sweater-vests at Christmas and called me to ask for book recommen-

dations once a week. I couldn’t even imagine. “Jesus, Susanne.”

“Yeah. The cousin, Malory Claremont, he makes Brady look like a choirboy. He’s eit-

her a lot more active or gets caught a lot more. Same for the uncle, James. The whole thing

is…”

I rubbed my face as my vision went bleary again. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“This guy is seriously damaged.”

“That, at least, is not news.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I think I’m in love with him.” Saying it made my eyes burn. I squeezed them shut.

She sighed. “Yeah. That’s why I’m sorry. This can’t end well, kid. Not in any possible

world.”

Only my cold sense of despair kept me from cracking a Voltaire-and-Leibniz joke. “Any

convictions on Brady recently?”

“Not for…about five years, looks like.”

“He’s out of it.”

She didn’t reply, but I sensed her trepidation. I would’ve felt the same in her position,

and I’m nowhere near as paranoid. No one is that paranoid, this side of the CIA.

Just when I was about to thank her and hang up, she asked, “Why’d you tell me his

birthday finally? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call you if I find out.”

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101

“Etienne, please. Forget him. Maybe it’s not his fault, and that’s a goddamn tragedy.

He seems like he wants to be a good guy. But he’s poison.”

My throat nearly closed up, but I managed to choke out, “At least I’ll go out happy.

Thanks, Suse. I love you.”

“I love you too. Promise me that you’ll call if anything happens.”

“I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

* * * *

I’d tried to go in to work and had promptly been sent home for looking like hell. I

hadn’t slept well, true, but I could’ve used the distraction. My other favorite spots around

town had Brady all over them now, and I didn’t feel like braving afternoon traffic to go

downtown. So I ended up at home pretending to read.

Voltaire, since I’d been recently reminded of him. The day Candide doesn’t make me

laugh is the day I should end it. Oddly enough, it was even funnier in my state of extreme

anxiety.

Of all my repetitive, torturous thoughts just then, the most common one was: I should’ve

gone to bed with him.

But I’d been too selfish, too scared to open myself up like that. And now he was gone,

and all I wanted was to put my arms around him, make him feel like someone gave a shit

about what happened to him. Let him know I loved him, no matter where he was from or

what he did—or maybe even because of where he was from and what he did.

And if he disappeared for good, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

When the phone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin. All the caller ID said was Vir-

ginia.

I picked it up and said, “Brady.”

“Yeah. Got a phone. Told you you were sexy.”

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Katey Hawthorne

I was unable to respond, strangled by relief.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk to me right—”

“No, I’m glad you called. Really glad.”

“You and your bad habits.”

I smiled. “Can I ask where you are?”

He made a sound, sort of like a laugh. “I’m at home still. I remembered it being shitty.

Just not how shitty, exactly.”

I swallowed a huge lump in my throat, then asked, “You coming back?”

No hesitation: “Soon, but just for the day. I have to, uh, get some shit together.”

“Then?”

“I’ll come back for good. Soon as I can. Just—I gotta take care of this first. You under-

stand, right?”

“Are you going to do something stupid?”

“Always.” A pause. When I didn’t reply, he said, “I should go. I don’t want these bas-

tards to know I’m talking to you. I just wondered if you’d see me. Didn’t want to just show

up and expect—”

“You’re lucky I miss you.”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Yeah. It means I’m going to try not to be offended that you had to ask me that.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Shut up, Brady.”

A real laugh then. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Yeah. You better.”

* * * *

Two days later, I was sick with nervousness. I got a text from the same number that

morning. All it said was, Incoming. By the evening, I was ready to pop.

I didn’t know what I’d do when I saw him. It had only been a few days—about the

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103

same amount of time that usually passed between dates—but I knew I wouldn’t be able to

pretend it was the same. I swung wildly still, but now between regret and resolve.

Why hadn’t I at least kissed him that night? Why had I given him some stupid cliché

about worshipping him when what I’d meant was—

Whatever he was up to, whatever stupid thing he’d let them convince him to do, I

was coming along. I couldn’t just wait for him; he knew that. And I’d helped him with Mal

once…

Pointless thoughts, round and round, until I was practically in fits.

He didn’t come to the door. He called.

I said, “Where are you?”

“Downstairs. I just wanted to make sure—”

“Come up.”

He hesitated. “I thought…I was buying you a drink.”

“Would you rather?”

“Fuck, no. I just thought you might—”

“Please, Brady. Come up.”

As he hung up, I went to the door. By the time I got it open, his old black Chucks were

already on my doormat, and he looked up at me from under his bangs like a guilty little kid.

Heart in my throat, blood raging in my ears—Jesus, I’d forgotten how bright his eyes

were, his arms in those T-shirts, his tight jeans and his eyeliner and his—

Everything.

I stepped aside to let him in.

I closed the door behind him once he’d entered. He began to turn around, saying, “I’m

really—”

But the second I flipped the lock, I gave in to impulse. I backed him against the door

and kissed him. His lips were cold—fall cold, not Brady cold—and he tasted like cigarettes

and gum and him. As if his knees had given out, he put his arms around my neck and held

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on tight, pulling himself up and nibbling at my bottom lip, then sucking on it.

I closed in on him, pinned him hard against the door, lifting him slightly. Slipped my

thigh between his legs and my hands beneath his shirt. Felt his soft, cool skin. Like the

first time, just like the first time, except now I was the one who was desperate.

He closed off the kiss and said, “I’m sorr—”

I rested my forehead against his, molding myself into him, my chest, my hips, my legs,

my cock filling out behind my fly. “Unless you’re going to tell me to stop, please shut up.”

“Shutting up.” This time he crushed into me hard, that almost bruising kiss that came

with a little whimpering sound, the one that used to scare me. He sucked at my tongue

when I licked the roof of his mouth, sighing as he rolled his hips against me.

My breath came in rough pants; it felt so good, so right, but it hurt too. “I should’ve

slept with you the other night.”

“No, you did right. You always do right, Et. You know.”

I kissed his face, his neck, his ear, then said into it, “It’s not just that I want to fuck

you. It’s that I need you.”

He placed his hands on my chest and pushed; I let him drive me back just a step and

looked him in the eye.

He licked his lips and said, “About goddamn time.”

We left a trail of his clothes behind us through the living room. He grabbed the hand-

cuffs off the bookshelf on the way and led me directly to bed. He stretched out on his sto-

mach, bare, beautiful ass to the ceiling, and snaked to allow for his swollen cock under his

belly.

I ran my fingers up the taut muscle at the back of his thigh, pausing where it met his

ass to tickle him. I kissed the small of his back, his right shoulder blade, his nape. Tasted

his skin, mouth watering.

He rolled his hips, sighing happily at each stop along the way.

I wanted him to promise me he wouldn’t leave, to tell him he could lie to me, if he wan-

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ted. That I didn’t give a fuck.

But the smile on his face, as if he’d forgotten everything else, as if he’d never been so

content in his life, stopped me. I wouldn’t ruin the moment. Whatever was out there, he left

it behind when he came through my door. He’d tried to tell me once how it felt different,

good, in here with me. Sometimes life tried to creep in on him; sometimes he had to disap-

pear to escape it. But now I had defined it, I’d do my best to hold it at bay for a while and

keep that look on his face.

I kissed his neck, ran my hand over the curve of his backside, then traced the split of

it from the small of his back, down, down. He gave a little “ah” and parted his legs. I curled

up by his side to press my hot cock into him.

He arched; I cupped his ass, admiring the play of tight muscle and soft, cool skin as he

burrowed into the mattress and gave a little growl of anticipation and pleasure.

I kissed his shoulder, the mad black nouveau sleeve. My finger traced a line up to the

small of his back and tickled him there.

He laughed and grabbed for the handcuffs on the nightstand. They clanked as he

passed them over. I picked them up, felt the cold of the metal—Brady cold, this time—and

let the weight of them settle into my hand.

He smirked. “Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

I knew goddamn well by then that there was more to it than a need for something

new, something slightly kinky. If anything, this was even more intense than the last time,

when he’d actually explained his panic. Explained how this was a solution, a kind of bass-

ackwards safety for him.

And yet I wasn’t as disturbed as I thought I ought to be. It was just…

Brady. And, God, I loved him. I loved him, and I loved his fucked-up moments of frea-

king out and his need to be adored and his need to give it all up, just sometimes, sometimes,

and—

And I had to admit I loved that he wanted to give it to me. Because the truth was, I’d

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given it all up to him without even realizing it. There was nothing quite like knowing that

he felt me, understood me. Trusted me enough to do the same.

We had different ways of showing it, yeah. But he was right anyhow. His was pretty

fun.

I snapped the cuff around his left wrist. “One hand okay?”

He smiled so sweetly, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. “You always take care of

me, Et. Anything you want.”

“Was about to say the same thing to you.”

He smirked and arched his back, stretching snakelike again and pulling the chain

tight in an experimental way. This both raised his ass from the mattress and told me, in

case I’d somehow managed to forget, exactly what it was he wanted.

He tugged at the cuffs again, this time deliberately. Impatiently.

In case I was wondering when, exactly, he wanted it.

I ate him out for as long as we could stand it, his ass in the air and my face buried in

it. My tongue circled his hole, and my hand rubbed spit all over, toying with him until he

was wet and panting, tugging at the cuffs so they clinked out loud against the metal bar of

the headboard. He was beyond belief, so hot and unashamed and happy that I was dripping

simply from rimming him.

Eventually he began to rock his hips, demanding more. I responded by sitting up,

dragging the back of my arm over my mouth, then pressing two fingers into the split of

his ass. I traced downward, just like I had done before, but applying more pressure. Not

tickling. Taunting.

His legs trembled. The cuffs clattered noisily; the entire headboard creaked. He laug-

hed—he actually laughed—sticking his ass up high in the air and begging for it. When I

reached his hole, he rocked back, and I pushed inward slightly, rubbing all that spit up

into him. He arched his back wildly and gave a muffled groan that sounded something like

“That’s good, ah, fucking good.” It was difficult to tell with his face in the pillow, though.

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I penetrated him with sticky-wet fingertips. I’d been inside Brady before but not with

quite the same intention—not knowing that my fingers were getting him ready for my dick.

It pounded along with my heart, hot and impatient between my legs. Feeling that warm,

tight spot inside him made it swell again; it was already so hard after licking him so long,

black spots flashed in my vision. I pushed up inside him slowly, gently, stretching him,

feeling him out.

He rocked back again, fucking himself on me. “Ah, mm, fuuuuck,” he seemed to be

saying. His unbound hand clutched at the sheets.

I pulled out, then pushed in again, searching. He groaned when I discovered the right

spot. I ran my fingers up the inside of his straining thigh, stroked his balls—

The headboard gave an almighty creak; the cuffs renewed their jangling complaints.

He turned his head to the side so I could hear him say, “Jesus Christ, Et, I’m gonna come

before you even get in.”

I grinned. “Better not.”

When he laughed again, it was wicked.

I pulled out and went to the nightstand for the necessary effects. “Don’t move; I got

you where I want you.”

“Mm, now you’re talking. Oh—oh fuck, that’s beautiful.”

I could only assume he referred to my cock, to which I was applying a handy Trojan.

Maybe he wasn’t, but I wasn’t in a state to decipher code just then. I rolled the condom

down and slicked it with a palmful of lube, seeing spots again.

He’d lowered his ass a little by then, watching with his lips parted. When I climbed

back on top, I steered his hips down to the bed. He made a quick, rolling adjustment while

I massaged the rest of the lube into his ass. He parted his legs wide, so wide I could see

his balls tight against him, arched his back. That gorgeous, round little ass, so hot in those

pants of his, so much hotter naked and split wide open like that. I touched the head of my

cock to his hole and stroked it once, almost disbelieving. He opened up more, angled even

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harder, looking over his shoulder and breathing heavily.

It was almost over before it started. Stars started popping behind my eyes before I

even had the head into him. The headboard groaned in his white-knuckled grip. “Mm, god-

damn

” was intelligible before he buried his mouth in the pillow again.

Deep breath, refocus, and I fought down the explosion already building low and hot

in my vitals. I pushed up inside him slowly, every inch increasing the heat, the friction

around my eager cock. My arms shook, but I fitted the curve of my hips to his ass, bending

over him until I could kiss the back of his neck. In and in, his tight ass taking me almost

entirely. I stopped, inhaled deeply, kissed him again, the corkscrews of pain, of burning

pleasure, coiling up and down inside me.

He turned his head, wrenched at the headboard again, and arched under me, forcing

me deeper into him. He closed his eyes, moaned so, so sweetly, and breathed the magic

words. “Don’t stop.”

I began thrusting slowly, gasping into his ear, kissing his neck. Little sounds of en-

couragement from Brady now and then, his hold on the bar viselike, his cuffed hand now

relaxed, now clutching at the chain. It started to feel almost comfortable, the pain and heat

in constant, building waves, and his hips moved under mine—faster now as he rubbed

himself off against the mattress. Faster, and my arms began to shake again, more from the

giddy, ecstatic spiral building at the point of connection, at the feeling of him tight around

me, than exertion. Faster, as his jerking became erratic, throwing off the rhythm we’d built

and sending a shocking counterwave of heat all through me.

He rocked hard, pushing upward with his thighs, slamming down into the bed. He

groaned, pulling on the cuffs so the skin at his wrist went white as his knuckles, and said

it again: “Don’t stop. Ah, yeah! Don’t—mm, fuck…” It dissolved into a moan, and he rocked

hard, burying his face in the pillow, then thrust violently into the mattress. His back bo-

wed, angling his ass up sharply as he went rigid from the inside out. His ass, his legs, his

back, his shoulders—all tightened up; the headboard shivered with the strain. I did as I

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was told and kept it up, never interrupting my pace. I felt him against my sac, pulled up

tight as it slapped against his backside, wriggling, grinding down on me with the prolonged

pleasure of his orgasm.

I slowed, kissing at him, petting him while he was coming down, pushing my despera-

te need into a little box until I was sure he was finished, ready, happy. His breath was still

ragged, but his hips started to move again. He resituated, rolled beneath me, tightening

up so I bit down on my lip.

“Don’t stop,” he sighed or whispered or something barely audible. “It’s so fucking good.

Please don’t stop.”

I abandoned what little focus I had left, and the world began to unravel. My vision

swam, my cock throbbed inside him, hot with impatience, and he bucked his hips to let me

push deeper again. I shifted my weight to one arm so I could use the other to caress him,

ass to shoulder, my palm flat against the slick sheen of sweat—mine and his—soaking his

skin. The long, gorgeous lines of his body shifted under me, with me, melting, drawing me

nearer and nearer. I steadied the motion of my hips, my burning thighs for long thrusts,

building with the spirals of heat as they came undone inside me—inside him. I moved with

them, caught each one as they pushed me successively higher at the deepest point, until

the rush of it was all I knew.

When I couldn’t hold back anymore, he sighed with me, angling back and up again.

I took the invitation and buried my cock as deep as it would go, grinding into him several

more times as I came long and hard, deaf, dumb, blind to anything else. The world dissol-

ved around us in the pounding of my heartbeat.

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Chapter Nine

I placed the sugar cube on top of one of Mom’s absinthe spoons—her housewarming

gift to me when I’d moved out ten years ago—with an unnecessary flourish. I then poured

from the water pitcher, dissolving the sugar in the little waterfall, the clear chartreuse li-

quor already in the glass clouding and releasing the scent of licorice into the kitchen.

“If you’re going to read Rimbaud,” I said, “might as well learn to drink like him.”

“That little bastard would drink either of us under the table.” Brady sat on a barstool

across the counter from where I stood. He leaned against it and propped his head up with

his hand, still grinning stupidly.

I admired his arm, his tattoo, the dip in his shoulder, his collarbone. My muscles still

hummed with the memory of all that sensation; his eyes suggested his did too.

I remembered what I was doing just in time to notice I’d dissolved my sugar and was

now in danger of overdoing the water.

I picked up the spoon, stirred a whirlpool into the glass, and lifted it to my mouth.

He reached out and touched it, sending a spiderweb of frost out from his fingertip,

creeping over the glass and cooling the liquor. He lifted his own in salute, and we drank.

The wormwood numbed the tip of my tongue, but it went down easy and sweet, leaving a

taste like drunken candy in my mouth.

That somehow seemed appropriate for the moment too.

“That’s good shit.” He sounded surprised.

I smiled. He caught my eye over his glass and smiled back.

Too bad I can’t cuff you to the fridge

. My smile turned sad at that thought. Partly be-

cause he probably wanted me to, in some dark place inside him. Partly because it was so

remote from what I really wanted.

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At least now I understood the attraction, from his end. I take care of him in here, where

it’s safe, so he can go out there, where it’s not.

But that was going to be hard. “You have to go?”

He nodded.

“But…you just got here.”

“Told you, had some shit to get together.” He avoided my eyes.

I almost pursued the topic, but in the grand scheme, it didn’t matter. There were more

pressing matters at hand. “So, the whole story?”

“Shit. I woulda told you after our first date if I thought it wasn’t dangerous. Told you,

I always liked your face.”

I paused, still mostly in that strange and all-too-brief moment of Clarity by Recent

Incredible Orgasm, to wonder at the man seated at my kitchen counter. At the impossible

contradiction that was Brady.

A congenital thief and pathological liar. An unnatural loner and hardened criminal. A

trusting lover and cynical riot boy. An affection whore and beautiful bastard.

He drained half the glass, smacked his lips as if to ward off numbness, and said, “Don’t

even know where to start.”

“Your uncle. At the club that night.”

“Right, the rat bastard. So I split from my family—it’s Claremont, by the way—”

“I know.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“This is, um, incredibly creepy, so I’ll just say it.”

“Et, be serious.”

“Suse was after me for a background check since we met. I finally gave her your birth-

day when you left for home.” I bit my lip, preparing for the worst.

“Her little brother was dating a pickpocket who technically doesn’t exist. If she didn’t

do a background check, she’d be an idiot.” He grinned. “That makes this even easier, then.

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I ditched the Claremont clan about five years back—and not on the best of terms. You pro-

bably guessed they’re why I don’t have a job or a place of my own or even use my real last

name. They’re good at finding people.

“They tracked me down in Raleigh first, and Pittsburgh was the farthest and most

inane bus ticket I could afford after that. Jim had just tracked me down again the night

before I met you.” He took another sip, grimacing. “Found me at the Flowers—one thing I

can’t give up is the music, I guess. Makes me too predictable.”

“Not the word I’d use.”

He snorted. “Ed, the bartender, he figured me out last year. Caught me frosting my

glass and shocked the shit out of my hand, told me to be more careful. He’s got electricity.

So he kinda guessed what was up when he saw me and Jim having it out in a corner.”

That explained why said bartender was sort of protective when it came to Brady, then.

Huh.

“Tyler and Franz knew something was fucking with me too, but I just said I needed to

go out and get fucked and forget. I think they came to the club just to make sure I wasn’t

being suicidal or something. But I was thinking it could be my last night in town, and—

Shit. I got friends here. Good friends. I had no idea where to run to and, well, really didn’t

want to run at all. I guess Jim followed us there to try again, and you saw what happened.”

“You left me for an old guy who wears sunglasses at night.”

“That’s the least of his problems. Guess he saw me with you and thought I’d disappear

soon if he didn’t make his move. He knows me too well.” A pause. “I really meant to find

you again. I just grabbed your card in case I started panicking. Didn’t have much cash on

me. Didn’t want to be trapped.”

“But I left.”

“Yeah, well, I’m good at finding people too. Among other things.” He shifted uncom-

fortably, and I knew he wasn’t talking about sex. He sipped at his absinthe again before

continuing. “It was a stupid time to go chasing after some hot guy. I don’t know—that’s

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probably why I did it. But I didn’t expect to end up like this. With you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

He smiled. “Anyhow, my dad and Jim had this system, back in the day. It was brilli-

ant, actually. I got my frosty shit from Dad, and Jim does heat like Mal. They’d use their

abilities together on things. Like what happened in the alley with me and Mal? It’s sort

of like that, except when you focus it all on an object—say, solid steel—it destabilizes the

bonds in it, you know? At the molecular level. Some people can do it on their own, the really

powerful types, but two people with opposite powers can do it faster. Takes years to attune

to someone else, but it totally destroys anything if you get it right. Makes it brittle.”

“Useful trick.”

“Can burglarize almost anywhere, bypass almost any system. They even had Mal’s

mom for electrical stuff for a while too, could do places with crazy security. But she split

when we were in middle school.”

“Explains a lot about Mal.”

“No shit.” His expression was pained, but he continued. “They started taking me and

Mal along when we were about thirteen. We did everything together, like, twenty-four

hours a day. We thought it was so fucking cool that we could help. I mean, it was cool. Don’t

think this is me having a moral issue with the family trade, because it’s not.”

“I knew you were a sociopath before I even knew your name.”

He laughed and finished off his drink. Mine was about there too by that time, so I

tossed it back and constructed two more while he picked up the story once more.

“I never got along with my old man. A couple years after they started training me and

Mal on the job, I realized I was about six inches away from turning into him. And then I

realized that was exactly what he wanted and that I was just a hammer or wrench to him,

otherwise.”

Here came the first real pause in his narrative. He watched me pour the water through

the sugar, but I knew he was somewhere else altogether. When it was done, I passed it to

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him silently.

“I fucking hate getting used. I mean, except on my own terms.” He swirled his fresh

drink idly, little chunks of cloudy green ice forming on the surface. “So we always argued,

but we got into this one epic brawl. Guess that’s still on my record, since I was an adult by

then.”

I raised my chin slightly, hoping that his understanding extended far enough to cover

my knowledge of that incident, of all things.

“I meant to leave after that. I begged Mal to come, and he begged me to stay. I didn’t

want him to have to take all the flak. Dumb prick’s just…” His voice got that little hitch in

it there. He cleared his throat with more absinthe.

I winced in accidental sympathy, leaning with one hip against the counter.

But the drink seemed to help, and he sat a little straighter, launching into the next bit

with disorienting alacrity. “Anyhow, Dad got himself killed about a month after that. Nah,

don’t make that face. I was—I mean, I was sad. We had good times too. My mom died when

I was really young, so for a while it was me and him against the world. But mostly I just

felt—fuck, this sounds awful, but it felt like I was free.

“Problem was, that meant I was the only one who could do cold left in the family. Jim

couldn’t go outside for help. Too risky. If the superhero wannabes make life hard for the

awakened, the supervillains are royal fucking pains in the ass. And the awakened clean up

after our own kind, if you know what I mean. If we’d ever gotten caught, let’s just say we’d

be actively hoping to get thrown into sleeper prison for life.”

Too many questions, too much wrongness. I just pushed my new drink his way, let him

cool it, and kept my mouth shut.

“So I agreed to do Dad’s thing a few times, just for Malory. By then, I figured he’d ne-

ver leave—he has way too many dependency issues. Shit, like I’m going to judge. Bastard’s

going to end up like Dad too. Aching to get himself killed.” Here he had to pause again.

His voice softened but remained steady. Maybe because he threw back another big gulp of

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absinthe. “But you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, so I just tried to do

what I could. Help them build up some cash and then disappear with a clear conscience. So

I did. And the rest you know.”

“That’s amazing.” For more than the obvious reasons.

I’d thought he was broken since that first night we’d spent together. But I’d been

wrong. Maybe he had been broken at one point, but whatever had happened between then

and now had just built him back up stronger.

He was the toughest son of a bitch I’d ever met, after all.

“It’s fucked up,” he said.

“Yeah. Don’t take this the wrong way, Brady, but it pretty much had to be. Nothing

less would explain you.”

He smiled lopsidedly.

I would’ve kissed him, but the goddamn counter was in the way. “What now?”

“The famous last words ‘one more job’ have been thrown around a lot.”

I already knew that, of course, but I wanted to hear him say it. “And that’s what you’re

going to do?”

He paused, his finger sending little cascades of frosty air down the sides as he traced

the rim of his glass. “I just want to stay here. I’m fucking tired.”

“Of disappearing?”

“Makes you feel like you don’t really exist after a while. Like people can see right

through you.” He kept his eyes on his drink, chewing on his bottom lip.

I couldn’t tell him I’d had the same thought. “You think they’ll really leave you alone

if you do it?”

“No. They don’t know how to do anything else because they don’t want to. But it’ll

give me a year or two, maybe, before they swallow their pride and come begging again.” He

knocked back another drink.

“We could—could go somewhere. You and me.”

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He smiled wryly. “You’d do that?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

“But this is your place. Shit, that’s half of what I like so much about it.”

“It’s just a place.”

“I see why you don’t lie more often, now.”

“Why?”

“Because you suck at it. Goddamn, Etienne. No wonder I’m stupid in love with you.”

My blood roared in my ears, my face flushed. I tried to answer, but my throat closed

up and—

“Wait, whatever you’re about to say, stop. I’m not running. This is my place too now.”

He pushed away the mostly drained glass and stood. “We’ll figure everything else out later.

After. If you want.”

“Brady—”

“Seriously. Save it.” He went to the couch and pulled his shirt—which had been th-

rown across the arm on our way to the bedroom earlier—over his head. “That’s how you

know I’ll be back. Well, that and you’re the best fuck I ever—”

“At least take me with—”

“No.”

“Then tell me where you’re going.”

“Diabolical Plans are like Fight Club. The first rule is that you don’t talk about the

Diabolical Plan.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“I’m not joking. I’m being flippant. It’s how I relax before I go and do something stu-

pid.”

“I’m not letting you disappear again.”

“One more time.”

“Brady—”

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“Believe me, sweetheart, I know what it usually means when people say ‘one more

time.’ But I mean it. Look at me.” He turned, still straightening his shirt, and held my gaze

from across the room. “I can handle this. I am totally FUBAR, I know, but I can handle

this.”

“So can I.”

“Yeah. I think that’s why I love you.”

* * * *

There was really nothing for me to do that night but drink myself into an absinthe

stupor. That and change my sheets.

I staggered out into the bright autumn sunshine the next afternoon, went in to work

distracted and obsessively checking my phone, but I made it through the day without lo-

sing my mind completely. Susanne canceled on the gym, so I went by myself. I stumbled

home in an exhausted haze and drank the last of the absinthe out of sheer desperation,

then the last two Honeyed Foxes in the back of the fridge. All of which had roughly zero

effect. The Malbec was long gone, so that was all I had in the house—apart from a few over-

priced bottles I was saving for a special occasion and some I.C. Light that had occupied the

fridge since the last time Marcel visited.

I wasn’t that desperate.

I slept horribly. I was off work and functionally out of alcohol. By dinnertime, I was

sick to death of the same thoughts running through my mind on repeat, the old broken re-

cord. It was numbing but in an uncomfortable “oh my God, I’ve finally lost my mind” way.

Less than forty-eight hours after Brady left my apartment, I finally did what I suppo-

sed I’d known I’d do all along. Praying that I wasn’t too late.

I launched into it the second Susanne picked up. “Suse, you were right. Brady’s defini-

tely into something that—”

“Etienne—”

“Please, I just need your advice. I know he’s done it a million times, but I’ll never fu-

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cking forgive myself if—”

“Etienne!”

I paused. “What?”

“I know. Brady was here the other night after he left you.”

Silence. Then, “What?”

“He told me everything. We coordinated with the Richmond PD. He’s setting them up,

giving them to the cops.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, kid. He begged me not to tell you. Said you’d follow him down there and—”

“Damn right I will!”

“Et—”

“Where is he? Where’s the job?”

“Where do you think? Look, it’s too late now. It’s going down tonight, and it’s at least

a six-hour drive. By the time you get down there—”

That was right about when I hung up on her. I shoved a few things into a backpack

and then raced to my ancient car, praying it could make it all the way to Virginia before it

finally gave up the ghost on me.

* * * *

Pro travel tip: I-95 between DC and Richmond is a waking nightmare, even at night.

Those zombie-apocalypse movies that always have the visual of a freeway jammed with

stationary, abandoned cars? That’s what it started to feel like around midnight.

Didn’t help that I called Brady’s phone over and over and it went straight to voice mail

every damn time. That probably meant it was off, so there was no point sending a text,

either. Didn’t stop me from sending one in all caps: INCOMING. I didn’t expect he’d see it.

Finally something clicked in my brain, and I realized that while I was sitting perfectly still

on the freeway, I could actually use the 3G connection I’d been overpaying for and check

things out online.

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119

One eye on the taillights in front of me, I tried: Brady Claremont Richmond.

Ten pages of results, each more useless than the last.

Claremont Richmond Police

Horror stories about being a police officer in the City of Richmond. Triple homicides

and armed robberies. Just what I wanted to see. Fuck.

Robbery, Richmond Police

And I punched the News tab, looking for today’s date.

BREAKING NEWS: ARMORED CAR ROBBERY

Shots were exchanged when Richmond Police broke up an armored car robbery at 10:20

p.m. this evening near Shockoe Slip, and two ambulances rushed from the scene. Chief Reg-

gie Fitch said, “We had prior knowledge of this event, and everything was carefully planned

on our end.” The number of suspects involved and just how severe the injuries sustained is

currently being withheld, but police had cleared the area of bystanders prior to…

Shit. Shit, shit. “Shit.” If Susanne had taught me anything, it was that anytime the

police tell the press something had been “carefully planned,” it means something went

sideways, bad. So not just hot and cold superpowers but guns. Brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

I was going to puke.

I tried calling the Richmond PD. I got nowhere fast with a pissed-off guy at reception

who kept telling me a further statement would be issued to the press in the next hour.

I was just crossing the 295 loop into Richmond proper, about to start screaming my

head off for lack of any other way to get rid of the immense frustration and fear, when my

phone finally rang. I snapped it up without even checking the ID. “I hope to God this is

Brady.”

“Of course it’s Brady. What’s up with the frantic texts from you and Susanne?”

My heart, swollen to twice its natural size at least, thudded so loud in my throat I

could hardly speak. He sounds okay. He must be okay. Everything’s okay.

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“You’re asking me what I’m doing? Jesus, are—” A horrible thought then. “You’re not

in the hospital, are you?”

“No. No, I’m in one piece, but—Wait, what’s that noise? Are you in the car?”

“Yeah.” And he had a point. I couldn’t have this conversation while I was driving—my

vision was already starting to blur. “You’re okay? Really?”

“I’m okay, yeah.”

“Okay. Where are you, and how do I get there?”

“I’m—” He paused. “Where are you?”

“The motherfucker conventionally known as I-95. The nearest exit says”—I squinted

into the darkness—“Lakeside.”

He was quiet. Then I heard a little choking sound and realized he was laughing.

“Brady, I swear to—”

“Okay, okay. When you get to sixty-four, bear left…”

He was at the Marriot downtown; at least the Richmond PD had sprung for decent

accommodations. At least he wasn’t in an ICU somewhere hooked up to millions of tubes

and—

Yeah. Not going there. Not even thinking about it.

There was a cop by the elevator, but he checked my ID and apparently I was “okay to

go ahead” to the room indicated. I knocked and waited. I still felt sick—as in, puke-indu-

cing sick. My head ached as if a string had been pulled too tight between one temple and

the other, cutting through my brains and squeezing my skull together. My ass hurt from

sitting still so long.

For the second time in less than a week, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I

saw him. Though I should’ve been.

The door swung open, and he was standing there shirtless and barefoot, scratching at

his side. Whole. Unbruised. Hair product and eyeliner in place.

Like I was just popping over from the next room to borrow some ice.

Riot Boy

121

He smiled, lopsided and guilty. “Hey.”

I stepped inside, forcing him to move back and let me past. The door closed, and I

stared, looking him up and down, over and over, just to make sure it was real, and he was

okay, and nothing bad was going to happen to him. Heart in my throat.

He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked to the carpet. “So, you’re probably going

to ask why I didn’t tell you my plan, if it was on the up-and-up.”

Something inside me shattered. I flung my arms around him and nuzzled his hair, in-

haling the clean pomade and ashy cigarette scent of him. He relaxed into me, put his arms

around my neck, rubbed his cheek against mine. I felt the tickle of his eyelashes, the deep

rise and fall of his chest, and knew he was breathing me in too.

Yes, he was whole and safe and there—at least the visible parts of him. I had to believe

it, when he was in my arms like this. But that left the mental bit. And what must be going

on there was so much worse than the potentiality for physical damage, it made me shiver

just thinking of it. “Brady.” My throat was too tight to speak much louder than a whisper.

“Jesus, are you okay?”

“Only slightly less okay than I was before, I reckon.” I heard the smile in his voice, but

he clung to me just as tightly as I clung to him.

“I would’ve come.” I pulled back just a little to look him in the eye. “Just to be here

with y—”

“I know. But if you’d come, I would’ve leaned on you, and it’s just—it’s one of those

things no one can help you with, so leaning on someone just weakens your whole position.

I knew it’d be better if I had to do it alone. And it was. And it’s over. And I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t even think about that.” I kissed him, mouth closed, to punctuate that sentence.

Then I tilted my forehead to his and held him there. “What happened?”

“Armored car. A big load too. They been planning it for a month, and that’s why they

were pulling out the stops on me.”

“I saw online. They said there was an ambulance. Two.”

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Katey Hawthorne

He grimaced. “Fucking Mal got himself shot, being a dumb-ass. Big baby screamed his

head off, and it was just his leg. He had this little gadget on him—amped him up somehow

so he sent the cop up in flames from all the way across the street. Weird as hell, man. I put

her out, but she got some mean burns.”

I couldn’t even process this tale of madness. Could not fathom what his night had

looked like, inside, outside. Could not comprehend that these things had happened and

here he was holding me—not like he was too weak to stand on his own, not like it had ne-

arly killed him.

Just like he was happy to see me.

“Glad he didn‘t use that shit on me,” he went on. “The really good news is, the police

gathered enough evidence at the scene to pin a bunch of our earlier stuff on them too. In

theory, I’ll get immunity for my trouble. Or that’s what they’re saying. Dunn out there—the

cop—he’s awakened. He sorted shit out to get them into the right prison and everything.”

There was gratitude in the way he said the last bit. I asked, “You mean safe from awa-

kened vigilante justice?”

“Safe from everything. Even themselves, for a while.” No panic, no fear. Just relief, his

face a little too pale, his voice a little too subdued.

“You get to talk to him?” I couldn’t bring myself to say Malory. Like the name alone

would reduce him to tears.

It wouldn’t. I didn’t think anything could, in fact. But it was bad enough.

“Rode with him in the ambulance.” Brady’s eyes were still that same wintry blue outli-

ned sharply in dark kohl—still cut right through me with a look—but sadder than I’d ever

seen them. “I told him I saved his fucking life, and he just said—” He sighed and blew his

hair out of his eyes. “The bastard said, ‘What the hell for, Brady?’ And he just looked at me

like…” He trailed off and worked his jaw.

I rested my cheek against his, and our arms tightened around each other. “They’d only

have gotten busted eventually, anyhow. Dragged you down with them. Probably ended up

Riot Boy

123

dead or—”

“No, Mal’s right. I didn’t do them any fucking favors. I saved myself. Nobody else to

do it.”

I kissed his ear. “Let me.”

He drew back a little, fixed me with a look that was at once heavy with all the ice in-

side him and hot as fire. “You want to take care of me, Etienne?”

Though my stomach twisted up inside me, screaming that this was the wrong reply,

well, it was the only one I had. “Yeah. That’s what I always wanted.”

“Goes both ways. So I’m asking you to understand that this time, taking care of you

meant not telling you about the Diabolical Plan. You forgive me or what?”

The final pieces clicked into place just like that, and I was ashamed of myself. He’d

told me outright, even: the less they knew about me, the better. I just hadn’t understood.

“That part of why you disappear too? Why you never told me who you really were? Trying

to protect me?”

“Should’ve stayed away from you altogether. Couldn’t. Sorry for that too.”

“Don’t ever be sorry for that.” I kissed him again, this time turning my head to go in

deep, one hand on either side of his face so I could tilt it upward, get my fingers into his

hair. Thank God for Brady’s lack of self-control.

“I know you thought it was weird that I came to see you. But I had to know if…if you

might want me back after, before I decided what to do. And when I knew you would, I

thought of Susanne—”

“I will always want you.” It hurt my throat to say it, but it wouldn’t stay inside me,

either. “I love you.”

He pressed his hips into mine, sending a quick thrill and a sigh through me, and said,

“Oh, sweetheart,” just like that first dance, before I’d known his name. Before we’d been

interrupted by his mad life. “Maybe I’m not in a position to make demands…”

“Anything.”

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Katey Hawthorne

“You come in here being all sweet, with your hair all messed up and your shirt all

crooked. Got me so fucking hard, I can’t see straight.”

I laughed and helped him pull off my shirt. Between kissing and petting and peeling

off each other’s clothes, I managed to get him against the wall. He grabbed for my under-

wear, all either of us had on by then, but I kept him pinned tight, rolled my hips, and gro-

aned into his mouth.

“Always said you wanted me against the wall.” He laughed.

“I want you everywhere.” I let up a little and pulled off his shorts. Before he could get

to mine, I took his smooth, swollen cock in hand.

He hadn’t been joking; he was so close to getting off, he could hardly breathe. “Fuck,

say that again.”

“Everywhere,” I whispered into his ear, stroking his straining cock deliberately, let-

ting the head rest against my lower belly, leaving me wet. “Stay with me.”

“Yeah.” His hands went cold, one squeezing my arm, the other running up my chest,

tweaking my stiffening nipple.

My dick gave a thrill, shifted in my shorts. “You will?”

“If you—unh—if you want.”

I tightened my grip, and he writhed against the wall, biting down hard on his lip. He

pinched my nipple, cold, God, so fucking cold. I cupped his balls with my free hand and

jerked him harder, and he bit down again, making little white indentations. His balls

pulled up tight; his cock thickened, grew hotter still, pulsing, dripping.

I leaned forward, readjusted my angle so more of him rubbed against my stomach

when my hand moved down, and put my lips against his ear. Breathed, gentle and wet and

warm, “I want.”

He wound his fingers into the hair on my chest, moaned softly with his climax. The

sensation, the sweet stickiness dripping hot down my belly, almost set me off. I held him

close and pressed my dick into his thigh, and my mouth to his, chests heaving. When I let

Riot Boy

125

him go, he tugged my shorts down over my ass. Unrestrained, my cock stood up like it had

done something to be proud of.

“Fuck me, Etienne.” His lips smiled against mine.

I took that as a yes.

Clever boy had lube in the drawer. As I retrieved it, I wasn’t so far gone that I failed to

recognize my Rimbaud resting open and facedown on the nightstand above it.

126

Katey Hawthorne

Epilogue

When the lights went up at the Flowers, I took in the crowd. It got bigger every night—

Willoughby Spit was the official house band as of December, and even the icy brick streets

didn’t keep the kids from showing up in droves on weekends. The band had taken some

time off to write new material while Brady was tied up in Richmond; once he’d come back,

they’d really started to kick some punk ass.

I cited his brilliant stint as lyricist. He said I was biased. But anyone would have to

admit, at least, that he had great taste in poetry.

Word was that a record executive was expected to drop by “secretly” within the next

month or so. Every time someone brought it up, Brady rolled his eyes and flipped them off.

If asked why, he always said, “Because my life is fucking perfect like it is. How’s yours?”

Susanne elbowed me in the ribs and nodded toward the other end of the stage, where

a bunch of yuppie types were scrumming over a table covered in martinis. I chuckled, thin-

king she meant to draw attention to Willoughby Spit’s unlikely trendiness. But then one of

the polo-shirted men turned, and I saw what she really intended.

I laughed out loud. Paul waved and smiled, starting toward me.

I exchanged amused glances with Suse and Lucy and rose to meet him halfway. When

our trajectories intersected somewhere amidst the knots of assorted music lovers, I could

only laugh again.

“You look surprised to see me,” he said.

“Not really your scene.”

“Wouldn’t think it was yours either. Frankie dragged me in kicking and screaming,

but I’m actually having fun. You?”

“I’m here every weekend. Best band in the world.”

Riot Boy

127

He gave me a skeptical look. “Sure. I, ah, tried to catch your eye before the show star-

ted. Susanne pretended not to see me.”

“Sorry.”

“’Sokay. I thought you might forgive me someday, but I knew she never would.”

“I thought I saw Frankie in here the other night, but it’s been slammed—”

Someone pressed into my back, hooking an arm around my waist and breathing into

my ear so only I’d hear, “Hey, handsome, nice shoes. Wanna fuck?”

“Excuse me,” I said to Paul, turning as Brady came to stand beside me, a frosty glass of

bourbon in hand. I leaned close and kissed his cheek. The faint taste of his sweat lingered

on my lips—weird, but I think he liked that the lights up there made him sweat at all, cold

as he could be. He never cooled off onstage, not on purpose. “You were great,” I said.

“I know.” He smirked.

I stepped back to do introductions, since Paul was, understandably enough, just stan-

ding there staring. “Brady, this is—”

Brady held out his free hand and finished for me. “Paul.”

Paul shook, eyebrows high, looking from me to Brady. He was always cute when be-

wildered.

I said, “Paul Brahms, Brady Claremont.”

Brady was still shaking his hand. “Always wanted to meet you.”

“Oh?”

I tried to change the subject. “Is Suse waiting for us, or—”

Brady released Paul and waved me off. “Nah, they’re still drinking. Yeah, man, wan-

ted to since I first saw that picture Et used to have.”

Paul looked to me for help. When my only reply was to take a sip of my G&T—if only

to stall for time—he asked, “Uh, because you heard about me?”

“Yeah. And from what Susanne says, I owe you a serious fucking thank-you.”

Even in the low light that accounted for the Flowers’s atmospheric scheme, Paul’s

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Katey Hawthorne

flush was obvious.

Brady went on as if oblivious, but I knew that smirk too well. “If you hadn’t fucked

around on Prince Charming here, he never would’ve looked at me twice. And shit, you’ve

seen him naked, so I don’t have to tell you—”

I couldn’t take it anymore. “Brady, Jesus.”

He had his serious moments these days. He had his guilty hours, his sleepless nights,

his unhappy memories.

But in essence, he was pretty damn unchanged.

He looked up at me, bright, black-lined eyes wide. “What? I’m just saying—”

“You’re a shit.” I looked back to Paul. “He’s joking.”

“Don’t be so fucking polite. Paul knows what I mean. Anyhow, thanks, man, really.

Saved my fucking life. Next time you wanna come to a show, I’ll put you on the list, no cover

charge. You’re my personal guest.”

Paul stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked everywhere but at Brady.

Extremely juvenile of me, I know, but I snickered. Just a little. “You done?” I directed

at Brady.

“Just getting started. Take me home now?”

“Anything you want.”

“That’s my sugar daddy.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Gonna get George and the gui-

tar. And Paul, I’m serious, man. Just call the bar and—”

He laughed. No joke, Paul actually laughed. “Yeah, thanks. I get it.”

Brady tossed off a salute before sauntering away, with a swat at my ass for good mea-

sure.

“So, that’s the guy,” Paul said.

“Yeah.”

“Since…?”

“September.”

Riot Boy

129

“Ah.” He smiled again; there was a little grimace in it, but it wasn’t too bad. For Paul.

“A real punk.”

“The worst. Good bass player, though.”

“Definitely a good bass player.” He paused, and his smile became easier. “I’m happy for

you, Et. You deserve someone creative and…”

“Weird like me.”

“Yeah. Weird like you.”

Now when his eyes met mine, there was something almost kind in them. For the first

time in over three years, I think Paul and I actually understood each other.

I reached out to shake his hand, and he squeezed before he let go.

“I’ll see you around, huh?” I said.

“Yeah. Especially if I’m getting in free.”

I found Brady in the dressing room with the little Chinese changing screen and plan-

ted a big fat kiss on him.

“He seems like a nice guy.” He snorted.

“You’re a brat.” Another kiss.

“If I wasn’t a brat, you’d have nothing to reform. And you are so good at reforming me.”

“Apparently not.”

“Guess you better keep trying.”

“That can be arranged.” I kissed him again, grinning. “You ready to go home, mon cher

enfant terrible

?”

“Ready to go home, sweetheart.”

Riot Boy: The Mixed Tape

“Atomic” by Blondie (Eat to the Beat)

“Isolation” by Joy Division (Closer)

“Looking for a Kiss” by New York Dolls (New York Dolls)

“Ghetto Defendant” by the Clash (Combat Rock)

“Orgasm Addict” by Buzzcocks (Another Music in a Different Kitchen)

“I Wanna Be Adored” by the Stone Roses (The Stone Roses)

“Start!” by the Jam (Sound Affects)

“Safe Without” by Interpol (Interpol)

“You Really Got Me” by the Kinks (The Singles Collection)

“I Can See Through You” by the Horrors (Skying)

“Lie to Me” by Depeche Mode (Some Great Reward)

“I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” by Ramones (Ramones)

“Lovesong” by the Cure (Disintegration)

“One Life Stand” by Hot Chip (One Life Stand)

“Stars and Boulevards” by Augustana (You’ll Disappear)

“Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” by Buzzcocks

(I Don’t Mind the Buzzcocks)

“Leif Erikson” by Interpol (Turn on the Bright Lights)

“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” by the Clash (Combat Rock)

“Opus 12” by Dustin O’Halloran (Piano Solos Vol. 1)

Loose Id Titles by Katey Hawthorne

Equilibrium

Riot Boy

Katey Hawthorne

Katey Hawthorne is an avid reader and writer of dark fiction and superpowered ro-

mance, even though the only degree she holds is in the history of art. (Or, possibly, because

the only degree she holds is in the history of art.) Originally from the Appalachian foothills

of West Virginia, she currently lives in the D.C. Metro Area. In her spare time she enjoys

comic books, B-movies, loud music, Epiphones, and Bushmills.

Links to reach Katey:

Main Web site: http://www.kateyhawthorne.com

Blog: http://www.kateyhawthorne.com

Blog: http://kvtaylor.com

Email: kate@kateyhawthorne.com

Document Outline

Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Riot Boy: The Mixed Tape
Loose Id Titles by Katey Hawthorne
Katey Hawthorne

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