Determination (27 page)

“I don’t blame him for hating me,” I murmured into his shoulder.

“But I’m scared to go through this alone.” I hadn’t really meant for it to come out that way, but that thought weighed heavily on me. Of course, I had my dad, but he didn’t really know me. He’d never known me. I needed Brian.

“You’re not alone, babe,” Mike said as he rubbed my back slowly. “You have me and Alex and Em. You have Leo and your dad.

You have a counselor or sponsor, right?” I nodded against his neck as I clung to his comfort.

We stood like that for a long time, and it felt so good just to be held by someone who cared.

“Alex is so excited about sleeping over this weekend,” Mike said with a laugh as we moved apart. “I swear, sometimes he reminds me of a puppy.” I’d planned to ask Alex how things were going when I saw him on Saturday, but the question bubbled out anyway.

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“You guys doing good, then?”

Mike’s eyes took on a faraway look as he stared over my shoulder, thinking.

“I never thought I could love someone like I love him, Jamie. I never understood Brian’s obsession with you when he first got here, not until now. If someone took Alex and moved across the country with him, I wouldn’t be able to get into my Jeep fast enough. It would kill me if I couldn’t find him. I get that now.”

“Hey!
Cabron
, are you working today or what?”

The guy with the bandana jumped off the riding mower and pulled a bottle of water from the cooler sitting on the table where Mike had gotten his shirt. His mocha-colored skin rippled over lithe muscle as he came to stand next to us.

“Kenny, this is Jamie. Brian’s Jamie,” Mike said by way of an introduction, and I looked up shyly at him. I was struck by how truly beautiful he was up close. Brian had fallen in with some gorgeous people, but that didn’t surprise me because Brian was stunning.

“Hey, it’s good to meet you,” Kenny said, holding a large hand out to me. I shook it, and then he looked back at Mike. “If I get this contract with Andler, I can afford to bring Brian back into the crew. He was a great worker.”

“Not likely. I heard him talking to Hartley about buying into his business,” Mike confided, and I stared at him. Brian not only wanted to stay in porn, but buy into Hartley Entertainment? It killed me that he wanted to stay in porn when he had so many other options. He could use the settlement money to go to college and get a real job. Sadly, I realized it wasn’t my business anymore.

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Kenny said, distracted as he checked something on his phone. “We’re almost done here—you want to start packing up the truck?”

“Yeah, give me a minute, and I’ll take care of it,” Mike said as Kenny put the phone up to his ear and walked away. The silence hung heavy between us in the autumn sunshine. Rubbing the back of my neck, I tried to find the words for the question in my head.

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“This buy-in with Hartley…, Mike—is he in trouble? Why would he do that when he could use the money for school or something to get out?”

“No, he’s not in trouble. Once he got used to working with the other guys, I think it’s something that he kind of likes. He wants to work behind the camera, though, so it makes sense for him to buy into the company. Hartley is going to start up another companion site that needs his attention, so Brian would be running the gay site. It’s a good opportunity for him to make some serious cash because sex sells.

Hartley certainly isn’t hurting for money even with the recession. So, really, from a practical standpoint, Brian is probably better off getting into the industry from that side than going to college. He’s never going to make the kind of money he’ll make as part-owner of an established porn company,” Mike reasoned.

“So he won’t shoot scenes anymore?” I asked, and the hope in my voice must have been unmistakable. Mike looked away for a second as he started to clear their stuff from the patio table.

“He’ll shoot for a while, filling in when he needs guys, I’m sure.

Brian’s still a popular, bankable model, and he brings in a lot of money for the site. It only makes sense that he’d keep shooting.”

A bird landed on the nearby table, and my eyes fixed on it. It walked along the length of the table, bending periodically to pick at something on the surface. The brown-and-black intricacies of its feathers made it beautiful in some sense, but it looked dirty and unkempt. After several minutes of growing silence, I heard Mike start to move away, and a question erupted out of me before I could stop it, highlighting my insecurity.

“Are you guys coming every week?”

“Yeah, we’ll be here every Friday. You want to hang out after, maybe catch a beer or something? I can bring the Jeep instead of riding in the truck.” Mike hoisted the cooler up on his shoulder as he spoke, straining his voice, forcing him to take in a deep breath. I couldn’t help but notice how his muscled arms held up the plastic box effortlessly.

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“I can’t drink because of the meds I’m on, and I’m still in trouble with the police, so I can’t get caught anywhere underage, but I’d like to hang out. I’d like that a lot.”

Half an hour later, I sat on the couch with my laptop and thought about my writing assignment for the weekend. Dr. Fisher wanted to know where I thought my life would be in five years. Right then, I couldn’t even imagine the different directions my life could take in that amount of time. I could be back on the street. I could be back on drugs.

I could be in prison. Of course, I refused to write those answers down because I didn’t want any of them to happen.

I took another drink of lemonade and closed my eyes. The question seemed very important to me because I hadn’t really thought that far ahead before. In high school, my only thought had been graduation. In the center, my only thought had been getting out. With Steven, my only thought had been staying alive. My life seemed to be a rudderless ship, and I didn’t know how to steer. For a long time, I tried to plot different courses in my head just to see where they took me.

“Jamie?” My father’s voice drifted through the house on the evening breeze, and I set the laptop down on the coffee table.

“I’m in the family room, Dad,” I called. Looking over at the clock on the cable box, I was surprised to see it was almost six o’clock. I’d been lost in thought, trying to come up with a plan for myself. My father appeared a few minutes later with his bag over one shoulder and a white takeout bag in his other hand.

“I got sandwiches. Are you hungry?” he asked as he dropped his laptop bag into a nearby chair. He looked around, and I wondered if he was checking to make sure I hadn’t blown up anything while he worked. I watched him for a minute, and when he noticed, his expression turned sheepish.

“Nothing happened today. In fact, I spent most of my time on the couch trying to decide what I want to do with my life for one of Dr.

Fisher’s directed writing assignments,” I admitted. He set the bag down on the counter and opened it. He pulled out sandwiches, chips, and cookies, then laid out our dinner on paper plates. I took the one he held out to me and followed him to the kitchen table.

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“Did you make any decisions?” he asked cautiously, like if he said the wrong thing, I might change my mind and flee from the conversation. Taking a bite of his pastrami on rye, he pretended to be casual. I opened the salt-and-vinegar chips and popped two in my mouth as I thought about how to phrase my answer. I had come to a decision, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to swing it.

“Yes, but I’m not sure how I’m going to make it happen,” I admitted as I unwrapped the steaming meatball hoagie and inhaled. I loved the sub place where my dad had gotten the sandwiches.

Sometimes we cooked something or popped in a frozen pizza, but several times a week he picked up dinner or we ordered out. The sandwiches were my favorites, but I think the Thai place came in a close second.

“Okay, well, let’s get all the facts out and see what we can make of them together,” he said reasonably. For the first time since I’d moved in, he treated me like an equal and not like a child or some kind of invalid. It made the next sentence easier to say.

“Assuming I don’t end up in prison, I think I want to go to college.”

“You’re not going to prison, and I think that’s a great idea. What do you see as the obstacles in your way?” He wiped his mouth and set his sandwich on the plate, giving me his complete attention. I took a drink of the lemonade to clear my throat.

“Well, I think the obstacles are going to be money, the seizures, the brain damage, and I don’t really want to move out and live in a dorm or anything.” I ticked off each thing on my fingers as I listed them. Those were the main obstacles, anyway. Anything else, I could probably deal with on my own.

My father nodded and then sat back in his chair. It looked like he was thinking.

“Well, the money isn’t going to be a problem. Your college fund has been growing since you were a child, not only the interest from the original money that your grandmother left you, but what your mother and I added each year you were in school. I haven’t looked at the balance since… well, since we were in Alabama, but I’m sure you 176

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could go to Stanford and be well covered. That money is yours, Jamie, to do with as you want.” He picked up his sandwich and took another bite. It took a minute for my brain to catch up with his declaration. I wouldn’t have to worry at all about money for college. If I could go to an Ivy League college with no problems, I could probably go to a community college and not have to work. Taking classes and keeping my condition under control would be hard enough without having a job on top of that.

“I want to stay local. I don’t want to go to a college like Stanford.

I….”
don’t want to be away from Brian.
“I’m scared of being alone.

When I was on the streets, I… I had no one. I don’t ever want to feel like that again.” The admission made me feel weak, but voicing it helped to solidify the decision. If I went to college, I’d live here with him and figure out how to get there.

“Jamie, you won’t ever feel like that again, not so long as I’m alive. I wish like hell I’d known because I never would have let it happen. But I don’t want you to go far either. I’d love for you to find a school you can attend and still live here. I won’t lie; the seizures scare the hell out of me. I know you’re an adult and you’re able to take care of yourself, but I want to do what I can to help. As for going to school with them, you’re going to have them whether you’re at school, at a job, at rehab, or just walking down the street. You’re going to have to learn how to live your life with them and not limit yourself. College would be a good place to start. We’ll need to talk to the school administrators so they are aware and have someone there to help, but I don’t think that’s going to stop you from going.”

“What if the damage to my brain is more extensive than they thought? I have problems remembering things. Sometimes it takes a while for me to work things out. How is that going to work in school?”

I asked, trying to get everything on the table because I couldn’t see a way around all the obstacles in front of me. He crumpled up the paper from his sandwich and pulled the bag of chips closer, pulled out a few, and strewed them out on the table. The smell of pastrami and marinara still clung to the air in a weird Italian mix.

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“I don’t know, but we’ll work it out. If it’s bad, we can get someone to work with you. It’s your decision, but I think you should give it a shot. Do you have any idea what you want to do?”

I’d been thinking about that very question all afternoon, but I hadn’t made any decisions. At first, I thought maybe an accountant or something having to do with computers, but my brain just wasn’t up to the analytical side of those things anymore. I considered becoming a counselor so I could help street kids, but my dad had already shown that people with money could probably help them more than I could.

The medical field was out because of the tremors in my limbs.

“I’m working on that. Right now, I don’t really know. I still have some thinking to do, but thank you for talking to me about it and helping me find some answers,” I said earnestly and took another huge bite of the hoagie. It seemed to go down a little easier with the knot gone from my stomach.

“Any time, son… any time at all.”

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Fourteen

“EM! ALEX didn’t say you were coming with him! I’m so happy to see you,” I cried when Emilio came into view as I answered their knock. He looked so good—in a pale orange T-shirt tucked into painted-on jeans. His bright smile immediately put a smile on my face.

I don’t think I realized just how much I’d missed him until that moment. Missing the other guys was kind of a dull ache behind the sharp pain caused by Brian’s absence from my life. I pulled Em into a hug and rested my head on his shoulder; his arms came around me, and I relaxed. Alex wrapped his arms around the two of us, and we just stood on the porch like a three-headed statue. I felt happier than I had in weeks. Even the thought of drugs and prison were eclipsed briefly by their presence.