Rentboy

on people
    who were stoned out of their minds. He was sure Maputwa was on drugs. The man came across as a
    real fucking nut.
    “A great man,” he said. “No, I am not related to him.” With a sharp clap of his hands Mr.
    Maputwa thrust the laptop from him and took a cup of tea. “The hard drive is wiped, though all we
    needed was on the memory sticks. Let him have it if he wants it.”
    “I can get thirty quid for it from a girl at college,” Fox said quietly.
    “Very enterprising.” Mr. Maputwa shoved several biscuits in quick succession into his large
    mouth and slurped his tea. With hasty movements, Fox refilled his cup.
    “I’d better go and check on the twins.” He looked at his father, not daring to move.
    “Go on, then, and you can sell that thing if you want,” Baillie said.
    Flooded with relief at being allowed to escape the two men whom he found equally terrifying,
    Fox grabbed the equipment. At the door he paused very briefly to watch the Ugandan man hand a
    briefcase to his father. William Baillie opened it and pulled out a wad of cash, and with his other
    hand he took out another. Quietly Fox closed the door.
    After stowing the laptop in his backpack and putting it in his bedroom for later, he grabbed the
    twins’ trainers and joined them in the garden. “Come on, you two. Get your trainers on. We’ll go over
    to the park for a while, and you can go on the swings.” Without a word, Alder and Arden obeyed.
    Holding Fox’s hands, they walked out through the gate in the garden fence and made their way down
    the sweeping driveway toward the road. Waiting behind his father’s silver-gray Lexus was a long
    black car with tinted windows. A uniformed driver sat in the front seat smoking a cigarette with the
    doors wide open.
    What was on Eddie’s computer that a rich man from Uganda wanted so much that he was willing
    to pay for it with a briefcase full of cash? And who the hell was that doctor?
    Chapter Five
    Despondent, disgruntled, dejected. Any of those adjectives could describe Edward’s mood as he
    opened his front door and stopped to check for letters. The post was always left sitting in a mess on
    top of the hall radiator. Sorting through it, he thought of the evening ahead. Maybe he should take
    Friday off after all and drive to Mitton early. What was the point in hanging around the flat alone?
    Only yesterday he had texted Nik to tell her he had seen the young man again, and perhaps it was
    actually a relationship after all, as opposed to just a one-nighter. Now it was all in shreds.
    Two envelopes that looked like birthday cards rested precariously on the radiator, and another
    had fallen down the back. Edward fished it out and shook off the dust before trudging upstairs.
    Birthday cards and a family birthday dinner to remind him that at thirty years old he had never had a
    relationship, never been sent a valentine card, and never been loved by another adult who was not
    related to him. Add depressing to the list of adjectives describing his life.
    “Sorry, mate.”
    At the top of the stairs he stopped and stared. Sitting on the floor outside his door with Edward’s
    laptop on the bare wood floor beside him was Fox.
    “I shouldn’t have taken it, Eddie. I’m really sorry.”
    The strangest flip-flop sensation clutched Edward in the gut. He couldn’t decide if it was the
    return of his laptop that did it or the sight of Fox sitting cross-legged, dressed in black as always, his
    eyes heavily rimmed with dark eyeliner. Edward had fancied many a bloke in the past, but he had
    never before got an erection at the sight of one as he did now. “How did you get in?”
    “That woman downstairs was leaving just as I got here. You know, the one in the hijab. She let
    me in. She must have thought I didn’t look like a lying thief. Which I am.”
    Rising quickly to his feet, Fox slipped his arms around Edward’s neck. Without hesitation
    Edward wrapped his long arms around Fox in return and held him tightly, pressing the young man
    close to his chest. A door along the landing opened, and without thinking, Edward released Fox to
    thrust his key in the lock. He shoved Fox in ahead of him and grabbed his hardware from the floor. A
    moment ago the thought of his relatively clean but very untidy, empty flat was horrible. Now he
    couldn’t stop smiling.
    But Fox had still stolen his computer.
    “Why did you do it? You left without your money, and then you took my computer. Why?”
    A