Talker

hand, but he wasn’t wearing one of those now. Although it was
    the hand he wrote with, very few people guessed how hard he had
    to work to make that happen.
    Talker | Amy Lane
    41

    “It’s sweet of you to worry,” he said, looking at his fingers as
    they touched Brian’s. Brian looked, too, and deliberately moved his
    hand so that it covered Tate’s.
    “I care about you,” he said roughly, and his heart started
    hammering wildly. This is it! I’m going to tel him! I’m going to tel him and he won’t go!
    And then there was a different sort of hammering. Tate’s
    shoulders spasmed and he dropped the powder. The case
    shattered and the little cake inside crumbled on the peeling vinyl of
    the floor.
    “F uck!” they both said in tandem, except Tate was crouching
    on the ground, picking up the pieces, and Brian was stepping
    around him to go get the broom from the kitchen.
    “I’ll get it!” Tate commanded. “Just get the door.”
    The hammering continued, and Brian scowled; the guy
    sounded like an asshole already and Brian hadn’t even met him.
    “Tate, don’t do this,” he said quietly, and Tate scowled up at
    him.
    “Brian, man, I’m sorry I cal ed you ‘G ranola,’ but please… just
    let me have a date. Just let me get this over with, you know?
    You’ve had girls like Virginia. I haven’t had anyone.”
    “You’ve got me!”
    Tate rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Jesus, try to be
    serious with a guy.”

    AUNT LYNDIE heard this part of the story and shook her head with
    a smile. “O uch,” she said quietly.
    Talker | Amy Lane
    42

    Brian looked at her with wide eyes and nodded. “Yeah! That’s
    what I’m saying!” O h thank G od—someone who thought he was
    serious.
    “So, did you tell him and make it stick?”
    Brian grimaced, embarrassed. “I thought I’d wait until he got
    back from his date,” he said with a sigh. “It was stupid—I know it
    was stupid. But the last time he went out just to get laid, it was just
    such a disaster. I didn’t expect….” O h Jesus, he real y hadn’t. “I
    real y didn’t expect this one to be worse.”
    Lyndie put down her iced tea and grabbed Brian’s shaking,
    clammy hand.
    “O kay,” she said, and damn, he thought, she was real y wise.
    “In what way worse?”

    THE guy’s name was Trevor: he looked like a calendar pinup and
    knew it. He cast Brian a smarmy look as Brian opened the door,
    and Brian returned it with a scowl. Bastard. E xpensively cut black
    hair, designer jeans, pricey button-up shirt, celebrity kicks on the
    feet. Liked to show off his money like it meant something.
    “Hey,” Trevor said as he shook Brian’s hand. “The straight
    roommate. How you doing, big guy—gonna go get laid tonight?”
    “It’s not on the menu,” Brian said tightly. “So what did you say
    you did again?”
    “Not on the menu? Too bad, man, because I’m gonna get
    me…” Trevor trailed off as Tate dashed from the bathroom to his
    bedroom, giving an “in-a-minute” wave as he went, “I’m gonna get
    me some sweet ass tonight. Too bad you don’t know what you’re
    missing.”
    Talker | Amy Lane
    43

    “Too bad you don’t know what you’re getting,” Brian muttered,
    and Trevor gave him a quick look.
    “What’s that?”
    “He’s a good guy. You need to treat him nice.”
    Trevor smirked. “That kind of kid? He don’t want to be treated
    nice, sweetie—he just wants the treatment, you know what I
    mean?”
    “That’s not Tate!” Brian said, feeling a nasty bout of worry
    congeal in his stomach and start to ferment. Trevor didn’t hear him.
    Tate was trotting down the hal , wearing his leather jacket and a
    new set of rainbow studs winking from his tattooed ear.
    Trevor grabbed his hand with a proprietary air that made Brian
    a little il , and hauled him in for a kiss that Brian would have saved
    for the darkest corner of a crowded hal , if in public at al . Tate
    looked up from the kiss dreamily and threw Brian an optimistic grin.
    Brian managed a sick smile back.
    “Don’t wait up,” Tate said, and then he closed his eyes like it
    was too painful to see what Brian would say to that.
    “Don’t do anything you don’t want to,” Brian told him in
    desperation, and Tate wrinkled his nose in a characteristic attempt
    to brush off any worry whatsoever.
    “Baby, ain’t much I don’t want to do!” he said, winking, and
    then Trevor rol ed his eyes and practical y shoved him out the door.
    But