He shoots me a sharp look. “Everything okay?”
“Now why wouldn’t it be?” I keep my smile on, even if it’s curling at the edges like burning paper, but this boy can see right through me. He’s known me for a long time—almost as long as Mayleen and Adam.
I remember Jesse Lee when we first met, many years ago. I’m barely older than him, but he’d looked like such a kid to me, tall and gangly, his eyes wide and full of fear. He never fit here, in the gutter.
Unlike me. I was born to this. He wasn’t, and I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on him he had to get out.
I also remember him covered in blood in that back alley when Simon Gomez smashed a bottle on his arm. That’s when I knew I’d do anything in my power to send him away from this life.
“You’re avoiding me,” Jesse says quietly, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Why?”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course I’m not avoiding you,” I lie, patting my back pocket for my smokes. Seems as if I’ve run out. “So what’s up? Tell me all about your pretty little family and the guys at Damage Control.”
Diversion. It’s my middle name.
“They’re fine. Soul Stain, the tattoo group from Chicago, are coming over for an event soon. Did I tell you about that?”
I shake my head, listen with half an ear as he talks about the event, his friends, his job, and wonder. Could I do that someday, too? Leave the streets, live a normal life and have nobody realize by looking at me who and what I was before?
Doesn’t seem possible from here where I’m standing, with the stench of car exhaust and piss in my nose, the cold biting into my skin.
“Jason.” He has that exasperated tone in his voice that tells me he’s called my name more than once. “Hey.”
“What?” I focus back on him.
“I said, now you tell me what’s going on. How’s the gang? Is everything okay?”
His bright eyes are concerned. Jesse’s a cool guy. I had a crush on him, back then. Hit on him a couple of times, until I realized he was one hundred percent a ladies’ man. No bisexual curiosity, and in any case, even if he’d ever been bi-curious, it didn’t look like he’d want to try anything with me.
Still, he’s been a steadfast friend all this time.
So again I lie—the only way to protect him, make sure nothing disturbs his perfect bubble of happiness. He deserves it. “Everything’s fine. Honest, man. Nothing’s changed.”
Well that last bit is true. Nothing has changed for the past two years. It’s all fucking shit.
He nods, maybe believing me, maybe not. “You’d tell me if you needed my help, right? Promise me, Jason.”
Suppressing a sigh, I nod. “Promise.”
Christ, lying sucks.
Then he digs into his back pocket and produces a small wad of bills, bound with elastic. “It’s that time of the month.”
And like every month, I take the money, swallowing down my pride. “Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.”
It sucks. I’m not a charity case. I’ve been working all my life, ever since I can remember. If I didn’t desperately need that money… On some days, it makes all the difference between getting the shit beaten out of me, or just a kick to the ass out of Simon’s club.
As it is, this time the money in my pocket ain’t enough to pacify Simon, and knowing it comes out of Jesse’s salary makes me sick to my stomach—but it is something, and so far tonight, I’ve made nothing.
They have no clue, Ocean and Jesse Lee. They think I use the money to rent a room and for my daily expenses. They have no idea that it’s all siphoned into Simon’s bottomless, drug-laced pockets, the leftovers saved to send my kids away to safety.
The urgent need to get on with that flares up. “Look I gotta go.” I give Jesse Lee another smile, because dammit, he hasn’t given up, and he keeps coming through for me. “Thanks again for the help.”
He doesn’t let me get off the hook that easily, though. He hauls me to his side in a one-armed hug. “Be careful, my friend.”
It makes my eyes sting and my heart ache. “Don’t you worry about me, okay?”
And I move away before I break down and confess to him what a big fucking mess my life has become.