Jase kissed him. The question was answered. He would, and he had. Elliot kissed him back, felt the scrape of Jase’s stubble against his face and against his fingers as he touched Jase’s jaw, slid an arm around his neck, drew their bodies tighter together.
Jase asked him to come home with him at the end of the night, but Elliot said no. He thought maybe that he wouldn’t be asked back, but the next day at the music shop Jase was there and made sure to get Elliot’s number. Elliot had bought a phone that morning, in case he asked. He saw the band practice over and over, went out drinking and to a concert, and on his sixteenth birthday he let Alice put eyeliner on him and went out dancing again.
Jase asked Elliot to come home with him that night, and Elliot did.
It was so different to his house, Jase’s rented flat that he shared with Alice and Marty. The bathroom was filthy, the blinds broken and skewed like teeth in a prizefighter’s face, and Elliot did not wake up alone but woke up warm and had the other two laughing at them for sleeping in late.
“So, pretty different from girls, huh?” Jase asked as they made toast.
“Sure,” said Elliot, and winked. “You work out a lot less than Serene.”
Jase looked slightly vexed, but Alice laughed out loud and Marty said, “You finally caught a live one,” and Jase relented and laughed too.
It was nice in the flat. It was nice to go to concerts. He’d never had someone his age—well, within five years was close enough—to talk about music with. He’d hardly had anyone to experience this world with, and this world looked better with someone else.
Elliot started to think, again, about not going back.
Elliot also could not talk to Joe about music anymore. The few times he came to the music shop when Jase wasn’t there, Joe was strange and curt when before he had been gruff and kind. When Elliot ran out of patience—which took thirteen minutes—and demanded to know what his problem was, Joe said: “You can’t ask me to approve of that sort of carry-on.”
“What?” Elliot demanded. “So Jase isn’t welcome here anymore?”
Joe looked away. “Jase is my blood.”
Elliot wanted to shout at him, but he knew better than anybody that you could not fight people into caring about you or being fair to you. This was the punishment he got for trusting Joe, for thinking that because someone would throw a kind word to a kid that they were kind, that they could be counted on. He took the punishment. He bit down on what he wanted to say, and he walked out.
The closest he got to the shop, ever again, was when he walked Jase there. He told Jase what his uncle had said the next morning, and Jase nodded, hands in his pockets, looking exhausted suddenly.
“Uncle Joe’s never been keen on that kind of thing.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?” Elliot demanded.
“It does,” said Jase, looking more tired than ever. “But I’m used to it. I know you’re not. You don’t have to . . . you don’t need to make anything public, if you’re not comfortable.”
Elliot stared at him, speechless.
“Anyway, I’d better get in to work,” said Jase, nodding as if that was settled, and he started down the road, tread heavy and shoulders hunched. It took Elliot a moment to realize he walked as if carrying a burden.
There was a low stone wall running along the pavement. Elliot jumped up on it and ran along the wall, catching up and grabbing a very surprised Jase by the collar of his jacket. Elliot leaned down and kissed him in front of all the tired commuters going to work and disappointed parents bringing their kids to summer school. Elliot held onto Jase’s collar and kissed him all he wanted, until he felt Jase smile.
“There’s something you should know about me, if we’re going to do this,” Elliot told him. “I always do exactly what I want, and I never care what anybody else thinks about it.”
Jase seemed dumbfounded and was breathing hard, but he was still smiling. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” said Elliot. “And I want to see you later.”
“See you later, then,” said Jase.
Elliot found himself alone at dinner one night, and knew that his father was on a business trip. His dad didn’t leave notes or tell him about them: that would be too much acknowledgement of Elliot’s presence. The first time it had happened when Elliot was old enough to be left alone without a babysitter, Elliot had been frantic and thought his father had been in an accident. He’d called the hospitals.
That had been years ago. Now he knew what his father’s absence meant. This time he called Jase.
“Hey,” he said when Jase picked up. “I’m home all alone. Come keep me company.”
He thought it would be nice to have a place to themselves.
It was wonderful, to be able to request company and know the request would be granted. Even back at the Border, Elliot either had company or he didn’t. Elliot leaned back in his window seat, glass cold against his shoulders, and watched affectionately as Jase prowled around his room.
Jason whistled and plucked Elliot’s one picture from the mirror. “Hello, someone is crazy hot.”
Elliot beamed. “I know, right? That’s Serene. We used to go out. She actually dated me. I don’t mean to brag, but we were physically intimate.”
It was funny: it would have been agony telling someone that a month ago, and it still hurt, but he was able to say it, and to feel mostly pride and remember being happy.
“Uh, okay,” said Jase. “Before you realized you didn’t like girls.”
“What? I like girls,” said Elliot. “I mean,” he added, because he didn’t want to hurt Jase’s feelings, “I like girls as well.”
“Sure.” Jase rolled his eyes, and Elliot stared at him with mingled outrage and surprise. He wasn’t sure why Jase felt qualified to comment on a basic reality about Elliot. “Don’t worry about it. You’re young yet,” said Jase and gave him a wink.
“I can’t say that being twenty seems to have conferred enormous wisdom upon you.”
“God, Elliot, settle down.” Jase sounded absent-minded but fond, which was worth a lot to Elliot: maybe Elliot was going a bit far. He knew he had a tendency to do that. “Anyway,” said Jase. “I was not referring to the bird. I was talking about the guy, obviously. Woof.”
“What, Luke?” Elliot grabbed his own hair by handfuls in despair. “That is a ridiculous picture of him! That is why I kept that one!”
“So you’re saying . . . he usually looks better? Jesus.”
“This conversation is a living nightmare,” Elliot announced.
Jase did not seem overly disturbed by this announcement. It was possible he was getting used to Elliot’s grand proclamations. He continued studying the photo. “So this is Luke. You’ve talked about him often enough. I can’t believe you never mentioned he looked like that.”
“It’s not a national emergency,” said Elliot.
“Uh, have you seen him?” said Jase. “It kind of is.”
“And I do not talk about him often. I have mentioned him once or twice. Rarely. Hardly ever. Who is Luke?” said Elliot. “Have you noticed this is a terrible conversation? Because I’ve noticed this is a terrible conversation.”
“Does his cousin look like him?” Jase pursued, and off Elliot’s reluctant nod said: “And you turned him down?”