“Okay.” Felix swallowed and the tears ran anew. “Leo, thank you. I thought I wanted to be alone right now, but I don’t. I really don’t.”
“I know, Felix. I’m here.” Leo stopped himself again from touching Felix. If I ever find that monster, I’m taking his ass to the cops—after I beat the shit out of him. He’ll learn that geeky guys aren’t as easy to mess with as he thinks.
16
AUD STARED at his phone where it lay on his desk next to his computer. I wonder why Leo hasn’t called. He sighed for the third time in as many minutes. I’d call him, but I don’t want to come across as clingy or needy. We’re doing really well, even with the interruptions.
The computer chimed, indicating it had finished booting. He clicked on the button for his e-mail. He normally calls me by now, so we can tell each other how our days went. I’ve never had anyone do that before. It’s kinda nice.
The few e-mails that had arrived since he’d left the gallery came up. He recognized most of them as spam and promptly deleted them. There was one from an address he didn’t recognize with no subject and an attachment. He frowned at it as he moved it to the junk e-mail file. He knew better than to open strange e-mails without them being in the junk file in case there was something in them that could prove dangerous to his system.
There was just a simple line of text: “Aud, see what I saw the other night.” The file was an AVI. Shaking his head, Aud deleted the e-mail. “Nope, not going to trash my system with something like that. I’m not stupid.”
He answered a few other e-mails that needed his attention, cleared his trash folder, then checked the news sites for anything interesting before finding a movie and plopping down in his chair to veg out.
THE DISTANT ringing of a phone brought Aud out of his impromptu nap about halfway through his movie. Sleepily, he scrambled out of the chair and to the desk to get to the phone before it went to voice mail. “Hello.”
“Hey, Aud.” Leo sounded more tired than normal after a day at work.
“How are you?” Aud perked up hearing Leo’s voice.
“I’ve been better. So, am I calling too late?”
The tone of Leo’s voice worried Aud. “No, not at all. What’s going on?”
“I’m at the ER with Felix. Julie just got here so I felt safe leaving him alone to call you.”
Turning the TV to mute, Aud returned to his chair. “What happened? Is he going to be okay?” He didn’t know Felix well, but he was Leo’s best friend.
A heavy sigh escaped Leo. “I think so, but it’s going to take a while.” He dropped his voice, sounding like he was afraid to be overheard. “Felix has been acting weird all week, and I finally got him to tell me what was going on. He was raped this weekend. He’s still torn up pretty bad and although he didn’t want to come, I finally got him to the hospital. They’re trying to assess the damage now.”
“Damn. That’s bad. Do you need me to come down there?” Aud wanted to do what he could to be there for Leo while Leo was supporting Felix.
“No.” There was a slight pause. “But thanks for offering. It means a lot to me that you care enough to want to be here. I don’t think having a bunch of people around is going to work for Felix right now. I’ve already called us both out for tomorrow at work.”
“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t think so at the moment. Felix is really jumpy and scared right now. I’ve talked him into staying with me for a few days as he sorts through this whole thing. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make our trip this weekend.”
A cloud settled over Aud. He’d been really looking forward to getting Leo away from the city, somewhere they didn’t have to worry about a stalker interfering, for at least a little while. “We can reschedule. That’s no big problem.”
“Thanks for being understanding.” For the first time, there was a hint of a smile in Leo’s voice.
“I realize that things come up. You never know. Next time it might be something on my side. Are you sure you don’t need or want anything? If you haven’t had dinner, I can go get you something and bring it to you.”
“That’s very sweet. I’ll be fine. Julie brought up sandwiches when she came. Just a second.” Leo’s voice grew muffled. Then he was back. “Hey, Aud, I need to go. I’ll call you in the next couple of days, and maybe we can go grab something to eat.” This time his sigh sounded frustrated. “I don’t know. We’ll talk soon.”
“Definitely. I can’t wait to see you again. Tell Felix I hope he feels better real soon.” Even as he said the only words he could think of, they sounded lame. How do you tell someone who’s been raped to feel better soon? Even if they can repair the bodily damage, the emotional pain will be there for a long time, or at least that’s what they always say on TV and in the movies.