| Amy Lane
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“Sure it was,” Talker said bitterly. “I went into the house, I was
planning to get laid. Totally my fault.”
“What happened next?” Dr. Sutherland prompted gently.
“What do you think happened next?” Talker snarled. “My pants
were around my ankles, my ass was in the air, and Trev, fuck him,
had the upper hand! There’s only one place this is going, Doc. Do
you really need a visual?”
“What did you tell Mr. Gaines at this point?” Fuck him. Fuck
him, fuck them both, and fuck this. Was this really fucking
necessary? Did they really need to hear it? God-fucking-damn-
them-all-to-hell!!!
Jeremy spoke in… spoke in….
“IT WASN’T Brian’s fault,” he said now, stronger, some resentment
building in his voice.
“Was this some sort of jealousy thing?” the dark-haired guy
asked, and Tate squinted and tried to focus.
“Who are you?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound stoned.
“What is your name?”
“I’m Detective Henries, why, you want my badge number?”
Sneer. Scowl. Disdain.
Tate shook his head, letting the rest of it roll off his back, like
Trev’s sweat that night. “I just want you to believe me that it wasn’t
jealousy.”
Henries snorted. “Yeah? You people get pretty fucking jealous
sometimes, you know?”
“Aww, Jesus, Henries!” the blond guy admonished, and
Henries shrugged.
Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
42
“You say what you want, but I’m telling you, this is a cat fight
over this tattooed freak right here!” he snapped, and the idea that
Brian and Trevor were actually fighting for him was so horribly,
ghoulishly funny… almost as ghoulishly funny as asking your rapist
for lube, right?
“I TOLD him to use lube,” Talker snapped, and his head felt swollen
and explodeable. “And then I asked for a condom. Anything.
Cause… cause Trev’s really big, right? We’d kissed before, and I felt
him up against my leg, and all I could think about was, ‘Oh, Christ,
some fucking lube, Trev?’ but he laughed and held my head down to
the couch.”
“Oh God….” Brian’s voice was tortured next to him, and Tate
turned to him, an unfair anger at his lover blurting out of his mouth.
“Oh God what, Brian? Cause I can tell you that if there was a
God in that room I didn’t feel him!”
But Brian was solid, through and through. He didn’t flinch from
Talker’s hard look, or let go of his hand. “Oh God, I can’t believe you
ever thought you asked for this!” Brian gave back, his own face
hard, his own anger on the surface. “How could you think you
deserved to be….”
Talker shivered and shrugged. “I mean, really, Brian. I asked for
a condom and lube… how bad could it have been?”
… class today. Jeremy spoke in… class today….
HENRIES was looking at him like he was insane, and that was
always bad. “What’s so fucking funny, freak!”
Talker’s Redemption | Amy Lane
43
“You call him that again, I’m gonna fucking sue you, asshole!”
Tate looked twice at Brian’s Aunt Lyndie. He didn’t think he’d ever
heard the woman swear, much less rumble into a fight like a pit bull
on meth.
“Lady, we’re just trying to get a straight answer from this kid!
Because I’m telling you right now it looks like your nephew got beat
up for a freaking cat fight, and quite frankly, that’s not worth our
time!”
“If that’s all you see here, you don’t deserve to know the
fucking truth!” Lyndie snarled, and Talker realized that the tiny
woman had moved in front of him and was standing, teeth bared,
between him and the world. He pressed the heels of his hands to
his eyes, because she was defending him, and the only person in
the world he thought would ever defend him was Brian, and he
didn’t deserve it, he so didn’t deserve it, but he hadn’t deserved
what Trev had done either, and, oh Christ, isn’t that what this all
came down to?
“Why don’t you let us be the
Learning to Kill: Stories