Talker's Redemption by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online

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.
     
    “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!”
     
    “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 judge of that?” It was the blond guy, the guy who was not Henries, and he was trying to calm the situation down. “Come on… I’m sorry. Jed called you Talker. What’s your name again?”
     
    “Talker,” Tate said, wondering if he could get a glass of water. His mouth felt gritty, like he’d been chewing latex.
     
    “Talker? Really?”
     
    Lyndie bristled and looked like she was going to go after him again, so the blond guy put his hands out and backed down.
     
    “Okay, Talker. I’m Detective Melville—”
     
    “Like Moby Dick?” Really? Anything that blew through his spasming brain was fair game? Good to know.
     
    But it seemed to put Melville at ease. “Yeah, you read it?”
     
    “English thirty-A, Introduction to American Lit, Professor Kay Glowes. What was your question?”
     
    Lyndie looked behind her shoulder at him, her lined face contrasting with the wealth of dyed black hair that rippled down her back. She smiled wryly, and for a second, just a bare second, Tate felt like he could hold it together, and then he realized that it was Brian’s smile, and his hands