The Tin Box by Kim Fielding Read Free Book Online Page B

was broke.
    “I guess that’s one of the advantages of living in civilization. You can go out for stuff.” Colby seemed neither sarcastic nor sad, just matter-of-fact.
    “Have you really lived here your whole life?”
    Colby had been slurping at his soft drink; now he smiled around the straw. “Why? You figure I’m a little too colorful for JV?”
    “Maybe,” William answered cautiously.
    “I thought so too, when I was a kid. Couldn’t wait to shake the dust from my feet. I graduated high school early, when I was only sixteen. Took off for the bright lights. San Francisco—homo heaven, right?”
    “And your family let you go?”
    Colby shrugged. “Dad was dead. Mom was remarried, to a truck driver. He has a house up in Redding but he spends most of the time on the road. Mom too. They’ve got their rig all set up like a little apartment, practically. It’s pretty cool. And Grandma and Grandpa, they were a little overwhelmed with me, I think.” He batted his eyelashes, which were unnaturally long. “I was just too fabulous for them to deal with.”
    The waitress came to the table and plopped down laden plates. She pulled ketchup and mustard bottles from her apron pocket and set them on the table. “Anything else?”
    “We’re good for now,” said Colby.
    William had been thinking he wasn’t hungry, but he changed his mind when he caught the scent of his burger. It looked good too. He removed the sliced onions and spread a little ketchup evenly inside the top bun with his knife, then he sprinkled pepper on the thick-cut fries. No salt. By the time he took a bite—careful to lean over the plate so he didn’t drip onto himself—Colby was nearly halfway through his food. He was making happy little noises of enjoyment as he ate, sometimes pausing to lick the juices from his lips.
    “I don’t go out all that often,” Colby said, a little apologetically.
    “This was a good suggestion. Thanks.”
    Colby beamed.
    The waitress came by just long enough to bring Colby a refill of Coke and to top off William’s coffee cup. William wiped his face with a paper napkin. “How’d you survive in San Francisco so young?”
    “Wasn’t easy. But I knew some people from the Internet.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “Older men, mostly. Guys who didn’t mind letting a cute boy crash on their couches. Or in their beds.”
    William almost gasped. “That’s… that’s illegal. That’s child abuse.”
    Now Colby wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Yeah. I mean, I thought it was what I wanted. I felt very grown-up, you know? In retrospect… well, it happened. I don’t really have a lot of regrets. And I had a lot of fun. Took some classes, too. I’m about sixty percent of the way to a BA in history.”
    William couldn’t help but imagine a teenage Colby running around San Francisco, partying, dancing. Having sex. When William was sixteen, his life hadn’t been remotely like that. An outsider might point out that William’s life had been less dangerous than Colby’s. Less… sordid. And yet Colby seemed happy now, at peace with where he’d been. William wasn’t there yet.
    “How’d you end up back in, uh, JV?” William asked quietly.
    “A few things sort of happened all at once. I was starting to get bored with the hookups and stuff. I mean, they were fun and all, and I was still horny as hell, but… same old, same old after a while. And then I was realizing that a degree in history is possibly not the most useful thing, career-wise. Unless you want to teach, which I didn’t. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was planning to quit school anyway, and then Grandma got sick. So I came back home to help Grandpa run things. And I kinda stuck.” He slurped loudly at his drink.
    “But wasn’t it hard trying to… to fit in here?”
    Colby laughed. “Baby, I never fit in here. Not even when I was a little kid. I guess I could try dressing like everyone else and doing my hair like them. I