Bound by Lies (26 page)

Brayden heads for the door, ready to walk away, even if he’s in the middle of a shift, even if he has no idea where to go or what to do. Art is watching with a mysteriously unhappy expression. Jenner is watching, too, but before Jenner can react, before
any
of them can react, the door opens just as Brayden gets to it.

A young Latino guy with a buzzed-short mohawk and tattoos creeping up his neck from under the collar of his shirt walks through the door. It seems like everyone in the bar stops what they’re doing, falling silent, watching as the newcomer and Brayden lock eyes.

“Enrique,” Brayden says, stopped in his tracks. He’s stunned, feeling trapped or caught.

Smiling hugely, laughing, Enrique closes the gap between himself and Brayden to give him an enthusiastic hug. He claps Brayden on the back and lifts him a little off the ground. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”

“I can’t believe you came,” Brayden says, trying to extricate himself from the hug as he’s kissed soundly on the cheek. He can feel everyone in the bar staring at them, listening to every word, jumping to their own conclusions. In his peripheral vision, he sees them whispering to each other, nodding their way. Being so on display is like wearing a straightjacket, and his panic spikes.

“Had to see you, B. Did Andre tell you I was coming? That sneaky bitch.”

There are people everywhere—filling the bar, spilling out onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, come on. We can talk back here,” Brayden says. The weight of everyone’s stares—a roomful of them, but Art and Jenner’s most of all—makes him feel even smaller. Like all of his secrets, his whole private life is about to be exposed; he shrinks in on himself and grabs his friend by the arm, dragging Enrique hurriedly back toward the hall leading to the break room.

They get there with Brayden leading the way, not letting go. Brayden turns to find that Jenner and Art have followed, past and present colliding. The dread begins to strangle him. He fights for air as everyone’s attention remains fixed solely on him. It’s just like it always was in that damn school, with everyone always looking at him—the loner, the weirdo with the fucked up parents who never talks to people—and their hushed conversations, judging, making assumptions about things they know nothing about. It was never like this in Miami. There was no baggage, no history to feed the rumor mill. The gossip and whispering may not be about his mother and father anymore. Now it’s all about Jenner and everything that’s been happening behind the lies and closed doors. But it feels the same. They’ll all keep bearing down on him until he breaks, or runs.

Why did I come back here, and give up anonymity for this? Why did I sign on for this again? It’s a nightmare. No wonder Mom left and refuses to come back, for any reason, not even for me. They never stop. It never stops.

“You have a guest,” Jenner says expectantly.

Brayden closes his eyes to block them all out, feeling a little lightheaded with the degree of his fear of the truth being laid bare—all of his sins, shames and failings. “Yeah, this is Enrique. Jenner. Art.” He gestures to each person in turn, waiting for Max to show up. Another awkward moment later, she does and the darkness grows for Brayden. “And this is Max.”

“How do you know Brayden?” Max asks, extending a hand.

“My pleasure,” Enrique says personably. “B, baby, sit down. You don’t look so good. I’m a friend from Miami. Haven’t seen or heard from this guy in months, so I had to stop by and see how he was doing.” Shaking Jenner and Art’s hands in turn, Enrique smiles at each of them, then turns back to Brayden. “You cool?”

“Yeah, it’s just been one of those days.”

“Or maybe it’s this shitty weather,” Enrique says, sitting beside him at the table. “What you need is a full day of sun and surfing. You’d be good as new.”

“That would be sweet,” Brayden agrees with a tired smile. “I fuckin’ miss the ocean, man. This cold weather’s killin’ me. But the company is good.”

“We miss you, B. I think all of Florida misses you. But Andre most of all.”

Max asks, “Who’s Andre?”

For a second Brayden’s brain locks up as he hurries to say something before Enrique can, and possibly out him. “He’s a friend.”

“Brayden’s old roomie,” Enrique says. He pulls out a phone before Brayden sees or can stop him. With a few taps at the screen, Enrique pulls up a photo that he displays for the others. Max slides over a chair and takes the phone from Enrique after asking with a glance for permission to do so.

Brayden hunches forward, staring down at his lap as one by one, Max, Art and Jenner look at the picture of the dark-skinned wall of a man with his arm looped companionably around Brayden’s shoulders. They’re at the beach, with Brayden in a wetsuit and Andre in trunks, his muscular build on display, glistening in the sunshine.

Brayden can sense Jenner’s eyes on him. That’s why Brayden is looking everywhere but back at him. Part of Brayden listens in as Art asks Enrique how they met and Enrique tells them about clubbing and bonfires at the beach. He doesn’t participate and knows that Enrique is a good enough friend to guess at some of the reasons why.

Ten minutes later, Brayden has had all he can take of the conversation about his former life as they skirt around the fact that he was fucking around with Andre sexually. Max has gone to lend support to Jackson with minding the bar but Art and Jenner linger.

“’Rique, can we pick this up later?” Brayden asks. “I get off at eleven tonight if you want to meet up then.”

“Sure, bro. Call my cell. We’ll figure it out. Sorry for dropping in on you like this, but I had to take the chance.”

“No problem.” Brayden hugs him, unable to meet his good friend’s big brown eyes filled with concern.

They head out into the hall and Brayden watches from there as Enrique leaves through the front door with a wave, but it’s like Brayden is moving on instinct alone. He’s lost in his head, heart pounding, his skin too tight, ready to lash out at anyone who touches him or looks at him funny. He needs to get out of there. He needs to get out of the bar and just go as far and as fast as his legs will carry him, all the way to goddamned Florida if possible. This was a mistake, he realizes. All of it—every moment since his Nana asked him to move back here.

A hand falls on his shoulder and he instinctively throws an elbow back, not even thinking about it. But the arm is caught before it connects, twisted painfully until the sharp twinge in his shoulder muscles wakes him up a little.

“My office. Right now,” Jenner’s voice growls in Brayden’s ear.

Neither of them notice Art and Max watching on from the kitchen as Max gives him a food order. They see Jenner easily block Brayden’s thrown elbow to the gut and pin his arm without thinking about it. They see the subsequent pain evident in Brayden’s expression and how Jenner manhandles him into the small office.

“Art, wait,” Max calls as Art follows after them. But it’s too late.

“Just watching out for Brayden,” Art tells her as he goes, “I’m trying to give Parrish the benefit of the doubt, here, but this has gone far enough.”

“Got it,” she says softly.

“Go help Jackson. You stay out of it.”

In the office, Jenner closes and locks the door behind them, switching on the radio to drown out their voices. He pulls both of Brayden’s arms behind his back, pushing them up until the muscles are strained to their limit, and shoves Brayden forward, face-first against the door. Trapping him there, Jenner uses all of his body weight to keep Brayden in place.

When Brayden fights, pressing back against Jenner with his shoulders, his feet planted on the floor and scrambling for purchase, Jenner isn’t moved an inch. He just stares calmly down at Brayden’s flushed face, blond hair whipping Jenner’s neck. Brayden grunts hard, pouring all of his pent-up energy into trying to get free of Jenner.

It’s better not to let Jenner in—to let
anyone
in. Brayden loved his father honestly and profoundly, with his whole heart, and all that ever got Brayden was pain. It was bad enough when their family was torn in half when his mother left. Brayden hadn’t even processed that loss when his beloved father’s absence became complete, irrevocable. He was gone before Brayden got to really say goodbye. He hadn’t meant to break his father’s heart, to banish one of the best, purest things in his life. The excruciating sadness in his father’s eyes while he was sick and dying, alone in that hospital room without even the comfort of Lara at his side, holding his hand—Lara who couldn’t face that pain, even for Anthony’s sake—is Brayden’s burden to bear. He remembers his one, last visit to his father in that hospital room, with Nana, and the horror of the truth his mother was trying to shield him from.

The truth is always a horror.

All of his terror of being nothing but what everyone else deems him to be—not a man at all, but the sum total of his faults and failings—bursts to the surface. All of his anger at having to keep secrets from everyone from his own mother to his best friends, at having to lie and being unable to enjoy his life without shame, funnels into him bucking against Jenner’s larger, solid body.

“Come on, slave. That’s all you got? Shake me off. I want to see you try. This isn’t trying. This is just pathetic.”

This riles Brayden anew and he cries out, sounding desperate. Pushing off from the floor and back from the thick wooden door into Jenner’s muscular chest, Brayden tries. But Jenner just twists his wrists more sharply. Brayden’s shoulders scream and he gasps sharply, the right side of his face flush to the door’s flat surface.

“Lemme go,” he snarls.

Let go before I hurt you, too. Just let me go.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jenner says smoothly.

Brayden’s arms, shoulder to palm, hurt so badly that tears spring to his eyes, but he’s not done. Jenner knows it before Brayden does. Planting his forehead against the door, Brayden uses that as extra leverage. His feet slide on the linoleum floor, squeaking. Jenner eases a thigh up between Brayden’s legs, spreading them. It makes Brayden shudder with lust to be faced with proof that Jenner is determined to make him stay, to make him feel and face things he can’t on his own, even if they’re scary. Even if they hurt.

His chest heaves. His skin tingles everywhere. The spot on his forehead that he’s grinding against the door starts to burn with agony.

“Stop it. Turn your head. Now.” When he doesn’t do it instantly, Jenner pushes Brayden’s arms impossibly higher. It’s fear that they might just break from the strain that gets Brayden to give in. He turns his face to the side and tries to catch his breath, whimpering as he gasps with the ache. “Better. Isn’t that better?”

Jenner’s knee moves against Brayden’s crotch in a slow drag that gets Brayden to spread his legs wider without being asked. Sweaty, hot to the touch, hair stuck to his face in places and breathless, Brayden revels in the helplessness.

“Are you hard right now?” Jenner asks. “Filthy whore. Is that how I should treat you? Huh? As my
whore
?”

The pain in Brayden’s arms is stronger than his ability to listen to what Jenner is saying, but he gets the drift. When the thigh grinds against him again, he tries to rock against it, counter to the movement. He mumbles something, but it’s unintelligible.

“Sorry, what was that?” Jenner asks, leaning in so that his lips are right by Brayden’s ear, making his skin pebble and his stomach flip.

“Said
yes
,” Brayden hisses.

“Yes what?” Jenner purrs, lips moving against the shell of Brayden’s ear as he eases his arms down, rubbing up them as Brayden flexes his hands.

“Yes,
Sir
.”

“I’m sending you upstairs. Obviously you aren’t capable of handling work. You’re a danger to yourself and I won’t tolerate it any longer,” Jenner says softly.

“Please let me finish my shift,” Brayden says through gritted teeth. “I’ll be fine. I need the pay.”

“Fuck the pay. I’ll pay you for sex like the whore you are if you’re that hard up for it. You get on your knees on my bed, spread your cheeks and I’ll take it from there.”

It shouldn’t turn him on to be spoken to like that, Brayden knows on some level, but it does. A hard shudder rips through him. Jenner feels it.

“I’m not your kept boy,” Brayden argues halfheartedly.

“You are now. Compose yourself, then march your ass upstairs. We’ll talk about this later.”

Pure pleasure, a heady wave of it, washes over Brayden at hearing that he doesn’t have to explain his reactions, everything clamoring for attention in his brain and heart. Jenner understands without Brayden needing to say a word. He’s not casting judgment. He’s forgiven Brayden already, without question. More than that, he’s giving Brayden an out. He doesn’t have to linger in an uncomfortable situation. If he chooses to trust Jenner, and how much Jenner cares about him, Brayden can lose himself there, in the safety of that. He doesn’t have to be alone anymore, but can just go upstairs, and face his issues later, with Jenner at his side, fighting for him. It’s intoxicating.

“Thank you,” Brayden moans. “Thank you, Sir.”

Jenner steps back, seeing everything. Power and confidence exudes from Jenner, making Brayden feel completely at ease. It’s okay to be weak and damaged because Jenner is strong. Brayden waits for his breathing to regulate. Then he smooths his hair, straightens his clothes, and waits for the throbbing of his erection, hot against his leg and held there by his tight briefs, to dull to a manageable level.

With a nod he tells Jenner that he’s ready.

They shut the radio off and open the door. Jenner leaves first, checking to make sure no one is there to give Brayden a hard time as he makes his way to the break room for his things. He gets three steps from the office doorway when the punch thrown by Art connects with the side of Jenner’s jaw.

Stepping out from behind a stack of shelves, Art draws his fist back as Jenner grimaces. Jenner’s hand goes to his face as he gives his friend an incredulous stare. Art cocks his arm back for another hit, but Brayden barrels out of the office.

“Stop!”

Art throws the punch but Jenner’s ready for it and bobs out of the way in plenty of time. While Art straightens, Jenner hits him in the gut, driving some of the air from Art’s lungs.