Innocence (10 page)

Up on the tracks, I can see the three of them at work, shadows moving around the overheard wires near the signal box, a small bright flashlight shining here and there. Logan, recognizable from his thick dreadlocks, is the cutter up next to the wires, the other two stand below him, one coiling, one guiding the wire.

A car approaches, its lights filling up the cab for a second, and I hold my breath, my hand hovering over the steering wheel, unsure whether this is it and I should press the horn and warn the others. But it doesn’t stop, and a few minutes later, the others are shoving the copper in the van and we are vanishing thieves in the night.

At the Tavern, Finn pulls out the roll of money and hands me two fifties—double the amount from last time. I thank him as I shove the money into my pocket, careful not to show how much the amount thrills me. Maybe he’s still trying to make it up to me, I don’t know, but whatever he’s doing, I don’t mind it.

When Shane picks me up at twelve the next day, the weather still hasn’t broken. The sky looks like a tinfoil sheet, and the air is as hot as a baking oven. I think Shane only offered me extra work because he feels guilty about not being able to give my money to me and not Dad, and today he has the cash.

As it’s a Saturday, there are just a few of us, mostly guys I don’t know, but have seen on odd days helping out for a few hours.

I’m surprised to see Finn. I know he doesn’t have to be there.

All day he is sweet to me, taking over my jobs to give me a break when it gets too much, bringing me a bottle of water up, asking how I’m doing, if I’m okay, touching my arm.

At the end of the day, he is waiting for me in the small play park. The others have left already, and he’s on his own. Shane has still got to shut the place up and secure it, so he’ll be a while.

“Wanna go for a walk?” Finn asks.

A walk is the last thing I want to go for, but I don’t think walking is what he has in mind, and yeah, I’m tired, but I’m pent up too. The whole day has been building up to this and….

Surprisingly I’m okay with it.

I don’t even think about Pixie as we head round the back of the site. And though my longing to see Malachi again is a constant heat against my skin, I put all thoughts of him out of my mind.

With rough tenderness, Finn grabs my hand and drags me down an empty concrete stairwell that leads to a small electrical closet with a Danger of Death sign screwed into it. Last year’s fallen leaves litter the floor, giving the place a musty, dank smell. But no one can see us down here, not unless they make their way down all the stairs.

Gently he backs me up against the door, smiling. “You okay, baby? Hard day?”

His words make me want to laugh, but his fingers are dancing up my thigh, and the familiar warmth and swell of my cock growing hard stops me. I push my hips forward to press myself against him, enjoying the tightness of it.

“Go slow,” I murmur as he leans in and his lips ghost against mine.

Pulling back a fraction, he looks at me curiously and cups my cheek. “How many people have you been with?” he asks, his voice soft as he searches my eyes.

“Before you?”

“Yeah,” he gently kisses the hard line of my jaw, making my knees weak.

“There was no one,” I say.

“Fuck…. I’m sorry about last time, baby. I’ll make it good for you, okay? We’ll go real slow. I’ll take care of you. You wanna just kiss, or do you want me to make you come?”

I swallow, feeling his fingers press against the head of my cock through my jeans. “Make me come,” I whisper helplessly.

“This turn you on?”

“What?” My voice is just a croak as he rubs his finger firmly back and forth.

“Talking.”

“Yeah,” I gasp, embarrassed and glad of the dark.

“Want me to suck you?”

“Uh-huh….” I groan, thinking of his warm, wet mouth around my dick.

I’m all the way light-headed as he undoes the buttons of my jeans with one hand and cups the back of my head with the other, kissing me deeply.

He pushes my jeans down to my knees and reaches inside my shorts, stroking me firmly and then just holding my dick in his hand. I thrust into his hand a little, desperate to relieve the ache that’s building. He grips me tighter.

“Slow, remember,” he says.

I nod, panting slightly.

“Tell me where you want my tongue.”

I close my eyes, my bones losing all solidity and finding they don’t need it—he’s holding me up.

Everywhere
, I think. Just the thought of his tongue on me is like a jolt of electricity passing through me.

Then “Low down,” I say, biting my lip.

Watching my face, his hand moves to cup my balls, and I nearly come in his palm. Never mind sucking, I imagine I can feel every callus, every deep line of his hand, and the sensation is all I want to know.

“Baby,” he whispers, licking my neck beneath my ear and bringing me so close it hurts to hold back.

Every sound I make seems to originate in my cock and vibrate through my whole body. Gently moving his hand, caressing me more sweetly than I thought possible, he sinks to his knees, and I come in his mouth the instant it closes around me.

He jerks off, still on his knees, still sucking me as my orgasm fades, and I brace myself against the wall to stop from crashing to the ground with him.

I find I am moaning encouragingly, and he comes with a muffled yell, covering the ground with thick streams of white and shaking as he grips onto my bare thighs as though his orgasm is a storm trying to sweep him away.

After, he slings a weary arm round my shoulders as we button our trousers, the both of us utterly spent.

“I told Pixie I think I’m in love with you,” he breathes against my ear.

My eyes widen in shock at this admission out of nowhere.
In love with me? How can he be in love with me?
My idea of love is more than a quick release, however intense and glorious the moment of it. But still,
love
, my heart beats quicker at the mention of it, and then I remember… Pixie.

Pixie, who was always so sweet and kind to me. Pixie, who doesn’t deserve this.

“What… what did she… how did she take it?” I say, stumbling over the words as though they are slippery rocks in a stream. A stream destined to sweep me with it out to sea.

“I don’t know. She’s not talking to me. But she’s told me before she thought you were hot and it would be fun to play, so I know she likes you.”

“Don’t you still love her?”

Pulling out of our loose embrace, he takes me by the shoulders and looks at me seriously.

“Chris, you can be in love with more than one person. You know that, right?”

The light is waning, deepening the gloom, but he concentrates on my face, trying to read something in my expression other than blank shock. But his eyes quickly cloud with disappointment and his smile fades when he sees nothing.

As if trying to save me from this discomfort, a metal gate clangs and then chains rattle as they are drawn around it—Shane, finishing his lockup.

“I don’t know,” I admit, as thoroughly confused by my feelings on love as I am by Finn’s admission.

More out of guilt than anything else, I take Finn’s hand and pull him with me up the stairs.

I
T
’
S
THE
end of the week, and this time when the wreckers come, they come with dynamite and an exclusion zone. We vie for space on the very edge of it with maybe a hundred locals from the estate. They regard us coolly. “
Gypsy scum
,” I hear in their whispers of breath. And I shrink back until my arm touches Shane’s.

Overhead the sky is as marbled and dark as an apocalypse. The rain still hasn’t come. I’m beginning to think it never will.

Finn sidles next to me to whisper in my ear, his arms snaking round my waist. “You still up for tomorrow?”

I think about pushing him away, but everyone is watching the block, and no one pays us any mind.

“Yeah,” I whisper back. Of course I am.

Sitting in some van while Finn, Logan, and Chase thieve copper is perhaps the easiest, most lucrative job in the world. At this rate I’ll have maybe a thousand pounds by the end of summer and Jay and I will have enough to get away from here.

The countdown begins. Some guy in an orange hard hat stands in the kid’s play park holding up a red square. No one is really sure what it means. But when the first corner detonates, someone yells, and we all stare with rapt attention as the block rapidly disintegrates into a column of dust before our eyes.

“Come home with me tonight.”

I hear the plea in his voice, even if it is barely more than words against my skin. But it’s Jay’s last day of school before they break up for the summer, and as we’ve finished work early for once, I want to go meet him.

“I can’t. I need to be somewhere.”

“All night?”

“No, just now. I need to meet my brother.”

“How about I come pick you up later?”

His breath is hot, igniting a fire in my veins, and I sink back into his lean frame, arousal sweeping through me as his arms wrap tighter, pulling me closer. He doesn’t need to tell me what going home with him will mean.

But I pull away.

It’s easy to ignore my guilt in the heat of the moment, letting him drag me down some hidden stairwell, but planning Finn’s infidelity like this makes me feel a little ill.

The crowd is beginning to disperse. The air is full of dust in the aftermath of the explosion.

“I can’t,” I mutter.

“Pixie understands. She wants to talk to you.”

Finn is more perceptive than I give him credit for.

“No.” I try not to sound panicked. But I am. I couldn’t bear talking to her about fucking her fiancé.

His grip on my arm is too obvious, and we receive a few curious stares.

“Really,” he says, and I glimpse a little of the forcefulness he hides behind his calm facade. “You don’t have to talk to her, but we need to sort this out.”

No we don’t
, I think. In a few short weeks, when summer ends, I will be gone. I don’t want to sort anything out. I push away from him and head towards the pool of cars, hoping for a lift to Jay’s school, not far from here.

“Okay, but there’s no other way you’re going to believe she’s alright with this,” he calls after me.

“How can she be?” I shout back over my shoulder, walking fast and not waiting for his answer.

J
AY
’
S
NOT
expecting me, so I stand on a bench at the edge of the green opposite, scanning the crowds of kids as they pour out the school gates.

This time he spots me before I see him, his smile so bright I can’t imagine anyone else ever being so happy to see me. Then I notice that he’s holding Lorne’s hand.

It’s entirely the wrong moment to realize I understand Jay’s fear that night in Liam’s van when he told me he was scared I was going to leave him, that I was going to make better friends than him, and that we wouldn’t be close anymore. Quickly I push the thought to the back of my mind and smile at them both.

“I’m taking you out to celebrate the end of school,” I say. “I thought we could go into town.”

“Lorne too?”

I shrug. “Of course.”

I lift Jay’s bag from his shoulder and sling it over mine so he doesn’t have to carry it. I don’t know why—I just feel like being nice.

“Glad school’s over?” I say to Lorne as we walk. I hated school, and just the thought of it makes me want to quicken my pace away.

“Yes,” she whispers, slowing down and fiddling with her bag strap. She would be prettier if her hair didn’t obscure her face so much of the time.

“So what are your plans for the summer?”

Looking down, she shakes her head and doesn’t answer. I have no idea if she just doesn’t want to talk to me or if she’s shyer than Jay is around people, but I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, so I shut up.

We head into town and sit on the circular stone bench surrounding the fountain in the shopping center, eating ice cream. Lorne still doesn’t seem to want to talk to me, though she and Jay seem to have some sort of unspoken communication going on.

The marble is cold against my thighs. Gripped by an intense loneliness, I stare off at all the bright shops. I should have gone back to the camp with Finn. I still have this stupid hope that Malachi might be there, that if he sees me again he might realize how wrong he was.

Lorne goes off to the toilet, and Jay scoots closer. He rests his head against my shoulder.

“Is something going on with you and Lorne?” I ask quietly, feeling like I shouldn’t have to ask at all, because he would have told me something that important. But he hasn’t. And when it comes to Jay, I have a sixth sense, and I know he’s keeping something back from me. But what can I do when I am keeping things back from him too, and I haven’t given him much chance to talk these past few weeks?

“Going on with me and Lorne?” There is a teasing glint in his eye I don’t like. He knows what I mean.

Sighing, I elbow him affectionately in the ribs. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“No,” he smiles, but only for a moment. Suddenly he’s serious, staring at his hands, and I can
feel
he wants to say something. “I don’t think I… I think I’m like….”

He stops, seeing Lorne has come back from the toilet. She hovers nearby, obviously uncomfortable.

I frown, not sure what he was trying to say.

Jay beckons her over, says he wants to wander round the shops—which we do, aimlessly.

Around five I buy them a bag of chips and tell them to go home. The heat coming off the road outside the chip shop makes the air look like liquid.

“Where are you going?”

Jay is worried. I don’t want him to be, but I feel restless and insubstantial as though the wind is blowing through me.

“I’ll be back later, don’t worry. I’m just going for a walk.”

I squeeze his shoulder and then turn away, walking without looking back until I’m sure he’s not watching me anymore. It might take me an hour or so to walk to the camp from here, and maybe I’ll turn back once I get there. Maybe I won’t.