“It’s fine, Ansel. It’s not like you forced him, right?” My smile was all teeth.
“I didn’t, I swear.”
He cleared his throat, looking nervous as hell, so I decided to barrel on. “But we are looking for his brother, and if you have any information, I’m willing to trade you for it, not with sex, but with something you can use or sell.”
He studied me, perhaps trying to decide if this was a trick, but the kid seemed relatively unguarded about everything, which was why I’d chosen the direct approach.
“I could really use a mini-fridge,” he said. “Mine doesn’t keep anything cold anymore.”
I snapped my fingers. “Consider it done. Meet me in the fourth-floor common room after your shift, and we’ll talk more then.”
“Cool, hey. Can I try one of those?” He motioned to my cigarettes, so I handed him one I’d already rolled and decided I may as well have another as a reward for sealing the deal. “Your boyfriend’s really cute. Sweet too.”
“I know,” I said and wondered if I was going to have to break this kid’s arm after all.
“Him and his cat.” Ansel smiled, shaking his head. “He reminds me of what people used to be like, you know? People make fun of plague kids, but they’re like, pure.”
I nodded and hoped that he and I didn’t share some sort of plague kid fetish.
“I felt bad about asking, and I didn’t know you two were a thing. I thought maybe you were stalking him or something. You gotta admit, you two make an odd couple. Anyway, I thought maybe he’d be into it. He wasn’t though. Loyalty like that is hard to come by these days.”
“Sure is,” I said, stumbling over the “odd couple” comment.
He glanced down at his watch. “I better get back or they’ll dock my pay. Think you can throw a couple of those hand-rolled cigs into the deal?”
“You betcha,” I said amiably. Ansel and I were well on our way to being BFFs. “But your information had better be good.”
“It is. I swear it.”
* * *
A few hours later,I was in possession of one refurbished mini-fridge with fresh coolant, thanks to Gizmo, wizard of all things mechanical or technological. Kitten was climbing the walls of the common area, impatient to learn the whereabouts of his brother.
“Do you think we’re an odd couple?” I asked him. The comment had bothered me all day, and I wasn’t sure why.
“Because we’re both boys?” he asked quizzically.
“No, because we’re… different.”
“How are we different?” he asked, and the fact that he didn’t see our differences made me feel a whole hell of a lot better about it all.
“You’re… Team Edward,” I said, reaching for something trivial, “and you like cats.”
“So do you,” he said, almost accusingly. I may have been caught out petting the beastie from time to time. She was a good mouser and tended to peacock about it. “Besides, why does that matter?” he asked.
“It doesn’t, I guess.”
He seemed to be getting more agitated by the second, so I dropped that line of questioning.
“I don’t know why he couldn’t just tell you what he knew when you asked him,” he said.
“Information is currency, sweetness.”
“Must be why you’re so stingy with it,” he snapped, a cool look aimed in my direction.
“That’s not very nice,” I said. I was used to his bratty attitude from time to time, but that barb felt pretty personal. “What’s the problem, Kitten?”
“I tell you everything, even when guys ask me to give them blowjobs, and you don’t tell me anything. Like, where have you been the past three days? All you say is, ‘I’m going out,’ but you don’t tell me where. Yet, you have to know where I am every minute of every day? How is that fair? Don’t you think I worry too?”
