No. He couldn’t do that. Not even for his brothers. Please let them understand. If only he could talk to them.
“David! Joshua! Simon! I love you!” he screamed at the house.
He picked up his bundle, shoved it into the back of the Bronco, and waited. No replies came from the house, no one came running out to him.
Tears flowing freely down his cheeks, Mike drove away.
What had he done?
4
Please, please let Keith be home. Never being allowed a cellphone meant Mike couldn’t call. He pulled into the house he thought was Keith’s, dread prickling his stomach. Lights blazed and sparks shot to the sky from a bonfire behind the house.
This wasn’t a part of town he’d been to before, with rundown row houses and street names he’d learned from the six o’clock news, on the few occasions he’d taken a peek at the TV his stepfather watched.
Several dozen people, his age or slightly older, milled about the yard. Far too many glanced his way when he climbed out of the truck. They wore jeans and T-shirts, many with rock bands on the front. Some smoked, many had long hair.
The scent of something like burning hay scorched his nose.
He appeared a lamb among wolves with his short hair and Christian camp T-shirt.
“Ha… Have you seen Keith?”
A rangy man with his arm around a woman barked a laugh. “Hear that? He’s looking for Keith.”
Mike might have imagined someone saying, “Aren’t they all?”
“He’s back there,” the guy mumbled around a cigarette, pointing toward the back yard. “Wanna beer?” He extended the one he’d been holding.
“No, thanks.” Hoots and indecent suggestions chased Mike behind the house. What was that about? “Keith?” Nobody. Then he heard a moan and turned. What was that? Something writhed on the ground in the shadows of the back porch.
Mike took a few cautious steps. “Keith?”
What was… His brain unraveled what he saw. Shock froze him in place. A pair of ass cheeks bobbed up and down. The moan came again, from beneath the body.
He backed away. “Oh, man, I’m sorry!” Where was Keith?
The motion stopped and the man on top looked up. “What the fuck…” Keith paused.
For a moment Mike expected an apology. Instead, Keith resumed pumping into and out of whoever lay beneath him.
What?
“Keith. I need to talk to you. My parents kicked me out. I have to leave.” Not the complete truth, but all the words Mike’s overtaxed brain could manage.
Keith stopped again, glancing over his shoulder. “And that’s my problem, why?”
The unseen man beneath Keith pushed him off. Keith sat up, dick still hard, while the man took a seat on the grass besides him wearing a T-shirt and nothing else. “Baby, who the hell is this?”
“Remember that preacher’s kid I told you about?” Unashamed of his nakedness, Keith pulled the other guy into a hug. He wasn’t wearing a condom on his slick cock.
“The one you bet me would let you fuck him?”
“Yeah.” Keith grinned at the guy next to him.
The guy ran appraising eyes up and down Mike’s body. “I’m taking it you owe me twenty bucks.”
Twenty bucks? Keith’s only interest in Mike was to win a bet?
