Ahead, on the next corner, Wendell was arguing with a drag queen.It took Jem a moment to recognize Lupita Bonita.In her heels, the drag queen towered over the older man.She had on the same dramatic makeup, something like KISS meets Barbie, and under the streetlights, her wig was flat and colorless.
“—stay away—” the drag queen was shouting, one finger stabbing down at Wendell.
“I have every right to be there!”Wendell quavered back.“I’m helping those boys!”
“—I’m warning you!”The drag queen took a step forward, and Wendell scurried back.The movement took him over the curb, and Wendell came down badly, his ankle turning.He let out a pained sound, but he kept moving backward, hands raised.
The drag queen watched him, but she didn’t follow.
Jem ducked his head and turned down the side street.He shoved the garage remote in his pocket.
“You can’t do this!”Wendell was protesting, but his voice was getting fainter, moving away.“I’m going to call Nasha and tell her—”
The drag queen’s heel clicked as she stepped down from the sidewalk, and Wendell’s voice cut off.Whimpering breaths faded into the distance as Wendell scurried away.Jem kept his head down and focused on the Subaru.
A car rolled past.
In the distance, the Mercedes’ alarm was still blatting.
His ROOS made faint scuffing sounds, and he tried to walk normally.
Then, behind him, the click of heels began to move back toward Rainbow House.
Jem didn’t let himself look until he was in the Subaru.The drag queen was gone.Wendell was gone.The street was empty.
He started shaking, and it took him two tries to get the Subaru started because he forgot to step on the brake.Slowly, the car warmed up.He leaned his head on the steering wheel.
I was checking.I was making sure.
Of what?
I had to check.
What the fuck were you doing?
He sat back.He got out his phone.And he started scrolling through Instagram.And after a while, his hands stopped shaking.
When Daniel texted, Jem drove around the block.He pulled up in front of Rainbow House, and—as usual—Daniel took his time.Two minutes.Three.Five.Seven.And then the boy came out of the door with his face turned away from the wind, one arm wrapped around his waist.He’d ditched the leggings, and now he wore only the skirt, and his long legs were white in the harsh light.As he came down the stairs, he kept one arm wrapped around himself, trying to cover himself where the cropped shirt rode up.He was holding something in that hand.
Daniel got in the car.He put on his seatbelt awkwardly, using his right hand, because he was still holding something in his left.No, not holding.Hiding.A red mark, darkening like a bruise, was barely visible above his collar.As he struggled with the seatbelt, he glanced over.And then his expression hardened.“What?”
Jem tapped the time on the dash.
Daniel made an annoyed sound.“Nasha wouldn’t stop talking.”
And if you weren’t Jem Berger, and you didn’t bullshit for a living, you would have thought that was it.But hewasJem Berger.And hedidbullshit for a living.And so he didn’t miss the relief that flickered, for a moment, in Daniel’s eyes.
It could have been a lot of things.It could have been anything.
But he still had his hand wrapped around whatever he was trying to hide.
Twenty questions: what’s smaller than a fucking breadbox?
All Jem said, though, was “Lose something?”
For a moment, Daniel didn’t understand.Then he shrugged.“Justin wanted to borrow them.I told him they wouldn’t fit.”
“Uh huh,” Jem said.“Is that how you got that hickey?”
