Free Salvation by Alexa Land Page B

he said, “You weren’t going to call me,
were you?”
    “I don’t know. Probably not.”
    “I didn’t mean to make this awkward. I
was just hoping you hadn’t made up your mind about me yet.” There was something
in his tone that made me glance up at him. It was as if he’d shut down his
emotions, his expression grave. He stepped aside, clearing the way for me.
“Don’t let me keep you, it looks like you have somewhere you need to be.”
    “Yeah. Um, I’m going to visit Skye at
his job. He’s a dancer at this place called Daddy’s Boiz, and I don’t know, I
guess I have a bad feeling about it. I was going to go and check it out, make
sure it’s all, you know, legitimate or whatever.” I was rambling a bit, because
this situation made me really uncomfortable. I didn’t want to do this, I didn’t
want to push Vincent away. But how could I knowingly get involved with a
criminal? How could I keep putting myself in danger?
    He knit his brows slightly. “I’ve heard
of that place, it has a bad reputation. Maybe you shouldn’t go down there.”
    “I’ll be fine. I’m just worried about
Skye, and I think I’ll feel better after I see this place for myself.” After
another awkward pause, I forced myself to step around him and head down the
stairs, my hands still in my pockets to keep from reaching for him. “Take care
of yourself, Vincent.”
    “You too, Trevor.”
    I didn’t look back as I walked down the
street to the bus stop. You’re doing the right thing , I told myself,
even as another part of me screamed no, no, no! He was bad news, I didn’t
want any part of whatever he was involved in. This was the right choice, the
mature decision.
    Wasn’t it?
    When the bus arrived, it was almost
empty. I sat toward the back and put my feet on the seat, hugging my knees to
my chest as I rested my forehead against the window. More than one rider over
the years had carved graffiti into the glass, probably out of sheer boredom.
One tag caught my attention and I sat up and blinked at it, then ran a
fingertip over the tiny word. Some other Trevor had sat in this same seat and
scratched his name into the window. It wasn’t like the other tags, most of
which were bold and screamed for attention. Instead, this one was a whisper. Trevor. I could relate to my namesake, to this other boy who’d felt the need to leave a
little mark behind, a tiny declaration of ‘hey, I’m here.’ He and I probably
had a lot in common.
    After a couple transfers, I got off the
bus in an unfamiliar part of town. It wasn’t far from the financial district
and a few big hotels, but the neighborhood was still fairly sleazy. I passed
several bars and clubs, then finally found Skye’s place of employment. Red neon
spelled out the club’s name above a series of plexiglass cases that covered the
front of the building, each containing color posters of different (barely
legal) shirtless boys. Oh man, this was as bad as the business card, only on a
larger scale.
    I went up to the bouncer and started to
say, “I’m here to see—”
    Before I finished my sentence, he held
the door open for me and said with a leer, “Go right in. Always room for one
more cute little twink.”
    The interior of the club was really loud
and fairly dark, except for the spotlights that shone on more than a dozen
little platforms around the room. Young guys, many in pairs, were dancing on those
platforms dressed only in skimpy, tight shorts. The young wait staff wore the
same thing, but with the addition of sneakers and cropped tank tops that did
little to cover them up.
    I spotted my friend across the room.
While most of the dancers played to the audience, moving their bodies
provocatively to the pulsating techno music, Skye was just dancing, eyes
closed, hands raised over his head as if he was on the dance floor of any club
in the city, clearly enjoying himself. He looked gorgeous. The baggy clothes he
usually wore hid the fact that he actually had an amazing