Page 5

Jonah

A tinny thump from the dumpster startled him. Jonah looked up to find a rail-thin cat balancing precariously on the edge, its spine curved in a perfect arch. Fresh rain soaked his hair—both the cat’s and Jonah’s. Even sheltered beneath the overhang of the brick building, the wind carried the spray onto his huddled form, a cool mist that countered the early summer air.

The park was mostly empty at this hour. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was pretty sure it fell somewhere in between the late-night partiers closing down bars and the early-shifters swatting at their alarm clocks. Shortly after sunrise, the city park workers would be by to unlock the bathrooms, and Jonah could sneak in to wash up at the sink before anyone else arrived. Until then, at least the building itself provided some meager shelter from the worst of the storm.

“Hey, buddy,” Jonah called up to the stray. The cat froze, startled by the presence. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. ”

Maybe the cat found something trustworthy in his voice, or maybe, more likely, he was drawn to the half-eaten tuna sandwich on his lap. Either way, he bounded down from the lip of the dumpster in a graceful leap, landing next to Jonah on silent paws. He kept a skeptical distance, his pink nose twitching. Slowly, carefully, Jonah extended a hand, palm up and fingers splayed. After a moment of indecision, the cat took a step closer, stretching his neck forward. The tip of his nose bumped against Jonah’s index finger and jerked back.

Jonah looked down at his soggy sandwich, the first meal he’d seen in two days. He swiped his finger along the crust, collecting a bit of tuna. Even more slowly than before, he held the offering out, smiling as the bait worked, drawing the cat closer. After a few hesitant sniffs, a tiny sandpaper tongue poked out, cleaning his finger in three swipes.

The sensation brought back memories he couldn’t afford to think about. Because thinking about Mittens was a short jump to thinking about his mother, and how she would scold Jonah for sneaking him scraps of human food, back when Jonah’s greatest infraction had been a stray piece of chicken under the table. Back before he had shattered the illusion and brought everything crumbling down.

“You want more?” Jonah asked, already scooping another clump onto his fingertip. “You look hungry.”

His suspicions were confirmed when the cat licked his finger clean. He was going in for scoop number three when something changed in the stray’s posture, his wiry muscles tensing as he crouched low, ears perked. It took Jonah an extra second to register the sound of approaching footsteps, but by the time he did, his new friend had already disappeared into the darkness. Jonah let the scoop of tuna fall to the pavement.

He wiped his hands against his jeans before taking another bite for himself. Sanitation was a luxury he couldn’t currently afford to care about.

The second thump against the dumpster was nowhere near as light as the one before.

Jonah dropped the remaining half of his sandwich onto the wet ground with a start. When he looked up, there were three men—boys, really, not much older than himself—standing over him. Jonah tensed, feeling like he had suddenly switched places with the cat; he was the one on the defensive now, and he had a feeling things wouldn’t work out so well for him.

Aside from the incident with his father, Jonah had never been in a physical altercation. Somewhere beyond the panic of trying to wrap his head around what was happening, Jonah found it within himself to be genuinely shocked at just how much it hurt. He could do little else as a means of defense other than curl his body in on itself, trying to shield his more vulnerable parts from the worst of the blows.

It didn’t last long, he didn’t think. It was hard to tell, when time could be measured only by how much of it he had to suck in a breath between kicks to the stomach. Eventually, he felt a hand reach into his pockets, one by one, presumably looking for something of value that simply didn’t exist. A small wad of what Jonah was pretty sure were three crumpled dollar bills was all they could take.

Three dollars was the price he paid for his beating. He only hoped it would be enough to make them leave .

Jonah groaned as a final boot contacted his back, unable to scream when his lungs felt like they were deflated. He curled in tighter on the ground, preparing for another onslaught, when another voice added to the mix.

The newcomer drew closer, and Jonah could make out some sort of shouting through the echo of the falling rain that muffled all other sound around him. Was he dying? Was this what dying felt like? Had they killed him for three dollars and a laugh? He couldn’t open his eyes to find out.

Not until a soft hand touched his face.

He jerked back.

“Hey.” The voice was quieter now, gentler, dipping into his personal space. “Are you okay?”

Jonah dared to peer up from behind his arms. The man who had chased off his assailants looked to be a bit older than Jonah, kneeling in front of him with shaggy blond hair and a full face of piercings. Something in Jonah’s mind supplied that he looked like the type of person that would attract all the wrong attention in his hometown. Someone his own family would turn their noses up at.

“I don’t...” Jonah swallowed, bringing his hands up to cover his ribs. He winced at the contact. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s get you out of the rain. Do you think you can stand?” He was already extending a hand to help him up, but Jonah shrank back.

“I don’t have anywhere to go.”

He wasn’t sure why he said it, but it was true. Even so, a part of him regretted it when the look of concern turned to something more like pity .

“A hospital, maybe?” His voice was light, as if trying to take the edge off of a humorless situation.

“I don’t have money.”

“I can’t just leave you here.” He sighed, tilting his head down at Jonah. It reminded him of the way the cat had looked at him just minutes before. The boy turned over his shoulder, toward the building across the street, where he had presumably come from. Distantly, Jonah could make out the muffled sound of music, loud and heavy. After a moment, he looked back at Jonah, pressing his lips together, then nodded decisively. “Alright. You’re coming home with me.”

Jonah blinked. “What?”

“Just to get you cleaned up. You don’t have to stay,” he said, then smiled. “But you’re welcome to, for the night. If you want. The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.”

Jonah struggled to push himself into a sitting position, using the side of the dumpster as leverage. “You don’t even know me,” he said. Something about the stranger’s kindness was almost as off-putting as it was comforting.

A dazzling smile pulled up the corner of the boy’s mouth, tugging a black studded piercing with it. “That’s an easy fix,” he said, extending his hand again. This time Jonah took it, hesitantly. “My name is Dominic.”

He could tell something was off.

An overnight call almost always meant a wealthy client with too much cash to spare, and a ritzy hotel to show for it. Jonah had come to associate overnights with luxurious high-rises along The Loop, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan, and room service that included champagne more expensive than an entire night of Jonah’s company.

Tonight, Jonah stood in front of a five-story chain hotel, a faulty vacancy sign flooding him in a neon glow.

“I’ll be in the lot near the end of the block at ten tomorrow.” Marcus spoke through a crack in the driver’s side window, eyes straight ahead.

Jonah nodded and watched the car pull away from the sidewalk.

He kept his eyes low as he passed through the lobby. If the night shift desk attendants ever had any suspicion of what he was, they never said anything, but he had been on the receiving end of enough contemptuous stares to want to avoid them altogether. In the elevator, he uncurled his palm to check the smudged ink for the room number . He hit the fourth-floor button and watched the glowing red light ascend.

The room was at the end of the hall. Jonah approached with soft footsteps, closing his eyes for just a moment. It never did any good to try and predict what the night would hold, but the images flashed before him anyway: faceless figures, fragmented memories of strangers in leather seats and hotel beds. Age-spotted hands extending a glass of champagne, a thumb-sized glass bottle, a leather belt twisted into cuffs. He had come to expect a few constants from client to client, especially those who paid for an entire night of his time, so when he finally knocked on the door the person who answered caught him off guard.

“Liam?” The name surfaced easily in his memory.

“Hi,” Liam replied.

A cold, achy feeling settled over him, a mix of dread and disappointment that he should have been immune to. For the week since their first interaction, the memory of that night had been a warm flame he’d kept shielded between his palms, a singular moment of reprieve like a pinhole of light in the dark. Was a week all it took for him to change his mind?

Liam’s soft smile crumbled when his eyes fell to Jonah’s cheekbone.

“Jonah,” he said.

He cringed at the use of his real name. The bruise on his face still throbbed as a reminder of what that piece of information had cost him. He knew by the look on Liam’s face that it hadn’t faded as much as he hoped.

“What happened?” Liam asked. The concern in his voice carved Jonah’s hurt into something sharper.

“Does it matter?”

Liam seemed taken aback. “Of course it matters.”

Jonah’s shoulders rose in defense. He tossed a look over his shoulder, checking that the hallway was clear.

“Sorry,” Liam said. “Do you want to come in?” He stepped aside, allowing Jonah a glimpse into the room behind him.

What choice did he have ?

The chill from the air conditioning covered his skin in goosebumps as he entered. He wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing his palms over his arms as Liam closed the door behind them.

“Too cold?” Liam asked, already moving across the room to switch off the unit.

“I’m fine,” Jonah answered automatically. He kept his posture rigid, every nerve in his body on high alert. He didn’t believe that Liam had any desire to hurt him physically, not really, but he had made the mistake of trusting kind men before. Jonah kept his back to the wall.

Liam hovered several feet away, eyes lingering on the bruise. Jonah waited for further questioning, but it didn’t come. Part of him wished Liam would just skip the false niceties and get to what he’d come here for. It would be less of a mind-fuck if he didn’t insist on pretending he was the person Jonah had thought he was a week ago.

“What made you change your mind?” Jonah asked, ripping off the bandaid.

Liam stopped picking at his nail and dropped both hands to his sides. “What?”

Jonah crossed his arms over his chest, guarding himself from the look of genuine perplexity. “You were pretty insistent last time that you weren’t interested.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “I’m not,” he blurted. “I mean, I’m interested in you , obviously, as a person. But not... Is that what you thought? Is that why you’re upset? ”

Jonah felt himself flush, unnerved by his own transparency. “Why am I here?” he asked, ignoring the question.

“Because I couldn’t get you out of my head,” Liam admitted with a level of candor Jonah hadn’t expected. “I don’t know. I guess I just needed to see that you were alright, after the way things ended.”

Jonah looked away, exposed by the memory of his vulnerability. “I told you, it was just a bad night.”

“I get the feeling you might have a lot of those.”

“Spare me the savior complex.” Jonah was quick to sidestep the dangerous territory he was approaching.

Liam took a step toward him but stopped when Jonah flattened himself to the wall, raising his palms in a gesture of surrender. “Jonah,” he said. “Is someone hurting you?”

The blood drained from his face. “No.”

“Did someone give you that bruise?”

“Don’t ask me that.” Jonah pushed off the wall and paced to the other side of the room. He scraped his palms over his face. “Why are you doing this?”

The footsteps on the carpet were slow in their approach, and they didn’t come within touching distance. “I want to help you.”

“‘Help me,’” Jonah scoffed.

“If you’re being hurt, we can go to the police. I’ll go with you.”

Jonah turned around. “No. No cops.”

“If someone is forcing you, or... or coercing you — ”

Panic took over before he could even finish his sentence. Jonah turned and beelined for the door, slipping past Liam. He didn’t know what he would do, or how he would make up the money he was skipping out on from an overnight call. All he knew was that whatever happened to him tonight would be much better than what had happened to him last time he had been careless enough to—

“Wait.” Liam stepped in front of him before he could reach the door. Jonah flinched back, genuinely startled. A flash of regret passed over Liam’s expression. “Sorry. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I didn’t think you were going to hurt me,” Jonah snapped.

“Okay,” Liam said, raising his hands. “Listen, no cops. I understand. I’ll respect that. Just... Please stay.”

Jonah blinked, his chest and shoulders moving with the labor of his breathing. He forced himself to look into Liam’s eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“Your company?” he said, a little uncertain. “If that’s on the table?”

Jonah eyed him warily.

“I arranged for an overnight stay,” Liam continued. “I have the cash this time—all of it, plus what I owe you from last time. Whatever it is you don’t want to tell me about, whatever you do outside of here... It just seems like you could use a break.”

A break .

Jonah stared at the man in front of him, searching his face for all the signs he had missed the last time he’d decided to trust a stranger. Liam had been good to him before, but so had Dominic. There was one distinct difference, however, separating the past from the present. Before, his misplaced trust had cost him everything. This time, he had nothing left to lose.

The realization stung almost as much as the one that followed: that it didn’t matter if he trusted Liam or not, because really, there was no choice. Whether Liam’s intentions were genuine or not, he was Jonah’s client. He had paid for a night—a full one—of Jonah’s company, and so Jonah’s fate had been decided the minute the door closed behind him. And really, long before that.