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Chapter 14: Space and the Lone Falling Star

--

Dr. Aviel crow waddled up to the group standing dumb around Rika, hands spread wide and flat in front of her, hair sticking to her caked-lipstick lips. She looked the epitome of wrong side of the bed, wrong side of the bed and sixty years old. It was too early in the morning for her to have to deal with fights. “What is going on here? What’s all this rabblerousing!?” Tense was the word she used to sweep the hair from her face, and she darted the source of all the curious attention with a questioning glare, “Mr Baruchalou?” And then the ugly dent in the locker winked at her in the fluorescent light, and her mouth curled tight over her teeth. “What is that? Who’s responsible?!”

Everyone around her let their voices fall out at their feet, hands rubbing arms unconsciously, excessive blinking, staring, a few of the braver students around the edge of the wreck crawling backward and silently peeling toward class. Hoping their principal didn’t see them and get it in her head to suspend them for even just breathing wrong. She always got trigger happy when someone stepped out of line.

“I did it,” Rika said without any thought.

“Mr. Baruchalou, we’ve been here a month, and already we’re causing problems?” Dr. Aviel angled her arms on her hips. “And just where is the person you intended to hit?”

“Nowhere. I intended to hit the locker.” He shoved his book bag back up onto his shoulder.

“Damaging school property, are we? Or are you covering for someone?”

Rika dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Come to my office. We have things to discuss.” Lurching around, Dr. Aviel glared at the crowd, eyes shifting back and forth crazily to make sure everyone got the message. “Everyone else, back to class!” She raised a ramrod straight hand toward the end of the hallway, finger pointed at the classrooms. “Unless you want to end up like your friend here.”

--

Bosco didn’t bother a glance up from the sink as the bathroom door burst open and someone sauntered in with all the pungency of Brayl Martenson, chuckle breaking the air and image fuzzy in the butler’s corner vision. He reached for the cold water handle on the sink, hoping no one dropped a word because he wasn‘t sure he had come off his high yet, and he didn’t want a visit with Aviel more than he was sure he already had one waiting when he stepped out the door. His name would get up to her ears sooner or later, and then she’d come looking.

“What’s this, butler? Punching my friends?”

Fuck. But he shouldn’t have expected silence because Brayl always had something to say.

“There’s plenty more, if you come a little closer.” Bosco ran his knuckles under the faucet, watched the blood dilute and run down into the drain and knew that Martenson was staring just as easily. Calculating if it was a loaded threat or not, with his butler’s hand jacked up to blood and bruise. But Bosco liked how Brayl kept one or two steps back, out of a shade of lingering paranoia or too much pride or too little confidence. He liked that, even injured, he still struck fear.

“You’d be dumb to try and punch with that hand again.” Brayl leaned into the towel dispenser. “But I’d really like to know what caused your little hissy fit in the hallway.”

“Actually,” Bosco turned the water off, rolling his eyes up to Brayl in the mirror, “Rika and me couldn’t decide who’d get a chance at your ass, now that Angels is moving.” He didn’t have a chance to blink at his own reflection before Martenson shoved him into the far wall. Shoulder first and hand jolted at impact with new twitches and pangs and bitten-lip hurt. He cringed into the tiling.

“Want to lose another eight hundred, butler? Or how about your job?”

Bosco pushed off of the wall, arm dead at his side.

“Icome here to see if you’re okay, and you insult me. You need to brush up on your manners.”

“I don’t need jack shit, Martenson.”

Brayl sneered, “I don’t think I asked.” He moved to snatch a quick, unshakable grip on Bosco’s wrist, yanking it up, red knuckles ugly and shining wet between them.

“Fuck, get off—” Bosco tried to pull his hand back, but every flinch of his muscles and fingers made the hurt worse, and he couldn‘t pry Brayl‘s hold away from him. “Fucking shit! Come on! Comeon”

Brayl wasn’t considerate enough to check on his own mother, much less his butler. He didn’t care about anyone but himself, and to have a wound in his personal space was to pull it back worse or never get it back at all. Bosco wrenched again. No luck. “Fuck, Martenson!” He grabbed Brayl’s elbow. “Don’t take your shit out on me!”

“I always take my shit out on you, butler.” And calm, so calm, Brayl twisted Bosco’s hand over, palm up, and slapped it into the edge of the sink, swipes of blood dragged down the side and porcelain shooting bullets of searing pain into Bosco’s brain.

Everything went white for a second.

His knees gave out in agony, no words in his mouth though it dropped open in readiness. He sank onto the floor, hand stretched up, still in Brayl’s grip, shuddering, tears overlapping anything he could see. The nice shoes Martenson was wearing, the brown tiling, the one or two paper towels that hadn’t made it to the trashcan. He shut his eyes and wished he could die for the few minutes it would take his bones to stop shattering.

Brayl let go of his wrist and waited for Bosco to reel it hard into his chest, before he wound back and reached for the door, big hand splayed over it. “When are you going to learn not to fuck with me, Maruollí?” He snorted out a noise that tasted like contempt. “If you want to keep up, make sure you‘re not a weak little son of a bitch, next time.”

Bosco bit back half of the garbled groan that followed Martenson‘s heels out of the bathroom.

--

--

Third period came around before Bosco was ready, and he slid down in the desk next to Jachson without a word, book bag slipped off and hung on the back of his chair. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t know where to start, and it was Jachson, his best friend, the person he was supposed to be up front with. But honesty looked a lot more like a noose as he fingered his makeshift paper towel and tape cast beneath the desktop, hairs on the back of his neck bristled because Jachson was glaring at him.

“Got something to tell me, Bosco?”

He sneered. Everyone in the room was eyeing him. Eavesdropping. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

“Bosco tried to punch the new kid.’‘Maruollí finally snapped’‘Bosco’s going after someone else now.’ What the hell, man? Can‘t tell your best and, newsflash, only friend that Brayl’s apparently yesterday’s news?”

“Fuck off, Jach, it was nothing.” Bosco slid his binder out of his backpack.

“Nothing? I’m sorry. I’m stupid.” Jachson propped his legs against the desk in front of him, turned to look at the board and let the issue drop in the empty space between them.

“Christ, Jach,” Bosco sighed hard and lolled his head, heavy and polluted, over against his shoulder, catching the side of Jachson’s face in a dull gawk. “I swear it’s nothing.” It wasn’t like Jachson hadn’t floated off on his own, too, Abigail to keep him company and usurp one Boscorelli Maruollí as the most important friend in his life. And Bosco had willingly let him go, no complaints. Partially because he didn’t believe it would last all that long, if he knew Abigail anywhere near as well as he thought. But mostly because he recognized happiness, and Jachson had deserved something to make him happy every day since he and Bosco had met. Probably long before then, even.

Bosco didn’t know half of what had gone on with Jachson, the past few weeks, anyway, and he wasn’t whining about it. “Or should I be flattered you give a fuck?”

“Whatever. Are we still on for this weekend?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Bosco shifted in his seat. So maybe Jachson was angry. He’d get over it.

--

--

At the end of fourth period, with enough questioning looks from the worst gossips in school and two hours of touch and go cold shoulder from his best friend, Bosco ducked into the gym for a round of one-on-none basketball. If he could even hold the ball well enough. But he wasn’t really looking for a perfect game, more the silence of an empty court because everyone would be at lunch, stuffing their faces with the latest cafeteria slop, too blissed and absorbed in each other and lies to care where he was. And, if he was lucky, Abigail would keep Jachson busy until he could figure out a way to tell him everything he felt like he had to.

But for now, today at least, it was the gym and him, alone. He thought.

He hadn’t banked on Gretchen having had Physical Education fourth period, though, a straggler wandering out of the locker room to bump into him when he opened the door.

“Oh, I’m sorry—” she whispered politely and snapped her eyes up from the floor, “…Bosco.”

His lips quirked at the corners. “Hey.” He hadn’t remembered when he’d started to avoid her, after their date, but he was sure he had been, sure it seemed like he had been. Just too confused and amateur to give her the attention he thought she deserved. But now, now that he hadn’t seen her in so long, he was excited to finally be talking to her again, fresh and new and comfortable. She was someone who wasn’t out to screw him over. And he hoped she’d give him another chance, at least at friendship.

“Hi.” She blushed a little, shier since he‘d last been around her. “What’re you doing here?”

“Came to shoot hoops. You have gym fourth period?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately.”

That made him smile fully. Despite all the confusion around Rika, he was still interested in her. She was pretty, intelligent, witty, unassuming, nice enough for a girl but still intimidating enough without being vindictive. There was nothing wrong with her.

“How’s your hand?”

But he still had doubts.

“Okay.” He shifted it at his side, covered in a fresh wrap of paper towels and masking tape. Because that was as good as he could do without going to the nurse and blowing his cover, before Aviel had even gotten a good chase out of him. His knuckles had stopped bleeding, besides. He was all right. He could take care of it.

“Bosco!” Gretchen reached for his wrist. “It’s a mess! You should go see the nurse.”

“I’m okay. It’s no problem.”

“It might get infected!”

“I washed it. I’m fine.”

She stared up at him with a sternness only a woman could pull off, all her softness turned strict. She was much too expert at that look for her age. Maybe she had a lot of brothers at home. “You know better than that. What if it’s serious?”

The only thing serious then was the way her fingers felt against his skin. Smooth and cold-warm, gentle, almost right except for the one thing that made them completely wrong. He flinched— not out of any pain, but he knew she took it that way.

“Did you break anything?”

“If I did, I’ll just make Brayl pay my hospital bills.” Bosco wheedled his hand away from her. “Really, I’m good. Don’t worry about it. I’ll fix it when I get home.”

“Don’t you have to work after school?”

He grinned reassurance at her, “Even better. Brayl probably has rich people bandages. Instead of my poor ones.”

Gretchen rolled her eyes, but, after a second, she caved and returned his beam coyly. “Fine. Be like that. But if you die, I blame you.”

“Good deal. Are you going to lunch?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I hope it doesn’t suck.” He moved around her to grab a ball from the ball rack.

“You know, Bosco…” she hesitated, and the mood suddenly turned stoic and heavy. “…I actually…kind of wanted to talk to you about something.”

He swiveled around unhurriedly on his feet, tried to delay the inevitable. But she was going to talk anyway, and the look that greeted him said this was too important to her not to.

His brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“About our date a while ago.”

He dribbled the ball down a few times before it stuck in his brain that he’d just smashed his hand into a locker, just gotten it smashed into a sink, and he stifled a delayed wave of pain in his stomach. Would take a little getting used to until it healed. He should have punched with his left. “…Oh?”

“I…so I gave you space because I didn’t know if I was going too fast for you, but… It’s been almost two weeks, and you haven’t talked to me about the date. Or asked for a second one. Did I do something wrong?”

His eyes widened, and something in him struck hard, like he was gaping at his mother, disappointed in him, and he hated how small Gretchen got then. Vulnerable as anything. “No, no. You didn’t. I‘m just bad at this.” But he didn’t know what she’d expected. She’d been the first one to ask him out, unorthodox, but he hadn’t cared because it meant that he didn’t have to do the work. Didn‘t have to worry about whether or not he was doing things right. Didn‘t have to wonder if Gretchen still wanted him after that night at Brayl‘s party. And then she’d just backed off. A cute gesture, now that he knew why she’d done it, but honestly, he’d been so wrung out over Rika, he hadn’t even thought about a second date.

“So…did you maybe want to go out again?”

He didn’t hesitate answering, “Sure.” Because he liked her enough. But maybe it was mostly because she was a sure-thing. He didn’t have to think with her.

“Great.”

“Saturday okay? Outside my mom’s restaurant?”

She was trying hard to stifle her elation, and Bosco just grinned again because he’d never seen anyone care that much for his attention. “Great. I’ll be there at seven.”

“Sev— oh, shit.”

Gretchen frowned.

“I completely forgot I’m grounded.”

“Grounded?”

“For two weeks. Sorry, take a rain check?”

“Wait…well,” she flickered her eyes to the basketball and then back up to his face, chewing her lip in some thoughtful seriousness. “Are you going to be at Brayl’s for his party on Friday?”

Brayl’s party? “Since when is he having a party Friday?”

“Well, I heard some rumors… A Halloween party? So if he is, will you be there?”

Bosco shrugged, “I guess so. But he hasn’t said anything to me.”

“I’ll see you there, then.”

“If he is.”

She humored him and grinned a little sliver, leaning back against the door to push it open. “Right…”

“Okay.” He curled the basketball into his elbow. “Don’t be late.”

“You don’t be late, either.” The tone of her voice made him think she was checking him out, though he’d turned his attention down to the ball and couldn’t be sure; he liked the thought, either way.

“Right.”

“See you Friday.” The gym doors shut, and Bosco shifted the ball between his hands, trying out the pain of his right with the clumsiness of his left. He knew he’d have a hard time dribbling, but there was no one around see.

“Ooh baby!”

Except for whoever’d just catcalled from of the other side of the gym.

Bosco lurched around to look, heart beat tripped because he was so sure he‘d been alone.

But it was just Shay. Shay suddenly sitting in the highest row of bleachers, in between the seats. He smirked. “Nice one, Bosco.”

Bosco was more than surprised. “Hey!”

Shay climbed up and did an awkward wide-step down the bleachers, skidding out onto the court with squeaks in his sneakers. He remolded his smirk, more devious this time.

“How long were you sitting there?”

“I skipped forth period.” He jerked his thumb back toward the bleachers, “No one ever checks the last row. I can get in a nap.”

“You’ve been here three weeks, and already you’re finding the sweet spots?”

“Better believe it.”

Bosco bounced the basketball with his left hand, “Up for some hoops?” He wasn’t sure why he’d even asked because Shay was holding his arms open like he expected to catch something.

“Yeah. Toss it.”

The throw was off kilter, and Shay jerked unceremoniously to manage the catch, even as he nearly fell on his face trying; but it landed with a smooth slap in his palms. He turned around and tested the air in the ball, bounced it a few times. And then he was facing Bosco again, eyebrow cocked in a questioning curve. “Having trouble there?”

Bosco shrugged. “Off day.”

“Not according to that hot blonde you just scored.” Shay loped over to the basketball net to do a half-assed lay-up. “Gretchen? …She’s cool.”

“Hey, if you don’t want her, send her my way.”

“I think she’d notice.” To be honest with himself, Bosco didn’t want to give up on her yet. Maybe out of some territorial hang-up. Maybe because she was the first girl to really hit on him in a long time. Maybe just because she was safe. He’d have thought he was using her if he was sure he didn’t want her; but he wasn’t, and for one second, Rika wasn’t in his head.

“What are you talking about? I’m totally hotter than you.”

“Yeah? And what about Nama? ” Bosco clapped his palms together in front of him to get Shay to throw the ball. And he almost wished he hadn’t because the rubber slam of it into his hand pushed a choking fuck out of his mouth and more daggers through his bones.

“Easy there…

“Yeah, watch your own back.”

“Right. But yeah, she got what she wanted. I got what I wanted. We went our separate ways.“ Shay eyed Bosco‘s excuse for a cast, not impressed. “ But forget Nama. I want to know why you tried to punch Rika.”

“I—” Bosco shifted the basketball underneath his armpit and shook the pain out of his hand, “—I didn’t try to punch him. I wanted to punch the locker. It was like a—” he shook it again, “—fuck, a warning or something.”

“Hadn’t heard much about the two of you lately. I thought he was behaving himself. What’d he do this time?”

“Just being an asshole. That’s it.” He’d be damned if he got into another lying session about something he didn’t want to talk about. And his brain was back on a Rika skip again, the note and the kisses and the way his house felt, his parents, the yarmulke. Fuck.

Shay leered. “I can’t say I blame you. I’ve wanted to punch him before.”

Helping him that day in the kitchen. Sitting on his bed. Putting his shoes on for him. The way his stare ran up Bosco’s spine. Fuck. “Let’s play HORSE.” Bosco offered.

“Cool.”

Gretchen, Gretchen, Gretchen.

Rika.

Gretchen.

Rika

No!

“Fuck.”

“Your hand?” Shay muttered, hitting the ball out from under his arm and giving Bosco a confused look in return.

Bosco’s mouth slagged open mute. And then he nodded slowly. Paranoid it was written all over his skin.

--

--

He didn’t ask Jachson for a ride to Brayl’s that afternoon because he didn’t want to sit in silence for fifteen minutes and feel like an asshole for fifteen more, after he got out of the car. He didn’t want to make things worse. But secretly, in the sweat of his palms and the underside of his fast beating heart, he just didn’t have the energy to try for a third time at the conversation the world seemed to want to have with him as much as he didn’t. Why he couldn’t seem to get over some guy who, most of the time, irritated his muscles raw, and why a perfectly good girl wasn‘t doing much to fix anything.

And why he suddenly felt too ashamed to tell Jachson any of it.

Rika was interesting. Intense. Confusing. That was why Bosco couldn’t get over him. It wasn’t because he looked a certain way. Wasn’t because he shared a dislike for Martenson. Wasn’t because he had kisses that wrecked Bosco’s sleep patterns. He was just an enigma. And Bosco didn’t get him. He hated being in the dark about things he couldn’t control, couldn’t look in a book and get an answer to, couldn’t ask his parents for advice about, in regards to, because of. That was all there was to Rika. He was just a symbol. And Bosco had mistaken interest, some level of infatuation and need to claim, with curiosity.

That was it.

That was why he hadn’t been completely bowled over by Gretchen yet. She wasn’t a mystery. She wasn’t intimidating. Her intentions were clear, and she had a sweet smile to follow her words, soft hair, pretty eyes, smarts that he would have envied, if he were any good at envying the female sex. She just was, and he didn’t want to accept that for some reason. She’d laid all her cards out at the beginning, and that didn’t do it for him. He wasn’t into her game.

He didn’t have any urge to go to her house or follow her without destination, didn‘t care much for the idea of pushing her up against a brick wall and—

His hand froze over the doorknob of the Martenson’s front door, and he willed the thought away with a scowl; but it finished anyway.

—kiss her.

He didn’t—

But those things came with time. He couldn’t expect to love her overnight. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He didn’t know what he wanted.

With a forced sigh, Bosco wrapped his fingers around the knob, moving to push it in at the very same moment that it suddenly sucked backward and hauled him with it, unhinging his legs and making him stumble hard into Brayl. Feet stomped on each other and heads reverberating shock.

“—Butler!” Martenson didn’t exhaust a second to even breathe, shoving him off, back against one of the hallway tables. The decorative vase on top of it rippled quietly and then resettled on the wood, no worse off.

Brayl shrugged the shoulders of his jacket straight. “Smooth move. You almost broke your employer’s vase.”

Bosco stiffened and stepped away from the table. “I didn’t try to, dickhead.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

And Bosco eyed Martenson oddly as he sidestepped him and grabbed the vase around its neck.

“This is a priceless antique from France. If it broke, she’d fire you.” Brayl got a look on his face that his butler could only read as conflicted, a little tired, a little sad, a lot lonely, and Bosco’s body jolted in some misfired reflex as Martenson’s hand slipped off the vase, sent it straight to hell by way of cold floor and dozens of broken pieces.

A sound strangled out of Bosco’s mouth, stunned. He blinked, and all he saw on the floor for an unreal beat was a nauseating waste of money.

“Look what you did...” Brayl circled around the shards and his gaping rival, glare dark. He didn’t even care. That he’d just ruined something his mother loved. “Clean it up and maybe I won’t tell your boss.” He reached for the door handle and only there seemed to falter for a half-second over what he’d just done. Or over whatever else it was that was eating at his mask. “And rake the yard before I get back.”

Bosco watched the door shut and then snapped his eyes to the broken vase, shrugging a big piece around with his shoe. It still looked like money. But it chilled him, the way some part of Brayl had stayed behind, even after he’d left, and made the entire hallway voyeuristic. Bosco filled his lungs and turned away from the mess, but he’d couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen something he probably shouldn’t have.

He almost gave a damn.

--

After Brayl was long out the door and gone, Bosco didn’t rush to the closet to get the broom, like a good worker would have, instead leaving the broken vase on the floor and going to steal a soda and some takeout leftovers from the fridge. It felt good to just sit, let the silence sink into his head because it was a sunny day through the kitchen windows, and he didn’t have Brayl breathing down his neck, no Jachson making him feel like a bad friend, no Gretchen to impress. And most importantly—

No Rika to make him doubt himself.

He swirled a swig of soda around his mouth for a distracted minute before it got warm and he swallowed, shoveling a few forks of old taco salad in to wash it down.

And the best part about it all, the sitting and the silence and the drink and the food, was that he didn’t change into his suit. Wasn’t going to and didn’t, when he finally pushed himself up to put the vase pieces out of their misery.

It was like a small freedom, after having been contained so long.

--

Difficult would have been an understatement, as Bosco wandered around the huge expanse of the Martenson’s front lawn, trying to scrape up all the leaves with a bum hand and a rake that looked like it hadn’t been used in months; it was rusted and spiderwebbed in the tool shed like it hadn‘t been, and he‘d smacked it against the side of the doorway to loosen all the spiders. A bad idea, as the pain had vibrated fierce up his arm and made his teeth clench tight to stop the echo. But there was a job to be done, and he wasn’t going to get sucked down into a Brayl-sized hole again, eight hundred dollars or a job gone, just for some stupid leaves.

It was late October, though, and the leaves kept coming down no matter how quick he was, fluttering dead, veiny, four- and five-pointed skin at him every badly-timed breeze. One square of grass would get immaculate, a little weaker for all the impatient combing he did, but then the leaves would pile up again, like he hadn‘t done any work at all. Someone, somewhere was having a good laugh right now, he was sure of it.

He finally gave up after half the lawn was a tenth less leafy than it had been before he’d started, and he cussed out the trees, leaning his head over into the tip of the rake and his dry fingers, injury limp at his side. It’d been a long day. A long day that had dragged on from yesterday morning, and if he didn’t sleep well later, it would carry over to tomorrow. Maybe forever. He just needed some rest from having to be so damn responsible for everyone else’s hang-ups, above all his own. He’d never felt so obligated in his life.

Resigned, he resumed his raking with a force that was bad for his hand but good for his anger, streaming all of it through his arms, knuckles tight and white, unforgiving. He pulled as much dirt up as he did leaves, grass flicking all over his shoes, red mark on his forehead from the rake handle, cold air uncomfortable and sweaty under the cotton of his shirt. But it was satisfying.

He couldn’t believe he’d let something so dumb happen.

Never again. Rika was practically a stranger. There was no reason to have even bothered trying to trust him. He shouldn’t have trusted him. Shouldn’t have let himself get so interested. It was the yarmulke. It was the Jew status, the forbidden-ness of Bosco’s Catholic upbringing to go — kiss, want, need, fuck — outside the faith, the timing or the place, something, anything about Rika that wasn’t actually him.

Rika was nothing special.

But Bosco’s body still tensed on him ten minutes before Rika showed up. Black loafers shiny in the sunlight, crunching and parting leaves as he stepped over the lawn. Black dress pants creased from the hot steam of an iron or a proper laundromat. Belt buckle gold and half hidden by the folds of a white shirt. Bottom quarter of a black school blazer pinned back by hands in pockets.

Bosco wouldn’t dare himself to look any farther up than that. He didn’t need that kind of bravery today.

He didn’t have anything to say, anyway. Everything that came to mind had been summarized in the punch earlier, and he’d gotten good at thinking that something like that said enough without him having to back himself up with words. I feel, I need, I’d like, I think, I hope were not phrases he had in his vocabulary. Not on a regular basis, at least, and probably never again, unless he had a gun pointed at his face.

He’d become a poet with a gun in his face.

But this was just Rika, and this was just life, and he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, no real bullets in sight. So he just waited for Rika to fix up a nice bullshit sentence in his head and spit it out like a mechanical fortune teller machine prophesizing his future. In obscure letters that didn’t mean anything, even when put together.

Rika didn’t talk, though. He wanted to. Bosco could feel the words in the air. The only problem was Rika didn’t use any of them.

So Bosco just raked with more determination. He moved a foot back each swipe, disgruntled when he realized that, every third or forth one, Rika would take a step, too. Nothing imposing. Nothing that he should have felt threatened by. But he did.

“You got something you wanted to say?” he bit down at his feet, leaves tangled in the teeth of the rake.

“You—” Rika grabbed for the expanse of soft wood handle between Bosco’s hands, only pulling on it enough that Bosco tilted forward an inch, “—should have hit me.”

Bosco felt Rika’s eyes over his chest, his heart, and he forced the rake back into him, just to get him to stop. “I should’ve.”

Rika unwrapped his hand from around the rake and let his fingers drift along Bosco’s knuckles, now under thin gauze that he’d found in the medicine cabinet over Brayl’s sink, a few blood spots widening where his skin was still sore and open, sweat weakening the edges; but it was better than paper towels and tape. He didn’t think that Brayl would notice it had gone missing. Brayl hardly ever bled.

“You should see a doctor.”

“And you’ll need one in a second, if you don’t get back a few steps.”

Rika let out a deep breath, as if to say that he almost believed Bosco.

“…Then hit me.”

“Move back.”

“Bosco.”

Bosco

The rake fell dead between them as Bosco rocked his left fist into Rika’s stomach and held there to cradle him against the full force of the blow for a few beats, before he let go and didn’t look back. He sauntered toward the Martenson’s front stoop, reaching for the sanctuary of his enemy’s house, Rika making the noises of defeat behind him. He could almost picture him crumpling onto the grass, eyes suddenly more white than gray, face pale. Bosco cracked his unsettled knuckles back into place.

In any other circumstance, with any other person — save his family and Jachson, and even Jachson had days — he would have done the same thing. He wasn’t going to give Rika any privilege because they’d kissed. As far as he was concerned, they were starting over, if there was anywhere to start, or ending, if Rika walked away.

But he swallowed the eating guilt in his chest. Rika deserved it. He shouldn’t have felt anything but justification.

“…Fuck,” he growled at the table where the vase had been, shutting the door behind him.

He shouldn’t have done it.

--

Twenty minutes later and half a carton of lemonade in his system, Bosco figured that Rika was gone, that the lawn was once again safe and he could go back to raking before Brayl came home and railed into him for a bad job. Or worse, bitched to his mother about how Bosco should finally be fired.

But when he opened the front door, the bulk of the lawn was clean except for green grass and daring bugs, and there were three huge piles of leaves silo’ed around each other on either side of the walk. It would have been magic, if not for Rika, who was taking care of a last patch of leaves littered around where he was standing, suit jacket off and laid over the lawn, shirt sleeves rolled up. He was intent. And unlike with Bosco, the trees on the yard seemed to favor him because they were completely still, no new leaves falling to ruin his perfect job.

He didn’t notice Bosco come out onto the stoop, or if he did, he pretended not to, instead giving Bosco a good show of his shirt sweat through in the back, around his armpits, and the muscles in his forearms snapping tight with each swipe of the rake. The tips of his hair were beading sweat, and the second he turned around, the second he didn’t pick up the eyes on him, Bosco could see that a few locks were curled wet to his forehead. The makeup over his tattoo had faded enough that, even from so far away, Bosco knew what it was. It sat on the tip of his tongue, the mass of questions about that mark, when Rika got it, where he got it, how he always managed to keep it covered; Bosco would never have been able to. His mother was always patting or kiss his cheeks. He was always getting punched. Roughed up.

Maybe Rika was just untouchable, had some force field around him from the day he was born.

Bending over to set his lemonade glass on the steps, Bosco sat down next to it and watched Rika finish raking the lawn, completely aware that Rika watched back, whether or not his gray eyes were actually looking, and knew that his good deed, or whatever he was trying to say, hadn’t gone undiscovered.

Bosco was a little confused, though, how punching someone had gotten him a good thing and not another punch back. But he took it without much suspicion and no objection.

And six minutes through the ten minutes it took Rika to finish butler work, Bosco disappeared back inside to grab another glass of lemonade. To refill his and get one for Rika because it was the decent thing to do. He hadn’t asked Rika to rake the yard for him, and he wasn’t going to owe him for it. Lemonade was the least ‘thank you’ he could think of outside saying ‘thank you,’ and even those words had more meaning than a tall drink.

He held it as far in front of him as he could when Rika silently wandered toward the stairs, rake loose at his side and tracking over the grass behind him. His tail, untucked because he wasn’t afraid.

“Take it,” Bosco ordered in a normal voice, like he needed to reassure Rika’s trust there wasn’t poison in it.

Rika hesitated, propping the rake against the railing.

But the both of them had just as much to lose.

Rika took it with one hand and drooped the other down to curl around Bosco’s wrist. And the butler’s concentration was distracted enough by the lemonade that he didn’t resist the touch much at first, not as much as he ever had before.

Not at all.

Rika pressed the barrel of the ice-cold cup to his forehead, stare downcast at Bosco’s bandaging. Concern pried his eyes open wider. “We need to go to the doctor.”

“It’s good.” Bosco grunted, shifting his fingers when they brushed Rika’s arm. “I handled it.”

“For my reassurance.”

“If I say it’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t need to give a shit about it.” He twisted out of Rika’s grip. “I’ve done worse damage before.”

Rika sat down next to him, glass finding a place near his hip, legs aligned with Bosco’s, except longer, lither. Bosco looked almost curiously at how Rika’s knees hit an inch or two farther out than his did, when they sat side-by-side like they were. That must have been where their height difference lived. Rika’s legs were longer.

Bosco’s upper lip twitched. He switched his mind to something else. Sports. Pretty girls. Gretchen.

The thought of her numbed him a little to Rika fishing a weird looking watch head from his pocket and pushing it against the tip of one of his fingers.

Gretchen.

It took Bosco a second to realize that it was a blood glucose meter, not a watch. He’d seen hundreds of commercials for every other one on the market, but he’d never really paid attention because he wasn’t diabetic, and neither was anyone in his family. None of his friends were. The few who classified, anyway.

Rika was the first.

The meter beeped and read a segmented ninety-nine.

Bosco didn’t know if that was good or bad. He would have guessed good, or somewhere closer to good on a scale, by the way Rika took it in unfazed.

“How long have you known?”

“That I’m diabetic?”

Bosco wanted to say ‘no shit, stupid,’ but he checked himself. “Yeah. The diabetes shit.”

“Since I was eight.” Rika trailing his answer with a press of his finger to his mouth to stop the blood flow made Bosco take a short, choked breath and shoot his interested gawk off somewhere else. He was fine with blood. He wouldn’t hit things so much, if he couldn’t handle it. Blood and pain and the bruises that came from complaining muscles. Everything rolled off his shoulders like breeze. But, at the slide of a pink tongue, he’d gotten a flash of wanting to stop Rika’s blood for him, and it wasn’t like that. The way he felt about Rika didn’t boil down to stuff like that. He wasn’t ready for that. The dusky hot air weighed down on him suddenly.

“That hurt?” he mumbled.

“Every time.” Rika shrugged. “It‘s a reminder.” He slid his meter back into the nearest pocket. “That‘s what hurts.”

Bosco nodded in understanding. He didn’t understand, but there were things in his life that worked the same way, and he could get it without tripping. “Yeah.” Rika not showing up the night before had reminded him of something that he hadn’t wanted to be reminded of.

“Shay told—me your mom has it, too.”

Rika made a surprised noise in his throat.

“He runs his mouth off about the stupidest shit… Like I care.” It sounded wrong. Not the lie, but the way that he’d called Rika’s mother’s diabetes stupid shit, the way he’d coupled all the things that didn’t matter with something that killed. He hadn’t meant it that way, but his pride had.

“She and my little sister have it.”

Bosco scratched the back of his neck where his sweat-stiff collar had started to itch. Getting Rika to say more than a sentence or two was like working a splinter out of skin. He just reached around for his lemonade and swallowed a bitter gulp, washing away the questions in his mouth. He wouldn’t get anywhere near answers that would shut up his curiosity, anyway. Just clipped, short yes, no, this is why, there’s nothing more you need to know than that sorts of answers.

Clambering a few fingers over his yarmulke to re-affirm the bobby pins, Rika sighed, “I made a mistake last night.”

Bosco snorted. “Don’t apologize. I hate when people apologize. If they really gave a shit, they wouldn‘t fuck up in the first place.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Christ, I said don‘t.” Eyeing the rake, Bosco stood. He went to sink a step down the stairs, but a glint of black turned the corner at the stop sign down the street, and he would have recognized the smoothness of the Bentley anywhere, even though he’d only driven it once, even though it looked like a snake in the grass, far away as it was.

Rika looked down the street after him, getting up slowly, lemonade glass latched lazily in his hand.

“Fuck! Martenson’s coming.”

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Thanks to: irishbri, Yoyo-chan, Wickedsix, Itty Bitty Pretty Kitty Pie, chinotto, Renzie, Vannekande, Amindaya, HotTimali, Fork-In-Your-Eye, Dorkie, Kanilla, Prisoner-11, Annwyl, Kian, CatseyeRose, kawaii-kitsune-thief, Tom, Evinus, OutofStyle879, Asitha, cupxofxfools, amberleysays, Atriletz, Nevheera, jma, Slim, ddz008, Extra-strength peppermint Tea, Chicken Ice Cream, Comodin, justafan, Ruri Star Sykel, Insomniak, weisen1, Shadowy Fluffball, Spidey, Aimee Straughston, Liviania, darksushi, Engelique, F.O.T-4, findmuhway, nonaccount, Iizolda, Silverspecs, Ishtani, Jessica, shell04, Savory, Elventine, random-nerd15, merrymowmow, Aquafied, quaebah24, mia5081 and Gravilove19 for reviewing after last update! And especially thanks because a lot of you guys left long reviews. I really appreciate all the honest and deep insight, and to justafan - your Italian was good! It was so cool to see someone review Jeeves in Italian. Haha, I’m really impressed!

Okay, guys. Man. This chapter sucks, I know. No need to say so, if you review… Spare my oh so sensitive soul, will ya? Haha. Rika and Bosco’s first “date” (/“hang out session”) will be in the next chapter. Sorry if anyone was anxious for it, this chapter (haha, doubt it.) Hopefully it’ll make up for the shittiness of this chapter, though. I’m sorry for not having a better update after so long. Please don’t give up on this story yet.

Much love to you guys who are still reading!