Talker by Amy Lane

to—but I’m too stupid to
    be Prince C harming. You’re going to have to settle for me.”
    And now Brian felt naked. Just bare and exposed and
    vulnerable. F air’s fair, he thought painfully. This was how Tate went
    through life. If he was going to earn Tate Walker, he had to be
    brave enough to risk being naked and foolish and hurt.
    Tate sniffled. “You’re not stupid,” he whispered, and Brian’s
    heart actually started to beat for the first time since he’d come into
    this horrid little restroom.
    “Then let me be Prince C harming,” Brian whispered back. He
    was one, maybe two inches tal er than Tate—just tal enough for it
    to mean something when he framed that made-up, decorated face
    with his sturdy palms and angled Tate’s mouth for a kiss.
    Tate’s mouth opened up under his, and it was… so sweet. His
    lips were firm, and male, and Brian could feel the stubble and the
    angles of Tate’s chin under his palms, and Tate opened that hot
    mouth, bitter with the taste of tears and makeup, and just let Brian
    in. Brian invaded, and he was firm, and strong, and tender, and
    everything he wanted Tate to know was in Brian’s heart, it was right
    there, like the song said, in his kiss.
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    He kissed harder and deeper, and Tate whimpered and gave
    way back to the divider of the bathroom, and then Jed stuck his
    head in and said, “Are you two about done here? There’s a line of a
    bil ion people who got to pee!”
    Tate pulled up and said, “Shit!” and Brian flushed.
    “Let’s go home, ’kay? We’ve got shit to talk about, and—”
    Tate nodded. “And we’ve got to fix your hair,” he said woefully,
    running his hands up the shaved sides, feeling the buzzcut under
    his fingertips.
    “It’ll grow back,” Brian said softly. “I’d shave myself bald, if
    that’s what it took to get you to look at me.”
    “I am looking at you,” Tate said, and their chests were
    touching, and Brian felt such a wave of want wash through his body
    that it was al he could do not to just take Talker into the big
    bathroom and do everything he fantasized about right there.
    But Jed cleared his throat, and Brian remembered that he was
    good for Talker because he was safe, and he wiped Tate’s cheeks
    one more time with his thumb.
    “C ’mon, baby. Let’s go home.”

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    72

    P a rt IX
    E very Heartbeat Screams Your Name

    HO ME was so normal, echoing loudly of keys and heavy treads
    under yellow lights and yellowing walls. The only thing different was
    Brian’s hand in the smal of Tate’s back as they went inside.
    “I’m going to take off my boots, and shower,” Brian grunted—
    he was pretty sure he had blisters. “Meet on the couch or meet in
    your room?”
    “Meet in the shower,” Tate told him, rolling his eyes. “I need to
    get that crap out of your hair like now.”
    “That crap out of my hair?” Brian frowned. “You do this shit to
    your hair all the time.”
    Tate shrugged. “Yeah—but that’s me. It’s not you.”
    “Well, thank G od—because if I had to do this every day, I
    real y would shave my head bald.” He’d been going to go for the
    hyperbole and say something about running his car off a cliff, but
    Tate was too fragile for hyperbole. No exaggerating things until
    smal shit didn’t hurt him anymore.
    The showerhead was attached to a hose, and after washing
    (thank G od—his come had glued his underwear to his skin) he
    wrapped a towel around his waist while Tate scrubbed the glue and
    the henna and the hairspray out.
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    It was curiously normal doing that—no different than any of the
    other times they’d shared the bathroom, one of them taking a pee
    and the other one in the shower, or Tate grooming while Brian
    either/or. It was almost like that other thing—the talking, the kiss,
    the emotional nakedness—hadn’t happened at all.
    Brian had this thought, and then swung his now-limp strip of
    hair out of