“You were out late, Faith,” warned Nikita, implying that she was waiting for an explanation.

“It’s okay, Mom,” said Faith, waltzing through the front door. “Connor walked me home,” she added smugly, unable to keep the satisfied smirk off her face.

“Ah,” Nikita nodded knowingly. “Are you two friends again?”

“Oh, Mommmm…” Faith retorted, rolling her eyes. We are so much more than that, she thought. But she didn’t say another word because she knew it might freak out her mother. Mom deserves a break, she decided.

On her way up to her bedroom, Faith came upon her younger sister Skye and Sasha, standing in the hallway, their heads very close together. As she drew abreast of Sasha, she whispered, “Keep it clean, Sasha. She’s my baby sister.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow imperiously, managing to do a fairly credible impression of Declan at his most intimidating.

Faith laughed and stuck out her tongue.

Skye cast a puzzled look at Sasha. “What was all that about?”

“Nothing, Ange. She’s just…crazy. You know Fee.”

Skye nodded agreeably. Sasha thought Skye missed all of the innuendo and flirtatious undercurrents that pervaded the relationships of the older children. But she knew more than he thought. She had seen Chris steal kisses from Emmy. She had seen Faith and Connor’s affectionate hugs.

She sighed. She wasn’t in a hurry to grow up, but there were times that she regretted the years separating her and Sasha. Recently she sensed a certain tension in Sasha whenever he was around her for more than five minutes, and though she was too young to feel desire, sometimes she was afraid that he would find someone else before she was old enough to show him just how much she loved him.

But his protective instincts were so much stronger than the strident call of his increasingly active hormones that she knew she had nothing to fear. She always felt safe with Sasha. He would rather die than hurt her.

Unfortunately, Skye’s ingenuous nature made her relatively oblivious to the way she inadvertently tantalized Sasha.

“I’d better go. Uncle Michael would have my head if he knew we were meeting up here.”

“Why? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

Sasha flushed under Skye’s renewed scrutiny. “I know, but—“

Skye felt Sasha’s discomfiture as if it were a physical thing. “It’s okay, Beast. I can keep a secret.”

“But you shouldn’t have to, Ange. There’s nothing wrong with us seeing each other. You’re right. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

But his nerves felt frayed. In the past few weeks, those wayward sensations he had described to his father grew more and more powerful. Not that they were directed at Skye. He kept a tight rein on his newfound libido at all times, but especially when he was alone with Skye.

It was worth it. Now that they were in separate schools, they rarely saw each other unless they were both home at the same time.

“Skye…” His breath wafted across her face, and Skye felt a surge of possessiveness sweep over her. Sasha was hers. “I gotta go. Da’ll ask questions.”

“He doesn’t want you to see me either?”

“No, Ange, he trusts me not to do anything stupid.”

Skye couldn’t help herself. “Do you have a girlfriend at school, Beast?”

“What?” She couldn’t possibly know about the 14-year old girl he lusted after. He hadn’t told anyone except Da.

“I mean…I’d understand if you couldn’t wait for me to grow up.” No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t believe she had actually uttered a complete lie.

“Ange…how can you--? Shit, you know how hard it is for me to admit how I feel, but…I love you. I don’t care how long I have to wait for us to be together.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but his heart overruled his incipient manhood.

Her light blue eyes danced merrily with this confirmation of how important she was. Throwing her arms around his neck, she hugged him as tight as she could. He looked momentarily nonplussed. She was so close. She felt so good. Damn, he had to move away from her now. Right now.

He took a deep breath. Jeez, that was the first time that had happened. It was very…disconcerting. Like he had no real control.

“I have to go now,” he whispered against her hair, inhaling the scent that was Skye.

She took him by surprise. Otherwise, he might have moved in time.

She kissed him just as he was turning his head, and their lips met. Sasha’s startled dark eyes met Skye’s fervent blue gaze. “You belong to me. Don’t forget.”

“I-I won’t.” I think I have your name tattooed inside my brain. It’s the first thing I think of in the morning, and it’s the last thing I think of at night.

He broke away from her then, not sure where he managed to find the strength or the will. God, she had no idea what she did to him. What would she be like when she was a few years older? A few…important…years older?

“G’nite.”

She waved tentatively, but inside she rejoiced, sensing that she alone had real power over Sasha. More than Declan, more than Sey. More than anyone.

He let her have that power.

Now if she only knew what to do with it.

A low moan split the darkness. There was a sound, soft yet crisp. A zipper being pulled down. There was heat as flesh met flesh. Another groan. Then it was over all too quickly.

“Where are you going?”

“I got shit to do.” The figure pulled out a bill and threw it casually in the direction of the other. Shadows swallowed it up.

“I thought—“

A bitter laugh cascaded through the air, striking the smaller figure like a well-deserved blow.

“You thought what? I was going to stay? Hold your hand? Hey, man, it was just a blow job! We didn’t get married here,” the figure snorted derisively.

For long seconds, there was nothing but silence. Not even the sound of breathing broke the deathly hush.

“See ya ‘round, kid.”

The figure departed. The boy stepped out of the shadows. There was a dim light over the stage door illuminating the alleyway. He zipped his leather pants and plunged both hands into his pockets. He was a good-looking boy. Accustomed to letting others use him, he wasn’t sure what he was really searching for. But he knew he hadn’t found it.

A hideous screech rent the night air. “Jazzzzzzzz!”

It wasn’t a comment on the loud music playing inside the club. It was his name.

***

She was drinking again. He hated the times when she drank. His mother wasn’t a kind person under the best of circumstances, and when she was drunk…she could be lethal.

“Jazz! You frigging queen! Get your ass in here!”

What did she want? What did she always want? He winced. His mother might have been beautiful once, but now she was a heartless caricature of a woman. Hard and brittle where she had been soft. Her tongue sharpened by alcohol and years of bitter disappointment.

He used to wish for parents who would love him. Or at the very least, someone who would take care of him, instead of leaving him with the burden of trying to eke out a life. Now he would settle for a ticket out of the hellhole he inhabited.

Abused physically, emotionally and sexually, over the course of his young lifetime, the fourteen-year old boy named Jazz studied his thirtysomething mother from the doorway of her dressing room. She was an exotic dancer who had seen better days. Alcohol was ravaging her once-beautiful body, and as a result, she worked less…and less.

“Mama?”

“I told you not to call me that, dammit!” Her hands shook as she tried to light a cigarette that dangled precariously from her trembling lips.

“Shit, you’re as useless as you are stupid! Where were you when I called you anyway? Out turning tricks in the alleyway again?”

“No,” he whispered, rationalizing that it couldn’t be a lie. Not when he needed to do whatever he had to to survive.

“You keep stealing my boyfriends and I’m gonna kill you yet!” she shrieked. Her nostrils flared with ill-disguised rage. This couldn’t be her son. This, this ragamuffin in black leather.

He was not overly tall, but he was slender, almost too slender. Sometimes it looked like a strong gust of wind would blow him away. His mixed heritage was most evident in his fine-boned face. His hair was golden-brown, not black, as one might expect. His skin tone was light tan. But it was his eyes that were extraordinary. Almond-shaped, as befit the son of a half-Vietnamese father, but neither brown nor black in color. Instead they were a light crystal green, a pale shade that threw the rest of his features into sharp relief against his darker skin.

He was beautiful.

And she had been beating the living daylights out of him since he was two.

As soon as he was old enough to walk and talk, his natural beauty became a magnet for the wrong type of attention. His mother led a virtual parade of men through the rough apartment they called home, and some of them were decidedly more attracted to the son than to the mother.

Preoccupied with herself, Sylvie allowed her son to become the sexual prey of these predators, either through neglect or spite. After a while, it no longer mattered. The die was cast. Sometimes Jazz thought that the only way he could escape was to die.

***

Smoke waved to the bartender. The stocky older man called him over. “Smoke, what are you up to? We haven’t seen you since…whenever the hell it was that you quit! I knew you’d come back here, sooner or later.”

Smoke gave him a noncommittal look. “Trust me, I have no plans to come back,” he said without a trace of bitterness.

It was true. The day he left the club was the day he began his new life. Despite the fact that his personal growth had not come without pain or a price, he would gladly do it again.

“So what brings you to our neck of the woods, then?” the bartender asked avuncularly.

“Money. Is there anything else?” Smoke commented dryly.

“That depends. Whose money? Yours?”

Smoke nodded. “Last paycheck.” He shrugged carelessly, the gesture making his long black hair bounce back and forth on his shoulders. “They keep promising to send it to me, but it never comes. I think they expect me to forget about it, but you know what? I earned it. With every shake of my ass. So I’m here to collect what’s mine.”

The bartender shook his head absently, sidling up to Smoke a moment later. He reached out to clasp the fine silver chain around Smoke’s neck, and Smoke slapped at his hand, rebuke in his light blue-gray eyes.

“Don’t touch that!”

“It’s beautiful work, Smoke. So…you got a new guy on the string?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Hey, it could be…if you play your cards right.”

Once Smoke might have gotten angry or even physically retaliated, but now he simply let the words pass over him and beyond. With a shake of his head, he started walking away. The bartender called out, but Smoke kept on going, heading toward the back of the club.

After a minor wrangle with what passed for a personnel department, Smoke contentedly sighed and pocketed his check. It was all there. Everything that was due him.

He didn’t know why, but he felt absurdly pleased. Maybe because he had been able to do this without anyone else’s help. As much as he loved James, he loved the way his struggle for independence was being respected.

On his way out, he decided to stop by and check on a few of his old friends, people he hadn’t seen since he left the club. His ears pricked up at the sound of shouting. It wasn’t a man’s voice, though, which took him by surprise. It was a woman. And it sounded familiar.

When he came around the corner, he could see quite plainly what was going on. He never would have recognized her, but for the voice. “Sylvie! What are you doing?”

She was obviously drunk. But what was worse was the way she was manhandling the teenaged boy in her grasp. This was no parental slap. This was a freaking beating taking place in full view of adults who blithely ignored the fracas, preferring to continue as if this sort of thing occurred everyday.

That brought Smoke up short. Maybe it did.

She glared at Smoke, but his interruption had the desired effect. It stopped the physical punishment she lavished on the boy as if it were just.

“You stay out of it!” she warned, her finger pointing vaguely in his direction.

“Leave the kid alone, Sylvie,” Smoke said in all seriousness. He had never meant anything more.

“Who’s gonna make me, you? Ha! You would take his side. Another freaking queer.”

“Sylvie!” Smoke’s gasping of her name demonstrated just how much that remark took him by surprise. The dancers in both clubs, male and female, were a tightknit group, and they knew better than to call names or blindside each other. They’d seen it all, and they could be amazingly supportive.

Suddenly Sylvie focused her bleary eyes on Smoke and gave the teenager a shove that sent him careening directly into Smoke. “You want him? Here! You take him! I wash my hands of him, once and for all!”

“Mama!” the boy whispered between numb lips. She was a soulless bitch, but she was his mother. Now that the moment had come for them to go their separate ways at last, Jazz didn’t understand why he felt so much pain and so little relief.

“I have no place to go,” he continued, the ragged sound of his breathing echoing loudly in the near-empty corridor.

Smoke touched the silver locket that hung from his neck. The one that represented the commitment between him and James. The one that bonded them together forever. The one that never left his body.

He took a deep breath and prayed he was making the right decision.

“You do now.”

At first, Smoke thought that the sullen teenager would refuse to get into the car. But then a considering look crept across the young boy’s face. He slid into the passenger seat, giving Smoke a sidelong glance that was almost seductive. Shit, who did the kid think he was fooling? Smoke knew where he was coming from. Christ, he’d been there himself at his age.

Smoke turned the key in the ignition, impatiently waiting for the kid to make his move. It was inevitable. This testing of the boundaries.

A hand smaller and softer than his own wound itself around Smoke’s arm. “So what do you want?”

“Excusez-moi?” Smoke had anticipated this, but the surge of anger that swirled restlessly through his veins at the thought of the abuse that triggered this type of behavior provoked his lapse into French.

“You know…what do you like?” At Smoke’s refusal to rise to the bait predictably, Jazz grew exasperated. “What do you want to do to me?”

Smoke looked pointedly at the teenager’s hand on his arm. “For one thing, you can take your hands off me.”

Jazz reluctantly released his grip on Smoke. “Oh, I get it. You don’t like to be touched. How do you get off then?”

Smoke counted to ten silently. This was just the beginning. “I don’t have those kinds of feelings for…young boys like you.”

“Ha!” Jazz grinned. “You don’t look straight to me.”

“Why don’t you sit over there like a nice little boy and keep your touchy-feely fingers to yourself? We can have a long talk when we get home.”

“I’m not a nice little boy! I’m 14! You dick!”

“I stand corrected. Your way with words fooled me for a second.”

“And what the hell do you mean by ‘home’? You’re taking me to your house?”

It seemed as though Jazz was experiencing a bit of denial regarding the breakdown of his relationship with his mother. “You have nowhere to go. I’m offering you a home.”

“You can’t just kidnap a kid off the street and take him somewhere! My mother—“

“Your mother is a bitter, destructive woman who can’t see that she’s destroying more than just her own life.”

“But she—“

“She doesn’t want you anymore.”

“She’ll change her mind. She says shit she doesn’t mean. She’ll get over it.”

“Not this time,” Smoke whispered, his light blue-gray eyes locking with the adolescent’s crystal green gaze. “She needs help. She can’t take care of you. Even if she wanted to.” And she doesn’t. I’m not imagining the untapped rage in Sylvie’s eyes. I’m not doing this for selfish reasons. Of course, I’ve always dreamed of giving James a child, but you wouldn’t have been my first choice. You’re too old, too angry, too…much like I was.

“But maybe…if I go back…right now….” Smoke saw the hope die in the boy’s eyes.

He wrapped his arms around himself and turned away from Smoke, suddenly staring a hole through the window, as if something fascinating lay just beyond the other side of the glass. Smoke didn’t expect to hear him speak again so soon. He appeared hopelessly lost in thought.

“So what do you want from me?” The words were flat, disconnected from any emotional context.

“I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Oh, come on…everybody wants something. Why should you be different?”

Smoke debated telling the truth for a moment or two. “I know that you don’t trust anyone. I’m not asking you to trust me. But I need to keep you safe.”

“What the fuck for?”d the teenaged boy exploded. “You don’t even know me, man!”

Smoke visibly reacted, the first expression he let show since he got into the car with Jazz. “Yes, I do,” he rasped out, emotions he thought buried long ago making his throat ache.

“Someone eventually saved me. Or at least, I thought they did. At the time. In the end, it turned out to be a trap far worse than the one I’d been in.”

“And that’s not supposed to scare the shit out of me?”

“It’s good. Your fear. It’s kept you alive for a long time. But you can let it go now. I won’t hurt you. I want to help.”

“The way you were helped? I don’t want to be someone’s pet project, man! What happens when you finally get the idea that I’m not worth the trouble?”

“I think you are.”

“Like I said, you don’t know me! I don’t know you! I don’t even know who the fuck you are, man!”

The teenager was tearful now. Almost frantic. He would run if he were given half a chance. And then they would both lose.

“Give me a chance.” The words were soft, but they throbbed with unspoken emotion.

“Give me a reason.”

Smoke confessed, his lightly-accented voice breaking, “I can’t think of a single reason. But I need to do this. Please.”

No one had ever begged him for something like this before. Oh, there were the occasional tricks who begged him to pleasure them. As if he had invented sex. But this was different. This was something that was in his power to give. He was in control here. He could determine his own fate…right now.

How much did he really want to live? Not just survive, day to day, but live.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Jazz’s beautiful face creased in an unexpected smile, all the more heartbreaking because it was real.

“Now don’t cry on me, man. I don’t do tears. That’ll cost you extra.”

Smoke stared at the young adolescent.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Sheesh, and here I was thinking, you’re not so bad for an old guy, y’know?”

Old? He thought Smoke was old? Maybe it was just the fact that he felt emotionally overwrought, but that struck him as funny.

Smoke pushed an errant strand of long black hair behind his ear, exposing the silver earring there. “We’re almost home.”

“Home….” Jazz looked pensive. “So what’s your name?”

“Smoke.”

Jazz blinked. “That can’t be your real name.”

Ignoring Jazz’s comment, Smoke asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jazz.”

“Guess we’re even, then,” Smoke said with a smile.

“So…uh…when do I get to meet the SO?”

“SO?”

“Significant other, man. You must have one, if I can’t even tempt you.”

Smoke unconsciously fingered the silver chain at his neck. Jazz’s eyes zeroed in unerringly. “*He* gave you that?”

Smoke merely nodded.

“Wow.” The comment was all the more powerful for its lack of effusiveness. “Must be love, huh?”

You have no idea.

But someday…if you’re really lucky…you will.

“Um…I just remembered something. I can’t stay here. I don’t have any clothes.” Jazz turned to go out the way he came in, but Smoke grabbed him around the waist and stopped him.

“We’ll manage.”

If Smoke didn’t know better, he would swear that the teenager was discovering just how vulnerable he was to the vagaries of life. Never mind how long he had been living on the streets. That was intermittent at its worst. Jazz never had the opportunity to contemplate what real life might be like. He was too busy trying to survive.

James chose that moment to come out of the bedroom. His cobalt blue eyes flickered from Smoke to Jazz and back again, a question in them. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing home a…friend, Pete.”

Jazz turned to Smoke, genuine trepidation there now. “You said your name was Smoke!”

“It is.”

“But he called you Pete,” the boy protested.

“It’s a…pet name,” Smoke said, exchanging a meaningful look with his lover.

The slender adolescent frowned. “You mean like Honey or Sweetie or some shit like that?”

Before Smoke could answer, James stepped forward, his hand extended to shake hands with the teenager. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m James Elliott.”

Jazz looked down at James’ hand, and rather pointedly ignoring it, he said, “Hey, Jimmy.”

On the brink of snapping “That’s Mr. Elliott to you, kid”, James mouthed a surreptitious “I’ll get you for this” to Smoke. “Dinner’s almost ready, Pete. Will our new friend be joining us?”

Smoke glanced nervously at James and nodded. “Can I talk to you for a second, Jamie? In the kitchen?”

Jazz laughed. “Hey, don’t move it to another room on my account, man. I’m cool.”

Jazz winked at James. “Jamie, huh? Must be another…pet name. You guys are really cute.”

When they were safely away in the kitchen, James exclaimed, “Cute? We’re cute? There’s something frightening about having a kid half your age call you cute!”

Smoke shook his head slowly. “That beats what he called me before. He said I was pretty cool for an “old guy”, Jamie.”

“Who is this kid? And why are we inviting him to dinner?”

“It’s a long story, Jamie. I was so sure you would understand.”

“I’m trying, Pete. Just give it to me straight. We’re not spending a quiet evening at home tonight, are we?”

Smoke hesitated before whispering, “I don’t think so, no.”

James wasn’t angry. Far from it. He was just disappointed. He listened patiently to Smoke’s account of what happened at the club, and he came to the same conclusion as Smoke. Someone had to intervene. Someone had to try to rescue the boy. From his mother. From his environment. And at this point, probably from himself.

“You’re not mad, are you, Jamie?”

“No, Pete,” he said softly, realizing that it was true. “Just missed you, that’s all. Wanted to give you a great big kiss when you came home, but there was this…kid…standing there.” James stroked Smoke’s hair back from his face while he spoke, finding that touching his lover helped put things back into perspective.

“You can give me a big kiss now, Jamie,” Smoke whispered, his light eyes intent on his partner’s.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Smoke swept James into his arms, his mouth seeking James’ for an achingly tender kiss. They clung to each other for several moments before releasing one another. “I love you,” Smoke whispered against James’ ear, and James kissed Smoke’s cheek as he replied, “I love you, too, baby.”

A loud throat-clearing rendered the poignant moment a thing of the past. “Uh, hey, um…remember me?” Jazz waggled his fingers at the two men.

James attempted to move away from Smoke, but Smoke hooked an arm around his waist, preventing a quick getaway. James’ eyes widened enquiringly, but Smoke shook his head negatively, trying to convey with his eyes that this was their house, and the adolescent would have to adjust to them, not the other way around.

“Did you two get everything straight? I mean, if the SO wants me to take off, I can do that. No problem, man.”

Smoke looked unperturbed. “We’re going to sit down and have dinner. After dinner, I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

Jazz sniffed. Something smelled wonderful. He rarely had an opportunity to eat a good meal. Suddenly staying here didn’t seem so bad. He just wondered what he might have to do to get along.

“You the cook, Jimbo?”

James gritted his teeth and managed to produce a fair imitation of his normal voice. “You can call me Uncle James.”

Why would I do that, man? You aren’t my uncle.”

James continued as if he had not been interrupted. “Or you can call me Mr. Elliott. You pick.”

“Jeez, you sound like a real pain in the ass, man.”

James’ vivid blue eyes frosted over. “Maybe. But I’m the pain in the ass who runs this house, and that makes me your personal pain in the ass, kid.”

“Shit, you’re not half as soft as you look,” Jazz muttered under his breath. It would kill him to admit it, but he respected the fact that both Smoke and James cared enough to set some kind of preliminary boundaries, no matter how minor.

“Go wash your hands for dinner.”

Jazz frowned at the command. “Hey, they’re clean, man.”

Smoke snorted. “You forget. I know where you came from. Hit the bathroom now. And use soap.”

After the boy left the room, James gave his partner a considering look. Smoke blinked curiously. “What’s that for?”

“I’m pretty proud of what you did, Pete. Not everyone would care about what happened to this kid.”

Suddenly Smoke looked shy. “You know how much I want to give you a child, Jamie. But that’s not why I did it. I just thought…what if no one had saved me? I wouldn’t have met you, and you would still be unhappy, and…” Smoke brushed at his eyes briskly. “I did do it for you, Jamie. But I did it for me, too. And for him. Do you think that’s okay?”

“Yeah, Pete. I think it’s okay.” James swayed towards his lover and gently kissed him again. His deep blue eyes focused on the locket at the end of the silver chain adorning Smoke’s neck. His lips touched the locket before he dropped his head to nuzzle Smoke’s neck.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Jazz stopped on the other side of the door and listened avidly. The people he knew didn’t say such things to each other. In his world, it wasn’t about love. Or even friendship.

He had thought about running away, but somewhere between the bathroom and hearing those words spoken with such genuine emotion, Jazz changed his mind. If there was truly no hope of finding love in the world he came from, perhaps this new world would be different.

“Time to get up!”

Jazz jumped up in bed, his long hair swinging back and forth like a silken curtain. “Jeez! What the hell time is it anyway?”

“6 am,” James replied calmly.

“6 am!” Jazz rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. James ambled easily around the bed and grabbed hold of the pillow, abruptly yanking it out from under him.

“Hey!” Jazz yelled, unable to focus his bleary eyes. James was an indistinct shape that seemed to loom over him.

“Time to get up,” James repeated.

“What for, man?”

“To get washed, dressed, eat breakfast….”

“I washed last night, man.”

“Your body can stand another shower, trust me.”

“Well, I’ll do it later. When I get up.”

“You’ll do it now,” James insisted.

“What the hell for, man?” Jazz asked grumpily.

“What do you think you’re going to do today?”

Jazz opened his eyes a little bit wider and studied the man in front of him. No longer the congenial host of last night, James had a disturbingly stubborn look on his face, one that said “test me on this at your own peril.”

“I dunno,” the teenager responded sulkily. “Watch TV, I guess.”

James shook his head. “When was the last time you went to school?”

“*School*? Oh, shit, man, don’t hassle me about school.”

“I take it that it’s been awhile.”

“I don’t need school. Been there, done that. Now can I go back to sleep?”

“No.” James proceeded to tear the blankets off the bed, starting with those immediately covering the boy. Jazz stared at James in stony silence for several seconds before giving in.

Pushing himself into a sitting position, the teenager clipped out, “I’m not wearing much under this last sheet, so if you don’t mind, I’d like a little privacy. Unless you’d enjoy the show, maybe.”

James didn’t betray his feelings with so much as a flicker of an eyelid. “You’re not my type.”

“With a little work, I could be,” the adolescent quipped flirtatiously.

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

“I like older men.”

“I’m sure you do, but where you’re going, you’ll find someone your own age.”

“Huh? Where am I going?”

“School. Remember that?”

“Shit, you’re like a junkyard dog. I’ve never seen anyone who couldn’t be distracted with a little slap and tickle.”

“Careful, kid, that sounds suspiciously like a compliment.”

“I’m not a kid. I’m 14.”

“Right. Why don’t you start acting like it?”

“Why don’t you call me by my name?” Jazz countered.

“You never introduced yourself,” James reminded, thinking of the way the teenager avoided shaking hands.

“My name’s Jazz.”

“Jazz, huh? Interesting. What’s the rest of it?”

“Don’t you mean what’s your real name?” Jazz sneered. “*Everyone* asks that.”

“No. I just need your last name.”

“Why?”

“To register you for school.”

“I’m not going.”

“Then you’re not staying,” James said, knowing he was taking a calculated risk. The boy could blow out the door, never to return, or worse, go back to his abusive mother, and that would be a pity.

But James was sure that Jazz had already weighed his options. Otherwise, he would already be gone.

There was a long pause as Jazz and James literally faced off. Jazz blinked first. “Okay, man. Okay. I’ll probably flunk out anyway.”

“Sorry, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“What?”

“I’m a teacher.”

“Damn.” Jazz sank back against the bed. “The Borg made you, right?”

“The Borg?” James queried with a puzzled look.

“You know. Star Trek. The Borg. Resistance is futile.”

“It is. And failure’s not on the program either, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid.”

“Sorry. Jazz.” James waited expectantly. Capitulation had never felt so good.

With a huge sigh, Jazz stood up, clad only in his shorts. He was painfully slender. And his need for privacy was not born out of modesty, but out of fear that someone would see the way his own mother had marked him. His body was a mixture of fresh and fading bruises, not to mention scars.

“Satisfied?” Jazz whispered.

James shook his head mutely. No, he was horrified. Some people were only alive because it was illegal to kill them.

“There are clean clothes in the bathroom. After you take your shower, you can put them on. They shouldn’t be too big.” James took refuge in the routine details, taking great care to keep his ongoing sense of horror at Jazz’s obvious violation out of his voice and off his face. The kid didn’t need pity; he needed support and practical help.

“Who do they belong to?”

The question caught James by surprise. He was so preoccupied, it actually took him a minute to realize that Jazz had spoken.

“Oh, the clothes. They belong to Sasha. You can meet him if you like. Thank him.”

Jazz’s face clearly said “why would I want to do that?” but he refrained from saying so.

“When you come out, you’ll have time to grab some breakfast.”

“How do you know I’m hungry, man?” Jazz asked rhetorically, but his stomach growled loudly, giving him away.

“I’m not going to sign you up for school and then leave you there, Jazz. I can tutor you here at home to get you up to speed,” James added sympathetically.

“You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t even know me, man. Why do you care if I fit in or not? Because it reflects on you?” he asked, bitterness seizing him by the throat.

“No…because it reflects on you.”

“Get dressed.” James turned to go, but Jazz’s voice stopped him.

“Thanks…*James*.” James’ deep blue eyes flickered in surprise.

“I ain’t calling you Uncle, man. Cause you’re not. But…you’re not a bad guy.”

“Thanks…*Jazz*,” James returned softly.

“It’s Velaine. Like the poet.”

“What?”

“My name. Verlaine. Nicolas Verlaine.”

For a moment, James thought, what is it that makes some people feel compelled to admit things to me that they can’t even admit to themselves? He smiled. “Nice name.”

“Thanks,” Jazz said almost shyly. “Um…can you ask this guy Sasha to wait for me? I’d…um…like to meet him.”

James nodded. It looked like it was going to be a good day.