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It’s not that he’s hiding. Not really.It’s just that the backyard and the house are full of people in dresses and suits carrying their drinks and loud laughter like they are owed amusement, and it itches at Ryan’s ears and tugs at his teeth. Besides, if he’s on his bed listening to music instead of hanging around out there, no one is going to notice anyway.The centre of attention wants nothing more than to get Ryan away from his family, and Mr and Mrs Cohen have spent days bottling up their feelings to deal with this returning facet of Newport’s finest. Seth is preoccupied as well; he’s far more concerned with finding Summer, and whether she will have him or not doesn’t seem to matter to him as long as he can stay in her orbit.Ryan has never been able to spin endlessly. He can smile on command but he’s not a dog, and the one person who could whistle for him is not someone he can see right now without wanting to break something.It gnaws at him like a hungry dog.So when Gabrielle opens the door to the poolhouse, Ryan lets her in. And when she sinks down onto the bed, he sits beside her. And when she pushes him down onto the mattress and swings her leg over him so she is sitting on his hips, he puts his hands on her knees and leans up as much as he can to catch her mouth against his.And yeah, maybe it’s not actually her that he wants, but Ryan’s tired.He’s tired of Marissa, who won’t make up her mind. He’s tired of the people of Newport, who look at him like he’s something they’ve found growing on the base of their fancy yachts. He’s tired of being around the Cohens, who have loved him and looked after him and yet still come from a world that is foreign to him and he trips and trips and trips and one day they will get tired of picking him up and dusting him off.Surely it should be easier to care for people than whatever this is; surely it should be easier to show he is grateful. They have given him back his life.But instead, here he is, lying on his back.Gabrielle may be Kirsten’s father’s girlfriend, but at least she is here. At least she is willing.
And would it truly be so bad, to be the bad influence others say he is? For one night? When he has a beautiful woman on top of him with a dress riding up under his hands and a mouth as warm as his?He wants someone who wants him. His mother certainly didn’t. Marissa might not choose him at all. The Cohens have their patriarch marching around clean wooden floors that are more expensive than any house Ryan has ever lived in and telling anyone who will listen that Ryan is a rat that has snuck in through the drains and will rob them blind in their sleep.Soft fingers fumble with the buckle of his pants and for a moment it is inevitable.This is what he wants.A click comes from somewhere far beyond this skin, these fluttering eyelashes, this taste on his tongue and he slows.Cool air runs along the length of his bare arms, and for everything else that he is, Ryan has never been someone not to recognise a potential threat.His gaze slides along Gabrielle’s face to the door behind her.All movement stops.Sandy stands in the doorway, his eyes wide. His mouth is open as if he’d been about to call out, but Ryan knows there are no words that fit … whatever this is. Even from the bed, he can see the betrayal in Sandy’s face and a pit opens in his stomach, dark and cold.Gabrielle takes offence to the stillness, kissing him insistently on the mouth then along his cheek to his ear, and when he still doesn’t move, she sits back with a huff.Ryan looks from Sandy back to her in silence. She turns with a frown to see what has caught his attention.“Oh my God!”Gabrielle scuttles backward, falling off Ryan and rolling across the bed, rapidly pulling her hem down to cover her thighs and her bodice up to cover her breasts. Her hair is a mess, her dress is rumpled, and her lips are swollen. Even if Sandy had not seen what had been happening himself, the evidence of it is painted on Gabrielle’s face.Ryan springs upwards and his cheeks heat until they’re burning, embarrassment at Sandy having seen him with a girl warring with horror at the girl being Gabrielle, his father-in-law’s girlfriend.“Get out.” It’s colder than Ryan has ever heard Sandy speak. Not even Kirsten’s father has received such ire, whether to his face or behind his back over the past few days while they prepared for his arrival.Gabrielle grabs her bag, ducks her head, and leaves, Sandy not even looking at her as she goes. His gaze is stuck on Ryan, and Ryan can feel it even as he scrambles out of the bed himself. His belt hangs limp in front of him, and he spares a short moment to feel relieved at the fact Gabrielle had not succeeded at unzipping him completely.He opens his mouth to apologise, to explain, to say something at least that can make this better, that can strip the betrayal from Sandy’s face, but Sandy shakes his head.Ryan moves for the door in silence.He can’t go back to the streets. He can’t go back home. No one wants him, no one, he’ll be on the first road walking back to Chino—An arm bars his way.“Not you, Ryan.” Ryan risks glancing up. Sandy’s face could be carved from stone, but as Ryan meets his gaze, his eyes gentle. “Are you okay? Did she—well, I think we both know what she was doing.”He’s missed something here. He has to have. He’d expected … well, maybe not fists, but something similar, something that wasn’t butter-warm concern.“Mr Cohen?”“It’s okay, kid. C’mon, let’s head back into the house. Unless you’d rather stay here?”“Stay?” Of course he wants to stay. This is better than anything he’s had before, and if Sandy is offering him a bed the night before he kicks him out, then he will take it gratefully. He needs to say goodbye to Seth, after all.Sandy nods a couple of times like one of those kids toys, neck all loose and gaze darting around like marbles on a track. The bed to the door to Ryan to Ryan’s neck. It’s hard to keep up, and harder still to constantly avoid meeting those eyes.“Sure,” Sandy says. “Sure, of course. I’m going to talk to Kirsten, I’ll send Seth in here, okay? So you have someone with you.”He isn’t surprised that Sandy wants him in one place and with supervision. It’ll be easier to clean up the mess around him and to make sure he stays where he is.It’s only when the door closes behind Sandy that Ryan begins picking up the towels and blankets that had been so hastily pushed to the floor, folding them carefully and putting them on a chair by the window. He will do what he can to help and make their job easier. He will do what he can to make it like he was never there.He doesn’t even have a minute between folding the last blanket and Seth bounding into the room, the door swinging shut behind him with a clatter and bringing with him a bundle of chatter.“Oh man, you should’ve seen her, she looked—” Seth’s eyes sweep across the messy sheets and he grins. “Nice! Getting some action!”Ryan can’t look at him. Can’t even look in his direction. Instead he sinks back onto the bed and stares at his hands.The pit in his stomach is starting to make the meagre contents inside roll and roil. He can’t be sick. Not here. Not now. There will be time enough for that later, when he doesn’t have someone else required to clean it up.“What’d—what’d your dad say?” If he can get ahead of this, if he can find out what doors are blocked, maybe he’ll be able to sneak out first. Avoid the show they’ll be forced to put on.“Dunno, wasn’t listening.” Seth lingers by the door for a moment, ducking his head whenever someone veers too close and then craning to see outside when the coast is clear. “Hey, do you think we could sneak some champagne in here?”Another shadow and then the door is opening again.“Party’s over, Seth.” Sandy closes the door behind him, and Ryan can feel the weight of his gaze. He keeps his head bowed even as shame rattles in him, a hornets nest of movement, and swallows thickly.He has betrayed every member of this family with his actions. Some pitiful gratefulness he has.Sandy moves to the basket beside the door and Ryan watches as he leans back, stretching his legs out so that they block the door.A second later, another shadow darkens the shades.Kirsten enters, standing in front of the door itself even as she leans close to Sandy and says in an undertone, “I’ve told everyone to pack themselves up. The cars are coming around now.”“Guess I’d better get my stuff then,” says Ryan in a low voice. The more the seconds tick by, the more resigned he is to the idea of leaving. He’s already ruined the party, may as well not delay this any further.“What?” says Sandy, jolting upright. “Where are you going?”Ryan finally looks directly at him, but finds that, much as Sandy couldn’t say anything when he stumbled across Ryan and Gabrielle, he can’t say anything now. There’s nothing he can say. He has no answer to give. He has no answer that they could understand, these people who have lived with a roof over their heads for most of their lives, and only feared years ahead instead of days.He wonders if his mother’s house has been sold yet. He wonders if his mother’s couch has grown more comfortable since he left.Seth glances between his parents and Ryan. “Uh, what’s going on?”“Seth, did you know about this?” Sandy wiggles his fingers at Ryan as if that will clarify the matter. “This whole … Gabrielle thing?”Seth’s eyes widen to almost comical proportions. “What, uh, what Gabrielle thing? Look, if this is about the kiss—”“She kissed you?” Kirsten’s eyes shift from Seth to Ryan, and the disgust in them is clear. “Why didn’t you tell us?”“I’m—I’m really sorry,” says Ryan, and these are the words he’s missing. “It was only once—”“Once is enough!”“It was nothing, I swear—”“It wasn’t nothing!” says Sandy. “Not at all! She’s twenty-four, what she was about to do was illegal!”Illegal? “She’s an adult though. I … I thought …” Surely Caleb wouldn’t have been dating a minor. Surely someone would have said something before now, if she had truly been underage—“But you’re not.”Ryan blinks. “That’s what you’re mad about? Not that I kissed your dad’s girlfriend?”“He’s seventeen,” says Seth. “It’s not like he’s a kid anymore, right? He’s not …” He trails off and glances at Ryan. “Wait, how old are you then?”“He’s sixteen,” Sandy answers before Ryan can argue otherwise. “Not that it matters. The age of consent is still eighteen.”Seth frowns. “Yeah, but—”“Ryan, we’re—we’re not mad,” interrupts Kirsten. There is a pleading look in her eye, one he had seen flashes of at the jail when she had been afraid and intimidated and desperate for something that wasn’t getting through. He’s seen it more recently too, on a different face. Feminine and familiar, eyes apologising for something unspoken. It hadn’t mattered much; his mother had left him anyway.Such an expression looks out of place on Kirsten’s face. She shouldn’t ever be pleading for anything, and Ryan shifts on the bed, wanting to fix this somehow, wanting to make it so she isn’t looking at him like he’s the only thing holding her safe while she swings on the edge of a cliff.“Speak for yourself,” Sandy says, and Ryan jolts back. Sandy must notice because his next words are firm but hold a softness Ryan had seen the first time he’d met the man. “I don’t care who she is. She could be Madonna herself and I still wouldn’t give a crap. I’m concerned, Ryan. This is concern. You’re a minor, and behaving like she did with you was wrong.” He frowns, probably sensing that Ryan’s thoughts have stuttered to a halt. “You understand that, right?”This time, it’s Ryan’s turn to frown, and he glances between members of the Cohen family with no small amount of confusion. “It’s just sex. Everyone’s doing it.”“Maybe between people your own age but not with a grown adult.”“It’s normal.” He’s still confused, but it’s veering into a horrified realisation.Somewhere here he’s done something wrong, misstepped on this incredibly thin tightrope. Another way he doesn’t measure up, another hidden double-standard. The boy from Chino isn’t allowed to get with anyone, isn’t allowed to put his hands where they shouldn’t be like they do back across the tracks.And yeah, he’d been tired, and yeah, it hadn’t really been who he’d wanted to be touching in the dark, but it hadn’t been the worst situation he’d been in by far. Gabrielle had seemed enthusiastic enough.“No, it’s not. Not in this case. She forced you—”“It wasn’t like I said no.” He knows that, no matter what they think of Chino kids. He knows what rape looks like. “I wanted it—”“That doesn’t matter. Not in the eyes of the law, and not to us.”“Even if it had been … whatever you’re saying, she’s the girlfriend to the owner of all of Newport. I'm the juvenile delinquent who burned a house down.” Ryan smiles, incredulous, because they just don’t get it. “Even if I hadn’t wanted it, which I did, who would’ve believed me?”“We would have believed you,” says Kirsten quietly.“She’s your dad’s girlfriend.”Kirsten hesitates, but her voice is firm when she says, “That’s not important.”“It is,” says Ryan. “It is and I can’t mess this up any further. You said no trouble.”“Ryan, being molested isn’t the sort of trouble we were talking about.”If Ryan were anywhere else, if he were not watching those holding the leash around his neck make a decision about his fate, he would scoff. “I wasn’t being molested.”How many times does he need to explain this? They’re adults, surely they should get it. It was some simple fun between him and Gabrielle, and now he knows they’re not mad about anything but the age of the other person involved, it is quickly growing frustrating.“Sex is meant to be between two consenting adults, not between a minor and an adult—”“That’s not—”“Hey,” says Seth, eyeing Ryan’s hands carefully, and it’s only when Ryan glances down that he sees his fingers are clenched into fists. “Do we, uh, do we really have to have this conversation? Like, now?”“Yes,” says Sandy. “We do. Ryan, I know your upbringing has been ... different, but—”“Not different enough that I don’t know what sexual abuse is!” says Ryan, hotly. “You think I didn’t see enough of that in Chino to recognise it?”Kirsten’s gaze darts to Sandy and her eyes are wide.“Seth,” says Sandy quietly, pushing himself fully upright, “go back to the house.”“But—” protests Seth immediately, but Sandy doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t shift his gaze from Ryan, and he is staring like he can see though Ryan’s eyes to his mind. Seth turns pleadingly to Kirsten but she silently shakes her head at him. “Fine.”Seth stalks from the poolhouse and there is a deliberate hesitation before he closes the door.The other boy hasn’t shown any tendencies towards anger in the time since Ryan arrived, and Ryan knows before Seth leaves that the poolhouse door won’t be slammed in some childish tantrum. But he also knows Seth well enough by now to know that he’s contemplating leaving the door open a crack and then lingering nearby to continue to listen in.Kirsten, it seems, knows her son as well, and she reaches out to check the latch has clicked shut.“Grandpa?” comes Seth’s voice from outside. “What’re you—”“Will one of you come out here and do me the decency of speaking to me?” Caleb is loud, and it’s clear who he’s calling for.Ryan flinches before he even realises what he’s doing, because an angry man has always spelled trouble for him and more than anything this man’s anger is righteous. He’s had his girlfriend taken advantage of by a boy staying at his daughter’s house, and someone from the other side of the tracks, too. Someone he had specifically warned Kirsten about keeping.“I’ll handle this,” says Kirsten. She gives Ryan a long look before she disappears, and it’s made of steel. “Seth, go inside. Dad, you too.”The sound of sneakers on stone lead away from the poolhouse. It seems Seth had been able to get around wearing the dress shoes after all.“Not until I hear the truth!” Caleb snaps. “It was that kid, he did something to her—”“Don’t you dare accuse Ryan,” he hears Kirsten say. “In fact, you can get out of this house altogether.”She can’t kick him out. That’s her dad, her own blood, and Kirsten has been planning this party for days with stress enough to swallow stones and hope they float above the panic. She can’t kick him out, and certainly not on Ryan’s behalf.It seems Caleb agrees with him.“You’re kicking your father out of his own—”“No, I’m kicking you out, someone who is determined to blame a child for almost being molested by his girlfriend!”Ryan’s hand reaches for the door on instinct, because an angry man doesn’t care who he lashes out against, and it incites a greater fear within him what this man could do to Kirsten. Blood has never promised safety. It had only taken a few steps to get between Kirsten and the lowest of the jail, and if it comes down to it, he’ll stand between her and her father too. It’s the least he can do for her kindness.Sandy mutters, “Damn it,” and swings the door open, closing it quickly behind him.“Now hold on a minute,” continues Caleb, “that’s a strong word to be throwing around.”“And yet we find it’s perfectly accurate.” Sandy sounds furious, and Ryan is flinching once more, even though he knows Sandy, he trusts Sandy, more than he’s trusted anyone, which is saying a lot.He wonders briefly whether Kirsten could come back into the poolhouse out of the way.“Sandy—”“I know, I know, you said to let you handle this, but—”“Is he in there?” asks Caleb. “I’m going to have a word with him about baseless accusations—”“My wife has already told you to leave. Now go, before we call the police. And take that woman with you.” There’s a pause, and Ryan can see the faint outlines of their shadows, all of them deathly still until Sandy prompts, “Kirsten.”“Dad, come with me. Sandy’s going to speak to Ryan.”“This is what happens when you take in strays, especially ones like him! He’s already burnt down a house. You can’t trust him! He’ll …” Caleb’s voice fades, as do the footsteps and clicking of heels.Sandy’s shadow remains for a long moment. Ryan watches as his shoulders heave a sigh.He should just leave. He’d promised them no problems, and as much as they’ve said it’s not a problem, he can see exactly what’s happening clearer than any of them. Causing conflict between Kirsten and her father. Causing frustration to Seth. Dragging Sandy between Kirsten and her father even more than usual. His mere presence is forcing them all to choose, it’s putting them all at risk.It’ll be better if he just leaves. Better for all of them, and he owes them that much after all they’ve done for him. The sacrifices they’ve made. The scorn they’ve faced.Just as his fingers touch the handle, the door is swinging open again and Sandy is nudging his way inside. The man is careful not to touch him, careful not to get too close or look like he’s looming, and amusement bubbles in Ryan’s gut. He’s trying so hard and for what? Some trauma he can see in Ryan that not even a mirror can reveal?Sandy locks the door behind him and then glances at Ryan with wide eyes. “Is this okay? I can unlock it if you want.”It’s fine. He knows it’s fine, he knows Sandy won’t hurt him, but there is a memory of a fist heading for his face and a man’s voice yelling imprinted on his bones, and when the lock clicks open again, a tension he didn’t know he had pools from his shoulders, leaving him loose and shaky.Sandy sits down on the edge of the bed. He beckons Ryan to join him, but Ryan lingers by the door, leaning against the wall. He needs something to hold him up.“I need to know,” says Sandy into the quiet. “What you said before, did … did that happen to you?”Ryan blinks. Shakes away visions of what Sandy’s hand would look like if it were bleeding from the knuckles. “What?”“The sexual abuse.”“No! No, I just—no.”“And you’re okay with that answer?”It rears in him like a furnace, bright and hot, and he snaps out, “I’m telling the truth.”“And I believe you,” says Sandy with eyes that are so damn earnest, even in the dim light. “I just want to make sure you feel you’re safe to tell me anything you—”“You really think my mom would’ve let that happen to me?” He’s in front of Sandy before he even realises he’s pushing himself away from the wall, and his fists clenched hard enough to pierce skin. It’s a distant pain. “You think just because she doesn’t have a nice house and yachts parked in a private shed that she would hurt me like that? That she would just, just hand me around?”Sandy holds his hands out placatingly. “That’s not what I’m asking.”No, Ryan knows exactly what he’s asking.He looks away, eyes watering.“Ryan?”“My mom’s not like that.”“Okay. Okay, kid, I believe you.” Sandy lets out a long breath and Ryan watches his hands as they clasp each other on his knees. The calloused fingers are steady and still, but Ryan’s seen enough hands by now to know how to spot hidden truths. “Even if she had—even if anyone had—it’s okay to talk about it, you know that, right? You can tell me, you can tell Kirsten or Seth, we’re not going to be mad at you.”“I’m not a child.” He may be a minor but he’s not a child. He knows how this works.The hands separate and rise, as if in acquiescence, and Sandy inclines his head.Ryan grinds his teeth. “She didn’t hurt me like that. She didn’t let me be hurt like that.”“Okay.”“She didn’t.”“Hey, I believe you.”“It was just …”There’s no visible change to Sandy’s body language, but all of a sudden there is a tension in the room that weighs their breaths, and Ryan feels Sandy’s full and absolute attention fall upon him.“Just …?”“She doesn’t have great taste in men.”It feels like he’s betraying her now. It has to be one of them, his mother or the Cohens. Someone has to face the knife.Sandy remains silent.“It wasn’t ever like … like that.” Ryan finds himself suddenly trying to explain, to reassure Sandy, because of all the Cohens, of all the people in Newport, it’s Sandy that knows more than anyone what it’s like on the other side of the fence. He might’ve grown up there, but he’s still the only one that chooses to look. “It was just physical. Shoving. Pushing. The occasional punch. But it wasn’t a big deal.”“And your mom never stepped in?”It’s not a sin to be a poor chooser. It’s not a sin to invite the people you care about into your house. It’s not a sin to protect yourself from sudden hands and hurricane-tempers. He can’t blame her either, for opening the door to people who could hurt her. He has pushed his own door open more than once, and it’s that that got him stuck in jail in the first place.Ryan shrugs. “It was her or me. I could take it.”“It doesn’t sound like she ever gave you the choice.”“I didn’t want her to be beaten up,” protests Ryan, but Sandy’s already shaking his head.“She never stepped in, did she? She just kept bringing them around and watching.”“That’s not—”“And you never fought back?”Ryan opens his mouth and quickly closes it again. “Once.” He shifts his weight, rubs his thumb over his knuckles, reaches up an absent hand to his eye. Sandy tracks his movements with a sharp gaze. “That’s what got me in—It was right before you came to pick me up. It was my fault, I started it. I shouldn’t have been mouthing off.”“And your mother?”There’s nothing he can say. His tongue is frozen in his mouth, heavy and thick, and the words are stuck in his throat, burning like acid.Sandy nods as if something has suddenly become clear to him. “You did it to protect her.”Ryan frowns. “My mom’s not a bad person.”She was there, he wants to say. She was there and she watched, like she always has.The bones in his cheek ache.“She loves you a lot,” acknowledges Sandy, but there’s something wrong with his voice. “That’s why she asked us to look after you and to give you the life she wanted for you. But, Ryan, regardless of whether she loves you, you don’t deserve what those men did to you. You never did.”Ryan shakes his head. “It’s not about that.”It’s welling up in him like a storm, violent and howling, something unspoken and unthought. He shoves it down as best he can, not daring to look it in the eye. He can swallow this. He has swallowed much worse.“No, listen to me,” Sandy says lowly. “You didn’t deserve that.”“Yeah. Sure.”“It wasn’t your fault, Ryan.”“Don’t—”“She should have protected you better.”“Stop.” He can hear it shaking in his voice, the winds and the rain and the thunder rattling the glass cage inside his ribs. “Stop it.”“It’s okay.”His fingers find his hair and lash themselves to it. “Just stop.”“It wasn’t your—”“Then why didn’t she stop them?” he cries, voice moving from strength to cracked, and the glass inside him shatters with a scream. “Why didn’t she—why didn’t she stop them? Just once, why couldn’t she—she let them hang around, beat me up, and then she—Why didn’t she—” He sinks onto the bed next to Sandy, his knees weak and his head pounding out a rhythm he has always known. “Why didn’t she want me?”A warm hand rests against the centre of his back. He flinches, but presses against it, and it remains a steady anchor.“If you’re looking for answers, kid,” says Sandy softly, “this isn’t the right place. I could take an educated guess why she left you, why she didn’t protect you better, why she watched while you were being beaten, but I don’t think that’s what you really want.”He does want it. He does want to know. He does, that’s all he wants, he just …Ryan shakes his head.The hand changes to an arm, the bed creaks as Sandy shuffles closer, and then there is a band around his shoulders, pulling him in, holding him together, keeping him warm amidst the rain.“All I know,” says Sandy softly, and there is a sadness in his words that matches the saltwater on Ryan’s lips, “is that I’m so glad you’re here with us.”It shudders through him, and he thought it would be a great force, this hurricane, but instead it is only wet and broken and when he looks into its eye, there is a man braced against the remnant wind with tousled dark hair and a sideways smile, hand outstretched and within it a business card.His hand is shaky. His vision has blurred. His heart is beating fast enough that he thinks he will take off or suffocate, and for a split second he doesn’t care which. But then his face is pressed into Sandy’s neck and expensive cotton is growing damp under his eyes but Sandy doesn’t seem to mind.The eye hits, the wind blows on all sides, but here there is a small port to hide in and weather out the storm, and Ryan sinks into it with a shaky relief.Even if his mom hadn’t wanted him. Even if his mom hadn’t protected him. Even if his mom had watched and waited and worried from the sidelines without reaching for him, without closing her open door, without crying out for him, even if his mom loves him as he loves her, here where she left him he is safe.The world turns wet and blurry and soft around him.He blinks and he is curled up on the bed, his fingers wrapped around a wrist, and there is a hand on his short hair. Soft fabric brushes against his chin and he realises he’s under a blanket, its edges tucked in under him. It has been years since anyone has tucked him in. It has been years since anyone has wanted to.There’s a quiet knock at the door.He startles, jolting fully awake.“That’ll be Kirsten to tell us all the guests are gone,” a voice from his side murmurs. The bed dips to one side as if the owner of the voice is preparing to leave. Ryan tightens his fingers. “Do you want me to stay?”Shadows under the door. Blood on his tongue. Opening his eyes in luxury to find the one thing he had always wanted has left in the night.Ryan swallows and squeezes his eyes shut.“Okay, kid. I’ll be staying right here.”