KEVIN
REHEARSAL ENDED way early, and Iris kicked us out of the theater. “You need a break. I don’t want you burning out. Don’t study lines either.”
“Cast party at my place!” shouted Meg. “Bring suits—we have a pool.”
“What about your parents?” asked Krista.
“They won’t mind.” Meg was already texting. “Long as we don’t make a mess. Be there in half an hour.”
Everyone scattered, leaving me and Peter in the parking lot. “Should we go?” I asked.
“You got something else to do?” Peter hopped into his car. “Come on.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” I objected.
“We’ll get a couple.” He eased out of the lot. Now that he’d been arrested, Peter drove a lot slower. “I still have some money.”
My no-money instincts kicked in. “Shouldn’t you save that?” I asked. “We already had ice cream today.”
“It’s just a couple of swimsuits.” His face was tight and his mouth was hard. “We’ll stop somewhere cheap. Let me do this for us, Kevin.”
“Peter, I’m not—”
“Let me do this, dammit!” he snarled.
I shrank away from him. “What the hell?”
“Just do this, Kevin.” His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “Right now I need normal, okay? I’m accused of murder, my parents have disowned me, and I don’t know what’s happening next. So right now I need to rehearse for a summer play and go to a pool party and buy a fucking swimsuit for my boyfriend. Okay? Can we do that?”
“Sure,” I said softly. “We can do that.”
He drove for a while, then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just… I don’t….” His voice got thick. “I’m holding it together all during rehearsal, and now it’s all coming out. I’m sorry.”
“I know.” I touched his knee. “It’s bad here behind the scenes. Just like Iris said.”
He rubbed at his eyes with one hand. “Yeah.”
“So… let’s get bathing suits with orange palm trees on them or something,” I said. “The last thing a couple of gay guys would get.”
“What kind of swimsuits would gay guys get?”
“I don’t know. Something with tidy little dolphins on them.”
Peter snorted. Then he snickered. Finally he laughed harder and harder until he was pounding the steering wheel and the car swerved a little.
“Hey!” I said, clutching the Jesus handle. You know—the handle you grab when you shout Jesus!
“Tidy little dolphins,” Peter snarked. “Oh my god! Awesome.”
“Okay.” I laughed with him. “It’s cool.”
“No matter what, we’ll always have the tidy little dolphins,” he said with a grin that melted me all the way through.
We looked for suits at a twenty-four-hour SavMart. They didn’t have tidy little dolphins, but they did have violent-orange palm trees that gave you a sunburn from looking at them. They were hideous, and we had to get them. Peter also grabbed stuff like a toothbrush and a comb and all that, along with some underwear and a couple of cheap changes of clothes. Neither of us mentioned why he needed these items.
“Did you know Wayne is gay?” I asked as we drove to Meg’s house.
“No shit! How did you find that out?”
I gave him a little summary of our conversation. Peter took it in silently. “He said there’s a Pride festival near Detroit tomorrow, and….” I hesitated, a little unsure of how Peter would react. Then I thought, what did it matter how Peter reacted? He didn’t own me. If I wanted to go somewhere, I could go, right? “He invited me with him and his boyfriend, Jake. To see what it’s like.”
“Isn’t that a little weird?” Peter asked.
“What do you mean, ‘weird’?”
“He barely knows you, but he’s asking you to a gay event with him.”
“With his boyfriend,” I said. “And he said himself he’s twice as old as I am. He’s not going to try anything.”
“Hmm.” Peter turned a corner.
I fiddled with my new bathing suit. The tag said Made by Slaves in China or something. “You still think it’s weird, don’t you?”
“I was wishing I could go,” Peter said. “But I can’t because I have rehearsal, and those Pride things always have reporters at them. ‘Come look at the fags!’”
“Is that what it’s about?”
He sighed. “No. At least I don’t think so. I’ve never been to one. You should go.”
“Really?” I coughed. “I mean, yeah. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Why not? Bring me back a souvenir.” He grinned again. “And stay away from the kissing booth.”
“They have a kissing booth?”
“You’re totally adorable when you’re naive.” He rumpled up my hair, and I leaned into his touch. “But text me pictures. If I can’t go, I can at least live through you.”
MEG’S HOUSE wasn’t as big as Peter’s, but it was big enough. Was everyone rich but me? I was kind of nervous. The last party I’d been to was the mailbox bash Hank had called. I didn’t want to be around beer and stuff again. It only made me think of Robbie.
Music thumped from behind a big privacy fence that surrounded the backyard, and a hand-lettered sign on the gate said Cast Party Come In!!!, so we went in.
It looked like just about everyone was there. Melissa was talking to Meg and Krista while Thad drank a Coke and watched Meg out of the corner of his eye. Even though it was evening, Charlene spread on sunblock. Joe and Ray splashed around in the pool, and I automatically sneaked a look at their builds. Ray was kind of soft, but Joe was kind of hot. There was a relaxed feel around the pool. Michigan summer days are really long, and we had lots of time to swim before sunset. Everything smelled of chlorine water and mellow sunscreen.
Meg waved at us. “Changing rooms are over there.”
We changed in a little booth. When Peter undressed, I glanced at what I’d been handling a little while ago. It made me feel fun and funny at the same time. Peter caught me at it and gave a silent grin. Then he elaborately turned his back.
“Unless you want me to watch,” he said.
I kind of did and kind of didn’t. I changed fast and tapped Peter on the shoulder. When he turned, I gave him a fast kiss and said, “Thanks.”
Outside the changing room, Meg called us over. She was wearing a teensy two-piece, and I had to work not to stare. Next to her on the ground was a cooler filled with ice and pop bottles, and one of those giant subs from a takeout place was carved into chunks on an umbrella table. I suddenly realized I was starving.
“Help yourselves,” Meg said. “We’re not formal in our Earnest little family.”
I grabbed a sandwich chunk. “Thanks. This is awesome, Meg. I love your house.”
“We’ll have a megaparty here later,” she said, “when we have more time to plan. My parents actually love having people over. They figure if I’m getting into trouble here, I won’t get into trouble somewhere else.”
“Got that right.” A woman with Meg’s features but with graying hair came out of the house with two big bags of chips. “I have enough trouble in my life.”
Meg elaborately stuck her tongue out at her mom, who tore the chips open and set them on the table.
“Where’s your lawyer?” Melissa asked Peter.
Peter cracked open a bottle. “Even lawyers need downtime.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to go anywhere without him or something,” Melissa said.
“Ducking!” Peter shouted. He grabbed me by the waist, flung me over his shoulder, and jumped into the pool. Water exploded in all directions and went up my nose.
Peter let go and I surfaced, blowing water like a tidy little dolphin.
“You bastard,” I said and splashed him.
“Hey!” said Joe, who was caught in the crossfire. He splashed back.
That touched off a water war with me, Peter, Ray, and Joe. At first the girls didn’t want to join in, but finally they did, and we all ended up in the pool, even Thad. It was so much fun. I don’t swim much, and it was just awesome being with the cast. They laughed and chattered and talked with me. I’d only known them for a little while, but we were already friends. Wow.
I lay on my back and floated a little. For a while I could just be Kevin Devereaux. Not Kevin who was attacked or Kevin who beat up a kid or Kevin the semisecretly gay guy. Just Kevin.
A while later Thad said to Peter, “What’s going on with the murder investigation?”
I tensed, and all the fun went out of the cast party. A cloud even went over the sun.
“I’m not supposed to talk about that,” Peter said.
“Aw, come on,” Thad said. “This is us. Who are we going to tell? Are you going to jail?”
“Thad,” Melissa said.
“What?” Thad said. “We have to talk about it. What if he has to leave the play?”
“Thad,” Charlene said.
“It’s okay.” Peter hauled himself to the edge of the pool. Water streamed down his back and glistened in the sun. “Look, I didn’t kill Les, okay? I’m not lying about that.”
“Why were you at Les’s apartment?” Thad pressed.
A cold fist punched me in the gut. I hunched down until I was neck deep in the water. “Don’t talk about it, Peter. You might get into trouble.”
Peter opened his mouth to say something, and the fist in my stomach turned colder. Then he seemed to change his mind. “I really can’t talk about it, guys. I wish I could because I’m scared that you don’t trust me or like me. But the evidence the cops have is totally circumstantial. They don’t have any proof—because there isn’t anything to prove. I didn’t kill Les. Come on. You guys have been in a dozen plays with me. You know me.”
“We didn’t know you were a Morse,” Joe said.
Peter kind of laughed. “Okay, you got me there. I kept that back because I didn’t want people to think I got cast because my family basically built the Art Center. Not even Iris knew.”
“So how rich are you?” Thad asked intently. I wondered at the interest and realized I didn’t know all that much about Thad. He and Joe were brothers, and they lived with their mother—I knew that—and Thad had a thing for Meg, but that was about it.
“Being the rich guy is what I’m trying to get away from.” Peter kicked some water in Thad’s direction, and everyone laughed a little.
“So all you guys have been in plays together before?” I asked to change the subject.
“Pretty much,” Melissa said. She looked very pretty—the blonde pool bunny—and it seemed weird she was playing an old lady in the play. “Except Ray. He’s new.”
Ray waved.
“And you, Kev,” Meg added. “This is your first play, right? How come you never auditioned before?”
A lie formed in my head and showed up at the back of my throat. But suddenly I was tired of lying, tired of keeping secrets from people who were supposed to be my actual friends. The truth leaped out ahead of the lie. “I beat up another kid, and my parole officer said I had to get a job or do volunteer work this summer. So I tried out for the play.”
A second of silence followed. “No shit?” Ray said.
“No shit,” I said.
“Why’d you beat up the kid?” Melissa asked.
Because I had a crush on Hank. Because I hated myself. Because I still can’t make myself say the word gay out loud to you, even now. Apparently the truth only goes so far.
“Because I was hanging out with some really shitty guys, and I got caught up with them,” I said. “It was stupid, and I feel really bad about it. But I met all of you”—Peter—“because of it. So that was a good thing, I guess. I never really had friends before.”
“What about the shitty guys?” Thad said.
I snorted. “They’re by definition shitty. Not friends. They just wanted to fight and get high and break shit. I only hung out with them because… I was mad.”
Melissa said, “At who?”
This was turning into a real therapy session. “At everyone. At the world. Is there any more of that sandwich left? I only had a couple bites before dickwad over there threw me into the pool.”
“I’m not a dickwad,” Peter said airily. “I’m just a dick.”
And we went back to swimming and eating and talking and listening to music. I sat at the umbrella table and ate more sandwich and watched Peter—and the other guys, I have to admit. Thad sat down and grabbed a handful of potato chips from the bag, his dark hair damp from the pool. We talked about nothing much for a while.
“So who do you think killed Les?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, if Peter didn’t do it.”
The question caught me off guard. I’d been concentrating so hard on Peter not being the killer that I hadn’t really thought about who it really was. “Some guy, I guess,” I said. “I don’t… didn’t… know Les.”
Thad crunched another chip. “Did you know he was dealing?”
“Nope.”
“Pills. Pot. Meth. He had it all. Found a lot of customers at the Art Center.”
“Like who?”
“Lots of people.” He threw a glance toward the pool, where a bunch of the cast were still swimming.
“Someone in the play?” I said. “Who? You gotta tell.”
“He was all beat up, right? He probably pissed off one of his customers, or maybe the guy he bought his shit from.”
“Who supplied him?”
“Hell if I know.”
I took a swig of pop. “You tell the police about any of this?”
“The cops?” he scoffed. “They’ll arrest you soon as look at you.”
“Amen, bro,” I said, tilting my bottle toward him. But I still wondered.
A ways after ten, Mrs. Kimura gently kicked us all out. Me and Peter headed for his car. I was still kind of trippy over the awesomeness of the party, and Peter must’ve noticed.
“You’ve caught it,” he observed as we climbed in.
“Caught what?”
“The theater bug,” he said. “You’ve had your first cast call, your first rehearsal, your first set building, and now your first cast party. And you’re loving it.”
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “Sometimes I think I could live here.”
“Wait’ll your first performance,” he said. “It’s total magic when the house is full of people and you’re in costume and makeup and the lights go up and you go out there. Nothing like it.”
“Why don’t you try it? You know, professionally?”
“Me?” Peter snorted and pulled into the street. “I’m not good enough. It’s fun, but I like building stuff. Before the play even started, I was helping Iris with the set design. I want to be an architect.”
“You’re an awesome actor,” I protested.
“Nah. I’m just good. You’re the one who could go all the way. All of us have seen it. It’s rough breaking into acting. Lots of guys just as cute with just as much talent want in just as bad. But you could do it, Kev. When you walk on that stage, everyone looks. They can’t help it. I’m serious.”
I was flushing red-hot by now. The compliments were coming fast and furious, and I didn’t know how to handle them. “Uh….”
“Say thanks,” Peter said with that killer grin.
“Thanks,” I said with a grin of my own.
Peter turned down good old Six Mile Road. “You know, I hadn’t thought about where I was going to stay.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “You know, my dad might let you stay with us. For a while. He turned out to be pretty cool about me being gay. And being with you.”
“That wasn’t a hint,” Peter said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Just shut up and say yes,” I interrupted.
Peter thought a moment. “Let me take you home, and we’ll talk about it.”
Dad was on the couch, the one Peter and I had been messing around on earlier that day. The one that had Les’s phone under it. So much kept happening, I never had the chance to dump the stupid thing. Dad was barefoot and reading, like usual. He looked up when we came in.
“Hey, guys. Rehearsal run late?” His tone was super casual, and suddenly I was nervous again.
“Little bit,” I said, not quite lying. I didn’t want to go into the cast party. Even though there hadn’t been any drinking or stuff, Dad might get suspicious anyway because of the shit I used to get into, and we’d get into a fight. “Can I talk to you?”
Dad closed the book. “Is this about the two of you? Kevin told me you two are… dating, or whatever you guys call it, Peter.”
“We are, sir,” Peter said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s complicated,” Dad said seriously. “I mean, you’re a Morse, and we’re… not.”
“Dad,” I said.
“How old are you?” he said, ignoring me.
“Nineteen, sir.”
“A little older than Kevin,” he said in a voice you could have bent an I-beam around. “He’s technically age of consent, but he’s still a minor, and I’m his father.”
“Yes, sir,” Peter said.
“Are you having sex?” he said bluntly, even though he’d already asked me about that.
“Dad!” I said again.
Peter slid his hands into his back pockets. “No, sir.”
Was that a lie? Had Peter and I had sex? I wasn’t sure if what we’d done on the couch counted. What did count?
But Peter wasn’t finished. “Can I ask you something, sir?” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Would you have brought up that last question if I were a girl?”
Dad thought about that for a second. “I don’t understand how it’s relevant.”
“When people see a guy and a girl holding hands, they think, ‘Oh, they must be boyfriend and girlfriend,’ or ‘They must be married.’ But when two guys are holding hands, they think, ‘They’re having sex.’ Isn’t that right?”
Dad thought another second. “I guess so.” He thought again. “Not really fair, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” Peter sighed. “It’s been an unfair kind of day.”
“I just found out my son was gay and that he already has a boyfriend,” Dad said. “And he’s the son of a billionaire and accused of murder. You’ll have to give me some time to catch up. At least Kevin is positive you’ve been falsely accused. I trust his judgment, and I don’t trust the police, so you’re welcome here.”
This was weird, my dad talking to my boyfriend. It was weird enough that I had a boyfriend at all.
“Uh… speaking of that, Dad.” I sank to the couch next to him while Peter took up the only chair. “I wanted to ask a couple things.”
He took on that narrow look all parents do when they know they’re in for an argument. “Like…?”
I decided to start small. Smallish. I told him about Wayne and Jake and the Pride festival. The more I talked, the more my earlier worry about it faded, and the more excited I got. “Can I go? Please? Wayne said it would only be okay if you called him.”
“Are you going?” Dad asked Peter.
“I can’t,” Peter said. “I have rehearsal during the day. Kevin doesn’t.” He left out the news cameras.
“Please?” I said.
“Kevin, this is… a lot,” Dad said slowly. “I just found out about you yesterday, and now you’re already asking to go to this Pride parade thing. It’s all moving so fast.”
“There’s no parade,” I said. “No parading. Parades are right out. I just want to go and look around.”
“Kev—”
Words spilled out, words I didn’t know were inside me. “Dad, my whole life I’ve wondered what it was like to see other people like me. I knew they—we—existed, but never actually knew anybody. Peter’s the first one I met, and it was incredible. There’s a whole… community out there, and I want to see it so much, see if they’re like me. Wayne and Jake will be chaperones, so nothing’s going to happen. Please, Dad.” I made my biggest, best puppy face at him.
A long moment passed, and then Dad sighed. “What’s Wayne’s number?”
Yes! I pulled out my cell. “I’ve got it here.”
“What? When did you get a cell phone?”
Shit. “Oh. Uh—”
“I gave it to him,” Peter said. “A gift.” Then he flashed his most disarming smile. “It’s what the Morse family gives instead of flowers and chocolates.”
“Oh Jesus,” Dad grumbled. He poked at Wayne’s number, strode into the kitchen to speak for a few minutes with his back to us, then came back into the living room. “It’s not happening,” he said flatly.
My heart sank. “What? Why?”
“Because you’ll never get up by seven in the morning.”
I attacked him, but it turned into a hug. He slapped me on the back, and Peter looked jealous.
“Thanks, Dad. Uh… can I ask something else?”
“Oh god. Hit me.” He plopped back onto the couch.
“Peter’s parents kind of saw us kiss.” I held up my hands. “That’s all we did. But now they know Peter’s gay. They didn’t take it really well. Not like you.”
“They freaked?” Dad said to both of us.
“Big-time,” I said as Peter nodded. “That’s kind of why Peter’s here. He didn’t just give me a ride home.”
“They threw you out?” Dad said incredulously.
“Sort of,” Peter said. “My mom yelled at me, and I left, and they cut off my debit card and stuff. I haven’t talked to them.”
“So… you’re asking if Peter can stay here?” Dad hazarded. “Oh, Kev, I don’t know.”
“Just for a while,” I said quickly. “Until—”
A harsh knock banged on the door. Dad sat up and glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven. “Who the hell?”
Cops? I mouthed at Peter, who paled. But how would they know where Peter was?
Dad strode to the door and yanked it open. On the other side were Mr. and Mrs. Morse.