What I Need

By Theda Black

Jacob’s a damaged young man, trying to leave his past behind and find what he needs to be happy. He meets a beautiful boy, Elijah, and falls hard for him. The problem is, Elijah’s a hooker.

Does Jacob have a prayer in a relationship with someone even more lost than he is?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301611522

Book preview

~oOo~

Chapter One

The first time I heard gunfire in Center City, I was studying at the dorm. It was nighttime, the room dark except for a circle of light shining on my open psych book from the cheap little clip-on lamp at the back of my desk. I yawned, head propped up on my hand, and tried to concentrate on the words.

Something exploded outside, a booming sound that echoed off the surrounding buildings. I jumped up, the old wooden chair scraping over the bare floor, and peered out between the bars on the windows. The streetlights threw a sickly orange color over the cobblestone roads. A guy with dreadlocks sat on the stoop of the row house across the street, talking on his cell as if nothing at all had happened. No one else stirred on the block. Slowly I sat down again.

I knew Philly could be rough, Center City in particular, which is why all the dorm windows were barred. But hearing the crack of a gun going off that night brought it home to me in a way I’d never fully understood before.

For weeks it sat uneasily in my gut, but after hearing that explosion of sound in the darkness a time or two, I began to tune it out. After I’d lived four years in the dorm, I didn’t waste time worrying about it. It was the least of what I feared about people.

I earned my degree (which turned out to have very little use as far as the job market went) and moved into the city for good. My part-time employment at a title company during college became full-time. It paid the bills. A bartending job after hours paid for everything else.

Working so many hours forced me to interact with people, something against my inclinations, but I did it. I had a few friends I saw on occasion, and of course my parents. Hardly exciting, I know, but that constancy was what I needed the first year after college. I realized just how much during the week I met someone who didn't fit into my routine.

The first day of work that week was in all respects a Monday—that is, it sucked. No two ways about it. To top it off, the buyer for my four o’clock closing had fallen off a ladder the day before and was in the hospital. Even so, he didn’t want to delay the deal. Closing agents go to some strange places to close loans, but hospitals don’t even make the list of strange, frankly. The sellers came in to the office early and completed their part, and then I set off to the hospital so the buyer could sign off on his paperwork. 

I wasn’t five blocks from the office when a rusted green taxi ran straight through a four-way stop, nearly plowing into the side of my Mustang. I slammed on the brakes, stopping less than a foot away from the speeding driver. He shot me a bird out the window as he blew past. Shit. That’s Philly for you.

My hands stopped shaking by the time I arrived at the hospital. In the lobby, I studied the map with the room directory and managed not to have to backtrack on the way to Mr. Kiriakis’ room. I knocked quietly on the door.

Come in, Mr. Kiriakis called, his voice hoarse. He was a large man, the patterned hospital gown rising over his generous belly. His left foot stuck out off the bed, almost as pale as the sheet. He pulled the rolling overbed table close, and I opened my briefcase, laying the paperwork out on it.

He’d gotten a good faith estimate as to the costs involved with the closing, but he still acted surprised about the fees. Maybe falling off a ladder knocked his memory for a loop. He had a case of nerves—the house cost too much if you asked me—and he was in pain, I knew that, but it didn’t help. It wasn’t one of my more, uh, centered days.

Nothing I could say calmed him. The APR wasn’t what he’d agreed upon, the taxes were too much, the overnight fees ridiculous. All my carefully rehearsed routines that enabled me to speak and deal with irritable people failed, and then my backup plan on how to deal in case my original plans failed also failed. Which is to say that every time he’d complain, I’d stutter and make it worse. Finally I opened my mouth to speak and nothing at all came out. I tried again, but the panic snowballed—anxiety building, adrenaline growing. I jumped up and headed for the door, opening it and looking out at the hall, but I didn’t leave. I needed to finish my job.

The hallway before me blurred, became another hallway. One from years ago. It still felt as if it were real. It always did.   

Martin had come after me in the hallway after class. He was older and taller than I was. I could smell his sweat, sour and sharp, as he leaned over me. There was no air conditioning in the school at the compound. He crowded me into a corner, face thrust too close, tight and hateful, pale eyes fixed on mine. Daring me to look away. A couple of classmates averted their eyes but didn’t try to stop him. He sneered at me, called me names—fag, homo. He tugged at the front of my jeans. I turned to my side in the corner, trying to get away from his hands. He asked if that’s what I wanted, to take my pants off for him.

I pushed him off me and decked him one, and he turned around and beat the hell out of me. He didn’t get in trouble for it, either—as the son of the Rev. James Thornton, leader of the religious group I was raised in, he rarely ever did. No matter what he did.

It was short, but still a full-on flashback. I hadn’t had one in a while, but it’d been a stressful day and then the near-accident, now Mr. Kiriakis’ hostility—it all caught up. I came back to reality to find myself standing at the doorway shaking, poised to flee, Mr. Kiriakis leaning forward in