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Issac felt a shiver run down his spine and he couldn’t tell if it was a fear or a hope that Felinus would do it. Not with his brother in the apartment, he thought, glancing toward the kitchen and then back at Felinus with a scowl. “Fine. I’ll eat, you get dressed, then we go.”
“Watch your tone, baby boy,” Felinus said, giving his neck a squeeze but letting him go with a push towards the kitchen.
Brutus’s suit jacket was hanging on the back of a chair at the table as Issac walked in. The man himself was standing in front of the stove in the galley kitchen, flipping a pancake without a spatula and wearing a white apron over his dress shirt with its rolled-up sleeves. “Buongiorno,” he said, taking a plate from the oven and putting it on the breakfast bar.
“Morning,” Issac said surly as he looked at the plate then to the blue insulated bag Felinus had bought at the mall for far more money than he was sure the bag was actually worth. It looked absolutely brimming with containers and he suddenly felt like throwing up.
“You want milk or orange juice,” Brutus asked, not seeming to notice or care that Issac hadn’t actually sat down yet as he turned off the stove and walked over to the fridge.
Letting out a long sigh, Issac pushed himself into the stool in front of the plate. “Whichever is fine.” He froze as he looked at the breakfast. “Kleine,” he muttered, staring at the half-dollar-sized pancakes in one corner of his plate with a small saucer of syrup nestled in next to them. Flat breakfast sausages, small potatoes, and a handful of halved strawberries rounded out the plate, but he couldn’t quite look away from the small pancakes, a faint powdering of sugar on top of them.
“What was that,” Brutus asked and Issac yanked his eyes up to see the man pouring milk into two glasses, one taller than the other, in front of him.
“These are small,” he said, cursing himself silently for the slip and trying very hard not to think of the last time he had tiny pancakes made for him.
Brutus nodded and set the smaller glass next to Issac’s hand. “I did some reading on your condition last night,” he said, producing a stack of regular-sized pancakes from the counter behind him and leaning against it with a fork in hand. “One of the articles I read said that it was usually easier to eat more if the things are one bite or finger foods.” He gestured to Issac’s plate. “Hence, tiny pancakes.”
“You read articles about malnutrition?” Issac asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Considering I’m the one who does most of the cooking around here,” Brutus said, cutting into his pancakes, “I thought I might as well see what I was getting into.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Issac told him, glancing at his plate.
“Hey, Issac,” Brutus said and waited until Issac looked up before continuing. “Shut up and eat your pancakes.”
Issac swallowed and looked back down at a plate that could have come from a childhood memory. “Can I get a fork, at least?”
* * *
Dimitri leaned against the wall in front of the roundabout where he had watched Issac get into the sports car with the Italian Cat, and took a sip of coffee still too hot to drink. He still didn’t believe Adrian when he said it was a date. Adrian hadn’t seen the way Issac had paled when Lacy had mentioned his ID card, or how fast Issac’s body language had changed when the Cat threatened Dimitri. Issac was fearless, Dimitri had always known that. You had to be to face the world with no family to support you; he knew enough from the bits he managed to wiggle out of Issac over the years that any blood Issac might have had been estranged and no contact with him since before college. No, it wasn’t a date; it was a kidnapping made to look like a date. Dimitri might begrudgingly agree that it was a booty call, given the state of Issac’s neck and the way the Cat had been leering down at him. But not a date. Issac didn’t date.
Adrian’s words about Dimitri manning up had hurt. Dimitri had done everything he could think of to make his intentions and interest clear over the years only for Issac to shut him down again and again with excuses. He hadn’t pressed the matter because he knew that as much as Issac’s rejections to hang out with him hurt, not being able to sit with him would hurt more. He had been fine with it. He had always imagined that once they had graduated and there wasn’t so much pressure on Issac to maintain the GPA that guaranteed his scholarships and grants Issac would give him a chance. That they could be more than what they were now.
His jaw clenched as the same sports car pulled into the roundabout and he forced his hand to stay loose so he didn’t crush the coffee cup. He never liked Italian sports cars.
A thin young man opened the passenger door, tawny hair pulled into a messy ponytail. He paused, looking backward when a voice said something Dimitri couldn’t hear. A scarf wrapped around his neck, long fingers purposefully dragging along the young man’s marked skin. Dark eyes rolled but the gray scarf stayed on as he got out of the car. Dimitri could see he was wearing dark sneakers, jeans with the outline of a phone visible in the front pocket, a dark blue collared shirt with white dots, and a leather jacket that looked a size or two too big with a heavy blue backpack already on his shoulder.
The Cat’s voice called after him and he bent over to peer into the darkness.
“Fine, fine,” Issac’s voice snapped from the styled man’s mouth, pulling a large rectangular bag the same color as the backpack out of the front seat before slamming the door.
“Chert voz’mi,” Dimitri swore as hot coffee spilled over his fingers from the crushed cup. The cold air stung the red skin as he shook the liquid away and threw the cup into the trash can next to him. “Issac,” he called, his friend already walking past him.
Issac glanced back and slowed but did not stop as Dimitri caught up with him. He shook the leather jacket sleeve back and Dimitri saw that his cute digital watch had been replaced with a silver analog one. “You’re cutting it close, Dimitri,” he said in the same reproachful tone he had always used when it was anything but fifteen minutes before class started.
Dimitri felt himself smile. “I am,” he agreed, suddenly not wanting to bring up yesterday or what he had just seen at all. “Ty prostish’ menya?”
Issac’s eyes rolled and Dimitri’s smile widened when he didn’t give him an answer. Maybe Adrian was right that Dimitri should have pushed for Issac’s attention more but there was something reassuring in how Issac acted as if everything was exactly the same as it had been on Monday. He’d figure out what was going on with Issac and the Cat later. There was no reason to-
“Well, look who finally got an upgrade,” a sneering voice called from across the little courtyard space next to the classroom. Daniel Busch and his other “old money” friends were sitting at a table, every one of them looking at Issac. “Ikey-boy! I heard you got a sugar daddy last night but I didn’t think he’d work that fast. Is it really that good?”
“Don’t engage,” Issac breathed when Dimitri took a sharp breath in, not even glancing in that direction as he continued to walk at the same pace to the classroom. “That’s what he wants.”
Daniel’s smug look faded somewhat when Issac didn’t twitch as Dimitri glanced at him again without turning his head the way Papa and Adrian had taught him. The rich boy jumped off the table to cross the distance, his jaw tight for a moment before fixing into another cruel smile.
“Don’t,” Issac repeated when Dimitri started to shift to cover Issac’s other side. “Stay out of it.”
There was something in Issac’s voice, a tone that reminded Dimitri suddenly of the Spies and Papa whenever they took command of a situation, and he found he couldn’t disobey Issac no matter how much he wanted to.
