Quarantine Bae

The Quarantine Bae Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Saint’s POV

I stare down at Saint Copper Jr. with a face full of concern. We call him Squeak for short because we had him he came out squeaking instead of crying. Back then me and his mother Diana were in a relationship. That, of course, was until Diana cheated on me and things went south. Now his mother was sick and Squeak knew something was wrong. He was just a kid but kids were smart these days. I could tell he had an inkling that it was bad.

“I know this must be a scary time for you. If there’s anything I can do to make this easier…”

He won’t say a word. Not a single sound. He’s been like this for days since I went across the country to get him to bring him back to Sunnyside. I can tell he’s having a hard time and the truth is I wanted to just lighten him up a little bit.

“Do you wanna watch tv?” I ask, “Maybe play a board game with me?”

He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even lookup. Having a kid that you didn’t raise was hard. His mother took off across the country before I was able to stop her after we broke up chasing some guy. It was the worst situation. And now I had my son struggling to realize that I’m his father.

That’s when I remember the boy on the elevator. Jared. I quickly go into my bag and pull out the game that he bought. All the stores were closed so I had to go to some black market hole in the wall to get the game for three times its price.

Please God let this work.

“I heard from a friend you may like Paw Patrol…” I say.

That’s when he lets out the slightest bit of a smile from one side of his face to the other. It’s slight. Something that shouldn’t mean anything at all but when he runs over and grabs the game I feel this relief.

He doesn’t thank me. He immediately goes to his room and starts playing with it. But that’s all I need. That’s all that matters.

Just then a key starts turning in my door. There was only one person who had a key to my apartment and that person was Soul.

Soul rushes in the house, falling over the island out of breath and sweating looking like he’s just gone through World War III yelling a loud heavy, “FUCK!”

“Yo watch your mouth. Your nephew is in the other room…”

Soul sighs heavily, “Sorry man. You don’t know what the hell I just been through. Remember that rally I was telling you about?”

“The dumb one I told you not to go to?”

“All hell broke loose. They started shooting out there. Fights broke out. People were getting trampled.”

Shit. I get silent all of a sudden feeling bad for having him respond this sort of way. I’d been watching the news. Civil unrest was everywhere. People were afraid. They thought they would get this disease. They thought they would lose their rates. Every day the death rates were spiking. Every day new records were being broken.

Things were getting so bad.

“Are you OK?” I ask him.

“I’m fine, you know I’m a tough mothafucka,” he states with this heavy look on his face, “Ain’t shit getting me down.”

That was the thing about Saint. He always thought he was invincible. Ever since we were kids when he would do crazy dares. To this day I don’t know anyone who has had more stitches then him. He always pushed it. Always. It didn’t get better as we grew older. The risk just increased. Even now instead of getting a job, he’d decided to go into the business of selling weed, pills, and shit like that. He’d been to jail twice but that hasn’t stopped him. And I was the responsible one always trying to make sure that my brother didn’t get into too much trouble. I was always the one trying to make sure that he didn’t end up in some deep shit.

“You need to sit your ass in the house after this…”

“I just might now.”

“Oh, the rally scared you straight?” I ask with a laugh.

“No still gay,” he plays with the words, “But I have a reason to stay in the house now. I met someone at the rally who stays in this building. Why didn’t you tell me you had a cute ass neighbor?”

“Wait huh?”

“Jared, I think his name was,” Soul says licking his lips, “Kind of awkward, innocent, FATTT ass. Just like I like em.”

All of a sudden it clicks he’s talking about Jared from the elevator. What were the chances that they’d met at the rally? There had to be hundreds of people who attended something like that.

“Oh yeah. He’s cool as fuck,” I say, “Gave me a suggestion to entertain Squeak that worked…”

“You need to hook me up,” he licks his lips again.

“Don’t. He’s a good guy, Soul.”

Soul had this thing. This thing where he got with guys and just sucked the entire soul out of them. It made his namesake. There was a laundry list of guys who had all this bad history because of things that Soul had done to them. Things that pissed them off enough to want to track him down because of vendettas. He had a way of turning good boys bad and then turning them into vindictive boys.

“Listen, he’s in good hands,” he slaps his hands together laughing and revealing his mischievous smile.

“Like all your other failed relationships?”

“I know you’re not talking. You’re the wrong one to give advice. You’ve been cheated on by how many girls? Three.”

“You gonna bring that up? Really?”

“Just riddle me this? How does it that happen? You have the Cooper bloodline meaning you can get any girl you want. Is it something your not telling me?” He asks with a teasing laugh before adding, “Like maybe you weren’t blessed with the gene in your jeans…”

“My dick is fine, TRUST me,” I assure my brother punching him dead in his arm and letting the entire thing go numb, “I just had bad luck with women.”

I didn’t get it. I looked at the part. And from all accounts, my sex game was on point. I cooked. I cleaned. I catered to my woman’s every need. But maybe that was it. Maybe I was too much of a pushover. Maybe my bad luck stemmed from the fact that I allowed these women to do all these things.

“Maybe things will change with the new move. Didn’t you say you were seeing a new girl?” Soul states.

“Something like that…”

There was something that I hadn’t told my brother. Something that I hadn’t told anyone really in my life.

Now let’s get something straight (pardon the pun). I love girls. I love looking at them; I love their lips wrapped around my cock, and I love the feeling of my cock buried deep in their tight pussies or round asses.

The fact was that though, this new girl I’d been seeing…wasn’t a girl at all.

I’d tried dating a guy.

~

I put Squeak to bed. Almost immediately my brother turns on the television. I’m trying not to pay attention to it as I walk back in the living room but Soul is glued to it. He must have been waiting for Squeak to get to bed before he could do what he wanted to do.

“People are rioting all over,” he says, “It’s chaos in the street. This is what happens when you aren’t honest with people.”

No, this is what happened when people were scared that some virus may cause them to lose their lives. They didn’t have jobs, they didn’t have food and they didn’t have support. I’m not surprised by any of this.

“Can you turn this shit off,” I tell him.

“Saint we are living at the end of the world. Don’t you want to know what’s happening?”

“No…no I don’t.”

Just then as though the universe was challenging me, I hear a knock on the door. The thumping causes me to jerk up. It was supposed to be a time of social distancing. People didn’t just knock on the door. Not in a time like this.

I look over at Soul wondering if it was someone that he invited over but he looks just as clueless as I do.

“Ain’t you going to get it?”

He says that while he walks over to the door. I cut him off immediately knowing that my brother wasn’t going to take any precaution. So I decide to reach for the door myself and slowly open it. I see this tall dark-skinned young black man standing there looking back at me from the threshold. He has this flustered look on his face that tells me something is wrong.

“Can I help you?”

“Aren’t you going to open the door?”

“No. There’s a disease out here,” I respond, “How can I help you?”

This guy could be anyone. I’d heard of people getting desperate on the news breaking into people’s houses to rob them even when they were at home. The sad thing is they weren’t taking money. Money was becoming secondary nowadays. They were taking food.

“I know you don’t know me…but Maria on the second floor mentioned that you were a nurse. My roommate Jared was at this event and he got shot.”

Maria, the nosy ass lady on the second floor. She was always in someone’s business and now she was telling my business to a stranger.

“Jared. It’s that cutie from downstairs,” Soul points out listening to my conversation from the open kitchen.

“I know who he is,” I state turning back to the door to Jared’s roommate, “Listen—-take him the hospital.”

“Are you joking? Haven’t you heard? First, they are at capacity. Secondly, the hospitals are full of people who have the disease. It’s a hotbed.”

Soul isn’t helping when he adds in from the kitchen, “He’s right. Even the news is saying that you should go to the hospital as a last resort.”

Jesus.

I’d taken some time off work because of my son and hadn’t been able to go back.

“What’s going on out there?” I ask, honestly perplexed by the situation.

“This is why I told you to watch the news,” Soul points out.

I’m scared. What kind of world had this become where people couldn’t even go to the hospital. The nervousness of the situation hits me as I’m standing at the door trying to decide if I should risk my life to get involved in this situation.

These guys were strangers. Any of them could have had the disease. Or maybe this was a set up to rob me.

Jared seemed nice enough when I met him but this wasn’t Jared.

“Are you going to help or not?” Jared’s roommate asks downstairs but

I go downstairs following Jared’s roommate from the door clearly showing impatience that is coming from the desperation to help his friend.

I take a deep breath looking back at Soul who has his arms crossed. I can see the judgment in his eyes. I shouldn’t get involved. I should worry about me and this household. But if this was truly a bullet wound and not the Dark Fever then I should be fine to help him. I should be fine to go downstairs.

“Fine…I’ll help.”

~

I’m worried about my decision by the time I get. As we get down there I can tell that it was probably Jared that decorated this place. It had a bunch of cartoon characters all over the wall. They were pretty nice drawings as well and I remember Jared telling me he was a cartoonist. I have to admit it has this real charm to it. It calms down a lot of the anxiety that I have come down to a place like this.

“Is this Walt Disney’s crib?” Soul asks.

“Shut the hell up Soul. Why the hell are you even down here?” I ask.

“You know I gotta check to see if my future boo is OK.”

I roll my eyes. It’s embarrassing because I think Jared’s roommate hears it. This guy was constantly thinking with his dick and nothing more. He didn’t know the first thing about Jared and here he was tagging along with his invisible cape on as if he knew anything about bullet wounds.

If Jared’s roommate heard what he said he didn’t seem to be interested in that right about now.

He leans over and offers me his hand, “Thank you for coming down man. I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself. I’m Tivonte.”

I don’t shake his hand. No way I was risking it. Doctors said the virus spread through contact and it also spread if someone started sneezing next to you. I was paying close attention to see if this Tivonte showed any symptoms.

“I’m Saint. That’s my brother Soul,”. I say skipping the small talk and just saying, “Where is the patient?”

He leads me into one of the bedrooms where I see Jared. Jared is squirming in pain on the bed and I have to admit the kid was a little bit attractive.

“You came…”

The way he looks up at me almost stops me in my tracks. It happened in the elevator as well. It was the reason I had to talk to him. Jared was some poster boy that would stop traffic but it was the small things about him. He had smooth flawless skin, which was like a sheet of well-done cloth. His eyes, which was under his midnight black curls, glinted under the moonlight coming in from his window. He had a high-bridged nose that was among his two eyes. His soft sharp lips were very attractive and captivating. His curls were cooled up at tight. He looks up at me with these giant puppy dog eyes letting me know he’s in pain and it takes everything for me not to run my hands through his hair to comfort him. The last thing I wanted to do come off as weird.

“Hey cutie…” my brother damn near pushes past me. Before I know it his hands are running through Jared’s hair. It was almost as though he was reading my mind or something.

“You’re OK…” Jared says to him.

“I wouldn’t have left you. I didn’t see where you went. Everything happened so quickly.”

“You two know each other?” Tivonte asks complexed about what was happening right now.

I wasn’t surprised. My brother was aggressive. He went after what he wanted and he wasn’t the type to let anyone get in his way. If Jared was sick, he would have immediately been infected by how close he gets to Jared and how immediately he was giving him all this physical contact.

“Barely,”. I answer before adding in, “Do you guys mind giving me some space with Jared to work?”

“No problem,” Tivonte says, “My boyfriend is missing anyway. I need to go back out there and try to find him.”

“Out there? Are you for real?” Jared asks from the bed, “It’s chaos out there…”

“I can’t just abandon Ken,” Tivonte says.

Jared looks concerned about his friend. I wasn’t aware of what was going on in the streets but I could imagine. I could imagine how bad it was getting. And it would only become worse. The streets weren’t safe. Not anymore.

“I’ll go with him,” my brother immediately offers looking at Jared the whole time, “Make sure he’s good.”

“You’d do that?” Jared asks.

Jared was impressed. And to be honest I was a little shocked. My brother was always careless and getting in trouble but he usually did it selfishly.

He must be trying to impress Jared…

“Just make sure you get better. See you when I get back?”

I think at that moment Soul is going to reach down and kiss Jared. I just have a feeling that he was desperate enough to do that. I don’t know why it turns my stomach a little bit how aggressive he’s being.

“We’ll be back as soon as I find my boyfriend,” Tivonte says.

Tivonte finally leaves with my brother who grabs Jared’s fingers before he leaves in some overly dramatic show of affection. My brother couldn’t help himself trying to play hero and honestly, I wanted to stop him from going out there again but I also didn’t want to seem selfish in front of Jared.

I don’t know why his opinion mattered.

When they leave things get quiet. I take out the equipment that I had in my apartment and start to examine the wound that Jared has.

I can see his eyes watching me the entire time.

“Thank you for doing this,” he says.

I look up at him. There are only a few times in my life that I’ve met someone and just known they were pure. He was that kind of soul. The kind of person who didn’t have a lick of spite in their soul. He had this sweet kind demeanor that was almost gentle. He had the kind of spirit that needed to be put up and caressed. He had the kind of spirit that needed to be protected no matter what.

“What’s a guy like you doing out there anyway? That seems I don’t know…unlike you…”

“My roommates kind of a hothead…but I love him like a brother so I went out there with him.”

“Well, we have that in common. My brothers the same way.”

“Well us safe ones need to stick together…” I shrug.

“I’d like that…”

Our eyes connect after a few seconds. It’s awkward in a way but not in a bad way. It almost just feels like we understand one another. It almost feels like we know one another. It takes me by surprise and it’s Jared who breaks the moment with this small smile across his face. He had the cutest smile. I smile back and realize I’m getting distracted so I look down at the wound.

“So good news is the bullet missed you…but we are going to have to make sure to clean this real well. It might hurt.”

“I need a distraction…”

He reaches down and grabs on the side of my bed.

“You can hold onto my arm —-if you want…”

“It’s as hard as a rock,” he says, “Guess you didn’t gain Quarantine weight…”

I try not to blush as he grabs onto my arms. I knew I was an attractive guy. For so long girls loved my muscles and things of that nature. Still every time someone seems impressed I am transformed back into that geeky little kid who was in the shadow of his brother growing up.

No-one except my mother had thought I was handsome as a baby. Their gaze had halted when they got to my roman nose and their “new-baby-smile” had faltered for a fraction of a second. As a boy, I didn’t attract the girls. I was skinny and my cheekbones just gave me a skeletal look. But by fourteen I was filling out, I had muscles from biathlon training and running all summer. By twenty it wasn’t just the girls after me. I had grown into those features, my bone structure was fine and perfectly symmetrical. But for some reason, I still felt the same way and maybe that’s why even though I like the attention I pull back.

“Sorry,” he says, “That was a bit forward…”

Great. Now he felt like I was disgusted by him or something. That wasn’t the case. The truth was getting attention from guys was new to me. Hell after all the cheating that had gone on with girls I felt this deep insecurity.

“No, it’s not. It’s…” I start but find myself stuck in my word and changing the subject, “How about you tell me about the first thing you’ll do when the world goes back to normal?”

“You don’t want to know…”

”Is it something crazy? Skydiving?”

“No…I’m going to write a gay cartoon,” he tells me.

It’s the little things about him that intrigued me. Little things like this.

Before you know it we start talking. It starts with just a small conversation but before I know it we are both wrapped up in the conversation together. It’s easy to talk to him. It’s as though I’ve known him forever. Hours pass and somehow I’ve found myself in his bed.

“Honestly with Squeak over I’ve been watching so many cartoons that when I change the channel real people scare me.”

I’m laying on the bed next to him as we are laughing. Tivonte and Soul haven’t come back yet. We are close on the bed. He laughs hard. Harder than I expect him to. Before I know it his hands are slapping up against mine. I don’t think he notices it but I do. He doesn’t notice his hand is somehow resting on my thigh because he is so amused.

“Cartoons will do it to you. I used to have a crush on a cartoon character.”

“Quit. Which one?” I ask.

“I don’t want to say…”

“Judgement free zone here…”

“Johnny Bravo…”

I break out into laughter to the point that I start crying, “Johnny Bravo! Isn’t that the narcissistic guy with the big blonde hair…”

“Quit. Bravo was a hunk growing up.”

“I hope your taste in men isn’t as bad as your taste in cartoons.”

I say it as a joke. We are laughing but all of a sudden it looks like he takes that kind of serious. I’m just hoping I didn’t offend him when I realize the smile we’ve shared for hours is wiped off of his face.

“Maybe that’s why I’m single,” he explains, “Nothing worse than being quarantined with a couple…”

He looks down about it.

“Tivonte and his boyfriend?”

“Yeah, they are all over each other. Caught them having sex in the living room.”

“Damn…”. I stare before turning and adding, “Well they are lucky to be in your presence.”

“Don’t try to save the lonely third wheel’s feelings. I know when I’m not wanted. What Tivonte and his boyfriend have is real and I know this is bad to say but I’m jealous of it…”

I look over at him and can tell this is something bothering him. I don’t know why I do it but I reach my hand over and place it on his hand. It’s not awkward when I do it. We’ve been touching each other throughout the conversation by accident so I don’t think he even notices. This time I don’t touch him by accident though. I do it on purpose.

“You’ll have that one day too. Having someone isn’t everything it looks like. I have been seeing up with someone and it’s the dryest conversation. We have nothing in common.”

“So why are you still seeing this girl?” He asks me.

He assumed it was a girl. Apart of me wants to correct him but the other part of me doesn’t think it matters.

I shrug, “I guess I don’t want to be alone either…”

“Someone like you would have no trouble…”

“What’s that mean?”

He shrugs, “I mean look at you. You’re fine. Attractive. Smart. Kind…”

“Stop it.”

“No seriously you’re my hero tonight.”

No one had ever called me a hero. I think he’s joking but looking in his eyes there are signs he’s serious. I try to avoid eye contact. I don’t know why he’s staring at me so hard. I don’t know why it’s affecting me so much. It just feels like the entire world is standing still as he looks over at me.

“It was a pleasure man,” I say but then for some reason add-in, “I mean just talking to you anyone would be lucky to be quarantined in the house with you…”

What the fuck were you doing, Saint? Were you flirting with this guy?

He turns to me. That’s when I notice his hands squeeze my hand. He did notice! He did notice that I was touching him. There is this heaviness in the air as he turns his body completely around to face me.

“You think so…”

It just felt right for me to turn my body completely around to face him as well. Our bodies are facing one another. Our faces only inches away from one another. I try not to stare at his lips but it’s so hard. He looks like he has the softest lips in the world.

And it doesn’t seem hard. It feels easy. The chemistry was there. It was like lightning was trapped in a bottle in this room as we are laying next to one another.

“Yeah…”

That’s when he does it. He turns towards me and goes in for the kiss. I feel my heart racing when he does it. And right before our lips touch I punk out and turn my lips away.

“Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Jared pulls away, “It’s just that we were vibing and…geez, I always go for the guys who aren’t interested…”

He looks like he’s beating himself up. Hard. I look on knowing that the entire moment has just gotten super awkward.

“It’s not that,” I correct him, “I’m seeing someone…”

I don’t say, boy or girl. I wonder if he catches it. If he does he doesn’t show any signs of being any less defeated. All of a sudden I feel like a dickhead. I wasn’t sure if I could make that final step. It wasn’t like I was in a relationship but the guy I had been seeing seemed somewhat emotionally unavailable. He was secretive and discreet. It made me feel better about talking to another guy.

I had the feeling it wouldn’t be easy with a guy like Jared. A guy like Jared required a lot more. A lot more than I was willing to offer right now.

But damn…he turned me on.

“I get it…” he responds, “She’s a lucky girl. You seem like an awesome guy. Either way, you’re still my hero tonight.”

“It was just a flesh wound…”

“But you came in the middle of a pandemic. You risked your life. That means something.”

“You’re worth the risk…” I say to him.

There is this burning feeling in my chest. This feeling makes me realize I can take the risk. I can lean over and kiss this boy right now. And maybe I wanted to. Ever since I’d met him in the elevator I’d felt this weird connection to him. Maybe it was time to see exactly what that connection was.

He doesn’t notice but I’m going in for it. He’s looking down as though still embarrassed but I was ready to show him there was nothing to be embarrassed about. I was ready to show him that maybe I liked him too.

I lean forward going against my nature, taking a risk. I’m aiming at those soft kissable lips of his.

“We’re back!”

I jerk back. Fuck. It was his roommate Tivonte. Heading that they were back ruined everything and all of a sudden I realize this won’t be as easy as I expected it to be.

A part of me wants to at least steal a peck just to let him know how I feel but before I can even do that he pulls away sliding off the bed. He stretches patting down his bandage and calling out to his friend.

“We’re still in here…”

Tivonte and Soul walk into the room. They both have in masks and gloves but remove them as soon as they walk in. They both are breathing heavy. Almost immediately I know something is wrong just by the way they are looking. It just doesn’t seem the same.

It’s Soul, gasping for air, that speaks first, “Its chaos out there. People are rioting. Breaking into stores, building, houses…”

“Are you guys OK?” I ask, “Did you find your boyfriend?”

Tivonte nods, “Yeah he’s in the living room…”

But Tivonte seems to be more concerned with this moment with his friend. He is examining Jared closely when he walks in the room as though Jared is gonna croak. I guess he must not really have trusted me to take care of him. After careful examination he finally says something.

“You’re OK…” Tivonte says grabbing onto his friend and pulling him close.

“Ow! Tivonte… still healing here.”

The two are close. I can tell when Tivonte turns to me and says nodding, “Thank you, man. I owe you for saving my friend. Seriously.”

I look over at Jared. He looks so sexy standing there shirtless. He has a flat stomach but he had a wagon in the back of his pants. I had a weakness for nice asses whether it be on a boy or a girl. With Jared standing up, I definitely regretted not kissing him when I had the chance.

“It was my privilege…”. I state, wanting to add in more ways than one. I can’t help but to make eye contact with Jared. If anyone knew how close I’d gotten to kissing him, and probably doing more, they’d understand. Spending time with Jared might have been the best time I’ve had since this pandemic started.

“At least we know we got some guys who will have our backs. Something tells me it’s not safe to travel for a while,” Jared states.

“Nah. It’s hell outside. We’ll be quarantined in this building together. But don’t worry—-I got you,”. My brother Soul says.

He moves closer to Jared. The boy had no fuckin shame. None at all. I roll my eyes to the back of my head as hard as I can trying not to let Soul ruin the moment but I can’t help Jared giving Soul a little bit a smile as Soul openly flirts.

“Be careful… you might open his wound back up,” I tell my brother.

I grab Jared by his hand and pull him over to my side the room. I don’t know why I do it. It’s childish but for some reason, I feel like that kid again who had to watch my brother get everything he never worked hard for while all I had to do was work. And for some reason in that moment I wanted Jared next to me instead of next to him.

I think it surprises a couple of people in the room because I get these weird stares even from Jared.

It’s Tivonte who breaks the awkward situation.

“You good bro?” Soul asks me out of nowhere probably because of how I pulled Jared away from him.

They are all listening to the answer. Apart of me wants to just tell Soul to stop flirting with Jared but My brother didn’t even know I liked guys. And even if he did, it wasn’t like me and Jared were in some relationship. This was my second time meeting him.

“We can all watch each other’s backs. Matter of fact…I should probably introduce you to my boyfriend,” Tivonte says, “Hey Ken!”

“Ken…”. I whisper confused under my breath.

Jared is the only one close enough to hear me. He turns to me and asks, “You know Ken?”

It couldn’t be. It really couldn’t be the same, Ken.

Just at that moment, Tivonte’s boyfriend walks into the room. Our eyes connect.

“Everything OK?” Tivonte asks his boyfriend.

His boyfriend’s eyes had been stuck on me since he walks into the room but they drop to the ground unsure of what to say next.

And the reason is I knew Ken. He was the guy that I’ve been seeing.

He was the first guy I’ve ever been with.

To read the next chapter in advance go to www.crushedcrown.com