Quarantine Bae

Quarantine Bae Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Soul

Being quarantined together with these people were beginning to bring out the worst in all of us.  

No one expects Tivonte to punch my brother but he does.  For a while Tivonte has been really close to my brother.  They’d been so close that I was starting to assume my brother was replacing me with Tivonte.  And why not?  They were both these handsome guys who had everything handed to them throughout their lives.   They never had to struggle.  Not really.  Not like I did.   And a part of me resented them for this but surprisingly seeing my brothers jaw jerk back to his friend wasn’t really something that I wanted to see.  

He stands there on the ground and I swear that my brother is going to hit him back when he gets up and takes a quick lunge towards Tivonte but something stops him.

The only thing that could stop him.

Jared.

“Don’t,” Jared states standing between the two men.

“Your fucking friend hit me…” Saint states.

“And I’ll do it again.”

It takes me and Jared to hold Tivonte back at that moment.  Tivonte was like a mad bull and the red he was seeing was my brother Saint.  At the top of his lungs he is screaming out, “HE FUCKED MY BOYFRIEND!”  

It takes several minutes to get him to calm down long enough to get anything but expletives out of him.

“Guess I’m not the only one losing my shit,” I whisper over to Jared.

I give him a slight laugh.  Sure,  this may have not been the best time to be making jokes but I just wanted to lighten the mood.  Everything had been the worse.   I don’t think Jared gets my sense of humor though because he just gives me a blank look.

Saint barely gets a word out muttering, “I didn’t know Ken and you were dating at the time…”

“He told me not to say anything,” Ken explains for the rest of the house, “I would have said something a long time ago…”

“Is that true?” Jared asks.

“He’s fucking lying!” I blurt out.  

“Why won’t you let him speak for himself?”  Tivonte says.

It’s hard to defend what my brother did.  It’s hard to explain how he didn’t tell Tivonte what happened.  And the worst part of this is because Ken came out with this all the attention was on Saint.  It was making Saint seem all the more shady.  

I try to calm him down, “Look...what my brother did was wrong but I’m sure he can explain if you give him a chance....”

Saint is stuck on stupid standing there.  It’s strange that I’m the one trying to rescue him in this situation.   I’ve been the distant one this entire time.

Tivonte’s pissed but turns to me and says, “You know what.  I haven’t been fair to you Soul.  So if your brother had an explanation then he has the floor.”

I turn to Saint.   Now me putting Saint on the spot wasn’t trying to set him up or something.  I honestly assumed he would be able to defend himself especially around Jared who we both had a crush on up until now.

Unfortunately though Jared, and everyone else for that matter realizes all together that Saint has no excuse for his actions.

“Say something,” Jared tells Saint with this this crazy look on his face.

Saint just turns his head to the ground.   He doesn’t say a word.   He doesn’t even apologize.  

“Saint...say something,” he repeats, “Please…”

“Now we know who the snake is,” Tivonte crosses his arms turning to Jared,  “Clearly this is who you want to be with from the answer to your question.   If that’s the case then that’s great.  But you can either choose a friendship with me or whatever the fuck you want with him…”

“You’re making me choose?” Jared asks.

It’s fucked up.  It’s fucked up Tivonte is so pissed that he is giving him an ultimatum like this.  

“It’s fine…” Saint says.

“What?”  I ask.

“I did what I did and I can’t take it back,” Saint says and surprisingly adds in, “And even if I could…I wouldn’t. I’m not sorry.”

We are all shocked when he says it.   I can’t help but notice this half smile on Ken's face when he says what he says.  The others don’t notice it but I do.   I see that smile that he has on his face.  

“Well now you know how he feels...”. Tivonte points out.

“I should leave…”

“Where would you go?” Jared asks.

“To my apartment.  If you don’t mind,  maybe look after my son here while the quarantine lasts…”

“We weren’t kicking you out,” Jared points out.

“Yes we are.   It’s either him or me, remember,” Tivonte points out.

I couldn’t believe this was happening.   The fact that my brother wasn’t even sticking up for himself was the worst part of all this.   It was almost like he had no recollection of how to stand up for himself.  

“He chooses you…” Saint state’s out of nowhere.

There is a tension when he heads for the door and Jared steps in front of him to block him.  For a moment I swear that I understand it now.  The way Jared blocks Saint from leaving just feels special.   I wondered if the others felt it as well .   There was just this chemistry between the two.  And maybe it was the fact that Jared’s eyes were wet with emotion but I honestly just hated seeing them like this.

“You just going to leave like that?” Jared asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?  There’s nothing in this apartment that I care about except my son.”

Nothing.   That meant including Jared.   And Saint didn’t have to make that clear but the implication was clear to everyone in the room.  It was one last hard rejection of him.

It was one last cruel stab to Jared that comes out of nowhere.    For a moment I think I am in the twilight zone when it happens but it definitely happens.

And with that my brother walks out of the room.

And with that Tivonte just looks over at me shaking my hand and offering,  “I’m sorry man.  I was wrong about you.  I thought you were the problematic Cooper brother.”

“Nah…Soul’s cool,” Ken points out, “Hes been through a lot.”

“We should have known what kind of guy he was when he left you in that grocery store…”. Tivonte shakes his head.

“He was saving your best friend.”

I don’t know why I’m still sticking up for my brother.   Maybe it was the loyalty.  But the truth was where was that same loyalty when I needed him.  Tivonte may have been speaking out of anger but he was speaking the truth.

“And I’m thankful for that but to leave your only brother to die…” Tivonte states, “That speaks to a man’s character.”

I should feel relieved.  I was finally getting the recognition that my brother wasn’t as perfect as he liked everyone to believe.  I was finally getting a bit of confirmation that maybe I wasn’t as bad.  

But why the hell doesn’t it feel good.

~

I find myself chasing my brother out into the hallway and swinging him around right before my brother can get to the staircase.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask, “Leaving your son with strangers in the middle of a pandemic…”

“Jared’s not a stranger,” he explains at that moment barely looking at me in my eyes, “You and I both know that kid loves him.  And to be honest...he’s better off…”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask, “Better off?”

My brother looks heavy.   The Quarantine has definitely had an effect on his mood.   See the thing about being cut off from the world is that it drives you crazy.   All you have is your problems and all you can do is face them.   All of a sudden my strong-willed brother didn’t seem so strong-willed.   There were cracks in the foundations and they were beginning to seriously show.

“I’m not a good dad.  My son connects with Jared a million times more then me.  He talks about missing Jared.  He’s never said that about me.”

“That doesn’t make you a bad dad.”

“And does what I did to you make me a bad brother?” He asks.

I pause.

I can’t answer that truthfully without hurting his feelings.

“You made mistakes,” I admit, “But walking away from Jared like that isn’t going to help things.  That boy cares about you.  I could see it in his eyes.   Tell me you don’t feel the same way…”

Saint sighs deeply, “My feelings are what got me in trouble in the first place.”

“What about HIS feelings?”  I ask, “You really hurt Jared just now.  You can’t keep pushing him away over and over and expecting him to keep wanting you…”

“Man why do you give a fuck? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You keep asking about my feelings,  how about yours.  Tell me you don’t have feelings for Jared anymore?”

He was doing this on purpose.  I guess he didn’t want to take his guilt trip alone.  

But I wouldn’t lie.

“I still want him…”

My brother sighs loudly, “I thought so.  And that’s why I’m going to be a better person.  That’s why I’m going to walk away.”

~

I go to sleep that day with a lot on my mind.   Every time I close my eyes I see that dead man in the grocery store.  Jay Boom’s son.   And then I see Jay Boom coming back desperately trying to kill me for what I did to his son.

I wake up in a cold sweat, shaking and not knowing what the hell I could do next.   I’m on Tivonte’s couch.   When I wake up I notice that Ken isn’t sleeping on his usual spot coiled up on a blowup bed in the living room.  That could only mean one thing and one thing only.

He was sleeping with Tivonte.

Had Tivonte already forgiven him for the infidelity.   It was clear he was more upset with Jared then Ken during the exchange earlier.   To be honest the thought of it just kind of made me sick.

I notice someone else is up though.

“Jared…are you up?”

“No I’m goin down,” he says.

I can smell the alcohol from here.   He doesn’t have on anything but these skimpy little bedtime shorts that were barely doing their job.  He’s left his door open and I notice Squeak in his room asleep.   I go behind him and close the door.  When I walk back to the bar it’s clear that he has been drinking straight Henny on the rocks.

“How many of these have you had?” I ask grabbing his glass, “A barely half naked guy, drunk with his ass out in the air.  Either I’m having a wet dream or you need to stop drinking for the night…”

“First off—-fuck you.  Secondly, I can drink if I want.  Tre—-that’s three in Spanish.  Fourth—-don’t act like you don’t like it.”

He laughs.   For so long I’ve been waiting for Jared just to let loose and laugh around me.   And now he had, after all this time.  

“Fine if you are not gonna stop drinking then I at least want to have one with you.  Anymore ice?”  I say going go the fridge and shaking my head, “Fuck.  There’s no more ice…”

All of a sudden a very drunk Jared breaks out into fullblown tears out of no where.   I walk over to him grabbing him and letting him cry on my chest.

Then he lets me know why he’s crying, “If there’s no ice where will all the polar bears live.”

Oh shit.

So he was that drunk.

“Maybe I should take you to bed…”

Jared looks up at me curiously at that moment and then says, “Maybe you should PUT me to bed…”

The way he was looking at me immediately makes my dick jump.   It wasn’t just a small jump.  My dick immediately became rock hard.

“Stop playing with me,” I say half-jokingly and half real deal serious.

“Who says I’m playing with you?”

That’s when it happens.  That’s when he reaches over and grabs my dick through my pants.  He doesn’t touch it.  He grabs it.   Before I know it he is standing and somehow my hands clasp onto those ass cheeks of his.   I’m so horny that a bit of jizz sprays down the side of my leg as I’m standing there in the kitchen with him.   I’m struggling to control myself but this was the man of my dreams literally throwing himself at me at this moment.

“You have no idea the things I want to do to you right now but I’d rather do those things to you sober,” I state.

“You are sober.”

“I mean when you are sober,  Jared,” I correct him, “Sober you hides the goods.  Drunk you had the food on display.”

And I was on Quarantine so I really wanted to hoard and stockpile as many of the goods as I could.   I had to admit though I was getting a handful of Jared’s cakes and my mouth was watering at this point.

“Sober me hides the goods?  Damn—-sober me is a tricky bitch.”

That’s when he climbs up on the counter.  He swings his head around a few times in some drunk attempt at a sexy dance.   It’s so awkward and that’s what makes Jared so perfect.  He was so beautifully awkward.   I find myself laughing at him but what he does next wipes the laugh completely away.

His underwear comes off.  And he’s sitting there’s with his thigh perched up in the air over his arms.   His asshole is there puckered up at me.  

And that’s when he pats his tight hold a few times.  I watch with my mouth almost open as he puts a finger in his asshole.

I wanted him so bad.

I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

“What the fuck, Jared?  What are you doing to me right now?”

“Your house has fallen.  The Wicked Witch of the West is dead.   Now it’s time for you to follow the yellow brick road.  Now it’s time for you to find the Wizard of Oz.”

I look at him perplexed, “Uh…”

“You’ve returned to Pride Rock.  You have defeated Scar.  Now it is time for you to enter the Circle of life…”

“Jared…I cant take you serious.  You are beyond drunk…”

I start walking away at this moment.  Walking away was the only way that I was going to be able to turn away from him.  As soon as I turn to walk away though I hear him whine out for me.

Then out of no where he says,  “Ok I’m serious.  I want you to make love to me.”

I stop in my tracks and turns.

“You—-for real?”

He nods and looks at me, “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this…”

No, I had no idea how long he’s been waiting but I had been imagining for a long time him saying these words to me,   And he seemed to want me so bad.  He was literally naked with a pink asshole calling for me on the kitchen counter.  

I approach slowly cautiously.  

“You sure about this?”  I ask him, swallowing my spit, “I wanna do this.  I just need to be sure.”

“I’ve wanted this from the first moment I met you….”

The words are magic.   All of a sudden things just feel right when he puts that amount of passion behind his words.  My dick can’t stand to stay in my pajama pants any longer.  Before I know it my pants are at my ankles and my long dick is in my hands.  I’m standing there watching him and wanting to take this to the next level.

And that’s when I think about my brother.   Could I do this to him!  He gave me permission earlier sort of but I know he didnt mean it.  He couldn’t possibly have  meant it, right?  Still, it wasn’t his choice any longer.

 He pushed Jared away so many times.  Sooner or later he had to know Jared would turn away completely.  Sooner or later Jared would turn to me.

“Ok…” I state.

He leans forward, “Ok yes.  Yes Saint…”

Saint. He called me Saint.

That’s when it hits me.  All the passion behind his words.  All the spark wasn’t for me at all.  

Jared was so drunk that he thinks that I am my brother.

“We can’t do this,” I state.

Jared slumps into my arms in a drunken stupor.  He looks so innocent in my arms when I carry him off to his bed.

He looks innocent and for the first time it becomes clear.  More clear than anything else in my life.   He isn’t mine.   He isn’t mine and he never will be mine.

And that’s OK.

~

I walk out to get some fresh air.  I needed to calm down all the testosterone I was feeling from earlier with Jared.  I had to admit he still had a way of turning me on but after he confused me for my brother it was clear where Jared stood.

I walk out onto the rooftop and look over.  The city was so quiet.  

I’m upset about having blue balls but in a way I have to admit that I’m relieved.  Jared wanted my brother.  He didn’t want me and even though I assumed it, I had just gotten the biggest confirmation I had felt in my life.

Who was I to separate them?

I made up my mind.  Tomorrow I was going to tell my brother that it was OK for him to go after Jared if that’s what he wanted.  I was going to tell him that he had my blessing.

I come to the conclusion on that roof when suddenly I hear the noise of a radio playing from below.  It was a truck.

That’s when I notice person driving Ken step out of the car.  He runs to the driver’s seat.  From the rooftop I try to make clear what the hell I’m seeing.

And sure enough Ken kisses the driver.

And I notice who the driver is.

Jay Boom!

The car rears off after the two exchange a few words.  I’m standing there at that moment completely shocked wondering if what I just saw actually happened.  I can’t believe it!  Was Ken just actually with Jay Boom.

Ken is walking up to the house as though it’s nothing at that moment when I turn and scream out.

“Ken!”

“KEN!”

I can’t help myself but to call out to him.  When I do, I see that he has this crazy look on his face.  This look that says everything.  

I stand on the roof and wait until he comes into the apartment.  I figured he would come to the rooftop at this point.

When he gets to the rooftop he just says, “I didn’t know anyone else was up.”

He walks out into the moonlight, walking up to me as though I didn’t see what I just saw.  Maybe that is what he’s hoping.  Maybe that’s when he walks up to the edge to see how clear the view is from the rooftop.  The view was very clear and I think he notices it when he turns to me and jsut stares.  Ken has this look in his eyes.   It’s a guilty look.   And he smelled like sex.  He smelled like straight up sex.  I’d had sex in some low down places in my life and I knew what the smell was like.  

“You got to be fucking kidding me…”

This was someone who was pleading for his boyfriend to take him back and he was out here fucking a guy who was threatening us.

“It’s not what you think,” he tells me.

“You just got dropped off by Jay Boom…”

“I was having a conversation with him.  It worked out in your favor.  I convinced him that you weren’t the one who killed his son.   I convinced him that Someone else did…”

Weird.  Why would he be talking to Jay Boom?  Why would he be trying to convince him of anything.

“Who?”

That’s when he turns.   He looks  at Jared who is laying out passed out on the counter.

After signaling that he set up Jared he gives me a warm smile,  “This is a good thing.   I promise.  Jay Boom is after one guy now.  One guy… Jared…”

That’s when it became clear.   We all thought we were on the same page with this Boom situation.  We all thought that we all wanted to defend the apartment against Boom.   But not Ken.  Ken was willing not only to sell us out but to sell ass to ensure his own safety and throw Jared under the bus.

That’s when I remember the party.   I remember how weird it was when Ken drew that question and handed it to

“Why the fuck are you trying to set up Jared?”

“You know why…”

It was clear.

“You’re worried about the wrong thing man,” he states, “Jared does not want Tivonte.  If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yes he fuckin does…”

“No he doesn’t.  I was just with him.  He was drunk as hell throwing himself at me and he made it clear that he thought I was my brother.  It’s clear he has been crushing on Saint…”

Ken just has a dumb look on his face.  It was almost like he wanted to find a reason to hate Jared at this point.  The fact was he wasn’t bothered by Jared wanting Tivonte, but he was bothered at the fact that Tivonte wanted Jared and not his ass.  

“He has been after BOTH!  He’s after Tivonte.  He’s after Saint.   He gave YOU all of these fake signals.  We had this conversation.”

That was the problem.  In private we had conversations about Jared for a while.   And for a while I listened to everything Ken told me.

“You know what?  This quarantine has been playing with my head.  You want to make it seem like Jared is some dick-hungry problematic person.  But that’s not Jared.  That’s you.”

It felt good finally letting Ken know about himself.

“Oh please.  I thought we had an understanding.  I thought we were in this together against them…”

“No we aren’t,” I state, “I admit you were there for me when the others weren’t.  You helped me through me killing that guy but now it’s clear why you did it.  Now it’s clear you have it out for Jared.   And I’m not helping you.  I’m not covering up for you anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m going to tell them you are sneaking off in the middle of the night to meet with Jay Boom…”

The look in his eyes is pure panic.  Before I know it he’s jumping in front of me desperately grabbing onto my hands.

“Wait.  Hold on now,” he states, “You can’t do this.  Tivonte would never speak to me again.”

We are on the rooftop and he’s damn near at his feet at that moment.

“I’m going to tell them that I lied for you.  I was so angry at my brother that I lied and told him that I pushed Jared down there in that basement---just to piss them off.   I’m going to tell them the truth. I’m going to tell them it wasn’t me.  It was you.”

That was the truth.  I lied.   The truth was Ken was there for me when my brother wasn’t when I had returned after defending myself against Jay Boom’s son.  I knew that Jay Boom was going to come back for revenge.  I knew that he wanted to come back to hurt me.  The truth was that I also knew that my brother had chosen to save Jared.

“He left you,”  Ken states, rubbing it in.

“Yeah.  But Jared needed him.  I didn’t.”

Its unfortunate it took me seeing Ken with Jay Boom to finally realize just how poisonous this guy had been.  I thought I’d had a friend.  I thought I had an ally.  I was clearly wrong.  Ken had a sickness in him, something that probably started before this whole quarantine.  Everyone was looking at me like I had been the one who lost it, but it was more clear now to me than ever before that Ken was the one who was losing it.

Maybe that is why he drops to his knees and says, “Please.  I’ll do anything.  Please.  I’ll suck your dick…”

I could tell he was serious when he grabs at my crotch.  I slap his hands away.  Maybe that worked with Jay Boom when he went to go beg for his life but that definitely wouldn’t work with me.  No way in hell.

“I’m going to tell them everything you were up to…” I state, “It’s over Ken.”

I can see the desperation in his eyes.  This look of complete and utter desperation.  Ken was the kind of guy who used his body to get everything he wanted.  He had gotten Saint.  He had gotten Jay Boom.  He had gotten Tivonte.  And the very thought that someone like Jared could come around and disturbed him racking up all these guys had done something to him mentally.

He had it out for Jared.

And it was time Jared, and everyone else, knew the truth.

“Please.  I’ll do anything.  Jared doesn’t care about you.  Please.  Please.  PLease don’t…”

“Hey man, back up…”

I step backward realizing that he was pressuring me at that point.  That’s when I realize that I’m close to the edge.  Dangerously close.  I look back and notice how close to the edge that I am.  I turn back to Ken.

Ken looks me in my eyes.

He looks down at the ledge too.

“Sorry----” he says.

My heart is racing.  There was no way.  There was no way he would do this.

“Don’t you---”

I can’t finish my sentence because immediately I feel Ken’s hand pushing on my chest.  He pushes me so hard that I feel myself tripping over my own feet.

And I’m falling.

Falling over the rooftop.  

To read the next chapter on the story go to www.crushedcrown.com