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leather slides and leading the way downstairs to the darkened kitchen.
    Loren switched on the stove light and then set some milk on to boil, reaching out for Eliot and tucking him against his side as they leaned against the counter and waited.
    “So what happened?” he asked, and he felt Eliot sigh.
    “Some guys came out of the bar, drunk. Big dudes, covered with tattoos, and I just—decided they looked like assholes and I should fuck with them.”
    “Jesus, El,” Loren said, appalled. “Was it the coke?”
    “Yeah. Balls in a bottle, the coke, everything. So I grabbed Brandon and started making out with him, and when one of the dudes, of course, called us fags, I said some shit about latent homosexual tendencies, protesting too much, wanting a piece of this. Suddenly there were hands wrapped around my throat. I tried to kick him in the nuts before I passed out, but I missed. Brandon was screaming, trying to pull the guy away, and another guy punched him and he went down hard.”
    Eliot’s lips trembled. “When the bouncers came out, the guys jumped on their bikes and left. I was on all fours trying to breathe, trying not to puke. Brandon was crying and holding his bloody nose. One of the bouncers wanted to call the cops on us, but nobody would tell them what happened or whose fault it was, so the other bouncer just told us to get the fuck out.”
    “God, Eliot,” Loren breathed, and just then the milk started bubbling around the edges. Loren didn’t want it to scald, so he pulled it off the heat, grabbing a tin of his mom’s gourmet shaved chocolate down from the shelf and expertly mixing two mugs of cocoa with hot milk and sugar.
    Then he led Eliot out to the covered patio, snagging one of his mom’s afghans from the family room as they passed by.
    They settled on the oversized chaise lounge side by side, wrapped in the blanket, sipping their hot drinks in silence. The sugar and caffeine soon put some color back in Eliot’s cheeks, and when they were done, Loren set their mugs on the little side table and leaned back against the cushions, pulling Eliot against him and tucking the blanket around them both to ward off the predawn chill.
    “You could have been killed, El. You and Brandon both,” he said quietly, and Eliot nodded, his face miserable.
    “I know, and Brandon’s nose looked really fucked up,” he whispered.
    “All for what, Eliot? A thrill?”
    Loren could feel Eliot shrug. “I don’t know why I do these things, Loren,” he said helplessly. “It sounds like a cop-out to say I can’t help it, but sometimes I just can’t.”
    “Come to me when you feel like that, then,” Loren said. “Maybe I can help you.”
    Eliot snorted. “You act like I’m rational or something, man. You’re the last thing on my mind.”
    Loren couldn’t help but flinch, and Eliot looked up at him, his eyes filling with tears. “Why do you keep me around, Loren?” he whispered. “Why do you even care?”
    Loren didn’t answer right away, stroking one hand up and down Eliot’s back, thinking over the past twelve years. All they had gone through, good times and bad, how almost every decision Loren made was made with Eliot in mind. The memory of a scrawny Eliot, his face filled with anger and determination, facing down a bully covered with brown liquid, surfaced. The words, and a realization, suddenly came to him.
    “Because you took my loneliness away, El,” Loren said simply. “And you’ve always made me feel like I matter, that I come first. Your loyalty. Remember when Bobby LaMotte called me a fatass in third grade and you threw your chocolate milk all over him, not even caring he was twice your size? For the first six years of my life, I felt invisible, and then there was someone to see me. To see me . And love me.”
    “I would have fought a thousand Bobby LaMottes for you, Loren,” Eliot replied, his voice fierce, and Loren squeezed him.
    “I know, and I would kill a thousand black demons for