The Old Wheel, page 3
part #2 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
“I told you to fuck off,” I said.
His eyes were tight. His lips pulled back, and a tremor started in his jaw.
“Fine,” I said. “I should have done this the first time I saw you back on campus—”
And then I realized he was crying. His shoulders were staring to shake, and he tried to hug himself, but then the tears fell, and he pulled his hands up to wipe his cheeks.
“I need your help,” he said. “Please.”
Chapter 3
Five Thousand Dollars
You aren’t allowed to break a guy’s nose while he’s crying, so I had no idea what to do. Aston said something unintelligible, crying harder, and then he fell apart completely: hands over his face, shoulders shaking, sobbing.
“Well, shit,” I said.
I picked up my backpack and dusted off the snow. I looked around, hiking up the shoulder straps, giving him time. I shoved my hands in my pockets and thought about those lucky sons of bitches who could turn themselves invisible.
He kept crying.
“Come on,” I said, “it can’t be that bad.”
That made him cry harder.
After about five seconds of that, I patted his shoulder. “Hey.” That was genius-level Jack Moreno. “Hey, hey.”
He scrubbed at his face; his fancy, clear-coat salon nails had been chewed ragged.
“Aston, you’ve got to take a deep breath. I can’t help if you’re like this.”
He started to hiccup, his whole body quivering between sobs.
I scooped up some snow and threw it in his face.
He stopped crying. The snow glittered in the sunlight, almost prismatic as it melted against his flushed cheeks. He stared out at me from behind the white mask. Outrage widened his eyes.
“Deep breath,” I said in a calm voice.
After a few deep breaths, he ran his sleeve over his face, wiping away snowmelt and tears and snot. His eyes and nose and cheeks were red. I thought I detected a fresh trickle.
I hurried to say, “What do you need help with?”
He looked around. We were alone on the smoke pad, but behind Walker, a long parking lot curved away to the west, stretching behind a line of pines to the faculty housing. A few adults were moving toward us—teachers who didn’t have early classes, I guessed, although I couldn’t recognize them at a distance.
“Follow me,” I said.
I no longer had Dad’s master set of keys to the campus, but there were spares of the most common ones in the maintenance building, and I’d added a few of those to my personal collection. I let us back into Walker, and then I turned down a side hall. Walker Hall was the original building of the Walker School, and it had been built to impress. Part of that job, it turned out, meant having a number of conference and meeting rooms—where prospective parents could be wined, dined, and reassured that abandoning their difficult children on the back of a mountain was a respectable—nay, an admirable—thing to do. Most of the time these rooms were empty, so I found one and let us inside.
Dark wainscotting. A bowl of wax fruit. An oil painting as big as I was that showed a severe-looking old white guy with his hair in a pompadour. I sat at the table, squirming free of my backpack and coat, and my phone buzzed.
The message was from Holmes: Where are you? You’re late for class.
As Aston dropped into a seat opposite me, I texted back: Running late.
You didn’t answer my question.
I sent him a kissy-face emoji and locked my phone.
When I looked up, Aston was wiping his cheeks again, but he seemed more in control of himself. He stared at the polished tabletop, and after a few long seconds, he muttered, “Sorry.”
“Gee,” I said. “You did try to kill my best friend, and you probably would have tried to kill me, and you weaseled out of the consequences completely, but sure, it’s nice that you can apologize for, you know, getting a little weepy when you ask for a favor.”
His chin came up, and for a moment, he met my eyes. “You think there weren’t consequences?”
“Did Mommy and Daddy take away your allowance?”
He cut his eyes away.
“Did Grandpa spank you?”
He made a weird scoffing noise, and I realized it was a laugh. “Grandfather would fucking love that.”
“What do you want, Aston?”
He rubbed his face again, massaged his eyes, and for a moment, it looked like we were back at square one. But then, in a trembling voice, he said, “Someone’s doing it again.”
“Doing what—” But then I caught myself. “Someone’s blackmailing you?”
Still rubbing his eyes, he nodded.
A few months before, our former head of security, Olin Campbell, had blackmailed Aston for being gay—which for most people in 2020 wasn’t exactly a secret worth dying for. If you were Aston Young, though, descended from a long line of proud, sexually repressed Mormons, and your grandfather was an apostle, which was a big fucking deal, then apparently it was worth keeping quiet.
“Shit,” I said. “Who?”
He made that weird, dry rasp of a laugh. “That’s kind of the question, right?”
“Hold on, you want me to find out who’s blackmailing you? And, what? Stop them?”
“Just find them.”
“Then what?”
He dropped his hands; I couldn’t see them under the table, but from the way he moved his arms, I guessed he was wringing them. “It’ll be taken care of.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. “But man, like…how? How is this happening to you again?”
A burst of noise—short, brutal laughter with no amusement behind it—and then, “I know, right?”
In the hall outside, a vacuum buzzed to life. It came closer. And then it bumped against the door to the conference room, rattling it in the frame, and both of us jumped. Our eyes met, and I grinned in spite of myself. Aston’s smile was exhausted but seemed surprisingly genuine. Maybe this is what the Boy Band was like when they came off stage, I thought. Maybe this is what they were like when they stepped out of the spotlight. Or maybe this was part of the act, too. Holmes thought I was a soft touch.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Sorry, but no.”
“I know I’ve been a shit—”
“Tried to kill me and H, remember? Listen, I’m sorry. This is a shitty situation, and nobody deserves that. But I’ve got a lot of my own shit right now, and it doesn’t include getting involved in, well, stuff like this.”
Aston’s throat moved. He wiped his eyes again, but if he was crying, I couldn’t see the tears. When he spoke, the strain in his voice was audible as he fought and failed to keep it even. “Please. If my family—if this becomes public.” He stopped. He put one hand on the table and stared at it. “Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think they put me here?”
Well, I thought, that’s about as fucked up as it gets.
“There are other options.” He breathed more heavily, the rest of the words spilling out. “There are camps.”
The vacuum bumped away down the hall, the sound growing smaller. Aston still had one hand on the table like it was holding him up. With the other, he ran those clear-coat nails around his mouth, fingers trembling visibly.
“Aston—”
His head snapped up, and his eyes caught mine. “I’ll pay you.”
Ok, I know. I know it makes me a shitty person—maybe the shittiest kind of person—that I hesitated.
“How much do you want?”
“It’s not—”
“Five thousand?”
With five thousand dollars, I could keep the jelly-jar fund stocked through the school year, and I could get a whole new wardrobe, and I could buy something kickass for Holmes and Ariana and yeah, even Dad.
But Aston must have mistaken my shock for a refusal because he said, “Ten thousand?”
The air in the room suddenly seemed too warm. Sweat dampened my underarms.
“Ten thousand is too much,” I said, and I hated how hard it was for me to say it. “Five is fine.”
“Thank you.”
I couldn’t help myself; I blurted, “And a bonus, you know, if I do it fast.”
“Oh my God, Jack, thank you.” A huge, crazy grin slipped out, and he pulled his shirt up to mop at his eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me; I haven’t found him yet.”
“You have no idea—you are fucking fire, man. You have no fucking idea what this means to me. Thank you.”
“I’ve got some conditions.”
His head bobbled. “Yeah, of course, absolutely.”
“You tell me the truth. I’m not your parents. I’m not your grandparents. I don’t care what you stick your dick in, or vice versa. So, you tell me everything; that’s the only way we’re going to figure out what’s going on.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“We keep this a secret. Have you told Dawson?”
“What? Why?”
I gave him a look.
Face coloring, Aston mumbled, “Oh. Uh, no.”
“Then what were you fighting about?”
“What?”
“Outside. Like five minutes ago.”
The blank expression lasted a moment longer. Then Aston shook his head. “Fuck, man. I’m so out of it. I haven’t slept in, like, two days. He wanted to borrow some money.”
I let the silence creep in.
Aston sat up straighter. “No way.”
“He tried to buy from me and couldn’t pay,” I said. “And then he’s hitting you up for cash, and all of this happens the same week somebody tries to blackmail you.”
“You don’t understand; it’s not Daw.”
I grunted. “You don’t tell him anything, understand?” I waited for Aston’s nod before continuing: “You don’t tell any of the Boy Band. You don’t tell the Bloopies. You don’t tell your parents or your siblings or your grandparents. You don’t write it in your diary. You and I are the only ones who know about this.”
He scratched his cheek, and for the first time I noticed the bristles—a couple of days’ worth, the stubble of sleepless nights and sleepwalking days. The shadows under his eyes were more visible now, although he’d definitely used concealer—or whatever you used—to make them less noticeable. And the nails, I thought, my attention coming back to his fingers. Chewed down to the quick.
“The Boy Band?” he said.
“You, Dawson, Axle, Riker, Jaxon.”
He ran the backs of his fingers over the stubble again, still staring at me. “You have a name for us?”
“Yeah, well, you make it easy.”
“Who are the Bloopies? What is a bloopie?”
This was why smart people, like Holmes, didn’t shoot their mouths off. “Skye, D’Layne, Remmi, Kaylee, Marielle. The girl version of the Boy Band. We’re getting off topic; my point is, don’t tell anyone.”
Aston’s hand stilled on his cheek. He pursed his lips.
I could see the question forming on his face, so before he could ask, I said, “And I get to break your nose.”
“What?”
“You hurt H bad. I want payback.”
He stared at me. “Are you serious?”
“You’re goddamn right I’m serious.”
“That’s crazy.”
“No, Aston. What’s crazy is smashing the smartest person on the planet in the head with a lacrosse stick—after he’s been shot, by the way—and still somehow managing to have your ass handed to you. You know he could have killed you, right? But he didn’t. I would have, but I got busy and then the police showed up and it was too late. So, I want to break your nose. That’s the least you deserve.”
“Burrows—” But whatever excuse he’d been about to offer, he stopped himself. With a laugh, he shook his head. “Fine. You know, you two are perfect for each other. Pair of fucking psychos: Abercrombie and Supercreep.”
I sat forward. I grabbed one of the pieces of fake fruit, an apple, and sat back. I tossed it from one hand to the other. The surface was waxy, and light rolled along the contour of deep, burnished red. The slap of it hitting my palm matched the hard strokes of my heartbeat.
Aston shifted in his seat, looking everywhere but at me. “I’m sorry—”
“If I ever hear that name out of your mouth, I’ll tell everybody you’re strictly dickly, and I’ll make sure they believe it. You can say what you want about me, but he’s either Holloway or Holmes to you. And you’d better make sure the rest of your fucking friends watch their mouths when I’m around.”
“I didn’t mean—I’m tired, and—”
I pitched the apple at him. He caught it, barely, and then he shook the sting out of one hand.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Ok, but, like, what are we going to tell people? I guess I can say I walked into a door—”
“Jesus Christ. I’m not going to break your nose right now. We’re going to your residence; you’re going to show me how the blackmailer contacted you.”
Chapter 4
Psychic Staring Effect
Aston lived in Baker House, which was also Holmes’s residence, which meant I’d spent a fair bit of time there over the last couple of months. We went through the lobby, past the bulletin board with pictures of the residents and their room numbers and, leftover from last month, paper turkeys and orange letters that said GOBBLE GOBBLE I’M THANKFUL FOR YOU! Holmes, in his picture, was so sullenly impassive that I knew someone had forced him to have the photo taken. I was going to steal it at the end of the school year, and then I was going to put it into one of those Christmas tree ornaments, one of those little decorative frames, and give it to him just to see the look on his face.
On the third floor, Aston let us into his room—a private, of course. If his parents had been worried about, uh, hanky-panky, they should have thought of giving Aston a roommate. It would have made sneaking a boy into his room harder. But then, from what I’d heard—and, occasionally, seen—at Walker, roommates presented all sorts of other opportunities.
The room smelled like fading body spray—the kind that would have been named Jackal or Beast or Roar, the chemically strong kind that seemed to take up permanent residence high in your nose. A U of U flag hung on one wall; a window was centered on another; and the third was taken up by the desk and closet. Blue plaid bedding, a mini fridge with a Taco Bell sticker on the door, the black-and-red gaming chair, the PS5 (which had only come out a month ago), the TV the size of my sofa (which was not a joke)—it all felt like standard Boy Band fare. On the nightstand, he had a tangled charging cord, tissues and lotion (cue mental vomit), a tube of Burt’s Bees lip balm, and a clutter of framed four-by-sixes. I moved over to take a look, while Aston closed the door. Behind me, I could hear him shifting his weight from foot to foot. The photos weren’t anything special: various configurations of an eyewateringly boring, attractively blond family. The hardass in the black suit and the comb-over had to be the infamous Grandfather. In the back, behind all the other pictures, was a framed photo of the Salt Lake Temple.
“My parents,” Aston said. I hadn’t heard him come up behind me, and now he was close enough for me to smell the breakfast burrito on his breath. “Bruce and DeeDee. My sister Camdyn. Grandfather. And that’s Wendy.”
“You don’t call her grandma?”
“She’s his second wife; they got married last year.”
“Jesus. Seems kind of late in the game.”
“Yeah, well, being married is a big deal for Mormons. It doesn’t look good to stay single.”
The last few words held so much packaged bitterness that I glanced over my shoulder. For a moment, something vulnerable and alone showed in Aston’s face. Then he frowned and dropped onto the bed.
“Let’s see it,” I said.
I expected him to reach for his laptop or pull out his phone, but instead, he dragged one of the pillows over to him. He rummaged around inside. Paper crinkled as he pulled it loose. Several sheets, I saw. He held out the topmost, and I raised my hands and shook my head.
“Has anybody else touched it?”
“No, I haven’t told anyone.”
“You need to keep it somewhere safe. And you need to buy some of those plastic page protectors in case there are fingerprints on it—they sell them in the school store. If this guy sends you another one, don’t touch it with your bare hands. Gloves.” I gave him a crooked smile. “In a pinch, use a condom. Unlubricated, obvs.”
He glared at me, but he laid the page on the bed. I moved closer to examine it. It looked like cheap copy paper, the kind we stocked in the library and the computer lab and the production center, which it probably was. It had been printed landscape. The font didn’t look like anything special, but I wasn’t exactly an expert on fonts. All caps.
$50,000 OR THEY GO TO YOUR PARENTS.
When I looked over at Aston, he dropped his gaze and mumbled, “Do you have to?”
“It’s up to you, I guess.”
He drew the remaining pages closer to his chest. Then, cheeks flaming he laid the next one on the bed.
Aston was…athletic. I’d give him that. The picture captured him riding a dick—whose dick, you couldn’t see because of the angle of the camera. The most you could tell was that he had dark hair on his legs—no tattoos, no distinguishing marks. Aston’s head was thrown back, his hands planted behind him, his thighs bunched with muscle. He was pretty, I decided. And flushed with sex, his dick half-hard between his legs, he was disturbingly hot, which suggested that I was perhaps the worst human ever to live. I recognized the blue-plaid bedding and the splash of red—the U flag on his wall.
“You can turn it over,” I said.
He flipped the page without looking at me. He was still for a moment, probably bracing himself. Then he laid out the next one.
The angle was different. Aston was on his hands and knees, jaw dropped, a strand of drool hanging. Red mottled his face, and his eyes were glassy, his pupils blown. High on something, although I couldn’t tell what. It might have had something to do with the bottle of poppers someone was holding under his nose, but from his vacant expression, I thought it had to be more than that. A bite mark darkened his collarbone. A hand clamped on his hip. The arm led to a torso with a fair amount of dark hair but lacking adult mass and definition. Whoever had taken this photo, they’d been careful not to capture the second guy’s face—or to crop it out, at least.
