Bad Influence by K. A. Mitchell

tricking?”
    Eli stretched out on his back and folded his hands across his stomach. “As much as he can?”
    “What the fuck does that mean?”
    “It means I told him. But I don’t know how much he gets it. How much anyone else can. Any time it comes up, he gets super protective. Which is sweet, kind of, but I don’t want to be packaged in bubble wrap in order to leave the house, you know?”
    Silver didn’t know. No one had ever really given a shit about protecting him. Controlling him, yeah.
    When he’d been with Zeb, things had gone like they had the night in the cell. Silver having to look out for himself while Zeb floated around in his flower-child, Jesus-loves-you bubble. How the hell had Zeb managed two years in Haiti? Only in private did Silver ever get to see the real Zeb. The one with the wry smile and the absurd sense of humor.
    Silver rolled onto his side, careful not to touch Eli. Didn’t matter. Eli didn’t get the concept of boundaries. He reached over and shoved Silver.
    “So how come you’re not loaded, Mr. Porn Star?”
    “Pretty twinks who’ll fuck on camera aren’t hard to find. I had to do the spanking and bareback stuff to make much. And it was hard to hang on to without a bank account.”
    Eli shot off the bed. “Bareback?”
    Silver had known the explosion was coming. Figured now was as good a time as any. He gave Mr. Safe-Sex Lectures a bored look.
    “Is that where you got it?”
    “Which? Gonorrhea or HIV?”
    “My God—”
    “Save it, Eli. I’m not stupid. And there’s no guarantee it was the modeling.” Silver’s mouth quirked in a half smile as Eli responded to the euphemism with a predictable echo of modeling and flinging his hands over his head. “I did have two boyfriends.”
    “And you weren’t safe with them?”
    “Come off it. Don’t tell me you aren’t getting bred by Daddy every night.”
    Eli stopped flailing and folded his arms defensively across his chest. “We waited. And got tested.”
    “How poster-child perfect of you.” Silver rolled off the far edge of the bed and started for the door.
    “Silver, wait.” Eli caught his wrist. Not roughly, not anything Silver couldn’t yank free of, but if he was going to get an apology, he’d stick around for it.
    But Eli pushed him onto the bed. “You are a serious mess, my friend.”
    “Fuck you.”
    What was it with everyone thinking they could give Silver the tough-love lecture? First that fucking cop, and now Eli? Bad enough he had to stay here, but he didn’t need the lectures on top of it. If he couldn’t leave, he could sure as fuck check out. He picked up the ear buds he’d been using, but before he could take the tablet and turn his back, Eli yanked the cord out of the tablet.
    “Why didn’t you say something?” Eli demanded.
    “To who?”
    “Me, dickhead.”
    Silver shrugged. “You didn’t owe me anything. Why was any of it your problem?”
    “I thought we were friends.”
    “So?” Silver whipped the cord out of Eli’s hands. “That entitles you to hear about all my problems?”
    “No, that entitles you to tell me about them. And me to help you if I can.”
    “By help you mean I get whisked away to Boringland with you and Quinn?” Silver rolled his eyes.
    Eli shook his head. “I mean you could have been safe.”

Chapter Five
    Safe. For the rest of the day Silver turned that word over and over in his head. What the fuck did Eli mean by safe? Usually when it came out of his mouth, it was as a pair, one word. Safesex. But Silver didn’t think that was all Eli meant this time. What? Safe like they’d been in the shelter, barely off the freezing street, surrounded by drunks? Safe like Eli was, trapped here in suburbia, cooking and cleaning like a good little housewife? Or safe like they’d offered at the clinic, under the supervision of case managers and social workers crawling into every bit of his life?
    He hated this feeling. Eli acted like there was some kind of simple answer