“How long ago?”
“It was my eighteenth birthday. The guy at the end, reaching for me...” Joe shook his head. He didn’t want to think about where the footage of that encounter may be.
“Bad?” Flix studied Joe for a moment. “It’ll be buried deep on the dark web. No one will say anything, even if they think it’s you, because they won’t want to admit where their eyes have been.” He took the glass and put it in Joe’s hand. “Drink up. You need to get back before Peter or Aria tells Devin what they saw.”
“He didn’t see?” Alarm and relief warred inside Joe. He had to find help for Devin soon, but he didn’t want Devin seeing that ad. It was one thing for Devin to spend a month as a prostitute, to know vaguely how Joe had lived before he came along, but it would be something else to see it, see Joe whoring himself out with someone else, see him enjoying it. Devin was going to be a respectable New American; Joe would always be someone who’d fucked for money.
Flix headed for the other room. “If he saw, do you think I’d be the one in here with you?”
Joe could control this one thing. “Don’t tell him.”
Flix wheeled around. “Are you planning to order Aria and Peter not to tell? How are you going to keep Clinton and Maribou from mentioning how much that nice young married man in our group looks a little like a boy they saw having sex on their EC?”
“I’m worried about him.”
“So am I, but I think maybe you and I are worried about him for different reasons right now. You need to tell him before someone else does. He can handle it.”
Flix left before Joe could even begin to explain that it wasn’t Devin he was worried couldn’t handle it.
***
Two days later, Joe got Devin and the others fed, then made his way out to the rickety old barn where Clinton and Maribou had gone to feed their animals — a goat, two horses, and a mournful cow. Joe wanted to try his hand at milking. A few of the barn’s boards rattled in the wind, and he wondered if he could find some nails to fix them.
Inside the barn, he detoured to a stall he’d helped out in yesterday, one that River, the oldest horse Joe had ever seen, called home. The horse had a blanket draped over its back and watched him with bleary eyes. Joe reached out and stroked the horse’s nose. “Hey, bud. Staying warm?”
The horse snuffled at his hand and, finding it empty, swished away.
Joe wandered deeper into the barn, back toward the low-ceilinged machine shop where Devin and the boys had spent the previous several nights. As he drew near, he heard Clinton and Maribou’s slow, easy voices.
“A little more time, Mar.”
“We can’t let being good people cause us to starve.”
“That don’t mean we can’t give them a bed.”
“And eat in front of them? That’d break my heart even worse. It’s kinder to send them on their way, let them see what food they can find farther north, if they’re determined to go to the dome.”
“You know ’s well as I do those boys got no business up there.”
“They’re young, honey. How much did we listen when we were teenagers? Besides, you saw Devin’s granny. That woman drips opportunity.”
“But the Mexican kids. What’s gonna happen to them?”
When Maribou spoke again, she sounded strained. Tired. “I don’t know. But they’re smart. All three of them.”
Clinton grunted. “They’re just a bunch of scared kids.”
“Scared is dangerous, and you know it. Look, baby” — Maribou paused, and Joe could picture her going to Clinton, sliding a comforting arm over his shoulders — “I want to help them, too, but I’m worried they’ll run us into trouble.”
“Not if they fend for themselves.”
“It’s not just the food. It’s... Those two boys hang on each other.”
Joe sucked in a sharp breath, then covered his mouth and flexed to run if he was discovered. The sounds of the animals in the barn must have hidden the noise, though, because the conversation continued.
“The scarred kid,” Clinton said, “he’s just looking out for his friend. That poor big white boy seems in an awfully bad way.”
“And you saw that commercial.”
“Resemblance don’t mean it was him.”
“It adds up. Kids running around the middle of nowhere, no adult, scared. Two of ’em seem like more than friends. The leader, Joe, he’s too skinny, looking an awful lot like a hooker from the TV. And there’s something hurting and desperate in his eyes that was there even before he couldn’t find his daddy, something dark. They need to go.”
Joe heard the finality in Maribou’s words. He’d been foolish to hope for more. They never should have stayed beyond the first night. He retreated to the horse’s stall, where he petted the stiff brown hairs on the horse’s muzzle.
How easy it would be to go back to the house, clean out Clinton and Maribou, take all their food, and leave. Hell, he could use his gun right now, force them out, take over the house, make it his. That was what they expected him to do, wasn’t it? A desperate gay prostitute? Though the kicker was that it wasn’t even him they suspected of sleeping with Devin; it was Flix. A desperate prostitute, then. How close was that to the truth?
He wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck and scraped his cheek against its mane. Warm and solid, the horse stood still and allowed him to hold on. Joe let himself have one hug, then pushed away and headed back toward Clinton and Maribou.
He found them much as he’d expected to, holding hands and standing close. They both looked up as he came through the door, and Maribou’s widened eyes curdled Joe’s stomach.
Clinton stepped in front of his wife and stretched a hand toward him. “Son —”
“We’re heading out now.” Joe’s voice came out
