Fate, he suspected, put him in the men’s room just at the right moment. The sight of the young man when he entered nearly took his breath away. God, the kid was a looker, with full lips and the cutest scowl. The rest of him hadn’t been bad either. He had a nice, lithe body, a tight-looking, little ass, and a decent-sized cock. But the first thing that had caught his attention were those big hazel eyes. Dimitri dreamed of the young man’s face as he walked the crowded streets.
He sighed. Even he could tell that the guy was educated and refined, and had impeccable manners. Dimitri shuddered. Why couldn’t he meet someone like that and fall in love? Ah, no use thinking about him now. I’ll probably never see him again. He turned another corner and entered his tattoo parlor.
“Where have you been?” Greer Smith, the other tattoo artist on call, asked him. The waiting room was packed.
“On a break,” Dimitri told Greer. “Just let me wash my hands and I’ll be right with you,” he said to the customers. He walked into one of the rooms behind the counter, washed his hands, and then exited the room again. Just that fast he noticed that another group of people had arrived. His eyes landed on one of them. The young man he’d met earlier sat in the corner of the room fast asleep. Dimitri’s body stirred and he smiled.
“What’s wrong with you?” Greer asked him.
“Nothing,” Dimitri lied.
Greer followed his gaze. “Cute,” he said.
“Yeah,” Dimitri agreed.
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah, we met a couple of minutes ago,” Dimitri answered. He leaned toward Greer and whispered, “I think I love him.”
“No,” Greer said as if he didn’t believe him.
Dimitri nodded. “Yeah.”
* * * *
The alarm sounded. Eli’s eyes slid open. He tried to move but he got a sharp pain in the pit of his gut. He groaned, sitting up. His head throbbed unmercifully. He always felt like crap when he didn’t get at least eight hours sleep. Served him right for letting Trey and the others talk him into hanging out for most of the night. He rose from the bed and walked into the bathroom to pee. The acrid scent of his urine assaulted his nostrils. Eli sniffed at his arms. He reeked of sweat.
Eli finished pissing, walked over to the shower, and turned on the water. He looked in the mirror over the sink while he waited for the water to heat up. “Yuck,” he said as he gazed at his reflection.
Bloodshot eyes stared back at him and he had cotton mouth. He stripped out of the clothes he had worn since last night, tossed them into the hamper, and then stepped into the shower. He jumped. Too cold. Eli adjusted the water to a warmer temperature and then washed his hair. He didn’t remember what time he got home this morning, but he suspected that it was before dawn. Henry’s older brother, Ross, had dropped them off after the graduation and came back for them and deposited him on his doorsteps.
Eli finished his shower. He wrapped a big towel around his head and stepped out the tub. He was just about to dry the rest of his body when he looked down and gasped. “No!” Right above his pubic hair he noticed a fresh tattoo. He couldn’t see it too clearly because the more he bent the more it disappeared into the folds of his skin. He found a hand mirror to examine it more closely. It was small, but obviously there. Had he fallen asleep again? His friends always teased him about his ability to sleep anywhere when he got tired. He sighed.
They usually played tricks on him, too, when this happened. The last thing he wanted was something tacky like a tattoo on his body. The image of a tattooed arm flashed in his mind. Eli shook the memory away. He didn’t want to think of that either. He looked down into the mirror again, trying to make out the word. “L-O-V-E-R,” he spelled out. Someone had branded him in ink. “I’m going to kill those guys.” Eli continued to dry off, examining his body, trying to find other tattoos. He didn’t find any on the front of his body, and he couldn’t see the back of his body without being a contortionist. He turned.
There was a full-length mirror on the closet door in his room. Eli dashed out of the bathroom and entered his bedroom. He opened the closet and turned his back to the mirror. He groaned. There was another one right at the base of his spine right above his behind. He tried to look at it with the hand mirror but couldn’t see it, so he moved the door close to his butt, tilted the hand mirror so it could reflect into the larger mirror. He groaned again looking at the little tiny heart with the name Dimitri spelled out. Who the hell is Dimitri? When he found out, he was going to strangle him.
Chapter Two
“You came in pretty late,” Eli’s father said to him as he entered the kitchen.
I just graduated from high school. Doesn’t that mean anything?
Eli sat down at the table and Emma, the cook, brought him his breakfast. She’d been with his family for years and knew what he liked. She’d arranged the eggs, bacon, and grits on his plate to form a happy face. Eli sighed. No one in his home thought of him as a grown-up. Fortunately, he’d be going off to college soon, and moving into his own apartment in two weeks. He supposed his mother would visit and put up curtains and bring casseroles Emma prepared for him.
His mother entered, kissed him on the top of his head, and sat down across from him at the table. She wore a nice pink suit and pearls, which meant she’d be going to some type of
