Three A.M.
Riley's feet hit the wet asphalt, hoodie soaked through, but focused on wherever he is heading.
A twenty-year-old shouldn't be out at this hour. But staying in that house? He'd have either suffocated or done something he'd never forgive himself for.
The drizzle chills his skin through his clothes, but he barely notices. All he wants is noise... loud, chaotic, drowning him out.
Maybe a club, a drink, the music pulsing through his veins until morning. Maybe then he'd feel better. Or at least numb enough to survive the hangover.
Lucky for him, this is a city that never sleeps. Some places never close. Y.O.L.O., a club everyone raves about, calls his name tonight.
As he walks toward it, his father's voice cuts into him: "How many times have I warned you to stay away from that boy!" The shout had rattled the whole house awake his grandmother who they live with, his brother and his mother.
"Dad! Zane is my cousin! And sending your sister's child out so late is so heartless! I don't even know who you are right now!" Riley had fired back, anger burning hot in his chest.
His grandmother cut in: "Cousin? He stopped being your cousin the second he shamelessly screamed he wants men! That's an evil disease he'll infect you with! The moment his parents supported that, your aunt cut ties with me! So listen to your father!"
She had always been his favorite person. Hearing that from her twisted something in him he couldn't untangle.
Zane had only come to town without a place to stay. Riley had snuck him in. His father barged in without knocking and found him there. That was all.
Riley had never thought much about homosexuality, but he knows one thing... it isn't a disease.
And yet since his cousin came out, his family has chained Riley's every move. He can't hang out with certain friends, he can't sing certain songs, can't move in a certain way..
And now they even think Riley is too girly, they wish they had called him Christopher or something.
He can't even look freely at men in public without suspicion anymore... something he loves doing, which he called admiring the men he wanted to be like.
He had to burn all the magazines he had with shirtless models, designer briefs.
He tells himself he isn't gay, so why should it matter doing those harmless things?
,
Before he knows it, he has gotten to the club. Neon light flickers over the wet street. People scream and laugh inside. It's alive. Music is pounding just like he wants it. He shoves his hands deeper into his hoodie and steps forward.
Just as he's about to step into the chaos he craves, something small and fragile bumps into him. Tiny arms wrap around his right leg.
"What the hell?!" Riley drops his confused gaze. A boy, not older than four or five, is crying into the fabric of his trouser.
What the actual hell is a kid doing here? Riley mutters to himself, forcing down the tension squeezing his chest. "Where's your mom?"
But instead of the boy answering, be starts crying more. Just more scream that is swallowed by the roar of the club.
Riley groans. This wasn't part of the plan, and it's the last thing he needs right now. He's never been around kids, with the fact that he has no siblings. He'd have left him. He almost does.
But he can't bring himself to doing it.
He lifts the boy, carrying him inside to the counter.
"Did you happen to see who came in with him?" The bartender blinks at them, red-eyed, clearly drunk. Then he bursts out laughing. Louder. And louder over the loud music.
Riley narrows his eyes in frustration. What's so funny about this!?
"She forgot her kid!" the bartender manages through laughter. "Victoria... uh... She went off with some guy. Just leave the kid down there, on a seat somewhere. I'll... I'll look after him. His mother will remember in the morning and come get him." Words slurred, barely coherent.
Riley feels his brain short-circuit. A mother carried her kid to a club, then abandoned him? Unthinkable. He would have walked away, left the boy to deal with someone else's mess, but he can't.
Shouldn't she have just locked him in his room and let him cry until he fall asleep? Why drag a kid into a place like this?
Riley steps out with the boy, ignoring the bartender's suggestion to leave him on a chair. Outside, the silence is heavy, the cold biting at their skin. The boy clings to him, trembling. "Do you have a dad?" Riley asks softly, voice low, trying to sound friendly.
The boy nods.
"Do you know his number?" he asks not sure if a kid like him can know, but he asks anyway, and again he nods surprising him.
Riley grabs his phone, holds it out for him and the kid types carefully, reciting digits.
The number is real.
"What's your name?" Riley asks.
"Skye," the boy whispers, voice small and raw from hours of crying and cold.
"Sky?" Riley repeats, squinting like he's trying to make sense of it, as if the endless, open sky could really be a person's name.
"Skye Scott," the boy adds.
Without asking more questions, he dials the number, and the phone rings several times without an answer that Riley almost gives up, but finally a deep, calm, irritated voice answers: "Who is this?!"
For a second Riley freezes. The words sting, but there's something about the voice... For some reason, it sends a shiver racing down his spine.
For a brief, maddening second, Riley feels a strange, almost forbidden pull to meet the person behind it,
and he wants to punch himself for even thinking it.
"Who is this?! Did you disturb me to say nothing?!" The voice snaps again, still deep and calm, as though it's being controlled.
Riley finally forces his own words out. "While you're tucked away in your little comfort zone, thinking no one should bother you, I should probably tell you... your wife, Victoria, took your son Skye Scott to a nightclub. She left him alone and disappeared with some guy. And now... I'm stuck here with him. So, if you could swing by Y.O.L.O Club and pick him up, that'd be perfect. Ten minutes, that's all I've got. After that... don't ask me about this."
A pause, then sharp panic. "What?! She... oh God. She's kidding me!"
Riley tells himself he's not going to cover for anyone. For one, he can't stand that woman's behavior, and two, the cheating between them... none of it is his business, and yet it makes his blood boil.
The man on the phone pleads, voice shaking, desperate. "Look, I... I really need your help. I don't know you, but you sound like a good person. I'm not in town right now. I'll send you my address , please, just take my son home. I'll be there by morning. Thank you... thank you so much in advance."
The call cuts off immediately before Riley can even respond.
"What the...?! What is he thanking me for? I didn't agree to do this!" Riley groans, half furious, half incredulous.
The phone buzzes instantly indicating ...an address, and what seems like a door combination, almost like a trap laid out perfectly.
And then, seconds later, money floods into his account, more than he could possibly need, more than he wants, and yet... he can't stop staring at it.
"What the...?" he mutters.
The boy's tiny hands grip him tighter. Riley exhales, letting out a groan. Guess this is happening... what a perfect way of relieving my own stress, he thinks to himself.