Oscar has never tried to fit in and has never wanted to, but when his party friend, Max, is revealed to be mafia prince, Marcus Gallagher, suddenly being a 'lone wolf' is no longer an option; not if Oscar wants to woo his prince and get out alive!
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By the next morning, the anger and pain caused by the loss of his bike had descended Oscar into a deep melancholy which had bound the punk to his bed.
Presently, he was sprawled on his back, watching the graceful patterns cast on his ceiling from the pool water outside, while his playlist of emotional rock ballads blasted on repeat. Short of burying his pet goldfish in the backyard, this was his first real sense of mourning the departure of something beloved.
He hadn't come out for breakfast and the odds of him making an appearance for lunch didn't look good either.
Elise had opened the door to Oz's room to peek in, and Max rested his chin on her head, which prompted her to swat at him. "See? You need to talk to him," she said, loud enough for Max to hear, but clearly not loud enough for Oscar to hear her over his music.
"This can't be over that bike."
Elise's stubborn frown was only accentuated by her crossing her arms. "It is. I'm telling you, it is. Go talk to him."
"I'm gonna buy him a new one..." Looking in on his punk, the scene did seem pretty dramatic... "His wasn't even expensive."
"Marc, what if something happened to Ace?"
"Ace isn't the same as a fucking motorcycle."
"It's the same to Oz. You're his...boyfriend." She mouthed the word rather than saying it out loud. "You need to be there for him," Elise insisted, "He needs you." With that, she did the best she could to shove him into the room, despite the disparity in their sizes.
With a sigh, Max headed over to the bed and flopped down next to Oscar on his stomach. "Alexa, turn down the music..." Once the wireless speaker responded, Max found Oz's gaze. "Hey...wanna talk?"
"I dunno..." Oscar murmured as he tilted back the beer bottle into his waiting mouth.
Part of Max wanted to just accept that answer. Wanted to go tell Elise that Oz would be fine, and to just let him work through whatever this was, but as soon as he thought that, he felt guilty about it. That wasn't how a partner should act. Oscar wasn't supposed to have to deal with something that upset him like this alone.
He took the bottle from Oz and sat up. "I think we should...but not here." Max set the bottle down, and got up, grabbing each of Oscar's arms. "C'mon."
Oscar let out a sound that didn't exactly convey consent, but he did follow Max to the garage, where they both got into the prince's sporty blue car and took off down a side road that Oscar hadn't seen before.
About twenty minutes later, they reached the end of a pasture, closed in with pristine white vinyl fencing. It stretched along the left side of the road for another ten minutes or so before they pulled up to a gate, where Max punched in a key code and the gate parted.
Max took that drive up to what looked like the kind of two-story clubhouse that might sit in the middle of some fancy-shmancy golf course, where people with private jets liked to hang out, but Oscar didn't see any obvious holes or sand traps. What he did see were two long barns flanking each end of the building.
