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.So, over it?""I will be." Lee rolled his eyes."Thanks, Matt.Who answered the phone, by the way?" "Ah, finally! Now we can talk about me?""Now we can talk about you." Lee got up and went to get another beer from the fridge."Catch me up, Jem."Chapter Four Cloaks and Keys Lee was so nervous he thought he might be sick.He had no idea what the hell he'd been thinking, agreeing to become part of some weird secret society.He knew exactly what was going to happen.He'd traded a shift at the Stomping Grounds, wound up with three hours less on his schedule, and for what? So he could pace his room and get stood up, leaving him humiliated and poorer than he really could stand, or -- worse -- he'd be blindfolded and taken to God only knew where to be marched around, stripped naked, covered in sticky stuff and toilet paper and left to find his own way home.If there were two true things about Lee Sutton, they were that no one could come up with worse scenarios than he could, and no one could upset him as much as he could himself.He could hear the guys he shared a kitchen with out there, drinking beer and planning their night.Music was thumping his floorboards, the noise level fairly constant from eleven a.m.on Saturdays to about nine p.m.on Sunday, save for a few hours when everyone was passed out.Of course, there were only about three guys in the whole boarding house who were old enough to buy alcohol, but they did it for everyone, every weekend.The only thing that made the house bearable at all was the rent for his room and the locks on every door and cupboard in the kitchen.No one stole Lee's things.Lee couldn't afford to have anything stolen, and when he couldn't afford to buy beer he could at least lock himself in his room and study when it was too loud to sleep.If he wasn't studying to keep his scholarships, he was working to pay the rent and for food; he didn't cause trouble, he never asked anyone to turn down the volume and he never brought girls around -- his housemates all loved him.As much as he tolerated his housemates in return, Lee didn't want them seeing Tony coming to fetch him and taking him out with a blindfold on.Of course, Lee was reasonably sure that Tony would do no such thing.How could one maintain a secret if one was walking around with blindfolded people? Still.Lee's pacing was kicking up to a frenetic level, and if someone came looking for him it would be best if he at least appeared not to be freaked out, if he couldn't manage to look totally calm.He could wait for Tony outside on the sidewalk.Sure, it was January and freezing, but it had to be better than the continual loop of steps around his mattress.And he didn't want Tony to see his room.He didn't want anyone to see his room.Not because of the mess, as there wasn't one, but for the lack of things to make a mess with.He had a mattress and blankets and pillows.A dresser.His books, stacked neatly along the wall, and on his window sill he had a cup full of pens that he picked up and collected when he happened across them at the library or in classes.His bike hung on one wall, waiting for a new tire, the spokes snapped and the wheel bent from some asshole trying to break his lock.At least the bike hadn't been stolen, merely rendered unusable until he could buy a wheel and a new tire.His room was neat enough, and he had his music and his grandmother's tiny TV, but it sure wasn't the kind of place one invited friends to see.The thought of it, of issuing an invitation to Tony or anyone else, had Lee pulling open his closet and getting his coat and keys."See you later," he said, locking his door behind him.His room was right next to the kitchen, and there were four people looking curiously at him."Working, man?" Jason was sitting on the counter, his beer bottle held loosely with long, elegant fingers."Not tonight, just going out.See you in the morning." A chorus of words -- some wanting to know who he was going out to bang, some yelling out the names of clubs and bars they were going to try to get into -- followed him down the stairs and out into the night.Lee didn't reply to any of them; he figured no one would notice anyway and they'd probably forgotten about him as soon as he was out of their direct line of sight.It was dark out, and frost gleamed on the sidewalk, lit up by the glow of the street lights.He lived in an older neighborhood near campus, and the street was lined with trees and evergreen shrubs, each Edwardian or Victorian era home shrouded in some kind of foliage that afforded privacy to the residents.A lot of the houses were one or two units, but the handful of rooming houses seemed to cause the others to want to grow higher bushes and draw their curtains earlier and earlier.Not that Lee could blame them; when he was finished with school and didn't need to live somewhere cheap, he'd be moving as far away from a campus as he could reasonably get.Lee walked slowly up the length of the block, standing in place when he saw car headlights or heard someone walking, keeping an eye out for Tony.He hadn't thought to ask if Tony was picking him up in a car or not; he hoped so.His hands were freezing and the idea of walking through the streets being led by his hand, eyes closed, just made him want to-"Lee?""God!" Lee turned, his boot heel crunching on the frosted grass between sidewalk slabs."You scared the crap out of me."Tony grinned at him, his hands in the pockets of his red windbreaker."Nervous?"Lee didn't see any point in denying it."Yeah." "That's cool.Come on, I'm parked around the corner." Tony started walking, back toward Lee's house."Party at your place this weekend?""Every weekend
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