Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales 1)

"Sure. Batman. Lenore. Too Much Coffee Man. Used to read Sandman, of course."

Corny regarded her speculatively for a moment, then finally relented. "I used to read X-everything, but I read a lot of Japanese stuff now."

"Like Akira?"

He shook his head. "Nah. Girl comics—the ones with the pretty boys and girls. Hey, do you know what shonen-ai is?" His expression was dubious.

"I wish I could speak some Japanese," Kaye said, shaking her head.

Corny smirked. "I thought you were Japanese."

She shrugged. "So says my mom. My dad was part of some local glam-goth band my mother worshipped in high school. Very new wave. I never met him. It was a groupie thing."

"Wild."

"I guess."

A car pulled into the station, but instead of parking in front of the pumps, it stopped next to Corny's car. A dark-skinned kid got out.

"Nice of you to show up today," Corny said, tossing him a set of the keys.

"I said I was sorry, man," the kid said.

Turning to Kaye, Corny said, "Where you going now?"

Kaye shrugged.

"You want to come with? You could hang out and wait for Janet to get home."

She nodded. "Sure."

They walked over to the trailer together.

He switched on the TV and walked back to his room. "I'm going to check my mail."

Kaye nodded and sat down on the couch, only then feeling a little awkward. It was weird to be in Janet's house without Janet. She flipped through the channels, settling on Cartoon Network.

After a few minutes, when he didn't return, she went back to his room. Corny's room was as unlike Janet's as a room could be. There were bookshelves on all the walls, filled to overflowing with paperbacks and comics. Corny was sitting at a desk that looked like it could barely hold up the equipment piled on it. Another box of wires and what looked like computer innards was next to his feet.

He was tapping on his keyboard and grunted as she came in. "Almost done."

Kaye sat down on the edge of his bed the way she would have if she was in Janet's room and picked up the nearest comic. It was all in Japanese. Blond hero and heroine—she always thought it was weird there were so many blonds in anime—bad guy with really, really long black hair and a cool headpiece. A cute, fat ball with bat wings fluttering around as a side-kick. She flipped a little further. Hero naked and lashed in the bad guy's bed. She stopped flipping and stared at the picture. The blond's head was thrown back in either ecstasy or terror as the villain licked one of his nipples.

She looked up at Corny and held out the book. "Let me guess… this is shonen-ai?"

He shot a glance at her from the computer, but she couldn't miss the smug expression. "Yeah."

Kaye wasn't sure what to say to that, which was probably the point. "You like boys?"

"There's a technical term for it," Corny said. "Faggot. Although those are mighty pretty boys."

"Does Janet know?" She couldn't understand why he would tell her if Janet didn't know, but certainly Janet would have said something. Janet's E-mails were summaries of her whole day, boring and full of gossip about people Kaye had never met.

"Yeah, the whole family knows. It's no big deal. One night at dinner I said, 'Mom, you know the forbidden love that Spock has for ' Kirk? Well, me too.' It was easier for her to understand that way." He sounded like he was daring Kaye to say something.

"I hope you aren't expecting some kind of reaction," Kaye said finally. "Because the only thing that I can think of is that is the weirdest coming-out story I have ever heard."

His face relaxed. Then she started to laugh and both of them were laughing and looking at the comic and laughing some more.