If I Must Lane Read Online Free PDF

Twenty-six?” He looked up at Joel in a panic. “Oh God, what if I’m thirty?”
    “Ian.” Joel should have been used to this feeling by now, this jarring, violent make-fit between Ian’s world and the real world, but it never seemed to get any easier.
    “I don’t remember.” Ian held out his hands and started counting on them. “Let’s see, I was fourteen when I left the orphanage and went to University…”
    Oh God, Joel had known he was an orphan. He’d even known he was a genius, but he was unprepared for the idea of a fourteen-year-old Ian, turned loose on college life.
    “… and I must have been twenty or so when I got my doctorate, and then I came over here. How long have I been here? I renewed my visa last year… or was it the year before? Or do I have to do that every year?”
    Ian’s gaze went from inward to outward, and he looked up at Joel with open palms. “I don’t know. I- you need to have people to tell you that’s important, don’t you? I- I guess I don’t have any people? How old am I? Jesus.”
    There was a certain panic to Ian’s voice, and Joel felt it, right in his gut, how adrift this man could be without a person in his life to care for him. He could live, yeah, but what a vague surfing of the years, without any markers like birthdays or holidays, without any solid, real moments to anchor him to the here and now.
    Joel took Ian’s hands in his own, feeling calluses from weightlifting and the softness from not doing much else, and made sure Ian had his attention.
    “Don’t worry, Ian,” he murmured. And then, grinning a little bit self-consciously, he leaned forward and reached around Ian toward his back pocket, making a little whiffle of disgust as he did so. “Christ, Ian, when’s the last time you showered? You smell like monkey ass!”
    Ian laughed, which was the point, because in reality he smelled a little sweaty but very human, and not bad at all. “Yeah, I’m a little ripe, mate. What do you have there?”
    Joel held out Ian’s wallet and grinned triumphantly. “Your wallet, genius. You’ve got your driver’s license in here.”
    Ian’s smile was brilliant, blinding, as excited as a child’s. “Excellent! So, don’t keep me in suspense. How old am I?”
    Joel looked at the date on the driver’s license and grimaced. God, Ian really had been young when he’d been cut loose on an unsuspecting world, hadn’t he?
    “You’re twenty-three, boy, which makes you four years younger than me and seven years younger than thirty. Congratulations and happy birthday!”
    “Out standing !” Ian crowed, practically knocking Joel over with the force of his hug. He held the hug for a moment, crushing Joel’s face up against his bare chest, and Joel had to wonder that his heart seemed to be speeding up and that Ian’s scent was seeming less and less a liability with every passing second.
    Joel pulled back with difficulty and kept his smile bright. “So, you ready to shower and go out?”
    Ian made a little strutting motion with his shoulders and his head, his whole rangy, lean, man’s body showing a child’s happiness. “If I must, mate—if I must!”
     
    “Oh, papacito!” Joel’s mom still used the endearments she’d used when they were children. “It’s so nice you finally found someone!”
    Joel stared at his mother as though she had two heads. “Mommy, he’s my roommate. I’m not gay.”
    “Oh honey,” Lucia Martinez smiled sweetly, “of course you are. You just remember to wear your rubbers, you know?”
    Well, maybe growing another head would have been an improvement. “Mommy, he’s my friend!”
    And now Melody laughed, throwing her head back and letting the coffee-rich sound roll from her stomach. “Oh right. He’s your friend and I’m a virgin!”
    “ Mel !” Because even their mother knew that wasn’t true. “Have I said anything that would—”
    Mel shook her head. “Joey, pappi, it’s not what you’ve said. It’s how much