“Go,” Linc all but roared, pointing to the door.
When he finally heard the front door close, he turned to Wyatt. “What the hell have you done to yourself?”
“What do you care?” he asked, then giggled before taking another long drag from the joint in his hand.
Linc did care. Too much. And it was going to ruin both their lives.
He reached for the medicine cabinet, looking for something to disinfect the wounds. He was both relieved and alarmed when he found everything he needed. He disposed of the bloody razor sitting next to Wyatt’s hip. “Sit up.”
Wyatt wanted to comply with Linc’s orders—he always wanted to do what Daddy said—but his bones had evaporated and each time he attempted to move, his limbs refused to cooperate. “What’s happening to me?” he asked, bemused as he tried again to sit up.
“What did you take?” Linc asked, nudging Wyatt forward and sitting behind him where Cherry had sat just moments before… or was it Ginger?
It was something Wyatt hated to eat. The thought made him snicker.
“Wyatt, what did you take?”
Linc’s terse question had Wyatt trying to blink the cobwebs from his brain. He flopped his head back until it rested on Linc’s thigh and he gazed up into Linc’s perfect face. “A bright pink pill and a teeny blue one.” He pinched his fingers together in an approximation of the blue pill. Maybe if Linc knew how little it was he’d be in less trouble. Wyatt’s heart tripped at Linc’s expression. “You’re mad at me. Your face is all frowny. Why are you so hot like this? Why are you so hot all the time? I just want to touch you all the time.” He tried once more to pick up his arms to touch Linc… to show him he was serious. When they still refused to cooperate, he started to worry.“Now I can’t touch you at all. I think the blue pill stole my arms. It looked sus-suspic-sus… it looked like a bad blue pill.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Linc’s mouth, the smallest of chuckles escaping, and Wyatt’s heart felt like it would float right out of his chest. He had the overwhelming urge to smush his face against Linc’s so he could feel the scratch and burn of the dark stubble of his flawlessly chiseled jaw against his own. “I like when you laugh. You have good teeth. Straight. White. Shiny. Like Chiclets.”
Linc ignored Wyatt’s rambling, once more moving Wyatt where he wanted him. He suddenly found himself staring at white subway tile as his shoulder caught fire. He whimpered, but it was Linc who swore under his breath. “Shit, baby. What did you do to yourself?”
Wyatt’s heart plummeted into his stomach. Linc was mad at him again. He hated that. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Linc said nothing, and Wyatt had no choice but to sit still while Linc dressed his wounds. He drifted in and out, his brain warm and fuzzy as he floated in the stars, far removed from all the shit awaiting him back on Earth. He only forced his heavy lids back open when Linc’s hands dug into his armpits, hauling him to his feet before swinging him into his arms like he was Whitney Houston and Linc was Kevin Costner inThe Bodyguard. It would have been a very swoony moment if Wyatt’s whole body wasn’t already feeling wonky.
He must have said that out loud because Linc snorted. “One: You are far too young to understand that reference and two: Whitney died in her bathtub of a drug overdose, so maybe we don’t dwell on any similarities there given your current state of intoxication, huh?”
“You say so many words,” Wyatt muttered, his lids fluttering closed. He moaned when his body connected with the icy cool softness of his Egyptian cotton sheets. Wyatt found his hips worked just fine when Linc yanked down his jeans and underwear. He arched up to help with the process, the feel of Linc’s hands on his bare skin making him groan.
Linc covered him with the comforter, but Wyatt kicked it off like a toddler. “No. It's too hot.”
When Linc said nothing, Wyatt pried his lids open. Pressure built in his chest, in that spot where his father had punched him, when he saw Linc walking toward the bedroom door. He couldn’t stop the words spilling from his lips. “You can’t leave. You have to bring me water and oranges. You have to take care of me.”
Linc turned and the hopeless look in his eyes made Wyatt feel small, but Linc’s words soothed the ragged edges of his anxiety. “I’m not leaving you. I’m just going to change my clothes. And get you some water and maybe even some oranges.” His voice grew stern. “I couldn’t leave you even if I wanted to because I don’t know what poison is flowing in your veins or if I’ll have to take you to the ER to have your stomach pumped later.”
Wyatt didn’t care about anything Linc said after “I’m not leaving you,” but the pressure in his chest didn’t ease until Linc slid into bed, gathering him in his arms and holding the bottle of water to his lips. Wyatt sucked it all down. He didn’t realize how thirsty he’d been. He ate the fruit Linc had brought—apple slices this time—without protest.
When Linc laid him down, Wyatt wiggled himself into little-spoon position, nestling against Linc’s solid frame, noting Linc now wore a threadbare t-shirt and soft sweatpants that felt good against Wyatt’s overheated skin. They fit together like puzzle pieces. If Wyatt wasn’t so high, he might have felt strange lying naked in Linc’s arms while he was fully clothed. Instead, it just sort of turned him on, or it would have if the drugs hadn’t stolen his ability to get hard. Linc’s arm wrapped around Wyatt’s waist, his thumb caressing circles on the soft skin beneath Wyatt’s belly button, making him shiver.
They weren’t a thing. They’d never be a thing. He told himself this over and over on a loop as they lay there in the dark. But when Linc’s lips skimmed across his neck, Wyatt tilted his head to give him better access.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Linc warned, pressing the words into Wyatt’s skin like a spell that could make it true somehow.
But Wyatt knew better.
“Sure, I can. I’ve been doing it my whole life,” he assured him.
“Your whole life,” Linc muttered. “You’re twenty-two. Your life hasn’t even started yet.”
Tears welled in Wyatt’s eyes from nowhere, his throat tight. “My life ended when I was six and my older brother, Landon, died. If he had lived, he would’ve been the heir my father demands, and I could have escaped. My father never would have looked for me.”
Linc’s arms tightened around him, pressing soothing kisses against his bandaged shoulder.
“I hate my brother,” Wyatt confessed in a whisper. “I’m a monster, right? Like who hates an eight-year-old for getting cancer and dying? Me. I do. He fucking escaped. He got out.” He should stop talking, but he couldn’t. Panic crushed in on him. If he didn’t get the words out, he was sure he’d choke on them. “The night I got arrested… do you know what my dad said?”
Linc’s hand flattened over the bruise his father had left. “Wyatt, don’t.”
