“Don’t what? Tell the truth? You don’t get it. Not talking is why the people in my family are the way they are. My mom still whispers the word cancer like it’s a curse and clutches her pearls whenever somebody mentions abortion or immigration or rape. Anything that intrudes on her perfect palace of privilege.” Hot tears tracked down his cheeks, but his caged arms made it impossible to wipe them away. He sniffled. “He said, ‘I can’t believe you’re the one who lived.’”
Linc shifted, tugging at Wyatt until he found his face tucked under Linc’s chin. A raw keening noise slipped from his lips and then another. He couldn’t stop. He buried his face against Linc’s chest to hide his ugly-cry face. But there was no hiding the way his body shook or the snot and tears leaking all over Linc’s t-shirt. He whispered words into Wyatt’s hair, but he had no idea what he said. He didn’t care. He just wanted Linc’s arms and the heat of his body and to feel like one person in the whole fucking world gave a shit if he lived or died. Didn’t he deserve just one?
Sometime later, he opened his burning eyes, his throat raw and his nose stuffy. “Do you know why he said it?” he managed, not sure why he needed Linc to know this part.
“What?” Linc asked, voice sleep soaked.
“Do you know why he said he couldn’t believe I was the one who lived?”
“No,” Linc whispered, the arm around Wyatt’s shoulders tightening almost like Linc didn’t know he did it.
“Because he caught me blowing the cater-waiter at his fundraising dinner.” Linc didn’t react, didn’t say a word. Wyatt gave a humorless laugh. “My dad got downright biblical calling me everything from a harlot to a sodomite, but the joke’s on him ’cause I’m a virgin in the truest definition of the word.” That got a reaction. Linc’s body went rigid beneath him. “Didn’t see that coming, did ya?”
“No,” Linc said, voice wooden.
“It’s not for lack of trying. I have no interest in topping a guy, but thanks to my father, any time a guy so much as attempts to touch me there, my body locks up. It's like that camp… those people… rewired my brain, sabotaged my body… it’s been four years but the minute a guy touches me I’m right back there with that needle in my arm and those fingers and… and I just can’t get out of my head enough to just be with somebody that way.”
Linc’s hand trailed soothing circles on his back. “It’s like even if I could be somebody else… even if I could get away from my father and this toxic penthouse prison and have a normal life… I’ll never be normal, not in any real way.”
“You’re not… abnormal. Penetrative sex isn’t the only way to have sex, not the only way to be intimate with somebody.”
Wyatt scoffed. “I know that, but I want that, and they took it from me.”
“You don’t know that. You just need to be with somebody who’s patient, somebody who will take the time to help you relax, somebody you trust.”
“I wanted that with you. I trust you,” Wyatt confessed.
Linc’s hand fisted in Wyatt’s hair, claiming his mouth in a hot openmouthed kiss that had Wyatt whimpering, his hands clinging to Linc’s shoulders by the time he released him. “You cannot say things like that,” Linc growled before smacking another hard kiss against his lips.
That stupid blue pill must’ve been truth serum because he couldn’t seem to stop confessing everything, even when Linc had never asked and probably had never wanted to know. The thought made Wyatt’s heart shrivel in his chest. He ducked his head once more, inhaling Linc’s scent like he could somehow commit it to memory. “I wanna go to sleep,” he mumbled. “Stay with me, Daddy.”
“I’m not going anywhere, kid. I promise. Go to sleep.”
“Hey, fuck-nugget!”
Given that Wyatt’s yappy little friend—Chance? Chelsea?—was scowling in his direction, Linc assumed he was the fuck-nugget to which she referred. He took a sip of his black coffee, heaving a mental sigh before setting down his cup. He’d hoped for an hour or two of peace and sunshine before having to deal with the emotional fallout from Wyatt’s rough night, but it seemed the universe still plotted against him.
Linc watched as the boy’s friend marched toward him with her tiny purse tucked under one arm, like a girl on a mission. Her strange wide-legged pinstriped pants billowed behind her, somewhat impeding her progress, ruining whatever tough-girl persona she attempted to convey.
He stood as she approached, hoping his full six-foot-three height might cause her to hesitate. It did not. She craned her head back, her blue eyes full of righteous fury and her bright red lips pulled back in full snarl.
His brows went up at her murderous expression and he took a step back, voice firm. “Full disclosure, Malibu Barbie. If you punch me in the face again, I’m gonna toss you in the pool.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Punch you in the face? I’m two seconds away from shoving my taser up your ass.”
Wyatt emerged from inside wearing basketball shorts and nothing else. Linc briefly forgot about the girl threatening to violate him with a taser, trying to gauge whether Wyatt was okay. His face was puffy, and his hair was a rat’s nest. The bruise from his father was now the size and shape of an eggplant and the bandage Linc had secured to his shoulder curled up at one edge. Other than that, he seemed okay—exhausted and maybe a little raw, but okay. Somehow that was worse. How many nights like that had Wyatt had?
“Charlie—” Wyatt started, but she gestured for him to shut up, never taking her eyes off Linc.
“Look, I know Senator Shitcunt likes to hire goons like you to do his dirty work for him. Alpha males who think it’s fun to shove Wyatt around under the guise of toughening him up… but not on my watch! I’ll fucking kill you and my family has enough money for me to get away with a murder or two, so don’t test me.” She emphasized the last four words by drilling her too-sharp nail into his chest. “Got it, crotch-weasel?”
“Your insults are terrible; you’re just shoving two unrelated words together,” Linc observed. “But your threats are persuasive,” he added begrudgingly. “Unnecessary, but persuasive.”
“I’m serious. I might be small, but I will fuck you up.”
“Charlie! Stop.” She whirled on Wyatt like he was next on her verbal beatdown list, but this time Wyatt slapped a hand over her mouth. “He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t. Now, stop.”
Charlie! That was her name. Charlie’s gaze flicked from Linc to Wyatt and back again, her hands falling to her sides, shoulders deflating. Wyatt dropped his hand.
