Even if it killed him.
In the six months Gift had been in the program, there had never once been a pod meeting. That was what they called them. Pods. Gift supposed it sounded better than barracks. There were ten pods, overseen by ten instructors—sort of like the graduate school equivalent of a resident advisor.
And, of course, Park was Gift’s. Well, not just Gift’s, but still, it felt like Gift had his sole, unwavering, constantly disappointed attention. He was in a program to learn how to handle dangerous psychopaths who were trained to kill, but the way Park treated him, Gift was in finishing school.
Elbows off the table, Kla. Sit up straight, Kla. Fix your tie, Kla. Wrong fork, Kla.It went on and on.Clean your room. Do your laundry. Finish your homework. Call your mom.
Gift sighed. A pod consisted of six handlers and six assets. All partnered on the first day of the program. Gift and Park had arrived two days after the program had started, so there was only one asset left who didn’t have a handler.
Payton.
Upon hearing Gift had been paired with Payton, Park had thrown what Dove had called a ‘full-scale hissy fit.’ She said it was because Payton was the only one there who had already killed people. Plural.
The details were sparse, with imagination filling in the blanks and rumors doing the rest, and what had started out as conjecture was now the Watch’s own version of an urban legend. The theories were wild, ranging from him taking out bad guys vigilante-style, to him secretly being a serial killer with a signature and everything, whose family was too powerful to let him go down for his crimes.
Gift had never had the nerve to ask Payton the truth, but he suspected that it was somewhere in the middle.
He shifted restlessly in his seat, doing his best to avoid looking at Park.
Park hated Payton. Well, maybe hate was too strong a word. He was wary of him, didn’t trust him—something he told Gift almost daily. When Boone had insisted Gift not only partner with Payton but room with him, Park had almost come unglued. He’d lectured Gift about safety, like Payton drove around parks in a white van marked FREE ANIME. Like he might murder Gift in his sleep.
The first night, Gift hadn’t slept a wink. Payton didn’t try to kill him. Instead, he’d crawled into bed with Gift and used him like a thermal blanket, assuring him it was nothing personal but that he ran cold and just needed warmth.
Gift had been too shy to say no. And by day three, he hadn’t wanted to. Not because he’d developed some kind of feelings for his criminally deviant roommate, but because Gift had spent most of his life ignored and neglected by the people who loved him. He was what TikTok referred to as ‘touch-starved.’ Having Payton curled around him some nights was just…comforting.
Not that he would ever tell Park that. Ever.
Like Ever.
“You ready?” Payton asked from beside him, fidgeting with his tie, which hung loosely knotted around his neck, his buttons open, revealing pale skin and the top part of one of several Xs he had tattooed in various sizes on his chest. Gift tried to pat down the other boy’s hair, which was standing on end as always.
“Ready for what?” Gift asked.
“To get Park to punch in your v-card,” Payton said, like Gift was an idiot. “I promised to help and I meant it.”
Oh, yeah.
That.
Gifthadasked Payton for help, but that was last night. He was a different person back then. A hornier person with the memory of Park’s hand still burning a hole through his cheek. Now, as he looked at Park activelynotlooking at him, he realized getting Park to climb on him seemed as impossible as Gift climbing Mount Everest.
He propped his head up on his hand, staring at the man who haunted his every dirty fantasy. Why did he have to wear his pants so tight? Didn’t Hugo Boss make a slightly larger size? Did Park really need to stand there in his crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, like some common hussy?
“Careful, baby. You’re drooling on your Prada,” Payton teased, his amusement obvious.
Gift looked down absently at his school bag, which was sitting on the table they shared, relieved to see he wasn’t, in fact, drooling. He was, however, half-hard behind his zipper, but he figured it would go away before this meeting was up.
“I can’t help it,” he whined. “Who has a right to look that good? His hair looks so silky, and his skin is flawless. And who looks that good in gold wire-rimmed glasses? Nobody. Just Park and Harry Potter.” Gift’s gaze fell to Park’s feet, his mouth falling open. “Is he not wearing socks? Even his ankles are sexy. It’s…malicious.”
Dove snickered. “Are you going to sue for emotional damages?” she asked from her desk behind him.
“Why are we here?” Morgan groaned, dropping her head to her desk. “Like, if they asked us to be here at eight, why are they all just standing around at 8:15? What are we waiting for?”
As if on cue, the door to the classroom squeaked on its hinges like something out of a horror movie and an older man in a black suit with a vaguely familiar face entered the room.
Drake leaned his chair onto its back legs, swaying into their space. “What’shedoing here?”
“Who is he?” Gift asked.
