No.
Fuck.
Park squeezed his eyes shut, like doing so might wipe away the intrusive thoughts. But all that did was replace the thoughts of Payton and Gift with thoughts of him and Gift. Gift under him, Gift’s fingers digging into his arms as he slowly pushed his way into his body for the first time. The soft, sweet sounds he’d make…
What was wrong with him? He was a terrible person. A monster. No better than Payton. Nobody was touching Gift. Not Park, and certainly not that little shithead with his wild hair and zero sense of style. He just had to get Boone on board.
“You haven’t even heard my reasoning,” Park said, feeling uncharacteristically huffy about Boone’s dismissal.
“Your reasoning anything other than Payton touching something you’ve decided belongs to you, even though you don’t have the balls to do anything about it?”
God, he hated this guy. “What?”
Boone sighed. “Is your reasoning for this room change anything other than Payton and Gift being…close?”
Close? Was that what Boone would call Payton holding Gift’s hand, caressing his cheek, eye-fucking him in a classroom full of people? Just thinking about it made Park want to smash something…like Payton’s perfect fucking nose.
Park snorted. “If you saw the way your boy was feeling up Gift right in front of Kendrick, you’d say they were more than close.”
“Answer’s still no,” Boone said, tone almost sing-song as if this was funny.
There was nothing funny about it. Gift was sweet and pure and lovely. He didn’t understand the way the world worked. He didn’t know that psychopaths like Payton were incapable of love, of caring, of giving Gift what he needed, what he deserved. He would fully buy into the idea that all the attention and affection Payton lavished on him was real, and then he’d have his fragile heart broken.
“Gift has been…sheltered his whole life. He isn’t ready to be with someone like Payton. Not now. Probably not ever. He’s going to get his heart broken, and what happens then? What happens when handlers and assets cross that line? Should we really be encouraging this? What about the program?” Park asked, stopping abruptly when he realized he was shouting.
Boone eyed him, baleful. “You done?” he asked, his drawl more infuriating than usual.
That brought Park up short. He crossed his arms, giving Boone a pissy look. “I am starting to have serious concerns about you being in charge of this program.”
Boone rolled his eyes. “Noted. Now, sit down.”
It was on the tip of Park’s tongue to tell Boone to fuck all the way off, but, instead, he flopped down in the chair across from him just as he’d done yesterday.
Boone opened his top drawer, handing him the half-empty bottle of booze from the night before. “Have a drink, and pull yourself together before the students see you.” He shook his head, giving Park a thorough once-over. “I swear, that boy has your balls in a jar next to his bed. When did you get so whipped?”
Park blinked at him. “Wow,” he said, drawing the word out. “And I thought we were friends.”
“Did you?” Boone asked, hooking a brow at him.
Not really. But, at the very least, he thought they were colleagues. He didn’t answer, instead saying, “Then can you tell your pet psychopath to keep his hands off Gift? It’s making him uncomfortable.”
At that, Boone did finally give Park his full attention, leaning back to study him. “It’s making him uncomfortable or you uncomfortable, princess?”
“Him.”
Boone snorted. “It didn’t appear to make him uncomfortable when I saw them snuggling on the gym mats two days ago. Or when he was sitting in his lap in study hall. Are you sure it’s Gift who’s uncomfortable with Payton’s attention?”
Park huffed out a breath. “I don’t like your tone.”
“I don’t like you turning my school into some goddamn reality TV show,” Boone countered.
“Your school?” Park parroted before realizing that antagonizing Boone wasn’t going to get him what he needed. “Doesn’t it bother you that Payton is all over Gift? I know you have a hard-on for that boy. I’ve seen the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you.”
The corner of Boone’s mouth twitched. “I admit, I find the boy…intriguing. But it stops there. He looks at me like a mountain he’s yet to conquer. You’ve seen the way he has everyone else wrapped around his finger. He’s a master manipulator, mimics human behavior better than any others I’ve seen like him, and he’s already proven several times over that he can take out a target without getting caught. If I can just break down his ego, he’s going to make a great asset.”
“Right…that’s what you think when you look at him, that he’s a great…asset.”
Boone sighed. “If you spent more time teaching and less time picking fights with me, maybe you’d be too distracted to worry about what Gift is doing. Shouldn’t you be in the classroom by now?”
