Sir came too close, and Gabriel knew he didn’t have time to plan anymore. He bolted from the car and ran for the street. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but he couldn’t be good like he’d thought he would be able to. He’d thought Sir would want to use his body, but otherwise leave him be. Clearly, that wasn’t the case, and Gabriel couldn’thandleit.
He couldn’t take kindness from a stranger when he’d never been offered it by the man heloved.
A shout of surprise pierced his eardrums, but Gabriel drowned it out beneath the sound of his canvas shoes striking the asphalt. He made it to the sidewalk when a slow-moving car brought him to a sudden stop. Its windows were heavily tinted, but the driver’s side window was rolled down, and the man inside stared at Gabriel as hedroveby.
Gabrielstaredback.
He knew that face and the twisted, smug expression on it. He could almost smell the leather and wood ontheair.
Andtherot.
He didn’t want to runanymore.
9
Cedric
Instinct consumed him,and Cedric ran. The duffel bag slapped against his side with every impact of his shoe against the asphalt, and his lungs and muscles screamed in protest for going from zero to sixty on the drop of a dime, but Cedric ignored them. There was no otheralternative.
He would not loseGabriel.
Gabriel came to a sudden stop on the edge of the sidewalk, halted by a slow-moving car that passed on the other side of the street. Cedric didn’t waste the opportunity. He seized Gabriel by the shoulder and spun him around with more force than he needed to—Gabriel’s body was unexpectedly pliant. The dazed expression on his face and the looseness in his limbs spoke for him—he wasn’t planning on runninganymore.
“What are you doing?” Cedric demanded. He was out of breath, but he did his best to hide it from his voice. Now more than ever, he needed to be a source of strength. “Gabriel!”
Gabriel’s eyes were distant, like his body was still on Earth, but his mind was lost somewhere in the cosmos. He was pale by nature, but the kind of pale he was in that moment wasn’t healthy. Cedric tightened his hand and resisted the urge to shake him. What the hell was he thinking? “Gabriel!”
“I’m on the sidewalk,” Gabriel murmured, unprovoked. “On the sidewalk in front of a bungalow across from aforest.”
“No.” Cedric’s hands left Gabriel’s shoulders. He cupped his face instead, forcing Gabriel to look at him. “You’rehome.”
Gabriel blinked a few times, and the light came back to his eyes. A sadness softened his features, like he’d lost all hope. Then, like he was guilty of a crime Cedric didn’t understand, he lowered his gaze and let his shoulders droop. The deflation brought Cedric down from his fear. He ran one thumb over Gabriel’s cheek to soothe him, then dropped his hands and swept Gabriel up into a tight hug. Gabriel squeaked. He was trembling. The movement was imperceptible to the eye, but impossible to miss when he was pressed tight against Cedric’schest.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Gabriel whispered. The sound was so small that it was almost entirely absorbed by the cotton of Cedric’s shirt. “That was wrong of metodo.”
“Yeah, it was.” Cedric didn’t let him go. Until his pulse slowed and his fear waned, he needed to know that Gabriel wasn’t going anywhere. “You know there will be consequences,right?”
“Ido.”
“Then let’s go inside, okay?” Cedric looked over Gabriel’s shoulder at the street, now empty. What the hell had just happened? It bothered him that he might never know. “We’ll put your belongings away, and then we’ll talk about what just happened, and what you’re going to do tofixit.”
There was no verbal response, but Gabriel nodded against his chest. He didn’t cling to Cedric—he didn’t even hug him—but Cedric got the feeling that without physical contact, Gabriel would fall apart. No matter how stressed Cedric was from what had just transpired, he needed to push past his burdensome fear in order to put Gabriel first. As wired as Cedric was, Gabriel was in a place a thousand times worse. The glossed-over look in his eyes wasn’t normal. It was like Gabriel had lost himself amongst the wreckage of his past, and what remained was fragmented in such a way that it needed an external source to hold ittogether.
Cedric was thatsource.
With a deep, grounding breath and slow, purposeful movements, Cedric endedthehug.
He tookGabrielhome.
10
Gabriel
Through the cheerfulwhite door was an eat-in kitchen. The wooden floor was glossy and the baseboards were neat, white trim against stone-gray painted walls. Gabriel accompanied Sir through the kitchen and into the living room, remarking upon the double glass doors leading out into a screened-in sun room—but the stunning layout and the pristine condition of the building did not distract him from his troubles. Not even Sir’s hand, broad and confident on the small of his back, was enough to make himforget.
The man without a name was outside. He’d looked Gabriel in the eyes, and he’d smiled that cruel, twisted smile that made Gabriel feel dirty all over. It was the kind of smile that said,I’ve found you,and that scared Gabriel more than the thought of never being with Garrisonagain.
There was nothing good about the man without a name. He’d taken Gabriel from The White Lotus and demanded Gabriel be his when it was obvious Gabriel still belonged to Garrison. Those times had been so dark that Gabriel had mostly blocked them out, but he still remembered what the man without a namelookedlike.
