His eyes grew heavy, and I knew if I didn’t move him, he’d fall asleep right where he lay. “Come on.” I nudged him. “Take your clothes off.”
“Huh?” Of course he was suddenly alert.
“Not like that... unless you want to. I meant, don’t sleep in your clothes.”
His gaze was unreadable. He sat up and tugged his T-shirt over his head. His ripped torso was everything, and heat bloomed in every part of me. I wished with all my heart, just for a moment, that he was easy. That I could lunge at him and spend the rest of the night exploring him without caution and complication, but nothing about Micah was easy, for him or for me.
I coaxed him into my bed and got him to curl on his side with his head on my chest. My hands found their way to his hair, and I let my fingers rub absently over his scalp as I considered the fact that he still hadn’t told me what had happened to him in that damn-fucking tube station.
Like he’d read my mind, he sighed. “I know you’re upset that I won’t talk about it, but Ican’t. You understand that, don’t you? It fucks me up too much. I’m... too close to it. My therapist made me a few months back, and I couldn’t sleep for days after. It was like, fuck, I don’t know. Like it happened over and over again every time I closed my eyes. It only stopped when you were around.”
I could pinpoint the exact time period he was talking about. It had been right after Christmas, that weird week in between the big day and the new year. At the time, I’d figured he was missing his family and had been glad I’d come home on Boxing Day. But now it all made sickening sense—his lack of appetite, the all-night pacing, his agitation every time I left the flat, even though he’d barely spoken to me. “I’m a good distraction, eh?”
“It’s not that. It’s more you remind me that there’s more.”
I wanted to push him. To dissect every syllable until there was no doubt what he meant, but he really was done now. He dozed off while I hummed emo Mallory Knox tunes and wondered what the hell tomorrow would bring. When I was sure he was asleep, I kissed his temple and whispered to the moon, “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
14
Micah
I woke alone, as I had for ninety per cent of my life, but instead of normalcy, fear gripped me, and I bolted upright with a startled gasp, heart pounding, eyes darting around a room that wasn’t mine.
A full-blown panic attack threatened. Then I remembered: we’d slept in Sam’s bed. And I liked it. Being surrounded by him, even though he wasn’t there, slowed my racing heart.
It also helped that I remembered what day it was and why Sam wasn’t here at arse o’clock in the morning. On Thursdays, he went to college for his English Lit classes and often came home with a grin on his face I dreamt about for days after. The kind of grin someone got when they’d spent the day doing the one thing they really loved.
The kind of grin I felt splitting my face in the rare moments I let myself enjoy being with him. Sometimes in the afterglow of kissing him or sucking his dick, but mostly when he laughed.
I sat up in his bed, wincing as the stiff muscles in my leg protested. It was early, but I already knew that bastard was going to give me a bad day. A hot shower would help, and Sam’s en suite called my name. I rarely used it, preferring to use the ancient bathroom his grandparents never got around to refurbishing, and let him have the shower that actually worked all to himself, but on days like this, temptation got the better of me.
Grimacing, I hauled myself out of Sam’s bed and into my own room to get my meds. My leg dragged behind me, heavy and useless, too stiff to move and too weak to bear weight. It hurt too, like a motherfucker, so I palmed some muscle relaxants and swallowed them down with my usual morning cocktail.
On my way back to Sam’s bathroom, I spotted my phone abandoned on the coffee table. I swiped it and took it with me to cancel my afternoon clients. I could sit on the sidelines and watch other people work out any day of the week, but walking to the gym was going to be a problem.You could get a taxi—
Right, because cabbies were just lining up to drive people for a three-minute fare.
I rescheduled the sessions and tried—and failed—to not feel guilty about it. Disquiet gnawed in my gut. After a lifetime of letting people down, these days I couldn’t swallow it. Most of my clients were like Sam: they didn’t care who I was or where I’d come from, and they enjoyed my company, albeit paid for. And I liked theirs too. My job got me out of the house. Without it, I was just some loser limping around someone else’s flat by myself.
Not that I did much limping around once the muscle relaxants kicked in. My limbs were jelly. I lay down on the living room floor and stared at the ceiling. I wanted Sam, but I never messaged him when he was at college, so I settled for finally answering Freddie’s texts from the day before.
He called me straight back. “You’re alive then.”
Depends on your definition.But I didn’t bother to fill him in on my current predicament. He’d seen enough of that recently. “Sorry you got caught up in my shit. Did you get any grief at the game?”
Freddie snorted. “Probably, but you know I don’t listen. If some cockhead wants to call me a fag, let them. I said it to Sam, it’s just words to me, man.”
“Lucky you.”
“I said that too, or words to that effect, but your boy wasn’t feeling particularly chatty.”
“He’s not my—never mind. What were you doing outside the Fox anyway?”
“I was coming to see you, but I changed my mind after I saw Sam. Figured it wasn’t my ugly mug you needed to lay eyes on.”
Freddie wasfarfrom ugly, but I knew better than to tell him. I’d never hear the end of it. Besides, whatever he’d seen in Sam scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t let the hangovers of my old life hurt him too. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you still stuck on that?”
