Instead of letting me grab my own mug, he holds it in his hands and turns to me.
I can’t help but look up into his eyes, seeing something interesting there… regret, perhaps. Something dark and sad. It makes my stomach ache even more than lying in bed with Rosalie. All I can do is stare back at him in silence and wonder.
Does he know more about the situation than he’s letting on? Is Eivor really a part of things and Damian is regretting working alongside him? Or, even worse, is Damian the one behind everything, tricking the man he works for and the people he protects at the same time?
I swallow hard.
No. I don’t want to believe that. I can’t believe it. For some reason.
Damian hands me my coffee, and our fingers touch briefly. My fingertips brush along his knuckles. His hands are so much bigger than mine, despite him being shorter. He’s broader, stronger…
If I had to fight him, I think it would be less of an even match than I want to believe.
Still, in silence, I lift the mug to my lips and take a slow sip. Damian does the same with his as we stand so close that I can feel the warmth of his body against mine.
I nearly shiver, but hold back.
Instead, I take a step away from him and move over to the couch. He doesn’t follow me. Instead, he stands leaning against the kitchen counter that’s visible from where I sit.
I sip at my coffee and wonder… Maybe it’s something else. The tense silence and glances between us. Maybe he feels the same thing I do. Apprehension, hesitation…desire.
I glance toward Damian again, and he’s looking at me with a heated expression. I can’t help but feel the warmth that floods my stomach and down into my cock. It’s certainly not because of the coffee.
There’s no way for me to know why we continue to sit in silence the way we do. No way for me to know if I can truly—fully—trust Damian. Not without speaking.
Right now, I can’t find the words.
The rest of the day goes by in an incredibly boring manner. The few books that I can find around the apartment don’t take long to get through, and Rosalie wants her turn with them. The television can only distract me for so long. I find myself on edge, and restless.
So, I’m caught in my thoughts with nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.
I’m also exhausted from staying up most of the night, so when Rosalie is on the couch and Damian is standing near the door, I take my time in the shower, under the hot water. Trying to ease myself of the stress I’m feeling. It doesn’t work.
It does make me even more tired, though. So I lay down in the bed with my damp hair and ignore how much I hate the feeling of wet hair against my pillow.
I stare at the ceiling, and slowly the texture of it becomes fuzzy and blurry. My eyelids start to fall close. I try to force them open, but this only works once or twice before I can’t do it again.
All I can do is fall into the lull of sleep.
“You and your brother…you’re very special,” my father tells me. I stand before him, much smaller than I am now. Much smaller than I can usually remember being.
Everything is so much larger in our house. The stairs seem like a tower’s worth, and the large grandfather clock in the family room is so loud that it hurts my ears every single time it goes off at the hour. The hour, and the next hour. Gonging once, and then twice.
It tells me that it’s two in the morning.
The way my father looks at me makes my entire body tremble. He’s so frightening in the dim lighting. But I’m not allowed to be scared. I know this. I know that I need to be a strong man, not be afraid of anything; that’s the only way I’ll survive. He’s told me this over and over again.
Tonight, it’s different though. Tonight, I know what this is about, even if I shouldn’t. I know it’s about the feelings I hold inside. The feelings Carmine shares with me. Both of us looking at boys the same way others look at girls.
Our mother told us not to let our father know. To keep it secret from him, but Carmine just had to go and kiss another boy. He had to get caught.
Now, our father talks to me in the dead of night like our lineage depends on it.
“How you feel about…your fellow man, it doesn’t matter,” he tells me. “You will marry a woman.”
I swallow hard. I nod my head.
“Do you understand me?” he asks.
