I want to touch him, breathe him in, pull him closer, and feel him against me. It’s a deep and urgent need that makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. It feels right, and it feels wrong. One moment I think I understand it, and the next I don’t. I want him in a way I’ve never wanted anyone, let alone a guy. Let alone mybestfriend.
It’s so fucking confusing. But being here with him right now, I also just don’t even seem to care.
Which confuses me even more.
I draw in a slow breath and force my attention back to the pages in my hands. “How much did you get through?”
Silas lets out a short huff.
I glance at him. “What?”
“I don’t understand a single fucking thing in there,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the report.
“Bullshit,” I say, staring right at him. “Everything you just said about the field is in here. You already know it.”
He rolls his eyes with a sigh and lifts his beer for a drink.
I watch his throat bob, and my stomach flips.
That, paired with his sass… Jesus Christ.
I once again force my attention away from him, flipping to the field variability analysis. “Let’s start here,” I say, angling the page towards him. “This breaks down how the soil behaves across the field, so we’ll see what’s happening at the drainage and compaction levels.”
I turn another page to find the chart I’m looking for, but pause when a creased and folded piece of paper falls out of the stack and into my lap, like it was slipped in there by accident and forgotten about. But when I see the lines of a drawing under the folded edge, I pick it up and unfold it.
Silas’s hand immediately shoots out to grab it, but I tighten my grip and keep hold of the paper, my fingers landing over his as I hold it steady and stop him from pulling it away.
I stare down at the drawing on the creased page, and emotion wells in my chest.
It’s Redwave.
My eyes slowly move over the lines and colours, and I take in the details of him. This is nothing like the Redwave Silas used to draw for our comics. They were amazing. But this… this isreal.
Redwave stands with his shoulders drooped as if the weight of the world presses down on him, and he has a look of pure hurt on his face. His cape hangs in torn strips behind him, and his usual bright and vivid colours are now dull and muted. But the part that hits me hardest is the dark, hollow mark on his chest, right where his heart should be. It looks like it was carved out of him, and it’s now just an empty cavity that exposes nothing but shadow.
The entire drawing is laced with so much pain that it feels like my own heart is being ripped out.
The last comic we created flashes in my mind, and the hurt and pain only grow. Redwave was stripped of his strength by the villain and was feeling loss in every way he possibly could.
I told Silas that he gets up. That hechoosesto get up. That the villain took his power, but he didn’t take his heart.
I lift my gaze to Silas, but he keeps his lowered.
“Silas,” I say gently, but his jaw just tightens, and he still doesn’t look at me.
I release my hold on the drawing and reach for him instead, sliding my fingers beneath his chin to tilt it towards me.
His eyes follow, and when they meet mine, my breath hitches at the pain in them.
I’m so close to him I can almost feel his breath on my lips, and my heart thumps at the feeling of him under my fingers.
As my eyes search his, I swear I see some kind of plea in them. Like he’s asking me for something and begging me to take his pain away.
Something seems to pull me even closer to him, wanting more from him than I’ve ever felt before. And I swear I feel it in him, too. I feel him asking me to come closer, and to prove to him that the pain can go away. The pain and hurt we both carried for so long can disappear, and we can fight it.
Because he carried it in something we created together. He still held on to a part of us despite the pain it caused him.
“I couldn’t let him go,” Silas says quietly.
