It got him what he wanted. Boyd stiffened slightly under his arm and then pulled away. It was a warm afternoon, hot enough to bake roses, but Morgan still felt deprived of that extra heat against his side.
“If that’s what you want. Well?”
Morgan turned away from the creepy window and glanced across the street. The news crew was interviewing the man with the iPhone while kids from the school clowned in the background.
“Do I have a choice?” he asked as he faced Boyd. His stomach ached, and a hard knot of expectant dread had wedged under his ribs like a fist. It felt like it had when he was a kid, on his way to meet the next set of new parents who didn’t want him. But this time he was the asshole on the doorstep, all smiles and hugs and the smell of fresh cookies until Morgan thoughtmaybethis time they meant it.
Boyd sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, I get why you don’t want to,” he said. The idea of that made Morgan’s stomach ache even more than before. “And you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t owe us anything.”
“But?”
“Please?” Boyd asked wearily. Nothing else. He didn’t beg or barter, just asked and waited. As though he thought there was a chance Morgan would actually not fuck this up and let him down.
Somehow that made it harder to say yes. He didn’t want this to make Boyd think better of him, not when Morgan knew he was only doing it to get the cash to skip town. But it didn’t look as though he had a choice.
“Fine. Whatever,” Morgan muttered sourly. “If it gets you all off my back.”
He was punished with one of Boyd’s easy smiles, although it looked a little more worn around the edges than usual.
“Really?” Boyd asked. He folded his lower lip between his teeth as he let his gaze trail thoughtfully down over Morgan’s body. Then he shrugged and turned away, his next words tossed back over his shoulder. “Didn’t think that was the part you wouldn’t enjoy.”
Heat flushed through Morgan’s body, an expected wave of it from his balls to his ears. He didn’t bottom—ever—but the thought of Boyd’s lean, compact body pressed against his back and his mouth on his throat was… not that bad.
He stretched his legs to catch up, which didn’t take long, and cupped his hand around the nape of Boyd’s neck.
“I prefer you on your stomach,” he said as he tugged Boyd off-balance and into his side. This contact was definably sexual enough that Morgan felt comfortable with it. He pressed his mouth to Boyd’s ear in a kiss as he growled, “Maybe we could try a bed.”
It should have made Boyd as uncomfortable in his skin as he’d made Morgan. That was the point, to even out the uneasy tangle of lust and distaste that made Morgan’s spine itch. Instead Boyd turned into the kiss, his mouth warm and eager as he pressed it to Morgan’s.
Almost desperate, with a hungry edge to the scrape of his teeth against Morgan’s lip. He clenched his hands in Morgan’s shirt to pull him closer and then shoved him away.
“Sorry,” Boyd said. He licked the taste of Morgan off his lips. “That was a mistake.”
It was. Morgan should have been glad one of them had kept their head long enough to remember that. And he was glad, definitely. His balls might object, but he’d live.
“Yeah?” he said defensively. “What, I get upgraded from bad idea?”
Boyd snorted and reached up to run his thumb over Morgan’s lower lip. “That was a mistake, not you,” he said. “Because now we’re going to be on the news.”
He tilted his head across the road. Morgan looked in that direction and saw the camera pointed at them, the little light on top flicker-red as it recorded.
“Shit,” he muttered as he glowered and took a half step toward the curb. As he moved, the cameraman looked warily up from the viewfinder to watch him. Boyd grabbed his arm to pull him back, and Morgan reluctantly let him, with a coarse jab of his finger aimed over the road as Boyd dragged him toward the pickup. “Whatever. Fuck ’em. If Shay or Mac give you any grief about it, just say I grabbed you and kissed you against your will. It doesn’t matter what they think of me.”
Boyd unlocked the pickup and finally let go of Morgan’s arm. He tossed a dry look at Morgan over the hood as he got up into the cab.
“Because you’re leaving,” he filled in the end of the sentence for Morgan. “Fair enough, I guess.”
It was. Morgan knew that, but his pride still rankled that Boyd had just shrugged it off without even an attempt to defend Morgan’s good-ish name. He slammed the passenger-side door and slouched down on the worn leather, his feet braced against the back of the footwell.
The radio flicked on as Boyd started the car—some old country track, all twang and sass—and then off again as he hit the knob. He reached over and ruffled Morgan’s hair with a rough hand. Morgan spluttered, caught somewhere between indignation and laughter as he hit the deadfall where normal reactions should be.
“Get off,” he said as he moved his head out of the way. “Weirdo.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to anyone,” Boyd said as he turned his attention back to pulling away from the curb. “And I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done.”
Morgan grunted and stared out the window. He tapped a nervous tattoo against the plastic of the door and felt very aware of the stiff square of card shoved into his pocket. It must be nice not to be ashamed of yourself.
HOSPITALS ALWAYSmade Morgan thirsty. His throat was parched and his tongue like a sheet of crumpled paper. It made his wrists itch too, as though he had an invisible poison ivy rash across the underside. He was probably allergic to the bleach or something.
