Page 263 of Assassin

“Will I forever be broken?” he asked.

Poe was honest.

“Not forever. Wounds heal if you take care of them the right way. One day, you’ll be better, and you’ll leave a whole person.”

He looked over at him.

What he wanted to ask was if he was now gay, because he suddenly didn’t want to leave.

Poe saw the question.

“Ask it. I can see you want to.”

He did.

“Am I gay now?”

That was an interesting question.

“Do you feel like having sex with men?” he asked. “That’s usually the determiner.”

He shook his head and kept the rest to himself. He didn’t want to have sex with men.

Not just any old man.

With this man.

“I don’t know what came over me,” he said, buying himself time to think about all of this.

He was so confused.

Poe reassured him.

“You found yourself safe, at peace, and in a place where you could be comfortable. No one blames you for needing that comfort.”

He stared into his eyes.

“Doctor, I yanked your pants down, and humped you like a pervert.”

Poe laughed.

“Sometimes, you just need a good humping,” he said, his accent out, and a dimple in his cheek. “I told you, Gamble. I’m not upset that your hand was on my dick, or your dick was between my cheeks. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I’m going to be upset about that. You didn’t assault me. I was an active participant here,” he said, touching his head.

Gamble said nothing.

So Poe went there.

“The bottom line is that we’re at a crossroad. What do we do?” he asked Gamble. “We can run because of that moment, we can deny that clearly something happened, or we can keep moving on the road. You have to make that choice.”

Gamble was staring at him.

It wasn’t lost on him that he really felt comfortable with Poe. For some reason, he did. Maybe it was the accent, or the way he understood his grief, and didn’t make him bare it to the world.

When he’d had a bad dream last night, he’d immediately gone to him as if the man could save him. His first instinct wasn’t to do battle alone.

It was to look for a shield.

Poe.

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