Page 34 of The Cartographer

That couldn’t be further from the truth. “Hardly. Well, except the falling in love part. They saw each other secretly for a while because my grandparents wouldn’t have approved and dating someone you met on the job is frowned upon. My mother got pregnant, and that was pretty much the end of it. Her parents sent her away until I arrived. I’m sure they tried to pressure her into giving me up, but she didn’t. But this is supposed to be about you, not me.”

“Am I not allowed to ask questions?”

“Of course you are. Always. I just don’t think I’m particularly interesting.”

“And I am?”

I nod. “Fascinating, in fact.”

“Why?”

“I find your ability to change faces incredible. I saw you at the bar, and you were one person. Then I see you talk to your sister, and you changed. Your body language, your posture, your vocabulary. I can’t imagine you don’t have other sides I haven’t seen yet.”

“It’s called code-switching,” he mumbles, looking at his hands. “We all know how to do it.”

“You’re quite adept. It’s impressive.”

“You going to ask me which one is real?”

“I suspect they’re all equally real given the circumstances. There may be some roles you feel more comfortable in, but they’re all shades of you, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“I get it. I have to do it too. We all wear different hats, Hart.”

“What hats do you wear? You still in the closet with your family?”

“No. They couldn’t have cared less that I’m gay. It was the whole being brown thing that offended them.”

You would’ve thought my grandparents would have gotten over it, but they never did. It pained them to the end to hear my whole name out loud.

“Reyes… It’s soethnic,” I’d heard my grandmother whisper to one of her WASP-y friends at my college graduation party. The backs of my ears had gotten warm, and I’d wished I couldn’t hear her. “I don’t understand why Lillian couldn’t have stuck with the family name. He does look like a Humphrey, doesn’t he?”

Hart snorts. “That’s funny. Almost everyone I knew was brown, one shade or another. Being a fag is what would’ve gotten the shit beaten out of me.”

We laugh, even though it’s not funny. The world is such an incredibly fucked-up place.

“I suppose being a submissive wouldn’t have earned you any points either?”

“Definitely not.”

“It does with me.”

I press the call button for Leanne and ask we not be disturbed until I call for her again.

When she’s walked out of sight and eased the door to the back area of the plane closed, I point to the floor in front of me.

“Come here, on your feet.”

Allie presses out of his seat, and I get to admire the swell of his biceps as he does. All that power and it’s about to be mine.

“Take off your shirt.”

He peels it off without a second thought and drops it on the floor. He really is magnificent. My gaze coasts over the ink staining his skin, and now it means a lot more to me. All of these choices he’s had to make, carved into his skin. I’d like to keep him safe, happy. Take some of those choices away.

“The rest of your clothes as well.”

His eyes dart briefly toward the cockpit and to where Leanne disappeared.

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