Page 72 of The Company We Keep

He got up early, drank two cups of coffee, and helped Herron in the armory. He disappeared into his lab for a long stretch of the day. In the late afternoon, he asked around to see if anyone had dinner plans and volunteered to cook for the first time in several weeks.

By the time they were all retiring, Carrow had half-forgotten the week that was at their backs, the way that Dust had been morose and withdrawn.

He followed the man into bed with no intention of going to sleep.

"Would you ever go straight?"

The question caught Carrow off guard, and he chuckled, grabbing Dust by the hips and dragging him closer.

"Why go straight when I have allthisat arm's length?"

"That's not what I meant," Dust said. He wasn't smiling.

"I know what you meant. But my answer stands. Why would I go straight? What could I gain from abandoning everything I've built here?"

Dust seemed to consider it, the corners of his mouth turning down. Was this related to their conversation the night before? He rolled away, out of Carrow's grasp.

"What if someone found a way to take this all from you?"

Carrow frowned.

"That won’t happen."

Dust flashed him a look — his eyes suddenly wild.

"Just fucking humor me, Ansel. In a universe where it could happen — would you ever go straight? Use your money, buy a new identity, and get the hell out of Las Abras."

The look told him Dust wasn't playing. It told him that he had no choice but to tell the truth, because Dust would know a lie the minute it passed Carrow's lips.

"No. I wouldn't," he said. "I would raze this fucking city before I would leave my family vulnerable."

"And if The Company is gone?"

"Then I'll be gone, too, and I'll take out every cop, every enemy I can on my way there."

Dust closed his eyes and seemed to go far away. Every muscle in his tanned body was lax.

"What's bothering you?" Carrow asked.

"I'm in love with you, Ansel."

Carrow took him hard by the arm before he thought through what he was doing, rolling quick until he was on top of the other man, pressing him down across the hips, pinning him.

"Do you mean that?"

Dust chuckled, his eyebrows raised in a look of helplessness. Carrow's heart went wild in his chest.

"I couldn't lie about it if I wanted to."

"And so, what, you love me — so we should leave Leta and Wayles and all of them and move somewhere with a white picket fence and I'll get a day job?"

"What if there wasn't a choice? If the only thing that could protect them would be me leaving… Would you come with me?”

Carrow let his weight sag over Dust's body.

"I love you, Dust," he said before leaning to kiss the other man's neck. "But I'm telling you the truth when I say I don't know the answer to that question."

Dust moaned and arched against him, reacting to the sensation of a tongue against his sensitive skin, the teeth worrying his throat, before pulling back, pushing Carrow away with a hand planted firmly in the center of his chest.

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