Page 76 of The Care of Broken Things
“Put that smile away before you blind someone,” Rat told him. “I’d think you were the one getting out with all the showing off you’re doing.”
But he couldn’t put the smile away any more than he could have put his own eyes away. Those were pinned to Eli and trying to blink as little as possible to drink him in better. “Do you remember when you first came to tell me about him? I didn’t think he was real when I saw him then. I still don’t.”
Eli couldn’t have heard him, but he chose to turn his face at that moment, and their eyes caught. And Samuel didn’t have to look away. Didn’t have to pretend not to see or not to want. When Eli smiled, it went right into the muscles of his chest. He felt himself come alive with it and stretched out his hand even though Eli was halfway across the dorm.
Rat snorted. “You’ve destroyed your reputation. No one’s going to believe you’re the IceQueen after this.”
But he didn’t care about reputations, because Eli was already crossing the room back toward them, and when he was close enough, he caught up his hand and pressed it to that mouth. “I should be furious with you,” Eli said, and kissed his wrist next. “Selling me off like that. Have you forgotten how many days are in a year?”
He hadn’t forgotten. Even happiness couldn’t make him forget what things had been like before. He knew exactly what it would feel like to wake up without him, and with the full knowledge of just how many times he’d have to repeat that pattern. But Eli would be safe. There was only one last night to get through, and then he’d deliver him into the most trustworthy set of arms in the world.
There was a tug, and Eli was done with his hand. The man’s next words were pressed into his jaw. “My appetite’s already gone. I’ll be wasted away by the time you’re out. You won’t even recognize me.”
“I’ll recognize you.”
Eli’s hands were framing his face, those warm fingers sunk snugly into his hair, and the teasing had already fallen away. Eli’s eyes were dark magnets, pulling at all his edges, every loose thread and breath. “Samuel.”
He had to shut his eyes to it. “Don’t.” He couldn’t tear himself away from that warmth, and he wouldn’t. There was so little time left. His hands closed tightly over Eli to keep him exactly where he was.
Eli’s breath was tight, and so was the hold on his face, and Samuel almost faltered. There were so many pleas crammed into the back of his throat.I can’t be without you. Not for a year—not for a day. Don’t leave me.But then Eli took another breath, and his grip loosened enough to slip around to the back of his head. “All right, puppy,” he said, and pulled his face into his neck. “All right.”
He didn’t think he’d sleep that night. And they didn’t, at first. They lay on their sides, facing each other in that too small bunk, and Samuel brushed his thumb down that velvet cheek over and over, locking the feeling of it inside him as deep as it would go. He had no fear of forgetting, but one didn’t need fear to carve his beloved’s face into every thought and memory.
“What if something happens to you?” Eli finally asked after keeping the question in his eyes all day.
Not for the first time, Samuel was glad for the dimmers, and not because it made it easier to track predators. He could see Eli this way. His face. His chest and stomach. Those lovely melon biceps. He let his thumb slide from Eli’s cheek to his jaw.
“I can’t guarantee my safety,” he admitted. He'd never been one to lie to Eli, and that was doubly true of their final night together. “But I’ve learned a lot over the years, and I have more motivation than ever to protect myself.” And he would in cases of true self-defense, but internally he was already transitioning from Ice Queen to Buddha. No way was he going to risk added time with so much waiting for him on the outside. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Eli’s collarbone. He’d been urging himself to do it for almost ten minutes and felt a spurt of adrenaline and satisfaction with the completion of the act.
Eli touched his smile—an entirely involuntary one. “You’re getting braver.”
Really, it was the pressure of the disappearing time that was helping him initiate more. But he liked Eli’s theory better. “Are you afraid?”
“For you?” Eli asked. “I’ll have three new ulcers by the morning.”
He shook his head. “Of getting out.”
But Eli already knew what he was asking and was considering it.
“I’m not looking forward tomy new status as an ex-con, even if your father can prove I was framed.”
He will, he felt the need to say, but Eli had already heard those promises. He waited.
“I know people will look at me differently. Mostly, they won’t be important people, and I’ve gotten plenty of practice with sidelong stares thanks to my illustrious career as a huge black guy, so it’s not a majorworry. But there are other things. How will Hailey be treated by her teachers? Her classmates? I know she’s already suffering from that, and I doubt my getting out will help her. And then there’s Nathaniel, who assures me he couldn’t give two flying farts about tenure, but I want that for him. I really want that for him. He deserves it more than anyone else at that school, and he’s already too sacrificing by nature.”
His hand tightened around Eli’s face, reacting to the pain in his voice. “He’d choose you. Over any and every hardship, he’d choose you and consider it the deal of a lifetime.”
But Eli already knew that too. “That doesn’t make it easier, like I’m rewarding loyalty with punishment.” The man pushed a smile back onto his face. “But I should know better than to sulk. I’ll do my best to rebuild my practice and my place in the community. I know that’s the best way to heal things. And time, of course. Work and time.”
“Not too much work,” Samuel said and put mock severity into his voice. “You’d better not think of keeping the kind of hours you had here. Nobody likes a workaholic, and anyway you owe Nat a thousand blowjobs, so that’s at least an hour of every day blocked out on a repayment schedule.”
Eli’s laugh spilled over them both, the small space crowding it up around them. “A thousand, huh? That’s about three per day if I want to settle my debt in a timely manner. Seems manageable.”
He shook his head again. He could feel the flush in his cheeks and the uptick in his heart rate, but it was becomingeasier to make that kind of comment. Maybe he really was getting braver. “That’s on top of the two daily you already owe him just for him being your husband. And then there’s compounding interest, of course.”
“Interest?”
“Debt always has interest. And blowjob debt isn’t like mortgage debt. You’re looking at credit card rates, and there’s no refinancing.”
