Page 61 of Fortress
When he glanced back, Tobias had turned to face Jake with the top two buttons of his shirt undone. His eyes stayed on Jake's as Jake carefully applied the tape above his collarbone, over the worst of the scarring.
“It won't really go away, you know,” he said quietly, while Jake smoothed the tape over his pale skin.
Jake scowled. “But this is a hell of a lot better, right? Don't tell me you want to keep bundling up with all those layers when it's blazing hot out.”
Tobias huffed a laugh. “I didn't really notice. I've had . . . it's not a problem.”
“Problem or no, it's a nice fucking thing to have a solution. C'mon, now you don't have to worry about tugging your shirt down. Or me tugging at it.” He grinned and wrapped up the tape, tucking it back into Tobias's hand. “Let me enjoy this, okay?”
“You're right.” Still smiling, Tobias looked to Roger. “Thank you.”
“Don't mention it,” Roger said gruffly. “Wasn't any trouble to pick up.”It had taken him a couple weeks of research, actually, to find a decent manufacturer that had exactly what he wanted, but it was no trouble at all compared to the nightmare they'd already been through at the hospital in Arizona.
“How much did it cost?” Tobias asked.
Roger waved a hand in dismissal. “Couple o' cents, don't worry about it. Consider it a late Christmas present.”
Tobias's cheeks turned pink, and he dropped his chin until it almost touched the newly placed tape.
Jake beamed at Roger, wrapping his arm back around Tobias's shoulders. Roger shifted his gaze out the window. Small gestures like these meant little enough compared to what he hadn't done for the kid in the past, but he would try, dammit.
“Anywhere else you want to put it?” Tobias asked Jake, tilting his head back to meet his eyes. “There's other places you don't like to look at. But if you want to cover up all of them, we'll probably need a few more rolls.”
Jake winced but pulled Tobias close again, pressing a kiss to his temple. “No, we're good. You don't need to cover up another inch. Fuck, you don't have to cover up a damn thing if you don't want to, I know you and you're one hundred percent awesome.”
Whatever scars Tobias carried, whatever he'd gone through, that was part of him. Roger was glad that Jake knew that, despite how he acted sometimes like a complete moron.
After dinner, the boys cleaned up the table and dishes, then they sat down again with Roger for a couple rounds of cards. The normalcy was almost surreal, and Roger didn't want to test it too far. So after the second round, he declared himself beat and took himself back to his study.
Tobias cracked open one of his enormous school textbooks, balancing a notebook on his knee.
Jake found Roger behind his desk. He paused in the open doorway, arms crossed over his chest. When Roger looked up, Jake grinned.
“I could've kissed you for that roll of tape, Roger.”
“Glad you found the strength to restrain yourself,” Roger said dryly.
Jake raised his hands. “I did, but just barely. Seriously, it's perfect. I think it'll help him a lot, and with more than just covering up those damn scars. I'm doing what I can, but it's—it helps when someone else treats him like a person. Someone who knows, I mean, not just some damn civvie who's not in the loop.”
“It's the least I can do,” Roger said, rearranging some papers without really looking at them. “You've got the recipe down, I'm just adding a little basting. He's made leaps and bounds in the past year, thanks to you. I hardly recognize the kid.”
Jake looked away, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “Trust me, I fucked up plenty. I still do. And sometimes there's no fucking way I could've known. But I've pulled some dumbass moves too. So yeah, it's good to have someone else seeing that . . . that he's on the right track, you know?”
“Well, you're getting it right where it counts. I'm starting to think he'll be okay, in the end.”
“Fuck. You really think so?” Jake shook his head, walking in and dropping into the armchair before the desk. “Sometimes it seems like every time we make honest-to-God progress, I fuck it up again.”
Roger rolled his eyes. “Jake, that kid's talking to me now, he made a joke about extreme scarring, he's driven hundreds of miles and saved your ass a dozen or more times that you've told me, and we don't talk that much. The first time you showed up here, he wouldn't . . . well, he wasn't exactly a Chatty Cathy. Tonight I almost had to eat my hat when he sat down with us to play cards without batting an eye.”
“Yeah.” Jake snorted. “Maybe next time he won't throw the game.”
“Damn, I wondered how I pulled off that last hand.” Roger leaned back in his chair. “I don't say this often, but you should give yourself some credit. He's already a million miles from where you started out.”
Jake cracked a smile. Not a smirk or his cheeky grin, but something Roger hadn't seen often before: something breathtakingly genuine, evenhappy. “You can say that again.”
“A million miles, kid.”
Being back in Roger's house, drinking beer, watching Toby actually dare to tease him in front of Roger, was a strange experience. Jake had thought it would've felt like some kind of triumph. But to be honest, it seemed more like a hollow victory, like a second monster was just behind him, waiting to strike when he thought the fight was over.
