Page 13 of Heart, Haunt, Havoc
Colin’s blush worsened. The lamp on the nightstand sent shadows pouring across the floor, stretching away from ankles and streaking Bishop’s fine-boned face. He tried to convince himself to step backward, to dislodge from their barely-there hold on him, but Bishop’s honeyed eyes refused to let him go. Fingertips touched the place above his waistband, trailing his bare hipbones, and Colin couldn’t fathom not kissing them. He framed their jaw with his thumb and pulled them to him, sealing their mouths together.
Bishop surged against him. They parted their lips, sending damp, hot breath across his teeth, and mapped his torso with their palms. Touched his bellybutton and the slight curve at his waist, followed the crescent scar beneath his pectoral, thumbed delicately at his ribs. Colin hoped they couldn’t hear his wild heartbeat. Silently prayed to a deaf savior and asked for steady hands to hold them with. When they licked into his mouth, Colin stumbled backward, pulling Bishop with him, and when they scraped his lip with their teeth, he cracked his eyes open and met their hungry gaze.
“Where can I touch you?” Colin asked.
“I’m not picky—everywhere; anywhere.” They guided his hands to the edge of their shirt and allowed him to peel the garment up and away. Their chest stuttered on unsteady breath, cheeks suddenly darker, hands suddenly shakier. “Believe it or not, I don’t do this often.”
“Sleep with the hired help?” Colin brought his hands to their small breasts, trailing their stomach and sternum, skimming their peaked nipples, and framing their neck with his wide hands.
Bishop didn’t answer. They stared at Colin, gaze flicking from his long eyelashes to his parted lips. Without taking their eyes off him, they extended their arm toward the lamp.
“Ven a mi,” they whispered, and flicked their fingers in a quick circle. Light darted from the bulb and sank into their palm, basking the room in darkness.
“What does that mean?” Colin asked.
They slid their hand into his joggers, warmed by stolen light. “Come to me.”
Moonlight skirted the edge of the bed, spilling over tangled ankles. Colin watched Bishop’s index finger trace the bold, black ink etched into his chest, and rolled the lingering taste of them around in his mouth. Usually, Colin wandered into dive-bars or swiped right on dating apps and met for one-night-stands with people who rarely asked his name, nonetheless his occupation. Whatever this was, it was rare and poignant. Fresh memories fit into pockets where bones met and bent: Bishop gasping through an orgasm with their nails deep in Colin’s forearms, holding onto him while he held them against the bed. Their fingers between his legs, spit-slicked and buried inside him, and their bedroom-soft voice cutting through the shadow, whisperingyou don’t have to be quiet; let me hear you.
“My grandmother was a healer,” Bishop said, breaking the silence. “She worked in Mexico City for a while. Spent time in El Paso. No one ever called her a witch until she crossed the border and moved in with my mother and me. She’d always been a divine woman. Someone who could coax the colic out of a newborn, sing dying gardens back to life, borrow the glow from a streetlamp to light a prayer candle. She was blessed, you know.”
“I’m guessing she’s the one who taught you?” Colin asked.
“She died before she got the chance, but I studied her journals. Connected with a few of her friends at church and they showed me the ropes. I’d bet good money she’s turning in her grave knowin’ I joined the military.”
“Why did you?”
Bishop pushed their face against the pillow. Their sleepy eyes gentled. “I was never a great student. Got in trouble as a kid, couldn’t afford college, didn’t know what else to do besides bag groceries or bartend, so…” They heaved a sigh. “The military came with benefits, salary, retirement, the works. It seemed like a solid option.”
Colin listened, but his mind wandered. He wanted to put his teeth to Bishop’s shoulder. Crawl down their body and bury his face between their thighs again. “Is that where you met Lincoln?”
They nodded. “He watched me sweet talk a bullet out of someone’s lung. It’s hard to explain ancestral shit to some people. Hard to makemagicsound less fairytale and more spiritual. He understood, though. I should’ve clocked his willingness tolearnandbe thereandget meright off the fucking bat, but I was too…” They walked their fingers across Colin’s rib. “Relieved to be with someone to make myself pay attention.”
“To what?”
“His obsession with the occult—ghosts, demons, parallel universes. I didn’t mean to encourage it, but we practiced together sometimes, and when you’re into something with someone, when you spend every single day with a person, you don’t notice the shitty changes and new habits until it’s too late.”
“Shitty changes?”
Bishop furrowed their brow. “Scary changes.”
“When you saypracticed together, you mean—”
“Parlor tricks, really. Lighting candles, spirit board sessions, levitation.” They paused, following Michael’s angelic rune carved over Colin’s heart. “I found a sigil on him one night. Handmade. Demonic; planetary. I thought it was bullshit, but…” They exhaled through a sour smirk. “It wasn’t. Are these for show or do they really protect you?”
That was a question Colin had never been sure enough to answer. He stayed still, inhaling and exhaling, blinking slowly at Bishop with his cheek propped on the pillow. “Depends,” he said. “Do you believe in God?”
“Like,theGod oraGod?”
“The biblical God.”
“Sometimes, yeah. Recently, no.”
“I was devout—Iamdevout.”
“Hard not to be in your line of work,” Bishop mumbled.
Colin took Bishop’s hand and guided their fingers to the cross tattooed in the soft dent at the base of his throat. “But I made a mistake a long time ago, and I’ve been trying to earn my way back ever since.”
