Page 88 of Never Say Die
“Was that girl okay? The one who got attacked?” Georgia wrung her hands, fiddling nervously with her silver jewelry.
“I don’t think so.”
“Thomas cursed us,” she whined.
“Somebody did,” he said, and walked down the hall, tossing, “Goodnight,” over his shoulder, before he opened the bedroom door and stepped inside.
Shay stood at the window with his hands in his pockets. Shadows bent away from the walls, tinted red from a sign outside. Blood darkened his jeans. Speckled the top of his socks where he’d stepped in a puddle. Aiden perched on the bed, facing away from him, and Shay didn’t make a sound as Aiden heaved a sigh, propped his elbows on his thighs, and smashed his palms to his forehead.
“Sorry about Cami. You know how she is,” Aiden said.
The floor flexed. Shay crossed the room. He slipped his index finger along Aiden’s jaw. “Let me see,” he said, and guided Aiden’s chin upward.
Aiden thought back to earlier, on stage, watching Shay under different lights. Like this, he seemed himself, and not. Tamed, maybe. Unequivocally Shay, but a version reserved exclusively for Aiden. Silence held them, broken by their tentative breath and the creak under his rounded bones as Shay knelt, shuffling between Aiden’s legs. He curled his arms around Aiden and brought his lips to each bruise, kissing individual fingerprints, the crescent marks where his thumb had dug in, the thick, mauve line, attempting to scar underneath stubborn scabs, the wide, violet palm-print centered below his chin.
“You didn’t mean to,” Aiden said, and cleared the wetness from his voice. He held the back of Shay’s head. “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
“None of this isfine,” Shay said. “How’re we supposed to kill her? How am I supposed to protect you when?—”
“I don’t need youto protect me.”
Shay lifted his face. “I need to protect you.”
“Do you trust me?” Aiden kissed him, softly, slowly.
“Yeah, obviously.” He hesitated. “Just not with your own life.”
“Trust me to figure this out,” he said, and kissed him again, folding his body forward. His thighs bracketed Shay’s waist, sliding around him, trusting him to take his weight. Aiden lingered in that half-truth, the place where he pretended not to know exactly what needed to be done.
What a fucking life I’ve had with you,he thought, and wished he would’ve kissed Shay when they were sixteen and disastrously in love with the world. Each other. Music. Los Angeles.Let’s hope I get another.
Shay didn’t protest. Didn’t saywaitorwe need a planorlet’s call Maeve. He kissed Aiden like he had outside the House of Blues. Kissed him like they were in the RV, listening to a storm, and at the Ocean Grove trailhead, beneath a timid full moon.
Aiden tucked the taste of him under his tongue. Etched Shay Bennett into his bones. Kept him like a secret, like something he’d stolen, and imagined what their future might’ve looked like if things had gone differently. More music, he thought. A house, somewhere coastal. Maybe dogs or cats or kids, or dogs and cats and kids. Stick-and-poke tattoos on their fifth anniversary. Arguing over takeout. A church wedding, because Blanca would throw a tantrum otherwise. Morning sex, and Christmas cards, and black coffee becausebabe, you forgot to get creamer againand Sunday brunch with Georgia and Dylan, and, and, and?—
“Come here,” Aiden said.
They made love on the floor. Breathed into each other, against each other. Aiden rested his arms above his head, absently touching Shay’s hairline, his cheek, the bridge of his nose. He made tender winded noises. Pitched his hips into deep, rhythmic thrusts, and rested his cheek on the carpet as Shay mouthed at the base of his neck.
Somehow, Aiden saw himself, tangled and taken, rocking against Shay, reflected in a pair of oil-spill eyes.
Laura crouched beneath the bed, watching from a place near and far. There, but not. Sharing his mind, his eyes, his body. Feeling what he felt, seeing what he saw. Her crooked form filled the small, dark space, head pushed against the ground, knees wide and turned inward, wrists bent awkwardly, snapped toward her broken chest. Blood stained her cheek, gathered like soil under her busted fingernails. The tips of her pointed teeth showed behind her parted lips, eyes lidded like his, breath uneven like his. She opened her mouth wider. One hand inched toward him, sinking into the plush carpet.
You’ll never have this,he wanted to say.You’ll never fucking know.
“Look at me, baby,” Shay whispered, nibbling his jaw. “Look at me.”
Aiden did. He turned away from the apparition and framed Shay’s face in his hands. Came with his eyes open, gasping, panting, holding onto him.
Shay kissed him. Trembled with him. Held him on the floor, reddened by the light pouring in through the window, and asked, “Shower?”
“I’ll take one after you,” Aiden said.
Once the bathroom door closed, Aiden got dressed. Jeans, boots, wrinkled t-shirt, bomber jacket. He felt for the hunting knife in his backpack. Looped his rosary around his neck. Stuffed Shay’s journal into his back pocket. Grabbed Defiéndase Con El Diablo: Magia Negra and crept out of the bedroom. He listened to Georgia and Pru breathe, and Dylan’s purred snores, and trailed his fingers along the bathroom door as he left, hurrying down the stairs, through the lobby, and into the night.
Aiden thought,trust me, cariño.
He thought,come get me, bitch.
