The back of Rahil’s throat seemed to lose all moisture. He swallowed again. “It might change how you feel about me.”
“Nothing from our pasts can do that.” Such certainty. Mercer didn’t know what he was saying, Rahil told himself. What if he did, though? If he knew this was about Leah’s death and that it involved Rahil… what option was there, but the obvious? Maybe this really wasn’t the terrible, shocking secret Rahil had made it out to be in his mind.
“Tonight,” Mercer insisted, “can we just be who we aretonight? No more anxieties, no more guilting ourselves. We do enough of that every other damn day.”
“I…” Rahil started, and he had a momentary twist in his gut, an impulse to say it anyway; they’d come this far, and it felt wrong to keep bottling it up. But Mercer was asking him—begging him, practically. He could see the tightness in Merc’s brow, the tension in his grip, and Rahil didn’t want to overstep—
A shriek interrupted his thoughts as a pair on a jet ski charged toward their darkened little lakeside wall. A broad-shouldered, cackling man with his open shirt flapping in the wind revved the engine. The smaller figure buried in his back screamed, “Reginald McFlame-Beard Hughes, I swear to god—”
The man steering—who Rahil was pretty sure didn’thavea beard—only laughed again. At the last second, he turned the jet-ski, forming a wave of water that crashed over Mercer and Rahil’s little wall, drenching through the top of Rahil’s head and the front of his shirt. He wiped it out of his eyes. His nose smelled like the lake.
“Watch it! There’s people here,” Mercer hollered, scrambling up as he waved his sandals at them. He looked so much like a stereotypical old man shouting at the clouds that Rahil couldn’t help the little delirious chuckle that left him.
All the pent-up emotion and the highs and lows of the night tumbled together in a sobbing laugh, leaving him leaning onto his knees as he tried uselessly to catch his breath. Mercer rubbed his back, muttering profanities. Rahil had almost pulled himself together again when the jet-skiers had the audacity to come back around, slower this time.
The man at the wheel called an awkward, “Sorry!” while his companion scowled.
Mercer waved the bird at him, and Rahil broke into a maniacal grin. A snort left Mercer, then a chuckle, and finally he dropped his face into Rahil’s wet hair and cackled awkwardly.
By the time they were both standing, shoes in their hands and shoulder to shoulder, it felt like an entire night had passed.
“I think it’s time we head home?” Mercer asked.
Home.
He must have caught something on Rahil’s face, or in the press of his shoulder, because he adjusted quickly, “My house, I mean. Though, someday I want to see this gothic mansion of yours.”
“Ha—well.”
It seemed there was more than one truth Rahil had to break to Mercer. But he hadn’t wanted to hear it; not yet. It would be better back at the house, anyway, at the very end of the night, in a place where Mercer could comfortably curl up and deal with his grief, if need be. If Mercer wanted tonight to simply be for them, nothing to shatter their remaining happiness, nothing left to work through but their own joys, then so be it.
Rahil tried not to stick his hands in his pockets just to give them something to do. His clothing had mostly dried during the walk back to the car and the ride to Mercer’s house, but he still felt uncomfortable as he stood in Mercer’s driveway, trying to judge in which direction Mercer intended the night to go, other thanhappy. His instinct was to build himself a shield of terrible flirting, but he worried if he tried that, he’d make a mess of the wonderful sincerity they’d managed so far.
Before he could decide what exactly to do though, Mercer demanded, “We’re going to the shed.”
He was on the move before Rahil could fully process the statement, and Rahil had to jog to catch up. Mercer’s muscles bulged in delightful ways as he heaved open the side of the shed, but Rahil still couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Leah’s device and the additional pieces he needed for it were in there, sure, but if this was just about retrieving them, it could all fit in Rahil’s hands—in his pockets, even, if his pants weren’t so tight. Rahil spotted the pieces in the cast of the lower security lights, and he made for their table, but Mercer stopped him halfway there.
He calmly reached for Rahil’s wrist, directing one of the trap cords around it.
Rahil didn’t pull away, but he tightened his brow, hoping that maybe, just maybe, there was something more happening here. Something beautiful. “I thought we were done with the unholy gold?”
“We are,” Mercer agreed. “But I’m not done with you.”
And—fuck it all—Rahil could think of nothing else suddenly. His body took over, shoving aside the knowledge that they were both avoiding Leah’s death as every nerve in his body came alive for one thing and one thing only.
He was fairly certain his soul had ascended.
28
MERCER
Mercer was doing this.
His heart pounded and his stomach had knots in it and the religious-raised teenager in him had determined that his soul was descending to hell with each wrap of the cord around Rahil’s wrist, but he wasdoingthis, goddammit. Rahil had been begging for it for weeks, yearning for it, making his adorable noises and expressions and his ridiculous flirtations, and if they were going to be together—the thought still sent a giddy flutter through Mercer—then what was the reason to deny Rahil any longer?
Rahil had spent the evening giving Mercer the world, and for that, Mercer was going to give it back to him. No dark pasts, no guilt or trauma, nothing between them but affection and ecstasy. Besides, Mercer didn’t need to hear that Rahil had realized he knew Leah’s murderer; that they’d been friends once, or perhaps enemies. That they were living carefree out in the world or that they’d been killed years ago. He could hear it all later, mourn afresh later, but right now was a glimmer of joy and peace for just the two of them.
Rahil all but swayed against his chest as Mercer took hold of his other arm, tucking them both behind Rahil’s head as he wrapped Leah’s trap cords in spirals up and over. Maybe she hadn’t built this system with bondage in mind, but he thought she’d be impressed with his use.
