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Rague’s eyes don’t move from my face. His watchfulness makes me feel safe somehow. I fall a little harder into my growing fixation with him. A little deeper. I’ve never felt like this for anyone else. Never thought about anyone as much as I think about him.
He changes to Pink’s “Wild Hearts”. This is the song I heard him playing while I was sick. This beautifully unguarded, powerful, boldly candid song has helped me overcome many dark moments in my life. It perfectly describes my everyday fight. And Rague’s acoustic banjo version is oddly more spectacular than the real one.
I realize that I’m singing. But I’m not only singing, I’m pouring my heart out while he caresses the strings. And something passes between us among the notes. Awareness. Apprehension. The little hairs on my nape bristle as realization strikes.
It’s an encounter of mirroring souls.
When his palm halts the trembling strings and the music dies, I’m panting. I feel hollow and so fucking tired, but peaceful. He starts playing a soothing, slow melody I’ve never heard before. His Adam’s apple moves, and his tongue trembles behind his lips as he sings. I feel my eyelids droop. And I fall asleep with my lips curled up in a soft smile.
Chapter 7
RAGUEL
Five mornings later, I’m walking out of my bathroom when I hear singing down the hall. Ollie is belting out, though I can’t identify the song. He’s quite terrible at it, dog-howling terrible, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Every night he asks me to play. He told me about his brother and their music ritual at bedtime, and how he only upgraded it to a live show with me. He really enjoys me playing, I can see it clearly in the small contented smile caressing his lips when he drifts off. Pink songs seem to be his favorite, but he likes whatever I strum.
I’m getting used to having him here. I’ve been living alone since I was eighteen, so it’s weird to have to share my space with somebody else. But I want Ollie where I can keep an eye on him. I can’t stop picturing him shivering violently, half frozen, looking miserable and defenseless. Even though barely standing and almost delirious, he gave such a relieved smile when I found him walking down the road leading to my house. He said he can’t remember how he got here; his feverish brain must have guided him to me, urged by an instinct of self-preservation. And fuck, if I don’t like the thought that he unconsciously associates being safe with me.
It doesn’t matter that he had nowhere else to go the fact that he came to me gives my heart a bizarre palpitation. But if I think about the state in which I found him, I’m tempted to break stuff. He fainted in my fucking arms, overwhelmed by fever. I quickly took him home, and while Michael checked on him, I took off Ollie’s flimsy, wet clothes—they were even damp on the inside. His skin looked as pale and cold as the snow coming down on Chicago, and his breathing was shallow and fast.
If that wasn’t enough, I realized how bone-deep and severe his cold was when he started shivering once again during the night. Enveloping him with my naked body was the only thing I could do.
What if he hadn’t come to me? He could have gotten worse.
He said that his damn father kicked him out after Ollie told him to cancel the fight against Scorpion. That bastard left him in the cold with a too-thin jacket and the flu. I’d like to return the favor very much with my boot into his skull. That reminds me I have another fight at the factory tonight. I’ll slip out while Ollie is sleeping. Don’t want him near the illegal ring or his father anymore.
The sound of a glass-shattering, high-pitched cackly note jars me. Ollie is still singing horribly, and the first hint of a smile lifts one corner of my mouth. It takes me a few seconds to locate him in the kitchen. And I stop dead at the sight of him.
He looks so damn happy and carefree as he moves around, synchronizing his movements with the music in his head. I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the open doorway, feeling my smile grow as I watch Ollie rolling his narrow waist and shaking his gorgeous ass. He’s much smaller than me, but the energy he exudes is vibrant, alive, and captivating. I can’t look away.
He’s wearing one of my flannel shirts that fits him like a dress, reaching his knees, with a brown belt tied around his hips in an odd knot. He’s ridiculously adorable and sexy. Almost as hot as when I dried him off the other day. The control I mastered that time shocked the fuck out of me. But I would never take advantage of him when he’s that vulnerable. Those damn bruises, they were not from a fight, too new in opposition to the burns on his chest. Those looked old but still fucking painful. I didn’t push him to tell him the name of the fuckers who dared touch him, because I know how hard it is to go back to those hurtful memories. But I still want to go on a killing spree of all the people who ever hurt him. And I expect him to tell me who they are…sooner rather than later.
His black locks are loose on his shoulders, and I get a peek at those thick lashes and the outline of his lips every time he grabs something from the fridge.
How could I ever mistaken him for a minor?
He turns toward the counter to grab the plates, facing the open doorway and me. A startled yelp escapes him, and he jumps back so violently that he grunts, hitting his ass on the lower cabinets. I purse my lips, trying to stop the laughter from coming out, but I can’t. I didn’t mean to scare him so horribly, but the expression on his face is…comical.
Ollie looks outraged at first, but then a big, warm smile forms on his lips.
“You should do it more,” he says as I sober up.
“Scare you to death?” I ask with a raised brow.
“Laugh. You have a very sexy one.” He looks at me from behind his lashes and fuck he’s so beautiful.
His smiling eyes are shining almost secretively, like he’s hiding a whole world behind them. And I suddenly want to know all of his mysteries.
Silence settles over the room as he shoves one hand through his long hair, pushing it back from where it fell over his cheeks. Then he grabs the plates and turns his back on me once again.
I walk up next to him to grab two mugs and pour some coffee in them.
“How do you take yours?” I ask.
“Sugar and milk, please,” he says without looking up. He seems very focused on making our breakfast.
I prepare the coffee, mine black and bitter, and place them on the table near the kitchen, taking a seat in one of the chairs. I take a sip of the warm drink, softly moaning at how strong Ollie made it. He joins me soon after, setting a plate with two sandwiches in front of me before sitting on the chair next to mine with his own breakfast.
