Page 18 of His Favorite Color is Blood
“So stop pulling me into these situations. We don’t need to touch at all if it’s confusing for you. Or was this whole day just a stunt to get into my pants?” Andrey frowned at him.
Grim bit the inside of his cheek, and it was hard to come up with an answer when all his brain could focus on was the forbidden flesh so close. “No, but it’s fucking hard. You don’t have to touch me, but maybe I could pet them? At least for a bit? It’s not like you’re gonna lose anything because of that.”
Andrey clenched his lips so hard they went white. “You’re just like all of them. You wouldn’t give a flying fuck about me if I wasn’t attached to those stumps.”
Grim swallowed hard, and for a moment, he didn’t know what to say. It was partially true, because he’d been drawn to Andrey because of the stumps in the first place. “And what, you think that makes you so special? That everyone else attracts people with their brilliant fucking personality?”
“I told you yesterday that I’m not ready to fuck anyone! Why can’t I justbe?” Andrey wheeled back, keeping his eyes on Grim. “I’m not a sack of meat.”
“Yeah, and I’m not my cock, but that’s why people want me. Can’t see why it’s so different in your brain. All I want is to touch you and jerk off. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Andrey gasped. “And all I want right now is to leave. Am I still not your prisoner?”
Grim stared at him with an invisible noose closing around his throat. “You know what? All ofyoupeople are the same! You never give me a chance, and you fucking threaten me with police or are just up for a hookup. And even the women won’t let me touch them, even after I tell them I’m gay and their virtue’s safe with me!”
Andrey grabbed the sides of his head and muttered something in Russian. “Would you like it if someone came up to you and said,‘Hey man, your dick is massive, can I fondle it and jerk off?’”
Grim scowled. “You think that doesn’t happen? I’m tired of this kind of one-sided shit!”
Andrey crossed his arms on his chest. “You don’t want to be just friends, do you?”
“I think that’s obvious. I’ve been watching you for years!”
“Then you’ve seen everything I had to offer. Including deepthroating and cum oozing out of my ass. I’m leaving.” Andrey wheeled to the table and stuffed the newly bought items into the bag at the back of his wheelchair.
Grim’s brain boiled, sending pressure out through his ears, which drummed with a furious pulsing. He tossed one of the chairs to the floor and started pacing with fury burning his veins. Why was this happening to him again and again? “Fine. No one’s stopping you.” He pulled out the remainders of the wad of cash and tossed it into Andrey’s lap. “Go on, leave me.”
For a second, he thought Andrey would throw the money back at him, but the calculating brat was too smart for that and pocketed the cash. He wheeled over to the door. “Soo … Thank you for everything anyway. Even if you’re a creep. I hope you can one day find someone who … fits your needs.”
Grim held on to the table, hardly keeping himself in place. Stab after stab, Andrey was leaving him bloodied and hurting. “I’mnota creep.”
“And I’m not a fetish,” Andrey hissed at him and opened the door into the corridor, not even looking back anymore.
Grim gritted his teeth and squeezed his hands into fists. Andrey was being so unreasonable again. Maybe he needed to have a taste of a future without Grim and see how good the world would be to him?
“If that’s what you want ...”
“That’s what I want.” Andrey moved his wheelchair into the corridor.
Grim moved forward before Andrey could close the door and blocked it. His throat was aching so hard even talking was painful. The little rat was truly ready to leave him behind. After everything Grim did for him? “Don’t trust strangers. Always say you’re visiting friends if anyone asks.”
Andrey licked his lips, looking back at Grim. “Do you have a phone number? In case something really bad happened?”
Grim smirked, but it felt more like an ugly grimace than a smile as he took the hotel-provided notebook and pen, scribbling his phone number on the piece of paper. He walked up to Andrey and slowly extended his hand toward him. “That’s how it is?Be on call, Grim, but basically, fuck off, you creep?”
Andrey huffed and put his hands on the wheels. “Then don’t be on call. I’ll be fine on my own!”
Grim growled low in his chest but leaned down, folding the piece of paper, only to stuff it into a pocket of Andrey’s new hoodie. “You’re selfish.”
“Because it’s so selfish to want some autonomy over your own body. Bye.” He looked away and wheeled forward, but it gave Grim a tiny bit of satisfaction that Andrey didn’t throw the phone number back at him or make a point of tearing it into pieces. Andrey needed him, even if he didn’t want to admit it yet.
Grim sighed. “We’ll see how that will work out for you.”
But Andrey didn’t even look back at him anymore, and soon enough, disappeared behind the curve of the corridor. Grim still heard the ring of an elevator, but only silence after that.
He banged his forehead against the doorway and slammed his fist against the wall. There he was. Grim, the one who was always called over when shit hit the fan, left by a guy in a wheelchair. A guy who had no idea about the country he was in, had no documents, no means of transportation, and he’d be vulnerable to assault as a lonely, disabled foreigner. That was not what Grim had imagined when he carried him out of that locked room.
He closed the door and walked over to the window, looking down to the roofing above the main entrance of the hotel. His heart was thumping painfullyagainst the bones in his chest, and he massaged his temples, fighting the anger raging inside his veins. Grim still had hope that Andrey would freak out in the lobby and come back, but then, a lonely figure illuminated by the lights from the hotel rolled forward in a wheelchair. It almost seemed like he had a purpose when in fact he was a broken bird, just out of the cage, stumbling uselessly on the ground to soon become food for predators.
