Page 41 of Hold On

“That’s not for me to tell you.” He began to close the door, then stopped. “Are you going to give him a chance?”

Two could play at that game. “That’s between him and me. Will you call me when he comes back? Just so I know he’s okay? Or ask him to call me?”

Col nodded and Ren gave him his number. “Thanks.”

“What are you going to do?” Col asked as Ren walked off.

“Keep looking until I find him.”

As Dominic walked away from Ren, he’d thought his heart was going to explode from stress. Would it get easier each time he told his story? He’d like to think it would but he doubted it. How often would he have to tell it over the rest of his life? If only there was a limited number of times and when they were used up, he’d be free.

Wishful thinking.

He’d have to give every potential employer details of his criminal record and they’d no doubt tell him there wasn’t a job for someone like him. Dominic might have kept that flicker of hope burning all these years but it was getting harder to keep it alight.

Nor would there be a job with Col. Too big a risk. Dominic thought Col had come up with property development because it was something where they could be self-employed and work together. Dominic couldn’t let Col help him at the expense of his own happiness. He’d been amazed by Col’s carvings, and what he’d done with the sand. He was talented, and stone carving was what Col should be doing, not trying to keep his pathetic brother occupied.

But finding a job wasn’t what occupied Dominic’s mind right at that moment. He reversed out of that rabbit hole and went down a tighter, more uncomfortable one.

Had he done the right thing telling Ren? For as many reasons as he could convince himself that it was the right thing to do, there were an equal number telling him it wasn’t. He should have waited to see if Ren actually liked him before assuming the hand-holding meant something. How arrogant was he to think Ren had been imagining more than a brief…fling? Someone to fuck while he was staying at the dig with his brother? Maybe Ren just wanted a comfortable bed and a shower instead of a tent.

Though he knew that was being unkind. Still…sex? Could he get his head around that, when his only experience of it involved pain, fear and humiliation? How would he react to being touched, even if he wanted that touch? The hand-holding had been…good, but there was a big jump to holding something else, touching, suck…

It was too soon. He wasn’t ready. Dominic snorted as he began to walk faster. He’d never be ready. Why had he said anything? Ren had secrets too and he’d not spoken out.I should have waited, had a few weeks of at least trying to feel normal.He hadn’t needed to confess it all within the first few days. He wanted to believe Ren wouldn’t tell anyone but… He couldn’t turn back the clock.

Dominic went into the wood and kept going until he saw a glade where the sun’s rays had found their way through a gap in the trees to illuminate a small area of grass. He sat down, then lay back with his arms crossed under his head. His heart ached. He didn’t fit in anywhere and he was never going to fit in.

It was so easy to slide down into despair. The path was a familiar one. He had tablets for it, a guide rope to hang onto. The thought made him smile. He’d never take another pill, even if he had a headache. That was how he felt at the moment. Everything that happened from now on was up to him. He wanted a future, so he had to make it happen. And if he had no one by his side, well, he’d always have a brother at his back.

His heart clenched. Although Dominic really wanted Col not to feel responsible for him at all, not to worry about him, which meant he had to make his own way and either make a success of his life away from Col or pretend he had. Which meant leaving Asquith.

One step at a time. Don’t run before you can walk.He took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure whether it was easier or harder not to know how he could earn a living. He had a long list of what hedidn’twant to do, including working in a shop or a factory, telephone sales, care work, counter work in a fast-food place … Nothing wrong with any of those jobs, but they were not for him. Having no car was an issue. Working with other people was too. He just didn’t think he could do it. Though he hoped to learn how to drive before he left here because paying for lessons would be expensive.

None of this had been said to the Through the Gate team.

Before Col’s tenth birthday, almost every option had been open to Dominic. Despite having to endure such terrible parents, he still believed that education would open doors. He was smart and he worked hard. He could see a way out of the life he had, both for him and his brother, but the one he’d taken had wrecked his future, and might have wrecked Col’s, but it hadn’t.

Tears filled his eyes.Do not feel sorry for yourself. Just fucking don’t.There was no point in self-pity. It solved nothing, just made things worse. He sat up, put in his AirPods and accessed the playlist Col had put on his phone. Some musicians he remembered, like Coldplay and Robbie WilAlexs, while others like Adele and Hozier were new. Col had said listening to music stopped him thinking. Dominic lay down again with Adele singing about a fire in her heart, and he thought of Ren.Well, fuck.He pulled the AirPods out and stuffed them and the phone in his pocket.

Maybe he just needed to get the guy out of his head, finish thinking about him and move on. Maybe he’d be better to go to a club and let himself get picked up by a stranger and find out whether his head would let him enjoy sex or not. If he freaked out, then the guy would never know why, and that was fine.

He hoped Ren hadn’t noticed the way he’d stared at him today. Dominic had rarely felt horny when he was inside. It was as if prison and pills flattened everything that might bring comfort, but he’d felt a…surge of lust today when he’d seen the shape of Ren’s cock outlined by his trunks. The seam of his backside under the wet material of his swim shorts had set butterflies fluttering in his stomach.I’m definitely gay then.

The thought was almost enough to make him smile. It was astonishing to him that he could feel sexual desire after everything he’d endured, that his brain could differentiate between the past and now. Though that didn’t mean he was over what had happened. Today, it had just felt as if the possibility was in reach.

When they’d come out of the sea, Ren’s nipples had been pebbled and Dominic had wanted to lick them. The trail of dark hair disappearing into his trunks had been a lure towards licking somewhere else. Ren’s smile had made Dominic’s heart leap, a smile that was everything Dominic wasn’t. Confident, fun-loving, cheeky. Except Ren had a secret too. Those scars on his chest were much too close to what Dominic had inflicted, yet that hadn’t stopped him imagining Ren pulling him down on the sand, imagining the guy’s cock being so long and hard that it peeked out of the top of his trunks.

A snap of a twig breaking jerked him to a sitting position and made his heart hammer. Fear swamped his lust. No one knew where he was but that didn’t make him safe. After another crunch of vegetation, Ren appeared. Dominic had the urge to laugh.Am I asleep?

Ren walked over, his blue eyes lingering on Dominic’s mouth before moving up to meet his gaze.

“We hadn’t finished talking.” Ren dropped down at his side.

Dominic wondered what else he had to say.

“Or maybe we had.” Ren kissed him. Just one quick press of soft lips against Dominic’s, before he pulled back and stared at him. “Have we?”

“Have we what?” Thinking was beyond him.

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