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Their faces were still close, Thomas' vision dominated by green eyes. "That's not why at all. "
* * * * *
That day had come back to him with one casual comment, just as all of it came back with that one touch as Marcus held his wrist.
Thomas had heard how your life could pass before your eyes when it was threatened. Apparently every memory of that life with someone else could do the same when your heart was threatened.
Of course, it wasn't as if he didn't relive it all every day in his mind anyhow. He was reminded by everything he saw, every object, scent or element of nature he'd experienced with Marcus. Air, sunlight, water.
He'd gotten better at closing memories out at work, which was why he tried to work all the time. It helped make the burning ache a sweet dull longing over which he could more easily shovel the earth of his daily life to keep what should be dead in its grave.
"It's just a nick," he said.
"It looks like you sliced off the top of your finger," Celeste observed, swabbing at it with alcohol. It stung, but he barely noticed. While to all appearances, Marcus was just holding his wrist as a courteous customer helping out, Thomas felt the strength in his grip. In Marcus' eyes he saw he'd welcome the fight if Thomas chose to try to get loose.
So he stood still, glad for the counter to press against, which separated at least by a corner Marcus' body from his involuntary reaction to him.
The desire to struggle often had been part of their more intimate moments, Marcus having to prove he could overpower and Dominate Thomas as if he was also overpowering Thomas' worries about embracing this unexpected part of himself.
Though Marcus scoffed at "a part of".
It's all of you, pet. You want to be my slave. You get hard every time I order you to get on your knees, to give me your wrists so I can chain you to the bed. . .
"You two seem to know each other," Celeste commented, taping on a bandage. "Is this one of your friends from New York?"
"I handle Thomas' work," Marcus answered with a professional nonchalance that didn't match the look he kept locked on Thomas' face. He was covering every feature, and when he lingered on Thomas' lips, Thomas felt saliva gather in his mouth. He couldn't help it, he swallowed. Marcus' fingers tightened on his wrist infinitesimally.
From the way Thomas' body reacted, it was as if Marcus had in fact slapped a manacle on him right there.
"He's the serpent in the desert," a voice said acidly.
The reaction was instinctive. Just like a high-school kid surprised with his hand up his girlfriend's shirt, Thomas jerked back at the first syllables from his mother's voice.
He succeeded in freeing himself, though he also managed to tear loose the bandage Celeste had been molding over his finger. The guilty reaction of course made the situation more apparent to everyone, including Celeste. Her eyes widened, shifting between the two of them even as Marcus gave him an unreadable look.
"What are you doing here?"
Marcus turned, as calm and composed as Thomas was disturbed.
His mother had been gardening, he saw. Wearing her neat jeans and smock printed with wildflowers, she carried her garden gloves in one hand with her dusty spade.
While she colored her hair now to keep it ebony, her skin, tanned from her time outdoors, showed attractive lines around her blue eyes.
The deep lines around the corners of her mouth were not as appealing, particularly since she didn't often smile since his father
had died and Thomas' brother Rory ended up in a wheelchair from a tractor accident. An accident Thomas knew she felt wouldn't have happened if Thomas had been here. And of course she was right. Right or wrong, it wouldn't have happened.
"The last time I checked," Marcus responded, "you weren't my mother. So I don't see that why I'm here is any business of yours. "
"Marcus. " His face might be inscrutable, but Thomas knew the reaction simmering under the surface. For all his polish, Marcus became a mean son of a bitch when his temper was provoked. He could wound a person terminally with the clever cruelty of his tongue, and his mother was far too vulnerable a target.
"New York fag," Rory snarled. He'd been just behind Thomas' mother, so he rolled forward now, jutting out his chin and pinning Marcus with a glare.
Marcus swept him with a dismissive glance. "But one who can walk. Would you prefer being a New York fag if you could walk again? Or punch someone in the face who told you to fuck off?"
Celeste drew in a horrified breath. No one talked to Rory like that. In fact, he'd been pretty much coddled like a newborn since the accident. He was drowning in self-pity.
As his brother and the de facto head of the family now, Thomas knew it was something he should be doing something about. But with the store and everything else, and his own pain. . . he just hadn't. Maybe Rory wasn't the only one with a self-pity problem.
