“You could just not go,” Gideon said now, for the three-thousandth time.
“My father’s dangerous,” Joey repeated bluntly.“And he has ‘business’ to talk to me about, as you very well know.I told you I don’t want you anywhere near it.It would be like inviting you into a viper pit.”
Gideon wondered for the thousandth time how much of a thing they were.Joey Carlyle’sstuffwasall overhis apartment.If any of their friends walked in on any given day, they’dknowsomebody was sleeping there, and since they all knew Joey wore trendy, tailored, and pricey, they’d knowwhowas sleeping there, and the jig would be up.
Gideon didn’t care.Joey wassoout of his league.Every moment that feral forest creature decided not to shift his den from his apartment back to his bare stone woodland abode was a moment of PFM, as the Navy called it.
Pure Fucking Magic.
“I’ve been in viper pits,” Gideon said, hoping for a last-minute reprieve, a chance to accompany Joey, a chance to protect him.“True story.Took a trip to India when I was in college.”He shuddered.“Took all sorts of antivenin before I went in, and had a hook and a slipknot handle thing when I walked in.Steel-toed boots, leather chaps—”
“Are you trying to turn me on?”Carlyle asked, sounding bored, but he was giving Gideon a sideways glance, as if to assess whether or not Gideon wouldreallywear chaps.
“Not the assless kind, and no tassels anywhere,” Gideon said dryly.“Get your mind out of the gutter.I’m making an analogy here.”
“That if you’ve taken your anti-snake juice, you’ll live,” Joey retorted.“Yes, I get it.No, I don’t want you to jump in the pit with me.”
“I’d have your back, Joey,” Gideon said, his hurt surfacing when he’d been trying to bury it for weeks.
Carlyle glared at him.“Of course you would.That’s not even a question.Just go eat your red meat and don’t dream of snakes.For me.My treat.”
Gideon scowled.Of all the stupid things.God help him, Joey Carlyle was ten years his junior and he wasprotectingGideon.
“I’m not helpless,” Gideon muttered, not wanting to let his wounds show.
“If my father was going to attack you with a stiletto or a cheese knife, no, you are not,” Joey said, and while he still sounded hard, there was a definite sheen to his eyes.“But he’d attack you with his words, or he’d sabotage that portfolio you don’t admit you have, or he’d go after your parents in their nice little New Jersey suburban house and then take on your stepmom’s holiday place andherfamily.And yes, you could probably defend yourself if you had to, but since you don’t have to, go have a merry fucking Christmas.I’ve taken my antivenin too, Gideon.Please, for all that’s holy, protect yourself.”
Gideon chewed on that for a little bit, and part of him was chanting,Three months.We’ve only been doing the thing for three months.You are under no obligation to put yourself or your father in danger for a three-month relationship.
But the other part of him was saying,He’s my partner.
And he wasn’t sure how that applied.It was equally true for a work partner or a domestic partner, but he didn’t think they were to the place where he could point that out, no matter how many times he opened his kitchen towel drawer and came up with Joey’s soft white tank-tees.
He sighed.“I’ll protect you until the day I die,” he said, surprising even himself with his passion.He was not necessarily a passionate man, the increasingly intense interludes with Joey notwithstanding.Those were the exception, not the rule.
“And this is me,” Joey said, his lean, hard mouth softening.“Doing the same.”Then he let out a breath.“You’re going to miss your train, Gid.If we weren’t out in public I’d kiss you goodbye, but we are so never mind.I should be home on the twenty-sixth.It’s only three days.Enjoy your roast.”
And with that he was gone, blending in with the train-station crowd so easily not even Gideon could find him.
But maybe Gideon’s eyes were blurring for stupid reasons.The kid could blend in seamlessly whether in the city or the woods.He could track a deer for miles—or an armed perpetrator.He was closer to being a serial killer than a victim, but still….
Still….
There was something vulnerable about him.
Gideon shook himself.He’d done his best.He couldn’t make somebody take help.He couldn’tmakeJoey care about him.
He’d rechecked his duffel that morning to make sure he’d included his father’s and stepmother’s gifts and had found one of Carlyle’s favorite sleep shirts in his duffel.There was no reason for it to be there, except to replace the fancy underwear.If Gideon put it on, he’d look ridiculous.It probably didn’t clear his navel, and it would make even Gideon’s narrow shoulders seem broad.
Gideon had rolled it super tight, so that it barely took any room, and wedged it in the corner of his bag.The thought of it now calmed him down a little.
Maybe you didn’t have to make somebody care about you when they packed their favorite sleep shirt with your underwear on purpose so nobody could mistake that you were taken.Maybe that meant they already cared.Gideon thought that might be a good rule.He’d remember it.
Let the Wolf Come Home
JOEY SAWthe car waiting for him when he got off the train—and neatly avoided it.
He wasn’t going to accept his father’s help, for one thing, and he didn’t want to be trapped in his father’s house, for another.The storage facility he’d told Gideon about on his first day in the city was less than a mile from the train station, and it didn’t only house a steadily depreciating investment in pricey menswear.
