“Of course he wasn’t. Look, Daph. I’ve known Wolfe forever, and the man’s fearless unless it comes to you. You’re the one variable he cannot predict. And mostly, it makes him better. You give the robot guy a little bitty soul,” Blade said softly.
“Shut up!” I nudged him in the ribs, careful of his leg. I could sense he was still in pain by the way his words came out in strained, breathy sentences.
“Babe, I can’t tell you what he’s doing, but I can say that he needs to feel in control tonight. And with you, he just doesn’t. Give him this moment and then walk around his room naked when this all blows over and dare him not to touch you.”
I smiled against the flat of his chest. The way these men thought about risks and rewards made sense in a dark, twisted sort of way. A strange origami that folded men into monsters.
“Does it still hurt?” I asked, peering down at the crumpled white sheets that covered his wounded leg.
“Yes, but the painkillers make the dreams worse, so fuck that shit.”
Blade suffered from nightmares from the years he spent in foster care. I had spent countless nights reading books, listening to music, or simply rubbing his back until dawn. So much of his life was trapped in his body, under the kind of scream that kills you from the inside.
“Is it gunfire?” I searched his face for the answer.
“Yeah. Like all of them. Like every fucking shot I ever took!” he swallowed. “You think I’d be used to it by now. All this shit, but no. It just always fucking sucks. So,” he cleared his throat, puffing his chest. “You want to fuck or what?”
I laughed, allowing my body to ease, and he smiled, squeezing me tighter.
“No?” Blade rolled into me. “Fine. Well, at least tell me who is better in bed? Beauty or the Beast?”
I giggled at the comparison and how accurate it was.
“Wait. If Thay is the Beast and Wolfe is the Beauty, what does that make me?” I asked, and Blade smiled.
“I don’t know, Daph, that crackety old candlestick!”
“Shut up!” I nudged him hard.
“Or that slutty dresser who runs around the castle flashing everyone her moths.”
“I hate you.”
“Which one am I?” he asked through a labored yawn. “And if you say Gaston, I am pushing you off the bed.”
“No,” I breathed deeply. “You’re not attractive enough to be that asshole.”
“Fuck you!” We laughed, mostly to keep from crying, or the fact that any moment someone could walk into this room and gun us down in the dark.
“I can sing the song if you want?” I whispered when the jest fell silent.
“Would you?” he asked, resting his head on mine, allowing me to trace circles on his chest.
It was a stupid melody that we invented in the back of a cargo train going over Snoqualmie Pass. I don’t know why, but over the years, it just stuck.
I had something with all these men. Inside jokes and late-night binges with Nathem. Puzzles and philosophy with Jessie. Everything with Thay and everything else with Wolfe. It was like a reverse harem of the mind, five sinewy strands webbing out between us.
I glanced at my phone, listening for movement below before I broke into song. Still, nothing.
I can’t rid these monsters in my head.
Or the ones I kiss under my bed
I can’t find the light in all this dark.
Just a broken body
with broken parts.
