Page 237 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

He's beautiful all the time, but holy shit.

I'm so glad he isn't wearing a surgical mask tonight.

We eat in comfortable silence for a while, me demolishing everything in front of me with zero shame and Plague eating like he learned table manners at gunpoint. But he watches me eat with an expression I can only describe as deeply satisfied, his eyes tracking my every movement.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask. I reserve the right not to answer," he says, but his lips quirk slightly.

Fair enough.

I tear off a piece of flatbread and drag it through the eggplant dip. "You're such a closed book," I say. "Can you tell me more about yourself? I know you, but I feel like I know next to nothing about you."

Plague sets his fork down carefully, lining it up parallel to his knife on the edge of the plate. Buying time.

"A closed book," he repeats dryly.

"Locked, sealed, and buried under six feet of concrete," I confirm.

His eyes hold mine across the candlelight.

"My real name is Hamsa," he says finally, his voice soft.

"Hamsa," I repeat softly. It's beautiful. It suits him perfectly.

"It means 'five' in Arabic." He touches the tips of his fingers together briefly, then drops his hand. "It's also a protective symbol. A hand with an eye in the palm. My mother chose it."

"She has good taste."

His jaw flexes again. "She did."

The past tense sits between us.

My heart patters, but I don't push. Parents are a… difficult subject for me, actually. I take another bite of mansaf to distract myself, letting the silence breathe, and I watch him decide whether to keep going. His hand is on his water glass now.

"I was born in Jordan," he says. "But we lived in Lebanon. I was the fifth child, hence my name. I had two older brothers, two older sisters. Then there was my mother. My father. Grandparents. We all lived together. My family was… large."

Was.

I set my fork down.

"There was a blast," he says.

His voice doesn't change. It's like he's reading off a chart. But his hand has gone still on the glass, and he's staring off into the middle distance.

"Most of my family died that day."

The restaurant noise seems to recede around us. The clinking of glasses, the murmured conversations and laughter, the soft music piping from the corner speakers. All of it muffled, as if someone turned the volume down on the world.

"Three survived," Plague continues, meeting my eyes again. "My mother. My oldest brother. And me."

His hand moves to his chest, over the place where I know the scar over his heart is.

"Shrapnel lodged near my heart. They couldn't do much for me in Lebanon." His lips thin. "We came to the States. Medical sponsorship."

I reach across the table.

He looks at my outstretched hand and pauses. But he takes it.