Page 63 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

I think that’s coming from upstairs. . . .

Walt looked back at the house. Annie was standing at the top-floor window looking down at them. They waved at her. She didn’t wave back.

Weird.

Well, we can’t go back inside, just text her or something.

Walt: Sorry I missed you. Things got out of hand. See you later.

Annie: It’s okay. See you later.

It doesn’t sound okay.

Annie doesn’t like it when I fight, is all. Take us home.

Walt didn’t hurry, filling Hollis’s lungs so slow and smooth that they ached unpleasantly, and Hollis let him.

Dionysus

It felt like a truce. Like something important had shifted.

It was eleven thirty when they made it home. The house was empty and dark. They got ready for bed, and it felt anticipatory. Downstairs- and upstairs-neighbor noises both until they were settled beneath the sheets.

I need to know.

What?

If you could be doing anything else, if you could choose not to do this, would you?

Walt took a moment to answer.

My first day like this was on purpose. I was desperate and childish and selfish back then, but no. Now, knowing all that I do, I wouldn’t have chosen this, Hollis. If I knew you and understood who you were, I wouldn’t have chosen you. You deserve more than this.

Walt sounded stubborn. Embarrassed. Also, he’d answered Hollis’s question even though it had taken him a whole day, and with that, something settled.

Permanently and in every way that mattered. Hollis wasn’t afraid of Walt anymore, and he wasn’t angry.

Okay. Okay, we need some rules. Everything you’ve done so far has been mostly all right. But when I need to use my hands or mouth or whatever, you have to let me. Tonight was as close to a trial run of that as we could have had, and it worked. I liked it better.

All right.

You have to let me cook dinner and do food stuff. It’s not that you’re bad at it—your recipes are just . . . a bit out of date and you keep triggering my ma.

Walt laughed.

Last, if we fight—and I know we will—you can’t just run off and start doing whatever. We have to resolve it. This can’t be me versus you, it has to be me and you versus the problem.

You read that one in a book?

Heard it at a wedding, Hollis snapped. Do we have a deal?

Hollis, you could have whatever you wanted from me if you ever asked it, Walt said, rolling over on their back. All I do, I do for you. I’m a guest in your house.

Hmm.

Give me my arm.

And it was his. Hollis raised it high enough that the moonlight fell across his skin, then turned his hand around, stretched it.