Page 21 of Sanctuary After Dark

I smiled and sat down next to them, pulling Elias's feet into my lap. He smiled softly at me and nodded, his head resting against Luke's shoulder.

"Someone is a little nervous about the pool party."

Elias turned his head into Luke's shoulder as my brother spoke, which just made Luke tighten his arms around the boy more.

"And why is our little laoch nervous about the pool party?" I looked over at them and squeezed Elias's foot while I used the Irish term of endearment for warrior, making him giggle a little and try to pull it away. I couldn't help but smile back at him because I loved the sound of his laugh so much, and the more time he spent with us, the more he was opening up and trusted us with it. Luke watched us and simply smiled before he shrugged.

"I don't know. He won't tell me. Will you, little one?"

Elias just buried his head more into Luke's neck when he asked. He was still really shy about talking about things and found it hard to open up to people about what he was going through. But he was getting better with us. He was learning to trust, and I would take that gift and protect it with my life.

Squeezing his foot a little to get him to look at me, he turned his gorgeous blue and brown eyes towards me.

"You can talk to us, sweetness."

Elias chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before moving to sit up some and play with the sleeves of his shirt. He always did that when he was nervous. He would pull them down and grip them in his fists.

"I… I want to swim. I used to love swimming so much. But… I don't want people to see my scars and how ugly they are."

Hearing his answer broke my heart. We knew he had scars on his body, but he hadn't let us see them yet. The only ones we had really seen were the little round ones on his hand and the ones on his wrists. I hated that he even had them. That he had gone through those horrors and that people had hurt him. Every time I thought about it, I wanted to find his bastard of an ex and beat the shit out of him.

But I knew he was in jail and couldn't hurt Elias ever again. That was a little solace, at least.

I watched as Luke put his finger under Elias's chin and turned him so that he was looking at him. His eyes held a fierceness that I knew my eyes reflected. We both wanted this boy, and we wanted to protect him and build him back up. We just had to tread carefully with him, too. We didn't want to overstep the position we had been given in helping with his therapy. We didn't want to take advantage of him while he was so vulnerable. But we also couldn't help ourselves sometimes, no matter how much we tried to hold back.

"You listen to me right now, Elias. They are not ugly, and if you were ours, there would be a rule about using such self-deprecation."

I nodded in agreement because that was one rule I would have brought up immediately. We cherished what was ours and we didn't appreciate anyone saying anything bad about them, even themselves.

"But if you're worried about everyone seeing your scars, then we can work around them. We have swim shirts in storage that have long sleeves. I'm sure we can find your size. But I want you to wear swim trunks with them. Your scars are nothing to be ashamed of, little one. No one will ever judge you for them here. I can promise you that. And if they do, then they'll have to answer to us."

Luke nudged me with his shoulder, and I nodded in agreement. Even though we knew we weren't his Daddies, we still wanted to guide him to be better. To push a bit for him to start becoming comfortable with his body again. This could be the perfect compromise to what he wanted and what we wanted for him. He could still cover up most of his scars, but he had to show some.

Elias chewed on his lower lip some as he thought about it and nodded. Luke and I both smiled when he agreed and my chest filled with pride. He was such a strong boy, and he was going to be rewarded for this. Luke leaned in and pressed a kiss to his temple.

"Good boy. We're so proud of you. Now, up you get, little bunny. Let's go find you a swim shirt to wear and then get you changed and put some sunscreen on. Can't have your pretty skin burning up now, can we?"

"No, Sir, we can't. Sunburn hurts."

I chuckled as I watched Elias climb off Luke's lap. My brother squeezed my shoulder as he got up and followed Elias out of the living room. I watched them go, just smiling to myself, and I knew that one day we were going to make him ours. No matter what it took.

Life was seriously fucking good right now. I bobbed my head to the music that was pumping through the speakers, lifting my beer bottle to my lips to take a swig while flipping the burgers on the grill in front of me. The sun felt good on my bare shoulders, my brother was lounging in one of the daybeds chatting with Gar, the brats were laughing and yelling at each other while they splashed around in the pool, and Elias had slowly but surely started to join them.

Today was fucking amazing, and I was going to savor the fuck out of it.

"Is the food done yet? I'm starvingggg!"

Looking over next to me, I saw Oliver standing there, dripping wet having just emerged from the pool.

"Not yet, kiddo. Hold your horses."

Oliver let his head fall back between his shoulders as he let out a dramatic sigh at my answer.

"God, Sir. Hurry uppp! You move like the loading circle of doom. I'm wasting away to nothing over here!"

Raising an eyebrow at him and his response, I couldn't stop myself from huffing a laugh at how dramatic he was being. Typical brat, though. Patience wasn't in their vocabulary.

"You rushing me, boy?"