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“To be fair, I didn’t know I wasn’t until a few hours ago.” I try to sound cocky, but my voice is weak. He’s giving me hope, and I wish he wouldn’t. “Why are you here?”
“I tried to come after you.” He sounds petulant now, and it makes me want to smile. “I ran out of the airport like a fucking movie finale, took the taxi, tracked you down, and it was just a beach with those damn twins and their damn drugs I’m apparently allergic to, and—”
“Holy shit,” I say. “Slow down, dude.”
I can’t hear what he’s saying because all that’s playing in my head, over and over, ishe came back for you. I remember the very first night I touched him, when I was just trying to get him to stay between me and the door, to protect me from the dark.
No one comes back for me. Until you.
Then I realize the guy is kind of, sort of crying, trying to hold it back, and he’s barely able to stand up straight. “What the hell.” Shaking my head, I lead him back to the bed and make him sit on the edge. I stand between his knees, and he rests his face against my chest. “What’s the matter with you?” I murmur. “You’re so fucking soft all the time. You can’t cry on me.” I kiss his hair, slowly, because maybe there aren’t any more lasts and we can finally take our time.
“I’m not crying,” he grumbles, throat all gunky with tears. He pulls away and looks out the window, wiping his cheeks. “Why did you go?” he asks. His eyes beg me not to lie any more.
“I didn’t want you to stop.” My voice isn’t much louder than a whisper as we both stare out at the cut-off tops of the oak trees in the hospital garden, the pale sky patterned with contrails. “I wanted you to keep hating me and needing me and annoying the shit out of me. But I figured when you saw what I really was, you’d either be disgusted or feel sorry for me, and I honestly don’t know which would kill me faster. I thought I’d save you the trouble.”
He shakes his head. “I only feel sorry for nice people.”
“Thank God.” I sit down next to him, because I’m tired, too. “And I’m sorry. I guess. If that’s what I’m supposed to say.”
“You’re so good at this.” He chuckles.
I grab his chin, turning his face from one side to the other. “Now who’s gonna apologize for this mess, Mr. Don’t-die-on-me? Fuckingallergicto drugs? Only you.” I touch the bruise on his arm and when he flinches, I bring it to my mouth and kiss it too gently to hurt.
Handing him his clothes, I let him hold onto my shoulder as he pulls them on so we can go home, even though I don't know where that is anymore.
As he straightens up, someone raps hard on the frame of the door.
“Victor,” Alek calls, and his voice is urgent, scared, in a way my whole body recognizes. His eyes tell me how sorry he is. “The hospital called him to pick me up.”
“What were you thinking, Alek?” Alek spins around as Coach grabs him by the scruff of his neck and shakes him. “I brought you here to rest up for Worlds, not destroy your body.”
When he sees me staring at him, he lets go of his son. His pale blue eyes meet mine and I freeze, just like I did when I saw him in the street that night. Ethan’s head snaps up from where he’s tying his shoes.
Clint’s face doesn’t waver at all, which means that if I turned on the news right now I’d see headlines about the online leakers admitting that they faked the images and videos, clips of me at the last press conference talking about good my father’s been to me, how sorry I am for what I’ve done, how I have nothing to hide. Powerful people don’t have to be afraid of things that they can get rid of with money.
“You swam too, Victor? I didn’t think you were that foolish.” He steps into the room, and I stumble back until my ass hits the hospital bed.
His eyes study me, taking his time, and he nods. “It’s too bad about these wild rumors. I’m sure we’ll all be happy to denounce them and move on.” I know he’s flexing, just here to intimidate me, to make sure I don’t talk to anyone. But it’s fucking working.
An absolutely feral growl tears from Ethan’s throat and before I can blink he slams Coach against the wall so hard that the clock above the door falls down with a crash. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” he snarls, in a voice I never imagined he’d be capable of. Alek’s eyes are bugging out of his head, and my heart is pounding so hard in my throat I can’t breathe.
Ethan looks over his shoulder at me, and I see the truth in his eyes, pure and absolute. He would never pity me. He fucking worships me. And I believe he would kill for me, if I wanted him to. He’d probably cry his eyes out and spend the rest of his life beating himself up about it, but it’s the thought that counts.
That mental image is endearing enough to give me the strength to get off the bed. I come up behind Ethan and put a hand on the back of his neck. “Hey, big guy. Give me a turn.”
Coach coughs and straightens his polo as Ethan steps back. He glares at me again, the weight in his glance like hands on me, years upon years. “Your boyfriend seems to be having trouble distinguishing fact from fiction, Victor.” My name in his mouth always destroys me. This is it. Six years of doors and locks and dark corners, of hunger and loneliness and renting out my ass just to feel. It was all to avoid this moment.
“It’s too late,” I say, but my voice is all tangled up in my dry mouth. Ethan’s fingers lace through mine, so tight I think he’s going to fracture something. “I have proof this time, proof you can’t touch, and the best lawyer in the world.” I make sure not to look at Alek. If his father knew that he was going to testify, God knows what he’d do.
Coach moves toward me and no matter how hard I try I can’t stop myself from backing away. “The reason no one ever helped you is because no one would let something like that go on for so long if they didn’t want it.” He looks at Ethan. “Have you thought about that?” Alek makes a strangled sound, but I beg him with my eyes to keep quiet, to save it for the courtroom.
I’m not sure I’m strong enough to hold Ethan back as Coach walks away. Alek follows his father, his tall back rigid. “He’s scared,” I say over and over. “He’s just scared. He’s going to lose everything. Let him be scared. That’s better than hitting him.”
Ethan stops yanking on my hand, but his eyes are an absolute inferno. “Baby,” I sigh. “You already saved me. It’s gonna be ok.”
Then my legs give out and I land on my ass on the hospital floor and I can’t get any air at all, the worst it's ever been, like I’m going to die right here. Every part of me needs to crawl into the smallest space I can find.
A warm body sits down next to me and Ethan pulls me into his lap, drawing all my limbs together tightly in his arms. “Ok,” he breathes into my hair. “Listen. We’re gonna go into the country again, just us, where no one knows who you are. We can go as far as you want, and we can swim wherever you want.”
Oxygen wrenches and claws in my chest like it’s a foreign substance that’s going to destroy my body. I’m shivering so hard that he keeps having to adjust his grip on me. Through a blur, I feel him take my hand and slide it up under his t-shirt, digging my fingers into his skin, the throb of his heart. “I was thinking,” he says in my ear, low and gentle. “Maybe I'm ready for you to teach me how to swim. What do you think? What stroke do you think I’ll be best at?”
My teeth are chattering, but I finally force the words out. “Doggy paddle.”
His chest bucks under my hand as he laughs. “That’s mean.”
I headbutt his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
