Page 86 of Piece Us Together
Jake exhales, looking almost weak with his relief. “You’re right. You’re right. Keats wouldn’t—you’re right.”
“The head didn’t let me save Carter,” I say again. Because that’s it. That will always be it for me.
The head didn’t let me save Carter.
And I allowed that. I didn’t go against orders. I was a good little soldier. I obeyed. I sat with the knowledge of the time and location of where my baby brother would be sold—where he’d be fucking raped, it turned out, the first time of many—and I did nothing.
Keats would have never made me do that, even if we hadn’t known each other then. He’s one of us.
He has to be.
He has to be.
I walk away. I go to my room. Collapse at the edge of the bed. Put my face in my hands.
I feel cold. Scared. I’m shaking.
I want to go back to Hunter’s.
I want Hunter.
Chapter Eighteen
Hunter
I’ve never been much for lying. I’ve never found it particularly productive. The truth gets you a lot farther, in my experience. Then again, I never really did anything that made it necessary to lie. Secrets were never my thing. When I realized I was gay, I didn’t agonize or internalize or overthink. I realized I wanted to kiss Ronnie Parker more than I wanted to kiss the girl Ronnie Parker was busy kissing at the eighth-grade dance. My mom picked me up, and I informed her of this fact. She shrugged and said, “Just make sure Ronnie Parker is a good boy. And remember,consent. Don’t just go shocking him with a kiss. I’ll kick someone’s ass if they punch you for being a gay boy. I will not kick their ass if they punch you because you didn’t ask nicely first.”
That sounded reasonable. Two weeks later, I strolled right up to Ronnie Parker when he was waiting for a ride after basketball practice and told him I wanted to kiss him. He laughed. When I didn’t laugh, he said, “You fucking gay or what, man?”
And I said, “Yeah, man, I’m fucking gay.”
He’d stared at me. Then he’d said, “Well, I’m not.”
I shrugged and turned to walk away. Consent not given.On to the next crush, right?
And then he’d stopped me. “But my cousin is.”
Caleb Parker was my first kiss. He was my first boyfriend. He was the first boy to wrap a hand around my cock and make me melt into a puddle. He was the first boy whose cock I wrapped my own hand around, learning I really liked when boys panted and whimpered and then begged me to stop taking my hand away because he really, really,reallywanted topleasecome.
If I had stuffed being gay down, if I hadn’t put all my cards on the table, I wouldn’t have had those experiences.
Granted, my affinity for being brutally honest has gotten me into a few bad situations, including a broken nose, a keyed car, some pretty significant threats from two different homophobes, and a lost friendship with a girl I really liked.Have I been lucky as fuck for not getting into anything worse?Yes. But the point still stands that the truth has always done me more good than harm. When I became a dom, that philosophy doubled. Tripled, even.
As I sit across a table from my newest friend, Travis, seven days after playing with his boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend and his boyfriend’s brother, I think a lot about lying. In particular, I think about the subtle line between a lie and a secret. It seems to be about the same size as the line between Maison’s bravado and his fear.
“Hunter?” Travis asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “You in or out?”
Well now, isn’t that the question of the evening?
I drop my cards and wave my hand. I haven’t been paying enough attention to be making any sort of bets. “I’m out.”
The round continues until it’s narrowed down between Travis and one of the other doms in our friend group, Booker.
It’s when they’re about to reveal their hands that I notice Wells watching me. I very pointedly donotlook back at him. I look straight ahead at the deck of cards in the center of the table and do not think about how I know what Maison and Nolan look like when they come. Or think about how Wells knows that I know that information.
“Travis,” Wells says as a new hand is dealt by Booker. He lost to Travis. We all tend to. The man is like a human fucking lie detector while simultaneously pulling off the best poker face I’ve ever seen. He was obviously a fucking spy or something in a previous life. “How’s Carter?”
Travis grins like he always does whenever the man who is his boyfriend and submissive is ever brought up. He’s like a golden retriever when it comes to Carter. It’s shocking that he’s the one who holds the metaphorical leash in their relationship, to be honest, considering the way he seems to worship the ground Carter walks on. “He’s doing really fucking well. He’s loving college. Loving his job.”