Page 56 of Teach Me To Sin
Crossing the room, Colson sits on the edge of the mattress next to him. His movements are hesitant, like he doesn’t know if he’ll be rejected. “It’s me.”
With a wrenching sob, Benji ignores his injuries and throws himself onto Colson, wrapping both his legs and his one good arm around the man as tightly as he can and burying his face in his neck. A look of pain mixed with tenderness like I’ve never seen before crosses Colson’s face as the boy cries violently against him. He pulls Benji close and cradles the back of his head, rocking gently back and forth and murmuring things I can’t hear.
It feels like I’m watching something deeply private and vulnerable, so I limp back to the kitchen and search for the coffee maker instructions in all the drawers. When I finally find them, the words keep rearranging themselves in my vision so that I can’t make sense of a single sentence. I throw the booklet across the room and watch it hit the wall and drop to the floor. When Colson doesn’t come out for a while, I go wandering through the hotel until I find a coffee station in the lobby. I chug one standing right there, no cream or sugar, then make two more and take them back upstairs. Sitting by the window, I drink my second cup while watching cars drive past and wondering how I got here, all because I saw a cute boy swimming in the Cascades.
Thirty minutes later, Colson emerges from the bedroom with Benji still wrapped around him, asleep on his shoulder. He staggers to the kitchen and rests Benji’s ass on the counter to ease the weight. “Hi.” His dark eyes search mine.
“Hey.” I push the second Styrofoam cup of coffee toward him. He smells it, makes a face, and puts it back down.
“When are you heading out?” I try to sound casual and not like I’m going to break down no matter what the answer is.
“There’s no point in me rushing.” The morning light illuminates his profile as he glances out the window. “The boat is gone. I’m already going to have to book a last-minute flight to catch up, or pay an ungodly amount for them to ship all my stuff back. I’ll have to kick the renters out of my house or rent somewhere myself in the meantime. So it doesn’t matter what I do, really.”
“Wow,” I mumble bitterly, looking away. “Good to know we’ve ruined your life.”
He sighs and strokes Benji’s hair, adjusting his position. “I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant it at all. None of that is important.”
“Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.
“You look rough,” he observes, and I snort. “Has it been hard, with him?”
Resting my elbows on the counter, I rub my hands over my face. “He screamed all fucking night. But I have to keep him, because the only other people who want him are abusive monsters.”
“And he was partly responsible for the fire.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Oh, no. I’m not even touching that right now. I’m more concerned that I’m going to have a heart attack and die because I haven’t slept for three nights straight.”
He doesn’t say anything, just looks me over in a quiet, careful way I don’t know how to interpret. “Wait here.”
Kissing the top of Benji’s hair, he hoists him up and disappears into the bedroom. Ten minutes later, he’s back. “I think he’s going to be out for a while. And if he wakes up, I’ll deal with it. I saw the instructions on the table.”
I stand up like I have somewhere to go, then get stuck staring at nothing and swaying a little. Someone else needs to make decisions right now. Coming around the counter, Colson takes my face in his cool, dry hands, his thumbs soothing my feverish cheeks. I lean into his palm and close my eyes. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “For taking care of him. I’ve got you.”
When I open my eyes, he kisses me–not hard or deep, just a slow brush of his lips that gives me time to pull away. But I don’t. “Come watch TV.” His hand on the back of my neck guides me to the ugly maroon couch, where the upholstery feels like plastic. Grabbing a spare blanket from the closet, he hands it to me. I just gawk at it in my hands, so he takes it back and spreads it over me.
He turns on the TV to some daytime show interviewing the teenage stars of an upcoming fantasy movie. At first we sit side by side, unsure of ourselves. He probably hasn’t snuggled with someone properly since he left Gray a million years ago, and I’ve only had Maya rest her head on my shoulder.
After a hesitant pause, he puts his arm along the back of the couch behind me, his thumb brushing my shoulder through my t-shirt in a soothing pattern. Finally, I scoot closer and pull my knees up under the blanket. I look like a little kid, but right now I’m too broken down to care. I can’t be the boss anymore, the one with all the answers. Colson is the only person who doesn’t need that from me.
I lean into him, and his hand squeezes my arm. When my head comes to rest against his shoulder, he props his chin on top of my hair. It feels good, but I’m too tired to get comfortable. After feeling me fidget for a few minutes, he pushes me upright and takes the blanket, rearranging everything until he’s lying on the couch with me fitted against his front and the blanket over both of us. I tilt my head back against his chest, while he gently nuzzles and kisses my hair. His hand slides up under my shirt and rests against my chest, his thumb stroking back and forth across my bare skin. At last, I can finally feel myself melting away into something peaceful and still.
I press back into his body heat, my chest raw with pain, and he holds me tighter. His breath warms my skin as he rests his face on the back of my neck and neither of us say anything. No one has ever held me like this. No one has ever told me it was okay to rest because he was there to guard my world while I slept. For the space of time it takes me to drift off, I exist in a reality where this never has to end.
Colson
When my entirebody has gone numb and it’s clear Alek won’t be moving any time soon, I sneak my way out from behind him and settle him more comfortably on his back, tucked under the blanket. I’ve never seen someone so wrecked, like he could barely stand upright or form thoughts. He refused to collapse through sheer force of will, because he knew that people needed him. I’ve never committed to a single thing in my life with as much determination as he shows every damn day.
Now that both men are asleep, I’m not sure what to do with myself in the hushed, boring hotel suite. I sit at the counter and browse mindlessly on my phone while I drink half of one of Benji’s sports drinks and eat one of the protein bars I bought for myself. Eventually, I just turn my phone screen off and stare at the countertop, chewing slowly and trying to understand why I left and why I came back. It all felt so logical at the time. Benji was with his family, and Alek had his friends to help him rebuild. Without Benji to balance us, there’s no way Alek and I could work as a couple–we’d kill each other. So if I stayed out of some pointless desire to be supportive, I’d eventually end up back where I started, wishing I had just taken the damn ship in the first place.
This is the way I’ve lived for years, not giving or taking anything from anyone. I keep to myself and do as I please with no strings attached. No one needs me, so I can’t let anyone down. That paradigm crumbled to nothing in the space of Alek opening the hotel room door. As I drove north after the fire, I fought the growing sense of panic and foreboding in my chest the further away I got. I told myself I was imagining things. But when I came back, I found two men who desperately needed me. Not Tate or Victor or Gray–me. I’m scared shitless. When they look at me, I don’t know the man I see reflected in their eyes. He’s strong and sure and unselfish, a larger-than-life shape I will never be good enough to fill.
Someone raps too loudly on the door, and I glance toward Alek to make sure he doesn’t wake up. The bone-weary man doesn’t even twitch. Treading quietly in socked feet, I circle the counter and head for the entry. It has to be one of Alek’s friends, or possibly Gray. While he was giving me the hotel information, Tate mentioned my ex was flying in sometime today. I try to rehearse an appropriate response to any of these three people, knowing they might not be particularly pleased to see me.
The door squeaks open to reveal an unfamiliar man maybe ten years older than me, with a shaved head and dark clothes. I blink at him, trying to figure out if he’s here to clean the room, until he finally speaks. “I came to pick up Bennett.”
The sound of Benji’s real name has my fingers tightening on the door handle. “Who are you?”
He eyes me like I’m crazy, huffing an incredulous laugh. “Who areyou? I was on my way to pick him up when I discovered someone else just walked out with him. We’ve been frantic all night trying to locate him.”