“Ouch. How bad was it?”
“He was a bad person,” Grace said helplessly. “He was a few years older, ‘taking a break’ from college, supposedly. He beat up other high school kids, because I don’t know why. He thought it was fun, I guess. I followed him around and picked up the bodies and made sure they got home to their parents and told them to stay out of Gabriel’s way. And then when I’d be asking him why he’d do something like that, he’d drop his pants and I was licking him like a trained poodle. It’s….” Grace couldn’t even shrug while he was tucked against Hunter’s chest, those strong arms around his shoulders. “It’s a mystery.”
“Not so much,” Hunter murmured, holding him tighter. “You wanted a grown-up, someone to tell you what to do. Josh was a peer, and you couldn’t trust his parents yet. But this guy knew your buttons.”
“I guess.” And now came the hard part. “I… I liked candy,” he said. “I’m not proud of that. But I would suck dick for X in high school, or coke. You know.”
“Anything that made it better?” Hunter said gently.
“Yeah. And Gabriel was like, ‘That’s kid stuff. You know what’s rockin’?’”
“Oh God.” Hunter’s arms tightened to the point where Grace couldn’t breathe. “Yeah, Grace. I used to bodyguard for drug dealers. I know what’s rockin’.”
For some reason that was comforting. Hunter didn’t sound like he was proud of that. If Hunter—who was so fucking professional, he was practically a bonded bad guy—could admit to something he wasn’t proud of, Grace could finish this.
“I didn’t know how to shoot up,” Grace told him, remembering those giggly moments on the floor of his room in his parents’ big, empty house. Gabe’s Rafael-angel profile as he pulled the constrictor around Grace’s arm. “Gabe prepared the fix for me and slipped the needle in the vein.” He actually heard Hunter swallow, as if he didn’t want to hear the rest, which was funny because they were there, right? So it was obvious Grace survived. “I woke up in the hospital.” He had confused images in between—shouts, an ambulance ride, needles—but he could never put them together. “Josh and his parents were there. Gabe called Josh when I started to convulse, and Josh called the ambulance as he and his parents were running over. I was only a few houses down. They saved my life. I never stayed in my parents’ house again after that. They moved all my things into the room I’m in now. I just went home with them.”
There were a few still moments then, and Grace wondered if all his brain meth hamsters had died. He felt quiet in his head and quiet around him. It was so unusual, it was frightening.
“Say something,” he demanded, and Hunter rubbed his cheek against Grace’s hair again, which was almost as good.
“What did your parents say?”
“They were glad I was okay,” Grace said. “I… I thought they’d at least come home, you know? But it was a bad time for my father.” He sighed. “It was always a bad time for my father to leave work. I think they were relieved when I moved into Josh’s house and they didn’t even have to pretend to care.”
“I care,” Hunter told him gruffly. “I am glad you survived. I think it was awful that you were so sad you almost threw your life away.” He let out a little laugh. “And I maybe finally see how you and Josh work. You’re like Felix and Julia. You’re closer to being siblings than friends.”
“Mm.” Grace let out a sigh. “Yeah. Josh. If we ever did the thing, we could end. I can’t have that happen.” And then he felt compelled to look up at Hunter, forced to offer what he was about to say like a sacrifice on the altar of his well-being. “I… I would maybe not do the thing with you again so we could keep doing this. I like this.”
Hunter’s face—often so harshly defined when he was concentrating, softened. “It doesn’t have to be a choice, Dylan. That’s why you have lovers, if that’s the way you work. So you can have someone to do the thing with and someone to care about and do the comfort with.”
Grace nodded. “Was that the way it was with you and”—oh, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know Dead Boyfriend’s name—“Paulie?”
Hunter gave a rusty chuckle. “That was rough,” he said. “But you have nothing to worry about with the memory of Paulie.”
“Dead boyfriends can’t fuck up,” Grace said darkly, and while he was sure this didn’t reveal the best side of him, none of his sleeping hamsters were giving him any direction in this matter.
“Paulie and I knew each other for six weeks,” Hunter said. “Which is, if you’re counting, about four weeks less than you and I have known each other, so go ahead and count away.”
“So if I don’t, like, die tomorrow, I’m racking up boyfriend points,” Grace said, and Hunter almost crushed his bones with the next hug.
“If you walked away—walked away—tomorrow, because we’re not saying die right here,” Hunter cautioned, “I would still be more emotionally invested in you, Grace. It was rough losing Paulie. He was a buddy and a coworker, and we had some sex and some good times. It was nice having a boyfriend I worked with. That didn’t happen often. And yeah, it hurt when he died. Part of that was that it was so horrific. I mean… blown up! Not a great way to go. But it’s been more than a year now, and I’ve been able to put some perspective on it.”
“What’s that like?” Grace asked, feeling wretched. He still remembered his stupid laugh as the drug had slid into his veins. He’d been so grateful for Gabriel’s promises that this would make him feel like all was right with the world.
“I didn’t love Paulie,” Hunter said, his voice sober. “I cared for him, yeah—but we were only having fun. That day… one minute we were fooling around, and the next our employer was ready to rabbit. The other two guards—Chancellor and Creighton—had disappeared. They were assholes anyway, and they’d been acting weird since we got a big delivery a few weeks before, and suddenly Pinter was like, ‘Gotta go, you guys drive,’ and the guard at the gate, who was sort of a sweet old retired police officer with a family, had been taken out. And when I saw the flames and felt the concussion and realized Paulie was dead, I… I was more angry about the death of the gate man. That wasn’t necessary. He could have been taken out without bloodshed. Me and Paulie, we knew the score, but not that guy. And it hurt, losing Paulie, but because I knew him. Not because I loved him. You and me, Grace—we’re different. Tonight, after you ran out, that was not fun. I’ve never had such a hard time keeping up with a briefing. I’ve never been distracted from my job. The job was always more important than whatever I had on my mind. Until I let you go tonight and had to hope you’d come back.”
Grace half sat up. “Let me go?”
“Yeah, dumbass. People pay me a lot of money to protect them. If I’d decided to lock you in Julia’s safe room with all her old clothes, believe me, you would have been trying on dresses right now, and probably looking fabulous.”