“Dunno.” Charlie took in Leo’s lidded eyes and flushed cheeks. He put a hand on Leo’s forehead. “You look pretty rough, and you’re burning up.”
“Am I?” Leo grunted.
Charlie frowned. “Actually, yes, you are. Do you feel okay?”
Leo shook his head. Charlie waited for him to elaborate, but Leo didn’t do anything other than stare into space, his expression vacant in a way Charlie hadn’t seen before.
Charlie touched his shoulder and felt the heat simmering beneath his skin. “What’s the matter?”
“I . . . um, I feel like shit.”
All at once, Leo seemed incredibly young. He’d had bad days before—days when his arm had bothered him, or his mood had grown so black he’d refused to leave his bed—but this felt different. Charlie set his phone aside and slid down the bed so his face was level with Leo and asked again, softer this time, almost in a whisper, “What’s the matter? Are you gonna puke?”
“No, nothing like that. Just a headache, and my throat hurts.”
“That’s probably the twenty fags you smoked last night, and the bottle of rum.” Charlie chanced a grin.
Leo stared back at him. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” Charlie tore his gaze from Leo’s and focussed on a tiny speck of fluff on the pillow beyond Leo’s head. “Kiss you, or drop the pills?”
“The pills, Charlie. I know why you kissed me. We talked about it last night.”
A flashback of Leo’s flat confession flickered into Charlie’s mind—he liked me kissing him—but he pushed it away. Leo was right, they’d talked about that already, and stretched out together in bed, nose to nose, feet touching, Charlie wasn’t sure he had the balls to talk about it again.
That left the pills, but it was far from the easy option. What was he supposed to say? I kissed you, you backed away, and I wanted to forget it forever . . . It sounded pathetic, even in his head. “You do drugs all the time. What do you care?”
“I smoke a bit of weed. I don’t do nothin’ else.”
“But you have, though, right?” Charlie flicked his gaze back to Leo. “You’ve done them all, haven’t you?”
“Nope, but if I had, don’t you think I’d still be doing them if they were any good? Drugs are bullshit. You don’t need them. You’re not crazy like me.”
“Crazy?”
“Yeah, I’ve got pills for that, you know.” Leo rolled his eyes briefly into the back of his head before he closed them. “To help me sleep, or some shit. They don’t work though. Reckon I’d need to drop ten of them to silence the dead.”
“The dead?”
“Yeah, ’cept the dead are never really silent, are they? Not in your dreams.”
Charlie swallowed the lump in his throat. Some nights it seemed like he lived every moment of Leo’s nightmares, but he knew there were many that Leo suffered in silence, or evaded by staying awake all night long, sitting on the roof, or the window sill, blowing clouds of smoke to the stars. “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm?” Leo opened his eyes. “What are you sorry for?”
“I’m sorry you’re so unhappy.”
Charlie started to roll away, but Leo caught his face in his heated palm. “I’m not unhappy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not. Not here . . . not with you.”
Charlie took a breath, but whatever response he might have made was cut off by Leo’s lips on his, tentative at first, but then harder—much harder than they’d kissed in the park.
And harder than Charlie had dreamed of in the moments he’d drifted off while waiting for Leo to wake.
The kiss went on and on, grew deeper with every brush of lips and stuttered gasp. Charlie’s blood roared in his ears and his skin tingled. His heart quickened until he was sure he’d combust. He thought he’d kissed Leo before, thought he remembered how it felt, but his disjointed recollection had nothing on reality. Kissing Leo was like flying, and Charlie didn’t want to come down—
Leo pulled away with a soft groan. “Oh God, my head.”
The fog cleared from Charlie’s brain. He blinked and took in Leo’s renewed pallor. “Shit, okay. Lie down. I’ll get you some paracetamol from Mum’s room.”
“Don’t go.” Leo tightened his grip on Charlie’s wrists. “I’m fine, honest.”
“Humour me.” Charlie tugged on the pillow and gave Leo a gentle push. “I’ll be right back.”
He got up and hurried to Kate and Reg’s room. Kate kept all medications locked away, but she always left a single dose of over-the-counter painkillers where older kids could find them.
Charlie took them back to Leo with a glass of water. “Swallow.”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “Wanna rephrase that?”
“Hmm? Oh, um . . .” Heat flooded Charlie’s cheeks.
Leo chuckled, though it sounded bone-tired. “Never mind.” He swallowed the pills, then laid his hand on Charlie’s bare chest almost absently, before he blinked and let it drop. “This should feel weird.”
“Huh?”
“This.” Leo gestured between them. “You were so fucked up last night, I thought you’d be a basket case this morning, but this . . . it feels like we always do it.”
Charlie’s heart did a strange flip, like Leo’s hand had turned it upside down and shaken it. “We’re not really doing anything. You’ve been asleep all morning.”
“You know what I mean.”
Charlie thought he did, but Leo was making him nervous, making him doubt every assumption that ran through his mind. Was Leo saying he wanted to kiss him again? Or that kissing him was so boring it felt mundane? Charlie took a chance and reached for Leo’s hand, brushing his thumb over Leo’s thrumming pulse. Leo grinned a little, leaning forward, and—
The door opened. Fliss looked in with a smirk that made Charlie want to punch her in the face. “Morning, boys. Not interrupting, am I?”
Charlie slithered off the bed as Leo dropped back on the pillows. “What do you want?”
“What do you think? I’m checking you didn’t fry your brains last night.”
“What? How do you even know about that?” Charlie glared at Leo. “Did you tell her?”
“Er—”
“Oh, please,” Fliss cut in. “What was he supposed to do? Leave you to climb up on the roof and cuddle the stars? Someone had to straighten you out.”
Cuddling the stars was probably the most poetic thing Charlie had ever heard Fliss say, but the idea of her “straightening” him out was all kinds of freaky, especially combined with the way she was glancing between him and Leo. She knows. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” Fliss snapped. “What the hell were you thinking? You’re the good kid. It would break Mum’s heart if you turned into a druggie.”
“I’m not a bloody druggie, Fliss. It was a one-off. I’m not going to do it again, so you can save your lecture. Besides, it’s not like you give a shit.”
“Charlie.” Leo punched Charlie’s leg. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Fliss said before Charlie could respond. “He’s right. I don’t give a shit. I just want some peace around here, and I won’t get that with him pissing about with drugs. Have a good day, little ones. I’m going out.”
She left, slamming the door behind her. Charlie cut his gaze to Leo. “She does my head in.”
“So? Doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.” Leo rolled onto his side with life in his eyes that Charlie hadn’t seen since he’d woken up. “You’re too hard on each other.”
Charlie sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t think you cared much either.”
Leo grunted. “I don’t care if you tear lumps off Fliss. It’s just pointless and stupid. She didn’t have to help you last night—she could’ve let you get caught—but she didn’t. She fed you bananas and gave you a hug. Trust me, mate—she cares.”
Bananas? Hugs? Is he for real? “Thought we weren’t calling each other ‘mate’?”
Leo sm
iled one of his too-rare smiles. “I changed my mind. You can call me whatever you like. Now, are we watching X-Men or not?”
All of a sudden, Charlie felt as exhausted as Leo looked, and it was almost too easy to crawl into bed with him, load the movie onto his laptop, and lie down. After a few minutes, Leo shuffled close and laid his head on Charlie’s shoulder.
“I do care, you know . . . about you, and Lila. Can’t help it. Just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”
Charlie turned slightly, wishing he could meet Leo’s eyes without dislodging his head. “What hurts?”
“Life, Charlie. You’ll see.”
Leo sank into the couch, pulling Charlie with him, their lips still fused together, dancing a dance that always started so slow and sweet—tentative—only to end like this: heavy and heady, with them tangled together, gasping for breath.
Charlie broke away with a soft smile, and Leo grinned right back, a gentle wave washing over him, sweeping away the monsters in his mind. Sweeping away everything but the tingling in his lips and limbs. Kissing Charlie was like that.
Addictive.
Thrilling.
Kissing Charlie was magic, and he couldn’t get enough.
Their lips met again. Leo wrapped his arms around Charlie’s lean back and held him close, debating whether he had the nerve to slide his hands under Charlie’s Marvel T-shirt to feel his skin. He’d spent more time than he cared to admit wondering if it was as perfect as it looked, as flawless and smooth. It probably was. Everything else about Charlie seemed to be.
Leo took a chance and repositioned his hands on Charlie’s waist, edging them under the hem of Charlie’s T-shirt. Warm skin greeted him, laced over sinuous muscle and the hard, knotted bones of Charlie’s spine. He moved his hands higher and higher, until he could feel Charlie’s every breath and thudding heartbeat, and his head swam as Charlie deepened their kiss, swirling his tongue into Leo’s mouth, and clutching Leo’s shoulders tight enough to leave a bruise.
Bloody hell.
Why had they waited so long? All those silent weeks, broken only by monosyllabic grunts, or the occasional strained conversation. All those weeks wasted when they could’ve been doing this.
Charlie dug his nails into Leo’s skin, interrupting his wandering mind. Leo sucked in a breath and arched into him, sure he’d explode. They were about to reach the precipice they’d visited many times over the last few days, that hazy, heated place where kissing morphed into a swirling vortex that wasn’t quite enough.
Leo’s heart quickened. He’d never truly contemplated what came next, had never dared, but Charlie did something to him—something that tumbled all the barriers of doubt and ignorance. Something that made him want more.
He pulled away, breaking their lips apart, and lost himself in Charlie’s liquid gaze, those soulful eyes that seemed to go on forever. “Do you want—”
The front door slammed. Charlie’s eyes widened, and he slid off the couch like he’d never been there at all. “Shit, that’s Dad. Turn the telly on.”
Leo blinked and forced himself upright, straightening his clothes, and hoping the heat in his cheeks was imagined. He fumbled for the remote, and the TV came to life, blasting the room with whatever R&B crap Fliss had been dancing around to before she’d left for work.
Charlie flung himself into an armchair just as Reg reached the doorway. “All right, Dad?”
“So, so,” Reg said. “What are you two up to?”
“Watching telly,” Charlie said.
Reg glanced at the TV and raised an eyebrow. “Sure about that? Doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.”
“Like you’d know,” Leo said. “Charlie loves all that Usher shit.”
“Language, Leo,” Reg said, though he seemed amused by the glare Charlie tossed at Leo. “Anyway, regardless of what I do and don’t know about your taste in music, I know what mischief looks like, so whatever you two have been up to, you’d better not have made a mess.”
Charlie kept his gaze firmly on the TV, so Leo shrugged. “We haven’t made a mess.”
“Good,” Reg said. “Right, Leo, I need to borrow you for a moment, then you can get back to whatever you weren’t doing before I came home.”
Leo begrudgingly hauled himself off the sofa and followed Reg into the kitchen. “What have I done?”
“Nothing that I know of,” Reg said mildly. “I wanted to let you know your follow-up appointment with the burn specialist came through. It’s in a few weeks.”
“Oh.” Leo’s stomach turned over, reclaiming the nausea he’d only just shifted from his weird illness the week before.
Reg turned away and filled the kettle. “I can imagine that the prospect of another operation is frightening, Leo, but it might not come to that. The consultant said the old graft might correct itself.”
“I heard what he said.”
Reg said nothing, and for a moment, the only sound in the room was the hiss of the boiling kettle. Then he moved to the table and pulled out two chairs, gesturing for Leo to sit.
Leo sat, and Reg went on, “I don’t want to harp on about what happened last time we went to the hospital, but you have to know it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of people who haven’t been through half of what you’ve endured have much worse reactions to serious injury.”
“I didn’t react. Just felt sick, that’s all.”
“Fair enough.” Reg let out a soft sigh. “But talking of feeling sick, Kate reckons you’ve looked under the weather all week. Is there anything we can do for you?”
“Nah.” Leo pushed back his chair with a harsh scrape. “I’m fine, so you can leave me alone.”
Leo escaped the kitchen as fast as he could without running. For once, he’d told Reg the truth. He did feel fine, aside from the heat building in his injured arm, woken by flashbacks of his visit to Dr. Frankenstein. Whatever had laid him low last weekend was fading too, erased by the distraction of Charlie’s magical kisses.
Shame Charlie had disappeared from the living room by the time Leo got back.
Tuesday afternoon was officially the dullest part of Leo’s week. Double chemistry with Mr. Lanning, the most boring man in the world with a voice to match. Today, Leo let the droning wash over him and laid his head on his folded arms, closing his eyes, and on cue, Charlie popped into his head. His eyes, his inky hair. His shy, crooked smile and the lush smooth skin Leo had spent most of the previous evening exploring with his fingertips. He had Charlie’s back committed to memory now. I wonder if his chest—
Wayne kicked him under the table, and murmured from behind his hand. “What are you grinning about?”
Was I grinning? Leo had no idea. He schooled his features into the insolent smirk Wayne likely expected from him. “I’m not grinning, I’m dying over here.”
“Old Lanning ain’t so bad. Rather his shitty lesson than that history crap we’ve got tomorrow.”
Leo sighed. “This isn’t a lesson, it’s torture. If Lanning wasn’t a teacher, he’d be a prison guard.”
“Nah.” Wayne sniggered. “Lanning’s not that interesting.”
“Quiet.” Mr. Lanning knocked his fist on the table right by Leo’s head. “I won’t tell you two again.”
Great. Leo rolled his eyes and let them fall closed. Damn. It wasn’t enough to be bored; they had to be quiet and bored, silent. Like the dead . . . “’Cept the dead are never really silent, are they? Not in your dreams.”
Leo sat up sharply, his pleasant musings forgotten. He remembered muttering those words the night Charlie had dropped the X pills, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why. That seemed to happen when he was with Charlie. His brain and his tongue were far too in tune with each other, and yet conversely disconnected.
In other words, he said shit he didn’t mean to say, all the fucking time.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Leo tried to pull his thoughts back to that liquid place where there was nothing but Charlie and the sweetly clean scent of
his skin, but the flickering of a Bunsen burner in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He frowned, glancing about to see he’d somehow missed every Bunsen burner in the room being lit, even the one right in front of him.
The blue-orange glow sucked him in, muting the world around him to the faint, persistent hiss of the gas tap. He stopped breathing through his nose, but the smell filled his lungs and he tasted smoke on his tongue.
And then it burned his throat. Leo coughed as familiar heat spread through his ruined arm, tingling, smouldering on the scars, and then oozing out, creeping into every muscle and nerve, getting hotter and hotter, until he heard his skin crackle and smelled the stomach-churning stench of scorched flesh.
Leo swallowed and searched frantically for something—anything—to shield him from the brutal flashback that was coming. Him and Lila screaming, burning, running. Hurling open the kitchen door, only for strong hands to push them back.
“No, you don’t, boy. You can rot with your ma—”
Wayne kicked Leo again. “’Ere, look out. There’s the tool that spiked your brother.”
Somehow, Leo followed Wayne’s gaze through the classroom window. A lanky boy was drifting across the courtyard, hood up, hands in his pockets. Leo didn’t recognise him, but rage spread through his veins, a wildfire of fury far hotter than the agonising burn in his arm. His eyes narrowed, and his warped perspective tilted. The image of Wendy, broken and bleeding on the kitchen floor, morphed, her hair darkening until it was no longer ash-blonde and blood-stained, and instead inky locks flopped over a face that wasn’t hers.
Charlie.
Leo pushed his chair back. It tipped and clattered to the floor, but he paid it no heed, jumping over it and dashing to the classroom door. The buzz of surprise behind him barely registered, Mr. Lanning’s exasperated bellow even less. Leo ran away from it all and charged down the corridor to the side doors that led outside. He threw them open, scanning the courtyard for the drippy figure in the hood and spotted him by the gate.
Got you.
Leo sprinted across the courtyard, fists raised, and collided with the boy at full pelt, landing a quick succession of blows to his face and ribs. The boy grunted in shock, then cried out, gasping, as Leo kicked him in the stomach, and sent him sprawling to the ground.
Finding Home Page 10
