Hard Line

by Sidney Bell

  Tobias said to him, “We can’t let this be what it’s like.”

  Ghost’s face did something complicated that Tobias couldn’t parse. “The world’s already like this.”

  “Not my world. And not yours either, if you’d only fight it.”

  Ghost just stared at him, impossible to read.

  Eventually Tobias found his feet, and the others gave him a minute in the bathroom to clean up. He brushed his teeth and took a cold shower, staying in until his skin was goose-pimpled and blue and numb. He got out, toweled off, and brushed his teeth again before padding into the bedroom to find clothes.

  Ghost was on the bed, sitting cross-legged, hands clasped loosely together. “Better?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” He pawed through his bag.

  “Where’s Sullivan?”

  “Downstairs. He said something about making a call.”

  To his friend or his boss probably. About the vid, most likely, and Tobias wasn’t ready to think about that yet. “Talk to me about something else, will you? Anything else?”

  “Are you living here?”

  “Sort of.” Tobias tipped his head toward the bed without a frame or box spring, at the milk crate being used as a night table. “Not sure you could say Sullivan lives here, actually. He’s sort of a nomad when it comes to living spaces. But whatever it is we’re doing, we’re both here for it.” For now, anyway. Given Sullivan’s recent unhappiness with the events Tobias had brought into his life, he might have some work to do there.

  “You care about him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You love him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fast,” Ghost said idly. “Too fast to know if it’s the real thing, maybe. Or so people say.”

  “Maybe. I’m not really up for a semantic debate about the point where infatuation becomes love. I’ve never felt anything like it, I know that much.” He pushed his bag aside. “Love might not be the right word, but it’s the closest one in my vocabulary. Do you care or are you just curious?”

  Ghost shrugged. “The second one, probably. It’s interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve never been in love.” Ghost played with a pilled fuzzy on the duvet. “I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

  Tobias went still. They didn’t talk like this; he’d never heard Ghost say such a plain thing. He wasn’t sure how honest it was, but he couldn’t imagine a reason why Ghost would say something like that if it weren’t true. Not that Ghost needed a reason to lie.

  “You mean romantic love?” Tobias hesitated about dropping his towel. While Ghost had seen him naked a million times before—modesty didn’t survive being roommates in a treatment facility—he didn’t think Sullivan would be comfortable with Tobias getting naked in front of another guy. Tobias sure wouldn’t like it if the shoe was on the other foot. He compromised by slipping into the bathroom to get dressed, leaving the door partially open so he could still talk. “Or familial love?”

  “Any of it.” Ghost stared at the blanket in apparent fascination. “I think I loved my mother. But it was a long time ago, and I’m not sure. And I’m different now.”

  Sometimes Tobias forgot how young Ghost was. He seemed ancient in some ways, but he was only twenty, and on some aspects of life, the four years between them might as well be a canyon.

  “It’s terrifying,” Tobias said, coming back into the bedroom. “Falling in love. Knowing that anything that happens to them happens to you. You can’t love someone with your whole heart without being terrified by what it means.”

  “It’s a stupid thing to do, then.”

  “With some people, you can’t not love them.” Tobias gave him a small smile. “All you can choose is what you do once it happens.”

  “How do you know if you love someone?”

  “Trust me, Ghost. You can’t miss it. It’ll take you out at the knees.”

  “I thought—” He paused, staring thoughtfully into the distance. “I thought there was a possibility. When I first got there, he said... I thought—”

  “Thought what?”

  “He’s bailed me out a few times over the last few years. He caught Vasily Krayev trying to recruit me, and he kept an eye on me after that, and he always...he told me I was—but what’s the good opinion of a killer worth?”

  Spratt. “How did that whole thing happen?”

  “She told me to get in his life. I got in his life.” He leaned back and studied the ceiling. “I called him. I’ve had his number for ages. I told him a sob story about getting away from somebody who wanted to pimp me, and an hour later, Tidwell was at my front fucking door. When I was younger, if Spratt busted me, he’d dump me in Woodbury, but this time I said...” Ghost put on his most innocent, vulnerable mien—like everything Ghost put effort into, it was convincing. “I want to stay with you. I always mess up when I try to do it alone. Can’t I stay with you?”

  “He bought it?” Tobias always felt weird watching Ghost’s little performances. He did them so frequently and so well that Tobias wasn’t sure which face to believe. Sometimes he wondered if Ghost ever forgot which one was real.

  The act fell away, and Ghost looked like himself again—young, tired, worn. “I thought it would finally happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ghost scoffed. “What the fuck do you think? You think he did all those things to help me? You think it was because he was decent? There are people who want to use you and people who don’t and—” He broke off and his whole body sagged. He pulled his feet up onto the bed, huddling like he was cold.

  Quietly, Tobias asked, “Did he hurt you?”

  Suddenly weary, Ghost said, “He knew. Almost the moment I walked in there, he figured it out. He’s not stupid. But he gave me a chance anyway. Gave me just enough rope to hang myself, but if I hadn’t tried to sneak out with the USB, if I’d just stayed—who knows what—”

  It was by far the most honest conversation they’d ever had, and Tobias wasn’t any less confused than he usually was when they talked. “Ghost?”

  It took ages before Ghost murmured, “He didn’t do anything.” He blinked, staring off into space, and repeated, faintly bewildered, “He didn’t do anything.”

  “He tied you up in a closet.”

  Ghost’s eyes flew to Tobias as if he’d forgotten he was there. Blankly, he said, “Yeah, but who hasn’t done that a time or two?” He cleared his throat, his gaze focusing further. “You’re a clingy thing today. Get out, would you? If I don’t get some sleep I’m going to punch the next person who expects me to do something decent.”

  And that was apparently the end of that. Tobias stood. “Do you want your key to the condo back, by the way? I’ve got it on my ring.”

  “No. Keep it. Recycle it. I don’t care.” He waved a hand of dismissal that wasn’t quite as carefree as he’d probably planned.

  Tobias nodded. “You okay?”

  Ghost gave him a blindingly attractive, entirely false smile. “Same as I ever was.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After an awkward dinner, they got Ghost set up on the couch, and Tobias supposed they would simply have to trust that Ghost wanted the USB too much to take off without it. That video was the sole security he had in the world—short of life-threatening violence, Tobias didn’t think Ghost was going anywhere.

  There was nothing else to do then but go upstairs to bed with Sullivan, and with every step, the tension seemed to grow. Sullivan wasn’t visibly angry or anything. It wasn’t anything Tobias could point to, but the air had gotten thick in a way it never had with Sullivan before. It made Tobias’s stomach feel like a bottomless pit.

  Tobias shut the door and opened his mouth and was promptly interrupted.

  “I don’t want to talk,” Sullivan said.

  For a second,
Tobias almost accepted it. He almost lied: good, I don’t either. He almost told himself that if he just gave Sullivan the silence he so obviously wanted, things would be better. Tobias might feel horrible, but Sullivan would be happier, and then Sullivan would stay.

  And that was everything he’d been trying to stop doing. It was everything he’d never had to do with Sullivan and damn it, he wasn’t going back to that.

  “Tough,” he bit out. “You’re not the only person in this relationship, and you’re the one who told me that communication was key anyway, so we’re going to talk.”

  “Communication is key when we fuck.” Sullivan whipped his T-shirt off for a clean one, then tugged sleeping pants out of his Rubbermaid drawers. “Since we’re not fucking, it’s not an issue.”

  “It is an issue because I can tell you’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Please don’t make me say ‘are too’ like we’re in first grade.”

  Sullivan shut the drawer a little too hard. “I’m not mad at you.”

  “But you are mad. Is it because of what you had to do to Spratt? Or is it me? Did I do something?”

  “Can we go to sleep?” Sullivan asked through his teeth. “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Will you tell me what I did wrong?” Tobias held his breath for a second, intending to wait for Sullivan’s honest answer, but almost instantly lost his nerve. “I’ll apologize. Whatever it was that I did, I’m sorry. You know that, right?”

  “It’s not anything you did.” Sullivan sighed and corrected himself with, “It’s not anything specific. I’m not happy with where I am at this point in time, that’s all. It’s...it’s shitty. I want a lot of things to be different, and none of them likely will be, and talking won’t change anything, so what’s the point?”

  “But if the problem is me, maybe if we talk about it—”

  Sullivan was already shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s going to help.”

  “This isn’t fair. You don’t get to decide for both of us,” Tobias said, and Sullivan’s jaw worked. He stared unblinkingly at the floor, then abruptly stood up.

  “Fine, you want to do this? Let’s do it. Get your bag. I’ll drive you right now.”

  “My bag,” Tobias repeated, his head filling with a kind of electric, painful buzzing. “I need my bag because you’re—”

  “I’m taking you back to the motel.”

  “But—”

  “Hey, you’re the one who wanted this.”

  “I want to talk,” Tobias said, bewildered as Sullivan shoved his sockless feet back into his shoes. “This is the opposite of what I want.”

  “We both know where this is going. We’ll talk, probably for an exhausting hour and you’ll say how grateful you are for my help, and that you’re sorry I was put in an awkward position and that you really care about me but that you have a lot on your plate right now, and that’ll be it, it’ll be over—for now, you’ll say—but that’s still over, and I’ll take you and Ghost to your motel and you’ll kiss me on the cheek and you might even mean it when you say we should get together after this whole thing is resolved, but we both know where your energy’s going to be, and phone calls rescheduling dinner will turn into text messages rescheduling coffee, and it’ll be pretty damn clear what your choice is, and I’d really like to skip to the fucking end right now if we could.”

  Sullivan was out of breath when that long, ridiculous sentence finally ended, but it didn’t stop him from grabbing his wallet and his keys from his jeans. He looked dopey in his fuzzy sleeping pants and ancient running shoes and faded orange T-shirt promoting a Mexican restaurant, his brown eyes hard, his bony, handsome face tight with temper and misery, and Tobias’s heart thumped hard enough that it had to be audible.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to have that conversation, that’s an awful conversation—” Tobias began, but Sullivan apparently wasn’t done steamrolling over him.

  “Come on, get your things together.”

  “I’m not—”

  “We still have to wake up Ghost, so—”

  “Ban m zòrèy mwen!” And Tobias officially sounded like Manman when she got fed up with her children.

  Sullivan stalled out, confused, and Tobias made a mental note—Kreyòl might be an effective way to interrupt Sullivan’s doom-and-gloom spirals in the future, too, especially since the equivalent of “be quiet” in English wasn’t likely to make much of an impact.

  “Not to be rude, but for a generally cheerful sort of guy, you can be really pessimistic,” Tobias pointed out. “I suppose that’s from years of detective novels and tracking down child support evaders. Your dirtbags are in your head, Sullivan. You’ve let them make you cynical. Maybe you speak that language, and maybe it’s good for you to have that ability at work, but you’re right, it’s not the language I speak and it can’t be the one we speak together. So that whole horrible conversation you were describing? That’s not the one we’re going to have. I’m not leaving, either. I love you.”

  Sullivan’s words dried up before he could make a sound, and he stood there with his mouth open like a fish for a good three seconds before he snapped it closed.

  “That’s better,” Tobias said, pointing out Sullivan’s stunned-stupid expression. “This is already a big improvement on the awful talk you had lined up for us.”

  Sullivan sank slowly onto the bed.

  “It’s fast, I know.” Tobias rubbed his hands on his jeans—his palms were sweaty. He wished he had time to think of better words, but he didn’t think it would be long before Sullivan’s brain came back online, and it might come back online full of doubt, so he hurried to add, “A few weeks isn’t much time, but I’ve been thinking about this, and given the situation we’ve been in and how much time we’ve spent together each day, we’ve actually been together a lot longer than two and a half weeks. A date’s maybe three to four hours long, right? We’ve been spending every minute together for days, so that’s got to jump us ahead on the relationship continuum. And you know how dog years take into account how much stuff happens in a time frame? We’ve got that too. There’s been some really stressful stuff. We’ve had to work through conflict and support each other through difficult times—that’s stuff that you don’t usually hit until you’ve moved past counting how many dates you’ve been on, you know? And if you look at it like that, we’re up to months, easy. Maybe even a year. So maybe it’s fast, but that doesn’t make it unreliable. Everything’s in there, no matter how much—or how little—time it took to show up.”

  Sullivan blinked. “But you chose Ghost.”

  Tobias frowned, searching for anything that might’ve happened that could’ve possibly sent Sullivan that message, but nothing sprang to mind. “When?”

  “At Spratt’s.” Sullivan tipped his face away. “You told me to go, and you went back down to him. I know what that means. I’m not an idiot.”

  Oh. And then he said apologetically, “You kind of are. But so am I, because I assumed you understood. I wanted you out of the house so you’d be safe, and that’s it. I went downstairs, yeah, but that wasn’t me choosing him, Sullivan. That was faith in you. I knew that whatever happened while we were separated, whatever you did would be for the right reasons and to achieve the right thing. I didn’t stay with him because you mattered less. It was because I trusted you more. You get that, right?”

  Sullivan’s lips parted, and he looked almost fragile. Like any sudden movement might have him flinching. It reminded Tobias of the uncharacteristic uncertainty Sullivan had displayed that first night when they’d tried spanking. Like Sullivan wanted so desperately to believe him, but was afraid of how much it would hurt to be wrong.

  “You said you weren’t sure,” Sullivan murmured. “In the car the other day, you said you couldn’t promise how you would feel. That—”

  “I’m promising n
ow,” Tobias interrupted. “I know what I said, and it was because I didn’t trust myself, not because I didn’t trust you. But I know I won’t screw this up now. You’re too important. So if you’ll let me stay, I’m not going anywhere. Let me stay.” He paused. “I mean you don’t have to let me move in right away, although that would be nice. I understand if you need some space or time. But you’re going to be a lot happier with me here, so you should probably say yes now.”

  Sullivan’s lips started to curl up at the corners. “You think so, huh?”

  Tobias smiled back helplessly. “Yup.”

  “You’re going to be one of those demanding, bratty subs who always gets what he wants, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely. And it’s too late for you to back out now.”

  “Don’t want to anyway.”

  Tobias took Sullivan’s hand in his and pressed it against the base of his throat. “I’m not really sure how this works. Is there a collar thing?”

  Sullivan’s eyes darkened. “If you want one. I mean, I’m assuming you won’t want to wear it all the time, like, around your parents or at work, but when we’re at home...”

  Tobias shivered. “At home, we can do whatever we want.”

  Sullivan squeezed, not hard enough to cut off Tobias’s air, but enough that he couldn’t ignore the weight of his hand. It was soothing and arousing at the same time, that weight, and Tobias tipped his head back.

  He stared dazedly at the ceiling, his blood thrumming through his body, as Sullivan kissed and licked the skin under his ear, a tantalizing, tempting scrape of teeth coming every few seconds, an infuriating tease.

  “We’re going to have so much fun,” Tobias said, letting himself slump in Sullivan’s arms, knowing Sullivan wouldn’t let him fall.

  “Fuck yeah, we are,” Sullivan said against the damp skin of his throat, and bit down.

  * * *

  Later, as their heartbeats slowed, Sullivan pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you too, by the way. Since we’ve been together for months in dog years or whatever, I’m guessing you don’t think that’s too forward?”