All Hail the Underdogs (Breakaway, #3)

by E.L. Massey

LUCIFER WAS AN angel once. That’s what Damien thinks the first time he sees Patrick Roman.

The point is, he has a carefully curated look, and that look is fuck off. Damien wants to touch him.

Rome says. “I thought you were a poet.” “I do sometimes.” “You do what?” “Write poetry about you. Because you’re so…you could be so much, I think. If you weren’t—” Damien sighs. “It helps…to write about you. Sometimes.”

Rome looks like he could be a Garin Baker blue-collar painting: a romanticized version of himself. Looking at him, something in Damien’s chest feels unmoored. He wants to touch him. He wants to write him.

He goes to sleep more comfortable than he’s ever been in his life, trying not to think about how the quilt around his shoulders smells like Damien Raphael Bordeaux. And he likes it.

Being nice to Patrick Roman is strange, mostly because Patrick Roman is not nice at all, except— Except maybe he is.

Violence is never the answer.” “Right,” Rome snarled, “but sometimes violence is the question, and the answer is yes.”

And that is so marvelously spiteful, so—so Rome that Damien could kiss him. And— Oh. Oh no. Damien wants to kiss him. With, like, feelings.

The attraction to Rome isn’t new. But the feelings. The feelings are new. Or maybe they aren’t. Maybe the honest realization of the feelings is new.

“Hey,” Damien says, suddenly urgent. He knocks a fisted hand between Rome’s shoulder blades. Two times. Gently. Skin to skin. Damien’s knuckles against Rome’s spine. Rome laughs into Damien’s wet hair without even really meaning to. “Hey,” he agrees. He knocks back.

“I was. But then I had two hundred pounds of drunken hockey player fall asleep on top of me.” “You are fully capable of moving me,” Damien points out. Rome doesn’t deny it. Damien isn’t sure what that means.

Rome is built out of a sepia palette, a golden out-of-doors creature made for fall forest foliage and cool winds. Against the snowy backdrop of a lit-up winter-clad city, he is something else entirely. An anachronism. A living midnight sunset. Something timeless and untouchable.

I like the idea of that. That things can be damaged and remade—maybe not the same as they were before the damage, but still beautiful afterward.”

No. 5, 1948.

“So,” Damien says slowly, “you’re saying you’re having some sort of crisis because you’re the crayon drawing on the refrigerator in this analogy. And I’m the Jackson Pollock?” “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I thought we’d already established that you were the Jackson Pollock.”

Rome is hyperaware of Damien’s fingers pressed up under his jaw, his thumb now rubbing at the hinge where he’s clenching his teeth. “You saying you think I’m worth millions of dollars?” It’s meant to come out derisively. It doesn’t. “More, probably,” Damien says, utterly without artifice.

sometimes i feel like i am out of season a pale and tasteless imitation of myself i am too much i am not enough i am tired but in the gray post-night when I am sleepless and left only with my thoughts my thoughts my thoughts at least sometimes now they are of you.

Rome is…something. Something important. The potential there—in linked arms and over-the-shoulder glances—is both exhilarating and a little terrifying: necessary of caution. He’s like a poem in a language Damien doesn’t know. But he wants to.

Rome looks out the window. He knows his face is red. He can feel the heat of it. “What are you doing?” Damien asks. He seems to realize what a stupid question that is as soon as it leaves his mouth, but it’s already out there in the air between them, and now Rome has to answer it. “Holding your fucking hand,” Rome says. “You got a problem with that?” “…No.”

He doesn’t understand how anyone couldn’t love Damien. How he didn’t, initially.

He’s beautiful. There’s no point in denying it. Damien can’t decide if his attraction to Rome was easier to manage when he hated him. He thinks maybe it was. Because now he wants— He wants. But he’s not sure he can do anything about it.

Love is supposed to be a reckless thing. But all I’m made of is caution.

He will never be so cruel, so selfish as to create something that needs love and then abandon it.

“I hate you,” Rome says, slamming the passenger door. “Don’t play,” Damien says. “You love me.” He might. It’s sort of becoming a problem.

They hold hands again, without either of them discussing it, while they drive back to the house. And when they get there, Rome slips his hand back in Damien’s as they walk across the yard, and up the steps, and onto the porch, just because he isn’t quite ready to stop yet. Because Damien will let him. Because he wants to. Because it makes him happy, and he’s decided he deserves happiness.

“That boy looks at you like the sun shines out your ass,” Uncle Bruce says. “I don’t think he’s holding any grudges.”

“You’re worth that. Being wanted. Loved. And if they’ve got shit for brains and can’t see it, or aren’t willing to take the time and figure it out, then—fuck ’em.”

Rome’s obstinate expression wavers. “What? You can’t do what?” “Pretend I hate you. Or whatever it is that we do. Pretend we don’t care. Because I do. Even if you don’t. And I’m just so tired of—” Rome kisses him.

There are things that happened leading up to it. Like Rome closing the space between them and pushing him up against the door and wrapping one of his big, callused hands around Damien’s jaw. But the point is: Rome kisses him. It’s quick and rough and more of an argument than a gesture of affection. It’s still a kiss.

Patrick Roman’s fifth crush is Damien Raphael Bordeaux, and the word “crush” feels woefully inadequate. Damien has stupidly pretty brown eyes, a deep laugh, and a one-dimpled smile. He likes plants and poetry and Rome, apparently. He is strong and gentle, infuriating but kind, and words do not suit the things that Rome feels about him.

He thinks about it: the way Damien looks at him between kisses. Like he’s exceptional. Special. Worthy of awe.

“But strong people need gentleness, too, sometimes.”

He’d always thought the word love was dangerous, a thing more often used for coercion or justification than romance. And even if it was used kindly it was only kind until it was taken away. But this sort of love— This doesn’t feel nearly as dangerous. Still just as scary though.

“I do want those things. I almost kissed you at practice this morning. Just automatically. Because you were being a little shit, and apparently instead of wanting to yell at you when you’re being a little shit now, I want to kiss you. Which isn’t the point. The point is that I want to do all that too. I just—I don’t know how.”

“My name. I go by Rome. This is my…Damien.”

He pulls up a picture on his phone that Amy had taken right before they left. Of the three of them. Rome holding Finley, looking down at her, enraptured, while Finley reaches for Damien’s grinning face.

“So stop being a dumbass,” Damien says. “We’re not breaking up. Because we are together. And I’m going to call you my boyfriend, and you’re going to deal with it.” He says it like a challenge. He doesn’t have to though. Rome has no desire to fight him. “Whatever,” Rome says.

Half of him wants to punch the fucking wall and the other half wants to curl around Damien and never leave. There is a fondness, now, that clings to Rome’s ribs and makes it hard to breathe sometimes. There is a want in him. A want that grows a little each time he reminds himself he’s allowed to have. He wants Damien. All of him. All of the time. And he only really lets himself think about this late at night or early in the morning when there is darkness and quiet and warmth to temper the clench in his gut.

“You watching me sleep, Roman?” “Fuck you,” Rome says. “You don’t have to be a dick, you know,” Damien says, slow and sleepy but still far too aware for comfort. “I won’t tell anyone if you’re sweet.” Rome crosses his arms. Because he’s cold, not because he’s feeling called out. “I don’t know how to be sweet.”

“Afternoon, sir. I know my boyfriend looks like a real suspicious character in his floral shirt and velvet scrunchie, but he’s got an Amex black card in his wallet and a Land Rover parked outside—a gift from his loving parents. I have six dollars and a borrowed bike. My parents are both in prison. So if you’re going to follow someone around your fine establishment, it should probably be me.”

but i am haunted by an anxious heart and i don’t know how to explain that you are easy to love but i have only just started the project of loving myself and i find it hard to believe that anyone else would be willing to undertake the labor

“Well thanks for that. I love it when he goes all pink.” He tugs on one of Rome’s ears. “It’s cute.” “I am not,” Rome says, slapping him away. Damien smooshes a disgusting sloppy-wet kiss to his still-sweaty temple.

“I love you,” Damien says, and it’s like a punch to the gut. “I know it’s probably a shitty way to say it for the first time, but I do. Love you.

“I guess I’m just saying that I know it’s crazy. But I’m in. If you’re in.”

Rome can’t handle that right now. “You just want to be my kept man,” he chokes out. Damien laughs. It sounds a little damp, but who is Rome to judge. “It’s true,” Damien says. “I have dreams of lounging by the pool drinking mimosas while Finley is at kindergarten and you’re off earning millions.”

“I mean, I love you. I’m pretty sure.” Rome’s mouth seems uncomfortable around the word. “You’re pretty sure,” Damien repeats. From anyone else, Damien might find that inadequate. But from Rome— “I haven’t associated love with…good things. Historically. But I realize my perspective is fucked up. And I know good things are supposed to be associated with love. I’ve seen it with my aunts and uncles and the kids. So, I think I do. Love you. Because you’re…good things.”

“You are,” he says, mouth under Rome’s ear. “The happiest accident.” He kisses Rome’s jaw. “A book left on the wrong shelf.” He runs his nose down the tendon of his neck. “Found by the right hands.” He exhales, damp breath on hot skin. “An accidental allurement I never want to stop reading.”

“I love you,” Damien says. And it isn’t particularly poetic, but it is true, and it feels necessary to remind him. “Love you,” Rome answers.

Maybe my happiness will not be counted in days. Maybe I deserve a soft epilogue. Maybe you are mine.

These days, Damien touches Rome like his limbs are an extension of Damien’s own body. It’s bafflingly pleasant.