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Other than his baby-face, art covered every inch of Link’s body. Every inch. He did the work himself, trusting only me to get to the hard-to-reach places. He’d even shaved off his waist length hair a couple years ago to get to his scalp.
Ah yes, between the cheeks
“Someone’s here to see you, Raven.” “Who?” I asked, brow pinched. I’d seen all my clients for the day. Betty angled her head, eyes glued to my torso. “Him,” she said, pointing at my tattoo.
Awkward
I think someone’s insistence that the present is all we have is finally getting to me.” Over the years, I’d gotten in the habit of spouting that off to Clint whenever he got too far inside his head. Typically, during one of his lectures. I’d had to dust the old saying off in recent weeks when his alter-ego—the fun police—tried to ruin our good times.
Barf
Clint dropped to his haunches, settling a palm innocently over my thigh.
I gotta be real, I’m not out here innocently putting hands on thighs
How was it that with all life had thrown at him, Clint still had it in him to look at the world in wonder? If I played a part in that, I’d accept it gladly. It’d get me through the rough patches that came with wanting but not having him. It’d sustain me until the next time I needed something to get through it. There’d be plenty more next times as long as I didn’t own him.
Goodness such a bizarre thing to say. Who is talking like this?
size closely matched the impression of Clint’s
You have a dildo of his shape and size up in the shower on the wall just set up in his own home? Damn dude
I turned away from him, and his dexterous fingers brought me around by my chin. “Take,” he said, and I glared at him, unimpressed with his cleverness.
Clint this is weird behavior for you to have to your surrogate son
“Should we do this together, again?” Clint asked, his voice hopeful. Last time, we’d burrowed into opposite ends of the couch, reading aloud the parts that were okay to share and promising to take the parts we couldn’t to our graves. We laughed, Clint cried—although he swore something had gotten into his eye—and then we wrote our replies, sealed and dropped them in the mailbox to ship out before watching—more like falling asleep on—a sappy movie.
This is cute tho, finally I’m not bewildered and angry or laughing at this book
We fished in our underwear while our clothes dried on our boulder under the sun. I’d caught zero fish because when Clint said the trick was to keep my eyes in the direction of the prize, my stare fixated on him.
Good lord
I was attracted to the innocence and vulnerability of him testing old waters and discovering they hadn’t gone cold on him. They were waiting, warm and welcoming, and he invited me in with him. The untamed glee he exuded after proving a skill he hadn’t put to use for years hadn’t gone rusty on him. He captivated me, a worm baited on his hook, and keeping him clueless was the equivalent of smiling while getting your ass kicked. A fucking struggle.
Just always the absolute most
I’d watched him evaporate into the distance from my bedroom window, becoming one with the wall adjacent from it.
You can just say he went around the corner. Who is forcing you to talk like this?
When had it snuck up on me like a thief, taking what it wanted? The day in the canoe when his bare leg brushed up against mine, and I’d thought nothing of it? The endless hours of night I’d spent clutching him tight as he steered us up winding roads and teased me by coming fatally close to the edge of a cliff? Weight-lifting shirtless in the garage, invading his workplace to see him come alive, getting high like a fiend on his belief in me, feeling both lucky and dumbfounded that he wanted to spend his spare time with me, a novice at living life. I ticked each reason off until I had zero
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Prior to Joey leaving, I’d thought of Raven as a foregone conclusion,
Huh?
“It’s what could happen if we banded together. Stronger together, weaker apart,” I said, unsure. “If we concentrate less on what makes us different and more on what makes us the same. If the stars can shine alongside the sun, then so can we. A bit idealistic. Did I get it right?” “There is no right. The meaning of art is in the eye of the interpreter,”
That’s what you get for trying too hard, Clint. Be embarrassed for trying to interpret art, there’s no right answer.
He was tormented in a way that made him alluring, that made me want to find and touch that faulty thing in him. I didn’t want to fix it. I never viewed Raven as something that needed fixing in order to work. I wanted the privilege of rolling around in it. Of being bold enough to be dented, too.
Like a dinged up can of soup
a cop kneeled in front of a crying boy, tipping his head up by his chin as the world burned down around them. Both the man and boy painted in side view. I’d recognize that thick, onyx head of hair and defiant set jaw anywhere, even with only a peripheral perspective of him. “Yeah.” “When did you do this?” “Senior year. I must have been feeling particularly grateful for you that day.” “Grateful?” I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Off him. Not even as, in the background, a trailer park and a school went up in flames.
“How about Raven’s Wing?” “Hair the color of a Raven’s Wing, eyes the color of glaciers,” he whispered. “You remember,” I said, brows reaching for the sky.
Ughh
Raven possessed an innate sensuality, one I partly blamed on what his mother had exposed him to.
Such an awkward statement about a young adult you raised, implying he’s hot because he has a sex worker for a mother
“You being territorial over me feeds my need to be loved or some shit.”
Once every 50 pages they talk like awkward humans instead of rejected song lyrics
offering me a perfect side glance of his neck tattoo. Sheet music. The notes and lyrics sucked backward, funneling into the wide mouth of a vortex below his shoulder blades, tapering the closer it got to the base of his spine.
Like a musical vortex being sucked into his ass? His asshole is the eye of the storm?
Is this supposed to be a parody of dramatic stuff? Did the editor fall into a coma and never edit? What happened?
all I kept thinking as it played on a loop in my room, and then in my nightmares, was who did I have to hunt and kill? Who didn’t love Raven back?
Wow what a good dad / future lover
“Hey, Link.” I pivoted around, giving the busy crowd downstairs my ass and back. “Wanna dance?” I jutted my head in the direction of the dance floor. “I don’t dance,” he said, never taking his eyes off Law, who stood sweet-talking our hostess. He’d been watching his father like a hawk since we arrived and seemed content doing so for the foreseeable future.
What’s the deal
“He won’t give you what you want,” I shouted over the music, canting my head toward the bubble ass in pink jeans he’d been visually undressing. “And what’s that?” he asked, leaning in to be heard. I scanned him, noting the day-old scruff he couldn’t bother shaving off, and his calloused hands. “You’ve had a rough week. You want someone you don’t need to take it easy on.” “Is that so?” He smiled. “What’s your name?” “Raven.” I didn’t bother asking for his. “Care to dance, Raven?”
We were on the outskirts of the dance floor, visible to bystanders, and Clint stood outside one of the alcoves dressed for sin and wearing a look of murder and disgust on his chiseled face.
I hung there, limp in the arms of a stranger, hair and clothes off-kilter, as the man I loved glared at me without an ounce of recognition, then turned to flee with someone else. They looked good together, and it hurt.
Yes finally some real angst not weird nonsensical poems. Sufferrrrr
“Say something, Clint.” Don’t let this be the last of us. “Don’t allow me to leave here believing you were a lie. Believing I’d imagined you.” Imagined your greatness.
These italics add-ons are driving me crazy. Imagine your greatness? It’s spelling it out and laying it on thick like we get he looked up to his hero and crush.
I circled back to clear the top shelf next but choked on the lump in my throat when Clint’s eyes stared back at me. I fell to my knees inside the closet, drinking in the mural of my archangel. I wanted to speed to the garage for the red paint to cover it, but my legs wouldn’t obey the order, and besides, what good would that do when the replica lived hidden on the skin beneath my shirt? I gathered the skin of my taut ribcage, the tattoo burning and aching and laughing at me.
Yeah that was a big decision dude. I guess the fly fishing in your underwear must’ve been before the tattoo was finished.
I hope he goes and gets a clown nose or Groucho Marx glasses tattooed over Clint’s face on his chest tattoo 🤡🥸
“I never told you the whole story surrounding the day my father and brother died.”
Omg more about his story how he got his baby brother killed because he was tired of specifically fucking behind dumpsters
Was I brave enough to do it? To show him my hand?
Do we need this same paragraph over and over it feels repetitive I think the dramatic prose just takes me out of it
What if it wasn’t nothing after all? What if it was everything?
Eye roll
“All of the goddamn above! I was shamefaced and angry at myself for wanting you. Pissed because you being with a man is wrong, if that man isn’t me. Jealous because the only set of hands that should be setting your body on fire are mine.” Clint lurched for me, his fingers going around my throat, a growl rumbling up his chest. “I wanted to rip his fucking tongue out and spank you for being such a whore.” He released me with a hiss, jumping back and gaping at his trembling hands. “Jesus, Raven. I-I’m sorry.” “Don’t be,” I said, rubbing my throat, my dick beating at my zipper for freedom. “This
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FINALLY SOMETHING IS HAPPENING IN THIS BOOK JFC
It’d never occur to him to trust his heart. That’s where I would come in.
Omg shut up fight or fuck or something stop it with all these silly little lines
Operation get Clint to fuck me and fall in love was in full effect.
At 33% fucking finally
How could I ever sleep the same again after having heard Raven fuck himself above my ceiling, and then call my name like he needed me to save him from his killer orgasm.
LMAOOOOOOO
what desire could make a foolish man like me do. Selfish things, probably. Things that would cost everyone involved, like before. I swore I’d never do that again, and there was no statute of limitations on a pledge.
You are aggressively convinced that having sex with a man will cause more car accidents
We read Joey’s letters together. A favorite of all our summer activities, it made our bond stronger for some reason.
We’ve been over this multiple times
Sit with me. Remind yourself how easy it can be.” I gulped down my apprehension. “And what do we do once the moment grows heavy? When the words left behind, unsaid, catch up to the present?”
Are you a small town cop or a song lyrics generator? JFC.
He took the back porch step below mine, and again, we read aloud what we could and would die holding on to what we couldn’t. We laughed like old times, choked back tears, and shared war stories of experiences with Joey. He kept our little tribe together with his kindness and ability to make us want better for ourselves because he wanted the best for us. I would do anything for him. He’d need that to survive his impending future, and I’d do my damn best to ensure home would be waiting for him when he returned.
Why not show us any of this positive human interaction instead of chapters of purple prose with very little happening? Show me some of their cozy interactions talking like actual humans.
Raven might not see me as a father, but Joey damn sure saw him as a brother.
Oh yeah you don’t know Joey has fucked Raven repeatedly.
terrible things happened when I gave in. When I took what I wanted, fallout be damned.
Literally one negative experience ever you sniveling worm
“I want this too much to take it.” With the floodgates of honesty now open, I couldn’t stop the flow of truth. “I don’t know why my brain works like that, or maybe I do, but it’s real, Raven. I’m afraid of the man who’ll be set free if I give in to you.”
JFC over 1/3 into the book get this shit rolling
I can’t lose you. Because that’s the same as losing me.”
Barf
“God, Raven.” My cock kissed my zipper.
JFC
He told me things about his childhood he’d never shared before, and I admitted to my concealed resentment for my non-existent relationship with my mother. Brandon and my father’s death changed us both, and while I pretended to understand the possibility that she secretly blamed me for losing her pride and joy, it hurt to know she could easily up and leave the one child she had remaining behind. Raven and I were at opposite ends of life’s spectrum with many years separating us. But the process of hurting and healing was the same for us all. Our emotional connection strengthened under the stars.
Why won’t you show us any of these enlightening conversations? Why do you tell us and wax poetic? Show us the characters having a conversation if you want us to root for them
We were young, stealing moments, experimenting, unaware that dark desires were best kept hidden. We were wild and free. But the fire had caught and burned us both when Brandon died, dragging a part of me down with it.
Clint you aren’t in a poetry contest what is your whole deal
“Because it’s been six years. That’s seventy-two months, one-hundred and ninety-two hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-eight seconds, and I still haven’t been able to talk myself out of it.
What are you, auditioning for RENT?
“The mouth and the heart are connected. That’s why words hurt. I’d never give either to anyone but you.”
JFC
“We go no further until Joey leaves. Agreed?” We’d be flying out for basic training graduation, then returning home with him before he shipped out again. No way could I pretend business as usual after making love to Raven.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
My need for him would be a spotlight we couldn’t dim. A thirst we couldn’t quench. A hunger with a ravenous need to be fed.
Stop predicting your future feelings with poetry drafts
