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“He said, ‘I can’t believe you’re the one who lived.’”
That stupid blue pill must’ve been truth serum because he couldn’t seem to stop confessing everything, even when Linc had never asked and probably had never wanted to know. The thought made Wyatt’s heart shrivel in his chest.
His brows went up at her murderous expression, and he took a step back, voice firm. “Full disclosure, Malibu Barbie. If you punch me in the face again, I’m gonna toss you in the pool.”
“If there’s any karma in this world, your dad will get face raped by a chainsaw,” she swore. “God willing,” Linc muttered.
“Do you want—” Linc started. “Yes,” Wyatt interrupted. Linc tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Wyatt’s hands flailed. “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what you were going to say. The answer is yes. Whatever you want…I’ll always say yes.”
An ache formed behind Linc’s ribs. Had anybody ever just shown an interest in Wyatt without an ulterior motive? Had anybody cared for him when he was sick or just hugged him for no reason? Even the simplest gesture seemed enormous to the boy.
“You did not just flip past the best movie ever made.” Wyatt scoffed. “You mean the oldest movie ever made? When was this? The eighties? It’s so grainy.” Linc balked. “I ought to put you over my knee just for disrespecting The Princess Bride like that.”
“Don’t pout. I warned you there’d be consequences.” Wyatt contemplated kicking Linc in the balls, consequences or not. He hadn’t known it was possible to be this horny and this enraged at the same time. “I’m not pouting.”
Wyatt dropped to the floor before him, staring up at Linc, expression sullen. “Color,” Linc murmured, already undoing his jeans. “Green,” Wyatt grumbled.
Jesus. Women were vicious. Linc was convinced if they let women interrogate prisoners of war, they’d cut the time to break them by half.
“There you are. I swear, there was a line for the ladies’ room almost out to the lobby. Some of those crazy feminists made it into the hotel, I think.” “Why do you say that?” Ansel asked, peering over his shoulder as if a feminist might lurk just behind him.
“Oh, do shut up, Martha. Wearing sensible shoes doesn’t make a woman a feminist or a lesbian any more than wearing that hideous yellow dress makes you a goddamn banana,” Violet snarked, shaking her head. “I swear, with women like you, I don’t know why my mother fought so hard to win the right to vote.”
I’m just saying, some of those women out there were holding signs about their right to kill babies. That will never be okay in the eyes of God.” Violet cackled. “If only your mother had chosen that road, dear.”
He hid away for his father’s comfort, his father’s career, knowing full well his father wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.
Linc’s chest rose and fell beneath Wyatt’s head, his heartbeat as steady as a metronome. Wyatt might have found it hypnotic if not for the ungodly noise emanating from Linc’s face. He was clearly not having trouble sleeping. Wyatt worried he might have trouble breathing. Was forty too young for that sleeping disorder that required people to wear masks like Bane in the Batman movies?
Tonight, however, Linc was sleeping far deeper than usual. Wyatt shook with laughter as Linc’s snores only grew louder, a crescendo in the world’s worst orchestra. It just didn’t seem possible that somebody that hot could make a noise so unattractive, like a chainsaw being put through a woodchipper.
“It’s okay if it doesn’t last long,” he reassured him. “I’m probably already going to feel like you took a battering ram to my ass tomorrow as it is.” “That’s romantic,” Linc said around a soft laugh.
“I smile all the time.” Linc scoffed. “No, you smirk, like the bratty little shit you are, but you rarely just smile.”
It was a disaster, but Wyatt would deal with that later… Much later. What was the harm in pretending, just for a little while, that he could have a happy ending?
She made a distracted ‘hmm’ noise, like she’d already dismissed him. He allowed himself a moment to contemplate rolling her onto the floor.
“Don’t worry about it, Missing Linc, I promise I’ll be gentle with him.” Yeah, right. “Also, leave my sister alone.” “No can do, Lincoln Log.” “Stop that,” Linc grumbled, knowing full well she’d only stop when she’d run out of stupid nicknames for him.
The money Linc made wasn’t for sex with Wyatt. In his head, he knew that. But some dark part of him whispered that Wyatt was just a means to an end, a paycheck with benefits, and as soon as that check was in his hands, Wyatt would never hear from Linc again.
Wyatt wished Linc’s arms didn’t feel like home.
He wished he could get his heart to see this for what it was, but he just didn’t know how. When he was in Linc’s arms, it didn’t feel like a fling. It felt like love, and it made Wyatt want to cry.
If Linc had to hear one more eighties power ballad played by an orchestra, he might wrestle the bow from the violinist and slit his own throat with it.
He was fading. “Wyatt, stay with me. What have you done? Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Baby. Stay with me. What did you do? I love you. Stay with me.” Was Linc crying? It must be terrible if Linc was crying.
You tell me every day that you love me, even if you don’t say it out loud.”
This amazing new job requires us to relocate.” “Relocate?” Wyatt parroted, like he was testing the weight of the word on his tongue. “Like, to where? I’m sort of an acquired taste, Linc. You can’t, like, move me to bum-fuck nowhere Indiana. I’ll shrivel up and die.” “You are the biggest drama queen in the world,” Linc told him affectionately,
