“I thought that was only for murders.”
“No. You don’t stand on a tarp. Walk into an office, and there’s a tarp. End game. Sit on a tarp in Kane’s house, don’t get pregnant,” Rafe clarified. “But I can see how you’d get confused.”
They went silly. They usually did. Talking with Rafe was like sliding into a sun-warmed fresh water pool, its soothing movements lapping over his body. Quinn felt his muscles unclench, his hips sink down and loosen. A few minutes passed, and he realized it didn’t hurt anymore to breathe.
It always hurt to breathe.
There were prickles and stones, small hiccups in a road of conversation where he stubbed himself to a stupor, playing pinball among unseen walls or things he should have taken care for. Quinn couldn’t begin to count the times when he said something and it poured out of him sideways, splashing acid instead of rose petals, burning the person’s ear.
He had no fear of that with Rafe.
There was never, ever any fear with Rafe.
He must have said something to Quinn, something Quinn should have answered, because a tickling whistle sounded through the phone. Jerking his attention away from the soft lull of his mind, Quinn blurted out, “I’m not asleep.”
“Didn’t think you were, babe. I could hear you breathing. And thinking.” A laugh, teasing to play, not to hurt, then Rafe rumbled, “Like the purr of my Chevelle. Listening to you think. I like watching you think too. Your eyes go all misty Irish green, like if I could fall into them, I’d find stone circles and rivers and daisy-covered hills.”
“I like that,” Quinn murmured back. “That I can just think with you. That I can talk to you.”
“Always, magpie. Always.”
Rafe was silent. Then Quinn heard him sigh, a heavy weight of air pushing out of Rafe’s soul.
“I never meant to hurt you, Q. Back then. Well, now too, but really, back then.”
There wasn’t ever a time when Quinn couldn’t turn around and find the specter of his youthful disillusionment haunting his every step. To have Rafe drag its corpse out, slathering it with an apology he didn’t need to make, was not something Quinn ever wanted to face.
“What did Connor tell you? About what I said… then?”
“That you were hurting inside. And that you loved me.” Another sigh, this time wistful. “You were distraught because I’d left. Because I didn’t see you as someone worth loving. That I’d broke you somehow by leaving. But we’d never… you and I never once crossed that line. I couldn’t back then, Q. Shit, I barely had enough to offer myself, much less something you could hang onto. But you’ve got to know, I never thought you were shit. If I’d known—”
“You would have had to leave anyway, Rafe,” he said gently. “I never told you I loved you, and what could you have done with it? Dated me? I was fifteen. And pretty fucked-up. I had some therapist telling me I liked being eccentric and weird… and just to cut it out or that I’d grow out of it. There were five doctors playing a shell game with placebos and drugs, thinking they could just snap me out of a depression with a bit of sugar candy and shaming.
“I was too young, scared to be gay, and trying to carve off pieces of who I was just so I could fit into a box someone made for me.” Quinn sighed, rubbing at his face. “It just got all too much. And I… missed you. I’ve got my family, yeah, but they didn’t get it… most of them still don’t get it, but you always did. You made me feel normal—my normal—and I just couldn’t see past the darkness I was drowning in.”
“I came back. To see you. To find you in that.”
Rafe’s voice broke, taking a piece of Quinn’s heart with it.
“You’re doing okay now, right?”
“Yeah, a lot better. Stronger. I know me now.” Quinn caught himself before he confessed his soul still ached for Rafe to be near. “I’m okay.”
“Just want you to know one thing, magpie.”
“What’s that, Andrade?” he asked, keeping his tone as light as he could.
“I’ll always come and find you. I will always come see you. No matter what. No matter where,” Rafe promised, his words thick with emotion. “You’re never going to be in that darkness again, magpie. Not as long as I’m around. I swear on everything I am… everything I have, I will never let you drown.”
Chapter 6
The road holds no life
Nothing to keep me warm
Hotel rooms bleached and fallow
Strings leaving my tips all torn
Just one more day without you
Another day gone in time
I’m another step away from you, baby
Please don’t forget that you’re mine
—Love Letter to the Lost