“Non.”
“Kingsley. Right now. Do as I say.”
“I don’t take orders from you anymore.” Kingsley sank
down into the water before a strong hand hauled him back up. S?ren gripped his neck hard enough to penetrate the shield his body had become.
“What do you want?” Kingsley’s eyes f luttered open again. He saw S?ren waist-deep in the water. S?ren grabbed Kingsley by the shirt and backed against the edge of the pool.
“I want you to live.”
“That makes one of us.” Kingsley tried to pass out again, but S?ren shook him awake once more.
“Are you hearing anything I’m saying?”
“I hear you.” Finally Kingsley had the strength to open his eyes and keep them open. He saw S?ren again, saw his face. He looked angry and scared, almost human. He had his clerics on again, his white collar. “Why are you wearing that?”
“I’m a priest, remember? How many brain cells did you kill tonight?”
“Not enough of them.”
A wave of nausea passed through him. He coughed again, and S?ren hauled him up and over the edge of the pool. Into a large white towel, Kingsley threw up.
“Get it all out,” S?ren said calmly. Kingsley felt a hand on his back, rubbing the heaving muscles. He wasn’t drunk enough to be sick from the alcohol. The dream had done it to him.
Kingsley’s body complied with the order. For what felt like eternity, he threw up again and again. S?ren held his hair back, rubbed his shoulders, offered encouragements that Kingsley could barely hear over the sound of his own wrenching sickness.
Finally Kingsley stopped. He knew better than to move, lest he get sick again. He shivered and took shallow breaths.
“You threw me in the pool?” Kingsley asked when the nausea finally passed.
“You were screaming and thrashing. I couldn’t get you to wake up.”
“Bad dream,” Kingsley whispered. “I have them sometimes.”
Kingsley pulled away from S?ren and sat on the steps that led into the pool. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the water that surrounded him. Water. Only water. It wouldn’t hurt him. Nothing here would hurt him. Not even S?ren. Not anymore.
“Why were you drinking tonight?” S?ren asked, standing in front of him. He didn’t seem to mind that he was fully dressed in his clerics and soaked to the skin. If Kingsley passed out and fell forward, S?ren’s chest would break his fall.
“Same reason I drink every night.”
“Which is?”
“It helps me sleep.”
“A sleeping pill would help you sleep. Tell me the truth.”
Kingsley raked his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back. He breathed into his hands before looking at S?ren with a half smile.
“You don’t want to know.” He shook his head. “You think you do, but you don’t.”
“I know I don’t want to know,” S?ren said. “But you need to tell me.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I care.”
“That’s a tautology. You like the word? I remember philosophy class at St. Ignatius.” Kingsley released a weary, mirthless laugh.
“I care about you, because I care about you is a fact.”
“You don’t give a shit about me. I took her back to France alone.”
“I offered to go with you, and you said no. You didn’t want me with you.”
“You let me go, and you forgot all about me.”
“I never forgot about you.”
“You did. You let me go to France and you forgot—”
“I never forgot you.” S?ren shouted the words. They echoed off the tile f loor, off the walls, and slammed into Kingsley like a fist, sobering him up instantly. He’d never heard S?ren raise his voice like that. Ever.
Kingsley smiled tiredly.
“Now you are yelling at me.”
“You want me to yell at you? Fine. I will yell at you, Kingsley. Maybe if I yell, you’ll finally hear me. I never left you. And when you went back to France, I tried to find you.”