He pulled off his shirt and immediately my questions took a backseat. His abdomen was a patchwork of scars, from the surgical one running straight down his torso to the smaller ones from his colostomy bag and the bullet wound. Their red raw nature reminded me that Peter was still in pain. That his wounds itched and burned so badly he slept in fits. Not a good time for me to start an argument.
As he pulled on a fresh t-shirt, I determined not to give in to the heart pounding fear that was tying knots in my throat. My hands shook as I secured his other shoe. The fight wasn’t worth the heartache. “We can talk later.”
“I thought we worked this all out?”
“We worked out that I forced monogamy on you when I didn’t really figure out if that’s what you wanted. Or even if I could be.”
“You think I feel obligated to be with you on your terms?” He smiled, tossing me an empty gym bag. I started to pile in the clothes that Darryl and I had bought for him.
“Your mother thinks you’re indebted to me because you owe me money. Darryl thinks you owe me because of Cai. And Rosafa thinks you’re with me because Cai is choosing to stay here after you decided to move in with me. Yeah, I think you might feel obligated.”
“Overthinking. It’s like a disease with you. They should make pills for it.”
“They do. Little blue ones that drive the blood from the brain straight to the cock.”
“Hard-ons don’t make you think less. They make you think stupid. Which makes me think you must have one 24/7.”
“Ouch.”
“Austin.” He propped back on his hands, his t-shirt sliding up to reveal a portion of the scar on his abdomen. My stomach contracted in empathy. “For the record, I want to be exclusive.”
He had carefully avoided my question. “Do you feel obligated to me or not?”
“Of course I do. I told you that before. But it’s not why I want to be with you.” He zipped up the bag and picked up the newspaper-wrapped gift I’d given him an hour earlier. Instead of opening it, he’d set it on the side table and ignored it while he got dressed. In the wake of this discussion, I had forgotten it. Now it rested ominously in Peter’s lap. Like he expected it to hold some clue to our future.
“I’ll get the release forms,” I said, standing up.
He ripped open the package before I could escape. “This is why I want to be with you, Austin. Not because of money or emotional debt.” He fingered one dingy ear of the slippers I had rescued, his smile taking my breath.
My stomach flipped a few times. “Because I dry cleaned your slippers?”
“Because you value what’s really important.” He inhaled and exhaled loudly and set the slippers on the bed beside him. “Now I have to ask you for one more thing.”
“If it’s a three-way with Darryl, I am not going to be the girl.”
The severity of his gaze made me glad my nose wasn’t within flicking range. But, since his tongue could be just as sharp as his fingers, my ears were already preparing for his barb. “I think you should go see your mother before she dies.”
There was no preparing for that.
Whatever It Takes
“No,” I said, keeping the rage out of my voice with herculean effort. “Are you ready to go?” I held out my hand. He passed me the gym bag, keeping hold of the handles as I grabbed it. I couldn’t jerk it away without jarring him. I let go. “I don’t have a mother.”
“Not for me. Not for her. For you.”
This could be an argument by being stubborn, or I could convince him how bad an idea it was. I sat next to him, staring out the window. “You want me to tell off a dying woman?”
“If that’s what it takes,” he said. “You’ve been here six weeks, every day, and didn’t even visit when you tested to donate your liver to her! She’s one floor up.”
“There are a lot of strangers one floor up. Am I supposed to visit them, too?”
“You walked right past her room.”
“We should talk about something more important. Like who is supplying your information.” There was only one person who could have told Peter I had been upstairs. “You know what I find ironic? My homophobic father has spoken to my male lover more times in two months than he has to me my entire life.”
“You know what I find ironic? My homophobic mother offers you her cabbage rolls as a truce and you respond by asking her if it was ’tacit approval‘ to suck my cock.”
“She shoved a phallic symbol my way and told me to eat it.”
“If your idea of a cock is a stuffed green leaf covered in red sauce, we have more to discuss than monogamy.”