Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Colm
Fallow is quiet when we get up the next morning, but he had a sadness to him before that seems like it’s gone. There’s no tension. He doesn’t act like he’s pulling away from me after telling me some shreds of truth about himself, like I would have expected.
The quiet almost seems content. Which doesn’t make any sense, because we’re on a mission and should be thinking about where we’re going and what’s going to happen there.
Or we should be worried about who’s chasing us.
But somewhere along the way, this started feeling like a road trip instead of a runaway, and I can’t shake it off, no matter how serious I try to be.
At least Fallow seems to be feeling the same thing. Now that I know it’s his sister we’re chasing, even if I don’t know the context, I expected him to be a little more frantic. There’s a lot more story there, though, and until he tells me I’ll let him do his thing without judgement.
The guys would be absolutely ripping me to shreds if they could hear what I’m thinking right now. But without them in my fucking ear all day, and without having to say all the shit they expect me to say to fit in, my own thoughts and emotions are coming more and more to the surface.
So, what if I actually give a shit about people’s feelings. It doesn’t make me a shitty criminal. I’ll kill every fucking Aryan without blinking if Fallow doesn’t beat me to it. I’m not soft.
I just care about him. Even if he is a sex pest.
I started taking back roads instead of freeways so we’re less likely to get seen by anyone following us.
It means our trip’s going to be a lot longer than I’d planned, but in all this sunshine, with Fallow napping like a cat in a sunspot next to me, I can’t bring myself to care. We’re both peaceful, for once.
We’ve been driving all day before Fallow tries to make conversation, his voice raspy from his nap when he speaks. The sound of it goes immediately to my balls, but I ignore it as much as I can.
“You’re lucky you did a good job on this wound. If you’d fucked it up, I’d have to put you through your paces making me feel better about it, and I’m not sure you would have survived the process. I do fear dehydrating you, sometimes.”
I refuse to rise to the bait, and chew over what I want to ask him. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, but until today, I never thought he’d take any personal questions seriously.
“Does sex really calm you down that much when you’re stressed? I love a good inappropriate fuck as much as the next guy, but you seem to genuinely use it to chase off other shit.”
Fallow smirks in that quiet way he keeps doing, eyeing me from the passenger seat.
He has yet to offer to drive, and I haven’t asked.
I could, but there’s a primal part of me that feels right chauffeuring him around, even if it’s under ridiculous circumstances.
Plus, sometimes he takes off his boots and shoves his tanned, lithe feet out the window and the sight of it makes me so horny I feel drunk.
It’s not safe, but who gives a fuck. We could both get murdered tomorrow. I’ll stare at his surprisingly lovely feet instead of the road if I want to.
“It really does,” he says, finally answering my question. “Always has. Well, since I was old enough, at least. I don’t feel out of control very often, mostly because I’ve engineered my life to be exactly the way I want it, but when I do, sex is one of the fastest ways for me to feel normal again.”
I wasn’t expecting such a sincere answer, but it seems like a lot of things are happening recently that neither of us expected.
After a pause, Fallow keeps talking.
“Do you think that makes me maladjusted, little rabbit? Am I irreparably damaged in some way?”
I can’t help but laugh, because only he could ask that in a tone that implies he wants the answer to be ‘yes’.
“I think how much you enjoy murdering people is what makes you maladjusted, but everyone has their thing. Sex and violence isn’t exactly a revolutionary combination. You do you, boo.”
That gets a real laugh out of him, just like I was hoping, and we’re both grinning at the road as we drive.
More silence, until I realize there’s something else I want to ask him.
“Are you always going to call me little rabbit?”
Fallow considers his answer before he speaks.
“Probably. Why? Do you hate it? Do you feel emasculated?”
He drags out the word ‘emasculated’ like he’s teasing me. I’m sure it’s a ridiculous concept to him, as someone who seems to have let go of most people’s expectations of masculinity, despite being scintillatingly manly in some ways. But he also knows the world we both live in.
“No. I’m not that fragile. But if you say it front of my guys, they will definitely have thoughts and I’m sure you won’t want to hear any of them.”
I can feel Fallow’s gaze on me from the side, even while I refuse to turn and look at him.
“I can’t tell if you’re trying to protect yourself or trying to protect me, to be honest. It’s very sweet, though. You’re sweeter than I expected. For a bland ham sandwich of a man.”
“Okay, I’ll take little rabbit over ham sandwich, if I get a vote in this.”
“Noted,” he says, the smirk obvious in his voice.
“You should be proud to be called rabbit, though. Rabbits—especially wild kinds—are tough as hell. They can see in every direction at once, run up to 45 miles per hour, and kick you so hard it’ll split your skin open.
And their little teeth are so sharp that they can bite you down to the bone.
You don’t want to fuck with a rabbit when the chips are down. ”
I try not to smile, but I’m not that successful.
His tendency to spit out random animal facts pissed me off at first. Mostly because I thought he was making fun of the situation.
But the longer I spend with him, the more I realize he’s doing it absently, like he can’t really keep the words inside, and it’s become endearing.
I don’t know when I started finding the serial killer I’m fucking endearing, but here we are.
“I’m sure they’ll all accept that when I explain it to them, then,” I tell him, still smiling. “Where do you get all of these animal facts from, anyway?”
Fallow pauses, and this time I do turn to glance at him.
“You think you’re the only gangster that’s ever watched a documentary?”
“Fair,” I say with a shrug.
After that, our companionable silence returns. Fallow picks out things from the environment to tell me about sometimes, like a specific kind of bird or even a weird rock formation, that he apparently also knows about. It’s nice. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
We spend another night at a motel. Fallow rides my dick until I’m gasping for air, just like all the other nights, and then falls asleep on the same bed as me, both of us pressed against the edge.
I don’t say anything. If anything about him is spookable, this is it.
And I’m enjoying the companionship more than I expected.
I’ve never pined for any kind of closeness.
I’m a practical person, and I know the big picture of my life.
But having him around me constantly, quiet except when he’s teasing me or fucking me, has brought me a level of peace I haven’t felt before.
We’ve moved into the real desert now, and it’s hard not to feel insignificantly small with the size of the sheer rocks that rise up around the road. It’s all constant twists and turns, up and down in elevation, and it seems to lull us both into a sense of security.
We continue to take our time, and I’m not getting nearly as many phone calls from the guys as I expected, complaining about a crisis. I’m sure they’re enjoying the excuse not to work very hard and dick around themselves. Win-win, as far as I’m concerned.
The night we stop in Moab, I take the sutures out of Fallow’s face because it seems closed enough and he won’t stop complaining about them itching.
He makes a big fuss about hating it, but wakes me up in the middle of the night with a gentle, luxurious blow job that would only have been better if I could have run my fingers through his hair the way I wanted.
He spends a lot of time covering the wound with careful makeup. He’s clearly still concerned about his appearance, even though it’s just the two of us on the road and I’m obviously already under his thumb, but I don’t call him out on it.
We’re in the final leg of our journey when Fallow sits up sharply, pointing at something out the window that I can barely see in the dark.
It’s late, and this is a lonely stretch of freeway, so it’s easy for me to pull over and ask him what the fuck he’s pointing at.
“Can we go in there?” he asks, his eyes bright with excitement, even in the dark car.
“What is it?”
All I see is a big fence, a sign I can’t read and a squat but sprawling building edging onto the desert.
“An animal sanctuary. The sign says they have a nocturnal desert exhibition. I bet they have some very fucking cool lizards I’ve never seen before. Let’s stop and go inside! We can be fast.”
I look at it again with a frown.
“It’s the middle of the night, Fallow. It’s closed.”
He looks at me like I’m stupid, and maybe he’s right.
“Well then, it’s a good thing neither of us is a dastardly criminal capable of doing something as heinous as breaking and entering. In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night.”
I pause, immediately weighing the pros and cons.
There are a lot of cons. It’s a waste of time, and as much as this place looks like a run-down lizard shack with minimal security, it’s an unnecessary risk to take that could potentially attract police attention to us.
The only pro is that Fallow looks like he might burst at the seams with excitement, and I might be powerless to say no to him. He knows it, too. I can tell.
This does seem like the perfect time to ask him the one thing I’ve been holding back, though.
“Why aren’t you in more of a hurry?”
He slow blinks at me, absorbing the question.