39. Kit
Kit
W ith no moon outside to judge the time, I didn’t know how many hours passed digging through my father’s journals before my eyelids started to droop.
Penny had reclaimed his discarded shirt in the face of the night’s chill and was asleep, his head pillowed on my thigh and one of the books open on his chest.
I could hardly blame him. It had been an eventful day all around. I was still trying to rein in my scattered thoughts and figure out how I’d ended up here. Not that I minded what “here” currently entailed.
It was a wonder I hadn’t woken Penny with how often I brushed his hair back from his forehead or traced my fingertips along the line of his jaw.
I’d gone so long without any sort of physical contact that it seemed I’d built up a deficit.
I could no longer resist the urge to slide my fingers between his or pull him in so his head rested on my shoulder.
The memory of his lips on mine, hungry and insistent, stirred a desire I’d never felt before.
It would be too easy to give in to it in the moment, to let Penny have all of me before I was ready.
I would have to be more careful next time.
But I was looking forward to next time.
Despite the second Oath looming two weeks away, for the first time in years I felt at peace.
There was so much to do, so much that was uncertain, and so many ways all of this could go wrong, but with Penny by my side, I felt like I could face anything.
Regardless of my past, maybe I really could be a good man, the kind who could live up to Penny’s idealized version of me. Someone he deserved.
Though, I still wasn’t sure what I deserved.
Years of my father declaring I wasn’t worth the time he wasted on me had taken their toll.
They overshadowed any reassurance I’d received in the years following my escape, and it was a constant battle to take anyone at their word in their positive judgments of me.
All I saw when I looked in the mirror were flaws and mistakes.
But when I looked in Penny’s eyes, I could see the reflection of what he saw. Kindness. Gentleness. Care. All the things my father did his best to strip out of me, Penny was bringing to the surface. I liked myself better when he was around.
If my father had been buried, he would be turning in his grave if he knew about any of this.
He never would have approved of me coming back to Ashpoint, let alone bringing along a farm boy he’d have seen as too inferior for the Bone Men’s ranks.
Yet here we were, living together in my father’s house, closer than friends.
No doubt he’d have devised some horrific punishment for my crime of becoming attached.
He’d have used Penny as a sacrifice and made me strip the bones.
The mental image made my stomach flip, and I stroked my fingers over Penny’s cheek in an attempt to redirect my thoughts .
“He would have hated you,” I whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “He hated anything that made me happy.”
And I was happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this way. This man came in and turned my entire life upside down, and I was better for it no matter how hard I resisted it at first.
A jaw-creaking yawn was my cue that it was time for bed.
I stacked my journal on top of Penny’s and shifted them to the coffee table before easing his head off my leg.
There wasn’t room for both of us to sleep on the couch, but I didn’t have the heart to wake him, which meant I’d need to carry him to his own bed.
At least this time he wasn’t drunk on half a bottle of whiskey, so there was little risk of him throwing up on me again.
I knelt next to the couch to slide my arms under his shoulders and knees and pull him to my chest. My breath hissed out as his body brushed against the brand beneath my shirt, but no amount of adjusting found a position where that could be avoided.
Standing, I lifted him off the couch, letting him settle against me and gritting my teeth at the throb of pain.
He was heavier than I expected, and it took me a moment to find my balance. But then he mumbled something in his sleep, and his arms came up to loop around my neck as he tucked his head under my chin. That alone made all the pain in the world worth it.
His long legs made navigating the hallway and the door difficult, and I cringed as I knocked his ankles on the doorframe. To my relief, he only tightened his hold on me and didn’t wake.
My arms were shaking by the time I eased him down onto the straw mattress. Untangling myself from his grip was a feat, and it roused him enough that his eyes cracked open. I smoothed my fingers down his cheek.
“You’re fine. Go back to sleep.”
“Stay,” he slurred, his eyes closing again. “Please.”
I smiled and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead as I tugged the blankets up over him.“We’d need two beds for that, Pen.”
Penny made a soft sound and nestled into the covers, already mostly asleep.
Crouching beside the bed, I lingered a few moments longer, finding it hard to pull myself away.
“Thank you,” I said quietly enough not to wake him again. “For seeing me as more than I am. For making me want to be better.”
Slowly, I stood and forced myself back to the door, then paused with my hand on the knob. With one last look at the narrow open space at Penny’s side, I wanted nothing more than to fill it.
Maybe someday I’d be brave enough to.