Chapter 19
PERIS
I’ve never seen Abel look so disheveled. He’s flushed from head to toe, the blush on his cheeks a beautiful pink shade that matches the color of his hair perfectly.
And when he looks down and his eyes widen, that’s when I realize my cock is still out. I flip my waistband over and tuck myself away, flushing myself as I huff a breath. “Don’t get too excited, runt.”
“Oh, trust me, I’m all worn out.”
“You, worn out?” I muse. “That’s a first.”
“Hey!” Abel exclaims and reaches out to kick me in the shin. I roll my eyes and shove him back before pushing to my feet. When I’m towering above him, his eyes meet mine, and we’re locked in a trance as I get lost in the depths of his mercury irises.
I’m not sure how long we stand there, but we’re pulled from our study of one another by the jingle of the front door as it’s opened.
We both jerk, and I reach down to offer Abel a hand to help him to his feet.
His cheeks bloom a bright red, but he takes my hand and pulls himself up unsteadily and leans back against the washer—and that’s when he notices his cum streaked down the front of it.
With a soft squeak, his gaze shoots to mine, and I lift a brow, lips curled inward as the patron makes their way through the laundromat, unaware of the silent battle happening between us.
Abel yanks open the washer lid and pulls out the first article of clothing he gets his hands on and swipes it along the side, hastily cleaning it up.
When he’s finished, he turns back around with the shirt clenched tightly in his hands, chest heaving slightly, and I can’t help the laugh that bursts from between my lips.
Abel’s eyes drop to my mouth before flicking up to my eyes.
His own crease in amusement before he forces his mouth to turn down in a pout.
“It’s not fucking funny, Peris,” he hisses. “I just ruined one of my shirts.”
“Poor you,” I say indulgently, reveling in this side of him again. It’s lighthearted and fun and carefree.
Like the last almost two years haven’t happened and we’ve just… hit pause.
“Good afternoon,” the person says as they walk up beside us, and Abel’s eyes widen. He squeaks softly as he straightens up against the washer, hand tightening on his dark gray t-shirt.
“Afternoon,” he says softly, nearly choking on the word, and I cough a laugh.
“Same to you,” I reply easily, loving this discourse between us. It’s so new and different for Abel to be the embarrassed one.
When the patron selects a washer and drags the wheeled basket over to begin their sorting, I step closer to Abel and the opened washer, leaning down to whisper into his ear, “You look a mess, puppy.” His throat rolls with a swallow.
“I wonder if they know what we just did. Can you imagine?” I reach out and run the backs of my fingers down Abel’s neck, causing his shoulders to roll with a shiver.
His fingers curl around the open basin, knuckles turning white.
“I never imagined you as someone who would love an audience,” he rasps, and I growl in his ear at the thought.
My fingers wrap around the nape of his neck, and I tighten them just above his necklace, relishing in the sting of the points digging into the skin of my arm.
“Oh, I’m not, runt. But I have no problem with them knowing I’ve had you.”
“The homophobia not an issue anymore, then?” he snarks, and I tsk.
“You’re intent on ruining the mood, aren’t you?” But I recognize his hurtful comment for what it is. A defense mechanism. Because I’ve gotten too close and Abel gets nasty when he feels vulnerable.
But I can’t really blame him because I do, too.
“Just asking. Because I don’t really fucking know you anymore.”
“Yeah, runt. You do. And you know it.”
That makes him turn around. He glances up at me through his long lashes, and I fall into the depths of his eyes. Hot, molten silver. His eyes dance between mine for a moment, and then, he says, “Do I?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling strangely vulnerable standing in the middle of some random laundromat. “You’ve always known me.”
“Ditto, babe,” he says with a smirk, and his lightness shatters the tension of the moment. I huff a laugh and let my hand fall from his neck.
“We probably look crazy,” I whisper, and Abel nods.
“Oh, definitely.” He reaches down into the washer and starts removing the first load of clothes. “Grab that basket and take those out. We need to dry them, and then, we can go.”
“We?” I ask, fingers tightening on the metal frame as I wheel it closer.
Abel looks up from his task to meet my eyes. His face smooths into a soft smile that I know he saves just for me. “We,” he confirms, and I feel like I’m dying a little.
“I kind of expected…” I start but trail off when I realize it makes me sound like an ass.
“What? Somewhere a little more rich?” Abel snarks, and I wince.
“I guess.”
“I save the majority of my money, Peris. I only use enough to pay bills and get what I need. I don’t really have a lot of extra, so this shitty place is it.
Though I couldn’t give up having a balcony.
I love smoking too much,” he says with a wink, and I roll my eyes.
“Though I gave up cigarettes, you seemed to have picked up the habit for me.” He drops his laundry to the floor, and I do the same.
“Yeah, well. Vices and all that,” I mutter, and Abel snorts.
“Fucking tell me about it.” He wanders into the kitchen area, and I take the time to look around.
It's a small studio apartment about the size of a hotel room with no dividers or rooms added.
The bathroom is off to the side with its own door, and his bed is pushed up against the wall with a navy blue couch to the right of it.
There’s a T.V. across from both with a coffee table separating the space. The kitchen area is right inside the room when you first walk in with a small fridge, stovetop, and bar countertop area with two barstools that go along the other side near the couch.
The walls are made of old brick, and when I run my hand over it on my way to the balcony door, I hiss from the rough texture. When I slide the door open, the frigid autumn air hits me, and I breathe it in as I look across the city before taking in the small table and the two metal chairs.
There’s an ashtray with some small roaches in it and a pink lighter, and the sight of it makes my heart squeeze. I reach down and pick it up, flipping it between my fingers for a moment.
“What are you doing?” Abel says from behind me, and I startle. The lighter clatters to the concrete ground, and I reach down to pick it up, but Abel beats me to it. He arches a brow but doesn’t say a word as he very deliberately places the lighter back on the table next to the ashtray.
“I made some tea,” he says eventually, and I arch a brow.
“Tea?”
“Yeah,” he says defensively as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Okay.” I turn and brush past him to go back inside. It smells of cinnamon and spice, and I breathe in deeply.
“What kind of tea is this?” I ask as I pick up one of the dark gray mugs.
“Harney and Sons Hot Cinnamon Sunset. It’s my favorite,” Abel says with a smile as he picks up his own mug and takes a sip. His eyelids flutter closed, and I watch him rapturously. “I imagine if my blood were to taste like anything, then it would taste like this,” he says, and I jerk, startled.
I quickly pick up my mug and take sip of the burning hot liquid. The flavor dances on my tongue, and it’s amazing. “Your blood tastes nothing like this,” I tell him after I’ve swallowed, and he frowns.
“Thanks for ruining the fantasy,” he snarks.
I smirk. “Always. I don’t know why you’d think your blood would taste like tea.”
“Not like tea, you idiot. Like… spicey. Cinnamon-y. Whatever. It doesn’t matter,” he flaps his hand in the air and takes another sip. I follow suit and relish in the warmth as it travels down my throat and into my stomach.
“Surely you’ve tasted your own blood before.”
“Of course, I have!” he snaps, and I lift a brow. “You don’t get it.”
“Explain it to me.”
Abel sighs. But he does. And my heart pounds realizing I get to know something new about him.
“It’s not that I think it actually tastes like that.
Or that I think it does, necessarily,” he adds.
“It’s more that I always imagined to the right person, but blood would taste how this tea does in the way that it’s warm and tingly and it smells incredible, and I can’t ever get enough. Seriously, I could huff this shit.”
He sets his mug down, face flushed from his vulnerability, and I reach across the counter to wrap my fingers around his slim, bony wrist. That draws his eyes up to mine, which I take in greedily. “Abel, you have no idea how addictive you really are, do you?”
“Peris…”
“I’m serious, runt.” And for some stupid reason, I want to lay it all out. I want him to know. But I can’t chance it, even if I already know I won’t let him go again… it has to be his choice, in the end.
“We’ve spent nearly two years apart, and I’m still just as obsessed with you as I was then… Actually, I think I am even more so.”
Abel blushes so prettily at my admission, and I can’t resist following it with the tip of my finger.
“Me, too,” he confesses, and I feel my heartbeat in my throat. He leans into my touch, and I cup the side of his face. “What are we doing, Peris?”
“I don’t know.”
“This can’t work.”
“I know.”
“Even if I give it up…”
“What?” I choke out, eyelids flying open. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t get your fucking hopes up. I didn’t say I was.” His fingers tighten on his mug. “I said if I did. You clearly don’t trust me. And we can’t be anything without trust.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why do you think I don’t trust you?”
“You had to ask—”
“Because you’re a whore, Abel! Of course, I had to ask!
But I took your answer as the truth, didn’t I?
And doesn’t that mean I fucking trust you?
” My heart is pounding in my chest—for more than one reason.
The conversation itself, the possibility that Abel might actually quit. The probability that we could be more…
I can’t handle this.
I wasn’t ready for this when I followed him to that fucking laundromat.
“See,” he snipes. “You only see me as a fucking whore.”
“You cheated on me,” I tell him bluntly, and his face pales, devoid of all color.
“You went to that room with that man, and you fucked him when you were mine. You did that knowing what we were, and you didn’t care what it did to me.
You said I was no one. That broke my fucking heart, Abel.
But I still needed you. I still fucking needed you.
And then, you left me. You… you fucking left without a word.
Left me to deal with all this shit alone, and I did what I needed to do to survive.
So, I’m sorry that the only way I can think of what you do is in the most literal sense of the goddamn word. ”
By the time I’ve finished, my chest is heaving, and my stomach is curdling with the urge to vomit. I’m barely able to choke it back, but I can’t look Abel in the eyes. If I do, I’ll break, and I refuse to cry in front of him ever again.
“You weren’t the only one who did what they needed to survive,” Abel croaks after what feels like forever.
“I know I fucked up, Peris. And I’m not excusing what I did.
I know I hurt you, and I’ll forever hate myself for it.
I didn’t want to, if you can believe that.
I didn’t want to sell my body again, but I needed out.
Lucy’s boyfriend was going to hurt me, and I had to leave. ”
“Why didn’t you come to me? Or to Ma? We could’ve helped you,” I plead, knowing it’s too late but unable to shake the inevitable hurt.
“It’s like I told you already, Peris. You couldn’t have saved me. There was nothing either of you could have done. I had to save myself, and I did. I don’t regret that. But I do regret hurting you and Elise to get free. I never wanted that.”
“There had to have been another way…” I mutter, shaking my head in denial.
Abel sighs loudly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know, but back then, I didn’t really have the time to contemplate all the fucking choices. There really weren’t any. You knew what it was like for me. And I did what I thought I had to. I’ve always been a survivor.”
“And now? Why are you still doing it now?”
“Mo.”
“Mo…”
Abel blows out a breath, and I settle myself for the story.
Of finally getting some fucking answers.
“The girl I was in a home with when we were younger. A pretty bad one. We were molested. We got taken out and separated, and I lost her. About seven months after I ran away, I was finally able to find her. She…” He chokes on his words, and I reach across the counter and grab his hand.
I squeeze, and Abel’s eyes find mine. They’re bloodshot and wet, and I give him a soft, encouraging smile.
“She tried to kill herself but failed. She now lives with a traumatic brain injury in a long-term health care facility because she’ll never be able to care for herself again.
I work—and I save—in case she needs anything, ever.
I don’t want her to go without ever again, and I’ll do what I can to make sure that happens.
That’s why I’ve been seeing clients. It’s the most lucrative, and I wanted to get as much saved as I could. I can’t let her down again.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter and run my fingers through my hair as I drop my head between my shoulders. Out of all the things I expected to come out of his mouth, something so… so selfless was not one of them.
“Who are you?” I ask faintly as I stare at Abel, and he shrugs as he takes a sip of his tea. I follow the bob of his throat as he swallows, and I bite back my own desire to sink my teeth into his sharp Adam’s apple.
“I’m the same person I’ve always been, Peris. You just never tried to see the real me.”
You wouldn’t let me, I almost say. “I see you now,” I croak instead as I look into his eyes, and I do.
I finally see him. Abel Silver in all his messy, disturbing, fucked up madness.
And I want him still.