Matthew
The silence left behind after Xavier and Hunter go outside is awkward.
At least, I think it’s awkward. It’s awkward to me, so that means it has to be, right?
Half of the silence is confirmed awkward.
Darting a peek at Miles’ face doesn’t really tell me whether the second half is also awkward. Should I ask?
“Maybe I should go?” I can take my awkward half, and he can be left with whatever his half is. Probably not awkward. He doesn’t seem like he’s anything but put together at all times.
Those dark eyes turn and focus on me, which is both disconcerting and brain melting. He has nice eyes. I don’t exactly know what colour they are, because black isn’t a colour. I assume they must be a dark brown. Or a dark blue. Lighting matters.
“Why?”
Straight to the point, then. “Well, it’s—I mean you're all…” Never mind.
The awkward silence has nothing on me. “There's a lot of history here.” Like, centuries of it.
If Hunter or Xavier think their marriage is over, they're kidding themselves. Involving myself any further in this just seems like a terrible idea. I've been shot at, for cripes’ sake! My life is way too ordinary for that. Also, it was terrifying.”
“We all have history.”
“Sure. But mine is filled with stories about trying to fit a whole cupcake in my mouth when I was seven, and that one time I fell out of a tree and broke my arm.”
Miles tilts his head, studying me.
“Which arm?”
The question stumps me for a second even though it’s a relatively easy question. No one has asked me that before. “Uh, the left.”
Miles nods, like I’ve told him a really important fact. “When I was twelve, I crashed my bike into a fence at the bottom of a hill and broke my right arm.”
It’s such a regular, normal thing that I don’t know how to respond to it.
Miles’ lips twitch. An almost smile on that very serious face. “I was a kid once too.”
“Are you sure?”
More lip twitching. He doesn’t reply this time.
He’s picked up all of the mugs and placed them in the sink before my brain comes back online.
“It feels like I’m intruding,” I blurt.
He turns to me, brows drawn in. “Hunter brought you here.”
“Okay, but, I don’t really need to be here, do I? They weren’t after me.” Though being a bystander to the event doesn’t feel particularly safe. “Aren’t I putting myself in more danger by staying around all of you?”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No.” A pause. “I don’t think so. You didn’t answer my question.”
“We have no way of knowing. They might have been tracking Hunter, or they might have been tracking you.”
Being caught unawares by those kinds of men without Hunter around isn’t the most appealing option.
It still feels like I’m a third wheel, though.
Fourth? In a game of “pick the odd one out” it’s clear that’s me.
The circle among the squares. The apricot in the peaches.
The… book among the magazines? The point is that I don’t fit here. So what am I doing here?
Miles pushes in a chair and glances to the back door, where Hunter and Xavier went. Ever vigilant. Does he get tired?
“Did they really mean—did Xavier really—um—” Is there a casual way to ask about the validity of death-threat implications? If there is, I’ve never heard of it. Though I’ve never had reason to hear of it either. It’s not really something that gets thrown around a lot in my social circles.
“Yes.”
The answer hits me right in the gut. “Oh.” When people say they have history, they usually mean, like, “We used to date, but we broke up,” or like, “He didn’t like mustard, so we were completely incompatible,” or, “I moved for a job, and long distance didn’t work out.
” Normal, everyday, boring kinds of reasons why two people drift apart and go their separate ways.
Miles softens. I think? A little. “It’s complicated.”
That could mean so many things that I wouldn’t even know where to start with guessing.
It’s not as if I haven’t picked up on the fact that they’re complicated.
Individually they’re complicated, together they’re an unsolvable Rubik’s Cube.
One that is actually difficult to solve, not something that has a pattern that’s easy to follow once you know what you’re looking for. “Not going to elaborate?”
Miles moves behind my chair, bracing his hands on the table, crowding me in. It brings him close enough to me that I can feel his breath against my neck. “What information are you looking for?”
“All—all of it? Everything.” I want to know everything about them. There’s so much there. A veritable minefield of history, and I want to learn it.
“And where do you want me to start? Xavier was born on May 17, to Josephine and Everard Alicent. He looked like all babies do—a wrinkled potato.”
I twist around in my seat to stare incredulously up at him. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I don’t make jokes.”
“It sounded like a joke.” It was definitely a joke. Or an attempt at humour, which is really the same thing. It counts.
I swear a corner of his mouth curls up. Or I’m imagining all of this, and he’s just a statue of stoic-ness.
“Do you want to hear this or not?” he asks.
When I stand, he backs up, putting a step between us. It’s not the first time he’s done this. Created distance. When he’s in control of it, he doesn’t mind being close, but when the balance tips, he draws the line and retreats. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“When’s your birthday?”
“That’s classified.”
I step forward. He takes another back. “Mine is April 1st.” Which is unfortunately not a joke and made for some really dumb birthday pranks from people at school. If I’d held out just half an hour more, I wouldn’t have been in that mess. Too eager to see the world, I guess.
“I know.”
Of course, he does. “What else do you know about me?” Hey. “No, wait, I’m asking about you.” Did he do that on purpose? That’s some sneaky skills right there. Seems like an unfair advantage.
“Hmm.”
“You are doing this on purpose.” Could I risk another step? How much will he let me get away with? “How come you get to know everything about me, but I don’t get to know one thing?”
“One thing?” He tilts his chin, looking at me through lidded eyes. The smouldering look is enough for me to forget my own name, let alone what we were talking about.
“Um. Yes?”
“Alright. Ask me one thing. I’ll answer.”
That’s a lot of pressure. I have so many questions. Just one? I’m curious about his birthday, but I don’t want to waste my one question on that. I suddenly feel like I’m on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? hot seat. I need to phone a friend. “Anything?”
He nods. “Anything.”
My brain instantly turns to panic mode. Shutting it down, I blurt out the first thing I think of. “Why don’t you like being touched?”
He frowns as though he wasn’t expecting that question. “There is no reason.”
Well, that hurts. “I didn’t realise you didn’t have to be truthful when answering.” What was the point of giving me the question, then? If I’d known he was humouring me, I wouldn’t have played along.
“Am I not telling the truth?”
“There’s no need to make fun of me.” Even “it makes me uncomfortable” is more truthful than having no reason at all.
The back door slides open behind me, loud in the sudden silence, and I close my eyes in mortification. I don’t really need an audience to my humiliation.
Miles is the one who steps closer to me this time.
“I don’t have some dark hidden past of abuse or anything sinister that most will automatically veer towards when trying to come up with an explanation.
I’m an only child, and my parents were distant.
They weren’t big on physical touch either, and I grew up knowing to avoid that kind of contact.
Asking for hugs was met with silence, needing comfort was met with darkness.
They didn’t know how to deal with me because that’s not who they were, and in turn, I came to appreciate what it means to be disconnected from the world and more in tune with myself. ”
More in— “That’s not knowing yourself, that’s isolation.”
“Both can be true at the same time.”
My heart hurts at the idea of him as a child, seeking affection from those who were supposed to show him what love, kindness, and care are and getting nothing in return.
My parents are nothing like that. Warm, affectionate, giving.
I can’t imagine a childhood like his. “It’s still—that’s still a form of abuse.
It doesn’t have to be physical for it to matter.
It leaves a scar, whether you can see it or not. ”
“Am I scarred, Matthew?”
The way he says my name is like liquid chocolate. “I think—yes.” The words come out shaky. I’m afraid I’m pushing too far. Being too familiar with a man I barely know. “They should have done so much better by you.”
“I have no doubt they loved me. They simply weren’t the coddling type of parents.”
“It’s not coddling, it’s emotional connection.”
“Is it?” He gives a half shrug. “I don’t need it. Not then, not now.”
I swallow hard at the casual answer. I can’t fathom not needing that.
I’ve spent my life surrounded by people that love me and freely show that love.
I couldn’t live without it. I tell my students that it’s important to always put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to better understand where they’re coming from.
And right now, I can’t. It’s impossible to fathom.
“But you touch other people.” The answer comes to me before he can give it.
“The gloves. You use them as a barrier so that you aren’t making a connection with them, no matter how cursory.
” Only, that can’t be all of it, can it?
“You kissed Hunter.” The image of that will forever be imprinted in my brain, and I’m at least eighty-four percent sure I didn’t dream it up.
Those are good odds. So there has to be some connection between the two things.
He can give affection but not receive it? “Is it a control thing?”
I jolt in surprise when a warm hand lands on my shoulder.
It’s Xavier, giving me a look that I couldn’t hope to decipher even if I was given a thousand years.
Hunter stands to my right, flanking me. The very idea of it sends a shiver down my spine.
No matter what happens next, I’ll never forget this feeling.
Surrounded by these three men who take up such a huge presence in any room they fill.
Miles’ dark, intense gaze flits between the three of us.
“Is it a control thing, Miles?” Xavier asks in a way that makes me think he knows the answer already. That doesn’t surprise me.
“No.”
“What, then?” Hunter asks.
Miles shifts, and he looks almost uncomfortable. “Is that what you want? For me to touch you?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean—no.”
“Which is it, yes or no?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Not because I asked. Not because I want you to. I just want to understand why you don’t want to. Why it’s not something that you desire.”
Xavier chuckles warmly beside me. He curls a hand around the back of my neck and drags me closer to him as he nuzzles into my skin with his nose.
“Desire means something different to every person,” he whispers.
He kisses the curve of my neck softly. “For example, Hunter only feels desire when he cares. When you feel his lips on yours, when he gives that beautiful sigh after surrender, you know he’s yours.
Me? I can count on one hand how many people I’ve felt desire for.
To me?” He slides a hand under my shirt, fingers flirting over my stomach.
My knees go weak, and I’m not sure how long I can keep standing on my own power.
He slides his lips across my cheek to the corner of my mouth.
“It means obsession. Utter devotion. To be so consumed by another that there’s nothing else left in the world except you and them. Have you ever felt like that, Matthew?”
I let out a shuddered breath when a tongue flicks out against my skin. “I—I think so. Yes. What was the question?” I don’t know what day it is, what my name is, or what colour grass is. All I can think about is him, and them, and how hot it is in here. How much I want them to touch me.
“Don’t worry, you answered my question.”
“Right. Okay. Good.” I assume it’s good. I reach out and clutch his shirt. A hand that has to be Hunter’s rests against my lower back. They’re still sandwiching me between them, and I’ve never been so happy to be stuck.
“Miles has never had a chance to discover what desire means to him.” Xavier plays with the buckle of my belt. “Would you like to help him find out?”