Chapter Seven #2
While Rus didn’t speak, his eyes studied Kaiden with this entranced observation.
Dylan followed the gaze, taking in all the injuries Kaiden had suffered.
They both noticed the red specks in Kaiden’s green hair, the funky whirl as the hair on the side of his head had been matted down in weird ways, and finally, they spotted the staples in his head.
“We’ll get you home,” Dylan said, offering a comforting smile. There wasn’t much else Dylan could offer other than support.
“I don’t want to go home,” Kaiden said, his face tense with unbridled anxiety. “It’s late. My family will have questions and opinions, and I just don’t have the energy for any of that.”
“I understand.” Dylan nodded affirmingly.
“Hell, they probably already locked me out for the night anyway.”
Dylan fumed at that, recalling the additional deadbolt Kaiden’s stepfather installed if anyone came home too late. Sure, they had house keys, but the extra deadbolt ensured Kaiden’s parents controlled any evening outings.
“You can crash at my place,” Dylan offered.
Kaiden made a face, probably delicately explaining that a house full of runaway teens wasn’t ideal. The chaos normally didn’t bother Kaiden, considering his own home, but Dylan suspected his friend needed a quiet place to disappear for a few hours.
“Let’s just head back to my apartment.” Rus shrugged. “It’s tiny. Bedroom living room combo place, but cheap and no noise.”
“Okay.” Dylan nodded, and they left for Rus’ place.
Dylan pulled into the apartment complex, following Rus’ lead as he helped escort Kaiden up the stairs. The building had this outdoorsy vibe where all the residents’ doors were accessible to anyone. No inside passage or hallways. Just a spacious corridor leading from one apartment to the next.
Rus opened his door, leading the way inside, and the tour took all of five seconds.
There was a bathroom to the immediate left when you entered, small but accessible.
There was a closet to the right, tiny and crammed with boxes and luggage and cleaning supplies.
After that single step inside came the bedroom living room combination, which consisted of Rus’ large mattress and box spring on the floor, a recliner chair propped up in a corner, a desk with a laptop and textbooks, and a wobbly stand that looked one Jenga piece away from collapsing with the television and game systems in all.
“Where’s your kitchen?” Kaiden asked.
Rus took five dramatically big steps—his way of conveying just how small the floorplan in his apartment was—then swung open a door on the opposite side of his apartment.
“Kitchen is a shared common space.”
Dylan blinked with a confused expression.
“Cheap off-campus housing comes with some quirks.” Rus laughed. “I pay for this space; someone next to me pays for the same.”
“Oh.” Dylan nodded, gathering the tiny space and shared kitchen made for quite the affordable accommodations.
Honestly, Dylan didn’t know much about the expenses of housing outside the mortgage and utilities for Dorothy’s Home, where he’d lived since he was fifteen, staying on to work alongside Jasmine.
He did know it cost several thousand dollars to move into an apartment, most demanding deposits, first month’s rent, and last month’s too if their renters had bad credit—or worse, no credit.
That never made sense to Dylan, how not borrowing money somehow hurt someone’s odds of being good with money.
But he ran several fundraisers over the years to help former teen residents get the necessary funds for housing after they aged out of Dorothy’s Home.
Not all of them went to college, so that meant they needed some type of housing assistance when they jumped into the workforce world, and while Jasmine couldn’t take everyone on as an employee in the way she had with Dylan, she always made sure not to send a single kid out into the world without some kind of preparation.
“You going to settle in okay?” Dylan turned his attention to Kaiden, who seemed to silently absorb the events of the night.
“Yeah.”
“All righty then…I’m going to get going.”
“Are you crazy?” Rus asked. “I saw those woozy eyes on the drive here. It’s almost four. Just crash here.”
“Um…” Dylan tensed a bit. “Where exactly?”
“This is a king.” Rus pointed a thumb over his shoulder to his bed. “Plenty of room for all of us.”
“A king for the short king,” Kaiden said, the tiniest bit of sass in his weary tone.
That brought joy back to Dylan, seeing his friend blossom into himself again, even if fleeting.
“And to cater to all the queens I bring back to my bedroom.” Rus eyed Kaiden up and down.
“Bitch, you’re snarky,” Kaiden teased. “Okay, but I’m not sleeping in the middle.”
“Guess Dylan gets the middle,” Rus said. “Hope you’re cool with that.”
Dylan found himself too tired to protest, too concerned to abandon Kaiden, and too curious not to spend the night in bed with Rus. Even in such a platonic setting.
“Just an FYI—I’m no fan of suffocating when I sleep,” Rus said, carefully lifting his shirt up.
Kaiden made his way to the bathroom and spent a few minutes locked away while Rus stripped down to his boxers. Dylan couldn’t help but glance at the skimpy, form-fitting boxer briefs.
“Oh, we’re just stripping down.” Dylan nodded approvingly, playfully—or at least he hoped it came across as such.
“We’re all grown-ups.” Rus gave a crooked smirk, then bit his bottom lip in the cutest way. “And honestly, I find it impossible to sleep fully clothed. Unless I’m like pass out drunk or some shit.”
“Too suffocating.” Dylan nodded.
“But you can totally sleep however you’re comfortable.”
Dylan noticed the reddish bruising with blue lining along Rus’ skin, mainly centered around his torso. It was a difficult sight to take in, the cluster of strikes.
“Does it hurt?” Dylan asked, immediately and perhaps instinctively stepping in closer. “It looks—”
“Worse than it feels,” Rus interrupted. “Trust me.”
“Was anything broken?” Dylan lightly traced his fingers along the bruising near Rus’ ribcage, almost grazing his skin, touching his battered flesh.
“Maybe my ego.” He snorted. “I figured five or six douchebags would be light work. Though that might’ve been the gin talking.”
“Or your fists,” Dylan teased. “You tend to talk with them a lot.”
It was an easy observation to make, considering Rus’ outburst over the summer landed him community service hours. However, if those pricks were half as foul as the men who attacked Kaiden tonight, then Dylan figured Rus made the right move. Even if it was the wrong reaction.
Dylan’s eyes wandered past the bruises, examining Rus’ exposed body.
Rus’ pale skin made the vibrant tattoos pop all the more.
For the first time since meeting Rus, Dylan had a clear view of all of them.
There was so much more than the angry bi goose on his neck.
Rus had a small pentagram on his chest with what looked like black flames around it.
Then there was the sexy set of red lips right along the deep V-cut indent below his abdomen, barely visible above the elastic of his boxers.
That one particularly drew Dylan’s attention, so he quickly averted his gaze to study the other tattoos.
And yeah, Dylan had glimpsed the sleeve tattoos before but didn’t realize they ran all the way up his biceps, too.
“Wow, you really have a lot of tats.” Dylan eyed the half-naked woman on his right bicep who wielded a bloody knife and wore a skull mask as she lay sprawled out on top of a pile of bones, which stretched down to his forearm. Bright crimson blood splatter framed her black and white portrait.
Somehow, the right sleeve seemed much tamer than the left, which showed shadowy figures trapped in flames with a quote etched into Rus’ bicep. The letters looked carved, making Dylan shiver as he read the text. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”
“I’ve got a bit of an obsession.” Rus smirked, running his fingers over his ribcage, showing off the galactic star shower of a night sky tattoo. “This one hurt like a bitch, though.”
“I imagine they all hurt.” Dylan grimaced. He’d never cared much one way or the other for tattoos, but there was something cute about the way Rus seemed to paint his body with all the things he enjoyed.
“This one I barely felt.” Rus slapped his left thigh, revealing a brightly colored Harley Quinn tattoo. She held a bat and stood over a puddle of blood and green goop.
“What’s with the green…”
“She finally got fed up with the Joker,” Rus teased. “I need to add some flowers or plants or some shit to show she’s moved on and moved up from her previous relationship drama.”
Dylan snorted. “Wow. Okay. I liked the movie, I guess.”
“Noooo.” Rus shook his head. “I mean, they’re okay—whatever—but we gotta watch the show.”
“There’s a show?”
“Yes, hence why I got this version of Harley.”
“Oh, so a cartoon show.”
“Don’t be one of those basic, boring adults who are too good for animated shows.”
“No, no, they’re cool, I guess.” Dylan shrugged. He’d never really watched much television to begin with. Most shows he caught snippets of came from trending clips online.
“You got any tattoos?” Rus asked.
Instead of answering, Dylan followed suit and stripped down to his boxers, which were quite the opposite of Rus’.
Dylan had always preferred bigger, breezier underwear, so he often went with the large plaid pairs that Kaiden swore were toxic top undies.
But Dylan refused to believe underwear determined someone’s sexual proclivities.
Although he did attempt to recall what position boxer briefs were according to meme culture.
Just for a potential heads-up with Rus, one day, someday, maybe.
His tan skin revealed no hidden tattoos or piercings.
A few scars here and there, but Rus didn’t linger long on any of them as he studied Dylan’s form.
And yes, Dylan studied Rus’ expression as they took in each other’s nearly naked bodies.
“I’m beat,” Kaiden announced, exiting the bathroom in his dress shirt and boxers. He gently placed his corset vest on the nearby desk and hung his slacks over the back of the chair.
Rus didn’t say anything about the shirt, but Dylan knew Kaiden hated being seen without something to cover his stomach, his chest, his body.
“Dear God, what are those, and where can I get a set?” Rus eyed the elastic straps wrapped around Kaiden’s thick thighs.
The muscles of Kaiden’s legs flexed a bit as he showed off one of the straps before unfastening it. They hung on his thighs and clipped to his dress shirt, keeping it smoothed out.
“They’re called shirt stays.”
“How in the hell can something be so appealing and have such an ugly name?” Rus shook his head disapprovingly.
“I don’t know.” Kaiden slipped the shirt stays off and set them beside his corset vest on the desk. He put his dress socks into the soles of his dress shoes and tucked them under the desk. “I think they were also called shirt garters back in the day.”
“Ugh, such a better name, but not nearly slutty enough.”
They all laughed at that, silently staring at each other, and perhaps all pondering better names for Kaiden’s accessories. At least Dylan contemplated potential names.
“All right,” Dylan said, climbing into the bed. “We ready for sleep?”
“Yes,” Kaiden said. “Eternal if possible.”
“Best I can offer is midafternoon,” Rus said with a chuckle.
“Deal.” Kaiden slid into the bed, scooting close to Dylan and then apologizing before scooching away some. “I’m a tosser and turner, so sorry in advance.”
“It’s all good,” Dylan said, leaving out the bit that this didn’t come close to his worst sleeping accommodations. It didn’t seem like an appropriate time to make a silly anecdote about sleeping in the back of a car or on someone’s floor or that one stormy night in a cemetery crypt.
“I sleep like a corpse, so you could literally slap me, and I’d snooze through it,” Rus declared.
That almost encouraged Dylan to drop his anecdote, but he could tell everyone needed actual rest, instead of idle chitchat before bed.
Kaiden passed out from sheer exhaustion, and Rus seemed to have the annoyingly uncanny ability to just will himself to sleep immediately, which left Dylan awake and alone with his thoughts for well over an hour, with the boys on either side of him.
Dylan watched Kaiden’s breathing, taking in every second with his friend, and letting the worry of the night slowly wash away.
Guilt still gnawed at him, doubt pressed to his mind, and he couldn’t help but think of all the ways he failed Kaiden.
He should’ve jumped in and fought alongside Rus when the men attacked.
He should’ve gotten help faster. He should’ve raced in once he returned with help.
Still, Dylan dwelled on every misstep of the evening, and his mind filled him with horrible scenarios of what could’ve been.
Kaiden could’ve died. Rus could’ve died.
Those thoughts twisted knots in Dylan’s stomach.
Rus had slowly wormed his way into Dylan’s heart, a curiosity that Dylan wanted to explore. A guy Dylan wanted to know more. A potential…something Dylan wanted to make sense of.
All the same, Rus came second to the budding thoughts blossoming in Dylan’s overactive mind.
Kaiden kept coming into frame. The worry Dylan had sent a shiver through him. Dylan couldn’t fathom life without Kaiden. And as his friend slept beside him, Dylan’s mind started wandering to what life with Kaiden looked like.
He’d never seen Kaiden as more than a friend. Occasionally, he’d seen Kaiden as a potential fuck buddy—but that never seemed like something Kaiden would go for, and Dylan didn’t have a great history with casual sex. It usually messed with his friendships.
Still, Dylan’s imagination wandered with ways he could have Kaiden in his life as something more. It was a confusing thought experiment, but it certainly helped tire out his overactive brain, allowing him to get a few hours of sleep.