Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
WELLS
This building really needs better security is my first thought when I hear the knocking on my door.
“Open up, Wellington,” I hear Reed’s voice call from the hallway. “I brought you a present.”
I take my eyes off the television–another hockey game–and fueled by more confusion than anything, open my front door.
I squint, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Because Reed’s here, but he’s also shouldering what appears to be a very drunk Kellan, who also has a busted up lip and a gash across his cheek.
“What–”
Reed cuts me off. “Long story. MonGay. Shots. Bar fight.” He drags Kellan inside, who seems to be growing heavier by the second if Reed’s labored breathing is any indication.
I give Reed a dubious look. “Doesn’t seem that long. Who started it?”
Now, Reed laughs. “Kellan decided to defend some twink’s honor who bought a drink for the wrong guy. Can you help me get him on the sofa?”
I nod and help heft Kellan the last few feet.
We deposit him on the sofa, which he leans back against with a satisfied sound that I’m choosing to ignore.
Because I still don’t understand what the hell is going on, and I don’t know if Kellan is the best person right now to give me a clear replay of events.
“I didn’t know that Mulligan’s encouraged drinking on the job. ”
“Slow night? I’m not sure. I went over to say hello when I saw him inside at the bar. He was already a few deep at that point.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And I’m sure you didn’t buy him another to ply him for information?”
Reed gives me a scandalized look. “I’m only human, and you’re locked up tighter than Fort Knox. So sue me.”
“You’d like that too much.” God, he’d probably use it as the centerpiece for his law school applications.
I look at the sofa, where Kellan’s become transfixed by the hockey game. “And you brought him here because?”
“He wouldn’t tell me where he lived, and I couldn’t leave him outside. You’re welcome, by the way,” Reed adds.
I go to the kitchen sink to get Kellan a glass of water.
“And why exactly should I be thanking you? For letting me play babysitter tonight when you’re the one who got him drunk?
” I tamp down on the flair of jealousy that’s worming its way through me.
I trust Reed, but the idea of Kellan with anyone else has this effect on me.
Reed levels me with a look. “He thinks that you’re mad at him. Maybe you two can bury the hatchet. God knows you wouldn’t have put on your big boy pants and had an honest conversation with him.”
I stare at him. “And what does that mean?”
Reed shrugs, nonplussed by my icy tone. “You push people away, Wells. Call it a defense mechanism or whatever, but at the end of the day, you’re only hurting yourself.” He tilts his head toward Kellan. “And for whatever reason, this one seems to keep coming back for more. Do you have a magic di-”
“Shut up, Reed.”
He laughs, already walking toward the door. “Okay, well I’m going to leave you two lovebirds to it.”
“Ass,” I say at the same time the door closes.
“Who’s an ass?” Kellan asks, peering over at me from the sofa. “Me?”
I hand him the glass of water, which he drinks hungrily. “This time, no.”
“But other times?” He’s giving me that puppy dog look, all innocence and heart-melting cuteness.
I sigh. “No, I was the ass during those times, too.” I think about sitting down, but his wounds need to be cleaned. “Give me a second. I’m going to get something for your face.”
He lifts his hand up. “What’s wrong with my face?”
“Your face is perfect,” I admit, as I watch him run his fingertips across the inch-or-so gash below his eye. “It’s just the cuts on it that we need to take care of so they don’t get infected.”
He nods, accepting my words. I head to the bathroom and return less than a minute later.
He’s already fallen asleep, or at least has his eyes closed.
He’s sunken into the sofa, his chest rising and falling like a metronome.
I can’t help but take him in–he’s so fucking beautiful.
And even if I want to let him sleep, I don’t know where the hands of the skeezeball who hit him have been.
I sit down on the sofa next to him and run my fingers along his jaw. “Kellan,” I say quietly, hoping not to startle him.
Finally, he opens his eyes, lidded with both alcohol and exhaustion. “Wells.” His face breaks out into a smile, one I wondered if I’d ever see again.
I open one of the antiseptic wipes. “I need to clean your face. It may sting a little.”
He nods and turns the side with the gash toward me.
I want to kill that fucking asshole for laying a hand on him, and I hope that I get the chance one day.
He winces when I rub the wipe across his cheek but leans into the touch anyway.
I let out a sad sigh. Isn’t that what we do to one another?
Hurt and then comfort. Comfort and then hurt.
I don’t want to be the source of any of his pain, but somehow, that’s the role I always seem to end up playing.
Because of my stupid shit, which I haven’t gotten over, even after close to a decade.
He closes his eyes again. “That feels nice.”
“We have different ideas about pleasure then.”
I watch a smile work its way across his face. “You touching me feels nice, I mean. I missed it.”
“I missed it, too,” I admit. “It has to at least be nicer than when the trainers are patching you up.” I expect my words to cut the intensity of the moment, but I watch as Kellan’s eyes blink open, dark brown ones staring into my own.
“My mom used to do this for me. She thought I was always getting knocked around at hockey since I’d joined the high school team.” His lips twitch, like even in his drunken state, he’s considering not saying his next words. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was my step-dad.”
A sickening feeling roils through me, as I realize the magnitude of what he’s telling me.
My hand shakes slightly, which I try to hide as I continue to wipe unnecessarily at his face.
I just don’t want to stop touching him, relishing every time my fingertips ghost across his skin.
“Your step-dad sounds like a real piece of shit. He’s gone though, right? ”
Kellan lets out a deep, mournful sigh that I feel in my bones.
Suddenly, I just want to wrap him up in my arms and hold him.
But I don’t. I’m not sure what we are right now.
And, I want him to keep talking to me. I want to understand him.
I want to be the one he can pour his hurt and confusion into, when he’s not strong enough to hold it himself. “He showed back up on Christmas.”
“He doesn’t hit you anymore, right?” I ask, disgusted by the idea but needing desperately to make sure that Kellan isn’t still in harm’s way.
“I used to be a real dick, Wells.” He gives me a wry smile and adds, “If you can believe it.”
“That’s no excuse for someone hitting you who’s supposed to protect you.”
He shakes his head. “No. To other people. I was so mad and so lost. I took it out on everyone around me. Kids at school, mostly. But by sophomore year, I was bigger than Rick. And I told him if he ever laid a hand on me, my mom, or my brothers, I’d kill him.
” Kellan nods, like he’s affirming his promise again to himself.
The pieces are all clicking together, as I listen to Kellan give me the other side of a story I never thought that I’d understand.
It doesn’t make what he did to me okay, but I can see, now, how much he was hurting.
How much he was carrying, and he crumpled under the weight of it.
“You aren’t a violent person. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as nice as you. ”
He laughs, and I don’t stop him when he snuggles in closer and rests his head on my shoulder.
“I want to set a good example for my brothers,” he says wistfully before his voice grows serious, “but with Rick back, I have no idea what’s going to happen.
I’m so scared that he’ll hurt them or that they’ll become like him. ”
I run my finger along Kellan’s jaw and drag it upward so that he looks at me. “With you as a brother, that won’t happen. Okay?” I know it with certainty as I say the words. They’re so lucky to have him, Rick be damned.
He lets out a long yawn. “There’s just a lot going on right now.”
“I know,” I say as I move my hand behind his back so that his head is resting in the crook of my shoulder.
“You were right.” He says the words so quietly that I’m not sure if they were real. Not that I think Kellan has anything to be admitting to right now, at least where I’m concerned.
“About what?”
“That I didn’t know what I was getting into with you.
The asshole tonight made that very clear.
” I want to absorb his pain and sadness and frustration and fear.
I want to be all those things for him. But he’s right.
This is a hard road. That there are consequences for living an authentic life.
He nuzzles against my neck. His breathing is so even that for a second, I think he’s fallen asleep until I hear him say quietly, “But it doesn’t mean that I don’t still want it. ”