Chapter 2
Caleb
I was so cold.
Even with Jace at my back, I was cold.
That had never happened before.
It should have been unsettling, but it actually made me feel better in a way. It meant I could not feel for a little while longer.
I liked not feeling.
It made things easier.
I’d felt a little yesterday when Jace had shown up at the motel, but that had been my own fault for going there in the first place.
For waiting for him to come, like I’d known he would. I should have just stuck to the plan.
I wanted to laugh because plan made it sound like I knew what the hell I was doing. Like I had some reasonable hope of finding that one magic thing that would just fix everything in my life… fix me.
For a while, I’d thought it was Jace, and I’d clung to that for a really long time.
Too long.
I’d honestly believed what he’d told me – that if I just hung in there long enough, things would get better.
I’d had this ridiculous vision of getting to the point where I was a normal guy and I’d show up on Jace’s doorstep one day to show him I was worthy of someone like him.
That I was no longer the kid who’d let his own father fuck him for years.
That I wasn’t the coward who’d watched his brother die and kept his mouth shut about the how and the why of his death.
But Jace was a liar, just like the rest of them.
Okay, so maybe liar was too harsh – but he was just like the others who kept telling me that things would get better.
Eli.
Mav.
My stepmother, Mariana.
They’d all promised me over and over again that my father would pay for what he’d done to me, to Eli… to Nick, and that I’d somehow miraculously get my life back.
But how was I supposed to get something back that I wouldn’t have even recognized?
My life had been watching my brother succumb to his drug addiction while I pretended to be a regular kid, even as my father found his way into my bed night after night after night.
Take those things away, and who was I supposed to be?
I’d hated what my father had been doing to me and I’d hated losing my brother to the drugs that had given him the same numb feeling I now craved, but I’d still had moments where I felt alive.
Moments like when my father would take me to a baseball game and high-five me as our team won, or we’d go fishing in Puget Sound and I’d reel in the first salmon.
I’d feel that little spark of energy inside of me that lit up whenever my father told me he was proud of me or when I saw glimpses of the old Nick, the one I’d practically worshipped as a little kid.
There’d be those rare times where I’d feel only good things when I remembered the days before my parents had gotten divorced.
Camping trips.
Christmases with way too many presents.
Elaborate birthday celebrations.
Barbecues in the back yard.
Those were the things I wanted back. Sometimes I thought I’d even be willing to pay the high price tag that came with it.
As sick as it was, I almost hated my father more for ruining everything by doing to Nick and Eli what he’d done to me.
If it’d just been me, I would have found a way to live with it.
But my father had been a greedy man… and an arrogant one.
I felt Jace shift behind me, and then he was getting out of bed. I didn’t ask him where he was going, because I knew.
He’d felt the cuts on my arm. He’d known what they were.
Now he’d be trying to find the cause of them. I had no doubt that he thought this was something else he could fix for me.
When he returned a moment later, I didn’t need to look to know he’d found what he’d been looking for.
I felt him sit on the bed, but I didn’t turn to look at him.
The old me would have been eager to please him, but I wasn’t that na?ve seventeen-year-old kid who’d seen only a hero when Jace had stood over me in that psychiatric hospital and answered my whispered pleas for help.
I’d come to realize in the last year that it wasn’t so much that Jace wasn’t a hero, because he absolutely was. Just like Eli and Mav were heroes for everything they’d done for me.
No, the problem was that they weren’t my heroes.
Because I was beyond saving.
I’d wanted out of that mental hospital, but the truth was, I hadn’t really wanted out of my old life. Not the way I should have.
I’d wanted my father to stop hurting me, but I hadn’t wanted to give him up, either. I hadn’t wanted him to pay for the things he’d done to me… or my brothers.
I’d just wanted him … I’d wanted to go back to him just being my father and me just being his kid. I’d have gladly given up seeing him punished to get that back.
That was why I didn’t deserve to be saved.
That was why Jace and Eli and Mav had been wasting their time.
And why it had been a fool’s errand to come down here. That pesky feeling shit had reared its ugly head for a while as I’d contemplated my father coming back into my life, but only because I’d known when he did, it wouldn’t be so he and I could go back to the way things had been.
No, he was going to kill me like he’d killed Nick, and despite hating every part of my current life, for some reason, my instinct to survive didn’t seem to care about that fact.
It was just another sign of my cowardice.
I didn’t want to live, but I was too afraid to die.
I heard the sound of something heavy being placed on the nightstand. I was surprised Jace had brought his prize into the room with him, but I guessed he figured knowing where the box cutter was would ensure I didn’t use it.
I didn’t bother telling him that I was too numb to need it.
“Why?” I heard Jace ask.
I hated that the despair in his voice sparked something inside of me. I’d never heard him sound like that. I also hated the little sliver of guilt that began to gnaw at my insides.
I shouldn’t have gone to that motel. I shouldn’t have allowed the need to feel Jace’s arms around me to dictate my actions and pull him into my stupid plan.
And I definitely shouldn’t have believed that Richard Jennings would somehow suddenly grow a conscience and follow through on the promise he’d made to me so long ago.
“It’s not your fault, Jace,” I said softly, hoping that would mollify him.
But, of course, it didn’t.
The bed shifted and then suddenly he was rolling me on my back.
As he leaned over me, I couldn’t help the spark of awareness that went through me.
Jace’s dark brown hair had come free of the rubber band he usually tied it back with.
It wasn’t long enough to actually touch me, but it fell in loose curls to just above his shoulders.
I’d always secretly wished I could touch his hair, just so I could test how the strands would look and feel sliding between my fingers, but I hadn’t ever been brave enough to be that forward.
The things I’d felt for Jace had gone beyond hero worship pretty much the very day I’d met him, but I hadn’t known what to do about it.
Despite the fact that I’d become adept at sucking a guy’s cock and had been fucked more times than I could count, I was completely clueless when it came to things like interacting with a guy I was attracted to.
In truth, Jace was the first guy I’d ever really wanted.
I hadn’t even really been sure I was gay until I’d met the older man.
And I’d been certain that the idea of any man ever touching me again would be akin to the worst kind of torture, but I’d found that Jace was most definitely the exception to that rule.
Yes, the idea of him fucking me absolutely terrified me, but a part of me also wanted to feel the full weight of his body on mine.
I wanted to know what his lips felt like on my skin… and more importantly, on my mouth.
Jace wasn’t a huge guy, but he was well-built.
His chest was broad and the collar of his T-shirt rode low enough to give me a tantalizing peek at the tattoo just above his left pectoral muscle.
His body was long and rangy, and he always smelled like the outdoors with just a hint of spiciness.
His skin tone was several shades darker than my own pale hue, and he had brown eyes that bordered on black.
His beautifully shaped lips were framed by a sexy bit of stubble.
Jace settled some of his weight on my lower body as he braced his left arm on the bed next to my head. My body reacted to his groin brushing mine. I had no idea how I managed not to whimper as a powerful wave of sensation rolled through me.
“I left to protect you,” Jace whispered, his voice cracking a bit. It almost seemed like he’d made the comment to convince himself of that fact, not me. “I stayed away because it was for the best,” he practically growled.
I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say to that.
Part of me wanted to rail at him that he was the biggest fool on the planet if he actually believed what he was saying, but another part of me wanted to comfort him.
To let him continue to believe that what had happened hadn’t had anything to do with him.
I settled for saying, “I know.”
But of course, that only frustrated him more, because his mouth pulled into an even deeper frown.
“Tell me how to fix this,” he murmured.
I held his gaze for a long time before saying, “Not everything can be fixed, Jace.” I paused as I took in his hard expression, because the answer clearly didn’t satisfy him.
“You know how if something shatters when it breaks, there’s no way to find all the pieces to put it back like it once was?
Maybe sometimes it’s better not to even try… ”
I let my words hang and watched as his eyes went impossibly dark. He held me for a moment longer and then released me. Then he stared down at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
And all I could think was, finally .