Chapter Seventeen
Rory
“I’m staying the night,” I tell Shai, still trying to return to earth. The first time we were together was fucking hot, but this surpassed it. Is it just that I like dick, or is it him? I don’t get it. Don’t want to get it, honestly. What I care about is having fun, and I have fun with him.
“You really are used to getting what you want, aren’t you?” He runs his fingers through his messy blond hair, tugging at it. The strands point in about fifty directions, and it makes me want to smile. Why the fuck would I smile at someone’s hair?
“Are you gonna pretend you don’t want me to stay?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ll go take a piss, and then I want to watch that video.”
Shai nods, and I climb out of bed, open the door, and slip out of his room and down the hallway to the bathroom.
While there, I open the cabinet and find a washcloth.
I wet it, clean myself, open the door, and then…
I hesitate. Should I get one for him? That seems like a thing I should do, so I grab another, wet it, and take it back with me.
When I step back into the room, he says, “You couldn’t get dressed first?”
Oh shit. I haven’t even thought about it.
I have a bathroom in my room at the house, but I would walk down the hallway naked without a second thought.
But then I remember his mom trying to pull me to the couch earlier, and how adamant Shai was the first night we were together that I not fuck his mom, and I think maybe that’s what this is.
He doesn’t want his mom to hit on me. “I told you I won’t sleep with your mom. ” I close the door behind me.
“I don’t want her to see you like that.” His voice is tighter than I would expect. I’m not used to shit like this. Yes, Tiernan and Dean are possessive as fuck of each other, and Cillian is with Ollie with anyone except me, but Shai and I aren’t them, and it’s just a body.
But…this is his mom, and there’s clearly some shit there, so I say, “Fine. I’ll be good around your mom, and if she tries anything with me, I’ll have Ash fuck her up.” I walk over to the bed and drop the wet washcloth on his chest. It lands with a thump. “I brought you this.”
“Oh.” He frowns.
Was I not supposed to bring him something to wash off? “What? That’s nice, right? I’m a goddamned gentleman.”
He chuckles. “Next time you could try handing it to me.”
“Stop being so fucking picky.” I climb back into bed with him, watch as Shai wipes down his chest, stomach, and cummy groin. “Well, now you won’t smell like me. I didn’t think of that.”
He snickers as if I’m joking, but I let it go.
“Did you watch the video?”
“No. I waited for you.”
“So fucking sweet,” I tease as he grabs his phone and pulls it up.
We’re both on our backs, really fucking close in his small-ass bed.
Shai holds the phone out in front of us and pushes Play, the sounds of our fucking pulsing through the air, the image of him pushing inside me going straight to my balls.
“Fuck. I’m hot.” I grab the phone from him, pulling it closer to watch.
“I think my dick looks pretty fucking good too,” he replies.
It does, though it would look better without the condom.
“See how good you take me?” he asks, his breath against my shoulder. “See how pretty you look around my cock?”
“Fuck yes,” I say, my dick giving a twitch, like I’m going to get all worked up again. “Send me this.”
He nods, taking the phone back and sending me the video. My phone vibrates in my pocket on the floor.
I stay on my back, Shai on his side, his head in his hand as he looks down at me. “Who is Ash?”
“Aislin. Tiernan’s sister.”
“Don’t send her after my mom.”
“Then tell her not to piss me off.”
“I’m serious, Rory. I can’t forgive that. I know she’s fucked up, but she’s all I have, okay? She’s all I’ve ever had.”
I don’t respond right away, just look at him, try to figure him out.
Being alone like that…I can’t fucking imagine it.
From the moment Cillian, Tiernan, and Ash entered my life, I knew I would never have to be alone.
They would never take advantage of me or not care if they hurt me the way Kat does with him.
Shai deserves better. “While you’re my pet, you have me. ”
He rolls his eyes.
“I’m serious.” But it’s clear he doesn’t believe me. And why would he? No one in his life has ever been real. “We take care of what is ours.”
“I’m not yours,” Shai counters, looking away.
“Yes. You are,” I say simply, though what I said is anything but simple. I don’t even know what I mean by it or why I said it, other than it feels right.
“What’s your favorite movie?” he asks, surprising me.
We talk horror flicks again, sharing favorites.
“I watched Nightmare on Elm Street when I was, like, five,” he admits.
“Always a good choice.”
“Yes, but probably not at five.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Jesus, Cherry. I never know what to expect from you.”
“That makes two of us.” I grin, and he chuckles.
“Anyway, my mom was gone doing…whatever the fuck she was doing. I was so scared at the beginning. I was a fucking kid, home alone, watching horror movies at night, but…I don’t know. Something about being able to watch it made me feel brave. That probably doesn’t make any sense.”
“So? We put too much stock in things making sense. What we feel or don’t feel has nothing to do with logic. It helped you make it through, that’s what matters.”
He nods like I’m right, like he fucking believes what I said, like it makes him feel better or at least like someone understands, and there’s something intoxicating about that.
“Yeah…yeah, I guess. Thanks.”
Shai gave me that piece of him, one that feels deeper than what a lot of people would see on the surface, so…I should do that back. That’s like, a thing people do. “My mom killed herself. I was home with her when she did it.”
Shai’s brows draw together. “Jesus.”
Yeah, I agree. It’s a lot.
“I was in my room, working on this model airplane—I was obsessed with flying as a kid. She used to do them for me, and this was the first one I did by myself. I finished it, went to show her, and found her. She slit her wrists, but she did it in her bed. There was blood everywhere, all the white sheets had turned red.” Sometimes when I close my eyes I see it, though I try not to.
All that red.
All that blood.
“Holy shit. I’m so sorry,” Shai says, and then I feel it…his fingers in my hair, the tips scratching at my scalp in this way that Cillian or Ollie would do to me. Affectionate, caring.
“I sat there with her for hours…on the fucking bed. I couldn’t move, couldn’t call anyone. She looked so fucking peaceful, Shai. I remember that. It’s wild that she could, surrounded by all that blood, but she did.”
His fingers burrow into my hair, gaze sad and sincere.
“Eventually Cillian showed up. I can’t say how he knew I needed him, but then, he’s always known.
Suddenly, he was there, in my house. He climbed on the bed, didn’t fucking care about the blood or a dead body, and just sat with me, put his arm around me.
We didn’t speak, and he didn’t try and get me to leave, simply waited with me until I was ready. ”
I feel weird right now, almost like I did that night, standing outside my body and looking down at myself. Sharing this with Shai is weird, right? What am I doing? Why am I telling him this?
“We bandaged her wrists, which is fucking dumb, but we did it anyway. Then we wrapped her up in the sheets and blankets. Cil called Tiernan, and in no time he was there too—three eight-year-olds being adults and taking care of business. Cillian called his father, and all the grown-ups came. I remember how everyone looked at me, all covered in her blood, wide-eyed and feral.”
“What about your dad?”
“He’d decided he was done with her before that.
Cillian’s parents—Rian and Moira—came, and Fia too.
She’s Tiernan’s mom. And then Conan, another member of our family.
Conan and Rian beat the shit out of my father when he came back, for not taking care of her or me.
Sloan was pissed at them for it. They were likely punished.
Rian and Moira took me home with them. Conan and Rian, neither liked my father much after that. ”
I haven’t talked about her in a long time, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“Do you have anything? Coke or something?” I ask.
“I have some weed.” He climbs out of bed and grabs a box from his closet. We sit in bed together while Shai rolls a joint. “I’m sorry.”
“For not having coke?”
Shai frowns. “For what happened. What you saw and what you lost. I’m glad you had them—even if I do think Cillian is an asshole.”
I shrug. “We’re all assholes. But he’s the best of us all, if I’m being honest.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“You’ll get to know him.” I take the joint from him and light it, pulling the smoke into my lungs, my whole body relaxing.
“Why? Because I’m friends with Ollie?”
“Yes, but also because I want you to. Because he’s my person, and you’re my pet, and…” And it doesn’t feel right for them not to know each other. I don’t want to consider what that means.
I pass him the joint.
“Do you still do them?” Shai asks.
“Do what?”
“Model airplanes.”
“I haven’t, no.”
He nods as if he understands, gives me the joint, reaches down to the stand at the foot of his bed, and grabs his guitar. He leans against the wall, naked, and plucks softly at the strings, his fingers moving fluidly, in this way I could never do. “This okay?” he asks.
My pulse slows even more, my head feeling less busy with all my scattered thoughts. “Yes. It’s relaxing.”
We smoke and he plays, at one point the joint hanging from his mouth as he gets lost in the music.
His nail polish is more chipped than usual, and I wonder why he hasn’t painted them again.
He’s got barbells in his nipples, which is incredibly fucking hot.
And I just…watch. I don’t think I could turn away even if I wanted to.
When the joint is dusted, I lie down beside him, touch and kiss and nibble at his thigh while he plays. It’s nice. I like it. It’s always soothed me when Cillian played the piano, and Shai’s guitar seems to have the same effect.
“I won’t fuck your mom,” I stress again, not sure why I need him to understand that.
“Good.”
“I’ll try not to hurt her either, but if she does something that upsets my pet, I can’t make any promises.”
His fingers fumble the chords, Shai looking down at me like he’s hearing me but not sure if he believes the words.
“I’m serious, pet.”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
“I feel like we’ve had versions of this conversation before, and I’m tired of it. You’re whatever I say you are to me.” I haven’t decided what that is yet, but it’s more than I imagined.
“Rory…”
“Yes.” I smile, playfully fluttering my lashes.
“What’s that look for?”
“Just buttering you up. I’m a nice, upstanding young man, and you’re not going to be angry with me.”
He rolls his eyes, but I can tell he’s trying to bite back a grin. “You literally killed people tonight.”
“And you literally don’t care. What does that say about you?”
He puts the guitar away, then lies down beside me. “Shut up.”
“Oh, don’t like that topic?”
He surprises me by wrapping an arm around me. “When are we going to go do something fun?”
“Fucking me wasn’t fun?”
“You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I do. “Soon,” I reply, then reach over and turn out the light.
My mind doesn’t spin like it usually does, and before I know it, I’m asleep.