Chapter 13 Schloss
Schloss
JOSH SLEPT for sixteen hours after they arrived in Stuttgart, waking up around noon the day after arriving because—what else?
—he had to pee. When he got back from the bathroom, he glanced around the suite and realized that Liam had eaten breakfast with, probably, Carl and Michael, and then taken off with them.
He’d left a plate on the table, under a cover, with breakfast potatoes, fruit, and some sausage on it, and a text on Josh’s phone.
Back by one. Carl and Michael are going to their room to rest. Love you.
Josh managed to devour everything on the plate, and was contemplating going back to bed when Liam arrived, breathless and buoyant, a small tourist bag in his hand.
“What?” Josh asked, smiling at him, thinking this would be what he looked like coming in from a morning run, or home from work after stopping for groceries.
Josh and his friends could be snarky and sarcastic, their brains constantly in motion, their edges honed by a vision of a world that was inherently unfair and needed constant tinkering.
Liam, Josh thought, just liked helping people.
He’d been proud of being able to help his mother with his younger siblings and proud of knowing his community when he’d been a flatfoot.
And while Josh didn’t think Liam realized it, what he’d done for Danny in that alleyway in Morocco had been extraordinary.
It hadn’t been the move of a law enforcement officer the way Josh’s country understood law enforcement—but it had been the move of a compassionate person with the power to make things better.
It was that, perhaps, that had started the zing in Josh’s blood. Not the story of Morocco, of course—Josh hadn’t learned about that until long after their first meeting.
But Liam stepping up to help Josh and Stirling out of the van that night, and the way he’d simply caught Josh in his arms. All that compassion, all that surprising strength.
And whether Liam understood it or not, he was, by virtue of having a level head and a heart stouter than his brain was wrinkly, the grown-up in the room.
There would always be tension, Josh thought, smiling besottedly and not caring.
Josh knew how to be a crew leader—he’d watched Felix and Danny and Julia his entire life, and decided that was what he wanted to be.
It was why he had never settled down on a major at school.
The learning—all the learning—was the point.
And then you used that knowledge to fix the things, make the world fair, level the playing field for people who needed the help.
Liam had simply learned to help. He didn’t “lead a crew,” he cared for a crew.
That first kiss on the balcony in the dark had been the thing Josh needed with all his soul when he’d needed it most. From his first moment of contact, back in the alleyway in Morocco, Liam had been there—right down to trying so hard not to tell them all to shut up in the Louvre.
Now Liam held up the bag, somewhat triumphant. “Hair dye, tourist T-shirts, and, uhm….” His cheeks, usually a pale backdrop for those amazing freckles, turned ruddy. “And socks,” he admitted. “I did not pack nearly enough socks.”
Josh laughed, delighted. “Felix and Julia sent me to Europe on a school trip once, the summer after Danny left. I think they were trying to make me feel better, but I remember Julia talking to my father after one of the parent meetings.” He straightened his posture and mildly cocked his head, assuming his best impersonation of his mother.
“Felix, I don’t think he’ll fit in with the other boys. ”
And now he raised his chin and puffed out his chest, like his father when he was owning a boardroom. “Well, why not, dearest?”
“One of the other mothers asked how many socks we should pack, and the counselors replied we should purchase a brand-new package of twelve socks, be prepared to never see a single one of them again, and be grateful for that.”
He gave his best Felix-trying-not-to-boggle impression. “I think maybe our Josh is a bit more mature than those other boys. Should we go ourselves and take Dylan Li with us?”
Liam had settled down next to him and was gasping with laughter at that point. “Oh my God,” he choked. “That was amazing. So did you?”
Josh shrugged. “Of course. They were my parents.” He smiled in reminiscence.
“Grace and I were going on the London Eye for the second time. My folks were done with it, but Danny slid on, took a selfie with the two of us, and then slipped away when we disembarked. They didn’t have a clue until they were looking through the family photos at the end of the trip.
” He sobered. “The expression on Felix’s face…
. God. I never want to feel loss like that. ”
Liam captured his hand. “Me neither,” he said soberly.
Josh stared at their entwined fingers for a moment.
“Maybe this was why I put us off for six months,” he murmured.
“This thing in me, what I feel for you, it was enormous after those weeks on the ship. But now, now that we’ve…
become, I guess, we just keep becoming, more and more and more.
I wasn’t strong enough then. I was, quite frankly, too scared for myself to be a good lover for you.
I… I mean, I’m tired, not gonna lie, but I feel like my heart’s stronger, if that makes any sense.
Strong enough to accept all that you are. ”
Liam kissed his knuckles. “Lots and lots of pretty words, pretty boy,” he whispered, “for a very simple man.”
“It’s easier to be perfect when you’re simple,” Josh said, smiling at him. “And just because most of us have an IQ of buzzenteentwelve, that really doesn’t make our lives any easier.”
“Buzzenteentwelve?” Liam echoed, his mouth pulling in at the corners as he suppressed a smile. “Is that a Josh IQ, a Grace IQ, a Stirling IQ, or a Molly IQ?”
Josh couldn’t help the giggles. “I think you have to combine the four of us to get above buzzenteen,” he said. “The twelve is all Grace.”
Liam snorted.
“What?” Josh asked. “What was that noise for?”
“I do email your parents about you,” he said.
“That’s sneaky.” Josh had known that—he had—but as open as his family could be, he suddenly wondered what they said about him. “What’s it mean?”
“It means,” Liam said, grazing Josh’s knuckles with his lips, “that they’re pretty sure you fucked off on those tests you and Grace took so Grace would have the higher numbers.”
Josh groaned and hid his face against his shoulder. “No,” he said. “They told you that?”
Liam nodded soberly. “Danny said he’d never been prouder of you—it was one of the world’s greatest grifts.
Kept you in the same classes, made sure you didn’t get transferred to a different school, and—” Liam regarded him with such profound admiration, Josh had to squirm.
“—gave Grace something to cling to, something to make him feel better about himself when he needed it most.”
“Oh God, stop,” he muttered.
“No,” Liam said. “You opened your heart to me in a big way, Joshua Salinger. I want you to know I understand all of what you are.”
Josh gave him a shy smile and watched something complicated happen to Liam’s expression.
“Josh, do you have a middle name?”
Josh shrugged. “Daniel,” he said.
Liam let out a ragged laugh and pulled Josh against his chest. “Of course it is,” he whispered.
Josh sat there, feeling safe, and for a moment his restless, overpowered brain didn’t demand a damned thing from him, other than that he allow Liam to love him.
He would never understand people like Kadjic, he thought fuzzily, or any of the other people he and his family had waged quiet wars against. Why would you sell drugs or traffic humans or deal in weapons or anything else destructive and awful when you could sit and have a simple conversation with a good human, and he could make your world shine?
He allowed Liam to push him back to bed some more, and he woke up at six when Carl and Michael came over, amazing Bavarian takeout in bags hanging from their hands.
For an hour they ate schnitzel, wurst, potato dumplings, and apple strudel while Michael and Carl talked about Neuschwanstein Schloss, where they’d spent most of their day.
Josh held his tongue for most of the meal, letting Michael talk about the wood finish of the great canopy beds and the floors and moldings, as well as the tapestries and fine fabrics that decorated the rooms in King Ludwig’s celebration of being rich and comfortable and liking nice things.
It was hard—he had to stop himself from asking about security, or the Rothschild jewels, or the painting stolen by the Nazis and saved by the Monuments Men, but Carl caught his eye and shook his head.
Josh remembered that shining faith Liam had in him, that he was more than a buzzenteentwelve IQ, and calmed down.
Josh had been coming to Europe since he was a child, but Michael had grown up hard in the Texas panhandle, and for most of his life, he’d assumed that his marriage to a wife he loved but didn’t desire and their children would be the extent of his world.
He was a criminal, so getting a passport would have been damned hard if they hadn’t had Tienne forge one for him, and kiting around the world as a member of the crew and Carl’s boyfriend was an adventure he hadn’t once dreamed about, not even when he thought he was reaching for the stars.
Carmichael Carmody had earned the right to babble on and on about a castle, because he’d never believed such a thing existed in the world.
Josh relaxed into the dinner and allowed Michael’s wonder to infect him, allowed himself to get happy about visiting a monument to love.
Finally Michael wound down and seemed to realize he’d talked through the entire meal.
“I’m sorry,” he squeaked in the middle of waxing rhapsodic about the topiary garden and the labyrinth in the grounds. “I’m… I bet you guys see this stuff all the time.”