Chapter 21 Reason Thirteen #3
Gray nodded, his brows lifting halfway up his forehead. The excitement on his face left me giddy. “Boyfriends,” he half-said, half-shouted directly into my face. “Healer of boyfriends.”
“Boyfriends,” I agreed. I gave him one last kiss on the lips before pulling away. “Number seventeen.”
“Number seventeen,” he agreed. “More than I ever have, Kent.” He slid one hand behind my back and the other under my thighs. As he lifted me off the couch, his knee popped, and a wince spread across his face.
“Would it be a bad time to mention that I’m genuinely concerned about your knees? I swear to God, every time you stand up, they crack.” As I held on to him, he stared at me with a curious expression. “What? What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to make it about me,” he whispered. “I didn’t go through half of what you did, that night. They didn’t pour gas all over me. Whatever happened to me doesn’t begin to compare."
“Don’t do that. Talk to me. This isn’t a trauma competition. I’m not keeping score.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “When they dragged you away from me—"
“You wouldn’t let me go,” I said, trying to force a smile. “You held onto me.”
He nodded. “Tommy was trying to get me to let go of you, but I knew if I did, I’d never see you again. I tried, baby. I promise, I tried to get them to let you go.”
“I know you did,” I said, stroking his cheek. His eyes were fixed on my chest like he was too ashamed to even look me in the eyes. I didn’t want to start a relationship with that still hanging over our heads, so I leaned in, pressing my forehead against his. “Tell me. Please?”
“There’s not much to tell,” he said, finally risking a glance at me. “Tommy kicked me pretty hard when he was trying to get me to let go of you. I’ve had trouble with my knee ever since. It’s not too bad most days, just aches sometimes. Pops a lot when I try to stand up too quickly.”
“Maybe I should be carrying you instead,” I said, forcing a chuckle.
“Think I’d rather take my chances on the bum knee. You’re beautiful, Kent, but you’re not really a heavy lifting kind of guy.”
I scoffed at him, and then I sighed. He had a point. Hell, I had a hard enough time slinging twenty-pound bags of dog food onto the line on truck day. I’d be absolutely useless at attempting much more.
“Well, I think a nap will do us a world of good. I can give you a knee massage if it’ll help. I mean, I’m not sure knee massages are actually a thing, but I’m willing to try.”
He shook his head before carting me over to the stairs. “Nurse-man wouldn’t dream of it. It’s your turn to be pampered.”
Once upstairs, he lowered me to the bed.
I slid underneath my blanket and held it up, inviting him in.
He nestled in next to me, and I pulled the blanket over our heads, cocooning us in.
Underneath, our only light source was his phone screen, displaying a picture of us he’d taken at the lake.
As he stroked my cheek, he brushed against the bruise under my eye, making me wince.
“Sorry,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “When I find Kyle, I’ll kill him. No one touches you. Never again. You hear me? I’ll tear his dang head off his body.”
“Fuck,” I breathed. His words were like audible porn, sending rushes of blood into places it had no business flowing. Apparently, I had a vengeance fetish. “Nurse-man is seriously sexy.”
“I’m not joking. He ever touches you again, he’ll be needing a lot more than Nurse-man to heal him. I already got Tommy back for what he did to you. I’m not gonna …” He closed his eyes, mouthing dang.
What?
“Gray?”
Gray’s eyes widened, nervously darting left to right, looking everywhere but at me. He opened his mouth, singing, “abide with me,” as he stroked my cheek. “Just for you, Kent. Remember?”
I put my hand over his mouth. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to ‘just for you, Kent’ your way out of this one. Spill it. What happened with Tommy?” He blushed, trying to look away, but I wasn’t having it. I pulled the cover back and sat up, crossing my legs in front of me. “Come on. Tell me.”
He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Fine. But we’re not making a big deal out of it.
” He closed his eyes and sighed. “It was that day you called to come and pick you up at the lake. When you told me everything that happened that night. After I dropped you off at home, I went to the store and got our picture from my desk. Everything that happened in my bedroom that night just kept playing on a loop in my head. The way Trevor was beating on you. How Tommy kept calling you a—” He ground his teeth together, his jaw more tense than I’d ever seen it.
“How he kept calling you a faggot. He kept saying it, and you just sat there crying. They broke you. I watched you break right in front of me. I thought that if I could just see your face in that picture, it would take away some of that anger.” He shook his head. “It didn’t work.”
“What did you do?”
“The more I stared at the picture, the angrier I got. Tommy lives in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. We used to go over there and witness as part of the church’s outreach.
Lots of meth users out that way. Tommy’s one of them.
” Gray glanced down at his hand and smirked.
“You remember when I came into work the next day?”
I nodded. “You brought me cookies.”
“And …?”
“And what?” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. The day after our talk at the lake, everything had been the same as it always was. He’d given me cookies, he’d taken me to his office, our knees unnecessarily brushed against each other several times, I kissed his scabby knuckles—
I gaped at him.
Gray said, “I might have roughed him up a little.”
“You punched him? And, what? You just turned around and walked away? What if he comes after you? Oh my God, Gray.” I shook my head frantically.
Gray Collins was strong enough, but the last time I’d seen Tommy, he was twice Gray’s size.
What if he attacked him? What if I had to watch him being dragged away from me this time?
“Whatever you’re worrying about, I want you to stop,” he said. “You don’t have anything to be scared of.”
“He could kill you.”
“He’s been strung out on drugs for years. It took him five minutes just to get to the door when I knocked.”
“He could have a gun. Guns don’t care if you’re just a bag of bones and saggy skin.”
Gray arched an eyebrow at me. “This is Texas. We all have guns. Pretty sure I can grab mine before he grabs his.”
“What if he attacks you with a hammer?”
He chuckled “A hammer? I don’t know what goes on in that big, beautiful brain of yours, but I love it.
You’re adorable when you get like this.” He leaned in and kissed me gently, pausing before pulling away.
“Besides, he’d have to get through Dog-Dog to get to me.
” He nipped my chin playfully. “No one gets through Dog-Dog.”
“I still find it hard to believe that you adopted some unruly hellhound without me even knowing. Kind of feel like I should have been a part of that decision.” Following his lead, I returned his chin nip with one of my own. “Bad Nurse-man. Naughty boy.”
He blushed. “I never said I adopted him. Tommy was keeping him chained to an old tree in the front yard. The little guy looked lonely.”
I blinked at him. “You stole his dog?”
“He stole twenty years from us. Figured I ought to repay the favor. Besides, the poor guy was covered in fleas. He was just skin and bones. I couldn’t leave him there to rot.
” Gray fell back on the bed and touched the empty space beside him.
Once I was at his side, he hooked an arm around my waist, spooning me from behind.
“I’m serious, baby. No one is ever going to hurt you again. I have you.”
We lay wrapped up in each other for the next few hours, neither of us wanting to move. From time to time, he would go downstairs and return with an unrequested glass of water or a light snack, but he was all the snack I needed.
Hours later, I woke to the sound of my mother’s car door slamming.
When I opened my eyes, I was alone in bed.
At first, I was sure that I’d dreamed the entire thing until I heard my mother screaming at the top of her lungs, louder than I’d ever heard her.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed my trusty oscillating tower fan for protection, and barreled down the stairs like a madman.
Holding the fan like a baseball bat, I ran into the living room and found my mother hitting a vicious home intruder with her purse.
A home intruder with just about the most adorable bald spot in the world.
“Mrs.—ouch—Fox, it’s just—me. Please, can you—can you stop—oof—hitting me?”
“What have you done this time, huh? Sent your brother up there to finish the job? You may have everyone else in this stinkin’ town fooled, but I’m on to you, Gray Collins.”
“Mom?”
“And as God as my witness, if you’ve touched a hair on his head—”
“Mom!”
They both turned and looked at me. I wasn’t sure how this was going to pan out.
Knowing Gray was still in the early stages of acceptance, I knew he wasn’t ready to make some grand revelation about us.
I wouldn’t push the issue. I knew how the church could warp your mind, and I didn’t want to risk losing him again because I was impatient and demanding.
“Kent? What happened to your face?” she said.
I must have been a horrifying sight. Disheveled hair.
Mouth scraped red from the burn of Gray's stubble.
She lifted her finger to her mouth and traced a ring around her lips.
I could almost see the lightbulb switching on in her mind.
She turned back in my direction. “Has he forced himself on you?”
“What?” Gray and I shouted at the same time.
“Obviously not.” I looked at Gray, my eyes full of panic for him.
For us. For what this might mean for us if I were to misspeak.
As if he could sense the nervousness in me, he nodded.
Gray stood up and walked toward me, holding his hand out for me to take.
“You don’t have to do this. If you’re not ready, we don’t—”
“Mrs. Fox,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I’m in love with your son.” His forehead pressed against mine.
“So much,” he whispered. “And I know I let him down. That I let both of you down.” He pressed his lips against mine, just for a moment, and then he turned around to face her.
“I cost you time with him, and I hurt him more than he ever deserved to be hurt. I can’t forgive myself for that, but I hope one day maybe you can.
Because I’m going to do right by him. I swear it.
I’m going to make sure that he never has to hurt like that again. ”
My mother’s face was unreadable, the only trace of her rage resting in her balled-up fists at her side. She was quiet for a while, and then she nodded. “Have you broken it off with the girl?”
“Yes ma’am. Last night.”
“Have you told anyone else?” She unclenched her fists as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“No ma’am.”
“Do you intend to?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not going to let you force him to come out if he isn’t ready. I don’t want that for him. I know how much that hurts.”
“Yeah, baby, you do.” My mother pointed her finger at Gray.
“Because of him. You know how much it hurts because of him. Tell me something, Grayson. Are you comfortable losing the church? With losing your friends? With having people look at you like you’re diseased?
Because Kent deals with that every day.”
“I also know what it feels like when your father disowns you and your mother does nothing to stop it from happening. Dad might not have poured gas all over me, but he threw me on the streets like I was trash. Do you want to talk about who hurt me worse? Because we can. I forgave you for it, and I’m happy that we’ve moved on, but you don’t get to stand there and rain down judgment like you’re God and he’s the devil.
” I glared at my mother for a moment, and then I looked back at Gray, needing him to know that I didn’t expect him to just come out right then and there.
“I will never force you to do something you’re not comfortable doing.
I swear that. This is your journey, and we go at your pace. No matter what anyone else thinks.”
Gray pulled out his phone and started typing on his keyboard. Mom stared at him, her jaw slack. “You see? This is what I’m talking about. One hint of trouble and he hides and lets you take the blame. That’s what you want, Kent? This is who you want?”
Gray shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at me. His hands were shaking. “I told Mom that we need to have a talk. She and Daddy get back in two weeks. Once I tell them, we can …” He sighed, darting his eyes to the floor. “I just want to tell them first.”
“You don’t have to do this. If you’re not ready, it’s okay.”
“I’m thirty-eight years old. If I don’t do it now, I never will. I love you and I want this. I promise.”