Hot Boys Kiss Boys
Jace has been gone for six days.
Six whole days.
He was supposed to be back two days ago and he’s late.
I've cooked six dinners that I had to eat by myself. Six nights in a bed that felt too big, too quiet, too empty without the weight of him beside me.
The safehouse isn't much. A cabin tucked into the mountains, surrounded by pines that creak in the wind. Off-grid, accessible only by a single dirt road that Jace can watch from three different vantage points. He chose it for defensibility. I chose to make it home.
Herbs grow in pots on the windowsill, basil and rosemary and thyme, their green leaves bright against the worn wood.
A thick wool blanket drapes over the couch, the one I wrap myself in when I can't sleep.
The kitchen is stocked with everything I need to feed an army, even though most days it's just me, waiting for the sound of his truck.
Today is day six and he should be home any time now. I busy myself with baking yet another loaf of sourdough because what the hell else am I going to do?
I'm elbow-deep in dough when I hear the engine. My hands still as flour dusts my forearms, caught in the fine hair, and my heart kicks hard against my ribs. The engine cuts and the car door slams shut.
I don't move from the counter. I keep kneading, pressing the heels of my palms into the dough, folding it over, pressing again.
Flour puffs up with each motion, and settles onto my shirt, coating me in white.
My hands are sticky as I work the gluten, trying to get that perfect consistency needed to ensure it rises properly.
I already made one loaf today, the one in the oven. This loaf is for tomorrow, because nothing beats fresh sourdough and it’s not like I have much else to do.
The front door opens and the cold from outside rushes in and I feel him before I see him. That displacement of air, that shift in the room's orientation. Jace doesn't enter spaces. He occupies them.
"Elliot." His voice is the same rasp as it always is and my name in his mouth still makes my stomach flip, even after two years of hearing it.
"You're back." I don't turn around. "Dinner's in two hours. Bread's almost ready for the second rise."
Silence.
Then his heavy footsteps behind me. The floorboards groan under his weight. I hear him set something heavy on the table. His go-bag, black canvas, probably still packed with weapons I don't want to think about.
"You're angry."
"I'm not angry." I fold the dough, then press and fold again. "I'm making bread."
"You make bread when you're angry."
Damn him for knowing me that well.
I finally turn and my breath is sucked out of my lungs.
He looks like hell. Dark circles bruise the skin under those steel-grey eyes, deep enough to look like old injuries.
A cut slices across his cheekbone, scabbed over but recent, the skin around it still faintly pink.
His jaw is shadowed with stubble, more than I've ever seen on him.
He's wearing all black, as always, but his clothes are wrinkled and stained. Slept-in. Bled-in.
He hasn't changed since whatever happened out there.
"You're hurt."
"It's nothing."
"Sit down."
His eyes flicker. That tiny tell, the one only I can read after all this time.
He wants to argue. Wants to tell me he's fine, that it's superficial, that he's had worse, but he doesn't say any of it because he knows he won’t win.
He just moves to the kitchen table and sits, the chair scraping against the hardwood.
I wash the dough off my hands, watching the water run cloudy with flour.
My fingers are trembling. I didn't realize until now how tightly I was wound, how much tension I'd been carrying in my shoulders and my jaw and my chest. Six days of not knowing if he was alive or dead.
Six days of jumping at every sound, checking my phone every five minutes, lying awake in our bed and staring at the ceiling.
I grab the first aid kit from under the sink and turn back to face him.
He's watching me. He's always watching me. At first it used to make me nervous, those flat grey eyes tracking my every movement. Now it makes me feel seen.
I pull a chair close and sit facing him. Our knees brush, denim against denim. He doesn't flinch anymore, but I still see the micro-tension in his shoulders. Touch is hard for him. Touch was trained out of him before he knew what it meant.
I've spent two years teaching him what it means.
"This needs cleaning." I open the kit and pull-out antiseptic wipes. "What happened?"
"The job."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
I cup his jaw with one hand to hold him steady. His skin is warm under my palm, rough with stubble. The cut runs along his cheekbone, maybe two inches long. Not deep enough for stitches, but it'll scar. Another line added to the violence written across his body.
"You could have called."
"There wasn't time."
"There's always time." I dab the antiseptic along the wound, watching his face for any sign of pain. Nothing. He doesn't flinch. "Thirty seconds to send a message. To let me know you're alive."
His hand comes up, wraps around my wrist. Not stopping me. Just holding on, his fingers warm and callused against my pulse point.
"I'm alive."
"I know that now." I meet his eyes, letting him see the anger I've been holding back. "I didn't know it yesterday. Or the day before. Or the four days before that."
His jaw flexes under my palm. He’s still emotionally stunted, but the cues are there.
The way his eyes flick away from mine for the briefest of moments before he let’s me see how he’s truly feeling.
The guilt he'll never admit to. The part of him that still doesn't understand why anyone would worry about whether he came home.
The part that was trained to believe he was disposable, replaceable, nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded.
I finish cleaning the cut and apply a thin strip of medical tape to hold the edges closed. My fingers linger on his cheek, tracing the line of his jaw, feeling the warmth of his skin.
"I made stew," I say finally. "Last night. It's better the second day anyway."
"Elliot, please talk to me."
"And the bread will be ready in just under an hour, so you have time to shower. You smell like you've been sleeping in that truck."
"Elliot."
I start to stand. His hand tightens on my wrist, pulling me back down.
"I'm sorry."
The words are rough because Jace doesn't apologize. The Foundry trained that out of him along with everything else. Apologies imply weakness. Weakness gets you killed.
I look down at him. This man who has killed more people than he can count. This man who moves through the world like a ghost, silent and deadly and utterly alone. This man who saw me on an auction block, trembling and broken and worthless, and decided I was his.
"I know," I say quietly. "Shower. Then we'll eat."
I pull my wrist free and go back to my bread.
He doesn't move for a minute. I can feel his eyes on my back, tracking my movements as I shape the dough and set it aside for the second rise. Then I hear the chair scrape back, his footsteps crossing the kitchen, the bathroom door closing.
The shower runs for a long time. I check on my bread and adjust the heat, warm up the stew, set the table.
Covering my new dough and placing it in the oven, I sigh.
He’s always got to be so difficult. I keep myself busy cleaning until I hear the shower turn off.
By the time he’s done, he comes out dressed in clean clothes, his skin pink from the hot water, everything is ready.
We eat in silence. The stew is perfect, rich and savory, the meat falling apart. He devours two bowls, then a third. I watch him eat, and feel the anger start to crack.
"The job," I say finally. "Was it clean?"
"Clean enough."
"That's not an answer either."
He sets his spoon down. "There were complications. A second target we didn't anticipate. I had to improvise."
"Improvise." I struggle to keep my emotion out of my voice. "Is that why you have a knife wound on your face?"
"It's superficial."
"You keep saying that."
He shakes his head, that sharp little motion he does when he's frustrated. "I'm here, Elliot. I came back. Isn't that enough?"
"No." The word comes out harder than I intend.
"It's not enough. It's never enough. You leave, and I wait.
You come home bloody and bruised, and I patch you up.
You tell me it's fine, it's nothing, it's superficial, and I'm supposed to believe you.
I'm supposed to just accept that this is my life now. "
"It is your life. It's our life. You knew this is what happens, you signed up for this, agreed to this. You can’t tell me now that you can’t accept it."
"I know." I push back from the table, suddenly unable to sit still.
"I know it is. And I chose it. I chose you, but that doesn't mean I have to like it when you disappear for six days without a word.
That doesn't mean I have to be okay with lying in bed alone, wondering if you're dead in a ditch somewhere. You act like you’re fucking disposable! And you’re not! Not to me!"
He's on his feet in a second. My body tenses automatically, that old instinct kicking in, the one that tells me a man standing is a man about to hurt me.
He stops and forces himself still.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"I know that." My voice wavers. "I know that, Jace. It's just reflex."
"I know." He takes a breath, his broad chest rising and falling. "Can I come closer?"
I nod.
He crosses the distance between us slowly, giving me time to track his movements.
When he's standing in front of me, close enough to touch, he reaches out and cups my face in his hands.
His palms are warm and rough, callused from years of gripping knives and guns and using his fists to put holes through peoples faces.