Nikolaus
Charlie falls asleep with my thumb still in his mouth.
It happens gradually, in slow little increments I doubt he notices, even if some small, frightened part of him is still trying to fight it.
First, the frantic tension leaves his hands, those cold fingers uncurling from the front of my shirt until they rest there instead, lax and harmless against my chest. Then his shoulders soften beneath my palm, the fine tremors running through him fading into the occasional hiccuping breath.
His mouth loosens around my thumb last, no longer actively suckling so much as holding me there, his damp lips parted around the intrusion as if even in sleep, his body somehow inherently understands to seek mine for comfort.
He is small in my lap, smaller than I expect once I have him properly tucked against me, his frame nearly swallowed by the worn hoodie and loose sweats he wore to the club.
At first glance, one might mistake the softness of him for simple neglect, for lack of discipline, for a body that has never been shaped with intention, but I have spent too much of my life reading men to settle for lazy assumptions.
Charlie does not carry himself like someone careless with his body.
He carries himself like someone whose body has become an adversary, something unpredictable, something he has learned to move around rather than inhabit.
The thought displeases me.
A lot of things about his life displease me already.
His apartment. His debt. His apparently extensive medical history. The way he comes to that little room alone with nothing of his own except exhaustion. The way he looked at that borrowed plush toy before we left the club, like he was yearning for something of his own.
I ease my thumb from his mouth gently, prepared for him to stir, but he only makes a soft, unhappy little noise and turns his face farther into my chest, burrowing into my coat.
I leave my hand on the back of his head, stroking his hair. He slips deeper, gone to the kind of dreamless sleep that comes only when the body rebels, when it lays down arms and simply surrenders. I feel an absurd, proprietary rush at having coaxed him there.
Constantine’s silence is companionable, but I know him; I can hear the gears turning, the calculations and contingencies playing out in his mind.
He closes his phone and tucks it away, then makes a show of loosening his tie and checking the window as the city lights begin to thin out beyond the glass.
“You’ll need professional help to deal with whatever’s wrong with him, Niko.” He doesn’t say it as a challenge, but as a fact.
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“All it means is that he’ll need me even more than he would’ve if he were healthy.”
Constantine makes a faint, almost inaudible noise. “That’s kind of fucked.”
“You would rather I choose a healthy, well-adjusted, fully independent boy?” I keep my voice mild, but Constantine knows me well enough to hear the warning beneath. “I want someone who needs me. Who belongs to me. And if that means I have to become a little bit of a doctor on the side, so be it.”
He grins, teeth white and wolfish in the dim car. “So you’re going to play nursemaid.”
“He won’t want for anything.”
“He might not want any of this, Niko.”
I let my fingers glide through the delicate tangles of Charlie’s hair. “Maybe not now, but he will. And I would be lying if the idea of making him want it doesn’t get me hot.”
Constantine gives a breathy laugh, then sobers. “Do you want me to handle the rest tonight? Make him disappear?”
“I want you to handle it, but not just yet.” I keep stroking the back of Charlie’s neck, marveling at how quickly the fever-brightness in his cheeks and the bruised hollows under his eyes seem to have softened in sleep.
“Take care of his car tonight, but as for the rest, give it a few days. I’m curious to see if anyone looks for him.
I doubt anything will come of it, since if anyone actually cared, they would have intervened already.
He’s been crying for help in plain sight for years. ”
There is a silence, weighted and mutual, as the car glides through the night. Every so often, Constantine glances over at me, as if searching for a hint of regret or second thoughts. I don’t bother to offer him any.
Alex’s voice comes through the intercom. “Five minutes out, sir.”
Constantine leans his head back on the seat, eyes closing. “How are you planning on getting him in without the cops being called on us?”
“I’m hoping he stays asleep at least until we’re in the elevator.”
Constantine huffs out a laugh. “Hopefully, no one finds anything wrong with you walking through the Ritz with an unconscious and unkempt boy in your arms.”
I smooth Charlie’s hair back, my fingers light but unceasing.
Constantine gives me a sidelong glance and shrugs. “I guess if anyone asks, you can say you’re doing court-ordered community service, bringing in a stray for a hot shower and a warm meal.”
I bare my teeth in a grin. “I’ll tell them he’s my little brother if it comes to that. No one here will question me. And if they do—” I let the implication dangle, gesturing with a twitch of my hand toward the sleeping weight in my arms.
“I suppose it won’t be the first time you’ve smuggled something through a hotel lobby,” Constantine replies, amused.
Alex parks the car in the private drive and comes around to open my door. I slide out with the boy draped limply over my shoulder, his arms dangling and his breath ragged but regular against my neck.
Constantine takes the lead, scanning the entrance and exchanging a subtle nod with the doorman, who averts his gaze and presses a button, activating the private elevator just inside.
The lobby is all marble and gold filigree, cavernous but close to silent at this hour. The few people present—desk staff, old money ghosts haunting the midnight bars—barely glance our way.
The elevator is waiting, doors yawning wide, ready to take us to the hotel’s highest floor.
The ride up is smooth, and I stroke the back of Charlie’s head affectionately as I think of what he’ll need these first few days.
“Do you want me to have a sedative on hand for tomorrow’s trip?” Constantine questions.
“Just in case,” I say, my hand cradling the nape of Charlie’s neck as the elevator rises, the boy’s body warm and heavy against mine.
“But it’s the last thing I want to use on him.
It makes me too nervous, given that we don’t have all of his medical history yet.
” A thought suddenly crosses my mind, and I curse.
“Shit. He probably has medicine he’ll need to take. ”
Constantine winces. “Damn, I bet he does. Okay. Change of plans, then? I can send someone to his apartment tonight. The only concern would be if he has a roommate.”
“No roommate,” I say, more confident than I should be, given the fact that I don’t actually know that.
“But double-check anyway. I want his medication, and while you’re there, see if you can grab any sentimental belongings he might have hidden away.
We’ll take care of the rest of his things later on. ”
Constantine nods, already composing a message on his phone. “I’ll have it done before dawn.”
The elevator dings, doors parting onto the penthouse foyer. The two guards I requested earlier wait on either side of the suite’s double doors, eyes straight ahead, hands folded in front of them.
They look at me, then at the boy slumped in my arms, and return to their stoic blankness. The guards will stay here, discreet and silent, until I say otherwise. There will be no escaping, not unless Charlie wants it more than he wants to breathe.
Constantine peels away to the room next door, leaving me to unlock the penthouse suite alone. The door swings open onto a long, cathedral-lit stretch of pale wood floors, tailored sofas, and curated artwork that probably cost more than my first apartment.
I step inside and close the door with my foot, the click of the lock echoing into silence. I don’t bother to turn on any lights. The city glows beyond the wall of windows, a carpet of blinking signals and sleepless lives.
I carry the boy to the master bedroom and lay him gently atop the vast, king-sized bed. Charlie frowns, his face scrunching up as he begins surfacing from his sleep.
He stirs just as I kneel at the foot of the bed to tug off his shoes, the laces so frayed I suspect they’ve never once been untied and retied in their life.
I work the knots loose anyway, determined to set a precedent for order.
His feet are small, the socks mismatched, one navy and one gray with a threadbare heel.
I want to laugh at the detail, but the ache of it outweighs the humor.
I pull them off, then set them neatly aside, despite the knowledge that I’ll likely end up trashing them in the morning anyway.
Charlie looks like he’s fighting the drift toward waking, caught in that pillowy in-between.
His nose wrinkles, mouth opening and closing in a silent, involuntary protest as I tug loose the waistband of his sweats.
The fabric peels down off his hips, catching once on the curve of his ass and then revealing, beneath, a pair of pale blue briefs that look like they’d be more at home in a child’s underwear drawer.
I almost groan at the sight, but I keep my voice low as I lean forward, hands braced on either side of his legs.
“Charlie,” I say, “you need to wake up now, sweetheart.”
He makes a sound between a whimper and a sigh, then rolls to his side, clutching at the comforter with both fists. His lashes flutter, and for a moment I think he’ll sleep through even this, but then his eyes pop open.
He doesn’t move at first. He just blinks, slow and bewildered, as if trying to decide if he’s dreaming. The confusion on his face is so naked it hurts to look at. I touch his ankle, light and reassuring.
“You’re okay,” I murmur as he twitches awake, muscles seizing with a startled, animal panic.