Chapter Twenty
Ingram
A shower always helped me feel better. Monster blood disappeared once out of the dungeon, but inside it? No such luck. It turned thick and remained stuck to the skin. Normally I didn’t give a fuck, just considered it part of life for an esper.
The idea of touching Yun when I had this shit all over me, though, that didn’t sit right.
Did that make a gentleman or something?
I grinned at that, like I’d just discovered something about myself I’d never realized before. I would have called myself a lot of shit, but a gentleman?
“You’re not a gentleman because you shower,” Shear whispered in my mind.
“Are you saying gentleman don’t shower?”
I could feel his sigh even in my thoughts. Still, it had me thinking about something I hadn’t been able to really put to words before. Something about speaking in our minds made it easier, like the words came out with less friction.
“Yun asked about it.” The statement was so close to what I was going to say I nearly missed that Shear had said it, not me.
Seemed we were even more connected than I realized.
“What did you tell her?”
“That it was nothing but helping you with your condition.”
“Is that really all it is?” I posed the question before I could think better of it.
Years of this bullshit and we’d never really addressed it, just chalked it up to what bros did to help each other out—or rather, for him to help me. It’d been easy to see it that way, right? Nothing but a physiological need getting met.
Except I wasn’t so sure anymore, especially after meeting Yun.
“What are you trying to say?” Shear asked, words careful, slow.
“I don’t fucking know. When the fuck do I ever know what I’m trying to say? It’s just… I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right, like it doesn’t fit, especially after last time. I think we’re a little past bro-jobs, don’t you think?”
“Did you seriously just use the term ‘bro-jobs’ to me?” Shear’s tone almost made me think he was reconsidering not just the conversation but our entire history. Still, the soft laugh I let out helped me ease my own nerves.
“I’m serious. I thought that’s all it was before Yun, but now?”
A long, unusual hesitation came from him. “Are you seeing it differently because of her? Perhaps you don’t like her seeing that side of you?”
I frowned until his meaning hit me. “You fucking idiot. I don’t mean it like that.
I just mean that I realized maybe I don’t look at you like just one of the squad.
I’ve fucked my way through a lot of people, so I just figured I’m wired that way.
When I saw how I see Yun, though, I realized maybe I don’t see you that different…
” I hated outing myself too much, telling him things I hadn’t really looked at or accepted myself, yet.
I just couldn’t let it keep going with the way he acted, the words he’d said. The idea that he thought I’d meant that because of Yun, I didn’t value him anymore? Or that I never had?
Nah, I couldn’t let that shit continue.
“I should get some sleep while I can.” Shear’s voice came out strange, strained.
Like fuck…
We’d taken up space in a large house with a bunch of fucking rooms, and it didn’t take me more than a few minutes to figure out exactly where he was. I didn’t bother opening the door, instead moving through the walls in shadow form.
“You’re supposed to knock.” He didn’t turn around to face me, instead reviewing the tablet in his hand. “So much for a gentleman.”
“Maybe you were right and I’ve never been one. You’ve known me long enough that shouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”
“There aren’t a lot of surprises between us.”
“Yet you tell me you’re gonna take a rest? Fuck that bullshit.”
“I’m not quite as physically fit as you. I get tired more easily.”
He didn’t even try to make the lie believable. Was he giving me an out? A last chance to walk away before we had this talk? Before we worked out whatever the fuck we’d danced around for years?
Too bad for him, if he thought that was going to work.
“Turn the fuck around and deal with me, Shear.” I used his name, the feeling almost strange. How often did I actually say his name? Obviously not that often…
He sighed, tossing the tablet to the bed. His hair was still wet but pulled back, making it more shiny than usual. Even if I’d ignored his whole tired lie, there was no doubt that the dark circles beneath his eyes said he was in fact exhausted. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t fucking know. You think I get this? Fuck, you’re the one who’s supposed to understand this sort of shit.”
“We both know I don’t understand emotions. I only can sense them from others.”
“So we’re both fucking dumb about this. Just perfect.
Fine, let’s make this shit simple. I fucking like you, okay?
Fuck, no, that makes me sound like I’m in eighth grade.
” I rubbed my hands over my face, frustration bleeding into me.
This was supposed to be easy, especially with someone I knew as well as I knew Shear.
Maybe that was what made it hard, though, the fact that we were close enough to make this matter.
“I know that the way I feel about Yun isn’t the same way I feel about the rest of my squad.
I don’t fucking see Carter and want to touch him. ”
“Thank god,” came a muttered response through the wall, telling me we likely had a pretty big audience. Yun probably couldn’t hear, given she was a guide, and Kenyon either, but Carter would catch every last word.
Fuck it. I didn’t care. It wasn’t like the others didn’t already know. In fact, I had a feeling they might have had a better handle on it than we did, the assholes.
“Point being,” I said to shut Carter up and stay on track before I freaked myself out enough that I didn’t finish, “you’re different. It took realizing it with Yun to put a name to it, to figure it out. I’m not that good with this shit—you know that better than most.”
“Your head is a mess,” Shear said with a nod.
“Thanks, asshole. So now I’ve done this whole bullshit talk and you’re just going to insult me? Not a fucking thing to say back to me?”
He sighed, suddenly appearing far more fragile than he had before.
It was sometimes hard to remember he was an actual person, that he had worries, too.
“What do you expect me to say? It’s been years, and you never came to this understanding in that time.
You’re not a stranger to sex, and I’m quite certain that you know better than most what an orgasm can to do confuse the brain.
I’m not delicate—you don’t have to act as though there is anything other than basic stress relief between us.
” He spoke with slow words, though they picked up speed as he went.
And I suddenly got it. I didn’t need to be inside his head to see exactly what he was going through, what he was thinking about.
He thought I was trying to spare his feelings, to make this into something it wasn’t.
He figured that because Yun was here, I thought he needed some sort of grand declaration to make him feel better about it all.
It went to prove his point about not understanding shit when it came to the reason behind other’s actions or feelings.
“You really think we’ve got nothing between us but some orgasms?”
“Don’t we?” He tossed the response back like a dare.
And fuck him, because I never took a dare lightly. I crossed the room in a few quick steps, ignoring the way his eyes went wide, the way his muscles tensed. He wouldn’t react by fighting—we all trusted each other way too much for that.
Or maybe he would have if he knew what I was about to do? There was no reason to make guesses like that, especially because no matter how well I knew Shear, I didn’t have a fucking clue what he’d do after this.
He might give in, might shove me, might just scramble my brain for the effort. Whatever it was, I’d leave it up to him.
I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him in, pressing my lips to his.
We’d done a few things with our mouths when it came to one another, but never this, never a kiss. That had been too personal, too intimate for a relationship we’d never defined before.
And when I slid my tongue past his stunned lips, into the heat of his mouth, I had to think that was a hell of a way to define it.
Shear froze at first, body stiff in all the worst ways. I even had a moment to regret this whole fucking idea.
Just because I realized I cared about him didn’t mean he felt the same. What if I’d fucked it all up? What if we could never go back to what we were before, either, and I’d just crossed a line that ruined—
He moved. It wasn’t much, just a little, but his tongue slid against mine like instinct, like a taste he couldn’t not take. It removed all those doubts, stopped my spiral before it got out of hand, brought me back to the moment.
I broke the kiss, then stared at him, realizing that he was nearly as tall as I was.
I was used to staring down at my partners, but Shear was almost nose to nose with me.
It created a different dynamic, and still I searched his expression for some understanding of if he understood my point, of if he agreed, if he felt the same.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so unsettled waiting on another person before.
He snorted, the sound amused and surprisingly relaxed. “I get it,” he said softly, then moved away and toward the door.
“You get it? Wait, what does that mean?” I asked him, feeling like that wasn’t nearly enough considering how I’d poured out my fucking heart.
He didn’t respond, walking out of the room, leaving me there, confused but oddly…happy? It felt like I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t lost, at least.
“You should have fucked,” Carter called from the other side of the wall. “Would have been a nice way to pass the time.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered in response, though I felt so light that I couldn’t put any real anger into the words.
“No, thanks, you’re not my type.”
I flipped him off, then sat down, unsure I’d ever done something quite that scary before. But, fuck, I didn’t regret it a bit.