Foxes (22 page)

“Yes.” I push away from the wall, away from Micky, from my stupid feelings and all the stupid thoughts I have about holding him. I’m pathetic and weak. I start to tidy away my stove, disconnecting the hose so the gas won’t slowly leak out.

“Did you see someone?”

Micky crouches next to me and picks up our empty cups.

He’s not looking at me. I can do this.

“After I left you, I went to see Dieter, and Dollman was there.” I gesture at my notepad, hoping Micky remembers I’ve written about him. “He… he was at the hospital. He works there, I think. He knew I’d been following him. He took me into a room and….” I tail off, my mind sinking back into those awful moments in that poky little office.

Micky’s eyes are wide, horrified. “What did he do?”

“Nothing.” I want to reassure him. “Really nothing. It just shook me up.”

“Don’t lie. Please.”

These are exactly the right words, aren’t they?
I think.

Tell him.
Dashiel’s voice echoes inside me.

“He asked me if I liked pain. Then he squeezed my sore shoulder and made it hurt so much I couldn’t move. I wanted to run so badly.”

The force of Micky’s hug knocks me on my arse.

“Sorry,” he mumbles with his face pressed against the sensitive skin between my neck and my shoulder. “I can’t bear the thought of anyone hurting you.”

Even if my mind blanks out, my body always knows what to do, and my arms wind around his back to hug him back hard.

“He let you go, though? Or did you escape?” Micky asks after a minute or two of unthinking bliss.

My shoulder aches, but not enough for me to want to move. “He let me go. He told me not to follow him anymore.”

“But you will.”

Micky’s eyelashes tickle my skin as he blinks.

“How can I not?” I whisper.

“Because you think it’s him? You think he killed Dashiel?”

“I don’t know.”

I guess I always thought it was him, deep down. Dollman has been the shark I’ve focused on from the start because he scared Dashiel. But even though Dollman hurt me and he is definitely creepy, I don’t feel any surer.

MILO IS
still muttering curses when I knock on his door. Micky shuffles from foot to foot beside me, flicking my torch back and forth over the floor. I really want to hold his hand again or go back to my room and hug him for another ten minutes.

“Milo, it’s me.” I knock again.

The door shakes as Milo clumsily undoes his locks on the other side. He opens the door a fraction and peers out. Right now he’s at the grumpy stage of drunkenness and his tired eyes are red as though he’s been rubbing them. I hope he’s going to be nice to Micky.

My fears prove unfounded though, because as soon as Milo spots Micky standing beside me, he instantly brightens, blinking furiously and straightening up before thrusting out his hand.

“De Milo, at your service,” he says, introducing himself properly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Milo smile so wide.

Micky smiles back at him easily and shakes his hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he replies.

“Oh! A Yank?” Now Milo has not only brightened, but he looks
interested
.

“Yeah.”

“He’s American,” I mutter. “Not a
Yank
.”

“Same thing. Come on in.” Milo holds the door to his room wide, as if he really is a Persian prince opening his palace doors.

Whatever the circumstances, Milo is great at making people feel comfortable when he wants to. I’ve seen him do it so many times.

I watch as he walks around his room with Micky, seeing how easily he wows Micky with stories about the intricate mosaic all over the walls and how Micky doesn’t seem to notice the huge mess he’s stepping over on the floor—or the fact that the room smells like a yeti’s armpit.

I told Milo I like Micky, but still his attentiveness makes me worry that he’s hitting on Micky. Micky is prettier than lots of girls, and he’s very feminine, and Milo said he likes feminine. Just the thought of anyone hitting on Micky makes me feel all growly and protective. Which is new.

I sit swinging my legs over the edge of Milo’s bed and keep my growls to myself.

This is me in the backseat again, I realize. Except I don’t like it here anymore, especially not where Micky is concerned.

Milo is still talking as Micky sits down next to me. I’ve kind of tuned out what he’s saying, but when Micky takes my hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world for him to do—he doesn’t even look at me, he just slips his palm against mine and links our fingers together—the world zooms sharply into focus.

Milo glances at our hands and I feel my skin heat, but he only gives me a small knowing smile.

“I LIKE
Milo,” Micky says as we walk back to my room. “He’s a little crazy in the best way.”

I nod in agreement—that about sums him up.

The broken tiles clink beneath me as I crouch with the torch between my teeth to undo the padlocks to my room and push open the door.

It takes me a few seconds to realize Micky hasn’t followed me inside.

I turn around, catching the uncertain way he has his hands clasped in front of him. He looks uncomfortable.

“It’s late. I guess I should go…. Could you… maybe walk me back to the road?” he asks, squinting as I catch him in the eye with the torch beam. I quickly point the light at the ceiling.

When I called him earlier, it never even crossed my mind that he’d walk home tonight—talk about not thinking of the future.

“It’s late,” I echo, my gaze fixed on his. I don’t know how to ask him to stay. “It won’t be dark in the morning.”

“No, I guess it won’t.”

Feeling suddenly bold, I hold my hand out.

Micky takes it and steps inside.

“CAN YOU
fall asleep like we were this morning?” Micky asks shyly as I sort my blankets out.

Should I lie?

“I… I can hold you until you fall asleep again…,” I say, hoping I’m not reading this wrong.

“But you’re used to sleeping on your own,” Micky finishes for me.

I glance at him gratefully. I’ve never slept the night with anyone, when we aren’t both freezing and half-aware in some drying room anyway, so truthfully I don’t know if I could actually go to sleep next to him again. I suspect I’d get all overwhelmed and lie awake all night with a hard-on, thinking thoughts I’m still scared he’d be disgusted by.

Micky sits in my nest to undo his shoes. When he slips his jumper and T-shirt off over his head, I’m helpless to do anything but stare at his pale skinny chest, his freckles. He has goose bumps everywhere and his nipples are large and dark. I’m wondering if he’s going to put his clothes back on when he hotches backward and covers himself with blankets.

“I never liked sleeping with Jack. He made me feel restless. You make me feel so calm I could probably sleep forever.” He grins.

I’m not sure what to think of being compared to Jack. I don’t want to think about Micky sleeping with him either. It also has nothing to do with me, I remind myself.

I want to take a shower but as that’s obviously not possible with Micky here, I just take off my shoes and hesitantly lie down beside him.

Micky lifts the blankets and with a smile, he rolls onto his side and grabs my good arm and pulls it underneath his chest. I flatten my hand out and try and keep my breathing steady.

It’s funny but I can actually feel his rabbit-fast heartbeat slow, whereas mine is still going like the clappers, and possibly getting faster the more I think about it, conscious that Micky can probably feel it too.

“Relax,” Micky whispers. “This feels really nice, right?”

“Yeah,” I murmur.

But I can’t relax. How am I supposed to relax? It’s an impossible situation. If this is falling in love, it’s impossibly beautiful, and when that person is so sweet and kind it hurts in the best way, but because you know they can never return those feelings you have to try and hide the intensity of it. And this is intense. I don’t want him to have to let me down gently or any of that crap, and I don’t want him to think he’s hurting me, because then he’ll feel bad.

But whatever this is, that we are, it’s more than I ever hoped to be to someone. It’s something completely different to what I had with Dashiel.

I press my face into Micky’s silky hair, suppressing a shiver when he pushes my sleeve up and strokes my arm. When he speaks, he does it slowly and I can tell he’s trying to be careful with his words.

“Do you think Dashiel could have known Dollman a bit better than he told you…? They say 50 percent of murder victims are killed by someone they know.”

“How do you know that?”

“I knew a lawyer once,” he says quietly, wriggling a little in the cradle of my arm. “Hold me tighter.”

I do.
If you asked me to, I would for always
, I think.

“Dashiel didn’t know any sharks, he just warned me about them,” I say.

We’re all sharks, Danny.
Dollman’s words echo around my head.

“You don’t think he knew he was in danger, then?”

Dashiel thought everyone was in danger out there, to a certain extent. And he was right.

But the last time I saw Dashiel, he was happy. He had a new room in a nice house. He made me look at paint charts with him to help him decide the color to paint the walls. He didn’t think he was going to die in those next few hours. He’d talked about sharks ever since I’d met him—almost as if it was something to do to pass the time, like a fucked-up kind of people-watching.

“He just liked to talk,” I say, taking a deep breath, knowing the ache inside me is not just from my shoulder.

“Maybe you have a thing about boys who like to talk,” Micky whispers.

Yeah. Or maybe I just have a thing about you.

“I think maybe Dashiel told you about the sharks because he worried about you,” Micky says softly and then yawns. I tighten my arm around him even more. “I think he told you all that stuff because he loved you.”

I let my tears soak into the blanket beneath my cheek. I don’t let my shoulders shake.

A few minutes later Micky drifts off to sleep, and I spend the next couple of hours with my arms around him, wondering how on earth everything has worked out the way that it has.

EVEN BEFORE
I open my eyes, I know the sun is filling my shell with brilliance. It must be midmorning—I never wake up this late unless I’ve been out all night. Squinting, I try to lift my hand to shield my eyes but there is an unexpectedly warm weight in my arms that I’m reluctant to let go of—a warm weight with a steady heartbeat.

I open my eyes fully.

Micky is watching me. Facing me. And the smile he gives me makes his eyes shine as cloudless and perfect as the bluest sky. For a moment my whole world is the beautiful clear blue of a sunny sky. Then it all becomes too much, too intense, and I shift back a little.

Both my arms are around him—my shoulder only aching a little. I try to remember how this happened—why I’m lying here in my nest and not sleeping on the floor, but I can’t even remember falling asleep.

Scarily, this may be the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long, long time.

“Could I have a shower?” Micky asks, not breaking eye contact with me for a moment.

“The water’s cold.”
Breathe; remember to breathe.
“I usually boil the kettle and mix it with cold water in a big pan to pour over myself. You could do that?” I’m speaking too fast.

“Thank you.” Micky smiles. I stare at his incisors and imagine the feel of them, of his mouth, of his lips on my skin.

Fuck.
I take one shuddery breath after another. I’m hyperaware of him, and really turned on. Little things like how he smells, how warm he is, are the only things I can think about. I really need to get up. I’ve probably had this erection since last night, and there is no space between our bodies.

My heart is galloping. I need to think about something else—
do
something else.

I push myself up and experimentally roll my shoulder back. It’s stiff more than anything; the pain is still there, but not as bad as yesterday.

“The bathroom I share is disgusting.” Micky sits up too, looking from my shoulder to my face, almost as if he’s working out how much pain I’m in. “Washing in there leaves me feeling dirtier than when I started.”

I stand up and take the kettle over to the sink to fill it up.

By the time the water is boiling, I’ve filled the big pan with cold water, and I’ve found a clean towel and some soap for Micky.

I show him my jars of flower petals, and he unscrews and inhales every single one of them with a happy, sort-of-faraway look on his face, but he refuses to use any for a shower.

“You need a hot bath for these,” he says. “With the steam, it’d be like having a herbal sauna.”

I nod. I’d love a bath. I’ve never had a sauna, though. I don’t really know what it even is.

“I’ll go and see if Milo needs anything,” I say, moving toward the door. This translates as
I’ll go and wander around outside for a while until you’ve finished.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to go,” Micky says, bending over and shoving his trousers down his legs in one smooth movement. The motion causes his silky hair to flop dramatically across his face. Every vertebra and every one of his ribs is sharply visible. And even though I know he’s too thin, everything about him is heart-stopping and beautiful.

He steps out of his trousers. I look hard at the floor.

I know he’s naked, and I’m not going to look—I’m not—but I swear my eyes are made of something metal and there’s an industrial-sized magnet drawing my gaze up.

His face is a safe place. Surely. He’s just standing there, sort of smiling.

My gaze drops of its own accord. His hand is cupping his dick. All I can see is the dark gold of his pubic hair and… he moves his hand.

“It’s a grower not a shower,” he says quietly.