The Starving Years (18 page)

He crossed to the other couch and sat beside Tim. Once upon a time, Javier might have known how to console someone, or at least go through the motions. But not now. And especially not for this reason. Nelson was the one who was strong enough to show tenderness—not him. “I see how you look at him,” Javier said.

“Oh God.” Tim moved to stand again, but Javier caught him by the sleeve and pulled him back down.
 

If Tim was so eager for full disclosure, he was going to get it. Javier might not have known where the conversation was headed at the beginning, but the more he turned the idea around in his mind, the thought of Tim with Nelson rather than him, the more it made sense. Nelson might act juvenile, but underneath, it seemed like he was the most selfless, the most decent, of all of them. And the last thing Tim needed was to have his heart broken again. Not that he spoke much about his last relationship. But where he began to mention it and then clipped off the words, the abrupt pauses spoke volumes. “It’s fine,” Javier said.
 

“What’s fine? There’s nothing that needs to be fi—”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

Tim cracked his knuckles, first one hand, then the other. Then he looked at Javier in exasperation and said, “What’re you trying to say?”

“When we came here, I was hoping we might work something out…but, it doesn’t matter now. I’ve changed my mind. I won’t stand in your way.”

Tim scrubbed at his face with his palms, and his hair stuck out at odd angles from his head when he’d finished. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Nelson.”

A sharp, bitter laugh escaped Javier before he could check it. But Tim went on, “When I saw him, I thought he was you—and that’s what I liked about him. I saw him there, through the crowd, and he caught my eye, and he started running toward me with this purpose. And I saw he had a girl with him, Marianne. And I thought, that’s exactly what Javier would do. He’s strong—he’d take care of someone who couldn’t take care of themself. And then, when he got to the truck—he took a swing at some jerk in the crowd, some creep who just launched into him for no reason, and laid the guy out flat.” Tim twisted his knuckles, and managed to crack them again. “And the only reason I’d care about that was because I thought it was you.”

Javier looked at Tim hard to see if he was telling the truth, or if he just felt obligated to hold up his end of some bargain they’d never actually defined. But Javier didn’t know him well enough to know for sure.

“I mean,” Tim said in a rush, “it’s not that stupid of a mistake. If anything, I was being too unbiased. ’Cos there was this white kid I went to high school with named Juan, so I figured…. Not that I’d imagined you with blond hair or anything. Just that I didn’t count anything out. Once I saw him heading straight for the truck.”

Of everything Javier had imagined the awkwardness between them might owe to, race had been the least of them. “It’s hard to miss him.” Now, with the burden behind him of releasing Tim, Javier felt able to speak freely. “He’s hot.”
 

Tim continued to twist his fingers, though all the joints that could have possibly cracked had long since done so. “What he looks like has nothing to do with anything.”

Javier caught Tim in what was left of his peripheral vision and looked him over. No doubt, Tim thought so. Javier, however, knew better. He’d been handsome once. “I’ll still work with you on the Canaan project. Or not. If that’s what you prefer.”

“You think I have a problem with your eye? Yeah, fine, I’ll come out and say it. I do. But not the way it looks—I haven’t even seen it.”

What was Tim playing at now? No doubt he couldn’t stand the idea that Javier’s disfigurement sickened him, and so he’d worked himself up to deny it. “I don’t blame you—”

“Even though we hadn’t met in person, I can’t believe you would think I’d be so shallow.” He reached for Javier’s face. Javier wanted to flinch, but he forced himself to endure whatever was coming—because however humiliating it might prove to be, no doubt he deserved it.

Chapter 17

As Tim reached for the eye patch, he saw Javier almost flinch away—almost. But then he steeled himself, and allowed Tim to follow through with…whatever it was he was trying to prove. Which Tim hadn’t actually worked through, himself. All he knew was that those chats had meant a hell of a lot more to him than a few words on a monitor. He’d bared private parts of himself—no, not that private part—and the idea that Javier would think he was actually superficial enough to care one way or the other about something as cosmetic as a missing eye was, frankly, insulting.

A muscle leapt in Javier’s jaw as Tim reached around the back and found the tie—a stiff, unforgiving knot that he tried, and failed, to unravel. He picked at the knot for a long, awkward moment, and finally gave up and slid his thumb beneath the string, and worked it through Javier’s hair instead, to pull the whole thing off with the knot intact.
 

Javier angled his face down. Tim had steeled himself for the sight of a sunken eye socket, but Javier’s eyelid was in shadow. Even his eyebrow was scarred. Tim hadn’t been prepared for that, the contrast of Javier’s untouched eyebrow, black and beautifully arched, with the scarred one.
 

The right eyebrow was broken into three distinct segments by shiny, pale gashes as wide, at points, as an eighth of an inch. The scars passed over the eye, or through it, over the curve of Javier’s cheekbone, and down nearly to the corner of his mouth, which quirked up a bit from the way his face had healed. Kind of like he found something funny—which, undoubtedly, he did not.

The scarring wasn’t limited to the deep, damaging cuts. There were patches of skin that were pale, shiny and delicate, skin that had been burnt once. These pale shapes marred the skin just under Javier’s lower eyelid, and they extended back along his temple, almost to his hairline.

The part of his eye socket that was covered by the patch seemed unaffected enough by it, but there at his temple where the string for the ties began, a cruel ridge had pressed into the scarred skin. Tim put his fingertips to the painful-looking furrow. The skin there was hot.
 

How many times had he imagined himself touching Javier in the flesh? Too many to count. But none of those times were anything like this.

“How can you stand it?” he said. “Can’t you keep this on with elastic instead?”

Javier looked up, startled—and then Tim saw it clearly. Not just a scarred, collapsed socket, but an eye. “The first thing you notice is the marks left by the ties?” Javier said. Tim wasn’t sure if that was good, or bad. “And here I was, thinking nothing would ever shock me again.”

“Your eye is….”

Javier gave a grim almost-smile.

The eye was damaged, yes. A cloudy grayish blue hazed the surface, and the pupil was pale yellow rather than black. The pattern of the iris was irregular, with the ring of fine muscle strands that were usually arrayed like spokes on a wheel culminating in a knot instead, like a burl of wood.

“It’s still there.”

Tim leaned in, and Javier kept himself still—not just still, but ramrod-straight. As Tim landed the kiss, he felt awkward—even more awkward than he had in his fantasies. But it was something he needed to do.

Javier’s scarred eyebrow tickled Tim’s upper lip, and his eyelash, as he closed his damaged eye, brushed the lower. Tim kissed the eyelid gently, then sat back so he could see Javier’s face—his whole face.

He was beautiful. Tim didn’t usually think men were “beautiful,” but Javier was. His features were exotic: striking and dark. Only the strength of his eyebrows saved him from looking feminine. And one of those eyebrows was now in three segments, over the discolored eye set in the patch of blotched skin. Looking at that eye was painful, not because of its appearance, but because every fiber of Tim’s being winced in sympathy at the notion of something so painful happening to his own face, his own eye.

Tim had placed his hands on Javier’s knees when he leaned in for the kiss. He considered removing them, but didn’t.

They were both so still they were hardly breathing when the sound of someone clearing their throat made both of them jump apart. Tim turned toward the sound.

Nelson.

He sidled along the wall of the conference room, looking sheepish. “Don’t mind me…just taking a little trip to the bathr—whoa, your eye.”

Javier was clearly not happy about the intrusion, but it would have probably been more of a spectacle for him to cover his scars back up and tell Nelson to take a hike. Nelson was undaunted. He crossed to the couch where Tim and Javier sat facing each other, and dropped to one knee between them with a hand on each of their thighs.

It was so easy for him to touch people.

“Wow, are those chemical burns?”

“Yes.”

“Any vision left?”

“Light and dark. No focus.”

“So you keep it covered—why?”

Tim felt the tension drain out of Javier. “The doctors said my brain might adjust—I guess neurons can do that…but mine never did. It’s like I’m seeing clouds over everything. It’s better to keep the light out of it. Less distracting.”

Nelson’s tone was so matter-of-fact, it made the way they’d been acting seem silly. Both of them. Javier for guarding his scarred eye like a profound secret, and Tim for treating it like some kind of sacred relic.

Nelson glanced down, as if he’d just then realized he’d insinuated himself between them. Each of them now was touching—Nelson with a hand on Tim’s and Javier’s knees, and Tim’s hand on Javier’s forearm. Tim had noticed, but he’d been reluctant to think too hard about it, for fear that whatever was on the brink of happening might veer from the course he hardly dared hope for. It felt as if the tension that had just drained from Javier crawled across the couch and seized him, instead. His heart started pounding so fast he was worried he might keel over. He was afraid to even breathe.
 

Nelson said, “Sorry…I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.” Only he didn’t seem sorry. And he didn’t take his hands off their thighs. He smiled first at Javier, and then at Tim, as if he’d just said something else entirely.

“Shameless,” Javier said. He looked at Tim, then. With both eyes. Although one of those eyes saw nothing but clouds…and the giddy thought floated to the surface of Tim’s awareness, now that time had ground to an interminable sustained moment, and everything had become completely surreal—that maybe being seen through a haze of clouds would be a good look for him. Javier said, “I was going to tell you to choose him—”

“Why choose?” Nelson said to Javier. “I’d expect that binary logic from the computer genius over here. Not you.”

“I’m a realist.”

“No—you’re a pessimist.”

Tim marveled over the idea that Nelson had referred to him as a “computer genius” and not a “computer geek.” And not sarcastically, either. He hadn’t realized Nelson had noticed him at the computer. He hadn’t realized Nelson had noticed he existed.

And he’d done nothing
but
notice Nelson—and try to rectify who Nelson Oliver actually was, to who Tim thought he was, initially, when Tim had attributed Javier’s chatroom personality to him.

Nelson seemed intrepid, but not forceful. Unabashed, but not defiant. That was all encouraging. But strong? He could hardly even be called sturdy, between the headaches and the medication. This fusion that Tim’s mind had created when he’d first spotted Nelson in the crowd, this alloy of Nelson’s looks and Javier’s personality—it didn’t exist.

Not in one person.
 

“When’s the last time you gave a damn what anyone thought?” Nelson asked, looking from Javier to Tim and back again. “Either of you?”

Tim broke his cautious stillness with an uneasy shrug.

“Then, if everyone’s cool with it, why choose…” Nelson’s hand slid up Tim’s thigh… “when you don’t have to?”

He climbed onto them, both of them—all knees, laughing when Javier sniffed in annoyance. He draped an arm around each of their shoulders, caught Javier’s gaze and ensured he was being watched—and then turned his head and pressed his mouth to Tim’s.

Tim’s ex would kiss him hello and goodbye—and, in a rote sort of way, when they had sex. Always the same. He’d fasten onto Tim’s upper lip and suck it, all the while flicking his tongue back and forth, back and forth, like a metronome ticking down the moments until they could finish up, flush the condom down the toilet, and rinse off in the shower. But there was nothing regular about kissing Nelson.

Tim gasped, startled, and Nelson skimmed the tip of his tongue across the bottoms of Tim’s incisors. He kissed loosely, like he had all the time in the word to feel his way around, and every intention of doing so. Tim tasted whiskey on his tongue, but only faintly. Sweet. With a bit of bite.

It wasn’t just a kiss, either. Nelson slid his fingertips down the side of Tim’s neck while they tasted each other. His fingers traced Tim’s jaw, and toyed with his collar, as if every last bit of him might potentially be interesting. Even the boring parts.

Although it had been the longest kiss Tim had been treated to in ages, it was still a pity for it to end.

When Tim raised his eyelids, Nelson’s eyes were on him. They were blue. And his irises were very regular. He smiled, then turned to Javier and laid a big, wet, carefree kiss on him, too.

Tim had never realized how loud kisses sounded.

Nelson gave a murmur of encouragement. The leather couch squeaked. But mostly it was the sound of wetness that captivated Tim. Tongues and lips. While he listened, Nelson’s hand brushed across his chest. His fingers flicked over Tim’s nipple as if he’d found it by accident, and even through the fabric of his shirt, the touch felt less like a touch, and more like electricity.

Nelson broke his kiss with Javier and looked at Tim again. His lips were wet with Javier’s saliva. “Wow. You’re totally keyed up.”

Tim would have liked to deny it, but was worried he might explode if he tried.

“That’s good,” Nelson went on. “I like being appreciated.” Nelson caught Tim’s shirt, a faded Izod knockoff, at the hem. He shoved it up around Tim’s neck then leaned in and covered Tim’s nipple with his wet mouth.