“Let’s call it brotherly concern.”
Tenny’s nostrils flared. “Let’s not. There isn’tthatbetween us.”
Fox sighed – a bit theatrically, and the way Tenny’s fingers twitched again on the bottle told him that he knew it. “You’re regressing, Ten. I thought we’d gained a little ground. You have a name, now” – Tenny’s jaw tightened, a muscle in his cheek leaping – “and you actually speak when spoken to by people other than me, and you’ve been more cooperative. I thought you were starting to settle. That you didn’t hate all of our guts. Why are you backsliding? What happened with Reese?”
The façade cracked. A subtle shift, but one that screamed like neon to Fox’s eyes. Unchecked anger flared in his gaze, and tension stole through his body; even the flick of his lashes when he blinked was aggressive. “Why the hell do you thinkReesehas anything to do with it?” He put a nasty sort of emphasis on his name: overcompensating for a hurt he didn’t want to show.
“Because you care about him. Because he’s theonlything you care about, and the only thing capable of putting you in this bad a mood.”
Tenny wanted to lash out. Fox watched the urge to violence shiver through him. But then he turned his head, and stared out across the parking lot, jaw still iron-tight.
The drone of bike engines reached them, and Fox glanced up to see two approaching. One was Mercy, obvious even from a distance. But the other, he saw when they’d parked, and the helmets had come off, was Reese.
Yards away, Fox could see the dark circles beneath the boy’s eyes, the drawn, sallow cast of his face. His hair was never tidy, but was usually at least clean; today it looked dull and unwashed. His movements, when he set his helmet on his handlebars, were slow and too-precise.
Hangover, Fox diagnosed.
Beside him, Tenny vibrated with tension. A stolen glance proved that he’d pressed his lips flat, his stare fixed on the other boy. Even in profile, Fox could read the longing etched in every line of his expression. It startled Fox, a little. He knew there was a real, human boy beneath the government-built exterior, but he’d always imagined it being something muted and strange, much like his own inner workings. He’d anticipated want, or lust; a lascivious smirk. Truth told, he hadn’t had any concrete thoughts about Tenny wanting anything, until right this moment. It was a visceral, painful, shocking kind of yearning staining his cheeks red now. He was wholly, unreservedly in love with Reese, and it was clawing at him, killing him from the inside out.
Fox had the thought to look away, and spare them both the embarrassment of having noticed. But Tenny didn’t acknowledge him. Slipped off the table and away, quick and quiet as the ghost he’d been trained up to be.
Mercy and Reese had reached the table, Reese walking with his head down, curtains of his dirty hair falling around his face – shielding him.
Mercy clapped him on the shoulder, giving him one of those gentle shakes that, despite Mercy’s well meaning, always left the recipient stumbling. “Go take a shower, and you’ll feel better.”
“Yes, sir,” Reese mumbled, and shuffled to the clubhouse door.
Mercy sat down on the bench beside Fox’s feet and lit a cigarette.
“Did the couples potluck get a little wild?” Fox asked.
“Just Reese’s version of it.” Mercy exhaled a plume of smoke and sent Fox a guarded look, one that had a laugh building in Fox’s throat: the two of them both looking after their charges, all ready to bristle on their behalf. At least for Fox, that had changed in the last few minutes, after seeing Tenny’s – frankly sad – pining.
Mercy was still serious, though, almost stern with it. “Okay, I’m gonna say something, because I think you already know what’s going on, but I want it to stay between us for right now. Ghost can know about it when he needs to.”
Fox nodded. “The kids aren’t alright.”
Mercy nodded.
“Ten’s of no use if he’s this lovesick.”
Mercy frowned. “I was more worried about them, not how useful they are.” He sat forward, taking another sharp drag on his cig. “What do you mean: lovesick?”
Fox sighed. “Whatever’s wrong between them, it’s mutual.” He had a feeling he knew what, but he wasn’t going to share it with Mercy.
He had a reputation for being heartless, but, in some instances – this one, it turned out – he had a sense of fraternal loyalty.
~*~
A shower did help, marginally.
Reese had awakened that morning with a foul taste in his mouth, a splitting headache, and a shakiness the likes of which had only ever accompanied sedation.
Ava had been sitting on the coffee table, a steaming mug in her hands, and her head tilted, her smile soft. “Good morning.” When he’d pushed himself upright, more than slightly panicked that he’d allowed himself to drop his guard and become so useless, she’d offered the mug to him, and it had proved to be coffee with lots of vanilla creamer and sugar. That had helped. As had the cold crackers he’d managed to choke down at the Lécuyer table, while the children looked on him with curiosity – and, he imagined, judgement.
The soothing hot water of the shower, the fragrant soap and shampoo, being clean, left him hungry and something like eager to move past last night’s transgressions. He scraped his wet hair back off his face, wrapped his towel around his hips, and went out into the room to dress.
Tenny was sitting on his bed.
