Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Seems we have something rather specific in common.”
“Seems so.”
Without warning, Elias brushes a dollop of chocolate from the corner of Kyle’s lips with a finger.
Their eyes meet.
Elias brings the finger to his own lips, casually licks it off. “Sorry about that,” he says belatedly. “It was just sitting there. Couldn’t help myself.”
Something else rushes into Kyle right then, another deep, overwhelming feeling, a new emotion. It pierces through the sense of trustworthiness and honesty he picked up on a moment ago, three times as strong, but as obvious as a slap to the face.
It’s a feeling of deep desire.
Yearning. Wanting.
Like holding a precious thing close to the chest.
It confuses Kyle, because at first, he mistakes it for his own emotion. But the longer he processes it, chewing it down like the bite of tasteless donut in his mouth, he recognizes its odd composition, its unfamiliarity.
Could it be Elias’s emotion? Is that what he’s feeling? Has Kyle found a way to project himself somehow into the neural highways of Elias’s body and read his feelings?
“What?” asks Elias, alarmed.
Kyle must be making a face. “Nothing, sorry.”
“Was that too much? Us sharing about our brothers? Or wiping the chocolate off your lips? Probably could’ve licked it yourself. Like I said, couldn’t help myself. It was just—”
“It’s okay. It was … sweet.”
That word surprises Elias. “Sweet?”
“Yeah.”
Elias stares at the donut, stunned somehow. Then he lifts an eyebrow. “So … you want some more, then?”
“Why not.”
Elias offers. Kyle bites.
Their eyes meet again.
Once more, Kyle feels a rush of unfamiliar sensations he’s certain now aren’t his own. He chews in silence as Elias feeds him the rest of the donut, bite by bite, that surprising, foreign knot of emotion flooding him like medicine, that swelling sense of someone else’s desire, tingling and new.
The last bite, Elias snags for himself, popping it into his mouth. “Sorry, too tempting, haven’t eaten yet, and chocolate’s kinda my favorite,” he says through his mouthful.
Kyle watches. “Mine, too,” he says, omitting that he can’t really taste them anymore. If only he knew at eighteen that his third donut one Saturday morning in July would be the last he would ever taste, he might have cherished it more.
The chime of a doorbell rings through the house. Elias lets out an exasperated sigh, mutters, “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” then rises from his chair to take a peek out of the bedroom door. He turns back to Kyle. “Sorry, just ignore it, it’s probably some solicitor who wants to know if I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my personal—”
A loud series of knocks at the door. “Elias,” a man calls out. “You need to answer your phone or the door. Open up, Elias. Let us have a little talk, a conversation, like reasonable adults.” Knock, knock, knock. “Elias, now.”
Elias leans against the wall with a sigh, curses himself, then turns to Kyle. “This is a bit awkward. Can’t remember the last time I was caught with a half-naked guy in bed.”
Kyle frowns. “Caught by who …?”
Knock, knock, knock. “Elias, answer the door, so help me, I don’t get paid enough for this.”
Elias comes up to the bed. “Do you prefer an action-movie backdoor escape, or should we hunker down and wait it out siege-style? Could be days. I might run out of Red Bull.”
Knock, knock. “Elias!”
Kyle stares up at him, dead-eyed, then lifts his bound-up hands and gives them a wiggle.
Elias winces. “Right, that.”
Minutes later, Elias and Kyle have wormed out the back window, hopped a fence, and are walking along a dirt path lined with barbed dry shrubbery, the moon hanging over their heads. Kyle is in a pair of navy sweatpants and a t-shirt with a giant eggplant stretched across the front, complete with an old pair of mismatched Nike socks and sneakers. All the clothes are courtesy of Elias, gathered from his bedroom in seconds.
“Sorry about that,” says Elias. “You and I were just trying to have a meaningful moment, and all that nonsense happens.”
“Who was that?”
“Not important. I’m more interested in you.” Elias’s phone buzzes, startling him. He sighs, taps on it to shut it completely off, then shoves it into a pocket. “Eat my voicemail, bitches.”
Kyle studies him, trying to sense his emotions again like he did back in the house. For some reason, that extra layer of sensory information is gone. Or become too dull to pick up.
Was it a fluke? A coincidence? A play of Kyle’s own mind?
“So what’s your deal?” asks Elias. “Tell me your story. Let me in a little. I know it seems like I’m coming on too strong,” he adds, “but you should know something: I’m a protector.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Protecting me?”
“Didn’t claim to be good at it. But isn’t the point to try?”
“You don’t have to protect me.”
“Then who will?” He blows air out his lips and shakes his head. “Can’t leave you unsupervised, free to walk out into the sun all willy-nilly. Now that I learned it’s deadly to you, I know what to protect you from.”