Paladin, page 8
Felix looked like a rich man’s sugar baby, but he was lethal in every sense of the word. Not even a career designing for A-list celebrities could quell his love of violence.
“Something happened with Ever,” Arsen said.
There was a long pause then Felix said, “That was quick. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t think you had it in you to defile the little darling. But I get it. He’s pretty adorable.”
Defile? Why was everyone suddenly so obsessed with sex?
But then wasn’t that why Arsen had called Felix in the first place?
“I didn’t defi—have sex with him,” Arsen said, feeling guilty even thinking the word defile in relation to Ever. He deserved better than that.
“Wow, Jericho’s right. You are down bad,” Felix said, his amusement obvious.
It didn’t surprise Arsen that Jericho was talking to his brother about him. His friends were gossips to the core and—despite his constant lecturing about staying out of other people’s business—Jericho was somehow the biggest gossip of them all, sharing their secrets with his husband and their cat.
Arsen had no doubt his friends—Levi, Seven, Noah, Arlo, Zane, Lake, Cree, and Nico—had created a group chat without him so they could talk about him and Ever at length. That was what Arsen would have done if it was any of them. That was just how their crew worked.
“Are you going to help me or not?” Arsen said, his frustration growing with each passing moment.
“Help you what, babes? You still haven’t told me what the problem is. Since you apparently haven’t devirginized the little gumdrop.”
Arsen didn’t know what a gumdrop was. He shook his head, trying to focus with the word virgin still ringing in his ears. “I fucked up.”
“Tell me everything,” Felix said, breathless with excitement.
Arsen spent the next several minutes explaining the conversation with as much detail as possible, trying to pinpoint exactly where he went wrong, knowing full well Felix was about to tell him. Felix was great at exposing people’s flaws in great detail, with literally no thought for their feelings.
At all.
“So, he asked you innocently about sex and kinks—topics you brought up, BTW—and you shamed him for it and yelled at him?” Felix said. “Wow. That’s…a choice.”
“I didn’t shame him or yell at him,” Arsen said in a heated whisper. “I…panicked.”
“Panicked?” Felix echoed, then asked, “And why are you whispering?”
“Because I can’t yell,” Arsen said. “And yes. Panicked. Have you seen Ever?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Was Felix blind? Crazy? Stupid? Arsen’s hand flailed as he tried to voice his thoughts in a language he found perplexing. “He’s so beautiful that he doesn’t seem real. Do you know what it’s like to hear words like kink and sex coming out of that perfect face? Especially when that perfect face is so close to my face that I can still smell his toothpaste which is also my toothpaste?”
There was a long pause before Felix said, “What?”
Arsen shook his head. “We are not even three days in and he’s in my clothes, in my bed, smelling like me and looking at me like I’m way more important than I am. I am already losing. I was not prepared to talk about sex things while cuddling him in sweatpants. They hide nothing.”
“He lets you cuddle him?” Felix asked. “Interesting.”
“Is it?” Arsen snapped. “Is it interesting?”
“You don’t have to be snippy,” Felix said. “And yes, it is interesting. It seems like you want him to be more traumatized than he is.”
Arsen froze. “What? No, I don’t.”
“Are you sure?” Felix pushed.
Arsen made a noise of frustration. “Focus.”
Felix sighed. “Okay, so, you’re in lust. I get it. But you could have literally said a hundred other things.” He gave a heavy sigh. “Oh, well. It’s too late for that now, though.” Almost as an aside, he asked, “Why are you calling me about kink anyway? I’m hardly the resident expert.”
Now that Arsen had been shamed for accidentally shaming Ever, he was asking himself the same thing. “You have a sex dungeon in your house.”
There was a sound like a laugh or an exhale. “Okay, yeah, but it’s not my sex dungeon. It’s Asa’s. And it’s technically a sex attic.”
Asa was Felix’s brother-in-law, and Arsen certainly wasn’t calling him to talk about sex or kink. He liked to chew on his husband. For fun. “You use the sex attic.”
“Of course, we use the sex dungeon. Who wouldn’t use a perfectly good sex attic?”
Arsen felt like he was losing his mind. “So, you use sex attic but you know nothing about kink?”
Felix gave a delicate sniff like he was offended. “Do you assume everyone who’s ever used a kitchen is a chef? There are layers, dude. You need someone who knows more about this than me.”
Arsen’s eyes went wide. “Zane?”
Zane was Asa’s chew toy. Er, husband.
Felix snickered. “Too far. That’s like asking for cooking advice from Hannibal Lector instead of Gordon Ramsey. Maybe we back it up a little.”
What was with Felix and his cooking metaphors? “There’s very much room between Gordon Ramsey and Hannibal Lector. Who are you talking about?”
“Noah, obviously. Nobody knows more about kink and trauma than him. He’s practically a therapist at this point. He’d be a good start.”
“Oh. Right.”
Noah was also Felix’s brother-in-law. All told, he had nine brother-in-laws. No, that wasn’t right. Brothers-in-law. Was that how they said it in America? American grammar was stupid and confusing and often gave Arsen a headache even after fifteen years.
“But be careful.”
Arsen frowned. “Careful? Why?”
Felix’s tone was smug. “He’s going to adopt Ever into the feelings faction and turn that sweet baby-faced dumpling into a mouthy, feral monster. Next thing you know, he’ll use phrases like ‘blanket burritos’ and ‘emotional support vodka.’”
The feelings faction. That was what Felix’s in-laws called the non-psychopaths of the family. They liked nicknames. They even had a name for Jericho’s crew. The murder muppets.
“Hello?” Felix said impatiently.
“You think I should ask Noah to come over and talk to Ever about kink? Isn’t that weird? Ever has been in a literal closet, maybe for years. Now, I’m going to have him sit down with a stranger to answer his sex questions?”
“You’re the one who brought it up in the first place,” Felix reminded him.
Arsen paced, winding through the cars still in the shop, inhaling the smell of motor oil and rubber tires. The smell soothed him somehow. It was familiar. It was home to him. “Should he even have sex questions after what he’s been through?”
“You said he’s nineteen, right?”
Arsen nodded even though Felix couldn’t see him. “Yes.”
“Didn’t you have sex questions at nineteen? Even if you were having them answered by every twink in a four-mile radius?”
Felix was exaggerating. There was a time when Arsen had been a bit…free with his experimentation, but that was years ago. Now, he took care of himself more often than not. It was just easier. No matter how many times the guy he went home with said they weren’t looking for a relationship, they always seemed upset when Arsen left without a word.
“I wasn’t two days out of a kidnapping.”
“Curiosity about sex is normal for everyone. Just because people have hurt him doesn’t mean he isn’t a nineteen-year-old with the same thoughts and feelings as others. Stop infantilizing him. He’s not some walking trauma response. Besides, you’re the one who brought it up in the first place and then you shut him down when he asked some pretty innocent and logical questions. You should apologize.”
Arsen looked up the stairs to the darkened glass. Was Ever still pretending to sleep or was he just upstairs avoiding Arsen? Maybe both. Who could blame him? Fuck. “How do I tell him he can talk to Noah?”
“Maybe don’t. Maybe just introduce him to Noah and let him guide the conversation. You suck at this.”
“I know!” Arsen cried then winced, glancing up once more. “I know,” he said more quietly. “I just want him to be okay. I don’t want to keep making him cry.”
There was another long pause and then Felix said, “Wow. You’re already so whipped. This is going to be fun.”
“You know I hate you, right?”
“Mm, it keeps me up at night. Oh, and Noah’s out of town until Friday, so good luck.”
“What? Friday? What do I do until then?”
“The kid has been trapped in a literal closet for years. Show him what he’s missed.”
“Missed?”
“Yeah. He looks at video games like they’re witchcraft. He acted like pizza was Wagyu beef. He’s clearly lacking in life experience. Buy him ice cream or sour gummy worms. Oh, chocolate chip cookies! Or bubble wrap or a sunset or buy him a puppy. You can show him a million firsts that have nothing to do with sex.”
“Oh.”
Felix snorted. “Yeah, oh. Gotta run. Good luck. Tootles.”
“You can show him a million firsts that have nothing to do with sex.”
Arsen sat behind the counter, making a list of things Ever may have never experienced, waiting for Jericho to arrive for his shift. Like most days, he arrived promptly at eight, giving him a wave before heading into his office to drop his stuff on his overcrowded desk.
Despite being married to a wealthy man, Jericho maintained a solid forty-hour work week—sometimes more—not only because he loved cars but because he loved the neighborhood, considered it his neighborhood. Everyone knew if they were in trouble, Jericho was the one who could help. And Jericho needed to help people almost as much as the people needed help.
Arsen didn’t know what sins Jericho was trying to atone for, but he took it seriously. Jericho had saved him—saved all of them—and Arsen would spend his life making sure that Jericho didn’t regret wasting his time with someone like him. To most people, a six-hundred-square-foot apartment over a noisy garage might have seemed like a punishment, but to Arsen, it was everything he’d ever wanted. Freedom. Safety. A home.
Arsen knocked on Jericho’s office door. “Can we talk?”
Jericho tilted his head, frowning, “Sure. What’s up, kid?”
Arsen flopped into the chair across from Jericho. “Can I have the day off?”
Jericho arched a brow. “I don’t think you’ve ever asked for a day off in your whole life. Everything okay?”
Arsen contemplated lying to Jericho, but that never ended well. “I screwed up with Ever, and I want to make it up to him.”
Jericho scrutinized him closely. “Screwed up how?”
“I don’t know exactly. I already told Felix. I’m sure it’s all over the group chat by now.” Jericho opened his mouth, but Arsen raised his hand. “Please, don’t make me tell the story again. I already feel terrible. I-I hurt his feelings. That’s all. So, now, I want to do something nice for him.”
“Like…?” Jericho prompted.
Arsen stopped short. He hadn’t expected a follow-up question. He probably should have. “Well, Felix pointed out that there’s a lot of stuff Ever’s never gotten to do. So, I thought I could take him to do some of them.”
Jericho gave him a barely-there smile. “What did you have in mind?”
Arsen shrugged. “I thought I’d start with the library—he seems to like books—then maybe take him to the bodega to buy candy?” When Jericho opened his mouth, Arsen hurried to say, “I know it’s not much, but when I have more money, I can take him to do better things like the zoo or a museum or—I don’t know—a concert or a trip?”
Arsen’s insides withered as he realized that his lack of funds was going to be a barrier to some of the things Ever had never experienced. But those were things that Arsen had also never experienced. Most of his money went to a savings account he couldn’t touch until he turned thirty. A way to force himself to save money.
Jericho studied him in a way that made Arsen feel like he was in trouble. Finally, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, peeling off several hundred dollars before offering them to Arsen.
Arsen stared at the wad of cash. “What is this?”
Jericho smiled. “Consider it my and Atticus’s contribution to Ever’s fun fund.”
Arsen pushed the money back at Jericho. “That is too much.”
Jericho shook his head, shaking the money in his hand in Arsen’s face. “It’s really not. You know Atticus spends more than this on socks. Besides, if he were here, he’d probably try to buy Ever a house or a pony or something. He doesn’t emote much, but he definitely likes to throw money at things.”
Arsen’s chest felt tight. What Jericho said was true. Atticus thought nothing of spending money. He’d purchased the spot next to the garage to turn it into a safe space for Jericho’s kids. He bought an animal shelter when he learned they were about to become a kill shelter. Atticus had been clinically diagnosed as a psychopath but he had a soft spot for animals and children, which made him okay in Arsen’s book.
“Are you sure?” Arsen finally said. Who was he to turn down money on Ever’s behalf anyway?
Jericho nodded. “Take him to the bookstore. Let him buy whatever he wants. He should know what it’s like to have things that are just his.”
“Okay.”
Jericho snapped his fingers. “And get him some clothes. Let him pick them out himself. Other essentials, too, like shampoo, soap, stuff like that. Things we take for granted. You remember what it was like in foster care. They throw all your shit in a garbage bag. Nothing ever feels like yours. I imagine what that bitch did to him was far worse.”
Arsen nodded, wordlessly taking the money. Arsen had only spent a few months in foster care before he’d run away, but it had been hell on earth. While not every foster home was terrible, there were a lot of people who used it as a way to make money, pocketing the stipend they were given and treating the children in their care like animals.
His former foster family had been abusive, even more so than his own father. When he’d run away, they’d never even reported him missing. Arsen bet they’d still taken those checks. His case worker had never once shown up to check on him. They just didn’t have the numbers to do so, and some foster parents counted on their absence to run their schemes.
“Oh, take him to Hollister’s for breakfast. Let him order whatever he wants. Remember how much you loved that place the first time we took you?”
“Yeah,” Arsen said, a faint smile forming. Jericho had taken a group of them in the middle of the night. They’d barely been thirteen. They’d run amok. The only thing that had kept them from being booted out that first night was Jericho’s reputation and the money they’d dropped in there.
Arsen stood. “Thanks.”
He was almost to the door when Jericho said, “Bring his headphones. If he gets overwhelmed, he’s going to need them.”
Jericho always thought of everything. The world outside the garage was far noisier than the garage itself. Noises that Arsen took for granted—police sirens, construction work, preachers on the corner with bullhorns screaming about eternal damnation—would be too much stimulation for Ever.
The city was never not busy.
But Ever had been out in the world before. He said he’d run errands for Jennika but always came back. Not that he’d had much choice with the chip under his skin. But still, how had he managed to find his way around? What experiences had he had? Had he experienced any joy in his life up until then?
Arsen felt a bit bad about ditching work and Jericho for Ever, but not bad enough to stay. Besides, if it got too busy, he could call Nico to come help him. He was good with cars; he just didn’t like to get dirty unless he had to.
Arsen stopped next door, waving to the few people in the main room as he walked to the back where they kept clean clothes and gently worn shoes in all shapes and sizes. He grabbed what he thought would fit Ever then jogged back up the stairs to the apartment, giving Jericho a little wave as he passed.
Arsen tried to stay quiet so he didn’t sneak up on a sleeping Ever and scare him, but he found him sitting on Arsen’s bed just…staring. For a moment, he thought he was sleeping with his eyes open, but his head snapped to Arsen as soon as he sensed his presence.
Ever pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, dropping his chin to his knees, puffing out his cheeks in the world’s most devastating pout. He was still upset.
Arsen approached him slowly, sitting on the corner of the mattress. “I’m sorry about last night. I…shouldn’t have raised my voice. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ever gave him another quick glance that was over before it began. Ever’s sulking face didn’t change. He just turned his head so Arsen could no longer see his expression.
It was a good sign that Ever wasn’t trying to placate Arsen, right? If he truly feared him, he would be doing everything he could to keep Arsen from punishing him. It seemed like the world’s shittiest victory, but it sent Arsen’s heart cartwheeling in his chest. Ever wasn’t afraid of him.
He reached out and grabbed one of Ever’s hands, not missing the sharp inhalation when their skin met. Ever’s hands were just as small and delicate as he was. Arsen forced himself to concentrate.
“I mean it. I’m sorry I upset you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all me. Okay?” Ever continued to ignore him, body stiff. “Please, besenok?”
For a moment, Arsen thought he might have to save their outing for another time, but then Ever was turning to look at him, his cheek pressed to his knees, hair falling over his pretty brown eyes. “Okay.”
Arsen couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. “Okay? You forgive me?”
Ever didn’t smile back but he nodded, uncurling himself from his impossible position. “Yes.”
Arsen fought back the excitement churning inside. “Can I take you somewhere?”
