Bad Things (47 page)

After, Xavier sat him up on the table, pressed himself between his thighs, and kissed. Satiated and content. Heart full and happy. Just a dim shadow of melancholy under all that good, sweet warmth. Finally he let go of him, wondering, if he hadn’t, if Carson would have ever ended those kisses, would have ever pulled away from that embrace.

Eyes bright, mirthful. No sign of that dim shadow that had to be somewhere in his own gaze, even if Carson didn’t see it. Second by second, he looked more mischievous.

“Well,” Carson teased. “Now do you want to know why I came to visit you?”

Xavier cocked an eyebrow. Grinned. “Not for the fuck of your life?”

“No. But thank you for that.”

Fuck, he loved that. This new, playful flirting of Carson’s. But now his expression had gone serious. Vulnerable, actually. Xavier braced himself.

“Give me a tattoo.”

Xavier felt a second of relief, but it didn’t last.

Grinning. “A tattoo? Really?”

“
Really.” God, so sexy. How sure of himself he was in that moment.

“
Did you bring a design?”

“
No.”

“
What kind of tattoo do you want?” He’d had so many ideas, looking at Carson’s naked body. Perfect as it was, but still, he kept wanting to mark it, sign it. Own it? No. Just let the skin express a diaphanous facet or two of his soul.

“
The one you want to give me.”

There. There it was. The invisible, unnamable something that had been chewing on his intestines since Carson had come through the fucking door.

“Carson. A tattoo is an expression of you. Who you are. And whatever you decide that is, you have to live with it your whole life.”

“
I know. That’s why I want you to choose it. Because you know me. Sometimes you know me better than I know myself.”

Exactly. Exactly why I’m so dangerous.

“Where do you want it?”

“
I want you to put it where you want to see it when you look at me.”

Looking for your tender points. Your Achilles heel. The swell and beat of your heart in your carotid. Like the predator I am.

“All right. At least tell me what it means.”

Carson laughed. Hurt. Confused. Angry. “I don’t even know what it is.”

Don’t you dare. After everything. After the fucking shirt. Don’t you dare let me define you.

“
Exactly. Tell me what it means.”

God fucking damn it. How many times had he asked Carson—no, told him, ordered him—to be naked for him, to bare his soul? And here he was, doing it. Stripping away all his rusty, crumbling armor, leaving himself naked and vulnerable. And all Xavier could do was tear that undefended soul to pieces.

Xavier saw his cruelty reflected in those luminous eyes, even before he gave his lips a tender kiss.

Then he said, “No.”

Disappointment darkened his gaze, but Carson didn’t look like the blow had caught him off-guard.

“
Tell me why.”

“
Because, I think you’re asking me for more than ink.”

Sweet Carson. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed down his fear of saying it.

“Yes.”

“
I can’t give it. The thing you’re asking for.”

Carson laughed, but it was one of his sad, wounded laughs. “I’m not asking you to marry me.”

“I know. You’re…entrusting yourself to me.”

“
You said you love me.”

“
I do.”

“
What? As a friend?”

Xavier almost laughed. “God. No.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

That rare, delicious feeling. Surprise.

“I’m not afraid. I just know myself.”

“
I know you, too, Xavi.”

Christ. He said it so, so sweetly, it darkened that pale shadow under the fullness in Xavier’s chest.

“Yes. Much better than most. Maybe better than anyone. But not as well as you think.”

“
So…” Carson faltered.

Xavier forced himself to keep looking into those eyes full of hurt.

“…you want to leave things the way they are? Keep everything the same?”

Xavier took a breath. Then said, “Things don’t stay the same, Carson. No matter how badly we want them to.”

Carson was high. Higher than pot had ever gotten him, or booze or even X, the one time he’d tried it years ago, half aware the guy who gave it to him was trying to get in his pants. It surprised him, startled him, even, how Xavier’s face instantly mirrored his elation when he saw him. Especially since he was pretty sure Xavier had been trying to dial things back a notch ever since he’d sprung the tattoo idea on him, and he’d been ready for a much cooler greeting.

“
Look at you,” Xavier said, smile as wide and warm as Carson had ever seen it. “You’re lit up like someone bought indulgences for all your sins and gave you your ticket to heaven.”

Carson was so eager to show him. He wanted everyone to see, but Xavier was the one person he’d desperately wanted to bring a copy of the magazine so he could watch as he opened it and saw the photographs.

But suddenly he felt embarrassed, anxious Xavier would think the shots were too saccharine, trite and obvious.

“
Oh no,” Xavier teased, his warm gaze sharpening to a piercing stare. “Are you guarding a secret? From me? Are you sure you want to tempt me like that?”

Not knowing if he was blushing because of the implication of Xavier’s taunt, or because he was more and more embarrassed to spread open this piece of his soul in front of him, Carson got out the copy he’d brought with him, and handed the magazine to Xavier.

Grinning like he’d just been given a puzzle to solve, Xavier cocked one eyebrow, then looked down. A shot of Aidan gazing directly into the camera, naked, X-rated bits hidden behind the body of his electric guitar, and behind him, naked too but strategically obscured by Aidan’s body, Dario planting a chaste but obviously adoring kiss on his shoulder.

“
You took this.” Not a question. A verdict.

“
Yeah.”

“
Your photograph is the cover of
Filter Magazine
.”

“
Thanks to Aidan, yeah. They made me do the cover in a studio, but the rest are candids we shot in the loft.”

“
The rest, eh?”

Xavier flipped through the glossy pages until he found the spread. Not saying anything, he lingered on each page a long time.

Voice low, almost reverent, Xavier said, “I never would have thought Aidan would go there. It’s like watching them make love.”

“
You didn’t know he was such an exhibitionist?”

“
I didn’t know he was so out of the closet. With his friends, yes. But not publicly.”

His smile stayed wide and warm, but something in his expression had changed, and Carson’s glee over how Xavier had reacted to the cover started to cool and shrink.

But finally Xavier said, “God, you have a gift. Look at them. So in love, and you can feel it rising off the page. Every single shot.”

“
When we were shooting, I think they were planning on keeping the pictures just for them. Maybe that’s why they were so…unguarded.”

Something about the way Xavier laughed made Carson feel sad. “What?”

“Fuck, just a year ago, they were a big secret. Even from their friends. Now look at them.”

A realization crashed down on Carson, crushing the air out of him. Fuck, he was stupid.

It hurt, but he made himself say it anyway. “You’re in love with Dario.”

When Xavier met his gaze, Carson knew he was right.

“No.” A heavy sadness in his eyes said the opposite.

He’d known. Why had he let himself think Xavier could love him, when he’d been with Dario? He really was a masochist.

Thank God he was too wounded, too hollowed out to cry. “I saw it the day you brought me to their place. The way the two of you were with each other.”

“
I’m not in love with Dario, Carson.”

Fine. Let him guard his secret. Why did it hurt so fucking bad? They’d been playing games. That was all. He’d been an idiot to think this thing with Xavier could be more than that.

“Dario and I have a bond. I don’t think that bond will ever break. But I’m not in love with him. We had our time, before Dario was with Aidan. Maybe it could have become love. But it didn’t. Not that kind of love.”

Moment by moment as Xavier went back to looking at those photographs, a big, slippery, squirming realization crept over Carson. Hard to ask. Hard to force the words out of his throat. But why not?

“Then why does looking at those pictures make you sad?”

He was sure he’d laugh, cock an eyebrow and say something to tease him. To get himself out from under the embarrassing implication of that question. Instead, Xavier met his eyes with an uncharacteristically open, earnest gaze.

“Because,” he said quietly. “I want that. What they have.”

“
You do?”

“
Yes. Don’t you?”

He’d had a taste. Dario and Aidan had shown him, let him look and listen and touch. Like a tourist among natives on a remote island, a tropical paradise he’d been lucky to visit, but where he couldn’t stay, because he didn’t belong. Was that how Xavier felt, too?

“Yes.”

“
You should, Carson. You should have that.”

“
So should you.”

There. The arched eyebrow. That grin. But he was mocking himself, not Carson. “I’m not wired that way.”

“What does that mean? You’re incapable of love?”

“
Not exactly.”

The incongruity between that grin and Xavier’s sad eyes made Carson’s heart heavy in his chest, like it was sinking into his belly.

“Then what? Exactly?”

“
Look at them.” Xavier spread the magazine open between them, so one side was draped over his thigh, the other over Carson’s. “Okay, they have problems, like everyone. Things that don’t show up in your pictures. No one’s life is this flawless. But a year or two ago, before they were really together, they were broken. Both of them. In different ways, obviously. Everyone has their own issues. But here they are. A year later. Whole. Aidan. Even Dario.”

That, “Even Dario,” shocked Carson. Even though he’d talked about Aidan helping him come back from some hell from his past, Dario was, beyond doubt, the healthiest person Carson had ever met.

“I couldn’t have done that for him. No matter how much I may have wanted to, or tried to.”

“
Did you try?” Carson asked, afraid he was pushing too hard. Crossing a line Xavier probably hadn’t invited him to go anywhere near.

“
Yes. I tried. In my clumsy way. But like I said, I’m not wired like that. Their love healed them. My love…”

“
What?” Carson finally asked when he’d given up on Xavier finishing his thought.

“
My love erodes. Demolishes.”

“
What? Like you’re poison, or something?”

“
Maybe like medicine, if you want to be generous. But, you know, every medication has its adverse effects. Chemo kills cancer, but it kills healthy cells, too.”

“
So that’s what you do to people you love? Indiscriminately eat away at the sick and healthy parts of them? Is that what you did to Dario?”

“
Isn’t that what I’m doing to you?”

“
No.”

There. This time that grin was mocking him. “Aren’t you sweet. Lying to spare my feelings.”