Rough Trade (Woodbury Boys) by Sidney Bell

Author:Sidney Bell [Bell, Sidney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2018-12-02T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

The door closed behind him and the cool dark surrounded him.

It was quiet.

Duncan—Rook—was a big lump under the covers on the far bed. The air conditioner whirred. Everything was still.

Ghost leaned against the door for a long moment and breathed. Eventually he would feel something normal again. Something that—hell, he didn’t know. But the longer he stood there, the more clear it became that if something was going to change to make sense of what’d happened outside in Kellen’s car, it wouldn’t be happening inside him. Not while he waited anyway.

Whatever process was required for this path to go someplace else, he couldn’t find it on his own.

So why bother?

Ghost put the medication sack on the table and shrugged out of his borrowed hoodie. The stitches in his side pulled. His T-shirt stuck to the line of his spine with sweat; he would give anything for a shower. In a bit, maybe. After he took care of this.

He took the bag to the bed. “Du—Rook. Hey, you awake?”

He bent over to look and found Rook’s eyes opening. His hands were clamped around his head, the fingers of his visible hand rubbing in slow circles over his right temple.

“Medicine,” Ghost said quietly. “Can you sit up?”

“I don’t know if I can keep anything down.”

“Yeah, there’s something for that. Here.” Ghost held out some Gatorade and the Excedrin stuff, and got to work opening the bottle of nausea medicine. When Rook was done taking the pills, Ghost handed him the plastic dosage cup. “Drink this.”

Rook obeyed, not glancing twice at it. Ghost wanted to point out how stupid that was, taking medicine someone gave you without looking to make sure they were giving you the right thing in the right amounts, but figured now wasn’t the time. Rook was lucky, that’s all, lucky Ghost had bothered to get it right. After he gave Rook the medicine and he’d eaten a few crackers, he got him to lie back down. Ghost broke open one of the ice packs and shook it until it was frigid to the touch. He helped Rook tuck it under his head and then sank onto the bed beside him, trying not to jostle the mattress.

“Thank you,” Rook breathed. His hand resumed rubbing his temple.

“I paid for it,” Ghost murmured. “Just...so you know. I paid.”

Duncan—Rook, Jesus, it was Rook—glanced up and against all odds, he managed a tiny smile. The first Ghost had ever seen on him, or at least the first he’d noticed, the curve of his lips tired and weak and somehow sweetly, endearingly uncertain. “Thank you. That’s good. You did good.”

For an instant, Ghost thought he might hit him. He wanted to smash that smile, wanted to ruin that rough, craggy face with his fists, wanted to laugh at him for his stupidity, for buying it, for thinking it was true. But the urge vanished as fast as it had arrived and the need for a shower came back.

“I almost didn’t,” he said, not sure why he felt it was important to be honest.

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