Page 125 of Hurt

“Grant, I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. I don’t know if there will ever be a night when I don’t have nightmares or flinch when you sneeze too loud. Most days, I don’t know who I am. And some days, I don’t want to find out.” He inhaled and closed his eyes. “But I want…I want to want you. I want to be okay with you.”

Grant’s heart skipped a beat at those words. Even if Kurt’s face wore a pained expression and his fists were curled at his sides like he was ready to fight a war. It didn’t matter. None of it did.

“Wanyin…” he started without knowing where he wanted to go.

“No, just, stop it.” Kurt’s eyebrows furrowed, and he swallowed. “You’re going to say something smooth and make me feel like even more of a dumbass than I already do. Go sit on the couch.”

Grant smiled and swallowed back a laugh. He obeyed Kurt and took a seat on the edge of the couch.

Fiddling with his fingers, Kurt followed him and stopped in front of him. It was oddly reminiscent of the night Kurt first came to Grant’s cabin—broken and bleeding, ripping off scabs and exposing a vulnerable core that he didn’t know he still had. The physical wounds had healed, but his emotional wounds were still hemorrhaging. Every moment of the day, Kurt was busy trying to staunch the flow.

“Sit on your hands.”

Grant lifted his eyebrows at the unique order, but he did it. He would do anything Kurt asked. His fingers wiggled under his jeans, and the thick material was abrasive on his skin.

Firm hands pressed down on Grant’s shoulders. Kurt was chewing on his lower lip nervously. His hands began to tremble, and he clenched them on Grant’s shoulder to keep them from shaking.

Kurt kissed him.

The press of lips was so quick it was almost laughable. More like a drive-by than anything else. It wasn’t sexy or romantic. It was ripping off a band-aid. A test to see just what he could handle.

Grant’s fingers curled into the cushions of the couch.

“I wanted to see if I could,” Kurt justified with his fingers digging into Grant’s shoulders.

He looked so devastatingly beautiful. With his hair brushing against sharp collarbones and his eyelashes fluttering over-determined eyes. His entire body shook with fear, but he was pressing through. A mixture of concern and pride wrapped itself around Grant, and he smiled.

“Can you?”

“Yeah,” Kurt said shakily.

Grant slipped his hands out and reached for the blanket draped over the couch, and wrapped it around Kurt’s shoulders. Pulling him to the couch, he let their shoulders brush together. He didn’t wrap an arm around him or press his lips to the crown of his head and inhale like he wanted to.

Instead, he crawled his fingers back under his thighs, nestling them in the space they had just vacated.

They let the silence speak for them. Kurt processed what he needed to, and Grant tried to keep from smiling like an idiot. He felt like he was in high school again. A silly boy who just found out his feelings were reciprocated. It was a great deal more complicated, and there were things he didn’t understand. He would get it wrong, probably more than he got it right, but as long as he could have this man—he would do whatever it took. He would sit on his hands for the rest of his life if that’s what it took.

Grant wasn’t sure if love was supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t even sure if he was doing the right thing. The only thing he was sure of was that he didn’t care.

With a sleepy sigh, Kurt dropped his head to Grant’s shoulder. His temple brushed against Grant. A feeble point of contact that anchored Grant and Kurt together. The smallest hint of trust building between them.

“Hey, who do you think would win in a duel, a lizard or a snake?”

Grant smiled as he looked down at the tousled hair on his shoulder.

As it turns out, it wasn’t so complicated.

He loved Kurt.

22

YOU COULD HAVE MY HEART, AND I WOULD BREAK IT FOR YOU

Roland’s car was spotless. The kind of clean that only existed in a car straight out of manufacturing. Even the air smelled new. It was as if even the bad smells were afraid of displeasing the man with an iron fist.

Kurt glared at the spotless window. It irked him. Did the man’s skin not secrete oils, or did he just not touch things?

Petulantly, he pressed his thumb in the middle of the window. He felt a ridiculous surge of glee at the single smudge in the glass. A quiet fuck you to the man who saved his life.