Page 151 of The Story of You

The rest of us are wearing sandals, which means a spark could easily land on anyone’s bare skin. He’s usually peddling around here without shoes anyway and so his soles are like leather and yet I’m itching to tell him to put shoes on.

That’s how this sort of thing works. The Daddy thing. Besides, no one else is spending this much time near the fire. “Put some proper shoes on if you’re gonna do that,” I say. This isn’t what Darius had in mind when he said one on one time, but if I’m going to commit to him, I’m going to take care of him.

I’m not sure anyone ever has. Not like I’m thinking. People don’t catch how vulnerable he is because he’s good at pushing them away. It’s easy when you can pluck someone’s weakness from their head and hurt them with it. People tend to stay away from open fires like that. They’re so hurt they miss the real reason he does it: because he’s protecting himself. Even if they did pick up on that, the violation is too much for them, which means it’s the foolproof method for keeping everyone far, far away.

I had a weakness like that, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about now and it’s faded to the background where it belongs.

“My feet are like steel. They won’t be worse off with a few fire sparks.”

I’m close enough so I reach out and snag his shirt gently tugging him to me. “C’mon, strawberry darlin’. How about you do it for Daddy, huh?”

Asher’s more cutthroat than Darius, but whereas Darius needs more promises of punishment, Asher needs tenderness. He can’t look at me. He gets tongue-tied. “Um…” he nods and heads off.

“Something better than sandals,” I call after him.

Darius scowls at me from afar and spreads his hands in clear disapproval of my actions. I know his plan was for us to be making out by now.

“Shoes,” I say, by way of explanation. Darius thinks about it and then nods.

I step back from the fire, staring into it as I catch snippets of conversation around me. They are Aleksander Randall free, but I know he’s on everyone’s mind.

Asher trudges back wearing boots. His gloom is apparent, and he’s got a lot more to say. “I hope these are good enough and if they aren’t too bad. S’all I got.”

They’re old boots. The leather’s worn. He hasn’t done up the laces, so I kneel before him.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? It doesn’t do any good to save your feet from the fire only to trip over your laces and fall in.”

He suffers my boot-tying with balled fists. They’re not in protest—he doesn’t know what to do with them. I want to hold one, but I think that’s gonna be more than he can take for the night. Instead, I stand next to him. We gaze at the fire, not at each other, but he stays close. His hands squeeze and extend.

He huffs. “I gotta go,” he says and treks off across the yard.

Darius—who’d been watching our every move—bounds over to me. “What did you do, Major?”

“Asked him to wear shoes.”

“God,” he says. “Can’t you be like a normal person and just make out with him or something? He responds well to that. That’s how I got in with Asher—sex stuff. If you want to make friends with him, you’ll do the same.”

I yank Darius’s back to my front. “I don’t doubt you, but that’s not the foundation I wanna build with him. It’ll be slow, but we’ve got time.”

He looks around with heaviness and then finally settles on the fire. “No, we don’t.”

* * *

Wyatt

Iget an idea. Might be a stupid one, but I need to know and the only way to know is to try. “We’re going to Randall Central tonight,” I announce to my boys.

Asher’s crestfallen and I know why. He thinks I mean just me and Darius because that’s the way it’s been. After our mini declaration—the declaration of beginning—I bet he was looking forward to lying with us tonight. He needs that security. “Pack some clean underwear, sweetheart,” I tell him. “We’ve got other stuff for you there.”

“Uh. Yeah. Okay, yeah.”

Darius strides toward me as Asher heads up the stairs, slow clapping like he’s in an early-nineties teen movie. “I don’t know how you’ve done this to him. I’ve never seen Asher like this and I fucking love it. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Not doing much.”

“You’re being you.” He kisses my lips.