Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,62
comfortable on the canine-warmed side of the recliner, then reached for one of the beers. “Does this twist off, or do I need a… what are those called?”
“Church key,” I said, taking the beer from him. Leaning over Jae, I retrieved the bottle opener from the edge of the bucket where I’d hooked it, popped the cap, then sat up to hand it back. “Here.”
I got a kiss for a thank-you, and I deepened it, disrupting the dog enough to send her grumbling and sliding off of the cushions to seek out a different place to sleep. Jae twisted his fingers through my hair, tugging lightly. I tilted my head back, following the movement of his gentle pull. His teeth dented into my skin, scoring a light furrow across my throat. Then he let me go, bringing the bottle up to kiss his swollen lips.
He felt good against me, much better than the dog. Jae also smelled better, so I added washing the dog to my mental to-do list, hopefully above lubricating the screen door, because it had squeaked for as long as I’d owned the house. Resting his hand on my thigh, Jae sat with me, sipping his beer and letting the unseen stars churn overhead, their shimmering journeys hidden by milky clouds and the city’s blanket of lights. The air turned a bit chilly, and he shifted his weight, resting on the hip closest to me, pulling his legs up to hook over my shins, seeking out my heat.
“Did you talk to Ichi?” I heard myself breaking the quiet, shattering it with a verbal hammer forged in an anger I’d thought I didn’t possess. Bobby had been mine before Ichiro’s, and sitting there with my throat closed up around the pain I couldn’t swallow, I realized I was angry at being replaced or maybe simply angry in general. “I’m going through a lot right now in my head. With Bobby. With Ichi. And I’m not really too sure what to do about it.”
“What do you want to see happen? What is your wish for how things will be once you work through everything?” Jae asked, his fingers making circuits around my knee. “Because right now, Ichi is scared, and Bobby probably doesn’t realize it. So he lashed out at you, and now you are having to eat his anger. Yes?”
“Some of it, yeah. But some of it’s on me too,” I replied, checking the level of beer in my bottle. It was still mostly full, so any blurring of my thoughts couldn’t be explained by the alcohol. “I got pissed off at Ichi for demanding Bobby stop working with me, and then it dawned on me I was kind of pissed off about both of them shuffling me down on their list of people they love. Which is fucking stupid, because I fell in love with you, and it didn’t change my relationship with Bobby.”
“It did.” Jae sat up a little bit, angling so he could see my face. “You stopped going out with him to clubs, and a lot of your afternoons were spent with me instead of with him, going to ball games or doing things that you both like to do. It’s hard because both of you were alone for a very long time and used to just having each other. Then I came along, and he had to split his time, leaving him alone again. Then when Ichi came, you spent more time with him, learning how to be his brother, slicing Bobby’s time even more.”
“Then they hooked up, so….” I sighed, too caught up in my own selfish needs to have everyone sit in the box I’d put them in. “I realized I felt like I was being shoved out between them. I thought it was because I knew how Bobby was with guys and I didn’t want Ichi to get hurt, but it was more about me not wanting to share them, not wanting to lose what time I had with them. And that’s so fucking stupid, but I thought I was doing okay. Then today happened.”
“Today happened,” Jae agreed. “Ichi is a contradiction, because he is rebellious in his own culture but traditional in yours. I think it’s why he and I get along so well—because we both feel like we’re telling our world to fuck off but not really. We’re just fighting for space to exist in. Because what we were given was too small, and your spaces are so