a shrug. “Sure. Since you’re so sensitive about the subway.”
The rational part of Sam’s mind recognized the teasing for what it was, but the rest of him reacted with animal fear at being exposed. He was tired. He was exhausted—not necessarily physically, but from the city’s incessant assault on him. He was tired of trying to hold his shit together, and for some reason, the jab worked its way under the armor Sam had pieced together over the years.
“Who the fuck are you calling sensitive?”
Rufus’s light-colored brows rose. “The jolly giant across the room.”
“Sorry. I guess it’s strange I don’t like getting dragged underground through piss and shit and then being crammed into a car with a million other people. I guess that’s really fucking sensitive.” He pushed off from the counter, abandoning the half-eaten meal, and headed for the bathroom. On his way, he grabbed his ruck. “I’m calling it; that’s a night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Rufus didn’t move from his spot on the floor. “You going to sleep in the bathroom?”
Sam answered by slamming the bathroom door. Childish. Stupid. But it felt really good. For the first minute, he braced his hands on the sink, trying to keep his body from betraying him. But the shakes got worse with adrenaline, with cortisol, with rage. So then, because he knew trying to stop the tremors was a big joke, he stripped, found his soap and shampoo, and showered.
Jake’s shower. Jake’s bathroom. Jake’s second apartment. Jake’s city. Hot water needled Sam’s back. Was this what Jake had meant, all those times he’d invited Sam to stop in Manhattan? Stay here, at my second apartment, where nobody will even know about you. Fuck, that was worse than having to sleep on the couch and smile and go to brunch with the girlfriend and pretend they were just Army buddies. It made him hate Jake, and he hated hating him, hated that, for a moment, with steam billowing up, he was glad Jake was dead.
Sam slammed the shower’s handle until the water stopped, and then he dried himself off, didn’t bother with dressing. With any luck, Rufus would already be in the loft; if not, the redheaded prick—Sam’s rational part pointed out that Rufus really hadn’t done anything wrong—would have to be satisfied with Sam wrapping a towel around his waist. He opened the door and stepped out.
A brief assessment of the studio did tell Sam that Rufus was now in the loft. His black T-shirt was hung over the back of the chair at the desk, wet and dripping from one corner. Rufus must have washed it in the kitchen sink to rewear tomorrow. Quiet movement overhead indicated he wasn’t asleep yet.
“Hey.” Rufus’s head hung upside down from the loft. “Come up here.”
At the sofa, Sam fluffed—ok, punched, vigorously—the cushions.
“There’s only enough room for one punk in this relationship,” Rufus commented wryly, “and I long ago claimed that title.”
Sam crossed the room and hit the lights, plunging the loft into the soft gray surf that rolled in from the street. He said fuck-all to modesty, dropped the towel, and stretched out on the sofa.
Rufus’s sigh broke the stillness. “All right, Hercules, I’m impressed. But come sleep in the bed so you don’t get a kink in your neck.”
Sam rolled onto his side, face buried in the cushions, smelling dusty upholstery, maybe the faint trace of Jake’s cologne. Imagination? Who the fuck knew anymore? Now that the first surge of anger was pulling back, Sam could think more clearly. He knew Rufus had been teasing him. Knew Rufus hadn’t meant anything by it. In fact, Sam had the sneaking suspicion that if he told Rufus everything, explained it, Rufus might actually understand.
I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.
Sam tried to squirm deeper into a sofa that was approximately two-thirds his size. Rufus was interested. Sam was interested too. Even the way Rufus riled him up got him interested, made him feel alive and engaged and in contact with another human being in a way Sam hadn’t felt in a long time. Right then, Sam was interested in a very pointy way that was leaving an impression on Jake’s poor sofa cushions. But Rufus didn’t want to just be a fuck, either. And that made things complicated, because keeping everything at just-a-fuck level was safe. It was easy. It was fun.
Better?
Well, Sam wasn’t sure about that. But if you kept things simmering at just a fuck, guys didn’t walk away in the