“That’s what happens when someone bakes something for someone.”
Sullivan stood up straight, struck dumb by the flutter of warmth in his chest at Tobias’s words. “Did you bake it for me? Or did you just bake it?”
Tobias’s cheeks flared crimson. “I prefer konparèt.”
“I have no idea what that is,” Sullivan murmured.
“It’s Haitian,” Tobias said, staring at his mouth. It was the middle of the night and they were both riding a mixture of exhaustion and sugar high, and Sullivan maybe wasn’t thinking straight. He could decide if those were good excuses or not tomorrow. Now, he simply gave in to the urge to press a ripe-cherry-red kiss to Tobias’s mouth, tentative and slow, little more than a brushing of lips. Tobias kissed him back instantly, angling his body so that their chests brushed and that was good. Sullivan leaned back against the counter, his hands finding Tobias’s hips, tugging him closer, and that was even better. They kissed for what seemed like hours, slow, thorough, drugging kisses, the need less like a fury and more like an inevitability.
Sullivan didn’t think of himself as the kind of man who was kissed; he did the kissing. He liked the action of it, the dominance of it, and he’d been told by a high school girlfriend that he was a bullying sort of kisser to boot, a complaint he’d taken as a compliment, but he felt helpless here, overwhelmed and stupid and shocked, and all he could do was keep kissing Tobias, keep kissing him as if they would never stop, not until the sun expanded and the world went up in flames. It still might not be enough.
They didn’t fuck that night. They were too tired, too locked into this one simple act. They stumbled upstairs only when they were too weary to stand anymore, and then they lay in the dark in the cool sheets, legs entwined, fingers linked, mouths still brushing lightly, lips sore, until they slept.
* * *
After that, it was like a dam had broken. If Tobias stood still for more than five seconds and they weren’t actively working, Sullivan’s mouth was on his. Tobias would complain if Sullivan weren’t so damn good at it. Sullivan kissed him like Tobias was his, his to use and enjoy and take care of, and Tobias—Tobias couldn’t remember ever feeling this full, this safe.
All day Thursday, as they once more followed Cindy Jackman through her day-to-day life, Tobias thought about those kisses. In fact, the only thing that seemed to wipe the idea of kissing from his mind entirely was when Sullivan passed his laptop over to where Tobias was slumped in the passenger seat of the Buick reading aloud from Android.
The class catalog for Metro State University of Denver had been downloaded.
“Here.” Sullivan tapped the casing until Tobias reluctantly set the book aside.
“What is this?”
“It’s a computer,” Sullivan said helpfully.
“No duh.”
“Okay, leaving aside the fact that you’re an eighth-grader, it’s a random thought activity.”
“Random thought activity,” Tobias repeated, pretending he hadn’t been busted for saying something lame enough to pass for a middle schooler.
“Indulging a random thought for the sake of it. Pick one class that you could bear taking. You won’t actually take it. You don’t even have to tell me what it is. There are only two rules. The class can’t be in the hard sciences, and it has to be something you don’t already know a lot about.”
“Subtle,” Tobias said wryly.
“You’re the one who keeps saying you’re not a spoiled rich boy. At some point you’re gonna need a job, yeah?” Sullivan smirked. “I’ve heard great things about Underwater Basket Weaving 101.”
Tobias didn’t know what to think of the activity, to be honest. He’d been locked into medicine for so long that he’d never considered what other options were out there, so it might be interesting. He couldn’t be Sullivan’s lackey forever, after all. If he felt a small twinge of unhappiness at the idea, he brushed it off. He was here for Ghost. This was temporary.
“Thanks,” he said, and Sullivan nodded, already watching out the window again, as if he really thought either Cindy Jackman or the balding man who’d used her car to pick up Ghost might show up any second, something Tobias was less certain about every day.
He worked his way through the class catalog, losing track of time so thoroughly that he didn’t look up again until Sullivan ordered him to go get them some sandwiches from the shop at the other end of the strip mall.
“Did you find anything you liked in the catalog?” Sullivan asked, once they were eating.
“Not yet, but I’m only through F. It’s kind of fun.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Thinking about what I might do with the rest of my life. There are possibilities there that weren’t there before, and it’s... I’m excited about it. For the first time that I can remember, the idea of moving forward feels good instead of terrifying.”
Sullivan was licking mustard off his fingers, eyeing Tobias like he’d done something perplexing, like taken his clothes off to dance a jig. “I don’t understand why you didn’t do this a long time ago.”
Tobias fiddled with one corner of his sandwich bread, tearing it and rolling it into a ball. “When I was four or five, one day someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said I wanted to be a doctor so I could spend all day with my papa.”
Sullivan grinned. “That’s adorable. You’re an adorable boy, Tobias.”
“You’re not the only one who thought so.” Tobias tore another piece loose, then a third. “My papa was so proud. He told the rest of the family and all his colleagues and friends and it turned into a whole thing. At one point, back in high school, he was talking about the two of us practicing together.”
“Snowballed on you, huh?”
“Yeah. It was cast in stone from so early on that for years I didn’t stop
