Was I really ready to send a whole person away, just so I could date the leftovers more easily? Put that way, it seemed a shitty thing to do. Hell, it didn't sound good to call the men I loved and slept with the "leftovers." If I was going to get rid of Cynric and risk Nathaniel losing yet another brother, I needed a better reason than being emotionally tired; didn't I?
I reached out, touched his hair, and smoothed it back from his face. His hair was so soft, softer than Nathaniel's, but not quite as thick; almost, though. I wanted to say, It's not you, it's me, but it sounded so f**king cliche. Maybe the reason it's a cliche is that it's true, so much more than people want to believe. You can be a perfectly good person, wonderful lover, great friend, and it can still not work. Fuck, f**k, f**k.
He put one hand over mine, holding it against his face. His eyes closed, and he leaned his face into my palm, rubbing his cheek against me, scent-marking me as his, like cats will do. Was I his? Was he mine? Fuck, I didn't know. How could I not know after more than a year? How could I not know the answer to this? What the f**k was wrong with me? What the f**k was wrong... with me? With... him and me, with us? No, with me. With me. What was wrong with me?
His other hand went around my waist, drawing me in against his body. It was a possessive gesture, one that marked territory if other men were present. This is mine, not yours; mine, just by that arm around me, that drawing me into him. I just didn't think it was true.
I stared up at him, studying his face, trying to see something that would help me know what the hell I was feeling.
He drew me in tighter to his body, and I put my hands on his waist, just at the top of his hips, not holding him, but keeping that last fraction of a distance between his body and mine. I knew what was under the silky jogging shorts. I knew what he had to offer, and I knew my reaction to being pressed against it, even through clothes. It wasn't just love that made me react to the men in my life, and somehow if I reacted to Cynric the same way, it would mean something. I wasn't sure what, but something, something I didn't want it to mean.
He tried to pull me closer, but I stiffened my arms and kept the small distance. He didn't fight me. He just let me go and stepped back a few inches, so we weren't touching at all.
I reached out to him, but the look on his face made me drop my hands to my sides. It wasn't the anger that I'd earned, but the disappointment in his eyes, the pain; I hadn't wanted to see that. It made my chest tight, and there was a lump in my throat that I couldn't seem to swallow around, as if I were choking on something more solid than words.
"I'm not jealous," he said, "but after what I heard and smelled you doing with Micah and Nathaniel, and you won't even let me hold you close..." He shook his head, making a little push-away gesture with his hands. He turned and went to stand by the sliding glass door, as far from me as he could get without leaving the room.
I didn't know what to do. If Nathaniel hadn't adopted him as a brother, if Jean-Claude didn't seem to take such pride in his accomplishments, if he didn't try so damn hard to do everything that was asked of him, if... how would I feel if I never saw Cynric here in the kitchen again? What if I never saw him painted in dark squares of amber light and shadows again? He was beautiful standing there with the light making his shoulder-length hair rich blues and blacks, as if someone had painted him with the color of dark ocean water, but... but I could live without him. I'd miss him, but I couldn't wrap my head around helping him pick out colleges and f**king him. It felt too much like a conflict of interests. Could you finish raising someone, kiss him and send him off to school every day, and be sleeping with him, and have it be okay? I didn't think so.
I decided to try for honesty. I wasn't sure it would help my chest and throat loosen up, but it was all I had. I went closer, but not close enough to touch him. "I'm sorry."
He didn't look at me as he said, "Sorry for what?"
"That there's not enough of me for everyone."
He turned to look at me then, frowning. "What does that even mean?"
I opened my mouth, closed it. I wasn't sure how to put it into words.
"See, it's not a real reason, Anita. You just want an excuse to say no."
I shook my head. "It's not that, damn it."
He turned around, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "Then explain it." He threw the words down like a gauntlet. It was my turn to pick it up and accept the challenge, or leave it lying there, sad and cowardly.
"I don't know how to send you off to high school, hug you good-bye, attend parent-teacher conferences, and be ha**ng s*x with you. It feels wrong, like I'm doing something wrong. No one else in my bed makes me feel like I'm doing something immoral."
The frown was replaced by a puzzled look, and then a half-smile. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Absolutely," I said.
"I really am only a year younger than Nathaniel and Jason when you met them."
"But I didn't sleep with them at nineteen, and I was three years younger, too."
"I'm only five years younger than Nathaniel," he said.
I fought a serious urge to put my fingers in my ears and go La-la-la-la. I hadn't really thought of it that way.
He gave a short, harsh laugh. "You hadn't done the math, had you?"
I tried not to squirm uncomfortably, and said, "I hadn't thought how close in age you two are, so no."
"Does everything only work for you because you don't think about it too hard?"
I didn't know what to say to that, and said so. "I don't know."
"You're seven years older than Nathaniel, right?"
I nodded, and shrugged. I fought to not look away, because honestly, that had bothered me at one point, too.
"The age difference really does bother you, even just the seven years?"
I nodded. "Yeah, it did, and I was taking care of him, keeping him safe. I thought it was a conflict of interest trying to get him to stand on his own two feet, and sleep with him at the same time."
"He was a pet when you met him, not just submissive but someone who had no ability to protect himself. He said, before you insisted on him getting therapy and being more independent, he was just a victim waiting for the right killer to come along and finish the job."
I couldn't keep the surprise off my face as I said, "He said that, really?"
Cynric nodded.
"I think if I hadn't lost control of the ardeur around him, I'd have kept my distance, Cynric."
"Sin." He said it automatically, with a note of tired-of-saying-this in his voice.
I sighed. "Sin, fine; you know the nickname doesn't help me get over this whole taboo thing, right?"
"What taboo?" he asked.
"You're a kid that I'm supposed to be taking care of; I think it was the parent-teacher conferences that really capped it for me, Cynric - Sin." I put my hands on my h*ps and finally had a solid glare on my face; it felt good, justified even. "You shouldn't be going to parent conferences for someone and f**king them, Sin, okay? There, that's the truth, that's the problem. It's just wrong."
He laughed then and leaned against the glass of the door, arms still crossed. "Then stop coming to the parent-teacher conferences."
"What?" I asked.
"Stop coming to the parent things; I don't think of you as a parent, Anita. The closest thing I've had to a mother was Bibiana in Vegas, and she's not exactly motherly to her own sons, but trust me, I have never thought of you that way." He frowned, unrolling his shoulders enough to put more of his back against the glass, his arms back against it, putting his hands flat against the sun-warmed glass, so that his upper body was suddenly framed against the light, and I realized that the pale blue silk of his shorts wasn't exactly light proof.
I looked away, so that I wouldn't keep looking harder to see how much I could see revealed in the sunlight. Wanting to see him silhouetted against the light made my whole protest about feeling parental toward him seem either stupid, like the lady was protesting too much, or incestuous. I felt myself begin to blush and wished, so wished, I could stop doing that.
"You don't think of yourself as my mom." His voice was a little lower as he said it.
I shook my head, because he was right. I didn't, I just... "But by going to the parent conferences and things, it puts me in that... role. Don't you understand? I can't do stuff like that and still..." I waved a hand vaguely toward him. "This!"