It was worth a jump to get into Quint’s room. He made sure to turn off the security camera first.
Caleb startled Quint, but he played it off, smoothing his suit jacket and radiating cool disdain. “You. The nurse.”
“Whoever you think I am, you’re wrong,” Caleb said. He’d dressed in his double’s scrubs for this visit, just in case anyone saw him, but now Quint needed catching up, which was irritating. “There are other universes with people who look identical to the ones here. They’ve got your double down on the surface, pretending you committed a bunch of crimes. There are videos everywhere.”
“Everywhere except here, where communications have been down since I arrived,” Quint said. “Who are you?”
“Someone who wants to make a deal,” Caleb said. “You know how to make a suppressant for runners. I want it. In exchange, I can get you out of here and help you disrupt the scam they’re running on the surface.”
Quint had gone perfectly still. “Who are you? Why do you want the suppressant?”
A stupid question, he thought, and then came to the sudden realization that none of these people knew about the shakes. They’d developed a suppressant for the sole purpose of grounding people who’d been born runners.
Sinister shit, but that shouldn’t bother him. So this world wasn’t a nice place. Neither was his.
“None of your business,” Caleb said. Quint wasn’t getting an itemized list of his weaknesses, Jesus Christ. “We both know you’re not getting out of here without me. Can you get me the suppressant or not?”
“I can,” Quint said. “How soon can we leave?”
Caleb woke up desperately hungry, which was at least becoming familiar. Someone was pounding on the bedroom door. Not Oz, then. He would have just barged in.
“Kit’s here,” Laila called. “Meet us in the kitchen.”
Caleb sat up. Aidan was still pressing his face, glasses and all, stubbornly into the pillow. Caleb poked him. “Come on.”
Aidan turned over, his cheek marked with pillow creases, and Caleb’s whole world wobbled. Holy shit. They’d slept together. And then… really slept together, pillow creases and all.
If this was an experiment, he’d confirmed his hypothesis. I’m bisexual, he thought, trying it on like a new set of clothes. It fit. After all his hand-wringing, it was nothing like getting injected and developing new senses and abilities. He didn’t feel different.
Caleb glanced at Aidan, the messy nest of his black hair and the long, pale stretch of his naked back. Well. He felt something.
Emboldened, he slid one hand from Aidan’s shoulder blade down to his hip. When Aidan made a pleased, sleepy noise into the pillow, Caleb felt the same pulse of satisfaction as when he’d touched other partners. It was a familiar cocktail of emotions—pride, tenderness, yearning to do it again—and yet it was new, too. He liked sleeping with men. He liked sleeping with Aidan.
Aidan hadn’t spoken of the future, beyond putting Quint away, and he’d only offered to fool around in private while they were also fooling the public. They’d be putting Quint in prison in a matter of days, and then there’d be no need for their romance act. A week wasn’t long enough. Last night had been so good. Caleb wanted more of that.
To judge from Aidan’s languid smile, so did he. Heat washed over Caleb’s skin and he hurried out of bed. He finger-combed his hair into something halfway presentable and figured he’d leave the question of real clothes for later. Behind him, Aidan groaned and got out of bed.
Kit was seated on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, wearing an atrociously green leather jacket and some kind of metal-mesh face veil, its headband buried in his violet hair. The veil was probably meant to deter the smart house’s facial recognition, but since he was half-lifting it out of the way so he could drink a cup of coffee, Caleb wasn’t sure how reliably it would work.
“Good morning,” Laila said. She was standing by some very shiny appliance that must be a coffee maker, dressed all in black again, with makeup scrolling across her face like calligraphy. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Caleb said. He almost blurted I’m bisexual, because it felt momentous, worth sharing, but he couldn’t say it here. They’d told the house Aidan was his boyfriend. Maybe the AI couldn’t catch discrepancies in what they said to each other, but for all he knew, the tech was predicated on remote human observers. A distressing idea. His disappointment at not being able to tell Laila outweighed his concern. He would’ve told Kit, too, even though they weren’t that close. Everyone in the kitchen was some flavor of queer, and Caleb wanted them to know he belonged, too.
“You okay?” Laila asked.
“Yeah.”
Laila pulled a lever and the coffee machine whirred, and a second later she pressed a mug into his hands.
“Good morning to both of you.”
“Morning,” Aidan said. He perked up when Laila offered him some coffee.
“Kit scared the shit out of me this morning, nearly made me scald myself,” Laila said, nudging him affectionately. “He hasn’t told me why he’s here yet.”
“Why else would I be here? I’m here to talk about Q—”
“House,” Aidan said loudly. “Where are the spatulas?”
Some of the under-the-counter lighting blinked, indicating a drawer. Aidan pulled it open and then gave Kit a significant look.
“Ugh,” Kit said at this reminder that they were being watched.
While Kit contemplated how to rephrase whatever it was he wanted to say, Aidan kept opening cabinets and drawers. He looked just like he had in the other Heath’s exam room, ransacking her drawers for possible antidotes, except here he was just hunting through a fridge. After a while, he must have found what he was looking for, because he turned to Caleb and said, “You want breakfast?”
“You’re… cooking?”
Caleb had never seen Aidan cook. He’d never had a kitchen of his own—unless Caleb counted the six months Aidan had spent living with Brian, the ex whose name they never spoke. Caleb didn’t know much about that period of Aidan’s life. Maybe it had been domestic bliss. Maybe he and Brian had cooked gourmet meals for each other every night.
Even as Caleb recognized the absurdity of the thought, he had to swallow the sour taste it put into his mouth.
Whatever had happened with Brian, the rest of Aidan’s adult life had been spent as an itinerant couch surfer. When he crashed at Caleb’s apartment, it was literal. He was always on the verge of passing out. It fell to Caleb to cook for him.
Caleb wasn’t a great cook, only an adequate one. He could keep himself—and Aidan—alive.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Aidan said. He pulled out a mixing bowl and started measuring dry ingredients.
“Some of that better be for me and Kit,” Laila said.
“Of course,” Aidan said. “Solidarity and all that. Wouldn’t let you go hungry.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think I’m—what, Kit, don’t look at me like that,” Laila said.
“Can we leave aside all this stuff about solidarity and personal anecdotes for a second?” Kit said. “I’m here to tell you that you need to move faster. Things haven’t been going great for us.”
They’d had Quint in space for four days and something had already gone wrong. A whole interview’s worth of questions came to mind, but Caleb couldn’t ask any of them. He stayed silent and sat on one of the barstools at the ridiculously large marble island in the center of the room, watching in fascination and trepidation as a pat of butter sizzled in the skillet and Aidan mixed pancake batter in a bowl. A sight rare enough to relish.
Caleb didn’t want it to be rare.
“You know that… cat we adopted?” Kit asked, interrupting his thoughts. “The one with the shitty attitude?”
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “Thanks for giving it a home.”
“I’m not so sure we made the right choice,” Kit said. “It’s a little bastard and it wants out. Wor
st of all, I think it’s about to figure out how to open doors and cause real trouble.”
“Shit,” Aidan said, flipping a pancake wrong and smearing batter across the skillet. “We’ll be done soon, I think. We’re, uh, moving some things around. But we’ll be happy to take that cat off your hands in a few days and give it a forever home. Thursday, probably. Friday at the latest.”
“It is Sunday fucking morning,” Kit said tightly, like the number of hours in the day really mattered. “This has been the longest four days of my life and it’s only been a week and a half since I got stranded in the wilderness and nearly froze to death. Bad mood doesn’t begin to cover it. If you make me put up with that cat much longer, I’m gonna eject it into space.”
“Okay, okay,” Laila said, putting a hand on his arm. “We’re all a little on edge. You can have the first plate.”
“Fuck off. You’re playing house down here and we are trapped up there.”
Caleb stared at the counter, guilt closing his throat. He had been enjoying himself. It hadn’t even been half an hour since he’d dreamily wondered if he and Aidan could prolong this week somehow. That wasn’t fair to Kit and everyone else at Facility 17 who had to deal with Quint.
“Where is… Quint?” Caleb asked, glancing around like Oz might pop out at any moment. The grand floor-to-ceiling windows were open this morning, letting in brilliant daylight and offering a view of the mansion’s manicured lawn. The trees surrounding the ground were a mixture of evergreen and yellow-orange fall foliage. The wind rattled their branches, showering the lawn with leaves.
“Asleep, I think,” Laila said. “He keeps weird hours. Not that I’m one to judge.”
“What was it you wanted to say earlier?” Aidan asked Laila. “You said you’d been meaning to tell us something.”
She set her mug on the island and stretched luxuriantly. “I’ve been feeling good these past few days. Better. Like I could go anywhere I wanted.”
“Because you’re taking some kind of medication?” Aidan asked.
She shook her head. “No, I think it’s more of a ‘time heals all wounds’ situation. Things going back to normal. You don’t feel it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, staring down into the skillet.
“That’s really good news,” Kit said to Laila.
Aidan plated some pancakes, then passed them to Caleb along with silverware and a bottle of maple syrup.
“And mine?” Kit asked.
“They’re almost ready, hold on a second,” Aidan said, waving the spatula at him.
“Uh huh.”
As Aidan was serving Kit and Laila, Oz walked into the kitchen with a jewelry box in his hand. He grinned. “Didn’t know we were all doing brunch together this morning! Look what just came in.”
He opened the jewelry box and pulled out a necklace so brilliantly yellow it could only be 24-karat gold. Everyone stared, and he winked in response. “I ordered a lot of these, among other things. Easier to transport, you know?”
“Smart,” Caleb said, although the maple-syrup aftertaste in his mouth had suddenly turned sickeningly sweet. Was it just Oz’s resemblance to Quint, their real target? Or was it something about the necklace he was casually tossing up and down?
Kit had already finished his pancakes. He pushed his plate away. “I have to go. But I’m coming back tomorrow, and I hope you have good news for me by then.”
He vanished, and Laila sighed. “You want a cup of coffee, Quint?”
“Sure,” Oz said, cheerfully oblivious to the tension in the room. Aidan grimaced and plated some more pancakes, then turned off the stove. “How was your date last night?”
Caleb struggled to control his face at the mention of last night. “Good,” he said. “Public.”
He’d almost forgotten the part where he gave away stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Aidan had eclipsed the rest of his memory. “We gave away a lot of cash. Is there more in the house? I think it would be good to keep that up. We can go out again this afternoon.”
Oz frowned. “It doesn’t seem necessary. We’re doing all these interviews. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“It can’t hurt,” Aidan said. “It’s pocket change to you, anyway. What does it matter?”
Oz had stopped tossing the necklace and was now curling his fingers carefully around it, like one of them might snatch it out of his hand. “Sure. Of course. Why not? I’ll withdraw some cash for you.”
Oz left without eating, and the four of them shared a moment of silence.
“He’s in a hurry,” Caleb said, trying to lighten the mood. They could handle Oz. They could handle Quint, too. Things were okay. Things were good, even. Here he was, sitting in this palatial kitchen, eating pancakes and carrying out a scam with his best-friend-maybe-something-else-now, and strangest of all, it seemed to be working.
16
Forty-two
Kit left and Laila volunteered to clean the kitchen, so Aidan took the opportunity to pull Caleb back into the bedroom. Caleb didn’t resist being tugged down into a long, exploratory, faintly maple-syrup-flavored kiss, but he broke away as soon as Aidan started walking them toward the bed.
“Not that I object,” he said, voice light with unreleased laughter, “but don’t we have things to do? We’re supposed to go out and be seen, and there’s another interview later. We could save this for tonight.”
“We have time,” Aidan insisted. If Caleb didn’t object, there was no reason not to press him down into the mattress, then ruck his t-shirt up over his stomach and reach for the waistband of his jeans, so Aidan did. “Why wait for later?”
“Good point,” Caleb said, distracted by the play of Aidan’s fingers against the spot under his navel. His skin was warm, and that pause to inhale between words heated something inside Aidan. He wanted to take Caleb apart, wanted to make him talk until he was wordless.
They kissed again, Caleb pulling him so they were both on the bed, their lips sliding against each other, breath slurring into moans. Aidan kept his hands between them, working Caleb’s zipper and then yanking his jeans and underwear down his hips.
Caleb was hard already, and Aidan’s own cock throbbed at the feel of it, rigid and satin-smooth, against his hand. He caressed it once, unable to stop himself, and then tore his attention away. He had plans. And Caleb wasn’t naked yet.
“Take your shirt off,” Aidan said, peeling Caleb’s jeans off his ankles, and in one fluid motion it was gone. It was impossibly heady, the sense that he could speak whatever he wanted into existence, or maybe it was the sight of Caleb making him feel this way. There was so much of him to look at, and he was so beautiful—the rosy points of his nipples, the bramble of dark hair, the soft stretch of his stomach lifting and dipping in tiny, shallow movements.
“You alright?”
“I can’t believe you just… walk around like this,” Aidan said, simultaneously irritated at how stupefied he sounded and yet still stupefied enough to bask in it. He gestured. “All the time. Not just your face, but under your clothes—that. It’s absurd.”
“I think that’s the meanest compliment I’ve ever received,” Caleb said. “Do I get to look at you or are you keeping your clothes on?”
Aidan shrugged out of his clothes without grace or ceremony, being nothing much to look at. Then he caught Caleb grinning the kind of grin that Aidan had always had to pretend—until now—wasn’t brain-melting. Dazzling. Whatever. Naked and gorgeous, Caleb was too much. Aidan made a strangled noise of appreciation. “God.”
“Articulate,” Caleb said.
“Shut up,” Aidan said. He crawled on top of Caleb and then opened the top drawer in the night stand. He pulled out a bottle of lube, expecting to get mocked for planning this in advance, but instead he was met with an instant of wide-eyed silence. The color in Caleb’s cheeks spoke volumes.
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “We’ll see who’s articulate.”
“Um, I thought we—I’ve never—what are you gonna do with that
?”
“What do you want me to do with it?” Enjoying this probably made him a bad person; so be it. Aidan had only ever been with experienced partners, which was better, or so he’d thought. But initiating someone else into a new experience made him feel powerful, wise, like he was the keeper of some arcane secret. More than that, there was pride and deeply gratifying pleasure in finding something that Caleb had never tried with anyone else. Not one of his girlfriends had done this with him. Caleb obviously wanted it, but he’d never asked anyone.
He was going to ask Aidan.
The heat suffusing him was tinged with something selfish, jealous, and impure, and it was hot as fuck. He’d be thinking about the way Caleb looked right now—eyes trained on Aidan’s hand, the red curve of his lower lip caught between his teeth, yearning inscribed in his posture—for a long time.
Caleb hadn’t said anything in answer to his question. Relishing every second of slow movement, Aidan reached for the drawer again. “I can put it back if you’re not interested.”
“No! I mean, yes, I do—I am. Uh. Interested.”
“In what?”
For a second, Aidan thought he wasn’t going to say it. Caleb collected himself, so slowly and so physically it was as if Aidan could see the words take shape in his throat. “You, fucking me.”
“Oh. Is that what we’re talking about?” Caleb rolled his eyes and Aidan broke into a grin. “What a coincidence. I am also interested in me, fucking you.”
Aidan positioned himself between Caleb’s spread thighs, coated the fingers of one hand with lube, and set the bottle aside. With his other hand, he took hold of Caleb’s cock, full and flushed and dripping on his stomach, and gave it a stroke.
Caleb sucked in a breath. Aidan could feel the same air being drawn from his own lungs. He wanted this very, very badly. Probably more than Caleb did, since this wasn’t an experiment. The act held no novelty. Pressing a slick fingertip to the most intimate part of Caleb’s body didn’t qualify as adventurous, for him.
Out of Nowhere Page 17