RUIN: A M/M Romance Novel

by Daya Daniels

  “I hate that little second right when I open a soda can and all the fucking foam gets on my fingers.” I smile. “Don’t you hate that?”

  Doctor Azad rolls his eyes, doesn’t answer my question and continues to speak. “Not just the anger or the resentment you have toward your parents. You really have to talk so that we can understand where it’s all coming from.” He sighs.

  I remain silent, fists balled at my sides, just wanting to get the fuck out of here. “Well, I suppose I haven’t had the worse life. My mother never made me do crack.” I glance at Ryker’s file on the desk.

  Doctor Azad sits forward, nudges it out of the pile and picks it up, stares at it and tosses it across the desk as if the presence of it baffles him. His brows arch. “I’d steer clear of that one if I were you, Griffon.”

  My eyes narrow.

  He runs a hand over his beard. “Right now, you need to focus on getting better, not racking up love interests.” He twirls the thick band on his ring finger.

  I look away from him when he expects me to say more.

  “What are your plans for the future?” The leather groans when he leaves his chair. He shrugs out of his white jacket, hangs it on a hook, then moves to sit on the edge of his desk in front of me.

  “I don’t know. I’m in school. I have a job that sucks but I’m livin’.”

  Nodding, he removes his glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief. “You have a lot more going for yourself, Griffon, than some others I know. In that entire group out there, I’d say you have the best chance of recovering out of all of them.”

  I scoff and look away from him.

  “You do.” He glares at me. “And remember, rehabilitation is an ongoing process.”

  I nod, nod, nod, finding his voice irritating.

  He moves across the room and snatches up his satchel and keys. “I don’t usually leave this facility at night, but I do have a date with my husband, Manish.”

  With bent brows, I sit up straighter.

  Manish?

  A man.

  The question must be written all over my face.

  Doctor Azad smiles. “Believe it or not, I understand you more than you think, Griffon.”

  I run a hand through my hair, sorting out my shit because I’m lost for words.

  Standing, I amble across the room to the door where Doctor Azad lingers.

  He places a hand on my shoulder. “Get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we’ll talk more. In the meantime…”

  I avoid Doctor Azad’s eyes.

  I can’t stop thinking about him, haven’t been able to ever since I heard that sad, sad story. The boy in desperate need of attention. The one who has big blue eyes, a dimple in his cheek and a melancholy soul that seems like it needs more and who has a smile like the devil himself.

  A boy who reminds me so much of…I don’t know…me.

  Fuck.

  I can’t stop wondering about how he’s doing, what he’s doing and where he is.

  Is he sitting in his room alone? Is he telling more stories about his life to those who want to listen. Is he gazing out at the stars wondering how they manage to shine so bright even though they’re far away from Earth and in a cold, lonely place.

  My mind wars with itself.

  I can’t say anything as of lately has had this effect on me.

  Not when my cat, Zorro, died. Not when Giovanni told me he couldn’t pay the rent for those few months after Giulia died. Not even when they announced who the new White House staff would be.

  There’s very little in life I put energy into caring about.

  And this guy isn’t one of those irrelevant things.

  I keep my head low, hoping that my curiosity is kicked back behind my expression.

  I don’t believe it is.

  Glancing out the window, something catches my interest…

  Doctor Azad observes me carefully. Then his face scrunches up as though his next words are about to bring him severe pain. “Please stay away from Ryker Benedict.”

  “Yeah.” I edge past him and out the door.

  Most things in life are easier said than done…

  RYKER

  THIS IS THE MOST beautiful time of the night when the warm air sparkles and the full moon is high, its craters visible with the naked eye, surrounded by twinkling stars.

  I let out a breath and puff some smoke up in the air, making perfect Os right before they drift off with the soft breeze.

  It’s peaceful out here. No one is here to force you to talk and under the cover of darkness no one can search your face. It’s the only time I have in this shithole when I can truly relax.

  I look out in the distance and exhale, taking a few more drags of the cigarette.

  The double doors a few feet away push open.

  Boots hit the stone. An unfamiliar masculine scent wafts my way. I ignore it all and keep puffing away, staring up at the moon and the stars that are lightyears away, wishing I could touch them with my fingertips.

  I glance just over my shoulder just as Griffon plops down on a bench.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I say blithely, not looking at him.

  He pulls out a pen, keeps his head of dark hair low, concealing his eyes. Then those smoky grays of his land on me, stealing my air away just a little.

  It surprises me that he says nothing.

  This guy doesn’t want to talk to anyone, that’s clear.

  For just a second, I wonder exactly how many words are in his vocabulary period. Maybe three or four.

  He sketches in the book in front of him, using angry long strokes, working quickly, brows knotted as he completes the work.

  “I said I don’t want to talk to you.” I wait to get his attention.

  He offers me none of it, just keeps drawing.

  I laugh a little, puffing on the last of the cigarette between my fingers.

  “Don’t you want to know all about me, Griffon Russo?” I shift in my seat. “I saw the way you were looking at me earlier.” I smile, waiting for some words.

  “What’s there to know?”

  “Lots.” I flick the cigarette onto the stone at his feet near his boots.

  He glares at the burning end of it then gets back to drawing when it goes out.

  “There’s lots to know about me.” I smirk.

  “What could there be to know about some poor crack baby?”

  I jerk my head back at his words.

  Now, I want him to shut up.

  He lifts his head, giving me a disinterested look. “Besides, I don’t have to ask you any questions. Clearly, you spill your guts for the world without much effort. If I make no effort to speak to you, it’s obvious you’ll ruin my hour of peace and quiet and tell me all about your pathetic life yourself.” He gestures with his hand.

  Something like heat rips its way up the back of my spine making me shoot from my seat and march over to him. I take a seat across from him, making myself comfortable on the bench.

  He continues to draw.

  I lean in, hissing. “Hey, my life is not pathetic.” The words leave my mouth like a declaration.

  “If you say so.”

  I knock the book out of his hands.

  WHAP.

  It hits the stone.

  The pages flip in the breeze when it falls open.

  Griffon glares at me, gray eyes smoking, jaw tight.

  I bet he wants to punch me right about now.

  But, he doesn’t make a move, only gazes at me.

  I’m pissed but the longer he keeps that look on his face, I crumble just a little, lower my eyes and then look away.

  Reaching into his pocket, he finds a cigarette.

  Quickly, I light it for him without asking. Then I collect the book from the ground and place it back in front of him, slowly looking for the page it had been on. As I go through them, I find sketches—flowers, people, famous sites. They’re amazing.

  I expect him to explain, but nope. Instead, he slams the book shut
and places it on the bench next to him, away from my view. Then he turns away from me and puffs on the cigarette leisurely, staring up at the thick clouds floating past the moon.

  I’ve lost his attention.

  I light up another cigarette and keep my eyes on him like I own him.

  He doesn’t spare me one glance.

  “What’s your story?” I lean in.

  “No story. I don’t think it’s as pathetic as yours. I’m just your standard. ‘A kid who has a dead mother and a shitty attitude’ sort of thing. I picked my poison a long time ago and can’t seem to stop doing it.”

  “I see.” I pull out the box of cigarettes and tap on it twice.

  He drags his fingers through his dark strands. The moonlight catches the bone structure of his face, accentuating the lines, making him look more like art than a human being.

  I stop myself from smiling big. “You got any friends?” I don’t know why I just asked that. A guy like this one doesn’t have friends. He’s an asshole. I’d spotted him not once but twice since I’ve been here today not just giving the staff here shit but some of the patients too. He’s a loner. Weird. Quiet. A fucking freak.

  “Nope, I don’t have any friends.” His eyes meet mine, unblinking. “And I quite like it that way.”

  I laugh. “No, you don’t. Everyone needs a friend, Griffon.”

  “Look, stop saying my name like that, like we know each other. You don’t know dick about me. All you did was tell some sob story a few hours ago that caught my interest, that’s all.”

  I smile.

  He’s riled up deep inside, although on the surface he’s as cool as a freshly made strawberry margarita.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  His eyes soften just a little. “It’s cool.”

  He smiles.

  I put my cigarette out in the ashtray on the table between us. “How long have you got here?”

  “Not much longer if I talk.”

  “So why don’t you then?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Because I don’t fucking want to.”

  “It’ll make you feel better.”

  He laughs for a while. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Oh, you don’t believe me? I love to talk, makes me feel better until another problem arises then I must do it again.”

  “Good for you. You must have Oprah on speed dial then.”

  I suppose I could.

  “No, I don’t, but I love to talk. I love when people listen to me.”

  Because no one listens to me…

  He plucks his cigarette from between his full lips, stubs it out in the ashtray, then faces me head-on. His hair ruffles in the breeze. A few strands drift across his forehead. He blinks, gifting me with the sight of long dark lashes which edge his big gray eyes that grip my soul and hold on tight. All the beauty rests beneath thick dark brows that are untouched—not trimmed or shaped.

  I grunt when I realize what the sight of the face in front of me does to my balls.

  And just a little, it annoys me.

  A breath leaves me. “When I was a boy, I moved around a lot. I was shopped around from home to home. Family to family. It was crazy. I wondered if I’d ever find a real family.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  It’s quiet for a while.

  “Did you ever find one?”

  “No.”

  Griffon swallows. “I’m sorry about that too.” He rubs his cheek then shoves his fingers into his dark hair, grooming it, then relaxes and graces me with the most adorable look. I see nothing in it but curiosity and patience and something else I can’t quite make out. And right now, beneath his soft gaze, I’m a wilting rose reaching for the sun, basking in its warmth. “Is that why you use?” He frowns.

  I resist the urge to laugh out loud.

  A drug addict questioning the motives and reasons of another drug addict.

  It’s like Adam Lambert calling EJ too flamboyant.

  Griffon’s eyes are still sad beneath the light and something tells me everything he’s offering me up he doesn’t mean to. No one gets this.

  So why in the fuck is he giving it to me?

  I run with it anyways, unable to resist how being adored makes me feel.

  For a beat, I wonder if it will become yet another addiction of mine…

  Being beneath this gaze, growing hard for his touch, desperate to know what this dude will say next or if he’ll say anything at all. The idea is tantalizing.

  I shift position and stretch my arms out in front of him.

  He grabs the hem of my shirt sleeve and pushes it up, then traces his fingers over the scars across my wrist. “Is it all why you do this? It is all why you use?”

  I don’t move. I say nothing. I hardly breathe.

  His eyes hold me in place, keep my lips shut and cause every nerve ending inside my body to short-circuit.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  And just like that, he falls.

  GRIFFON

  MY FINGERS LINGER ON his thick wrist.

  I graze my thumb across the scars which mar his skin, resisting the urge to tell him they’re beautiful, but still not to do it again. When I stop, I cover his hand with my own, then glance up to find his pale blue eyes on me, a strange expression floats over his features.

  “You know how it feels?” His deep voice moonwalks its way into my ears and settles there.

  I shrug a little shrug.

  He blinks twice, doesn’t pull his hand away. I admire the dark hair on his forearms when he turns his hand over slowly, leaving it there.

  My eyes trace over the lines of him in the T-shirt he’s wearing. The cut of his arms. The muscles in his chest. The way thick veins crawl along his forearm like vines only hinting at the strength within this boy.

  Warm.

  Sad.

  He leans in, giving me that same gaze he had when I first saw him this morning. With slightly narrowed eyes, parted lips, and facing me head-on. I’m not sure if he’s ready to get into a brawl or if he wants to kiss me, hard.

  I’ll pass on all fronts.

  Slowly, I let his hand go and shift on the bench, finding the perfect position to stare up at the dark sky above. There’s only silence and nature that surrounds us.

  Not like how it is in the city at night when it comes alive with the honking of horns, the whirring of sirens in the distance, and the bickering of drunk people in the streets.

  At least that’s how it sounds just outside of the walk-up I live in there.

  I suck in the night air, letting it float up to my brain and calm my nerves for a moment.

  He doesn’t move, only leaves his arm outstretched in front of him. “This is your first time here.”

  I groan in response, then cut my eyes over to him, finding his blues. “I’m guessing it isn’t yours…”

  He chuckles. “No, I wish it was. I practically live here. It’s my own personal Pomfret Castle.”

  I snarl. “You sound proud.”

  “I don’t care.” The words fall quickly from his beautiful mouth, angrily even. He sucks his teeth. “You don’t give a shit that you’re here either, pointing fingers at me.”

  I stiffen. “That isn’t true.”

  His lips pull tight in a smile showing me no teeth. “It isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “It’s written all over you, Griffon. If you cared about being here you’d do everything they ask of you, including talking about your mother.”

  How does he know about that?

  He laughs like a bastard.

  My teeth clench. “I don’t like talking about her.”

  “Why not?”

  I don’t respond. “I don’t want to be friends with you, Ryker.”

  He laughs again and shudders. “I can tell you don’t want to be friends with anyone, Griffon. It’s all over you like repellant. Everything about you screams that you don’t want any friends.”

  All the muscles in my face die as he gestures in my direction with his
hands.

  He stretches, lifting his arms high, then his hands settle at the back of his neck. “Don’t worry, I get it. I don’t need anyone either.” He winks. “I get the whole independence thing. I’m the same way. It’s probably why I’m the way I am, according to the psych tests they give me around this place.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “Those tests are no closer to helping Doctor Azad figure out what’s wrong with me.”

  I stare at my hands. “You have lots of friends though, still?”

  He smiles big. “Yeah, of course, lots.” Then his grin crawls into a casket. “But do I really have friends, Griffon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t care about that either.” He pulls out another cigarette.

  I keep my eyes on him, taking in everything he does, all the little movements and mannerisms that make him him, knowing that tomorrow they’ll be etched in my brain and I won’t be able to forget them.

  I don’t know when the last time was that I sat with a stranger and they’d stuck around past the first fifteen minutes of being in my presence.

  “What’s your father like?” He tilts his head in my direction.

  “How do you know I have a father?”

  He lights the tip of his cigarette. Soon it flares up with orange. “I don’t think you do and even if you did, I don’t think he’d claim such a spaz.”

  I swallow down my laugh, then my expression becomes serious immediately.

  Ryker smiles. “Seriously, what’s he like?”

  I let out a long breath. “Honestly, he’s cool.”

  His brows arch.

  Scowling, I add, “We don’t get along. It’s complicated. I swear he has some deep issue with the fact that I’m gay.”

  “I see.”

  “Sounds cliché, right? The gay drug addict dude who ends up in rehab and has a father who hates that he’s gay.” I laugh a bit.

  “Sounds like the story of lots of boys I know…” He smiles.

  “What about your father?” I gesture with my chin in his direction.

  Ryker spins around and looks out toward the blackness and the pine trees that shadow the night sky. “He’s an asshole.” He laughs. “A really big, big, big asshole.”