“Wake up,” Hollis gently shook him, unable to deal with the terror lacing his voice. “Please, wake up!”
Ian only struggled more. Hollis tightened his arms and that seemed to send the sleeping Ian into a complete panic. He yelled and tried to swing his arms but Hollis had him too tight. Then he suddenly went slack.
All three waited silently, Hollis holding his breath.
“Looks like he knocked over one of those casserole dishes. They always explode like this if they hit just right.” Noah squatted and started picking up the larger pieces. “I broke one before.”
“Hey, babe, stop. Let me get you some shoes.” Rowe set the broom against the wall and left the room. When he came back, he had Hollis’s shoes, too. “We’re going to have to clean your feet—both of you—before you can put the shoes on. Shit.” He looked around. “The counters are clear. Can you guys hop up and sit on them while I sweep this up?”
Hollis found a smile—a shitty one, he knew—but a smile nonetheless. “You expect me to jump while holding him? GQ here may be smaller, but he’s got enough muscle tone to make him a little too heavy for that, you know?”
He looked down to find Ian’s eyes open and staring at him. Realization slowly bled into them and he closed his eyes and groaned. “Again? Shit. I did it again?”
“You did. And apparently, this time, you had a war with a casserole dish.” Hollis set Ian on the counter, reached out to grab the paper towel roll, and bent to start picking up glass. He glanced up at the blood dripping down Ian’s legs. “We’ll get some of this glass cleaned up so we can move and then I’ll take care of your legs.” He winked, trying to lighten the situation.
When Ian didn’t respond, he stopped swiping up glass. Rowe, who had been quickly sweeping around them, stopped as well.
“I’m so sorry,” Ian whispered. “This is so fucking embarrassing.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Hollis answered. “Nothing.”
“It’s so humiliating. It’s why I’ve never—” He stopped speaking, swallowed audibly. “And I never knew why I did this. Until now.”
Hollis stood, tossed the glass-filled paper towels into the trash can Rowe had brought in. He made sure he didn’t have any small slivers on his hands then put them on Ian’s thighs. “You remembered something else, didn’t you?”
Ian nodded, his jaw clenched tightly, his lips thinned into a taut line. He looked away from Hollis and Hollis wasn’t having that. He managed not to wince when he stepped closer to Ian, sending the glass deeper into his feet. He lifted Ian’s chin. “Hey, you okay?”
“Mortified is what I am.” But he wrapped his fingers around Hollis’s wrist and held on.
“This doesn’t change how I feel. How could it?” He leaned in and kissed Ian, feeling the slight trembling of his body.
“Hey,” Noah said next to them. He set a first aid kit on the counter. “Rowe has most of the glass up. Let’s clean his legs.”
“I can do that.” Ian nodded his thanks and opened the kit. He picked up a pair of tweezers.
“I’ll be able to see them better,” Hollis said, snatching the tweezers out of Ian’s hand. “I can get closer to your knees.”
“I’m limber,” Ian snapped and took them back.
“True. Very.” Hollis knew his grin was positively wicked. He expected some kind of comment from Rowe over that and when none came, he turned to find the man watching Ian closely.
Ian’s hands were shaking. There was no way he could get the glass out of his knees and palms. Hollis quietly took the tweezers with another gentle kiss and this time Ian gave them up without a fight. He slumped against Hollis and suddenly wrapped his arms around him. That trembling ran throughout his body. Ian buried his face in Hollis’s neck.
Hollis held him close, feeling the slam of his heartbeat against his chest.
When Ian took a deep breath as if preparing to speak, Hollis was sure whatever Ian was about to share was going to kill him.
“White…” Ian trailed off, his breath stuttering against Hollis’s skin. “I think I know what it meant. No, I know. It has to do with an old schoolhouse in an abandoned town called White Rock. That name I told you from the gravestone—Akeldama—is in a cemetery not too far from the building. They’re the only things left.” He let go of Hollis and cleared his throat. “It’s a ghost town Jagger took me to when I was seventeen.”
They were all silent and Hollis knew the others were feeling the creeping dread he was. There was more to Ian’s story, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“I’d blocked the memory because it was the first time he—” He looked down at his palms, frowned, and pulled out a tiny sliver of glass with his fingernails. “He wanted to have sex in the building and it had creeped me out. I was just seventeen, and it was the only time he’d let me out of the house in over a year. I said I didn’t want to. He got so mad.” He pulled out another shard. “Jagger never likes to hear the word no. That’s when he, uh, shared me with his men. The first time, anyway.” Ian glanced over at Rowe. “One was Dwight Gratton.”