I tried to imagine someone telling X what to wear and what to study in school. It was nearly impossible. “Were you a lot different then?”
“Yes and no. I only let people see what I wanted them to see, but that meant I wasn’t sure who I really was or what I wanted. I was basically a fucking mess. All I really knew was that I wanted people to listen to me.” He ran a hand over his hair and sighed.
“You were young.”
“Probably not younger than you are now.”
“I’m twenty-five. I just don’t look it.”
“So I was four years younger.”
“And by the time you were my age, you were a Ranger.”
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“Did you think I didn’t know that?”
He laughed. “I guess you know everything.”
“Only the things there’s a record of, not anything else. Not how you felt or why you made the choices you did.”
“I felt lost after… after things went to hell.” He closed his eyes, and I ran my fingers through his hair, fixing it where he’d made it stand up.
“I can’t talk about that.”
“It’s okay. I know enough.”
“You got into those classified files?” He looked horrified.
“I thought you liked breaking the rules.”
“I worry about you. That’s a huge risk, and if there’s no reason to—”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I didn’t take that risk because I didn’t need to. I only needed to know enough about you to be comfortable working with you.” And to satisfy my insatiable curiosity as much as I could and find fantasy fodder.
“My unit was betrayed by one of our own. It was a multi-agency operation, so Leo and Niall were there too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s…” He laughed, the sound bitter. “I want to say it’s in the past, but you saw me the other night.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just reached for the ice cream. Cream and chocolate always made me feel better.
He smiled, but instead of reaching for his own spoon, he took mine from me, scooped up a bite, and lifted it to my mouth.
I pulled the delicious ice cream from the spoon slowly, holding his gaze the entire time.
“More, please,” I said after I swallowed.
He fed me another bite, and then I fed him. We took turns, not saying anything.
21
Xavier
I felt like I was in a dream world as I fed Emilio and watched him lick every bit of ice cream from the spoon.
Seeing the pleasure on his face as he ate made me want him again, but it wasn’t the urgent animalistic need from earlier. It was more a general sense of craving him near me, under me, wrapped in my arms.
Eventually, we started feeding ourselves. When the ice cream was gone, we switched to consuming chips at a rapid pace.
As my hunger abated, I turned to catch Emilio’s gaze. “You know more about me than almost anyone, but I know so little about you.”
“Surely you did a background check on me.”
“I got references and looked into your past, but like any good hacker you made sure your personal life wasn’t out there to find, at least not unless a person has skills like you.”
“I thought you always got what you wanted, including information.”
He shrugged. “I could’ve hired someone else with your skill set to look into you, but that wasn’t the point.”
He frowned and looked down at the nearly empty bag of chips. “There’s not much to tell.”
“I want to know you, Emilio. I want to know how you got into hacking. I want to know what makes you tick.”
“Mostly, black coffee, Monster Ultra Violet, and solving puzzles.”
“And controlling assholes?”
Emilio grinned. “Only when they’re crazy hot superheroes.”
“I told you I’m not—”
He held up a hand. “I know, but you’ll always be a hero to me, especially after yesterday.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
After a few moments of silence, Emilio surprised me by saying. “My childhood sucked.”
I knew his parents had died when he was eight, and he’d been put into the foster system, but I had no details of what that had been like for him. The look on his face made me want to track down every person who’d hurt him and make them pay.
“The first foster family I was assigned to was fine. They had no idea how to relate to me, and I was… I was a mess after losing my parents.”
“What kid wouldn’t be?”
He shrugged. “They took good care of me, though. They fed me generously, bought me toys, and got me a cake on my birthday. They weren’t hugely affectionate, but I never felt neglected. My foster dad got transferred three years later, and they had to move, so I was reassigned.”
I took his hand in mine. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled weakly, and I wanted so badly to be able to take his pain away.
“The next family… wasn’t nice. I was their fourth foster child, and it was clear they we’re just taking us in to get the money. They sure as hell weren’t spending it on us. There were times we went hungry, and if we complained…” He shuddered and the haunted look in his eyes made me furious that someone would hurt him like that.