NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) by Courtney Cole

his
breath but doesn’t say anything.   I
grab a clean dish-towel and wrap his hands in it, and
he leans against the counter.   As he
does, the shirt at his waistband lifts a bit, exposing a flat ribbon of his
belly.  
    The skin looks soft as velvet, although
the muscle looks hard as steel.   I
itch to run my finger along it, to touch it and find out.  
    But of course, I don’t because it’s not
exactly socially acceptable.
    “Why are you upset?” I ask instead, as I
open his freezer.   I pull out some
ice, and dump it into two baggies , one for each hand.
    Dare doesn’t open his eyes.
    “I’m not.”
    “You lie.”
    It’s a statement, not a question.  
    He sighs.
    “Maybe.”
    I push him into a kitchen chair, and hold
the ice onto his hands.  
    “Definitely.”
    He opens his eyes finally. “Do you know
what it’s like to not be able to change something?”
    I ogle him.   Seriously?  
    “My brother is crazy and my mom died in a
car crash,” I tell him.   “Of course
I know what it’s like.”
    He sighs and looks away like I’m trivial
and just don’t understand.  
    “Your brother doesn’t seem crazy,” he
answers. “I mean, from the way you’ve talked about him.”
    “That’s true,” I answer carefully.   “But just because we can’t see something
doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
    Dare looks at me, his eyes dark as
night.   “True.”
    He gets up and pulls his shirt off,
wincing slightly as he moves his hands.   He tosses the blood-splattered tee in the sink, and I can hardly breathe
on account of his abs. Rippled like a washboard, they hover in my face, and I
want to trace those ripples with my fingers, to follow the thin, dark, ‘happy
trail’ into the edge of his shorts to see where it leads.  
    But I know where it leads.  
    And that bursts my cheeks into
flame.  
    “How do you live here?” he asks quietly,
and I lift my gaze to follow his.   He’s staring out the window now, at the black smoke that billows from
the crematorium stacks.   I’m the one
who almost cringes now, at the mere fact that he recognized the smoke for what
it is.   Burning bodies.  
    I shrug.   “I’m used to it.   There are creepier places.”
    He looks at me, unconvinced.   “Oh, yeah?”
    I nod. “Yeah. I know of one off-hand.”
    “I’d like to see that place sometime,” he
tells me. “Or I won’t believe it.”
    I smile.   “Deal.   If you tell me what’s wrong with you. Why are you punishing
your hands?   What did they ever do
to you?”
    “I don’t really want to talk about it
right now,” Dare tells me, leaning once again against the counter, so casual
that it’s painful.   “Unless you’re
using one of your questions and I’m obligated to answer.”
    I don’t miss a beat.   “I am.”
    He sighs because he saw that one coming,
and I almost fall into the blackness of his eyes because they’re bottomless
wells.   “I’m mad at myself,” he
finally says, as though that’s an answer.  
    “Obviously,” I say wryly.   “But the question is…why?”
    He stares at me now, with a painful gaze,
something so wretched and awful that it makes my stomach flip.   “Because I can’t change something.   And because I’m letting it get to me,”
he finally replies.   “Something that
I can’t control.   It’s stupid.   So it pisses me off.”
    “Emotions piss you off?” I ask, my
eyebrow raised .  
    He smirks now, and the heaviness lifts.
    “They are when they’re stupid.”
    He turns to walk out of the kitchen, and
I suck in my breath hard.  
    A tattoo is inscribed across the top of
his back, spanning his shoulder blades.
    LIVE FREE.
    I’ve never seen such a fitting tattoo,
for a guy with such a fitting name.   If anyone lives free , it’s Dare .
    “I love your tattoo,” I call out to him,
as he walks from the kitchen to the bedroom, out of my sight.  
    “Freedom is an illusion,” he calls
back.  
    I want to ask him why, but I don’t