Page 117 of All The Things: The Last Thing He Needs Omnibus

The answer to that one was more embarrassing than Ben realized, at least when he had to admit it to Gavin. “Saving that for something special. I’ll know it when I find it.”

Gavin didn’t ask for anything further, thank God, but he did inch his way lower. He skipped over the few places he’d looked at earlier, when Ben had stripped off his clothes. Gavin traced the line work down his thigh, over his kneecap, down his shin. Those ones were nothing special, almost like doodles that Ben had tried to work into a coherent design of leaves and flowers, vines. Gavin seemed to know without asking that they were only decorative with no real meaning behind them.

He paused to tickle Ben’s feet, made him flinch and jump and laugh, before he finally slid off him. Ben thought he might be allowed to sleep now, but no. “Turn over,” Gavin said, his voice quiet, with a hint of childish demand in it.

Ben did what he was asked, rolling his eyes and grinning as he tucked a pillow under his chin before he spread his arms out for Gavin.

He could picture each line as Gavin found them with his fingers, tickling here and there, and Ben waited for the laugh when Gavin moved higher up his legs.

Something close to a giggle slipped out when Gavin asked, “Why do you have a giant rainbow-colored rose on your ass?”

Unable to stop the groan with his answer, Ben buried his face in the pillow and said, “Because I was drunk, and my friends are dicks.”

Gavin laughed again, but he sounded like he was at least trying to stop himself. “You really need a pair of assless leather pants for that one.”

“Never would I ever.”

Gavin leaned over him and pressed a kiss just behind Ben’s ear. “Not even for me?”

For you? Probably. “No, not even for you.”

He didn’t say anything else, but Gavin did laugh again as he pulled back. He traced one finger up Ben’s spine and then trailed it over his lower back.

“That one’s—”

“Shh, lemme see if I can guess.”

Ben settled again and let Gavin work his way over each bit of ink. His back was one solid design, a landscape of his life, or the parts that really mattered, at least.

When Gavin swept the palm of his hand over the ocean tide, Ben closed his eyes and pictured it. It felt good, having Gavin touch him like this, as if he were memorizing every detail. But there was something vulnerable about it too. Most people—guys at the gym, even lovers—who’d seen him naked just looked, sometimes curious, sometimes admiringly, but it never felt like there was anything beyond that. When Gavin sat quietly and studied his body, touching the pictures and the muscles beneath, it felt like Gavin was reading him, absorbing every painful moment, every joy, every memory. It was unsettling, even if he didn’t want it to end.

“That’s your dad,” Gavin said quietly, his fingertip running over each wave on the choppy, unpredictable sea. His father had been a fisherman, so that one was maybe an easy guess. But when Gavin ran his hand higher, outlined the full moon above the sandy shore, and said, “That’s your mom.” Ben’s stomach flinched. The kid knew him too well. “Always pulling him back.”

Gavin spent a few moments on the spindly tree that wrapped around his ribs and reached high on his shoulder, scraping the invisible sky under the moon, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he searched over to the other side and traced the two lonely gulls flying high above. “That’s you and your sister.”

Ben had to ask, “How’d you know?”

Leaning close again, kissing his left shoulder where the two birds flew together, Gavin said, “You always say your parents gave you roots and wings.”

Yeah, Gavin definitely paid attention.

When he sat back again, he moved his hand over to the tree, as if he’d been considering it the whole time. When Gavin circled a small spot, Ben was sure he was tracing the outline of another small bird, frail and huddled on the longest branch. “Your baby brother?”

Ben only nodded against the pillow. Talking about Hunter was never an easy topic for him, but Gavin knew that already. Fucking car crashes. Fucking drunk drivers. Hunter had been three, Ben five. His mother was pregnant with Anna, close to term and ready to burst. Their father had taken the month off to be home when the baby was born. He’d dropped Ben off at school that morning, taken Hunter with him so their mother could get some rest. If Ben hadn’t dragged his feet that morning, or if he’d managed to talk his parents into letting him stay home from school, if they hadn’t gotten caught at the red light, or if they’d managed to get through the railroad tracks before the signal started and the train crossed, if they’d been on time that morning, maybe Hunter would still be alive.

As it turned out, that morning—like just about everything else in life—was about chance and timing. Ben was late for school, rushing to hop out of the car when his father dropped him off. Hunter was sitting in the front seat with a lap belt fastened around him, loose, pointless, but not uncommon for the time. Nowadays, a father driving around with a little kid like that would be a criminal, but then? He was just a dad out with his son.

Instead of turning right toward home, they’d taken a left turn, probably headed for the park. A car ran the light and T-boned them on Hunter’s side. Ben hadn’t been there, had only heard about it in whispers and sobs, but that didn’t stop his little boy brain from picturing it, dreaming about it for years.

Anna was born two days later. She came into the world bloodied and crying, shaking her little fists—or so their mother said. She came into a world of grief and mourning, to a woman crying for too many reasons to count. They bundled her up in a white satin blanket, and she rested quietly in their father’s arms at Hunter’s funeral. A bright spot of hope in a sea of black.

“So the tree,” Gavin started quietly. He pulled Ben out of his thoughts so quickly it was like being jerked out of a dream. “That’s, what? Heaven?”

More or less, Ben thought. “That’s family,” he said instead. “There’s a branch for everyone that’s gone now. My grandparents, Dad, my favorite aunts and uncles…” There was one for Jeremy too, but Ben figured Gavin knew that without saying.

Anyone looking at Ben would never know he carried the names on his skin, sealed in blood and ink. Everyone who ever mattered to him had a small sacred space, in his heart and on his body.

Gavin sat quietly for another long moment. He moved his hands from Ben’s back and shoulders up into his hair. Gavin stroked him like he might with a restless animal, petting Ben, maybe trying to comfort him. “I think that’s beautiful,” he whispered finally before sliding off to Ben’s side. The words sounded like condolences and wishes and loneliness all wrapped up together. Ben realized then that Gavin had very few names he’d carry with him. His family wasn’t really family. They were distant at best, hateful more often than not. Gavin had to make his own family, and lying there next to him, it dawned on Ben that Gavin had chosen him for that roster with very few others.

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