Page 106 of Bonds of Fate

“For me? What…ohhh. Wow.” He lifts the scented lotion, smells the vanilla coconut, and grins! “This smells like my mom, a bit? She used to smell like coconuts. It was a perfume she loved. Um…Coconut Sun.I love it, thank you!”

Grayson is relieved these “gifts” aren’t an incentive for bad memories. It’s a pleasure to watch as Nix makes it through the entire bag, smelling and opening products, even wrinkling his nose at a tea-tree toner, which Grayson surreptitiously sticks back in the bag.

When he finally gets to the hair color, his eyes jump to Grayson’s. “Really?”

It’s all Grayson can do not to cry at the hesitancy, as if Grayson might have given it only to take it away. “Of course, Angel. We can do it right now. Which one do you like?”

“Which one doyoulike, Gray?” He’s agitated, holding each box ‌and checking Grayson’s reaction. It’s upsetting to think that perhaps it’s that he’s not been allowed to choose or fears making the “wrong” choice.

“It’s your hair, and you can choose. It’s you who needs to like it, but for the record, any of them will look beautiful because it’s you.” Corny? Yes. But it makes his mate blush, and Grayson has no regrets.

In the end, they mix the sable and the mocha together, but not before Grayson runs to the laundry room for an old towel because Nix will not risk his new yellow ones. He removes his new white shirt, folds it over the side of the tub, and straddles the toilet lid.

It’s not hard to cover the bleached blond hair, and when Grayson sets the timer for thirty minutes, there is nothing to do but wait.

Nix sits carefully on the lid so as not to get the color anywhere it’s not supposed to be, and Grayson remembers to get a wipe to clean around his hairline and over his tiny, perfect ears. The wolf is elated to be grooming their mate, and that joy is easing Grayson’s earlier worry about Nix’s choices.

If he doesn’t think about it now, maybe it’ll get better when he does. Distract and deny.That’s a thing, right?

“Thank you for buying me all those things. You’ll have to show me how to use most of them, but then maybe I’ll be as beautiful as you, huh?”

“You could not use anything for the rest of your life, Angel, and you would still be the most beautiful person I have ever seen.”

“Maybe you won’t like the brown hair?” The memory of Nix saying that Hayes likes the blond surfaces and Grayson’s wolf growls.

“I would think that if you were fucking bald.”

“I doubt that. I think I’ve got too many bumps on my head for it to be pretty without hair. Oh, huh. Finn said the transition took care of that. So maybe Ishouldshave it all off?”

His voice fades a bit as if he’s telling a story unrelated to himself—conversational and distant.

“I tried once after he bleached it the first time. The product burned my scalp, and it wouldn’t stop even after I washed it off.It was driving me crazy, ya know? I hadn’t gotten…very far, just a few hairs at my temple…”

He touches the spot, his hand shaking slightly.

Grayson feels a surge of nausea. He wants to clamp a hand over Nix’s mouth to beg him to stop.

“But he was so angry. Said I was so ugly with hair that he’d have to take me out and shoot me if I were bald. He…uh…well, I can tell you that I wish he had shot me,” Nix whispers, the last breath coming in and out in soft, panting breaths.

“Angel—” Grayson gags, trying to hold back a surge of bile, but in the end, he can’t, and he vomits the ice cream into the sink. It’s not sanitary—he fucking knows that—but it’s better than on the floor or on that pale yellow bathmat.

“Grayson! Oh, fuck. I am sorry. I don’t know why I said all that. I didn’t mean for it to hurt you. I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up.”

Grayson’s soul burns in grief. His Angel is living a life where even the mundane can be a minefield. “No. Please. I’m the one who is sorry. Everything I do hurts you. How can I do this? How areyoudoing this life?”

“It’s easy. I am so happy here with you. With seven people who love me and care for me, and give me yellow towels and t-shirts that say,He’s My Baby, and who bring meCoconut Sun-smelling lotion so I can remember my mom. I can choose to wear pants or, go in the hot tub or watchPrincess Bride. I can choose if I want pizza or noodles, and I can eat whatever I want and how much I want because Finn says it’s okay. Is it okay that I do that?”

“You can eat whatever you want, anytime.” Grayson will make a point of finding out what foods he loves and having them every single day. He’s 100% sure he can get Gideon on board.

“See? And I have my first friend in Arlo, and maybe someday I’ll choose to have a baby like him, and never again will someonechoose my hair color but me. I get to choose, and it’s the best I’ve felt in forever.”

He gets to choose.

This is what Jay meant about choices. Grayson gets it now, even if it stings. Nix has never been able to choose. Not the small, everyday things that make a person feel like a person, and certainly never the big ones like bodily autonomy or whether he can live a life unconstrained by pain and fear—the choices that make a person trulyfree.

He can’t resist pulling Nix into his arms, and he can only whisper broken pleas for forgiveness and a small prayer to the Goddess that she will protect their angel.

The timer blares on Grayson’s phone, but Nix hugs him extra hard through it. “We should wash this out before we shock Jay with your shiny bald head. Come on.”

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