Page 50 of Shades of Henry
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Henry’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I have no place, no right, to interfere in whatever you’re doing, however you live your life. But if you’re waiting for me not to worry, it’s not going to happen. You’re a doctor. You havegotto know all the bad things—”
“Heart murmurs, permanent acid reflux, rotting teeth?” Lance let out a bitter laugh. “I am aware.”
“Yeah.” Henry dropped a kiss on his temple. “So when I’m off the hook, and you and me are still sleeping together, and we manage to find a bed of our own, I think we should have a long talk about how we can help you not hurt yourself anymore.”
Lance squeezed his eyes shut really tight, like he was trying to hold something back. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” Henry whispered, feeling Lance’s tremble against him. “I think so.”
“Can we talk about the ra—”
Henry made a harsh sound, because he still couldn’t say the word. Fucking Malachi—leaving him with this thing that had been done to him against his consent. “Then,” he croaked. “Then we can.”
“But not now.” Lance sighed.
Henry held him a little tighter. “We can’t do anything about mine,” he said helplessly. “We can do something about yours.”
“Oh, Henry—” Lance turned toward him, and Henry silenced him with a kiss. He pulled back tasting salt.
“Did the thing….” He swallowed. “The thing with Malachi make you not want to be with me?”
“No.” Lance leaned his forehead against Henry’s, and Henry got the feeling they were propping each other up.
“Bulimia doesn’t make me not want to be with you.” Henry closed his eyes. “It makes me want to shake you until you know you’re perfect, but I still want to be with you.”
Lance brought his hand up to wipe his face off. Henry grabbed a napkin from the table and started to mop up. He was so beautiful, even with his eyes puffing up.
“Can you try to eat a little for me?” he practically begged. “Stop if you think you’ll have to hurl. Just a little. So you know I made you something good.”
Lance nodded. “It was sweet of you to cook.” His voice came out rusty, and Henry moved away a smidge to give him some room. “Talk to me. Tell me about your day.”
“It wasn’t bad,” Henry said, swallowing past the lump in his throat. For once, he had good news and good stories to tell. “Rivers looks… well, I want to say sick, but mostly pale. Like his lips are a shade away from blue. He said something about heart failure back in November. I guess he was really sick and he fell into a swimming pool—”
Lance sat up and frowned. “Wait.Wait.Oh my God. His name. I never got a chance to look him up. I kept thinking Jackson Rivers and Ellery Cramer sounded really familiar. Butthat’sringing some bells.”
“The swimming pool?”
“He ended up in the cardiac ward. He wasn’t my patient, or my attending’s patient, but word gets around. His doctor wrote apaperabout him.”
Henry blinked. “So you actually met the guy, and nothing. But his heart condition you remember?”
Henry had turned the light on over the table, and it made it easier to track the flush across Lance’s cheeks. “Look, it doesn’t happen often. He was sick, like, if he hadn’t fallen into the pool and gotten stabbed, he would have needed to be brought in anyway. His temperature had to be around 104, 105 before the cold water hit him. Do you knowwhyhis temperature was so high?”
“Hit me.” After three days in the guy’s company, Henry could buy anything.
“He was chasinga serial killeraround an empty apartment complex. The Dirty/Pretty Killer—”
“Oh my God,” Henry said. “We heard about thatoverseas.”
“Right? So this PI guy, the guy trying to prove you innocent, he’s the guy who caught the Dirty/Pretty Killer?”
Henry let out a gasp of laughter. “Wow. So, that figures.”
“How?” Lance’s shame, his sadness had evaporated, and Henry would do anything to keep that going.
“Well, like… just him. Like he wouldn’t mention it—wouldn’t brag. Wouldn’t say, ‘Look, Junior, I’m pretty good at this, maybe back off.’ Instead he….” Henry bit his lip, sort of excited about this, in spite of the worry. “He showed me how to get my PI license, the classes to take, the test. Gave me links. So you know, I applied to junior college. Now I have some classes to add in the fall. I’ve got like… like—assuming I’m not in jail or anything….”
“A thing,” Lance said, looking surprised. “You have a thing you want to do.” Then his expression darkened. “Adangerousthing. You have adangerousthing to—”
