Page 21 of Seamus's Basement
“Are you offering me a place to crash for the night?” DJ asked.
“It’s late. You’re tired. I have space. And…” Was DJ already agreeing? That was unexpected. “You should stay here.”
“Okay,” he said as he stood.
“Really?” He was taken aback.
“Did you want me to say no?” DJ looked amused.
“No, not at all.” Seamus rose from the couch. “But I didn’t think you’d agree.”
“Well, you’re not wrong. Normally, I wouldn’t, but my apartment has been having plumbing issues forever and my landlord turned the water off this morning so someone could work on it and then he texted me earlier and said he wouldn’t be able to get it back on until tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Seamus considered that information. “Then why didn’t you ask me to stay here?”
“I can handle a night without water.” DJ shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time, that building’s a mess. But staying here is much better.”
“You can stay as long as you need.”
“Thanks. He’ll probably get it figured out tomorrow.”
Was it wrong of Seamus to hope that wouldn’t happen?
“I’m going to grab a quick shower.” DJ turned and started walking toward the hallway at the end of his living space, which led to the bedrooms.
“I’ll go find you something to sleep in.”
It took him a while because he was much larger than DJ, but he eventually found a pair of shorts with a tie-waist and a shirt that probably wouldn’t fall off him. “I brought you some clothes,” he said as he knocked on and then opened the door.
DJ was standing at the bathroom sink, brushing his teeth with a towel wrapped around his waist. Although he was short and his frame was narrow, every inch of his body was covered in sinewy muscles. His pectorals were firm, his abdominals had a defined eight pack, even his obliques and hips were segmented with lines of muscle. There was nothing feminine about DJ’s build, and strangely, Seamus didn’t find that unappealing. In fact, he was drawn to the firm, hard lines, his fingers itching to trace them.
“Seamus? Are you okay?” DJ was walking toward him, no longer holding a toothbrush, making him realize he had been staring a long time.
He needed to say something light and leave the room, but instead the words that came out of his mouth were: “You usually wear baggy clothes, so I never noticed, but you’re built. Do you work out a lot?”
“I work a lot period,” he responded. “I run around, lift things. I use my body at work, all day every day. Been doing that since I was a kid. It builds strength.”
“I can see that.” He dragged his gaze up and down DJ’s now close body, carefully examining him. He wondered if DJ would be offended if he asked to touch him, and he would have done exactly that if hadn’t noticed something that snapped his brain back to reality.
“Are those bruises?” He dropped the clothes, squatted, and reached his hand out, lightly touching DJ’s skin for a very different reason than he had initially intended. “They are.” He followed a bruise on DJ’s side around his back and saw more. His chest, stomach, and back were littered with bruises, some were barely visible, others a darker yellow, there were even some purple ones. “Why do you have so many bruises?” he asked, sounding as horrified as he felt. “DJ, what the hell is going on? Is someone hurting you?”
Chapter 7
Like a deer in the headlights, DJ froze and stared at Seamus while trying to figure out how to get out of answering his question.
“DJ?” Seamus looked up at him from his crouch on the floor. “I need you to answer me.”
His effort to avoid the problem was as effective as the deer’s. He racked his brain as he tried to come up with a way to say something that would explain his injuries without lying to his husband. He was drawing a blank.
“DJ, please.” Seamus stood up. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t need help.” He had managed mostly on his own since he was a kid. Sure, his sister had been there for some of that time, and she loved him dearly, but she had been so depressed about leaving Claddagh and so fixated on returning that she hadn’t noticed how bad their grandfather’s gambling truly was or its ramifications. She was long gone by the time he died, and DJ was the only person left to clean up his mistakes. “I’m handling it.”
“Clearly, you’re not,” Seamus snapped.
DJ had never seen him angry, and he felt bad for causing it, but he didn’t want to drag Seamus into his mess.
“I’m going to take off.” He turned around to retrieve his clothes from the bathroom. “Thanks for letting me shower here. I won’t need water again tonight.”
