Wait Until Dawn by Bailey Bradford (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

friend, he will probably shit sheep when he sees you getting out of this thing.” Chris gave his rig a loving look then made shooing motions with his hands until Rich got back in the cab. Chris shut the door then jogged around to his side and got in. Rich was holding the phone in front of him—and his hands were shaking.

Chris stopped in mid sit and edged over to the smaller man. “Rich? Are you going to call him?”

“I can’t,” Rich mumbled as the shaking spread up his arms. “I haven’t talked to Laine since I left McKinton. That’s where I almost—I wouldn’t answer or return his calls, and now…” He clutched the phone tightly as his voice trailed off.

“Now what?” Why was Rich going back to the place where he’d been so brutally attacked? Why would he want to go stay with someone he obviously didn’t want to talk to? Although, unless his friend, this Laine, had done something to hurt Rich, maybe talking to the man would help him.

“Now it’s either him or my father, and I hate pigs, hogs, whatever. They freak me out with those beady eyes and—” Rich took several deep breaths, but instead of relaxing him, his body seemed to coil tighter. He looked at Chris through those thick lashes and wetted his lips with his tongue. As far as distraction went, it almost had Chris begging the man to fuck him. “I have some problems. Too much Jack, too many pills, too much isolation, and the nights are…unbearable, sometimes.”

Chris couldn’t stand it. He cautiously smoothed his hands up Rich’s arms, then, when Rich didn’t protest, he dipped his hands behind the smaller man and slowly leaned in to hug him, careful to keep it loose though he wanted nothing more than to press Rich tightly to him. Rich must not have been afraid of Chris after all, because Chris quickly found himself toppling onto his ass as Rich flung himself into the hug. The man’s arms were thin, but strong. He knelt, straddling Chris’ thighs. From pelvis to shoulders, they were fitted against one another.

Chris worried about making Rich uncomfortable for all of a second before he locked his arms around him. Rich groaned and pushed against him. Chris could feel the hard ridges of the man’s collar bone and ribs. His hands traced the path of Rich’s knobby spine. Had no one held him, comforted him at all in the past year? How could they not realize Rich needed to be touched, needed the reassurance that he wasn’t—Chris cringed at Rich’s description of himself—grotesque? Why did his family and friends let him shove them away? Were they all idiots, or had Rich always been so independent that the people who loved him believed what they wanted to? Was it simply easier for them to think he’d been adjusting to his traumatic experience and that his refusal to speak to or see them meant he was doing fine? If so, that brought them right back to being idiots, in Chris’ opinion.

“Why didn’t anyone fight for you?” Chris murmured, his eyes stinging at the thought of Rich suffering alone.

Rich didn’t answer, only vibrated against Chris as he clung tighter to him. Chris held Rich and whispered soothing chants for protection and peace his mother had drilled into him. The words themselves sounded soft, like a nursery rhyme used to soothe a frightened child. When Rich’s breathing slowed, his heartbeat following suit, Chris leaned back and tugged the leather necklace off over his head. Rich looked dazed, as if shaken by the need he’d given in to. He didn’t resist when Chris slid the leather over his head, or when Chris tucked the protective crystals dangling from it under Rich’s collar.

Rich frowned then hissed as he plucked at his shirt.

“What? Did I scratch you when I put the crystals under there?” Chris was already reaching for the leather.

“It burns.”

Those softly spoken words sent a chill straight to Chris’ gut. He needed to talk to his mom as soon as possible. And Rich needed the protection, or else something wouldn’t be fighting the power channeled into the crystals.

Chris plucked the crystals out and placed them on the outside of Rich’s shirt. “Better?”

Rich nodded and started to touch the necklace then lowered his hand back to his side. Chris could see the question forming, and since he wouldn’t have an answer until he spoke to his mother about why the crystals would burn someone, he decided to deflect.

“Why don’t you let me call your friend—Laine, right?” Like Chris would forget. Laine was one of the people who’d left Rich to deal with this shit on his own. “I’ll fill him in, and you can talk to me or something so he hears you and knows I’m telling him the truth.”

“Okay, thanks.” Rich looked like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, although his hand shook a little as he pressed a button on his phone and handed it to Chris. Chris just hoped he could pretend to not want to kick Laine’s ass while he was talking to him. He wasn’t sure he could pull it off when a gruff, deep voice came on the line, but one look at Rich, his shoulders hunched and his face turned away, and Chris figured he could do whatever he had to in order to make Rich feel safe.

* * * *

An internal war woke Rich up. He bolted upright in the seat, at a loss for where he was, the surroundings unfamiliar and his head muddled with sleep and the presence, or attempted presence, of the invader and the other, the one that came to him, through him, as ice in his bones. Both were muted, but he could feel them, the evil trying to reach him, the cold trying to push it back, and both unable to get a hold on him.

“Hey, you okay?”

Rich twisted around and blinked as his sluggish brain tossed up