Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair by Amy Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

what to sell when I look like I’d scare small animals onto the road.”
    The back of his knuckles grew wet. “I’ll take care of it for now, Jer. But you gotta let me know I’m wanted, right? I killed a man for touching you—you gotta let me know you still want that.”
    Jeremy’s eyes drifted shut, but he could find a way to nod, to reassure his boy. “I dream about your hands,” he mumbled. “Your big hands. A man can’t bolt outta those hands.”
    One of those big hands moved to rest gingerly on his chest. Jeremy’s lips—still full and mending in the split places—curved upward into a smile.
     
     
    A IDEN SLEPT there on his cot that night, but he needed to fly back in the morning, and Jeremy again felt the weight of his presence on Ariadne.
    He tried to keep himself busy with television—which was getting easier now that he had an unobstructed view—and knitting and such. He’d even asked Aiden to get him some books on tape, and the boy brought him an MP3 player as a late Christmas gift, just loaded with as many free titles as he could find. So he thought he was doing her a favor, not talking, letting the silence sort of seep into the quiet room. He liked a good silence—the barn back home had some of the best.
    “You’ve got more to offer than a pretty face.” She spoke out of the wild blue.
    Jeremy fumbled for the Off button for the MP3 player and tried not to impale himself on the knitting needle he’d propped in his useless hand. “I beg your pardon? Sorry, Ari—I thought you were sleeping.”
    “You were trying to give me space, and I appreciate that,” she said crisply, and Jeremy sat up and turned a little so he could see her.
    “You look better than last night,” he said, relieved. “All these people here when you should be trying to rest….” They probably shouldn’t even be there together, a boy and a girl in the same room. But he understood that Craw and Ariadne had insisted, and he was grateful. Besides, he was gay. They pulled the curtains for Ari’s personal girl stuff and his personal boy stuff, and seriously, neither of them gave a shit about the naked. He’d already realized that without Ariadne, he might not have made it through the first week.
    “No, no. It’s okay.” He could see her smile, and it sure did make her plain face—thin and sharp as a hatchet when she frowned—pretty. “But I suspect they tire you out too.”
    Jeremy sighed. He couldn’t deny it. “All but Aiden,” he said apologetically.
    “Yeah. I figured. Rory is like that. He could be happy if it was just him and me in a cabin, no people at all.”
    “It’s just”—and Jeremy thought maybe Ariadne would understand this when Aiden wouldn’t—“I care for them all. It’s hard, ’cause everything you say needs to be picked apart by all these people who care for you, and you got to pay attention and make sure you don’t say nothin’ that’s gonna make ’em mad or sad. It’s like working a con, but on people who know you’re a con man.” He sighed. “Hardest work I’ve ever done.” Ah, but the night before, just Aiden and him—that had been sweet. “I miss my boy something awful.”
    He heard a suspicious sniffle and gingerly rolled a little, just in time to see her wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. “I miss Rory every day. Even when he’s here. There’s just… just magic words in seeing someone every day, and you don’t get that when every visit’s an occasion.”
    Jeremy smiled, thinking of the comfort of just having Aiden sitting at the kitchen table, doing his homework. “Magic words,” he murmured. “Magic silences.” He had another memory of Oscar sitting on the bed, counting money from a recent job. Jeremy had been around eleven, and the hotel television was broken, and he hadn’t had a book or a pen or even a scrap of paper to divert his mind. He knew better than to talk when Oscar was counting, so he’d gone inside his head and dreamed of dinner.