The Starving Years by Jordan Castillo Price Read Free Book Online

get closer to Nelson slip through his fingers. He edged Javier aside and ducked his shoulder under Nelson’s arm, touching him.  
    He felt thinner than Tim expected. Lighter. Nowhere near as tough as he’d seemed during the riot. There was no room for Marianne to bring up Nelson’s other side, but she followed them into the bedroom anyway.
    Tim sat Nelson down on the bed. Nelson’s sleeve was hanging open, baring his scratched shoulder. A tattoo, some barbed-wire tribal thing, peeked out from under the torn seam. There was blood on his damp clothes. It wasn’t quite dried, given that everything Nelson had on was soggy from the sleet, but it had probably set. His wet hair stuck to his forehead and cheeks.
    “He’s shivering,” Marianne said. “Let’s get him into something dry.”
    Tim would have thought he’d resent Marianne’s presence, when in fact, he realized he was actually so intimidated he wouldn’t have even thought of changing Nelson’s clothes himself. Marianne got down on one knee and began to take off Nelson’s shoes. Tim reassured himself she couldn’t possibly know his attraction to Nelson had him practically paralyzed, and he dug up a mismatched set of sweats.
    His hands were trembling as he slipped off Nelson’s tie and unbuttoned his ruined shirt.  
    “I hate this shirt,” Nelson slurred. “Fucking hate it.”
    Even incapacitated, he had a fighter’s spirit. It really was for the best that Marianne was there, otherwise Tim would have been tempted to strip him down and warm him by climbing on top of him to share body heat. And wouldn’t that be an awkward conversation come morning?
    Marianne straightened up and perched on the bed to help take off Nelson’s shirt, so Tim couldn’t exactly ogle like he’d wanted to. Chest hair? Yes, some…just enough. A shade darker than the sandy hair on his head. More tattoos on his chest, his other arm. Strange symbols. His physique didn’t seem very gym-sculpted, and any definition in his body was due more to his leanness…and yet there had been that open-handed punch he’d done during the protest, the hit he’d landed like a striking cobra that felled the guy attacking Marianne.
    Nelson Oliver was a mystery. No two ways about it.
    Marianne reached for Nelson’s fly, and Tim needed to check himself from knocking her hands away. “Didn’t you want to use the bathroom? I can take it from here.”
    “Don’t worry about it. I’m not compromising his virtue.” The zip of the fly as she tugged it down was ludicrously pronounced. “He won’t care what I see—he’s totally gay.”
    Tim needed to remind himself how to breathe again as Marianne dragged Nelson’s pants off.  
    “Underwear’s dry enough,” Marianne said, “but his socks are wet. Get him a dry pair of socks.”
    “Not just partially gay,” Nelson chuckled to himself as Marianne pulled off his damp socks. Tim paused and pressed his palm to the sole of Nelson’s cold foot. He held it a moment, stroked it. “You can suck my toes, if you want. I don’t think I’m into that…but I’ll try anything once.”
      Tim pulled the sock on without comment.
    Marianne said, “Remind me to never start getting migraines. Not if this is what the medicine’s like.”
    Together, they wrestled Nelson into Tim’s too-big sweatpants and tucked him into bed. He rolled to face the wall, murmuring, “Watch it, that last step’s a doozy.”
    As Tim pulled the blanket up over Nelson, marveling at the way he would never have imagined his clean sheets being put to this particular use, Marianne stepped past him and pulled the cord on the miniblinds.
    “Don’t—”
    The blinds clattered into a misshapen snarl, bunched together on one side.
    “There’s a trick to it,” he sighed.
    “Shit. It’s really not my day.”
    “Go pee,” he said, not unkindly. “I got it. And you should put something on your ear. There’s a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet.”
    “Oh, man.” She