Page 8 of Knox's Boy

I shifted closer, sliding my arm around the bundled cashmere. He was rigid, his muscles locked tight as stone. I pulled him in. It was a risk, touching a panicked animal usually resulted in a bite, but I needed him to feel something other thanhis own catastrophic thoughts. I pressed his head against my chest, right over my heart, and held him there with a firm grip.

"Breathe," I instructed. "Listen to my heart. Match it. In... and out."

I exaggerated my own breathing, expanding my ribs against his cheek. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a feverish, sickly warmth of adrenaline.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," I murmured into his hair. My hand moved in slow circles on his back, rubbing the tension from his spine. "We stop here. We can just talk. You are safe."

The wordsafeseemed to cut the strings holding him.

He crumbled. The rigidity left his body all at once, replaced by a violent trembling that shook the sofa. A sob ripped its way out of his throat. He curled smaller under the throw, pulling his knees up to his chest until he was a ball of misery pressed against my side.

"I can't," he choked out, his voice wet and broken. "I… I'm… I'm very sorry."

"Shh. Don't apologize." I kept my hand moving, comforting him. "Tell me. Talk to me, Florian. What is happening inside that head of yours?"

He buried his face in my shirt, ruining the Egyptian cotton with tears and snot, and I didn't care in the slightest.

"My dad," he gasped between sobs. "He... Finn... he keeps asking. He texts me. He needs money for booze, or he loses it. And Mom... she just left. She packed two suitcases and went to Russia and left me with him."

I listened, my jaw tightening until my teeth ached. The pieces fell into place.

"I'm so tired," he whispered, the admission quiet. "I'm working at the store, and I'm failing my classes because I can't afford the books... and I got the eviction notice. I thought... I thought I could do this," he gestured vaguely to his own body. "I thought I could just shut off and let you do whatever. But when you started talking... when you said... I got so scared. I'm sorry. Sorry for ruining everything, I’m a disaster."

I closed my eyes for a moment, absorbing the weight of his confession. He was twenty-one, legally an adult, but sitting here, he was a child who had been failed by every adult who was supposed to protect him.

"You have been carrying a load meant for three people, and you have been doing it with no support."

I pulled back slightly, just enough to look down at him. His face was a wreck, eyes red-rimmed and swollen, lips parted, cheeks flushed and wet. He looked devastatingly beautiful.

"Is that what you believe? That your worth is measured by how much pain you can endure?" I asked softly.

He looked up at me, blinking tears from his lashes. "That's how it works, isn't it? You suffer, you survive. There ain't no rest for the wicked."

"You are not wicked, Florian." I brushed a damp lock of blond hair away from his forehead. "And you don't have to suffer here. My house has walls. It keeps the world out. It is just us. At least for tonight."

His breathing hitched one last time, a jagged intake of air, but the hyperventilation had stopped. He slumped against me, the adrenaline crash leaving him limp.

"I’m sorry," he said, his voice small, and I felt him trying to get away from me, but I held him in place. I knew he still needed it, and he melted against me again, impossibly tired.

"No apologies," I said. "We can just talk. Or silence. Whatever you need."

He nodded against my chest, his hand creeping out from the blanket to grip the fabric of my shirt. It was a tentative, unconscious seeking of connection. I covered his hand with my own, my large palm completely engulfing his fingers. He didn't pull away. He just breathed, slow and deep, syncing his rhythm to mine, surrendering not to my dominance, but to my care.

We stayed there for a while. I felt the tension drain from his frame, replaced by a heavy, profound exhaustion that made him seem even smaller.

When he was ready, Florian pulled away from my chest slowly, peeling himself off me. He sat back on his heels, curling into the corner of the sofa, and dragged the edge of the charcoal cashmere throw across his face. The wool came away damp and darkened.

He wouldn't look at me. His gaze was fixed somewhere around my knees, his shoulders hunched inward as if he were trying to fold himself into a shape small enough to disappear. The defiant spark I had seen in the coffee shop had completely collapsed.

"I'm such an embarrassment," he muttered, the words wet and muffled by the fabric he was clutching. He gestured vaguelyat his face, then at the wet patch on my shirt, his hand trembling. "I ruined your night. I ruined the throw. God, I can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry."

A laugh bubbled up in my chest, not a mockery, but a genuine, surprised sound that broke free. It made Florian’s head snap up. His eyes were so beautiful, still red-rimmed, the blue irises glassy, wide with confusion. He expected anger. He expected the cold dismissal of a client who hadn't received the service.

And he was beautiful. Not in spite of the mess, but because of it. Golden curls fell over his forehead, damp at the temples. His blue eyes were too bright, too open, stripped raw by the crying until there was nothing left to hide behind. The full mouth trembled. He looked wrecked and somehow luminous, like something precious that had been dropped and refused to shatter.

Without meaning to, he'd given me what I craved the most, what I really paid for: to care for a broken, vulnerable, willing boy.

"An embarrassment?" I repeated, leaning back against the armrest, allowing my posture to open up. "Florian, do you have any idea how boring perfection is?"