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“I told Rhast I had some things to take care of.” Garrett grabbed the forgotten stew from the other side of the desk and pushed it into Maxwell’s hands in place of the data tablet. “One of those things is you.”
If Maxwell were a different man, he’d have blushed, but fortunately, his skin never betrayed him like that, so he could give Garrett an unimpressed look over the rim of his glasses. “Oh, is it?”
“It is.” As usual, Garrett just smiled playfully in the face of Maxwell’s disinterest. He cupped Maxwell’s cheek in his rough palm and pushed Maxwell’s glasses back up his nose with his thumb. Only rigid self-control and practice held Maxwell’s spine straight instead of letting him sag into the contact.
It wasn’t the first time Garrett had touched him. No, the first time Garrett had laid a hand on him—just to the small of his back as he’d stretched over him to grab a box just out of Maxwell’s reach—Maxwell thought he might have stabbed him with a muscle relaxer his limbs went so loose. But the touch had been fleeting and casual. It always was. Garrett was simply a tactile man.
Maxwell pulled his face free of Garrett’s hand with an indignant huff, and Garrett chuckled and straightened up. He walked over to the closet and pulled out a broom. “So, how was your day, Maxwell?”
“Same as yesterday.” Maxwell pushed his chair back from his desk to put his feet on it and sighed as the blood began to flow out of them. “Plenty of people to see with plenty of issues. It’s nice, though, to finally have all the supplies I need and to know that they won’t be marching into a battle again as soon as I’m done with them.”
“Unless that battle is with the pirates.” Garrett began sweeping the room, the soft, rhythmic sounds of the broom brushing the floor making Maxwell settle more into his chair. “I just don’t even understand where they came from. I mean, the most powerful illegal group on Tava was us, and after us, it was the Carta Cartel, and they’re our allies now, so who are these fuckers?”
Maxwell raised his spoon to signal Garrett to wait as he chewed a too-large bite and then finally swallowed. “We know the answer to that now, actually.”
“We do?” Garrett paused in his sweeping and raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“They’re a break-off group from the Carta Cartel. Apparently, the Lewis Station branch thinks they’re big and strong enough to be on their own.” Maxwell stirred his food as he watched Garrett closely. “And they don’t care that the Cartel has declared Southern Tava’s carnage off-limits.”
Garrett’s face twisted in fury, and he started sweeping again with jerky, rough motions. “So they’re traitors.”
“Essentially, yes.” Maxwell set his food down on his lap. “Zyk is furious.”
“Well, maybe Zyk should have picked his friends more carefully.” Garrett swept his pile of dirt toward the door as though the dust bunnies were the traitors.
“His focus was split,” Maxwell said in a neutral voice, wary of setting Garrett off, though Garrett had never once turned any sort of anger onto Maxwell. He wasn’t particularly worried about Garrett’s anger turning onto Zyk either—the leader of the Carta Cartel had dealt with far graver threats than one hot-headed young man. “He was trying to aid the Resistance, and he didn’t notice the signs of the Lewis Station’s plotting.”
“He shouldn’t have had to notice them.” Garrett yanked open the door, shoved the pile outside, and slammed it shut again. “He should have been expecting them.”
Maxwell tilted his head. “He can’t expect betrayal from everyone he works with. He’d be paralyzed.”
“And now he’s betrayed instead, and Southern Tava is the one paying the price. Like it always does.” Garrett put the broom back and pulled out the cleaning rags. But when he closed the closet door, he didn’t slam it, his anger already simmering back down. “Sometimes it feels like nothing ever gets better. It only ever changes. Terrible in new ways.”
“It’s not all terrible,” Maxwell said softly, and Garrett ambled over to him with the rags still clutched loosely in his fists. “The pirates can’t possibly be as powerful as the Klah’Eel, and we fought them off.”
“I know.” Garrett came around to Maxwell’s side of the desk and leaned up against it next to Maxwell’s feet. He crossed his arms and ankles and sighed. “I know, you’re right. Things are better. It’s just frustrating.”
“It is.” Maxwell smiled grimly and tapped his fingers against the ceramic of the bowl. “I want to go home too.” He wanted to leave the sticky salt air of Carta and return home, and not home to Ralscoln or one of the cities but home-home out in the country where the air was sweet and dry and everyone spoke like him.
The homesickness hung in the air between them for a second until Garrett swept that away, too, with an exasperated chuckle. “I swear, Maxwell, do you want me to spoon-feed that to you?”
“What?” Maxwell jerked his head up with a scowl.
“How many hours have you been nursing that bowl of stew? Just eat it already.”
“I am.” Maxwell brought it back up to his mouth and scraped out the last few spoonfuls.
Garrett sighed and dropped a hand down onto Maxwell’s ankle. He began massaging his strong thumb and fingers into the joint, and Maxwell’s heart skipped. “You’re gonna collapse one of these days.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” Maxwell sucked the last lingering sauces from the spoon for good measure and tried not to feel Garrett’s hands on him too clearly. It was just his ankle; it was hardly intimate. “I’ve been fine for years. I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“I know that.” Garrett took the empty bowl from Maxwell’s hands and set it out of the way, then he slid his hand up from Maxwell’s ankle to his calf. “Doesn’t mean I can’t do it, though.”
Maxwell’s skin might have been good at fighting off a blush, but his eyes still fluttered a bit at the pleasure-pain of Garrett kneading into his tight muscles. “I don’t know why you would.”
“Because I like you, Maxwell.”
Open and honest and simple.
