“Yeah, Gray and I go way back, so you can move along.” Pete laughed and draped his arm over Gray’s shoulders in a gesture so crass it had the blackness inside Shadow boiling.
It was fury so raw Shadow barely held back his third arm from making an appearance and strangling the guy. He slapped the hand off Gray.
“Don’t touch him!”
Pete frowned and stepped closer. “The fuck you think you’re doing?”
Gray’s face flushed red, and he raised his index finger so rapidly he almost stabbed it into Shadow’s eye. “Stop this. Why don’t you go talk to Elliot?”
Something cold, sharp, and unforgiving rattled inside Shadow’s chest, beyond his control. Why was this stranger, this Pete, allowed to touch Gray when Shadow had so long been denied even that?
“I don’t want to. I… I want to be included.”
Pete snorted. “You want a threesome? You’re not exactly my type, but what the hell.”
Gray shoved him away, but his expression was that of discomfort rather than anger. “Wait for me, Pete, okay? Grab yourself a drink while I talk to him,” he said, already pulling Shadow away.
“Sure, I’ll be around.” Pete smiled and winked at Gray before turning around as if nothing about the exchange fazed him.
“What’s happening?” Shadow asked Gray, torn between crying and punching the back of Pete’s head until the man lay dead. But he’d promised Gray he would never attack first, so instead, he squeezed his fists so tight his joints cracked.
Gray’s fingers dug into the flesh of his arm as he led Shadow past the makeshift bar and into a corridor that offered relative peace. Even here, groups of people had gathered to talk without shouting over the noisy music, and Shadow even spotted a couple having sex in the corner, but Gray grabbed Shadow’s chin and forced him to meet his gaze.
“What are you doing? Don’t you have other friends to hang out with for an hour or two?”
“But… That man, he…” Anger made Shadow’s mind so white he couldn’t find a rational argument to present in his defence. Even forming coherent sentences was becoming too hard. “Do you like him touching you?”
The tension around Gray’s mouth told Shadow everything, and he punched the wall hard enough for some of the plaster to chip. They might as well have been alone, because in the face of such betrayal, Shadow couldn’t even recognize faces anymore.
Gray rubbed his cheek. “Yes. I do, and I haven’t seen him in a while. He doesn’t live around Brecon anymore, so I want to spend some private time with him.”
The itch inside of Shadow was as if a thousand cockroaches somehow entered his body and were now scratching his organs, clustered around his heart. “N-no,” was all he was able to utter.
Gray exhaled, and his shoulders lowered. “Look… I know this is frustrating for you, but there is no reason for you to be jealous. We’re not lovers.”
“Why? Why is he better than me? I’m trying to be the best human I can be. I thought you just didn’t want sex, but now you want it with him?”
Gray’s lips thinned. “He’s my ex, okay? I know him. He knows me. And yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s been a while for me, and I just want to let go for once. There’s nothing wrong with you but… you don’t know what I need the way he does.”
Shadow couldn’t believe this was happening to him. Gray might as well have pushed him into a bottomless well. If he’d known Gray needed him to have experience, he would have worked on that long ago. He could find out what a man wanted. But no, he was stuck competing with Pete, who’d been human for at least thirty years!
Shadow took a deep breath and stepped back, unable to look into Gray’s eyes any longer. “But you’ll be back soon?”
Gray gently caught his forearm and gave it a little squeeze. “Yes. Just relax and have some fun.”
Even Gray’s touch couldn’t make Shadow feel good anymore. Nothing would. But he nodded. He would gain experience and present it to Gray.
But despite knowing that Pete was waiting for him, Gray lingered next to Shadow, standing close as if there was something else he wanted to say. In the end though he let go and slipped back into the room, leaving Shadow behind in the unlit corridor, with the sound of the couple nearby getting close to orgasm.
Shadow glanced at the blue light down the corridor. It had been beckoning him before, but every time he’d thought about going to the room where human bodies slotted into each other, he’d only dreamt of taking Gray with him.
Now, the reality of what he needed to do was staring him in the face. Gray wouldn’t let him anywhere near until Shadow knew how to give him pleasure. Just the thought of touching anyone but Gray felt unnatural, but he could do it. For Gray.