Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

just right for you, didn't you?"
    Hinata nodded, his eyes drifting closed. The last thing he sensed was the warm press of lips on his forehead, and the comforting feel of someone tucking covers tightly around his body. The smell of pine and cedar surrounded him, and something that smelled like warm rain. Hinata wondered if he looked silly with his mouth stretched wide in a smile and his eyes closed. Then he floated into the grey place he sometimes floated in before sleep, and nothing mattered anymore but the delicious smells around him, and the sound of Peter's voice repeating one word over and over in his head.
    Butterfly.
    CHAPTER 9
    Peter woke at four a.m. when the night nurse made her last rounds. His bed was unfamiliar, his naked ass was resting on the overly starched sheets and he'd slept more yesterday than he did even on the nights after a big game that came hard on the heels of a big exam or school project. He was just plain slept out. His ass being naked would not have been an issue at home in his own bed, with his own soft sheets and a modicum of privacy. Here however, there was no privacy at all, the sheets were one step above fine grained sandpaper, and he was bored.
    An image teased at the edges of his memory. White silk and golden skin and… he must have been dreaming again. He'd never heard his Butterfly laugh in a dream before though, and that made this one special.
    Tater cracked open one eye. "You weren't dreaming."
    Peter rolled his head to the side. "How the fuck do you do that, Tater?"
    His cousin laughed. The sound, a low, sly rumble of mirth that Peter knew for a fact had stripped more than one girl back in Virginia out of her panties was almost identical in sound to Peter's own laugh. If what he was remembering was right, maybe the problem he'd been having lately in the dating department had more to do with him using that and the other weapons in his arsenal on the wrong folks rather than him losing his mojo. Peter shook his head.
    Tater opened the other eye as well. "And in case you're wondering, yes, your Butterfly is very beautiful. I'm pretty sure he's packing the same equipment twixt his thighs that you and I are, though. I'm also sure that this Hinata is loaded. Who the hell is this guy, Peter?"
    Peter gaped at Tater.
    Tater rolled his eyes back. "Oh, shit, you really didn't know, did you?"
    Peter shook his head mutely. He couldn't get enough air into his lungs, and everything seemed very far away. Tater sat up straight in the chair, his mouth moving fast. None of the words reached Peter though, and then there was just no air left at all. Peter knew exactly how a fish felt when you pulled it out of its watery home. He gasped as a terrible pressure squeezed him somewhere deep inside.
    "Hinata was Prom Queen. They don't let guys be Prom Queen, Tater!" By the time he finished his statement, his voice had risen to a shout and he was ready to climb out of the bed and find someone besides Tater to get in a fight with. Fighting Tater would just land him right back in a hospital bed, plus make both Ma and Auntie Caroline mad.
    Tater didn't answer him direct.
    "If you mind your manners and get sprung from this place quick enough tomorrow, I'll let you come with me to eat breakfast with him." Peter ground his teeth together. He eyed his cousin with dark intent. Tater laughed again. "If they don't spring you, I'll see about getting him to come bring you lunch, but only if you behave."
    Peter clamped his jaw shut.
    Tater stopped laughing, stood up from his chair, and walked over to lean his arms on the rail of Peter's bed. "Your ma worked on the float committee the year he was Prom Queen, Peter, and she said she'd never met a sweeter boy."
    Peter's jaw dropped open. "When did you talk to my ma?"
    Tater grunted. "I called her after Rufus took Hinata and his chauffeur home to feed them. We talked for a good two hours while you were sleeping."
    Peter's stomach clenched. He was fairly sure the feeling came from having the entire axis of his life shift under him. "What did y'all talk about?"
    Tater shrugged. "We talked some about the holler and how Gram and Gramps thought keeping us all in the past would keep us safe, some about you and Hinata, and some more about your pa and how much he loved all of us. We all miss him Peter. And now we all gotta do our part to take up the things he woulda done if'n he was still with us."
    Peter's eyes stung hard then, the feeling hot and sudden. He turned his head