Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 8

away from Tater. "I never got to say goodbye, Tater. I was up here at school, and they moved to be closer to me… but all I wanted to do was play ball and party with my friends. I wasn't even home with them when it happened."
    Tater grabbed his chin hard. Peter resisted their urging to turn his face back toward the side of the bed his cousin stood on. The fingers on his chin tightened to the point of pain, digging in with brutal intensity until Peter relented, allowing his cousin to turn his face gently back toward the other young man's intent gaze. "You stupid little shit, that's what you're supposed to do when you're a freshman in college." Peter snorted at the irony of Tater, the smallest of his male cousins, calling him little. Tater ignored his scoffing noises entirely, continuing with his diatribe unabated. "That's what Uncle Ezekiel wanted you to do. He wanted you to be off playing ball and as much as he wanted to be sure you spent enough time studying to get the grades you need to secure your future, he most of all wanted you to live the life he never coulda had. That's all he ever wanted, Peter, to lift you and your ma out of the poverty we lived in and make sure if'n you ever came back to the holler it was cause you wanted to, not 'cause you had to."
    Peter's lungs opened up then, letting oxygen back into his body. He drew long breaths in, sucking in every bit of air he could. Everything on him hurt all over again, but he didn't want another shot from the nurse. He wanted to be wide awake and coherent when the doctor came around in the morning. He shifted, the sandpaper sheets scraped his ass, and his leg throbbed.
    Yeah, he so needed to be out of here. He just wasn't sure yet if he needed to be out of here before Hinata came back, or just be ready to go when the beautiful young Japanese man appeared. If he could figure out whether the snakes wrestling in his innards were fighting out of fear or out of anxious desire he'd know which direction he wanted to move in. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the world for a moment. A grunt from his cousin had him opening them back up.
    Tater shook his head, reaching out to gently cuff the side of Peter's head. "Jackass. You wanna be here when he gets here. You ain't never looked at no girl the way you looked at that boy yesterday. You wanna be here."
    Peter swallowed. Yeah. He really, really did want to be here.
    ****
    Hinata woke to the scent of warm rain and pine. He was dry and wonderfully warm. Sunlight and shadows danced over his face in a lacy pattern created by the sheer drapes pulled across the small window next to the bed he lay in. Peter's bed seemed to cradle him protectively, and Hinata wasn't sure if he ever wanted to climb out of it. His first class started at ten though, and he had promised Tater to have breakfast with him. There wouldn't be much time... but perhaps if he had Andre take him to Starbucks he could simply bring coffee and pastries to the hospital?
    Arching his body in a long, sinuous undulation, Hinata stretched hard enough to shiver. He so loved the first stretch of the day. Relaxing back down from his stretch, he cast a curious gaze around the room, and found himself in a silver frame at Peter's bedside.
    A picture of him as Prom Queen sat in one half of a double frame. A wedding picture filled the other half of the frame. Unless Hinata missed his guess, the people in the picture were Peter's parents. He swallowed, his stomach suddenly full of the same hot feeling he'd gotten the very first time he laid eyes on Peter Jenkins.
    The picture was clearly the original one from the shots the camera guy from the Fresno Bee had taken of him in his traditional Japanese garb. Hinata noted that his prom outfit looked surprisingly similar to the wedding finery worn by the beautiful woman in the picture filling the other half of the frame. Looking around the room Hinata saw Peter clearly held great fondness for Japanese culture. From the sculpture on his desk to the prints on the walls and the books on his narrow bookshelf, Peter had collected bits and pieces of Hinata's culture in a wonderfully eclectic manner. Hinata smiled. The small bonsai tree on the table by the window rounded out the room.
    Hinata lifted the pillow he'd slept on, burying his face in its softness and breathing in the heady combination of his scent mixing with Peter's. He shivered again, and wondered how much nicer it would be to wake here with Peter's arms around him.