Page 82 of Redline Baby

Eventually he gets me water. Makes me drink it. I sit on the stool while he crouches in front of me, forearms resting against his thighs. My eyes feel swollen. My body is still buzzing. I'm also still embarrassingly hard. Soren notices. Of course he notices. His eyes flick down. Then back to my face. He doesn't laugh. Doesn't touch. Doesn't turn the punishment into something else simply because my body reacted to it. For some reason, that makes me feel even safer.

I look down at my hands.

"Thank you, Daddy."

"You're welcome, baby boy."

I press my face into his chest. His shirt smells like clean cotton, machine oil, and him. And there they are again. Those stupid words. Right behind my teeth. I love you. I don't say them. Not yet.

Chapter 20. Soren

I bring him upstairs to my apartment above the shop after he's finally settled. I strip him out of his damp riding shirt and jeans, dress him in a pair of my gray sweatpants and an oversized cotton T-shirt that drowns his frame, and bring him to the couch.

He doesn't say much on the way up the stairs. He just lets me guide him, one hand at the small of his back, his steps slower than usual, his whole body still carrying the aftershock of everything that happened downstairs—the punishment, the tears, the way he'd finally gone soft and pliant against me once it was over. I've learned over these past weeks that this part matters just as much as the rest of it. Maybe more. The correction itself is quick. The coming back together afterward is the part that actually does the work.

Kit folds himself against my chest, his body loose and heavy, his face pressed into the curve of my neck. I hold him without rushing anything. I've learned that too: his body tells me when he's ready to surface again long before his voice does. His breathing slows first and evens out. Then his fingers, which had been fisted tightly in the front of my shirt, gradually loosen. Eventually his head shifts, just slightly, enough that I know he's coming back to himself.

"Hey," I say quietly, my hand moving in slow circles over his back. "There you are."

"M'here," he mumbles without lifting his head.

"You did so well today." I mean it completely. No performance, no softening what actually happened. "The hard part is over. You took responsibility for what you did, you took the consequence we agreed on, and now we're just going to sit here as long as you need."

He makes a small sound against my neck, not quite a word, something closer to relief, and presses himself in closer.

Eventually, Kit stirs properly. I give him the glass of water I prepared earlier, and he drinks it without fuss, which I consider a win. Then I reach for the television remote. The screen is hovering on a streaming menu, brightly colored tiles cycling across it, and I don't ask him what he wants to watch. I select Spirited Away because I know he loves Studio Ghibli and press play.

The opening begins, gentle music filling the warm living room. Kit doesn't comment on the choice or point out that we watched an animated movie the last time he was on this couch. He simply adjusts against me so he can see the screen better. We watch for a while—the girl sulking in the back of the car, the strange abandoned amusement park appearing among the green hills—until I feel the remaining tension slowly leaving his body.

At some point, I ease my arm out from behind him and reach toward the side table at the end of the sectional. I open the drawer and take out a small rectangular tin of colored pencils and a thick spiral-bound coloring book. They're new. I bought them three days ago on a whim, standing in the aisle of a craft store feeling slightly ridiculous about how much thought I was putting into which one to choose—animals, ships, something abstract—before settling on the book with sailboats on the cover. I remembered him mentioning, weeks ago, that boats were what he used to color as a kid and what he still reached for in the Little corner at Redline.

Kit's attention leaves the television immediately. He looks at the book, then tilts his head and looks up at me.

"Go ahead, baby boy. You can color while you watch if you want."

His whole face brightens. He nods, some of the heaviness lifting out of him all at once, selects a blue pencil, and flips through the pages until he finds a sailboat on the water. Then he starts coloring, absentmindedly at first, his attention divided between the page and the movie.

We stay like that for the rest of the film. Kit colors quietly, humming occasionally, only half paying attention to either activity and somehow content with both. I don't say much. I don't need to. I let my hand rest at the back of his neck in the way I've learned settles him, my thumb moving slowly over his skin, and watch his shoulders stay loose for the entire movie. No tapping heel. No restless leg. Nothing but my boy, a blue pencil, and a boat slowly filling with color.

When the credits begin to roll, I ease my arm out from behind him and turn off the television.

"I'm going to get you some cocoa."

Kit smiles at me like a puppy hearing the word treat—whole-faced, unguarded, nothing held back.

I cross to the small bookshelf near the hallway and tap my phone screen, connecting it to the black Bluetooth speaker beside a row of technical manuals. I bring up the playlist I keep for nights when I'm working late at the shop, set the phone down, hit shuffle, and head into the kitchen.

I pour milk into a saucepan, turn the burner low, then add cocoa powder and half a chocolate bar—more than I would use for myself, but I've noticed Kit likes his cocoa rich, thick enough to coat a spoon. I've stopped pretending I don't keep a mental list of things like that about him.

From the living room, the opening of Madonna's Like a Prayer comes through the speaker.

I keep stirring. As the tempo builds, I glance through the open archway toward the couch. Kit is still sitting there with the coloring book in his lap. For the first few seconds, he goes completely still. Then his toes start moving inside his gray socks. He places the colored-pencil tin on the side table, closes the book carefully, and sets it beside him. The blanket slides away from his legs as he gets to his feet.

I reach into the cabinet for the miniature marshmallows and find myself smiling at nothing—the saucepan, the music, the sound of Kit moving around behind me. Something settles into my chest that I don't examine too closely because I already know what it is, and I'm not in any hurry for the words to catch up to the feeling.

By the time I have the cocoa poured into a chipped ceramic mug and walk back toward the archway, Kit is standing in the middle of the living room in my gray sweatpants, gray socks, and oversized T-shirt.

He is dancing.