Fishy Riot, page 16
“Food first.” Sietta’s words were almost lost against his throat. “Then I want to shower with you.” Startled, Taylor pulled back to get a better look at Sietta’s face, not surprised to see his cheeks flushed dark with heat, his eyes heavy with desire. “If that’s okay—”
“I’m only going to say this once, Si. Absolutely anything you want to do with me is fine. You do not need permission to do anything, at all. Well, except do not ask me for faecal play. That shit is nasty!”
Sietta gaped at him, and was nodding and shaking his head at the same time.
“I’m taking that as a yes you understand what I’ve said and a no you’re not into that sort of thing because, yes, it is disgusting.” Just nods now. Perfect.
Taylor managed to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs he’d made of their bodies, groaning as he got himself standing, partly because his shoulder ached, but mostly because he was hard and wanting to shower naked with Sietta was definitely higher on his list of wants than food. But if he took care of food first, he would have longer with Sietta later. Sietta was right; that was a better plan.
“I like the nickname,” Sietta admitted, sitting up and pulling his shirt straight. “I’ve never had one before. Well, other than ‘rich kid’, or ‘faggot’…. Si. It’s kinda funny.” He shrugged as if he hadn’t just punched Taylor in the guts, and all Taylor could do was lean in to kiss his temple and go to open the bedroom door.
“HOW MUCH freakin’ food do you think we can eat?” Sietta swept his gaze over the coffee table, which was quite literally covered in small takeaway containers. Thirteen dishes, if Taylor’s quick scan of it was correct. He double-checked, and yeah there were thirteen. And a bag of spring rolls and a few dipping sauces. It was the usual order, with one extra dish. He looked at Sietta in confusion and went to sit on the floor opposite where Joel and Clay were seated. They’d given him the couch side, so he could lean back against it if he wanted, but his back felt too tender for that. He gratefully took the offered cushion, though, propping it up against his lower back.
“Are you eating on the floor?” Sietta was still standing there, taking in the table of food with a judgemental sweep.
“Gets kept chained to a wine cellar for years, balks at eating on the floor. Can you believe this guy?” Clay waved his chopsticks in Sietta’s direction.
“To be fair, I don’t think he saw this much food in all the years he was kept in the cellar,” Joel reasoned, and they both turned to look up at him. Taylor smiled and patted the floor at his side, amused as Sietta dazedly wandered over and sat down, still gaping at the containers.
“Why did you order so much?”
“When Clay and Taylor are hungry, they’ll easily eat five or six containers themselves,” Joel replied softly, looking amused and more than a little pleased to have someone to commiserate with at last. “And then if I’m hungry, honestly I always want a bit more than one. And just in case, we order a spare or two so they have some leftovers for lunch if they’re working the next day, or just a midnight snack. Oh, then you need rice, so a few containers of that. And everyone likes spring rolls, so we got some of those. But we had no idea what sort of sauce you like, so we just got one of each….” He looked a little helpless himself at the array of food.
“This is ridiculous.” Sietta’s eyes were wide as he looked from one dish to the next, leaning in to sniff at something he couldn’t immediately identify. “You are ridiculous,” he turned to tell Taylor, as if he hadn’t already said it numerous times today.
“Hey, Odin needs his banquet.”
“Ew! I do not have a daddy fetish,” Sietta objected immediately. “Thor all the way, thank you very much!”
They all stared at him as he carefully dished some rice up onto a plate, looking up at them when he realised they were all staring.
“What? Micah raves about that guy, showed me pics on his phone. That guy is hot!”
“And now his presence here makes sense.” Joel winked at Sietta to show he was only joking. He understood all too well how someone could be attracted to Clay and Taylor. He started dishing himself up some food, and Taylor and Clay waited only long enough for them to have what they wanted before digging in themselves.
“Micah says you’re an amazing piano player,” Joel noted conversationally. Taylor loved the way Sietta’s cheeks immediately darkened and he ducked his head nervously, suddenly shy.
“I’m okay” was the mumbled response.
“Uh… I think you have to be better than okay to win the Sydney International Piano Competition?” Joel, as per usual, dropped an academic bombshell.
“That sounds prestigious and wanky,” Clay observed, looking from Joel to Sietta and back again. “It’s prestigious and wanky, right?”
“It’s one of the world’s great piano competitions,” Joel agreed, still watching Sietta.
“Definitely prestigious and wanky.” Clay shoved a spring roll in his mouth whole. That wasn’t surprising, since Clay had tried to learn the guitar once and succeeded only in smashing it over Brayden’s head in a fit of rage when Taylor dared point out the strings would keep breaking if he continued plucking them so hard. At least it had provided good kindling for the bonfire they had that weekend camping. Since then, Clay had thought anyone who successfully learned a musical instrument was a genius.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Sietta mumbled, his blush darkening. He shovelled food into his mouth as if it would mean he wouldn’t have to contribute any further to the conversation.
“Considering there are auditions held worldwide for thirty-two positions in the competition, and you won twenty-five thousand dollars, and your Gala recital is considered the most stunning performance of the decade, I’d say not that big of a deal is not exactly true,” Joel reasoned, and Taylor finally clued in that this thing Sietta had won was a big deal. To somebody. He had no idea how playing the piano could be important, but whatever the deal was, Sietta had aced it.
“They made me do it,” Sietta blurted out, and Taylor finally realised there were tears in Sietta’s eyes when he turned to look up at him, searching for help or a way out of the conversation. Or maybe someone to listen and understand. “I didn’t want to go in it, but they thought even just auditioning would look good for them, participation in the arts, you know?”
Taylor stared at the long, bony fingers gripping the chopsticks too tightly and wondered how it hadn’t registered that they were musician’s hands. A pianist’s hands. Apparently an exceptionally gifted pianist’s hands. But hands that didn’t want to play in a competition, nonetheless. He closed his own hand over Sietta’s and lifted it to his lips, kissing the back, then his fingers, and then stealing the piece of chicken from the end of the chopsticks and chewing it thoughtfully while Sietta fumed.
“That was mine!”
“And there’s plenty where it came from, as you pointed out,” Taylor reasoned, smirking.
“The university has a grand piano in one of its practise rooms. I can book you some time, if you’d like to play,” Joel said, and Sietta looked back at him, still looking upset, but the offer seemed to calm something in him. Taylor realised it was something Sietta missed. Not the competition, but playing. If he’d listened better, he would have remembered Sietta was studying music; that it was one of the few things he was permitted to do. He’d joked that they had chained him to the piano, and Taylor realised it was able to be joked about because he enjoyed playing it.
“I’d like that,” Sietta admitted. “Just, not when there are lots of people there.”
“At night, then,” Joel agreed, smiling. “I’ll book a few sessions tomorrow and send you the times. Clay said you have a phone?”
Sietta looked so pleased with it when he pulled it out that Taylor felt guilty. It was the cheapest prepaid Clay could get from the corner store. It didn’t even have wireless, let alone a touch screen or any of the other things they considered a “necessity” on a phone these days.
“Is that a Nokia 3310? They don’t even make those anymore. How old is that thing? Where the hell did you get it?” Joel reached for it, but Sietta refused to hand it over.
“You need a new phone,” Clay muttered, looking embarrassed, but Sietta clutched it to his chest as if afraid Clay would take it off him there and then.
“No! I love this phone!” Sietta blurted out. “I just… I like this one. I’m keeping it.”
“O-kay.” Clay blinked at him, glancing at Taylor as if he wasn’t sure Taylor understood he was crazy, but not bothering to say anything. Sietta liked this one because they had bought it for him, and if he wanted to keep it, Taylor sure as hell wasn’t going to deny him. At this point he wasn’t prepared to deny Sietta anything, soul included. The little imp had already taken it, he was sure.
Joel put his number in Sietta’s phone and handed it back. It disappeared into Sietta’s pocket before anyone could try to snatch it away. As if Sietta expected it to be taken. As if he was used to it. Sietta looked up at him, amused as he quietly nibbled on a spring roll.
“Why would they try and shoot you?” Clay grumbled, not for the first time, except this time he was staring at Sietta, his frown dark in contemplation.
“Revenge?” Taylor didn’t think that it was something they needed to think about. The boss had all the information, and it had been handed over to ASIS and the AFP. No doubt someone was working on the case. For once they got to sit and eat and not have to deal with paperwork. That suited him just fine.
“Unless it’s related to something else?” Joel had his thinking face on. Taylor didn’t think anything good ever came from Joel having that expression. Usually, things that followed were things Taylor did not understand…. A lot of the time maths was involved, and Taylor didn’t like maths unless it involved bullet trajectories or speed, and really that was physics.
“What do you mean?” Sietta was quiet, chopsticks poised over the fried rice, frozen as he watched Joel and then looked up at Taylor. “What’s with his face?”
“Excuse me?” Joel frowned at him.
“That’s his thinking face,” Taylor noted sagely.
“I do not have a thinking face!” Joel’s expression morphed.
“That’s his angry face. I bring it out in him a lot.” Taylor gestured to Joel with his chopsticks.
“I do not have an angry face! What the…. Clay?”
But Clay was nodding in agreement, and Joel’s face morphed again.
“That’s his ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ face,” Taylor whispered deliberately loud, and Joel gave up and shovelled food in his mouth.
“Joel has many faces.” Clay beamed at him. “Many, beautiful, adorable faces. He can’t play poker for shit.”
Joel continued to shovel food in his mouth while Clay watched him lovingly.
“What did the thinking face mean?” Sietta prompted when everyone kept eating. His own chopsticks remained poised over his fried rice.
“Well, you’ve exposed a lot of people. A lot of them are going to prison, especially the ministers who are proven to have taken bribes from oil and gas companies. Even more will lose their jobs, on top of those who the Governor G already removed, which was badass by the way. So far the arrests have focussed on Federal Government, but ASIS will work their way down through the state government soon, and then local. People are demanding full transparency, and they’re getting it.” Joel licked the sauce off the end of his chopsticks and then waved them at Sietta when a new idea came to him. “What if this wasn’t about any of the things that have been exposed, but instead was something they thought you knew but hadn’t exposed yet?”
“But anything I knew or found out, I put on the USB.” Sietta looked adorable when he was confused, frowning with a line between his brows and his lips pouting slightly.
“But no one else knows that,” Joel pointed out reasonably. “For all they know, this is just the first information you dumped. What else do you know?”
“Nothing. I seriously don’t even remember half of what was on the USB. I just kept collecting stuff, and honestly I had my head beat so many times, I’d forget a lot of it afterward if I didn’t write it down or save stuff….”
Taylor flinched, and Sietta hunched over a little, as if embarrassed when he realised what he’d said. Everyone was quiet again, forcing themselves to eat instead of comment. Taylor knew it was something he was going to have to get used to. Sietta was still in shock. Taylor expected Sietta to let random facts tumble out at unexpected times, and that the things he revealed would not be pleasant. It was important not to allow Sietta to feel victimised or blamed in any way. Just let it happen and become his normal. Somehow.
“I could be wrong,” Joel said softly. “But it takes a lot to get your hands on a gun, and you have to be pretty determined to go hunt someone down at a weekend barbeque and try to shoot them. The thugs didn’t seem like the kind of people who would take offence to the political anarchy you’ve caused. I’m assuming they’ve been hired, or convinced it’s in their best interests to get rid of you. Or just threaten you.”
Taylor shoved enough sweet and sour pork in his mouth to keep from commenting. He didn’t like that idea at all. So it was probably right, since it was coming from Joel’s mouth. That meant whoever was behind the attempt might try again. Taylor hated that, but at least he was sure he would be able to keep Sietta with him, and subsequently safe.
“We’ll have to see what the boss says,” Taylor managed to grumble.
“You mean I’ll have to see,” Clay corrected, pointing chopsticks at Taylor with his brow arched. “You don’t honestly think they’re going to let you work with a bullet hole in you. Do you?”
“But I’m fine….”
They were all laughing at him. Taylor tried to think of anything at all he could say in reply, but his mind remained blank. He had been shot. He was definitely going to be on desk duty for some time. There would be evaluations, physical and mental, and they would make him write reports. Quitting almost sounded better, and definitely easier. He sighed and ate his dinner a little more glumly.
Joel and Clay offered to clean everything away, so Taylor took Sietta back into his bedroom and sat quietly on the edge of the bed, watching Sietta move around the space, examining it all quietly, picking things up and putting them down again. Not that there was a lot, but there was enough for someone who’d been locked in a wine cellar to find interesting.
“Do you want a shower?”
“Yes. After you.” Sietta glanced shyly at the door to the en suite, and Taylor didn’t hesitate, grabbing some boxers from a drawer on the tallboy and leaving Sietta to his perusal of the bedroom. Sure, Sietta had proposed showering together, but suggesting something and following through with it after you’d calmed down a bit were two entirely different things. He was happy Sietta was thinking about it.
The shower was hot and cleansing, and he managed not to get his bandages wet. It felt good to wash the scent of iodine off his skin. He dried off, pulled the boxers on, and towel dried his hair quickly before wandering back out, amused when Sietta froze, his gaze trailing up and down his body before meeting Taylor’s, a rich blush creeping up his cheeks.
“You’re allowed to look.” Taylor stepped under the light where he would see him better, and Sietta’s soft chuckle in response was dry.
“There’s a lot to look at,” he mumbled, slipping past Taylor and shutting the bathroom door.
The bed lured Taylor in, and as soon as he lay down to wait for Sietta, sleep pulled him under.
10: Coconut Milk and Alzheimer’s
FINGERS TRAILING over a hardened nipple pulled him from his dreams. Taylor moaned in response and opened one eye to peer at Sietta, taking in the dark circles under his eyes but also the bright light of curiosity behind them. He bit his lip when Sietta pinched, watching Taylor’s reactions, but didn’t interfere.
Sietta’s fingers were soft, long, and languid as they explored, rolling over the ridges of each of his abs to the waistband of his boxers, turning and scraping back toward Taylor’s belly button.
“Exactly how much of your day is wasted pushing heavy things?”
“A few hours.” Taylor smirked. “Though some of it’s spent pulling as well, or running or swimming or riding….” He could think of something he’d like to be riding, but he shoved those thoughts aside for the moment. “I wouldn’t say it’s wasted?”
That blush was beautiful, streaking over Sietta’s cheeks and down his throat.
“No… wasted was definitely the wrong word,” Sietta faintly admitted.
The fingers had been teasing enough, but all Taylor could manage was a strangled moan when Sietta’s head bowed low and his soft, warm tongue tentatively licked at his hardened nipple. For a moment Taylor hesitated, not sure he should react, but he didn’t want to treat Sietta with kid gloves, and doubted that was what Sietta wanted either. A second after he came to that conclusion, Sietta was on his back, pinned to the bed with all of Taylor’s weight pressing him into the mattress while Taylor thoroughly explored Sietta’s mouth with his tongue.
It was all the little things that drove Taylor to distraction. Attractive people were not rare, especially not in Sydney. Fun people were not unique. Intelligence even, was not that uncommon, especially in business circles. But kindness, that was limited. Courage, sparser still. But it was smaller things, like the way Sietta gasped as if the air had run out, or the way his fingers jerked slightly whenever something felt particularly good, as if he’d been electrocuted slightly. The way he smelt and tasted and pressed up against him, needing more. Those things made Taylor lose all sense of time and place until the world was only a sense named Sietta.
The demanding pounding at the front door made Taylor groan, and he looked up at the ceiling, incredulous while Sietta huffed in annoyance underneath him.
“Seriously?” Taylor smirked down at him, carefully moving off the bed and offering a hand down to Sietta. Sietta took it and pulled it closer, sucking his first finger into his mouth and wrapping his tongue around it, until Taylor was afraid he was going to come in his pants for the first time since leaving puberty.
