Darker Space Read Free

reffos when I did my service. They weren’t all lazy.”
    With advocates like that, who needs enemies? It was time to walk away before I started calling them assholes and throwing punches.
    “That’s just it,” David said, taking the tongs off me as I held them out to him. “They’re good enough to be conscripted into the military for us, but not good enough for all the benefits of citizenship like health care and education?”
    I headed toward the house, passing Cam, who was almost buried in newspaper as the kids played some game where they had to unwrap a layer off a parcel whenever the music stopped. Ever since Cam had explained it to me, I couldn’t remember what the name of it was, and he laughed whenever I called it the parcel-wrapping game.
    Fuck this place, and these people, and the fact that I didn’t know what their stupid game was called because when I was growing up, I’d been shit-poor and hungry. Or lazy, according to most of these fuckers.
    The house was quiet and empty. I headed straight for Cam’s old room, figuring nobody would bother me in there. I sat on his bed. I could see marks on the wall where posters had hung once, but this was a guest room now, so there weren’t any real traces of teenage Cam left. He’d told me he’d had models of Hawks hanging from his ceiling that he’d made when he was a little kid, and known since then that he’d pilot one in the black one day.
    Outside I could still hear kids shrieking and laughing. It sounded like they were a long way away.
    The door squeaked open. “Brady?”
    I sighed and scrubbed my knuckles over my head. “Sorry.”
    Cam sat down on his bed next to me, all long limbs. Weird to think of him sleeping here when he was just a kid. I watched his gaze track around the room, as he looked past the things that were in here all the way through to his memories. The quirk of his lips made me feel a million miles away from him.
    “What happened?” he asked after a moment.
    “Nothing.” I shrugged. “Some asshole.”
    Cam reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine.
    I made a face. “All reffos are lazy.”
    “Asshole,” Cam murmured in agreement.
    Sometimes I got scared that we were just playacting, Cam and me. Like what were we supposed to do now for the rest of our lives, or for as long as this thing between us lasted? In the black it hadn’t mattered, but back here, now the dust had settled, it was like everyone could see the flaws in us, the cracks in the thing we called a relationship. I didn’t fit into Cam’s world, and he sure as fuck didn’t fit into mine.
    I knew what people thought about us. They thought the only reason we were still together was because Cam felt responsible for me and Lucy, and that I was just using him because I couldn’t support a kid on my wage alone. And all that shit—from other people, but from me too—got in the way so much that I was sometimes afraid I couldn’t even see Cam anymore.
    I knew nothing about relationships. I only knew that it had been easier to love him when I was sure I was a dead man. Now I sometimes felt like we’d backed ourselves into a corner, except neither of us wanted to admit it.
    Or maybe that was just me.
    Ungrateful dirty reffo scum.
    “You don’t need to babysit me,” I said at last.
    He smiled. “I needed a break as well.”
    “Are you saying that just to make me feel like less of a loser for sneaking in here?”
    “What?” He snorted. “Jesus, Brady, no.”
    Of course. Most famous face on the planet. Sometimes he needed to get away from all that shit too.
    I shifted so that I was facing him and brought my free hand up to press my palm against his cheek. “You know I love you, right, Cam?”
    Worry flickered through his eyes. “I love you too.”
    “Good.” I swiped my thumb over his cheekbone. “Because I know I’ve been an asshole today, and I’m gonna be even more of an asshole by the time we’re done, because things like this suck balls,