The Merry Men Masquerade

5. Sleepless

The spring breeze was stronger than Ronan expected when he stepped out into the backyard. Brisk air cutting through the thin cotton of his shirt made him mourn the quilt he'd left in a useless heap on his bed, but he couldn't bother turning back for it now.

Over the years, this had become something of a routine on nights when rest was extra hard to hold onto. Should he be doomed to lie awake, he may as well do it in fresh air; if he was lucky, the sounds of night would lull him back to sleep.

Amir had never been part of that routine, but he was there now, sitting against the wall in his nightclothes with his legs stretched out, staring out into the woods.

The living room door clicked shut behind Ronan, and with it closed any chance of quiet retreat. "Sorry," he said when Amir turned over his shoulder at the sound. "I can . . ."

Amir patted the space beside him for Ronan to take. "Is this your usual spot?" he asked.

"I don't mind sharing."

Amir's hair was in disarray, tossed over his forehead by the wind and flattened from sleep on one side. Seated so close, Ronan could see the lines from his pillow etching that same cheek. With circles under his drooping eyes and his face lax with drowsiness, he was as unguarded as Ronan had ever seen him. If there was ever a time to get answers from him, it was probably now.

But he smiled at Ronan with his eyes closed, soft and languid and open, and it was a disarming thing. What Ronan ended up asking was, "How are you healing?"

In lieu of a response, Amir turned his back and reached behind himself to drag his shirt over his head until it bunched around his shoulders. "See for yourself."

Nestled between his shoulder blades was the black ink impression of dual broadswords, crossed one over the other to make an X.

It was the final, most permanent step of his initiation. The tattoos had been a mark of Merry Men kinship ever since they chose the cunning fox as their symbol and, not twenty minutes later, Vito had asked his sister to ink one over his ribs. That same day, he'd returned the favor by etching a whip up the base of Tony's spine.

On the inside of Ronan's left arm was a skeleton key. He was biased, but he thought it was Vito's best work.

Amir had managed to put off the inking for two weeks after receiving his alias despite being pestered about it almost daily. When the five of them finally got him on his stomach in the living room, he had damn near bolted again at the sight of Vito hovering over him holding a match to a bundle of needles. It wasn't nearly as bad as when Felix got the lamp on his thigh (Ronan had never known true guilt until he'd watched a thirteen-year-old Felix insist he was sure as tears streamed from his eyes), but Ronan still ended up losing circulation in his hand thanks to Amir's vice grip. Both hands, actually, because the mere sight of a needle piercing skin was enough to make Felix nauseous, but he refused to miss the occasion.

In the week since, the tattoo had started to scab over. Ronan traced the shape with his eyes, but his mind was too sluggish to resist the desire to wander. Somewhere along the lines, he got lost in the curve of Amir's shoulder blades, tracing instead the smooth brown planes of a strong back.

"How does it look?"

Ronan startled. "It's, uh," good, great, tragically attractive, "Pretty gross."

Amir tugged his shirt back on and faced forward. "Yeah, it itches like crazy."

Ronan followed his stare out to the treeline. There wasn't much to look at, nothing he hadn't already seen, but the view was perfect for a night like this. It was grounding to stare out at something so plain yet so deep, something that held so much more than you could see. It made Ronan sleepy. Amir, too, if his yawn was anything to go by.