Kyle made up a bed for Sodam on the couch. They could figure out a better place for him later, perhaps in the ‘officers’ quarters on the deck below. They had a room where Hal kept his bottles of wine and the crates could easily be moved back to the hold. But for now Kyle wanted Sodam close by. He spread a sheet over the boy and tucked him in, careful not to wake Mona, who was sprawled out on the back of the couch above him, her tail twitching with her monkey dreams.
“Where do you sleep?” Sodam asked.
Kyle nodded towards the bedroom. “I sleep in that room just over there. So if you need anything, I’ll be close by.”
Sodam looked at the bedroom, then up at Kyle. “You sleep with Captain Hal?”
Kyle nodded. “Yes.” He and Hal hadn’t shown a lot of affection in front of the boy, especially since they had been either arguing or apart most of the day, and Kyle hadn’t known how to bring it up. But of course Sodam was going to notice if he slept in the room Hal had just gone into.
“Does he fuck you?”
Kyle gaped at the boy. The question was so matter of fact, so innocent. He had to remind himself Sodam had grown up in a brothel, that he had seen and heard people having sex all his life. It wasn’t a secret to him. And he knew about men fucking men. “Yes. We are lovers.”
“Are you a whore?”
Kyle smiled and shook his head. “No. We love each other.” How to explain it? “If one of us were a woman, we would probably be married. Do you know what it means, being married?”
Sodam rolled his eyes. “Yes. Like the baker and his wife.” He furrowed his brow. “Why can’t you be married now?”
“It isn’t allowed for men to get married together.”
“Why not?”
Kyle ruffled his hair. “I don’t know. It’s just the way it is.”
Sodam gave a slight nod, obviously not satisfied with that answer. “The baker and his wife fight all the time. Is that why you and Captain Hal were fighting today? Because you want to be married?”
Kyle laughed. “Something like that.” He leaned forward and kissed Sodam’s brow. “Now get some sleep. You’re part of the crew now, so you have to go to work tomorrow.” He patted Sodam’s arm and stood up. He planned on having the boy do an easy job, like polishing the brightwork or learning to tie knots in ropes, that would make him feel like he belonged. And to keep him out of mischief.
Kyle blew out the lamp, leaving the cabin bathed in moonlight, and made his way into the bedroom. Hal was still awake, lying back on the bed with his hands behind his head. “Everything all right?”
Kyle shut the door and began to remove his clothes. “He wanted to know where I slept and then asked if we were fucking.”
Hal snorted. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth. Then he wanted to know if I was your whore, so I told him that we loved each other like we were married. And then he asked if that was why we were fighting this morning, because the baker and his wife fight, too.”
Hal laughed. “He never runs out of questions, does he?” He pulled back the blanket for Kyle. Kyle lay down beside him and Hal rolled over on his side. “I wish I could marry you,” he said, tracing a finger over Kyle’s skin around the pendant lying on his chest. “I love you.” He leaned down to kiss the pendant, his tongue following the same path his finger had taken.
Kyle sighed and threaded his fingers into Hal’s hair as Hal’s tongue flicked over his skin. “Love you.”
Hal kissed his way up Kyle’s body to his mouth, then shifted to move on top of him. “Are you all right with this?” he asked, brushing his fingers over Kyle’s bandaged wound.
Kyle nodded. “The ring is healing it. It hasn’t hurt since dinner.” Hal moved lower to suck on his neck. “But...” Kyle wriggled and turned to face Hal. “Sodam’s in the other room.”
“Then you’ll have to be very quiet, won’t you?” Hal said. He rolled on top of Kyle and thrust against him, pushing their erections together.
Kyle sighed. He knew this was Hal’s way of ‘reclaiming’ him after their conflict, but he didn’t want Sodam overhearing. And he wasn’t really in the mood for sex anyway. “Hal. No.” Kyle shook his head. “Not tonight. Not after what happened today.”
“All right.” Hal kissed him and rolled to his side. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Kyle stared at the ceiling, not sure where to begin. Might as well get to the point. “I didn’t just kill the man, Hal. I made a construct, an eagle claw, and tore out his throat. After I castrated him with his own knife.”
“Sounds a fair punishment to me for what he was going to do.”
Kyle shrugged. “It isn’t so long ago I was angry at you for killing the slavers.” He held up his hand, the one that wore the ring. “I didn’t even think twice about killing him. I just did it. I felt so much rage when I saw Sodam, when I thought he’d been raped, and it came pouring out of me.”
Hal kissed him again. “Sounds like the actions of a father to me.”
“Not my father. He probably would have tried to negotiate a higher price for me.”
“And you are not your father. I think that is clear. You’ve only known each other a day and that boy loves you already. He was so worried about you when you were with Soranik. He thought you were going to die, like his mum.” Hal shifted onto his back and opened his arms. “Come here.”
Kyle rolled over to cuddle against him and Hal wrapped his arms around him. Kyle sighed and closed his eyes. He had come so close to losing this. “I would have been miserable without you,” he murmured against Hal’s chest.
Hal kissed his brow. “Me, too.”
Sodam was already awake when Kyle went out into the cabin the next morning. He was playing with the coins again and sharing a cookie with Mona. He looked up when Kyle came out. “Did you rob a ship to get all of this money?”
“Some of it.” Kyle sat down next to him.
“I tried to go get my mum’s money. She hid it in a hole in the garden and told me to get it if anything ever happened to her. But I was too scared to get it when I first ran away.” He sighed. “That’s how they caught me again.”
“You can have this money,” Kyle said, getting a sudden urge to spoil him. “And when we get to England, you can buy whatever you like.”
Sodam looked up at him. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
He turned back to his coins. “What’s England like?”
“It’s much bigger than Tortuga. The wharf at Tortuga is just a little village compared to some of the cities there. And it’s colder,” Kyle said. “It will still be cold when we arrive and there may be snow.”
“What’s snow?”
Kyle smiled, realizing the boy had never seen snow in his life. “It’s like rain, but it’s little crystals. And it’s cold and it stays on the ground like a blanket. We’ll go play in it.”
“Can Captain Hal play in it with us?”
Kyle grinned. “Oh, yes. Captain Hal will definitely be there.”
“What’s Captain Hal doing?” Hal asked, coming out of the bedroom. He sat in a chair to pull on his boots.
“Playing in the snow when we get to England. Perhaps even ice skating.”
Hal raised an eyebrow. “I think I’m a little old for that.”
“I don’t think so,” Kyle said. “Do you, Sodam?”
Sodam giggled and shook his head. “No. You have to play, too.”
“Oh, I see how this works. I’m getting ganged up on now,” Hal said. He stood up. “What if I say that I’m the captain, so I outrank you both?”
Kyle stood up, too. “But in England, I’ll be Lord Rayner, which means I will outrank you.” He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Hal’s waist. “I can order you to go ice skating, Captain Jordan.”
Hal smirked. “Well, I wouldn’t want to disobey an order, Lord Rayner.”
Hal’s eyes added all sorts of meaning to “disobey”, which made Kyle’s trousers suddenly very tight. He leaned in and kissed him, sliding his hands over Hal’s arse, then broke away just as fast when Sodam giggled. Right, child in the room ...
Thankfully there was a knock on the door to interrupt the awkward moment. Breakfast was brought in and they sat around the table. Sodam went right for the peaches, while Mona hopped up on the table to beg for a piece of bread.
“What are your plans for today, Mister Rayner?” Hal asked as they were finishing up. Unless they were on holiday, it had become usual for them to switch to ‘captain and crew’ after breakfast.
“I thought Sodam could do some polishing, Captain.”
Hal nodded and looked at Sodam. “Up for a bit of hard work, Mister Yat?”
Sodam grinned. “Yes, Captain,” he said enthusiastically.
“Very good.” Hal set down his fork and stood up. “I expect to see you after lunch, Mister Yat, to show me what you’ve accomplished this morning.” He pulled on his coat, grabbed his hat, and strode out of the room.
Kyle stood up and piled the dishes together to make it easier for the galley crew to gather up. “We need to lock Mona up before we go.”
“She can’t come with me?” Sodam asked, pouting slightly.
“No, I’m afraid not. She’ll get underfoot. And you wouldn’t want her to get hurt, right?”
Sodam shook his head. “No.”
Kyle caught her and put her in her cage, leaving her some of the pumpkin seeds left in his coat pocket, along with another piece of bread. She gave him a piteous look, but he ignored it. “We’ll let you out for lunch.”
They left the cabin and went up on deck. Hal was already at the wheel, looking over a map with John. Kyle guided Sodam across the deck to where Isamot was working, inspecting the ropes from one of their small boats.
“Mister Yat is going to help us today,” Kyle said.
“Good, good,” Isamot said. He looked up the mast. “He can climb up and get us flag from top of mast.”
Sodam looked up the length of the mast, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Kyle shook his head. “He’s joking, Sodam.”
“Yes, yes. I am joking,” Isamot said. “We won’t send you up mast until you have been crew for a while. Maybe next week.” He winked at Sodam and the boy giggled.
Kyle retrieved some cloths and a bottle of oil, then set Sodam to work polishing the brass fixtures on deck. They worked their way from bow to stern, so they could end up at the helm by lunchtime.
They stopped at the brass plaque near the wheel engraved with Emerald Dawn and Kyle pointed to it. “Do you know what this says?”
Sodam shook his head. “I don’t know letters.”
“I think you should remedy that, Mister Rayner,” Hal said behind him. “Starting tomorrow. The crew on my ship need to know their letters.”
Kyle shot him a smile over his shoulder. “Yes, Captain.”
The ship’s bell was rung, indicating noontime, and they left off their duties for lunch. Kyle and Sodam went to get Mona. The officers were gathering for lunch today, so Kyle took Sodam and Mona back up on deck to eat their biscuits and cheese. Afterward, Kyle leaned back against the rail, watching Sodam and Mona chase each other around the masts. Isamot had brought his violin up and was playing a tune to match their antics.
At the next bell they took Mona back to her cage, then went back up on deck for Sodam’s ‘inspection’. Hal walked along the ship, hands behind his back, as Sodam showed him everything he had polished. “Good work, Mister Yat,” Hal said when they reached the helm. Then he turned to Kyle. “If you don’t mind, Mister Rayner, I think I am in need of my new apprentice for the rest of the day.”
“Certainly, Captain.”
Kyle went back down to finish polishing the other side of the ship, but he couldn’t help stopping to watch what was happening at the helm. Sodam had the wheel, Hal standing behind him, and the look of pure joy on Sodam’s face made Kyle’s heart race. The boy looked up at Hal with adoration in his eyes, and Kyle knew he probably should have been jealous, but instead it just made him unbelievably happy to see them together like this. And then he realized why -- We’re a family.