Chapter 9Though his energy flagged not long after Max fell asleep, Sutter stayed awake through the night, flipping through the pictures he’d taken, shooting a few more of Max sprawled on top of the blankets. Max was surprisingly soft in slumber, the edges that defined him rounding out to reveal glimmers of the boy he’d once been. Sutter curled up next to him, untouching, ever wakeful, wondering how in the hell he was going to leave this man behind when the time came. Maybe it was just a crush because Max was the first being to be truly decent to him in decades, but the feelings still felt real.
They would make him bleed when he walked away.
He got up once to check on his bandages. The tape stung peeling away from his skin, but the ragged edges of the wound were now pinked with new scar t
