Not Catching Love (Accidental Love #5)

Chapter One

Chapter One

Xander

The blankets wrapped around me are getting suffocatingly tight. No matter how much I beg my brain to switch off, to relax and let sleep come, I only get more wired.

Like this itch in my brain. Just irritating enough that I can’t ignore the way it’s infesting me. There’s something about the house getting dark, and still that’s a perfect recipe for the terror that lives in my head. The pathetically frequent loop of my friends and all the things that could go wrong during their day tomorrow presses on my chest so heavy and real it makes my eyes prick.

Madden tripping and falling on a big pair of garden scissors.

Rush being hit by a bus he’s waiting for.

Molly … well, he works from home, so the risk is lower but not nonexistent. He could electrocute himself on a toaster. Fall do wn the stairs. Befriend some wild animal that bites him and transmits a fatal disease.

Then I’d never have my Molly again.

It’s getting harder to breathe now.

My skin feels like it’s rattling, and it takes all my feeble willpower to stay put in bed.

I’ve reached the point in my anxiety spiral where I usually scramble from my room and hunt down one of my roommates. Seven and Molly are first on my list because they’ll squish me between them and help scare some of the scaries from my brain. I know they want to help me too, but more and more lately, it feels like I’m overstepping. Like, they’ve got them, and I’m … someone to deal with.

That clawing in my chest gets clawier, and I throw off my blankets and get up. It’s as far as I’ll let myself go though. I pace toward my door on socked feet and then back again, trying to talk myself back from the edge. Trying to remember that everything is fine, and my roommates are okay, and everyone is breathing and alive and o-fucking-kay.

I suck in a breath that feels like glass shards and move over to my window. The chia pet sitting there is a cute clay unicorn pot with rapidly growing plant hair and was gifted to me by one of my roommates. Madden always spoils me with presents, but as the most recent Bertha boy—what we call all of us who live in Big-Boned Bertha house—to find his forever love, I can feel him pulling away too.

They all are.

Every single one of my roommates has a partner, and all I have is stupid anxiety.

My own personal ball and chain that’s less of a ball and chain and more of a cage that looms over me. And maybe it’s less of a husband and more of a boogieman. I’m constantly waiting for that shit to jump out and drag me into its grasp.

Like tonight. Like most days .

Will this fear that we’re all going to die morph into more? I’m usually only one bad thought away from a debilitating panic attack, so why not tonight?

I run my fingertips over the chia pet’s grass hair and try to ground myself against the weight clogging my chest. There’s a small part of me that hopes that it does kick in because then I’ll get Seven and Molly’s attention without having to pathetically climb into their bed.

And I’ll see Derek.

It’s both a terrifying and exciting thought.

Derek is my angel. The nurse who’s always there to deal with my stupidity. I hate him seeing me during a meltdown while simultaneously craving his presence. When things get too loud and overwhelming, he’s there. He’s my calm, my anchor, and I’m confident I’m head over heels in love with him.

Too bad he doesn’t see me as more than that sick guy he has to look after sometimes.

With a surge of panic that he might suddenly walk into my room, I dig at my hair, trying to get it into place. Trying to make it look perfect.

A car passes quietly out on the street, headlights cutting through the shadows of the leafy front yard. It’s that little burst of humanity that has some of the chest-heavy anxiety shifting.

I guess that means no Derek tonight.

The disappointment at not getting to embarrass myself in front of him is ridiculous.

I’m sure if I got back into bed, the death stress would come again because I’m not exhausted enough to pass out. This whole having to sleep every night thing is bullshit, and maybe if people needed less of it, I’d have fewer episodes.

Or maybe not.

My friends have their own lives now, and even though they don’t mean to, they have less and less time for me.

The thing is, I knew better than to get attached. I tried so hard to be guarded. I tried so hard not to let anyone into my life except for Seven, but then we moved here, and the guys gave me no option but to love every single one of them. For the first time, I had a family.

Now, I’m losing them again.

Because everyone gets sick of me eventually, and when Seven finally, eventually, walks away, it will kill me.

Not metaphorically.

People die of heartache all the time, and he’ll be the one I can’t survive without. When we were foster brothers, he was that first glimpse I ever had of someone wanting to love me. I soaked up his attention like a sponge, and when he aged out and had to leave, I thought that was it for me. I didn’t think I’d ever recover, and while my anxiety and panic attacks were one thing before that, it was the first time I ever thought I really might die.

Now, Seven has his Molly.

Objectively, I know it’s a good thing that Seven has someone to rely on like I rely on him, but the petty side of me wishes nothing ever changed. Because it’s changing, and I already know it’s for the worst.

Seven’s started therapy, and ever since, there’s distance growing between us.

Therapy is toxic. All therapists want to do is point out what a horrible human you are. They don’t help; they just break you down until you’re an empty shell who can function because you’re not you anymore.

I don’t need those mind games. Seven doesn’t either.

I was doing perfectly fine until my family all decided they needed more.

There’s talk of Madden moving out. It won’t be long until Christian and émile have their own place too. Gabe already left us, and soon enough, I’ll be the only one left in this big, empty house, and little by little, they’ll forget about me .

Urg, these voices.

My eyes screw up against the relentlessly intrusive thoughts, and I viciously shake my head for a brain restart.

I’m not letting the negativity win. No matter where my friends go, I’ll still love them, and they’ll still make time for me. They’ll have to. Anything else would be unbearable.

Before that train can shoot from the station, I grab the little plastic container from under my bed and leave the room. I need to confirm that everyone is okay. That they’re sleeping peacefully, and in a few hours, they’ll wake up, and everything will be normal.

The container in my hands rattles softly, plastic on plastic, as I approach Christian’s door. Slowly, silently, I turn the handle and slide the door open.

He and émile are tucked up in bed. The covers are thrown off and bunched around Christian’s legs, and émile’s arm is slung over his chest.

I ache for that kind of love. For being so close to the other person that I need to find them, even in my sleep.

The important thing is that they’re both alive, so that’s two down, five or six to go.

I close the door, snap open the container, and pull out two stick-on googly eyes. A shadow of a smile tugs at my lips as I stick them to the round door handle, and then I turn it all the way until the tension stops me and release it.

The knob flings back into place, and the eyes go all loopy until one black dot sticks to the top and the other is out to the side.

My new friend looks like a deranged Alice in Wonderland character.

I chuckle and flick between the eyes so the black dots settle back into place.

“I a-dore you,” I whisper to my new friend before giving him a soft pat and moving on .

Madden is sleeping, splayed out and buck naked, muscular chest rising and falling softly. I linger, taking in his body, his cock, wondering why it does nothing for me. I like to pretend that it does, but I think more than one thing broke inside me when I was younger, and I never learned how to fix it.

It’s a struggle to not linger on those thoughts as I pull the door closed and make another little friend.

Hunter and Rush are in the next room, sleeping soundly, and I leave a friend there too.

Then, the final door makes me pause.

The second I open it, I’m going to be tempted. Seeing Seven and Molly asleep will tug at my willpower because I know the comfort I’ll get by climbing into that bed. I wish I could give them boundaries, but I struggle with separation from them more than anyone, and whenever one of them tells me no, it’s not like hearing it from other people.

Their no means I hate you. I’m sick of you. I never want to see you again.

I grit my teeth and stick the eyes to the doorknob first this time, and then I lean in for a heart-to-heart.

“You need to help me,” I tell it. “You have to make sure that once I’ve confirmed they’re alive that I leave again, okay? You’re like … like their guardian. Or their guard. Something to stop me from being able to enter. Got it?”

I’m assuming the door says yes because it’s not like doors can think for themselves.

I grip the handle, remind myself that I will leave, and slowly open the door. My breath is a ball in my chest as all the worst-case scenarios flash through my mind—them both, eyes open and unresponsive, or victims of a break and enter, or buried under a collapsed ceiling.

The room inches into view. It’s dark, clothes strewn on the floor with a crack of light from outside peeking through the heavy curtains .

My favorite mop of hair is splayed out on a pillow, and beside him … nothing.

A slice of panic hits, and I remind my brain it’s being stupid. Getting ahead of itself. There is no way in hell that Seven got up for a glass of water and had a heart attack on the way downstairs. There’s no way he’s gasping for breath somewhere.

No way, no way, no way.

I cross the hall to the stairs as fast as I can and don’t even try to keep quiet as I throw myself down them. Seven has to be here somewhere. He has to. He’s like me in that he struggles to sleep, and the perfectly logical explanation is that his thoughts are getting too loud for the night. It’s not the first time, won’t be the last, but I need to find him and be sure.

I need to be certain.

I need to see him.

Need to?—

“Z?”

Relief explodes through me, and I do a one-eighty to find Seven’s followed me down the stairs. All six foot three of his redheaded, tattooed form steps off the bottom stair and onto the polished wooden floor. He’s okay. He’s alive. I can breathe again.

“Ah, hey,” I say.

He studies me. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Sure, of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I thought an elephant had gotten inside and fallen down our stairs.”

I slide my foot in a circle over the floorboards. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Tell me what’s wrong.”

I glance up, and all of my insecurities, all of my worry and anxiety and every little thing that’s ever popped into my head and spun me off course, tries to get loud. “Nothing. Everything is okay now. ”

He doesn’t believe me, which isn’t a surprise because we know each other inside and out.

“Why are you awake?” I ask.

“Stupid, flop damn nightmares.”

“Need a hug?” I suggest, desperately hoping he says yes because I can’t leave this hall without one.

His lips twitch. “Badly.”

I cross the hall to throw myself into his arms, and I’m reminded why this is my favorite place in the world. Seven is like a shield for my spiraling thoughts. He can’t stop them, but he gives me an extra layer of protection, and sometimes that’s enough.