CHAPTER 13
TRENT
Kian is sound asleep in my bed when I get off, looking adorably small. His breathing sounds better, thank fuck. I need a shower–I'm sweaty and covered in dirt and grime. My left shoulder aches too. The pain is a dull throbbing, and I probably need to ice it. My luck, it’ll fuck up on me and I’ll lose this job. I can’t afford for that to happen.
My boss, Adam, is so fucking cool and laid back. It’s just the two of us, and as long as I do what I'm supposed to do, he leaves me alone while he does his own thing. It’s peaceful, just the two of us working in harmony to get rich people’s fences put up.
The voices are still chanting in my head, constantly reminding me that I’m a fuck-up. But with the changes I've been making to my life, they’re a little bit quieter now.
I don’t have an AA meeting tonight, and I did my daily check in with my sponsor, Abigail, so all there’s left for me to do is spend time with the love of my life. Even if it is just watching him sleep. He’s so peaceful, I don't have it in my heart to wake him up.
Mitch is sitting on the couch, working on another puzzle. “He okay?” he asks me, and I nod, sitting beside him on the couch and resting my head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around me and pats my back. “I had to take him back to the doctor.”
I lift my head so fast I almost make contact with his nose. “What? Why, what’s wrong?”
What I really want to ask is why they didn’t call me, but I know why. It isn’t because they didn’t need or want me there. It’s because I was busy, that’s all.
Still, the demon in my head taunts me with thoughts about not being good enough.
“They couldn’t figure out what’s going on, so they called him back in to run tests.”
Oh my fuck, what if it’s something serious? What if it's something doctors in this small town aren’t equipped to find? I’ll drive Kian three hours to the nearest big city and find him the best damn doctor if it means he’ll be okay.
“He’s going to be okay, Trent,” Mitch assures me. “He’s a trooper and the medicine they gave him is already starting to lessen some of his symptoms.”
“I can’t lose him, Mitch. I can’t. ”
His eyes are full of sympathy, because he knows I can’t live without Kian.
There was before him, when I didn't know which way the wind blew, and I was fighting to keep my head above water. And there is during him, doing whatever I can day in and day out to try to be the person who deserves to be loved by him. I’ll never lose sight of that, no matter how hard it is sometimes.
But there will never be an after him. Not if I can fucking help it.
My heart beats outside of my chest, and if he ever goes away he’ll take that organ with him. I’ll be nothing except a shell of a human, condemned to live a wretched life, knowing that the one person who loved me with no conditions left me. It’s my biggest fear, but I have to trust Kian and that what we have is more than just the two of us.
It’s an eternity.
???
Kian comes into the room, his curly hair messy and so fucking adorable, with sleep lines on his face and a pout on his full lips. He still looks exhausted, the bags under his eyes looking more like bruises than anything else.
“Hey, Freckles. How you feeling?” I scoot over to make room for him beside me on the couch. Mitch went to bed, but I was still too keyed up from my nagging thoughts to lay down. I would have tossed and turned for hours, and I didn’t want to risk waking Kian. I’ve been working on the puzzle Mitch laid out, a myriad of colors forming some abstract picture. I don’t understand it, or see the beauty behind it, but whatever Mitch wants. He likes to think it's his world and we’re just living in it. Which, it kind of is.
Kian doesn’t sit beside me. Instead, he sits on my lap, resting his back against my chest and his head on my shoulder. His curls tease my neck, tickling it and causing a shudder to rack through my body. Now is not the time to get a hard-on when he doesn’t feel well enough to take care of it. And knowing Kian, he would take personal offense to not getting me off. He’s the opposite of selfish.
“I’m so tired, but I saw the time on the clock and you weren’t lying in bed beside me,” he says.
I run my nose along his jawline, smelling a hint of sweat from where he’s been too hot lying under the covers. He’s missing his floral scent, and I’ll have to help him shower later, but for right now I’m content to let him rest and build back up his strength. I press my lips against his skin. It’s still too warm from the fever, but he’s not as hot as he’s been, so that’s a good sign.
“Let’s go lie back down. You need to rest, Ki.” I press a kiss against his cheek, feeling the slight stubble that is growing there. I’m not sure if I like it or not, as the coarse hairs prickle against my lip. But the thought of him leaving a beard burn across my taint while he’s using his tongue on me… Nope, even then I still prefer his clean shaven face. If he grows a beard, it’ll cover up the dimple in his chin that I love so much.
“Will you stay with me?” he whispers, his head turning toward me. His beautiful green eyes stare into my soul, and I know I will love this man for the rest of my life. In the good times and the bad. Forever.
“Yeah, I’ll stay with you, come on.”
Somehow, I manage to turn him around on my lap and stand up with him blanketing my body like a koala. Holding onto each other tight, we stumble our way through the house and into the bed.