Chapter 36
Amir
When I got to the house, it was dark. I worried that Remi could be spiraling, hiding himself away, maybe in a depressive slump or something. If I had an ex like Cole who went on an interview and said that shit about me, I’d probably do the same.
Remi hadn’t responded to my texts or answered my calls. My stomach was a damn wreck after how long I’d spent going over every possible scenario. The plane ride had been the worst.
Now that I was here, I felt a little better. The car was in the driveway, so he must’ve been somewhere.
I flipped on every light as I checked the house. The back door was locked, but I still did a lap to make sure. I tore the comforter off the bed, only to find it empty, and when I checked the bathroom, I was met with a black sheet over the mirror.
With a hand on my chest, I forced myself to draw in breath.
It was fine. Everything was fine.
Except Mondays were the one day he closed the bar, so there was no reason for him to be there. Besides, the car was here. Maybe he’d taken a walk . . .
I grabbed my keys and went right back out the door. He wasn’t about to pull a Roman on me. Not on my watch.
I reached Remi’s so fast that it was a miracle I hadn’t been pulled over. Leaving the car running out front, I marched up to the door and didn’t bother to knock. He’d given me a key, which meant I was allowed to barge right in when he was being problematic.
Once inside, I froze. He was there, seated in a chair with his feet on the table while some anime played on the TV.
Oli was with him, and they were sharing a massive bowl of popcorn.
Both of them turned to look at me at the same time.
Oli’s eyes widened while Remi’s stayed the same, completely emotionless.
“Your phone had better be broken,” I said.
Oli got to his feet and dusted off his hands. “That’s my cue.” He ignored Remi when he tried to say something, and as he passed me, he leaned closer. “Good luck, friend. Hope you brought your boxing gloves.”
“Any advice?”
“Nah.”
With that, he left. Apparently, I only got one piece of wisdom from him. As I looked at Remi, who had turned back to the TV, I felt truly alone.
“Talk to me.”
He ignored me, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. I moved to stand in front of the table and leveled my gaze on him, but he remained silent.
What the hell was in his eyes?
“Talk to me,” I repeated.
He grabbed another handful of popcorn, so I snatched the bowl and tossed it to the side. When the metal hit the floor, he clenched his jaw.
“We’re not doing it this way,” I said. “You hear me?”
He gestured at the TV. “I was enjoying a nice Inuyasha run with my best friend. If that’s an issue, you should address your insecurities. Might I suggest therapy?”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, because therapy worked so well for you.”
“I fixed what I needed to fix.”
“Oh, did you? And what about what I need?”
“That’s for you to deal with.”
“Fine.”
I latched onto his chair and yanked it backward. He scrambled, trying to dart away. Before he could, I hoisted him over my shoulder.
“Amir, put me down.”
“We’re going home.”
“You can’t just kidnap me.”
“I can, and I am. You don’t work tonight.”
“Amir.”
I let the door shut behind me and only took a brief second to lock it.
After dumping Remi in the backseat, I made sure the child lock was engaged.
He tried one door, then the next. He was climbing into the front when I sat down and pulled away from the curb.
Putting my arm across the gap, I blocked him in.
Even when he bit me, I didn’t remove it.
“This is a crime!” he shouted.
“So is threatening to kill someone.”
Dropping backward, he let out a huff of air. “He started it.”
I might have laughed at how childish it sounded, but my mind was too busy trying to decipher what that meant. I turned to look at him and quickly checked every spot of skin I could see, but there was nothing concerning outside of the darkness in his eyes.
Focusing on the road, I drove in silence. He didn’t try to break it, and he also didn’t attempt to escape, so that was better than nothing. By the time I reached the house, the air had grown thick with tension.
“Are you going to carry me again?” he asked with a heavy dose of snark.
I got out of the car, then opened the back door. He eyed me, both cautious and what I thought might be fearful. I planted one hand on the seat while I took his chin between my fingers.
“Did he hurt you?”
His eyes shifted to the side.
“If he did,” I continued, “he won’t have to worry about you killing him. I’ll do it myself.”
His lips parted, the only sign that I’d caught him off guard. I took his hand, and he let me drag him out of the car. I led him to the door, ready for him to bolt at any second. He cooperated until we’d made it inside, then he marched his ass all the way through the house to the bedroom.
“Remi,” I called as I tried to open the door. He’d locked me out of my own damn room. Thankfully, these weren’t hard to open.
It swung inward, and I found him in the bathroom. The sheet no longer covered the mirror, which made me feel more nervous, especially with the way he simply stared at his reflection.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There have only been a few times in my life when words escaped me. My pain bleeds into ink on a page, words that have the power to break and to mend. They get me through everything, but now . . .” He lifted his hand, and his fingers met the ones in the mirror. “I’m bleeding without words.”
“Is this about the dream again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Cole came by?”
Maybe the question was a mistake. It made his eyes snap up, and they were more dead than before.
“I don’t need—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “It’s not about protecting you. It’s about communication.”
“It’s not like I knew he’d run and talk to Clara.”
“So, if he hadn’t, then I never would’ve found out?”
He lifted one shoulder and took a step back from the mirror. “I take care of myself. You know that.”
“But you don’t have to!”
“Just stop, Amir!”
“No.”
He pushed past me out of the bathroom. I followed, even as I struggled to hold in my frustration. Oli wasn’t wrong about those boxing gloves, but words didn’t need a buffer, as long as I could make him use them.
“Were you going to stay at the bar forever?” I asked.
“I needed space.”
“Space from what? I’ve been gone for three days.”
“This!” He gestured at me sharply. “You’re pissed, I’m pissed. There’s clearly no winning here. Clara has made sure of that.”
“Remember when you told me to stop caring about that?”
“But you do care. We both know it. Every time something comes out, I see how it affects you.” I shook my head, but he continued. “You can’t tell me that you’re not sitting there trying to find a way to fix it before it spirals out of control. What happens when it’s beyond fixing?”
“Nothing is beyond fixing.”
“Ask Renshu if that’s true.”
“Fuck Renshu. Fuck Shawn. Fuck Clara and anyone who cares what that demon says.”
Wrapping his arms around himself, he tucked his head, as if he wanted to become smaller. I stepped close to him and ran my hands across his shoulders, then grunted when he shoved me backward.
“Remi,” I warned. He did it again, forcing me to take a step back.
“This is what you want, right? Me, completely stripped down to what I really am.”
“This isn’t what you are.”
“Maybe you should ask Cole that.”
“I don’t have a single question for Cole.”
He let out a roar that turned his face red as he advanced on me again. He stopped just short, and his chest rose and fell so rapidly that I worried he’d hyperventilate.
“You know why he’d hit me?” His eyes were crazed, worse than when he’d talked about his dream in the backyard. “Because I hurt him first. I broke up with him, then came crawling back, then did it all over again. I drove him to the brink of his sanity.”
“So what?”
“That’s who I am, Amir. You think you’re pissed off now? You don’t know the half of it.”
“You push people’s buttons. What better way to get them to abandon you, right? Or better yet, to lash out.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Tough luck, Remi. I’m not abandoning you, and I’m not lashing out.”
“Sure.”
Grabbing him by the throat, I turned him around so he was against the wall. Immediately, he dug his nails into my wrist, and his anger fell away to reveal the vulnerability beneath.
“You think I don’t know the real you?” I said. “This is him, right here. This small, scared, beaten down man looking at me right now, begging me not to hurt you.”
I ran the fingers of my other hand through his hair, and as it shifted, my eyes caught on something at the side of his neck. My thumb brushed the mark, then another one beneath it. With a sharp intake of breath, I jerked away from his throat.
“He did this?”
He touched the bruises. “It’s my fault.”
“Don’t you ever say that.”
“Every time, it was my fault. With Cole and . . .” His eyes glistened, and he began to tremble.
I tipped his head back gently. “There’s no world where anything that has ever happened to you is your fault.”
“I just . . . I wanted somebody to love me, but all they ever do is hurt me.” He slid down the wall, and I followed. “Why am I so hard to love?”
Before I could respond, he slung his arms around my neck and slammed his mouth against mine. I nearly fell backward but managed to settle on my ass.
“I’m sorry everything’s hard because of me,” he said. His lips pushed mine open as his fingers tangled in my hair.
“Baby, wait.”
When he pulled back, he dropped his face onto my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing, God damnit.”
Gripping his hair, I pulled him back so I could see his face. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and in some fucked up way, they made him look stunning for the fact that I was seeing the rawest version of him.
“Listen to me. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. Together. But we can’t do that if you don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” he rasped.
“You keep proving otherwise. It’s not just you anymore, Remi. It’s us, and that means the hard things too.”
“Okay.”