Chapter 12
Sab
I stay at Galen’s until the early hours of the morning, and I swear what happens while I’m there is beyond an out-of-body experience.
We use our hands. Every time I think I might be close to sliding him between my lips, his hot fingers wrap around my dick, and I lose track of anything and everything that isn’t the consuming friction of his grip.
I come so many times I lose track. But only of the numbers. That feeling…like breaking apart and being reborn. Even if I never have it again, I’ll never forget it.
“You can sleep here,” Galen murmurs against my neck. “I don’t have a bed, but the mattress is new and the bathroom works.”
I want to.
As in, I don’t want to leave the sweaty pile of limbs we’ve become. But I’m so hooked on him right now, I know I won’t sleep a wink while we’re this entangled. And I need to sleep before I shower him from my skin and step back into the life I’ve left to be here.
To go back to Esme.
She’s on my mind as I extract myself from Galen’s massive couch and find my clothes.
They’re everywhere, and this dazed, it takes me a minute to find them.
Galen pops up in front of me and eases a shirt over my head. “This feels like sacrilege.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” He soothes the cotton over my chest. Doesn’t say anything else, and I can’t decide if it’s a good or a bad thing. If I’d crack if he asked me to stay again.
He doesn’t.
Galen brings me my shoes and watches me step into them. By now, he’s not naked anymore either, and I miss it. The hard planes of his body against mine. The harsh, masculine sounds he made when he came.
The light from his Christmas lantern makes the auburn in his hair shine brighter. I run my fingers through it, getting lost in his green eyes. In his low hum of pleasure. But reality bites deeper; it’s time to go.
Fuck, I need to thank him for a night that feels like it’s set me free. But I can’t find the words, not in English anyway, and I’ve blurted so much French tonight, I really need to stop.
So I don’t say anything. I turn to go, to leave behind a night of heat and release that should be just that, nothing more. So why does my heart ache to kiss him again? Why does my fucking soul sag with relief as Galen follows me to the door, catches my wrist, and hauls me back?
We collide, and I claim his mouth without stopping to second-guess if I’m doing it right. By now, I know how he tastes. How he rumbles a moan every time I flick my tongue against his. How he kisses me back, putain, la facon dont il m’arrache ce baiser...
How he tears that kiss from my ruined mouth.
I need to go, but for one more hot minute, I’m this reckless, desperate thing that can’t rip myself away from him.
Until I force myself to ease back, hunger wound tight in my belly, but reined in by the abrupt reminder we aren’t lovers parting for the night.
That this is a hookup, not a date. A favour if I dig a little deeper into what we’re doing here.
I don’t want to. Not with his lips still on mine, imprinted like a bruise that’ll never heal. But even though every last nerve screams at me not to, I pull back entirely and open his front door. “Bonne nuit, mon ami.”
Goodnight, my friend.
But are we friends?
At this point, I’m not sure.
I’m not sure of anything except walking away before he has the chance to respond is fucking brutal.
Necessary.
Excruciating.
And I do it anyway.
Despite my good intentions, I don’t sleep. And I’m out of my house again at the crack of dawn, queuing up for croissants.
I buy way too many, planning to dump a load on Tam, like I’ve done most weekends long before I called Everwyld home. But I’m not thinking straight—I’m not thinking at all, and maybe that’s what has me leaving a paper bag on Galen’s doorstep and skulking off without knocking.
Croissants to say thanks for more orgasms than I have fingers. Merde, I’m lame.
And cold by the time I rock up at Tam’s on foot. Transparent too, apparently, and for the first time in a while, Bhodi isn’t there to protect me.
“What the fuck is up with you?”
“That’s not very nice.” I keep my tone mild, moving around Tam’s kitchen like it’s my own, grateful for the times when it was. “You speak to Bhodi like that this morning?”
“He’s still asleep. Like your daughter. It’s six o’clock, you fucking lunatic.”
“You’re awake.”
“Only because Rudy wanted to fight that badger that comes through the garden.”
“You should let him. Might teach him some manners.”
At my feet, Tam’s rowdy dog jumps on his hind legs, trying to climb me, but he’s the size of a rabid shrew, so…
Fuck it. I scoop him up and let him lick my face. Maybe he’ll be my shield against the piercing perception my brother is currently skewering me with.
“Sab.”
“What?”
“Pourquoi tu ne me parles pas?”
Why won’t you talk to me?
“About what?”
“About whatever has you looking like you haven’t slept in a month. You’re not…”
“Using? No, brother. I’m not dumping my kid on you so I can spend the night on the snow.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
I believe him. Tam’s grumpy sometimes, but he’s honest to the bone. If he really thought I was banging coke, he’d have been on my doorstep before I cut the first line.
He’s my brother.
My best friend.
But that knot in my gut…even after a night with Galen, it’s still fucking there.
I take Rudy to the fridge and rummage around, pilfering Tam’s ham and cheese stash while he simmers behind me, trying to push through the Dubois temper that skipped my DNA and figure out how to speak again without chucking something at me.
When he says nothing, I figure he needs even more space and retreat to the Christmas tree me and Esme helped him decorate last week.
She made baubles at nursery. Bog rolls covered in glitter and cotton wool. They’re ugly as shit, but Tam has five of the nine she made.
I have three.
The last one got stuffed in an envelope and sent to hell, but that’s a story for another day.
“Sorry.”
I spin around.
Tam’s there with a plate of ham and cheese stuffed croissants, lightly warmed the way we like them. A peace offering for a row that’s a breath of wind to the fights we’ve survived.
“Don’t be sorry. I know I’m being fucking weird at the moment.”
“What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why? What’s so bad that you can’t tell me about it?”
“It’s not bad—” Fuck, with Galen’s touch branded on my dick, how can anything be fucking bad? “—It’s just complicated, because I’ve made a mess of it. I’ll figure it out, I swear.”
“You can talk to Bhodi if you can’t talk to me. He loves you.”
“I know. I did talk to him.”
Tam’s brows raise, surprise colouring his features. “Well, you can definitely trust him then. He hasn’t said a fucking word.”
“Because he loves me.” I swipe a croissant from the plate and stuff half of it in my mouth. “That’s why his Christmas present is better than yours.”
“As if you’ve bought presents already. It’s not Christmas Eve yet.”
“Shh.”
I wave Tam off. He’s not in the business of letting me, but footsteps on the stairs derail him. The love of his life and the love of mine appear a few seconds later and everything falls right in our world.
Bhodi brings Esme to me and places her in my arms.
“Papa!”
“Mon petit trésor.” I kiss her head. “Did you have fun with your uncles?”
“Oui, papa. Where’s Galen?”
Merde.
Somehow I’ve forgotten she’s asked me that every ten minutes since he left our house on Friday.
I thrust my croissant at her, thankful I’ve raised her to eat like a tiny horse. “Breakfast time.”
She digs in, covering me in flaky crumbs. Tam’s frown is biblical, but Bhodi has my back, leaving me to turn away from their glorious affection to be at one with the Christmas tree again.
Even with Esme’s monstrous decorations, it really is beautiful. Puts the puny one in my house to shame, and I ponder if the reason Tam’s place gets brighter and warmer every year is because it never felt like home until Bhodi lived here too.
I’ve sunk another three croissants before I figure I’m not built for the answer I find to that question. Then I take Esme home, and we spend our Sunday watching Disney films while I fluctuate between staring at the house through the gap in the trees and fighting to stay awake.
It’s evening when I allow myself to pick up my phone and open FlingIt. Esme’s in bed and I’ve spent an hour proving Tam wrong through buying terrible Christmas presents off the internet and ordering a giant capon that won’t fit in his oven.
I don’t listen to the radio in the house. I have one because whoever lived here before left it behind. But as I settle in my bed with my phone, I find myself turning it on and tuning it to the same station Galen had playing last night.
Fuck, was it only last night?
If I close my eyes, I can smell him, feel the heat of his touch, the weight of his body over mine. And yet, despite my dick standing to attention at the mere thought of what we did, it already feels distant. Like it happened to someone else.
I thumb through FlingIt, heading straight for the chat I share with Galen.
There’s nothing there. But he’s been online, an hour ago, and I hate the curdling sensation that ripples through me. I resent it—I know he’s not mine. That he’s probably hooking up with someone else right now. And that’s all last night was. A fucking training session, for me to do the same.
It’s not an epiphany. None of this is new information. But I can’t help the nausea that courses through me. The cold sweat I feel on the back of my neck. The self-loathing that kills my boner.
You shouldn’t have gone over there.
My hand trembles.
I drop my phone.
Pick it up again.
I frown at the screen with my pulse a discordant thump in my ears, trying to think the way anyone else would.
If Galen’s hooking up, why shouldn’t I? That was the point.
That he’d help me with my nerves so I wouldn’t make an arse of myself with anyone else.
But even as I click out of the chat thread, I can’t bring myself to navigate to the browsing screen.
I’d rather die, and if that means Galen’s the only bloke I ever touch, if that one night is all I have, so fucking be it.
I lay my phone on my chest and stare at the ceiling. Pick it up again and open the chat thread. But in the time it’s taken me to work myself into a whole new mess, Galen’s left me a message.
Two, actually.
HotCraic97: In case I was too dick drunk to say it last night…
HotCraic97: …you blew my fucking mind xx
I slow blink at the screen. Galen doesn’t say fuck much, unless he’s talking about the act. He’s too Irish for that, and I’m as hooked on his softer turn of phrase as I am the rest of him.
Why my mind zeros in on that, I don’t know.
Maybe because it’s easier than acknowledging how my ribs strain around the stupid thrill in my chest. As if his word choice is some kind of sign he might be as wrecked as me after last night.
Proof I didn’t dream the long shattered moments it took him to put himself back together after I made him come.
He’s just being nice.
But what if he isn’t? What if I really did make him feel even a fraction of what I did last night?
My thumbs hover over the phone screen, replies crowding my throat.
You blew my mind too.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
I really want to see you again.
But the knot inside me yanks tight, Charmaine’s derision loud in my brain, reminding me this isn’t supposed to be anything.
That it’s a hookup. A favour.
He’s. Just. Being. Nice.
I lock my phone and shove it under my pillow, frustration clawing at my insides at the same old bullshit throttling my capacity to just fucking be.
To show myself to someone who doesn’t seem the type to pretend he wants to see it.
None of the things I want to say are bad.
What’s wrong with wanting to hook up again?
It’s not like I’m asking him to fucking marry me.
Fuck’s sake. Pourquoi tu es toujours aussi con?
Because being a fucking idiot comes easy to me, clearly.
I shut my eyes, my phone a live grenade beneath my pillow. Point-two seconds pass before I drag it out again and find another message waiting for me.
HotCraic97: Wondering if I dreamed you. Lying here grinning like a regular eejit xx
Another message flashes up before I can even think about responding.
HotCraic97: Tell me I didn’t dream you
I groan into the dark, the best and worst parts of me fighting a war with my fragile resilience, my traitorous thumbs already trembling over the screen, his voice a melodic rumble in my ear, his lips feathering my skin…
LeLionDuBois96: Pretty sure I’m the one dreaming xx
I hit send.
Die.
Cringe.
Die some more, until Galen saves me again.
HotCraic97: If we’re not dreaming, we have choices. And…I’d love to see you again xx