Four months later #4
Bay opens his mouth, then closes it again, fixing his gaze on the sandwich. And I really don’t want to talk about this, so I push my plate aside and say,
"My doctoral defense is in less than three months, I have a lot of work and I need to get back to it, because during those… heat days I didn’t push anything forward." I exhale heavily.
"Of course, Alex, I also have a number of matters I need to handle," Bay says in an almost official tone, but then… he suddenly hesitates. Frowning a bit, he adds, "But don’t overwork yourself; you’re still in heat recovery. You deserve a day off. If I can help you with anything, let me know."
Our eyes meet, and I realize that his words aren’t empty courtesy at all. There’s a softness and a kind of care in his gaze that I remember from years ago.
It dazes me, since I had forgotten it could feel like that between two people.
Damn… how sweet, how pleasant.
I’ve grown completely unused to having someone beside me who genuinely cares, and the feeling is almost surprising, almost alien.
"Thank you," I say quietly, "I really don’t feel back to full strength yet, but my inner sense of duty is pushing me toward work."
"Give yourself this one day of rest, you’re entitled to it. Even legally. And you seemed so… upset in the forest."
Bam.
What did he just say?
In the forest? What forest is he talking about? If not the one where I fucked with the stalker.
My hands clasp tightly on the table in front of me.
"Yes, I was. I had a moment when I thought I was wrong this whole time."
I lift my eyes and see Bay looking at my face. I catch him wearing a faintly melancholic, almost sad expression, but he quickly pulls himself together and gives me a small smile.
"I hope all is good now?" He tilts his head.
I could burst into a thousand more questions, requests, demands for explanations, but I could also simply, quietly accept that he just gave me the answer I needed so much, and it kinda brings me closure.
Bay sighs. "There’s something I need to tell you. So many years have passed, and maybe you are a different person than the one you were when we parted, maybe I’m different too, but I want to believe that nothing can ever come between us. I did miss you so much."
I take a deep breath, because through all these years it was always me saying those words to him in one way or another, and now for the first time I hear them coming from Bay.
I can’t blame his previous hesitance. I had a few years of holding on to at least some kind of hopeful perspective, the one Blue’s research gave me.
But he had nothing like that. For him, these entire ten years were just a constant awareness of our impossibility, and that must have weighed on him heavily.
"I’m still me, hidden under layers of years of stress. I got used to this life of depression and loneliness. Who knows, maybe I don’t even remember what it feels like to be… happy anymore?" I whisper faintly.
"Who knows, perhaps I don’t remember that too."
We look at each other, and some kind of sad, almost bleak summary of this lost decade settles between us, a depressing realization that maybe we can’t turn back time and be those high school kids again, full of reckless optimism and dreams.
"Perhaps then… we can be both miserable. Together?" I whisper, sending him a small smile.
He responds with a tiny smile, more of a twitch at the corner of his lips.
"We can surely try that." His tone is almost neutral, but there is so much behind it. A flicker of hope?
We both get up and just… stand there, facing each other in that strange silence.
Finally, I mutter, "You know, next week I’m planning to go to Blue and ask for another series of tests. Maybe there will finally be a breakthrough?" I try to give my voice a hint of the same hopeful feeling.
Bay stays quiet for another moment, then his phone starts ringing.
He grimaces slightly as he looks at the screen.
"Sorry, it’s Eric. I have to take this." He steps aside and answers the call.
I gather the plates from the table and put them into the dishwasher.
He talks with Eric for a moment about some upcoming music event Eric is dragging him to.
When he’s done, I say, "And where are your instruments? You didn’t bring them inside."
"They’re in my apartment, there." He makes a small gesture toward the apartment complex. "I only have my guitar in the trunk."
"Oh. Apartment…" I whisper, blinking. So that’s another piece of the puzzle. He was so close the whole time. Figured. I’ll need to give that more thought later, but right now I just have this little whim, and I want it to manifest.
"Will you bring your guitar in?" A small wave of shyness washes over me, but I push through it. "I would really like it if you played something for me."
He lifts his head. I sense in his energy more than I see on his face that he’s a little surprised by the request, but he nods.
A moment later he goes to the car and brings his guitars, keyboard, and cello inside, setting them against the wall in the living room. I notice then that a pair of leather gloves is sticking out of his pocket.
We sit on the couch and Bay takes the guitar, dragging a finger across the strings.
Fuck, he looks good like this, a long dark red lock slipping out of his ponytail as he tucks it behind his ear. He lowers his eyes to the neck of the guitar, as I admire the crazy length of his lashes.
"What song would you like me to sing?" he asks in a slightly formal tone.
"The one you wrote for me," I whisper.
Bay raises his eyebrows.
"Alex, absolutely every song that talks about emotions, I wrote for you, so you have a wide selection."
I let my eyes fall half-closed, feeling that delicate sweet shiver running through my body, the awareness that I was lonely but I was never unloved, never forgotten.
"Sing Touch Me."
Bay smiles gently.
"Sure."
His fingers strike the strings, and he begins to sing, and while he does he keeps looking straight into my eyes.
And in that one moment …wow. There is it!
I feel it again. Just like that.
The magic expands between us, his eyes… when he looks at me, I see it in them.
What we once had and what never disappeared, that special bond.
My eyes grow wet quickly, and I slide down to my knees, kneeling by his legs, while he plays and sings the lyrics.
Touch me, like the night needs the moon,
Like the tide needs the shore.
Touch me, like you’re starving too,
Can’t stop begging for more.
Oh, I crave you all the time,
It’s you I dream about…
Touch me, like you mean it,
Like you’ll never let go.
Every time you hold me tight,
I swear I’ll never leave…
Touch me, like the dark needs light,
Like the earth needs the rain.
As we make a step,
Every day it’s one more.
We’re getting closer now,
every day and every night…
He has such a good voice… I slowly lean to the side and pull the gloves from his pocket.
I put one on and rest my hand on his knee. Bay’s eyes fall to my hand and I hold my breath.
He sets the guitar aside, and his hand reaches for mine in a slow, sensual gesture, our fingers intertwining.
In the quiet, the only thing we hear is the quickened beat of our hearts and our breath.
And if I ever thought we wouldn’t find our way to each other, I know now that it’s impossible.
He and I… we never left that path.
◆◆◆
The next morning I open my eyes with the awareness that my heat recovery is over.
I simply know it, because I wake up with a hard, throbbing erection that makes me twist in the bed, tossing from side to side, rolling onto my stomach to press it down a little, but I don’t touch myself.
My mind is still full of last night, the evening spent watching the recording of one of Bay’s concerts, the one I love because it’s beautifully shot and the fans sing along with him in a few songs.
We sat side by side, I could feel his presence and my pulse never settled, and from time to time we exchanged heated glances.
Then we talked for about an hour about the news from his family.
About everything that happened over the last few months, about his brothers who found their True Mates.
One big surprise for me was that literally a week earlier, Bay’s brother Rain had gotten married to none other than…
Kay Sanders, the same guy, the model I once met at Jared’s wedding. But the biggest shock was yet to come!
Their oldest brother, River, came back to the family!
He showed up unexpectedly at the wedding, bringing his True Mate, causing a full-on family sensation and a flood of happy tears. I have to admit, this news made me thrilled, because I know River’s disappearance was like a wound in that family’s heart, and now they can finally start to heal it.
Bay also fills me in on the other brothers, on new babies and pregnancies in the family, and all of it makes me ecstatic, because I wish that family nothing but the best. I’m glad they all found the right path and their own happiness.
Meanwhile, my own life was stuck in a kind of uncertain limbo, and maybe I need to take matters into my own hands and steer the flow of events a little.
I lie there for a long moment, lost in thought.
It’s so frustrating. I am in the same house as Bay, but I can’t touch him.
Something uneasy rises in my body, a kind of heat, something on the edge of hunger, my slick tunnel tightening and pulsing, fuck.
How long can a person endure this?
I slide out of bed and take a quick shower, then go to the closet and dig through my clothes until I find a pair of gloves I once had for some school play, when I played Santa’s helper.
I also take a pack of condoms. Monster size.
Then I leave the room and head to the first floor, a vertical crease between my brows.
Bay is still asleep, or at least that’s how it looks when I step into his room. The bed that had been brought here for Jared is standing in a different place than the one where I killed Oswald, something that brings me a strange sense of relief.