22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
K ai barely hung on by a thread.
He’d wanted to be functional for this date so damn badly, but once they got to Dolores Park, his body was fighting him. His joints ached like they were on fire, and the fatigue crawled in with the heaviness of fog. Combined with the looming headache, he was lucky to be sitting upright at the moment. Today was a shit body day, and he hated, fucking hated, that he had zero control over when those crept in.
“Rick Mitchell is one of the guys harassing her,” Meg said on the phone Sloan still held, even though his jaw had dropped. Even though Kai’s brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, he could put the pieces together.
“Sloan?” Meg’s voice sounded again. “You don’t need to be involved in this. We’ll handle it.”
“No,” Sloan said.
Surprise flickered through Kai. With the hold Rick still had on both Sloan and Ezra, he was shocked they weren’t running the other way. He’d seen the state of Ezra’s apartment, which showed him just what the man was capable of. And the slips of what Sloan and Ezra had admitted about their pasts with him had made his stomach roll.
“I spent too many years afraid of his shadow. I’m tired of cowering.” Sloan’s voice remained resolute, even though his hand holding the phone trembled.
“Count me in too,” Ezra said. “If anyone can get information on what my brother’s doing, it’s me.”
“And my ax,” Kai said, even though words took an effort.
“Okay, Gimli,” Ezra teased.
“Sorry I jumped in with the shit news,” Meg said. “I hope you can still salvage the night. We’ll hold a meeting at Whipped soon.”
“Oh, not another impromptu one at my house?” Sloan said, his words light, even though his posture hadn’t relaxed. Of course it hadn’t. His fucking abuser roamed out in the wild, stirring up trouble close to home.
Anxiety flushed through Kai in an unsteadying sweep. He wobbled a bit, even though he was still sitting. The headache that had been building, building, building cracked open like an egg. Fuck.
“I’ll see you soon, Meg.” Sloan ended the call.
Before lupus, Kai would get migraines on occasion, but they were nothing like the blinding sort that crashed in on him now. The last thread holding him upright snapped, and his eyes grew sensitive, so much so he just closed them. His body felt like it was made of lead, like it would melt into the grass.
“Fucking hell.” Sloan stared at his phone.
“My brother has a habit of ruining our dates,” Ezra said, his tone droll, even though his dark eyes sparked with bitterness. “Maybe we should start calling them something else.” He looked at Kai. “Are you okay?”
Kai opened his mouth to deliver a bout of lies, but his breaths sped up, and his vision got spotty.
Ezra pressed down on his wrist. “Pulse is normal. Are you having a bad flare?”
“Yeah,” Kai managed to force out. He nodded, but the movement made his head throb and his body ache. Right. No moving.
“Wild idea, boys.” Sloan waggled his brows. “How about we take this party back to my place.”
“I…uh,” Kai started to explain. Fuck, he hated being the one to ruin everything.
“Sweetness.” Ezra gave his hand a light squeeze. “I don’t know about Sloan, but hearing news of my brother put a damper on my mood. Even if you were in peak condition, we wouldn’t be the best company.”
That soothed him in a way little else would. Back home, he constantly felt like he was letting everyone down. A flare would hit during a town event, and he’d have to bail early, and after that situation kept happening, the worried whispers made him feel worse. This…understanding he found with Ezra and Sloan was the rarest thing in the universe, and he wanted to protect it. To protect them.
“I’m good with getting horizontal,” Kai murmured, his voice a little hoarse .
Ezra slipped his food container into the bag and pushed up from his seat. “C’mere.” He offered an arm, one Kai gladly took. Sloan packed away the food from their picnic.
“If we go straight to your house, would you be able to catch public in the morning?” Ezra asked, his voice sounding distant. Kai leaned against him, his body going into shutdown. Bad flares hit like someone pushed the Off button, and he powered down.
“Absolutely,” Sloan said. “If you wanted to come crash at my place after your shift, you could always drive Kai to his car, right?”
A lump formed in Kai’s throat, and he swallowed hard. They weren’t judging him or pitying him and instead pivoted their plans. God, this was everything he didn’t think he’d be able to have. Not once he got diagnosed.
“I’m sorry,” he forced out. “I’m too much.”
Sloan pressed a kiss on his cheek, the touch a comfort, even though his skin was a bit sensitive. “Mmm, if we’re in a contest of who’s the bigger wreck, I will knock you out and steal the tiara.”
His chest burst with warmth, and they began to move toward the cars. He all but slumped against Ezra, but the man held him sturdily, with the ease of expertise.
“Sweetheart, you don’t even qualify for an ambulance ride,” Ezra teased. “Shove the ‘too much’ nonsense.”
Kai closed his eyes, which were too heavy to keep open, as they trudged to Ezra’s car. He moved forward by willpower alone, feeling more like an extra from Dawn of the Dead than human.
Sloan and Ezra chattered, but their words blurred into background noise as the headache took the fore. He didn’t bother trying to open his eyes, just relying on Ezra to get to his destination. The sheer depth of trust for these men—fuck, it was unparalleled. He drifted in and out of awareness, trying to shut out the world of throbs and aches that battled with his fatigue.
“We’re at the car,” Ezra said. “Curl into the back seat and rest. We’ll get you to Sloan’s, where you can crash out.”
Kai forced his eyes open a crack to see the open car door. He climbed inside, each movement sending a new wave of pain radiating through his limbs. The second he stretched out over the back seat, he closed his eyes again and let go.
Slumber stole him away at once.
A nudge at his side brought him to awareness.
“Kai? We’re at the house.” Ezra’s voice broke through his slumber. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you sleep in my car the rest of the night. Your body would be regretting the choice anyway.” One moment he was lying on the back seat of the car, and the next he found his arms tugged and his body lifted. He got pressed up against a warm surface, and his head tilted, brushing against hair.
Awareness filtered in. The ground moved beneath him, and Ezra gripped his legs tight as he carried him on his back. Kai’s heart clenched hard. This man seemed to take care of anyone but himself. He’d seen the occasional flashes of vulnerability, the distance in Ezra’s gaze. He’d also seen how fast he’d try to shut those down.
Every facet of him made Kai fall faster.
“We’re in Sloan’s house now,” Ezra said as he stepped through the entryway. The chill from outside drifted away, and the warmth from his house wrapped around him like a blanket. Fuck, that sounded good. Just being surrounded by piles of blankets.
“Thanks.” This was one of the worst flares he’d had in a while, and of course it hit in the middle of their date. Sloan and Ezra might not care, but frustration percolated in his stomach .
“I’m putting you down on the bed,” Ezra said, and a second later, he felt himself shifted off Ezra’s back. He placed his hands down to keep himself upright, but his head throbbed again, so he closed his eyes.
A palm rested on his thigh. “Is it okay if we strip you down, gorgeous?” Sloan asked.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
He hated this helplessness. If he’d been by himself, he wouldn’t have bothered to change. He would’ve dragged himself to his bed, passed out, and woken up however he did. Yet two sets of hands made quick work of his shoes, socks, shirt, and pants. Fingers hesitated at the elastic of Kai’s boxer briefs, but when Kai nodded, they helped wrestle those off him too.
“All right,” Ezra said, his voice firm. “Time for you to rest.” Ezra guided him up the bed until his head was on the pillow. Something creaked, and Ezra sidled up behind him, still fully dressed.
“I brought our food,” Sloan said. “Figured you need to eat before your shift.” He climbed on Kai’s other side, and shadows glided as the two of them situated themselves with their meals. The scent of the food drifted into his awareness and receded out just as fast.
Everything felt heavy, like his body was magnetized for the bed, and the throbbing of his skull was agony, mingling with the ache in his wrists, his hips, his knees. Yet the sweetness of being bracketed by two bodies, of not being alone in his suffering…fuck, those feelings would remain long after.
This time when the darkness stole him, he didn’t resist.
** *
Kai woke up feeling like he’d been hit by a ton of bricks. He remembered an earlier wake-up when he’d called out of work, but he’d crashed out soon after.
An arm draped over his torso, and he turned his head. Ezra lay fast asleep next to him.
The red clock numbers glared back at him. Two in the afternoon. Sloan would be home soon. Ezra had returned from his twelve-hour shift and was passed out, and Kai wasn’t about to wake him. Fucking hell, he hadn’t experienced a flare that bad in a while. When the lupus first started to set in, those were more frequent, but he was on enough meds now to help mitigate some of the symptoms.
Except the past few weeks had been wild up and downs, emotionally and sexually, and those changes came with consequences.
He glanced to the bedside table, where a sheaf of paper lay.
Kai,
I had to go to work, but I want you to rest as long as you can. I can’t think of anything better than coming home to find you both waiting for me, but I also understand if you want to head back to your own space.
-Sloan
His heart thumped hard. The slip of vulnerability from Sloan was one he wanted to treasure. As much as the divorce had been necessary, same as his new start, coming home to someone had been something he sorely missed. Having Ezra in his apartment the past week had changed that, and he didn’t want to go back to the loneliness.
But the idea of all three of them here? In this space?
God, talk about his wildest dreams come true.
He pushed up out of the bed, even though his limbs were sluggish. The sleep had done the majority of the mending, and the fatigue that had weighed him down and the severe pain had receded, leaving just the reminder in its wake .
Last night, Ezra and Sloan had been the exact support he’d needed. They’d made him feel normal, as if this was just a part of their routine and not a date ruiner or wildly inconvenient. He hadn’t solidified anything with either man, but he wanted to. He wanted to move forward and make this serious—however that looked for them.
He slipped on his boxer briefs, not bothering with anything more, and trudged to the bathroom. After stealing some of Sloan’s toothpaste to freshen up his teeth and taking a shower, he felt a little more alive.
By the time he stepped out, it was close to four in the afternoon, and Sloan would be coming back home soon. Kai walked to the kitchen. When he wasn’t falling apart, he could cook fairly well, and he wanted to make up for the fact that he’d crashed out during their dinner date last night.
He opened the fridge and wrinkled his nose. An unopened package of salmon gave him a starting spot, and when he rummaged around, he found some fresh veggies. He also unearthed some rice, as well as pots and pans. Sloan’s kitchen was neat, a little too neat, as if it didn’t get used often.
Kai bustled around the kitchen, the automatic movements of cooking soothing his brain. The sizzle of the salmon in the pan, the bubbling of the boiling water for the rice comforted him. This sort of domesticity felt too damn good.
The last time he’d had a bad flare, he’d been by himself in his apartment. He’d curled the blanket around himself and lost himself to depression. He’d gone from rich with community to isolated, but before he’d left Shelby, he’d already been withdrawing from everyone. Hell, he rarely even called Coop, when the guy had checked in on him regularly since the move. When he’d experienced a flare back home, the shame that washed over him, the sympathetic looks he’d been surrounded with, had about buried him.
The door creaked from the other room.
“Hello?” Sloan called out.
“I’m awake. Ez is still passed out from his shift.”
Sloan strode into the kitchen, looking put-together and sexy as fuck. His blond hair was tamed, and his pale blue button-down accentuated his eyes, along with those charcoal slacks. In his professional attire, he was like a gift begging to be unwrapped. Kai’s cock woke the fuck up, and Sloan grinned, a flirty light in his eyes.
“Happy to see me?” He gave a pointed look at the semi in Kai’s boxer briefs. Shit, that was all he wore. Truth be told, his modesty had gotten chucked out the window after having a foursome in front of Sloan’s coworkers.
He turned the burner off the salmon, which had a nice crust from searing it. “Yeah.” He went with honesty and stepped forward to press his lips against Sloan’s. Sloan melted into the kiss, his mouth hot and ready, and he wrapped his hand around Sloan’s waist. They stood in the middle of the kitchen, savoring the taste and feel of each other. The flutters bursting free in his chest were unparalleled.
When he pulled back, Sloan stared at him, those blue eyes almost swallowed up by the black of his pupils.
“Damn, I could get used to that,” Sloan murmured.
Kai’s heart squeezed. He could too—far too easily.
“What’s the ruckus?” Ezra’s voice sounded before the creak of his footsteps registered. He approached in through the door, his dark hair mussed, just in a pair of boxers. The casual scratch against his bare chest sent a bolt of lust through Kai, and Sloan licked his lips, clearly on the same page .
The swoop in his stomach when he looked between Ezra and Sloan confirmed what he’d already known deep down.
He wasn’t just falling for these men.
He had fallen.