23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hunter
You’ll get hurt. You’ll regret this.
Wells was right.
That motherfucker was fucking right.
I sit for hours at the kitchen island after Maison drags Nolan out of the house, a bottle of Scotch beside me with the cap still on, my phone beside my hand as I wait for one—or both—of them to respond to my concerned messages and voicemails. I’ve told myself that if I haven’t heard from them by dinnertime, I’ll call each of their emergency contacts, confirm someone is going to find them and assure their safety, then open the bottle and drink until I forget I ever met a man named Maison and his beautiful boyfriend.
Waiting until dinner is a long time to wait.
I start crawling out of my skin around noon. Making myself some lunch isn’t helpful. Nolan had brought leftovers when they’d come last night, his cheeks adorably flushed when I showed my excitement by immediately heating some up for a late-night snack. Seeing the food now makes me ache. It doesn’t help that I planned on getting dirty with the pie and whipped cream later, either.
I sit with my plate full of turkey and mashed potatoes that I can’t stomach and let my head spin and spin.
Where did we go wrong? Was it the blindfold? It must have been, but that wasn’t a limit. Sure, triggers show up unexpectedly, catch people off-guard, but the anger Maison had toward me was as if I had known and betrayed them by doing it anyway. I couldn’t have known. I couldn’t have, right? Was there a sign I missed?
I cover my plate and put it back in the fridge, too nauseous to bother trying to eat right now anyway. I had uploaded their paperwork to my cloud so I could review it whenever ideas for scenes popped up, but I go looking for the printed copies instead. There’s something about being able to hold them and see the proof for myself that I need right now.
I was right about blindfolds. They weren’t a limit for either of them, soft or hard. They also weren’t one of the things that I could see Maison had erased. His decision to include them was clear. Confident. There were no signs for me to see.
I grab a notepad, closing my eyes and working my way through the scene. I write down as much as I can remember. Words I used— sweetheart was an unexpected trigger for Carter, after all, one that had him going mute and in need of his emergency contact to come pick him up. I write down every touch, every toy, every kink. I study them as my heart pounds and sweat starts to coat my skin.
It had to have been the blindfold.
I’d had Nolan in that exact position on the bed before, so it wasn’t Maison seeing him on his hands and knees. The bondage I had him in was there earlier in the scene, nothing new, so it wasn’t that.
I suppose it could have been the game I suggested we play. Maybe Maison didn’t like the realization that Nolan wouldn’t know which of us was touching him? Did it make him jealous? Or feel overwhelmed? Afraid? Was he worried Nolan wouldn’t like it? Did Nolan not like it and Maison picked up on that before I did? Or was he so upset because maybe he said the safeword more than once and I didn’t hear it the first time?
I’m usually so good at reading my partners, but I apparently lost my touch. I could have sworn Maison was enjoying himself. More than enjoying himself, actually. He’d been doing that thing he’d started since our snow day, where he melts into me, lets me guide him, lets me touch him. Where he looks at me the same way Nolan does—like I’m his, like I’m theirs, like he trusts me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let them leave. He didn’t scare me when he yelled and pushed me. Hell, he barely pushed me even, his hand reaching out to stop my momentum the second I started moving backward from his shove. He’d looked terrified after, like he’d messed up.
I should have jumped on that fear and used it to keep him here.
I should have gone after them.
I should have told them no in the first place, before I got so fucking attached.
Wells was right.
I fucking hate that he’s right.
I check my phone again, sighing deeply when I see there’s still no response from either of them.
My sweaty skin feels cold and tight. I close my eyes, trying to fight against the drop I know is coming. It’s going to be a bad one. The kind that knocks me on my ass. I’ve always been more susceptible to them than other doms. I get too emotionally invested, even with a one-night sub. I also put too much pressure on myself. All of that is amplified with Maison and Nolan. I can feel it building like a steady thrum inside me, ready to overwhelm me any second now.
I should call Wells. It’s the smart thing to do. I shouldn’t be alone with this. I definitely shouldn’t be alone once I drop. The thought of explaining things to him is daunting, though. Especially because he warned me against all of this. He’s not the kind of dick who would say he told me so—he’ll give it a few weeks first—but he’d be thinking it, and I’d be thinking it, and it’d be right. He had told me so, and I was the idiot who thought I could be the exception.
I fell in love with them.
I’m so fucking stupid.
Harsh vibrations of my phone against the counter pull me from my self-hate spiral. I nearly drop it in my haste to answer, only just registering the name of the person calling before the screen is against my ear. It’s more of a sigh than anything else when I say, “ Nolan .”
“S—” He stops before finishing, cutting himself off with a punched-out noise that hits my chest. “Hunter. Hey.”
Oh .
It feels like I’ve been cut at the knees. I have to steady myself even though I’m already sitting, splaying my free hand on the counter and hovering my upper body over it. The world spins.
I’ve lost them already.
“So, the two of you decided, then?” I force myself to ask.
“Decided?”
“That I’m not your dom. Not your sir .” I close my eyes like I can hide from the reality of it. My body sinks against the counter, hope seeping out of my pores. You’ll get hurt. You’ll regret this. . “Decided that I don’t have a place with you anymore. That this— us , the three of us—is over.”
All I can hear is his stuttering breath. I’m patient.
Well, I try to be patient. But it’s killing me. I have to know.
I think I’m in love with them and I have to fucking know .
“Nolan?”
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “He didn’t want to talk about it.”
I can’t help but chuckle a little, feeling impossibly fond of the stubborn man in our lives. “I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised. Not much of a talker, that one.”
Nolan laughs too, breathy and sad. “Not much, no.”
“What about you? Do you want to talk to me about it?”
He makes a soft sound that I can’t quite interpret. The muffled sob that follows though—that one I can pinpoint easily.
“Oh, darling…” I rest my forehead on my arm, the cold surface of my counter seeping into me. “I wish—” I cut myself off, literally biting my tongue as I growl in frustration. There is so much I need to say, but it’s not fair to say it to only one of them. Especially not with how things are now.
I don’t know how to fix this.
But I have to. I have to.
“What do you need from me, Nolan? I’ll do anything.”
“I don’t know.” He sniffles. “I don’t know .”
Me neither, darling.
“How are you feeling, physically?”
I can hear his confusion when he answers. “Um, I’m okay? A little hungry, maybe. I just woke up from a nap.”
“Did you sleep well?” I ask next, working my way through my mental checklist for subdrop. That’s the first priority here, after all. Which is perfect because that’s something I can actually handle.
“Yeah, surprisingly. I went down pretty soon after we got home and slept hard.”
“That’s to be expected. You had a very active few days followed by a major adrenaline spike and onslaught of emotions. I’m glad you got some rest. Did—” I pause, not sure where the boundaries are. But I have to know. “Did Maison sleep?”
“No, he didn’t.” There’s a pause, but I can sense that there’s more he wants to say. I give him the time he needs.
“He wasn’t here when I woke up.”
I frown. “Not in the bed? Or not home?”
“Both…”
“Do you know where he went? Is he okay?”
“No. I—no.” He sucks in a shaky breath. “I just want to go back twenty-four hours. To try again.”
I huff a not-quite laugh. “You’re not alone there.”
There’s a long pause, the two of us just listening to the other breathe. Then he whispers, “I’m scared, Hunter.”
“Of what?” I ask, because there are so many things.
“Of losing you. Losing what the three of us had. Of—of him doing something bad.” He pauses for a shaky breath. “He does things. He—he drinks. Hurts himself.”
Oh, Maison.
I close my eyes, the air leaving my lungs until there’s nothing but sharp panic left in its wake. I see a dark alley, a trembling man—“Bloody knuckles,” I say without meaning to.
“Yeah,” Nolan agrees, and there’s a crack in his voice now, like he’s about to start crying any second. “Bloody knuckles or—or too much drinking. Not enough sleep or food. Fighting. Pushing people away. Whatever he can think of. I thought it was getting better, but…”
“But now he’s gone and you don’t know if he’s okay.”
“He thinks he deserves it, Hunter,” he explains, his breath hitching on the edge of a sob. “He thinks he’s bad and—and he thinks—” The sob he’s been fighting against wins, cutting him off before he can tell me what else Maison thinks of himself. Not that I can’t guess. Not that he hasn’t told me, over time.
I’m bad.
I hurt people.
I ruin everything I touch.
“Just breathe, darling,” I tell him, hating the thought of him breaking down without me there. Without Maison, even. That itch from earlier is worse than ever, making my skin crawl. It feels like my insides are writhing beneath it. “Just breathe.”
He sucks in heavy, sobbing breaths that hurt to listen to. I shove away from the counter and begin to pace as my instincts scream at me to take over. To demand he come here. It’d be good for both of us. It’d likely stave off my drop, having him here to focus on. It’d at least take the edge off for sure. It’d keep him from dropping, too. We could be each other’s support as we wait to hear from the stubborn man we love.
Except, he didn’t call me sir. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if he has drawn a line. If he’d say no to my request. I don’t know how I’d handle that. I would drop for sure. I would drop hard.
“Is there a way for you to find him?” I ask when his sobs have softened to hitched breaths and sniffles. “A way to at least know he’s safe?”
“I—I don’t know. Maybe? I could ask—” He cuts himself off and I know it’s another secret. Another wall I’ve been denied access to.
It’s starting to feel like the world is pressing in against me, not even trying to crush me, but to push me entirely out of existence.
These goddamn boys.
What I wouldn’t give for them to let me in. For them to truly be mine. To be able to force them to let me care for them and dote on them. To hug the fuck out of them and kiss them and watch endless superhero movies and make them laugh when I ask clueless questions.
“He said he needed to think and he was sorry that he ruins everything, and he promised when he comes back that he’ll have a way to fix it. He—he left before I could tell him he’s wrong, about all of that, he’s so wrong , Hunter.”
“I know. I know he is, darling. But our boy isn’t very nice to himself, is he?”
He sobs again, fully, in the kind of way someone can only cry when they feel safe enough to.
“He’s going to be okay,” I tell the crying man. I shouldn’t say it. I shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep. But I’m going to make this okay, or I’m going to go down trying. “You’re both going to be okay, Nolan.”
He sucks in a water-logged breath, gasping for air, for relief. “Hunter?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it more for you? Is it—are we more?”
I close my eyes, a hot tear falling down my cheek. “Yeah, Nolan. Yes. All the cards on the table, remember? The two of you are everything.”
He cries for a very long time then, me sitting on the other end of the line, whispering that it’s okay every so often, hoping he can’t tell how close I am to breaking apart at the seams myself.
“I have to go,” he eventually says, sounding wrung out and exhausted. “I have to go.”
“Okay. Can you let me know when he comes home, please? I need to know when he’s safe.”
“Y-yeah. Yes. I can do that.”
“And Nolan?”
His voice wavers, dangerously close to breaking again. “Yeah?”
“Call me anytime. For anything. Promise?”
“Promise.”
There’s a long stretch of silence. It’s heavy with a thousand things we can’t say. A thousand wants and fears and hope.
It’s heavy with Maison’s absence.
I let the weight of that silence grow until I can’t bear it anymore.
The moment I hang up, I can feel myself losing my hold on the thin control I have. It feels so much worse than the night Carter had to be picked up because of our disastrous scene.
I do what I did then, knowing I have to, even if I don’t want to hear what my best friend will have to say about how much he told me so.
He answers faster than I expected, though he sounds sleepy. I wince when I remember he had to drive back this morning from visiting his family. God, was Thanksgiving really just yesterday? “Hey. What’s up?”
“I—” I scrub my hand over my face, wondering what to say. Is there even a point in trying to word it the right way? It is what it is. Everything is a fucking disaster and he saw it coming a mile away. “You were right.”
“I was right?” he asks, each word slow as he tries to figure out the meaning.
I clench my fingers tight around the bottle of Scotch, wondering what it’d feel like if it broke. Would the pieces resemble the shards of myself slowly flaking off as the hours go by? Would they cut me? Would I bleed like Maison? Would it make him feel better to know I’m hurting too? To see proof of it?
“Hunter?” Wells prompts.
I let go of the glass, not wanting to hurt myself. “You were fucking right, okay? About them. About—about all of it. You were right.”
He pauses.
Then, “I’m on my way.”