Chapter 35 #2
“Too far?”
Carlos grimaced. “I would’ve never done anything, not with Ali there, but everything is overwhelming when you get out, and if you have more demons in your closet for any reason? It can get dark.”
“Should I leave?” I still wouldn’t know what to say.
I’d probably make it worse, just like I’d been doing lately, but now I was going to have visions of that darkness.
Of having abandoned Santos to it. Santos, who had issues around rejection because of his fundamentalist parents and their obsession with appearances that a queer man couldn’t keep up with even if he’d been willing to try, which I knew he had been.
“I can talk with Erika about rescheduling.”
“Do you think he’d do something?”
Carlos was alert again. I made myself smaller on instinct.
More people were starting to arrive. Most of them, I didn’t know.
From what I’d seen online, Erika, Eli, Carlos, and Danny were the only ones from the inner circle in attendance.
I’d gotten texts from a few of the others, apologizing because they’d already had plans or they were out of town for a getaway.
It sucked, but I was also glad the four who were here weren’t as high-energy as some of the others.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take in all the exuberance that came from the Littles or the pups in the group when they were in the mood for it.
“I don’t know.”
Carlos placed a hand on my shoulder. He never touched me, so it sent a shock through my system. “My advice? If you’re absolutely certain he could be in danger, go. Absolutely. Otherwise, it hurts, but you can’t be his cushion 24/7.”
“I’m not.”
If anything, he was mine.
Maybe there had been more to it when I’d joked about codependency. Was it codependency or interdependence? Because the latter was good, I knew, but there was so much discourse online about the two. I wasn’t sure I could tell them apart.
I wasn’t sure what it meant that I couldn’t.
“I can’t risk it.”
I couldn’t.
Now he had put that image there.
“I’ll drive you, then.”
“It’s fine, I’ll—”
He had dropped me off. If I wanted to get home, I’d have to grab a taxi, but Carlos didn’t need to go through all the trouble. I wasn’t planning to get behind a wheel.
“I wasn’t asking, Ev.”
“O-okay.”
“Let me just fetch Danny.”
I nodded. “I need my phone, too.”
Why, I wasn’t sure. I supposed I could text him, and that would ease some of the climbing anxiety. Some of the pressure that had taken hold of my chest.
Everything had been going so well.
No.
I couldn’t keep having these thoughts. I couldn’t keep getting stuck in my head.
Instead, I was stuck in the car with Carlos and Danny.
He’d been stepping out of the locker room when we showed up there.
Apparently, I looked so pale, Danny’s reaction was to ask who he needed to beat up, quickly followed by demanding an explanation as to why Carlos hadn’t done it already, when he clearly could do some damage.
There had been rapid whispers between the two of them in response.
The whispers somehow transformed into Danny grabbing me by the wrist and getting me in the car.
This was going to be embarrassing.
Santos had never been… He’d never thought of anything like that.
We were going to barge into the villa, and he was going to be in front of a TV or some shit, and he was going to be so confused, and then that confusion would turn into wariness because of Carlos, and I’d be even more of a mess trying to explain it, and…
“Hey, look at me.”
Danny.
Fuck.
“I’ve just ruined everyone’s night.”
And I’d made Danny give me the look he saved for people who were spouting absolute nonsense. Great.
Could I make myself any smaller without drawing too much attention to what I was doing? It didn’t help that he was riding shotgun, and the car had stopped, but instead of unlocking the doors, he was twisted around so that we stayed trapped in the car, and I had no means to escape.
“Tell me you haven’t been part of Plumas for long without telling me,” Danny scoffed.
“I’ve literally been a member for years.”
“Yeah, but you joined when everyone had their shit together already,” he retorted. “This is child’s play.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why do I have the feeling that you were the reason this is child’s play?” Carlos interjected before he finally unlocked the doors and moved to get out of the car.
“I’m so gonna tattle on you.”
“Yes, because León has a well-documented history of siding with you.”
More bickering between the two ensued while I walked the distance to the front door.
They had parked closer to the main gate than we usually did.
The fresh air would probably do me good.
I’d only put on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie over my fishnets and rubber skirt.
It was a good thing that there had been no one outside, and Danny’s truck was parked close to where Santos’s car had been.
It didn’t matter too much. I just needed to focus on something.
I couldn’t see any light switched on from here, but that didn’t tell me much.
All of the bedrooms faced the opposite way, and Santos could be a bit of a vampire, anyway.
He’d scared me plenty of times because I assumed a room was empty, I turned on the lights, and he was there, grumbling about the lack of warning.
Or because he assumed I knew he was there, spoke, and my heart beat out of my chest in consequence.
Fuck.
If I fucked this up beyond repair, I wouldn’t just be losing the easy thing we built over the past few weeks.
I’d be losing years. A forever of memories, of bonding, of the one person I knew I could fully trust. The person I could open up to and be vulnerable with.
“Guys?”
I couldn’t get the fucking key on the door.
My hands were trembling too much, and I hated it.
I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to pretend that everything was fine, or that it was normal to freak out because someone had hinted at a possibility that hadn’t really been a possibility until he put it out in the air.
No amount of telling myself it wasn’t going to happen helped, either.
No amount of reasoning that Santos would be fine slowed my heartbeat or made it any easier to swallow past the knot in my throat.
This was ridiculous.
For some reason, the thought cemented in my head and steadied my hand. It also helped that Danny had his hand on my lower back. There was some more bickering, but it was more muted.
The door thudded as I opened it. I’d always hated the heavy wood.
I understood it was the highest quality there was, the kind of thing everyone complained about because shit like it wasn’t built anymore, but try to tell that to a lanky kid who just wanted to get in or out of the place without needing to ask for help.
Or to feel like he’d run a marathon every time he set out to get the deed done.
“Come on, I can use a drink.”
“Uh…”
Danny just walked in front of me toward the kitchen. I’d expected something more dramatic; rushing to cover all the rooms only to find out Santos was taking a shit in the bathroom, and then everyone would scamper, and he’d be in shock, and I wouldn’t hear the end of it for a month.
Nope.
Instead, Danny and Carlos started moving toward the kitchen, and I just stood there, in the middle of the hall, trying to think of ways to salvage this that didn’t just accelerate the visions of Santos leaving.
Of me destroying the one thing that had always mattered more than everything else.
Of me having lost sight of that somewhere along the way.
Of me not knowing how to function when Santos wasn’t the only thing that existed, because I’d never had to juggle a relationship with anything or anyone else before.
And instead of me running to find Santos chilling somewhere, it was him who found us.
“What…” His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head to the side. Danny and Carlos were grabbing something from the fridge; I wasn’t paying attention. “What are you doing here so soon? Everything okay?”
He didn’t address the other two men, but his gaze darted between the three of us. I didn’t care. I just ran to him and hugged him, and ignored the small oomph he made and how much more confused he had to look now.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.”
Was I babbling? I didn’t know. Could he even hear me when I was pressed against his chest? I didn’t know either. I was getting so tired of it, too, of the uncertainty and the discomfort, and second-guessing every step I took.
Seconds ticked. Eventually, Santos wrapped his arms around me, but it didn’t feel right. The touch usually soothed all the thoughts, but right now it only left me scowling because it didn’t feel the same.
“Slow down. Did something happen with the workshop?”
I shook my head. Before he could pull away—because he surely would want to do that—I clenched my fingers around the back of his T-shirt. It was an old one he used to sleep in sometimes.
It now smelled like my detergent.
“Okay, why are you back here then?”
“They drove me back,” I mumbled. “I was worried.”
“Worried about what?”
Now he did pull back. I didn’t fight it too much, but it took some effort not to scowl at him like a petulant child.
Maybe I’d been more coddled than I’d thought. Maybe I was more of a brat than I thought, too, and not necessarily in the kinky way.
“I shouldn’t have gotten out of the car like that.”
“Yeah, not your greatest moment.” His gaze darted toward Carlos and Danny again, hesitation clouding his features before he set his jaw once more.
I hated it. I hated how he made himself look stronger, bigger, than he actually wanted to be.
I hated that I couldn’t do shit about it without the risk of ruining something else.
“You didn’t have to leave just for that, though. ”
“I did.”