Chapter 9 - Ryan
Ryan
The next day passed in a fog of meetings. Vocabulary that had once been foreign to me slipped out of my mouth with ease. Margins. Dividends. Treaty relief. CGT. OECD. VAT. SDLT. Random letters that dictated how my day would go.
It was so different from the rhetoric I’d once used. Form. Proportion. Hatching. Contour.
It was another marker of how much I’d changed. The person I’d made myself into didn’t bother with flights of fancy. Facts, statistics, numbers. That was what made me happy now.
Or at least, as close to happy as I could hope for.
The headache that had sent me to the gym hadn’t abated. It had gradually got worse, calling in reinforcements in the form of aching muscles, a sore throat, and a cough that had my colleagues side-eyeing me with alarm.
Darkness had well and truly fallen when I trudged up the stairs to my flat. Working this late into the evening came with the territory. Usually, I took it in stride.
Tonight though, I felt the exhaustion all the way to my bones.
Shitty clients, squabbling co-workers, urgent reports that had to be signed off immediately, all of it had been dumped in my lap today.
Coupled with how shitty I felt, it was almost enough to make me wish I’d chosen a different career path.
Almost.
I let myself into my flat and dropped my stuff on the floor.
Normally I’d hang it all up, but I honestly couldn’t be fucked.
It’d match the state of the rest of my flat, which was, quite frankly, appalling.
I didn’t care. Wasn’t like anyone would be here to see it.
I’d messaged Kate earlier to tell her I was sick.
Her response had sent my mood plummeting further.
KATE
Oh, poor baby! Wish I could come and look after you but I have this crazy deadline. Will you be okay?
Of course, I’d replied that I would be. I was a grown-ass adult. I didn’t need to be coddled or looked after.
Even if I kind of wanted to be.
I tried not to look at the mess as I made my way further in. Every surface was littered with dishes I hadn’t had the energy to get to, and my carpet was days past needing a hoover. The thought of tackling any of it made me want to weep.
I shuffled through to the kitchen and opened my fridge to glare at the sparse contents. Fuck. There was literally nothing here that could make anything close to a meal.
My stomach grumbled pointedly. I just wanted to eat, take some medicine, and fall face-first into my bed, but now I was going to have to go out again.
Every muscle protested at the thought.
I pressed my face against the fridge door, letting the cold soothe my aching head. God, being sick sucked. Fuck food, I should just go and collapse in bed. But even that didn’t appeal given the fever I’d had last night. I knew without checking that my sheets would be sweat-soaked and gross.
Someone save me.
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
I tensed. I hadn’t seen Dominic since I’d stormed away from him in the gym. It wouldn’t be him, right?
A second knock. It was him. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. Because of fucking course it was. Apparently my day hadn’t been shitty enough—the universe wanted to really make me suffer.
It took me forever to get to the door. My limbs felt like I was forcing them through treacle. Dom knocked three more times before I finally got there. I opened the door to find him grinning at me.
“Took your time, Shadow.”
I tried to tell him to go fuck himself, but the words caught in my throat, a cough coming out instead.
“Shadow? What’s wrong?” Dom’s grin faded as he swept forward. His face creased in concern as he put the back of his hand to my forehead and hissed. “Baby, you’re burning up.”
“’M fine,” I muttered, batting his hand away. “What do you want?”
“Forget about that.” Dom nudged me backwards and closed the door. “You’re sick.”
“It’s just a cold.” I coughed again. “Go away.” There was no heat in my demand. If pushed, I’d say it was because I was too sick.
If I was pushed further, I might admit that a small part of me was glad he was here. Feeling this shitty had stripped away some of my armour, exposing my need for company. To be looked after.
Even if it was by Dominic.
My stomach chose that precise second to rumble loudly.
“Let’s get you fed.” Dom nodded determinedly. “You need calories when you’re sick.”
I tried to protest, but he’d already disappeared past me.
“What do you call this, Shadow?” From the rummaging noises, Dom was going through my fridge. “You have practically no food.”
It took seventeen years, but eventually I reached the kitchen.
Dom was bent in half, scowling at the empty shelves. “I mean, seriously. You need protein, Ry. You’re a growing boy.”
I slumped against the counter as a wave of dizziness washed over me. “What are you doing here, Dom?”
“Well, I was just being neighbourly,” Dom said, looking through my similarly empty cupboards. “But now I have a new mission.”
“I’m not sure what passes for neighbourly overseas, but here we don’t barge into people’s private properties whenever we like.”
Dom paused in his search. “Funny, I remember things very differently.”
Our eyes met for a heartbeat. He knew as well as I did that we were thinking about the same thing. How he’d climb in my window. How I’d never stopped him.
How I’d started leaving it open for him.
Unfortunately for Dominic, he didn’t know what had followed. The nights I’d spent wishing to see his silhouette against the moonlight. How I’d refused to close it, even during the storms that had marked the end of summer, just in case he returned.
Until the night I came out of hospital. When I’d resolved to let him go.
I’d locked it then, sealing it away along with all my hopes of any future with Dominic. The night he’d almost died had added several more padlocks.
I wasn’t unlocking any of them now.
“We aren’t kids anymore,” I said. “Things are different.”
Dom was watching me closely, but I ignored him. I was craving company, but that didn’t include arguing with him.
Water. Medicine. Bed.
That was what I needed. Dom could stay or go. I didn’t give a fuck.
Sure you don’t.
I took a glass from the cupboard, but my hand was shaking so much I almost dropped it in the sink while filling it. When I opened the medicine cupboard, I quickly realised that food wasn’t the only thing I was running low on.
Balls.
A small whimper escaped me before I could stop it.
Behind me, I heard footsteps moving before the distinctive sound of my front door being opened. I blinked in surprise.
Dominic had left.
He’d actually gone.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Wasn’t the first time he’d seen me suffering and left.
I guessed some things truly never changed.
I blinked back tears, all of a sudden feeling eighteen again. Younger, even. Desperate for someone to just…fix it all. A stupid yearning for a man who was twenty-eight, but it was there all the same.
Bracing my forearms on the worktop, I lowered my forehead until it rested against the cool surface. I groaned in relief. It wasn’t paracetamol, but it was the only painkiller I had at the moment.
Two more minutes, then I’ll go to the shop.
Far more than two minutes passed without me moving. I was genuinely debating whether I should just call it quits and slide to the floor right there. It might have been in need of a good mop, but at least it was close by. And cold. With how my skin was burning, I needed that.
Decision made, I started sliding down, but a strong arm caught me around the middle. “No you don’t, Shadow.”
A sob of relief tried to break free. Dom was back. “I thought you left.”
“Just to get supplies. Hang on, Ry. Let’s get you somewhere comfier than the floor.”
Suddenly I was airborne. Dimly, I thought I should protest about Dom carrying me like a baby. I was heavier than I’d been as a teenager, but Dom didn’t seem to have any difficulty lifting me.
“Here you go, baby,” Dom murmured as he carefully put me down. Soft cushions greeted me. The sofa. “Sit right here a second.”
My head lolled sideways as I drifted off. The next thing I knew, big hands were coaxing me into a sitting position. “Take these, Shadow.”
Exhausted, I thought about lifting my hand, but that felt like too much effort. Instead, I just opened my mouth.
There was a pause, and then two capsules were placed on my tongue. A glass of cold water was pressed to my lips next. “Drink.”
I took a few gulps obediently.
“Sleep now,” Dominic said quietly, laying me down on the sofa. “I’ll move you when I’ve got stuff sorted.”
I had no idea what he was talking about and I didn’t care. Dominic was here. He’d look after me.
I’d never fallen asleep so easily.
I wished I could say I remembered what followed. My brain teased me with tantalising fragments. Being tucked into crisp, clean sheets. Spoon-fed soup. A deep voice commanding me to drink water. Blindly accepting whatever tablets were put into my mouth.
Overriding all of them was a sense of calm. Despite the illness ravaging my system, I felt oddly serene. I had to be sick. If I were in my right mind, I wouldn’t have put my health and well-being in the hands of the one person who’d proven he couldn’t be trusted.
But, as I blinked properly awake for the first time in days, I realised that was exactly what I’d done.
I sat up slowly, marvelling at how clear my head felt. If it weren’t for the lingering ache in my muscles, I might have thought nothing had happened.
My gaze immediately fell on Dominic. He was sprawled across the chair that lived in the corner of my bedroom. It was never normally used for sitting on, given it usually had at least three loads of clean washing waiting to be put away on it.