Chapter 7
LEA
Nothing was working.
Trying to put Beau out of my mind only made me think about him even more.
The longer he lived with me, the more I felt this need to be near him, to talk to him, and…
I wanted to touch him.
I was enamored with his blushes and his shy glances. He made me want to wrap my arms and legs around him and cuddle him aggressively.
Like an affectionate alligator roll.
Would he laugh if I did that? Or be freaked out? I wasn’t sure I’d heard him laugh yet, now that I thought about it. I wanted to know what it sounded like. With that deep—
“Hello? Lea?” Monroe waved his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked, then snapped my teeth playfully at his fingers. “What?”
“I think the glass is full,” he said wryly. I looked down at the pint glass in my hand, overflowing with frothy beer, and quickly released the handle of the tap.
“Shit,” I muttered, reaching for a towel. I’d been annoyingly distracted all day.
“And what the hell happened to your hand?”
“Ah, well, all I’ll say is don’t pour coffee in the dark. Then you’ll find out that you’re lacking some very pertinent first-aid knowledge.”
The look Monroe gave me told me he thought I was as weird as I felt. “Did you hit your head?”
“Ha. Ha. Hardy har. No, I did not.” I turned up my nose, not offended in the slightest because if I were talking to me right now, I would’ve said the same thing.
Monroe sighed. “All right, well, I don’t know if you can help me, but the computer is slow as shit right now and I don’t know why. Can you take a look at it before I call someone?”
I laughed and wiped off the froth on the outside of the glass, then slid it over to the customer. “Here you go, hon.”
He was an older man that came here for lunch every day and one thing I’d learned was he hated small talk. He grunted, which was his way of saying thank you, and took a sip.
Throwing the towel onto the counter, I gently pushed Monroe toward the bar’s end. “Come on. Let’s see if I’m secretly a tech genius.”
“You wouldn’t own a bar with me if you were a tech genius.”
I scoffed in mock offense. “I would own all sorts of things if I were a tech genius because I’d be a quadrillionaire by now. I would own at least ten bars.”
Monroe huffed a laugh. “You can barely manage half of one.”
When we stepped inside his office, I sighed and flicked on the overhead light. “Monroe, honey, you’re not a golem. Light is good for you.” I stepped across the room and pulled open the blinds.
“Fuck. Stop it, Lea, the sun shines right on the damn screen and I can’t see shit that way.”
“You know you can move your desk, right?” I sidled around his desk and plopped down into his very uncomfortable chair. “Ugh. Babe, seriously, please get a new chair. You’re gonna need corrective surgery if you keep using this one.”
I shot him a reproachful look while he rolled his eyes and rubbed his temples like I was giving him a headache.
“Just look at the damn thing,” he muttered.
“So what’s the issue?”
Monroe sank down onto the couch across from the desk and leaned against the cushions.
“I have to get the financial records for this quarter ready, so I was working on the spreadsheet, but every time I click something, it takes a good two minutes to complete the action. It’s been doing that all morning and I can’t deal with it anymore. ”
Blech. Technology. This was why I did not envy Monroe’s responsibilities at all.
I clicked on the open spreadsheet of our spending breakdown for the quarter, then clicked on the file menu.
And waited while nothing happened.
“Okay, let me ask you something,” I said, steepling my hands and raising my brows at Monroe. “And I need you to be honest with me because resolution only comes with honesty. Were you looking at porn?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath. “Yup. You got me. I was watching porn, Lea.”
I whistled. “Knew it.” The chair creaked when I sat back as I waited for the file menu to drop down. “Well, as a tech genius, I am diagnosing this problem as undiagnosable by me but potentially diagnosable by my new roommate. Who is actually a tech genius.”
Monroe muttered something as I pulled out my phone and called Shea because I didn’t have Beau’s number.
It rang. And rang and rang and rang and went to voicemail.
“Shea bae, I don’t know why you even have a phone when you hardly ever use it. What if I was dying? I could be dying right now, and this is the last phone call you ever get from me.”
I hung up, then pocketed my phone again and said, “I’ll just run back to the apartment and ask him.”
“Thanks.”
“And by run I mean walk at a leisurely pace.”
Monroe sighed, then stood up and walked with me back to the bar area.
He split off from me and went behind the bar while I sashayed out into the blindingly bright sun.
There was a warm, gentle breeze that felt so good with the heat of the sun.
It would feel even better to be in the ocean right now.
Had Beau gone down to the ocean yet? Did he even like to swim?
I turned left, headed home, and was only halfway back when Shea called me.
“Yes, my darling,” I said into the phone. “I’m still alive, how kind of you to ask.”
Shea’s voice was tinged with concern when he spoke. “Hey, is something going on at the apartment?”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Nothing’s going on that I know of. Why, what’s wrong?”
Had Beau said something about this morning? I mean, nothing happened, he’d just helped me…but had that bothered him? He did look afraid when I touched his cheek. And actually, he always seemed bothered around me.
Fuck. Was that it? That I’d touched him? I needed to remember that he wasn’t used to that kind of thing and restrain myself around him.
A heavy sigh came over the line. “I don’t know. Beau just told me he’s looking for other places to live.”
I stopped walking, shock rippling through me. “What? Why?”
“He said he didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.” Shea scoffed in disbelief. “He’s not a burden. Why would he think he’s a burden?” There was a five-second pause. “Did you call him a burden?”
My mouth dropped open. “No, I did not call him a burden! What the hell, Shea?” I pulled the phone away from my face to glance at the time, then started speed-walking to my apartment.
“Look, I’m on my way there now, so I’ll talk to him and make it clear that no one thinks he’s a burden.
Okay? What else did he say? Is this an exigent circumstance and I should be running back, or is he just casually pursuing options out of boredom? What is the Defcon level here?”
“I don’t know, it was hard to tell. He kept trying to change the subject, and then he backtracked and said he misspoke and didn’t want to move at all, he just wanted to look at fallback options just in case.
I just—why would he need options? Just in case what?
There are so many options that don’t include him moving away to god knows where, and I don’t know how to—to—”
Shea was freaking out and trying so hard not to freak out, but god the poor boy loved his brother and just wanted everything to be perfect for him.
“Okay, shh, it’s okay, Shea. Take a deep breath—that’s it—and exhale slowly. I saw Beau this morning and everything was perfectly normal. He seemed totally fine. I’m about to see him again, so don’t catastrophize. No matter what, everything will be all right. Won’t it?”
A shaky exhale came over the line. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry, I just—it’s just—” Shea sighed, then groaned.
“Sorry. It’ll be fine. Call me later, okay?
No, wait! Hold on! Shit, I meant to tell you.
That AC unit in Beau’s room is busted. He said he’d let you know, but I’m telling you now in case he forgets.
Says it worked on the first day he came, but hasn’t worked for like…
almost two weeks now? I don’t know, but being able to hear the music and people on the street at night must be bugging him, he’s always had supersonic hearing.
Maybe that’s why he wants to leave? Fuck, I wish he’d just talk to me—”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t jump to conclu—”
Wait.
Oh god.
Oh my god.
A prickling iciness cascaded slowly from the top of my skull and down through my body.
“Lea?”
Fuck.
“Yeah, sorry, I tripped. I’ll get it fixed. Talk to you soon, love.”
I barely heard Shea’s parting words over the roaring in my ears.
Oh, fuck.
Had he heard me? For the past two weeks, had he heard me in my room?
I’d been masturbating almost every single night since he got here. In my very un-soundproof room.
I was such a fucking asshole.
That had to be why he was sleeping on the couch.
I was a goddamn bastard. How did I not even realize? That stupid AC unit rattled like a fucking maraca at all hours of the day and I didn’t even notice the absence of that noise.
I had to be the most self-involved prick on the planet.
I’d never meant to make him feel like he couldn’t even sleep in his own room.
I had to apologize. I knew how badly Shea wanted him to stay in Blue Harbor with us, and I was doing a shit job of making him feel comfortable. If he left because of me—
My fingers trembled as I raked them through my hair. “Fuck,” I whispered. “Lea, you goddamn asshole!”
For so long, I’d never had to think about my sex life or the way I chased after pleasure. Shea, Riley, Monroe—they didn’t give a shit. They were used to my enjoyment of sex and men and never batted an eye.
But Beau wasn’t them. I’d gotten so used to the way I lived that I never thought twice about it. There was nothing wrong with enjoying sex.
Except…I hadn’t always been this way, had I? This was what I’d become in my determination to never let anyone get close to me again. Not after Lyle.
That poor excuse for a man had killed off some vital part of me that I’d never get back.
I missed that part. I missed being able to hand my trust and love away like party favors and not have it hurt me.
I missed never worrying about rejection and betrayal and wondering when the next blow was coming.
I missed the person I used to be and I did everything to ignore the person I’d become.
It was actually pathetic, now that I let myself think about it.
By the time I got home, I was a twisted, tangled up mess. I hesitated outside of Beau’s door—always shut, like he needed to hide away from the world. Needed that extra barrier.
From me.
It was so obvious why now.
God, this guilt was going to eat me alive.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked softly. I couldn’t hear anything from inside the room, and when I knocked again and he didn’t answer, I thought maybe he wasn’t here. I knew he worked from home, but maybe he’d gone out on a break?
“Damn,” I muttered.
Just as I turned to leave, the door swung open.
Beau jumped when he saw me, eyes blowing wide. He was wearing big headphones—and practically nothing else. I realized he probably hadn’t heard me knocking with those headphones on, because he looked alarmed to find me standing here.
My eyes swept down his lean frame, all that lightly tanned skin crowded with a sea of freckles.
His chest was bare of hair, his nipples a dark, dusky brown, and he had a thin line of dark brown hair that started below his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his plain blue boxers.
There was a long scar underneath his ribs on his left side, a thin, silvery line that broke through the freckles and stretched to his hip.
And right now, he was flushed from the top of his head down to his stomach.
I clenched my hand into a fist.
“Fuck,” I whispered, trying to swallow around my suddenly dry throat. I raised my eyes to his, but he had a deeply panicked look on his face and was staring at my chest. “Shit. Wow, I am so sorry, I just wanted to—uh, talk to you,” I said, and when the hell had I ever struggled to get my words out?
Beau quickly lowered his headphones down to his neck, his gaze flitting briefly to mine, then away again. “C-can I put some clothes on?” he asked quietly. His hands were wrapped tight around the ears of his headphones.
I turned to face down the hallway, like I should have done instead of staring, and said, “Yeah, yep, do that. I’ll be in the living room.
Sorry.” I didn’t wait for a response, just walked down the hall to the couch, sitting down heavily.
Rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands.
He probably thought I would be at work until eight, like I’d told him in the note I’d left on the fridge this morning, which was why he’d come out of his room in just his boxers.
Any time I had to go out now—to work or the store or just anywhere—I’d been leaving him little notes on the fridge.
I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to constantly inform him of my whereabouts, but I thought that maybe he’d like knowing how long he would get the place to himself.
Something told me Beau was only truly comfortable when he was alone, and I wanted him to feel like he didn’t have to stay cooped up in his room all the time.
Part of me also liked that there was someone I could tell about what I was doing or where I was going. Someone helping me fill the empty, quiet space I’d been living in for years. Shea came and went, so he was never a constant presence.
I was feeling all kinds of things ever since Shea had dropped him here like a delicate little bomb, blowing up my life with his shy glances and pink cheeks. He was like something that needed to be protected and preserved, and it was surprising how much I wanted to be the one to do those things.
How much I liked knowing he was here, right next to me, even if he was behind that closed door.
So the truth was, I didn’t want him to leave. Having Beau here made me feel a little less lonely.
He made my apartment worth coming back to, and that…
I didn’t want to let go of that.
Yep. I was the most selfish prick on the planet.