Chapter 7
Kai woke with a start. The room was pitch black and Nolan was still wrapped around him from behind, his hot breath puffing against his ear.
His post-orgasm glow had faded, and he woke, tense, with a heaviness in his chest, and feeling slightly sick.
He couldn’t say what exactly had woken him, only that Nolan’s arm suddenly felt like a weight holding him down.
It’s Nolan. It’s fine. Just go back to sleep.
He desperately wanted to. Nolan’s body and the heavy duvet made the perfect cozy cocoon around him.
He should have been loving this. The rational part of his brain that was still working told him he did love this.
It tried valiantly to argue with the other part of him, the broken part, the one sounding the alarm, screaming at him that he was in danger. That he had to get out. Now.
Kai lay still, trying to let the feeling pass, but forcing himself to be still only added to his claustrophobia. He needed to move, just to know that he could. Just to confirm that he wasn’t actually being crushed. The panic was building, tunnelling his vision, threatening his ability to breathe.
Slowly, he eased himself out from under Nolan’s arm, sliding off the bed and quickly grabbing his borrowed clothes.
At the door, he hesitated, looking over his shoulder at Nolan’s sleeping form, still mostly buried under the heavy white duvet.
Yearning pulled at his gut like a hook, trying to reel him back.
What the fuck was he doing? He wanted this. Wanted it with his whole being. Why was he running?
But he knew. Nolan was good, and Kai was a piece of shit that would contaminate that goodness.
That was it. That was the weight in his chest. He knew he didn’t deserve this, and the longer he stayed, the longer he risked Nolan finding out just who he was.
The thought of Nolan’s disappointment spurred Kai out of the room, tugging his clothes on as he walked.
It wasn’t until he was downstairs that he realized what was missing.
His phone. Nolan never told him where it was.
Damn it. He couldn’t leave without it, but it could be anywhere.
He doubled back to the room he’d slept in the previous night.
When he didn’t find it there, he tried the kitchen. No luck.
Kai stood in the living room, paralyzed with indecision.
He could leave and come back and get it.
That would mean having to face Nolan after running out on him.
That would be awkward as hell. A flush of shame crept onto his face just thinking about it.
He could go upstairs and ask Nolan for it, but that meant waking him up.
Then he would have to admit he tried sneaking out in the middle of the night.
Frustrated, Kai kicked at bondage Ken, displacing him from his precarious perch on the spanking bench and sending Lego pieces flying.
He huffed in exasperation. He hadn’t even kicked it that hard.
Still, guilt took hold when he thought of Katie finding out he’d wrecked her toy.
He squatted to pick up the pieces, trying to slot it back together.
When it didn’t work, he got to his knees and crawled around the floor in the dim light of a table lamp he’d risked turning on, collecting all of the pieces he could find.
Dumping them onto the coffee table, he kneeled and picked up the main piece, examining it.
Katie had clearly crafted the design to get the job done but the truth was the angles were just all wrong.
He’d seen Gloria, and those knees in those heels?
She was doing too much work to hit the right spots.
Kai got to his feet again, this time grabbing Ken, Gloria and the Lego pieces from Katie’s toy chest, returning to his spot again on the floor.
Was this the time and place to be redesigning spanking benches?
Probably not. But this was a problem with a solution that he could figure out.
It wasn’t how he was going to help pay rent, whether the city was finally going to make good on condemning their shitty shared trailer or the whole damned park.
It wasn’t how to redeem himself from being an absolute shit person so he could be good enough for someone like Nolan without Nolan ever finding out he was a shit person to begin with or how to locate his lost phone.
He found a flat, green square in the chest that was perfect for building on.
He was surprised Katie hadn’t thought of that.
Kai got to work. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but at some point he’d shifted into a cross-legged position.
It had taken awhile to get the bench right.
The rigid shape of the blocks and Ken’s refusal to bend his limbs meant it still wasn’t perfect, but that ass was definitely more accessible to Gloria.
He’d even built Katie one of those things shaped like an X that he’d seen at the club.
He didn’t know what they were called but he knew you were supposed to tie people to them.
That seemed like something she’d be into.
“Whatchu doing, sweetheart?” It took a second for Nolan’s voice to penetrate.
Kai’d been so focused on the bedframe he was trying to snap together, he hadn’t heard Nolan approach.
Kai glanced over to see him squatting a few feet away, shirtless but wearing the sweats Kai had taken off of him just hours ago.
Kai averted his eyes. That was a dangerous thing to think about.
If he thought about that, he’d have to think about what they’d done after and how good it felt to be under him.
How good it felt to have Nolan’s hands and mouth all over him.
Better to focus on what he was doing.
“Broke Katie’s toy. Just trying to fix it,” he said. Some of the pieces were just so stubborn, hard to separate when he clicked them in the wrong spot.
“Were you leaving, Kai?” There was a shadow of disappointment in Nolan’s voice, and Kai flinched without meaning to. That disappointment left a new sick feeling in Kai’s stomach. What would happen if he stayed? If he gave this even more time?
It would only get worse. It was inevitable that he would fuck this up, and he wasn’t sure he could hold up under the weight of disappointing Nolan.
“I couldn’t find my phone,” he muttered. Nolan didn’t move right away, but after a minute or so, he stood and left. When he returned, he slipped Kai’s phone onto the coffee table beside him. The Lego pieces he was holding slipped from his fingers. He looked at the phone, then up at Nolan.
“Do you need a ride somewhere?”
So that was it. Kai could have woken him up, because Nolan wasn’t going to put up a fight. Wouldn’t try to convince him to stay.
Damn, that kind of hurt. It was an understatement.
It felt like someone had stabbed him in the chest. It was humiliating, thinking about how worried he’d felt, imagining Nolan upset that he’d run out on him and it made him question if the attachment he felt was one sided.
Or maybe Nolan hadn’t really been into what they’d done.
“No, I’m good.” Kai looked away but made no move to get to his feet.
Questions chased themselves around his head, followed by a hundred hypothetical answers, none of them making him feel better.
He kind of wished Nolan had left him with his stupid Lego.
For one brief, shining moment, his brain had been blissfully silent.
“It’s almost four in the morning. Too late to be roaming the streets. Why don’t you stay and I’ll take you where you need to go in a few hours.” Nolan hesitated. “You can stay in the other room if you don’t want to stay with me. No pressure.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to stay with you?” Kai asked, glancing up again. The pain in his chest abated, but it was still there like it, too, wasn’t sure if it should stay or go.
“I don’t know, Kai. Maybe for whatever reason has you trying to sneak away in the middle of the night. If you changed your mind—”
“I didn’t change my mind.” Nolan stared at him. Kai knew he was being contrary, but he didn’t know how to explain that he didn’t want to go, but he should go, without explaining why.
Nolan’s shoulders slumped.
“You’ve gotta give me something, Kai.” Kai didn’t know what it was that he could give.
He felt more confused than ever. Instead of answering, he crept closer, resting his forehead against Nolan’s leg.
His thoughts were a jumbled mess, but, somehow, being close to Nolan made things marginally better. Eventually, he looked up at him again.
“Do you know what karma is?” he asked.
The corner of Nolan’s mouth quirked up a little. “Yeah, baby, I know what karma is.”
“I have bad karma. One day, you’re going to regret you met me.”
“Maybe. But that isn’t going to be tonight.” Nolan squatted down so that they were almost face to face. “Why don’t we let that be a tomorrow problem and not anticipate trouble before it gets here, hmm?”
Kai eyed him dubiously. That didn’t sound right.
In his experience, it was important to anticipate all of the problems well in advance, even if it was extremely exhausting to keep track of them all and their myriad possible outcomes.
Even now, he was sure he was forgetting something he should probably be worried about.
“Kai!” Kai’s attention snapped to, like it did every time Nolan used his business voice. “It’s time for bed.”
This time, Kai didn’t argue. Nolan got back to his feet, pulling Kai up too.
He was tired. A few more hours of sleep would be amazing.
That part of his brain that craved being cocooned in Nolan’s bed all, wrapped up in him nodded enthusiastically.
And really, what was the point in leaving now anyway?
He was sure it would take him hours to walk home from here and he only had the vaguest idea of where “here” was.
Nolan folded his hand in his and led him back to the bedroom. He stripped him down, gave him a pair of boxers to sleep in and urged him back into bed. This time, Nolan pulled him close, facing him, one arm under Kai’s head while his other hand drew lazy patterns on his side.
“How do you just choose not to worry about stuff?” Kai asked.
“I worry about stuff sometimes, but mostly, if I can do something about whatever I’m worried about, I do it, and if I can’t, then I just wait until there’s something I can do.
” He paused. “The truth is, when I catch myself worrying, I’m usually worried about the worst possible outcome, and then I have to ask myself if the worst case is actually what I think is going to happen. Usually it isn’t.”
Kai thought about it. He could see that Nolan was probably right, but the truth was, in his world, even the most likely outcomes were still pretty shitty.
“I don’t know. I feel like if I just keep thinking about everything, then nothing can take me by surprise.”
Nolan tilted Kai’s chin so that he was forced to look him in the eye.
“If there are things that you’re worried about, you can always share them with me. If this thing between us doesn’t work out, I won’t regret you, I promise. And just so you know, my karma is great.”
Kai snorted a laugh. Hell, it must be. The guy lived like a king and was able to not worry at will. Kai had no idea what his life would look like if he could live like that. He looked away, his gaze landing on a book on Nolan’s side table, splayed on its pages to mark wherever he’d left off.
“What’re you reading?”
Nolan half-turned, stretching so that he didn’t disturb Kai. He flipped the book up to show the cover. A pretty jock with dark hair stared out, with the title, Be My Daddy, across the bottom half in a mix of cursive and block letters.
“What is that?” Kai laughed.
“What? It’s a romance novel. It’s about a brat in desperate need of a spanking. Kind of like you.”
Kai smirked. “Read it to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, read it to me.” Kai settled in.
Nolan flipped back to the page before to start at the beginning of the chapter.
“Is Charlie the guy he falls for?” Kai interrupted after a minute.
“No. It’s Bennet. His tutor.”
“Damn, Daddy. How old are these guys?”
“Nineteen.”
“And you said I was too young.” Kai snorted.
“Are you going to let me read?”
“Yeah, I just need you to catch me up. What do they play?”
“Football. Zane has a scholarship to go to college, but he’s failing calculus.”
“I never finished high school.” Kai froze. It wasn’t something he normally shared, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Nolan looked over at him with interest, and embarrassment warmed his cheeks. “Is that a problem?”
“No. It’s just the first real thing you’ve told me about yourself. I want to know more.”
“You’re supposed to be reading to me.”
“Tell me one more thing and I’ll read to you. Why didn’t you finish high school?”
“My grandma died, and shit kind of fell apart after that.” It was the truth without the gory details.
He waited for Nolan to press for more. He could see it on his face that he wanted to know.
Maybe Kai would tell him, someday, but he hoped it didn’t have to be tonight.
Right now, he needed to stop thinking, and he needed Nolan to make that happen.
“I’m sorry about your grandma.”
Kai shrugged, his chest squeezing tight.
He didn’t know what to say. He knew that was what you said to people who lost someone, but he didn’t really understand it.
Losing his grandma was simultaneously the worst thing that had ever happened to him and also…
not. It had been the catalyst for so many worse things.
Maybe he was waiting for someone to say they were sorry to hear about all of that worse stuff.
To acknowledge that that shit shouldn’t have happened to him or anyone else.
“Okay, are you ready? Settle down now.”
“Wait. I think you should probably just start from the beginning.”