Chapter 19
chapter nineteen
patrice
“Why does the fucking world insist on cock-blocking my life?”
I bit back a smile as I made my way back up Easton’s torso, which I’d been licking and biting on my way down to his dick. “It could be important?” I said, trying not to laugh at the annoyed expression on his face.
“But it’s not even six and I’m not on call, and you were doing so well.” He grabbed his cock and stroked it as he looked at me. “I mean your tongue was really building up expectations. So…”
I didn’t even answer and leaned down to kiss him again. I covered him with my body, arms on either side of his head, my hips circling in that way that drove him nuts as I licked into his mouth.
“You want me to swallow your cock, is that it, Counselor?” He ran his foot over my calf and thigh, as he kissed me back.
He pulled back and those green eyes were twinkling with mischief. “Well, I wouldn’t turn that down, Dr. Denis. You’ve been so accommodating this morning already.”
Saturday, I’d woken up expecting to feel stupid or regretful about telling Easton about the stuff with my father, or for him to treat me differently.
I should’ve known he wouldn’t. He’d woken up in my arms and gone straight to kissing and touching and telling me how much he loved having me in his bed every morning.
Everything felt solid.
Just as I was about to tell him so, his work phone went off and I knew whatever it was, it was important.
I sat up to let him get the phone from the table.
He groaned as he looked at the screen, and his face paled as soon as he said hello.
I wondered if it had something to do with the trial.
I knew the jury would not start deliberating again until this morning, so it couldn’t be the verdict.
“When?” he asked, his voice icy. “Motherfucker.”
He turned so that he could get up from the bed.
When he looked at me, the way he could barely make eye contact, made me grab my own phone from the side of the table.
I heard him hurry downstairs, his voice so hushed I couldn’t hear it.
I didn’t need to, as soon as I opened the Twitter app on my phone, I knew what the call was about.
My mentions were out of control with people tweeting at me about another traffic stop.
Apparently, last night police had stopped three young men on their way back from a party, for a broken taillight.
During the stop something happened that resulted in one of them being hospitalized.
It was hard to get the exact details of what had happened, but people were outraged.
There were calls for the sheriff to resign and for charges to be brought against the deputy involved.
My pulse raced as I tapped on tweets and headlines to get more information.
I got up from the bed, the bliss from the previous half hour long forgotten, and started putting on my clothes as I scrolled through my notifications.
There was a DM from one of the local community groups asking me to join them in organizing a peaceful protest for that night.
I stood in Easton’s bedroom looking at his picture window, it was too dark to see much, but in the distance I could almost make out the outline of the clock tower.
I held my phone loosely in my hand, and I hesitated.
I knew that whatever Easton was talking about downstairs had to do with the reason for the protest I was being asked to help organize.
A protest that would demand that the people in Easton’s position take some action about what was happening.
I almost tapped out a yes, but I hesitated.
Instead I shoved my phone in my pocket and made my way downstairs.
I didn’t need to ask how bad shit was, because it was written all over Easton’s face.
He was standing in the middle of his living room with his eyes closed and his hands grasped tightly behind his head, looking spooked.
He looked up at me as I walked over to put my shoes on, his silence more telling than anything he could say.
I took a moment to get my shoes on and pocket my wallet before I walked over to where he was still looking like he was about to puke.
I knew what he was feeling because I felt it, too, the knot in my stomach that told me reality had come knocking and the connection that had felt so strong the last couple of days was already slipping away from our fingers.
But I was not one to delay the inevitable, so I said what had to be said.
“So they put a kid in the hospital this time. Sounds like whatever your friend the sheriff said to his deputies didn’t exactly take.
” There was no way to keep the edge out of my voice.
I could see the muscles in Easton’s jaw moving and I was wondering if he was trying to decide how much of whatever he heard on that call he was going to tell me.
“Baby—”
I don’t know if it was my face or what, but something about the situation made him stop talking and when he spoke again the intimate tone was gone. Still friendly, still warm, but I was no longer talking to my lover.
“I don’t know how much you got already,” he said, fidgeting with his phone. “But it was a broken taillight. The deputy flagged them down about five miles out of town. It was pretty routine, until for some fucking inexplicable reason, the deputy made them get out of the car.”
The frustration made his voice tight, and I could tell that it wasn’t just about one more incident and optics.
Easton was struggling with whatever was happening.
I wanted to go to him—I did—but I stayed where I was.
I could not let this turn into something about me and him.
He glanced skyward then, and I wasn’t sure if he was regrouping or he if he just didn’t want to look at me for the next part.
“One of the kids started convulsing and ended up passing out. Apparently he has pretty severe asthma but didn’t want to reach into his coat pocket to get his inhaler. ”
Because he was afraid he’d get shot.
“He blacked out.” Easton’s tired exhale said it all. And to think only ten minutes earlier we were ready to start the day playing in bed. “He’s at Ithaca General, stable. The other two are fine.”
I nodded, because I didn’t have to say what we both knew. That things could’ve been much worse if that kid hadn’t been more scared to reach into his pocket than he was of passing out from an asthma attack. He could’ve ended up dead.
“I’ll deal with this, Patrice,” he offered, his voice pleading.
I ground my teeth together, my hands fist-deep in my coat pocket, hating this shit. Hating, that once again, something I wanted, something I yearned for, was being tarnished by other people’s actions.
“Easton, this is not something you need to resolve to appease me.”
He threw his hands up at my words and tried to move closer, then thought better of it and kept himself on the other side of the couch.
“Of course it’s not about appeasing you, Patrice.
I fucking know that.” He ran a hand over his face and exhaled before he spoke again.
Ruthlessly, I wished he’d say something terrible, something condescending or flippant, so I could retreat and go back to the more familiar place of expecting the worst.
“I don’t do this job to piss off my parents, Patrice. I do it because I believe that I can play a role in seeking justice. I’m not na?ve, I understand what it means that that kid risked suffocating to death rather than reach into his pocket. I will address this.”
“Will you address it in the press?”
This time, he was the one grinding his teeth. “That’s not up to me.”
My anger at his answer boiled up and then fizzled out just as fast, because I didn’t want to be doing this right now. I didn’t want to have to turn away from what I’d had just hours ago with Easton because of something that neither of us had done.
It felt so fucking unfair, but he was who he was, and I was who I was, and if I let what I felt for him change that, we’d be over before we really started.
I walked up to him anyway and did the thing that I would’ve never done before Easton Archer came into my life.
I compromised again. I took his face in my hands and pressed our lips together.
He opened up for me like he always did; there was no fight in Easton when we were this close.
I licked into his mouth and pressed my fingers into his skin. My hands tightening on him.
Possessive, even when I didn’t want to be. That pull that made me want to forget myself. Always one brush of skin away from igniting.
“I know this is not all up to you,” I said just as much for myself as for him. We pressed our foreheads together, his hands gripping my wrists. We were there for one, two, three breaths, before pulling apart.
“I’ll call you later,” I said, pointing downstairs. “I’m going to go get ready for class. I’ll keep my eye out for any news on the jury. Good luck.”
Easton only nodded, his face subdued and worried, but said nothing and I wondered if like me, he feared that if we started talking about this, it would all come tumbling down.
I walked out of his apartment and took the stairs, my phone still in my pocket. When I drove off to campus a couple of hours later, I responded to the organizers of the peaceful protest in the only way I could.
You can count on me.
It was past four in the afternoon and already getting dark when Ted barged into my office. “The jury’s got a verdict.”
I looked up from my monitor and waved him in as I opened the tab to the local newspaper’s Twitter. They’d been posting updates.