Chapter 2
OZZIE
I didn't sleep at all.
Every time I closed my eyes, images of Cedric curled up in the corner of his couch with tears and blood streaked across his face filled my mind. It broke my heart and infuriated me at the same time.
Knowing he was safely sleeping on my pullout helped ease my mind, but I had so many questions.
So many concerns. I’d been able to piece together most of what happened last night from what I heard and saw in his apartment, but what I didn’t understand was why it had happened.
Why was Cedric spending time with someone who hurt him so badly?
Why did that person have a key to his apartment?
It didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t my place to also interrogate him.
He’d had enough of that for a lifetime.
As soon as I heard him go into the bathroom, I got up too.
With my back to the kitchen doorway, I fried some eggs and threw some bread in the toaster.
I wasn’t a big breakfast eater, but Cedric needed calories.
He was on the skinny side and couldn’t afford to miss a single meal.
Maybe it was presumptuous to make breakfast for him, but I didn’t care about social constructs. I just wanted the kid to eat.
Cedric appeared in the kitchen right around the time the toast popped out of the toaster.
He was wearing the same clothes from last night, and I instantly felt bad for not offering him something comfortable to sleep in.
I could blame my lack of thoughtfulness on being an inexperienced host, but it was more than that.
He threw me off my game.
Normally, I was confident and strong, ready to step in and solve problems without hesitation.
It was just my nature. But all that went out the window with Cedric.
With him, I was quiet. Reserved. Like I wanted him to ask for help before I gave it, but he wasn’t the kind of guy to ask.
Which meant I needed to get better at recognizing what he needed.
And that started with breakfast. I filled two plates with food and put them down on the table. “You hungry?”
He looked at the plates and then back at me. "You didn't have to cook for me."
“It was no trouble.” I sat down and waited for him to join me.
“Oh, well…” He sat down across from me and sighed. “Thank you.”
We ate quietly, but it wasn’t as awkward as I thought it might be. Comfortable silence actually felt like a reasonable start for Saturday morning breakfast with a stranger.
When we were done, I put everything in the dishwasher and turned around to face him. "I’ll give the super a call about your door."
“Huh?” He looked up from where he’d been staring, which was suspiciously close to where my ass had just been…and where my dick was now. "What about my door?"
"Your locks.” I cocked my head, hoping I wasn’t pushing him to talk about something he wasn’t ready to talk about. “You mentioned needing to have them changed last night."
His cheeks flushed and he nodded. "Right. Um, yeah, the sooner the better."
I grabbed my phone and called Brent, the building’s superintendent.
He picked up on the third ring, grumbling about being off on the weekend unless someone was dead.
I apologized for the early interruption then explained that someone had a copy of Cedric’s key and he needed the locks changed as soon as possible.
Brent sympathized with the situation but had a funeral to attend and wouldn’t be able to deal with any non-emergencies until Monday. In my opinion, a psycho ex who beat the hell out of Cedric was an emergency, but Brent didn’t agree.
“Can I change it myself?” I turned my back to Cedric, not sure I was ready to see whatever was brewing in his eyes. He was hard to read, and it was messing with me. “I’ve changed plenty of door knobs in the past. Just tell me what model I have to use.”
He was quiet for a moment then sighed. “Fine, you can try, but don’t fuck up the door frame. If I have to replace the whole door, that bill’s going to you.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I wasn’t worried at all. The keyed mechanism was only on the knob, so it was an easy fix. “Can you send me the model I need to get?”
“I have one in my apartment. You can pick it up in ten minutes. Give me a minute to take a piss before you come barging in here.”
I grinned and shook my head. “Thanks, Brent. You’re the best.”
After I disconnected the call, I took a deep breath and turned back to Cedric. “I told him I'd do it because he can’t get to it until Monday."
"Are you sure you know how?" He finally had an expression I recognized. Awe. The kid was easy to impress.
"My dad and I remodeled most of our house when I was in high school." I was about to head out the door when I felt the familiar sensation of a letdown. If I didn’t pump before getting distracted, there was a high likelihood I’d be leaking through my shirt in the very near future.
“Actually, give me about twenty minutes, and then I’ll go grab a knob from him. ”
"Okay." He bit his lip, confused by my sudden change of plans. “But if you’re busy, you don’t have to do any of this. I can stay in a hotel for a few nights.”
“No, I’m not busy today. I don’t have anything planned…” There wasn't a clean way to explain this quickly, and I wasn't sure I wanted to get into it right now. "I just need a few minutes to get ready to go."
There was no way to be discreet with Cedric still sitting at the table, so I just pulled the black pump case out from a cabinet and took it into my room.
Normally, I pumped in the kitchen and used glass jars to hold any milk I planned to save.
But I wasn’t planning on saving any of it, so the plastic containers that were stored in the bag were good enough.
In my room, I cleared off the chair that was mostly used as a clothes rack and got set up.
From the time that I first started lactating in college, I’d kept it as a very private thing.
Almost no one knew about it except my parents, and they were horrified when I was first diagnosed. They never told a soul.
At first, I was ashamed and tried every random technique I found online to make it stop. But it never did. There were times when it slowed down, usually when I was overly stressed and not eating well. But for the most part, I had to pump daily to keep from leaking.
As I got older and found a community of men like me, it was a lot easier to deal with.
The Lactin Brotherhood was a mix of men who dealt with the lactation as if it were a burden as well as those who had built thriving businesses based on selling their milk or their nursing services.
One guy I had lunch with every now and then was even a regular “milk daddy” at a local kink club.
I couldn’t imagine ever being that open with anyone about my condition.
The few times I’d leaked with a partner, I laughed it off as sweat or lube gone astray.
I don’t know if those guys bought my story or not, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
It just wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.
And the fact that someone was on the other side of my apartment and could probably hear the rhythmic pull and release of the pump just made me even more anxious to get it over with.
It took fifteen minutes for me to fully empty, and then I took everything into the bathroom to dump the milk, wash the equipment, and take a quick shower.
I wasn’t sure if anyone else could smell it on me, but I could definitely smell the sweetness of the milk when it was fresh…
and the sour tinge when it wasn’t. Instead of taking it back to the kitchen, I dropped my bag in my room and got dressed for a day of work.
When I came back out, Cedric had folded up the bed and fixed the cushions. The bedding was neatly folded behind him. “Everything okay?” He looked at me with a question on his face that he didn't ask, and I appreciated his restraint.
“Yep.” I put my keys in my pocket and grabbed my phone. "Ready?"
He hesitated for just a moment before standing up and moving on. "I’m ready if you are."
After grabbing the knob and some tools from Brent, we went back to Cedric’s apartment and got to work.
I took a quick glance around at the mess from last night and then focused on the task at hand.
With the door half open, I sat down on the floor and braced the door between my thighs so I could access the strike plate.
“Let me know if I can help.” Cedric stood behind me for a moment before disappearing into the back of his apartment.
The shower turned on and then off a few minutes later, and when he reemerged, he looked like a completely different man.
There was still visible bruising, and the gash on his cheek was oozing blood, but the difference in his appearance was dramatic.
I finished up with the door knob while he started cleaning up the blood-spattered walls and little pools of blood on the kitchen floor.
The lock took forty minutes, which was longer than it should have been because the door frame was slightly warped, but I was grateful for the extra time. I needed it to think about my next move, and Cedric probably needed some alone time too. He was the one who had actual trauma to process.
After grabbing all the tools and the old knob, I peeked into his kitchen. “I’m all done out here.”
He was still scrubbing a dark mark on the floor.
I didn’t look too closely the night before because I was worried about the sweet kid down the hall who had obviously been through hell.
But now that I’d spent a little bit of time with Cedric, watching him try to erase the evidence of his attack was gut-wrenching.
He looked up at me with red eyes and a ring of blood under his left nostril.
"Is your nose okay?" I went to him and tilted his head up so I could get a better look. “Did it bleed a lot?”
He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. "No, it’s fine. Not broken." He reached for a paper towel and wiped his nose. "It started a little, but it’s not a big deal. I've broken it before, and this isn't that."
I wanted to ask for details, but I didn’t. It wasn’t the right time. Instead, I turned his chin so I could take a look at his cheek. The cut under his eye was deeper than the dried blood had made it look last night. It was a clean split, but it really needed stitches. "That needs to be closed."
“I know.” He looked into my eyes and nodded. "I've got butterfly strips somewhere."
I couldn’t stop the frown that formed on my face. "You need actual stitches, Cedric. Butterflies will leave you with a gnarly scar."
He scoffed and turned to the cabinet over his fridge.
“Dudes dig scars, right?” He pulled out a first-aid kit and set it on the counter.
After watching him fumbling around for a few seconds, I got impatient and took over.
I needed something to do while processing whether he was being flirty or not. And whether I wanted him to be.
I lined up the strips on his counter and then grabbed the first one.
“Hold still.” I’d put them on myself a few times, but being so close to someone else with an injury added a whole level of pressure.
I worked carefully, making sure I didn’t cause more pain or damage as I got the first strip in place.
Cedric didn't flinch or pull back as I arranged four strips across the cut. I could feel his breath on my neck and his gaze on my face while I tried to focus, but it wasn’t easy. He smelled…good. Like coconut.
"There you go." When I was satisfied that they’d hold, I forced myself to step back before I did something stupid like sniff his head. "Keep them dry for at least forty-eight hours. And if there’s any pus, you need to see a doctor."
“Yeah, okay.” He put the first-aid kit away and leaned on the fridge. "What time is it?"
I checked my phone. "Almost noon."
"That’s what I thought." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the floor. “I have the internal clock of a Labrador retriever.”
I grinned and knew exactly what he meant. We had Labs when I was growing up and they knew exactly when it was time to eat. "Let’s go grab lunch."
He looked up, surprised by the offer. Or maybe suspicious. The poor guy had barely escaped an aggressive boyfriend, and I was already moving in on him. "Why?"
Excellent question. "Because it's lunch time and we could both use some fresh air." I held up the new set of keys and put them on the counter beside him. "And because I'd rather not leave you here alone right now, if I can avoid it."
He looked at the keys, and then back at me. "You don't even know me. Why do you care?"
I didn’t have a real answer for that, so I gave him an honest one. "I just do."
“Fine.” Cedric uncrossed his arms and pushed off the fridge. "But I'm buying."