Well that clearly wasn’t true. “Alle, I needed to feel something.” He didn’t want to say that it’d seemed like a better alternative to punching himself in the face or carving up his arms again, or downing a litre of Scotch, or any of the other myriad of things he’d tried to curb the demons that lived in his mind from doing their stuff and leaving him poisoned.
Shit! Shit, shitting shit!
He could feel the tension in her right down the length of her spine, wished it wasn’t there, even while he understood why it was. Of course, she felt insecure. Who the hell wouldn’t after being ghosted for eight months?
“I could have been there for you.” Her voice was a croak, her emotions clearly playing havoc on her vocal chords. “You could have felt something with me. All you had to do was call, I would have been there. I want to be there for you. It doesn’t feel like you necessarily feel the same.”
Could they not do this now? It was too raw. His soul too flayed already.
“I’m sorry. I realise how difficult this must be for you.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Spook Mortensen. I don’t want platitudes. Be honest with me. Explain. I don’t care if it sounds insane. I want to understand. Nor does it matter if I don’t exactly get it, but at least give me the opportunity to not get it, instead of cutting me out.”
His tongue slid across the sharp ridges of his front teeth. Could he do this? Open up to her, peel open the lid and let her peer inside? Was he ready for that?
Like fuck he was.
“I don’t want our relationship to be like that,” he admitted, forcing the words out, then taking a series of steadying breaths. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me, or have you be responsible for me. I’m responsible for myself. I don’t want you steeped in my misery. It’s better that you’re apart from it, that you’re not tarnished by the lows. When we’re together, I want us to keep that ability to lose ourselves in the moment, not to have them stolen away by the times that were downright shit. I don’t want to use you as a means of finding the unfindable. And that probably doesn’t make sense” —he buried his face in the waves of her hair, breathing in the scent of her, letting it fill his lungs and soothe his senses— “I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“It does. I do understand what you’re saying. I just… I wish it could be otherwise. I don’t want to be with you just for the good bits.”
“You’re hardly getting that.”
“Or the wicked bits – which for the record, I know you still beat yourself up about. I want the full experience. All of you, the good and bad, saintly and sinful. The man who bounces off stage full of energy, high on living and the man who can’t summon the will to get out of bed not even for the best cup of tea in creation.” She frowned. “Piss, why didn’t I think of that this morning? Who can resist a cuppa tea in bed?”
Him, but he didn’t tell her that.
She rolled over so they were facing and traced the prickly line of stubble that now poked through the skin along his jawline. “If you want to blow Xane, then obviously you should do that, but I don’t think you should do it for the reasons you said. I don’t think that’s fair on him, or reflective of how you feel about him either. You obviously love him. You’ve even told me as much. So don’t demean that.”
Fuck, was she bollocking him?
She was, and now he was straining to keep a smile off his face, down to the sheer novelty of it.
“When I’m low, I’m not necessarily at my most rational, Alle. And for the record, he warned me that the resulting high would be fleeting. He was right.”
“Then I’m astonished he agreed to it.”
“He’s a sex addict, Alle.”
“In which case you need smacking for taking advantage of that.”
She really was bollocking him. The freshness of it was intoxicating. Normally everyone tiptoed around him afraid of saying boo, terrified that he’d do something dramatic in response.
“You’re right. I do.”
“Well then, don’t do it again.”
When he didn’t say anything to that, her mouth drew into a disappointed pucker.
“Spook? Wait. I meant don’t take advantage of him, not that you shouldn’t blow him. I already agreed to whatever the hell it is you are to each other.”
“Okay,” he mouthed hesitantly. “I won’t.” Blowjobs aside, he’d hurt Xane enough already to last a lifetime.
Alle kissed him, dislodging his musings about Dani and the damage he’d done to her, Xane and Luthor’s relationship. He wished he knew a way to fix it, but suspected the first step would involve letting go of Xane forever, and there was no way he could do that.
He let the warmth of Alle’s love seep into him for a while, until she parted them with a yawn. “You should ask how my day went.”
“How was it?” he dutifully asked.
