I relaxed slightly into the hug, and breathed out. He smelled like himself, though maybe a little more stressed. Slowly, my arms came up around him, and I turned my head a little so I could lay it against his broad chest. It was good to be in his arms, after all.
Jon Connery
Wallace was a wreck, and I wasn't in much better shape. I wasn't sleeping well without him, and it was far from being just about sex — because it wasn't like we got together for some bowm-chicka-bowm-bowm every night anyway. In fact usually not. But I missed him almost more than I could credit. I missed talking to him. I missed spending time together at work, and our nightly phone conversations.
I'd been torn between worry and fury since he walked off the job that way. The captain was restraining himself, for once, and there were no lectures headed my way about How To Treat Your Man, but I could see he was thinking some things every time he looked in my direction.
Great. I hate being the villain, although I guess I'd trained for it often enough, making sure I never showed any weakness and keeping others at bay with my big mouth. It let me seem indestructible and dangerous...it hid my weaknesses. It also made me seem like a bully and a clod sometimes. Like lately...
It hadn't improved my mood, knowing that everyone would be taking Wallace's side if they had to pick between us about who was right, who deserved sympathy. Never mind that he hadn't responded to my many texts, even to let me know he was still alive.
Bastard.What would it have cost him to send me a single text? Just one. Maybe then I could've slept at night.
To make matters worse (if possible), Eli kept asking me if the fox man was going to visit again. He could say the wordWallace, but he chose not to. He could also say "boyfriend" but he chose not to say that, either.
He looked up at me with his big, trusting eyes, hopeful and nervous at the same time, always watching me, always thinking something important as he tried to figure out the world. "Dad, the fox could help me with my homework, couldn't he? 'Cause he's really smart?"
"I don't know, buddy. Wallace has his own life."
"Well, you could ask… Maybe he would?"
"What do you need help with? I'll help you..."
Eli looked down, scuffing his feet a little. "Okay..."
It was like that all the time Wallace was gone. Not constant, but always the threat in the background of my kid wanting to see him again, when there was just no way it could happen.
It was hard for me to hide my moods from Eli, he was so scarily in tune. Hyper aware of when people were annoyed or angry, he zoomed right in on where I was upset. I had to be extremely alert to hide it from him. Even when I told him I'd just had a hard day at work or something, he was probably worried it was really about him.
The kid had grown up around adults whose anger and discontent had more often than not been taken out on him. The fact that I was stressed up to my eyeballs most of the time, well, I'm sure that didn't help. But we were doing our best.
Normally, I'd have been glad if he brought Wallace up casually in conversations, friendly conversation at that, almost every single day. But not while he was missing; not while I was sending Avery angry texts accusing him of faking his own death for revenge.
I guess I wasn't thinking really clearly during that time. I sent a lot of damned texts.
He hadn't answered one of them.
And then when he called, I'd been so ready for a fight, it had almost ended up worse than that. We'd almost broken up. When I arrived at his place, hoping against hope we still had a chance to patch things up, he'd looked so lost and wild, feral and afraid. He'd lookedafraidof me.
Even when he let me put my arms around him and hold him (eventually, after oh-so-long), he'd seemed like a shadow of his usual self. He was acting like a half-wild thing, and there was a hungry, gaunt look to his face, a haunted look around the hollow of his eyes.
He didn't touch any of the food I'd brought, at least not while I was there, and although he let me hug him, even relaxing into my arms eventually, he still wanted me to go soon. He'd pulled himself together by then, managing a smile, thanking me awkwardly for coming by. But he clearly wanted me gone, and the strain showed around his eyes.
Feeling both resentful and guilty, I'd headed out.
It had been so good to hold him. I'd missed that so much. He still smelled like himself, even if he felt less relaxed and supple in my arms. I didn't quite trust him. I didn't know where his head was at. I really didn't appreciate the way he'd run off and refused to let me know he was okay. But dammit, I still missed him. I still fucking cared about him, okay?
He wasn't himself right now; he just wasn't. He wasn't my sleek, cheerful partner, funny and urbane, sexy and cute, the sweet bookworm and the insatiable sex partner. He was a shadow of himself, a wild thing too soon emerged from the forest, not trusting me the way he used to...
There was no hope of sex, and to be honest, I wouldn't have wanted to have sex with him like that anyway. It would be like doing it with a stranger — a jumpy stranger — and I didn't want to go to bed with him with everything still unresolved between us. Unless he specifically wanted me, and let me know it, I wasn't sure I'd want to sleep with him again for a long time.
How unlike me. I usually wasn't the one to hold back from casual sex, even if it meant putting aside an argument to have it. But right now, he felt like more of a stranger than a boyfriend.
#
The next day he got to work bright and early, even a couple of minutes before he was due. I'd been coming in early all week; I needed to put in extra time on paperwork, since the fox wasn't here to help me. Wallace could knock paperwork out like a champ, and enjoy it in the process.
I was struggling along with it at my own snail's pace when I looked up and there he was, breezing in as if nothing was wrong, a smile on his sweet, mobile mouth, his curly dark hair looking perfect and touchable. He wore slim-fit jeans and a casual diamond-print sweater vest over a plain blue shirt with long sleeves and a collar. He looked immaculately pulled together, and casually comfortable at the same time. He didn't have any special dress code he had to follow, and it was the way he liked to dress. He always looked fucking edible in sweaters, vests, geeky glasses, and anything else he wore. I wondered if he knew it, if that's why he dressed that way. I used to wonder if he did it on purpose, to torment me.
