"I really am. I'm also naked, it seems, and it's only fair for you to join me in that," he shot back, again delving beneath my waistband."Give me another while I help you with this matter."
Since I didn't want him straining his arm, I shimmied out of my undies before he could do it for me and moved my bare length against his. It earned me a delicious growl. "When I moved in here, the first floor unit was being sublet to the grossest guy in the world. Everything about him was terrible. Loud, aggressive, constantly rude and hostile. If he was coming in when I was going out, I'd wait until he was gone. I never wanted to be in the hall with him. He was never more than one bender away from committing a hate crime."
"This needs to end with you killing him," he murmured as he worked his fingertips into the deepest of my knots.
I flattened my hand on the small of his back, forcing his shaft against mine. "Sometimes I think you're serious when you say these things."
"That's because I am," he said. "If you didn't kill him, please tell me how this carnival of awful ended because I will leave this bed to kill him now if he's still living downstairs."
"You're doing nothing of the sort," I said through a sigh. "One of the city inspectors we often work with knew someone high up in the local DEA office. The inspector passed along a tip about that guy illegally selling weed out of his apartment. He got evicted."
"Doesn't count. That's not a worst thing. I would've killed the guy."
"Once again, that seems excessive," I said.
"Not when he scared you like that, it isn't," he replied.
"You would not havekilledhim, Wes."
"Fine," he conceded. "But I would've made sure he had several heartfelt chats with his god."
"Give me some more of your worst."
"I flunked out of sniper school. I'd wanted to be a sniper since I'd heard the word. It was all I'd ever wanted. But I'm a lousy shot and the Navy liked my language skills and sent me off to PSYOPS and advanced interrogation training."
"You just admitted you're a master manipulator. Which part of that is your worst thing?"
"You're cute and funny and I love when you stroke me with your cock," he replied. "But, yeah. I grieved the loss of my sniper dreams. I had to reimagine my future as a SEAL. Had to change how I saw myself. I didn't know who I was if I wasn't a sniper."
"You make it sound like that was the only time you had to figure yourself out."
He blinked away. We weren't talking about that this morning. We just weren't talking about it.
"Tell me more of yours," he ordered.
"I judge people for the most ridiculous, irrelevant things," I said.
"Obviously, I'm going to need an example."
I glanced at the ceiling as I searched for the least ridiculous, irrelevant instance to share. I couldn't come out swinging at people who bought couture leashes for their dogs or kept their holiday wreaths up until spring. "Okay. Excessive shows of college pride, especially on vehicles. The Georgetown sticker on the rear windshield and the Georgetown license plate frame and the GTOWN personalized license plate. Yeah, we get it, you went to Georgetown. Fabulous."
"Another," Wes said.
"Complicated coffee orders. I'm all for being particular but if it takes five full minutes, some scratch paper, and the assistance of a store manager to explain how you wantcoffee, you're doing it wrong. And I don't mean the coffee, I mean life. You're doing life wrong."
"More, I want more. I love Judgy Tom."
It was the judgy he loved, not the Tom. I knew that. I knew it, my flopping belly knew it, my pathetic, hopeful heart knew it. "People who post on social media that they'll be offline. No one is going to notice if you don't share a couple outfit-of-the-day pics, Todd. No one is sending out a search party if you don't post your workout stats one week. No one cares if you don't reblog every new social or political outrage for a few days. It's fine, we'll all be fine." I held up a hand, stopping Wes from demanding more from my snarky vault. "It's your turn."
He blinked down at the mattress before saying, "At the same time, I'm both unnaturally fixated on earning my parents' approval and blowing off their expectations to do whatever the fuck I want. I went to UC San Diego because Will went there and they were so proud of Will for it but then I decided to study anthropology because fuck all those useful programs. I joined the Navy and the SEAL Teams because my father believed the best men in the world were the ones under his command but then I took the first offer I got to join a special intelligence community program because I wanted to be different from my father and Will. I wanted to be more." He gestured to his injured arm. "And I'm pleased to announce that's earned me some fine titanium."
My heart ached for him. For the young man who feared losing his parents' approval so much he rejected the possibility of earning it. "Tell me, Wes, what do you do to take care of yourself?"
The levity sparkling in his eyes dimmed. "What are we talking about right now?"
I pressed a hand to his sternum. "We're talking about doing the things that are right for you but might not make sense to anyone else. I'll give you an example. I'm cautious about the people I surround myself with because I've made harmful choices in the past. I've ignored every sign and symptom of those choices being unhealthy for me but I'm trying to do better now, which means limits—or ends—to anything that doesn't meet my needs."
Wes dropped his hand to the blankets with a quiet, "Oh."
