“It’s little things mostly.” He pushed his plate away, having lost his appetite. “He doesn’t drink, I’ve never heard him swear. And he has this rule about sleeping for eight hours every night, like he’ll turn into the hulk if he misses his allocated shuteye.”
“And if you feed him after midnight does he turn into a gremlin?” she asked.
Jeremy cringed. “If he does I wouldn’t know. We have yet to be together into the wee hours.”
“He hasn’t spent the night?”
“Not yet.” After they’d had sex that first night they’d laid in Jeremy’s bed for nearly an hour, talking in low tones and exploring each other with gentle hands. Then, as Jeremy’s eyelids grew heavy, Harrison got up and started to dress. Jeremy hadn’t asked him to stay, hadn’t said anything at all. Instead, he’d pulled on a pair of pants and walked Harrison to the front door. They’d kissed, their arms wrapped tight around each other as they said good night, and then Harrison went home. The scene had been repeated two more times since that night and neither of them had made any attempt to alter the ending.
“You’re not going to try and tell me you two haven’t done the nasty, are you?” Anna gave him an appalled look. “He’s not a prude, is he?”
I’m going to suck the come right out of you.
“Definitely not,” Jeremy assured her, remembering his body’s response to Harrison’s statement. He’d never come so hard from a hand job in his life. “In fact, I’ve never heard a man use so many clean words in filthy ways.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that.” Anna giggled in delight. “Nothing you’ve said so far seems to indicate a problem. Give me something juicy or I’ll tell you to stop being an idiot.”
Taking a deep breath, Jeremy prepared to lay all his cards on the table and see what Anna made of them. “He hardly ever talks about his past and when he does it’s like he’s giving me some censored version of the truth. And the man never laughs, Anna—ever. He has this incredible sense of humour, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even seen him smile.” He’d started babbling again, but stopping seemed beyond his capability. “What if he’s hiding something? What if he’s as fucked up as Aaron ever was, except I don’t know it yet?” Resting his elbows on the table, he clasped his hands together in front of his mouth. “I can’t get caught up in someone else’s trauma again. I can’t handle it.”
He stopped, waiting for Anna’s reaction. The expression on her face told him he was a crazy person, and maybe she was right. But, then again, maybe she wasn’t. “I need to know more before we go any further,” he told her. “I need to protect myself.”
Anna’s expression gentled as she reached out to cover his hand with her own. “I’ll admit the lack of smiling and laughing sounds a bit odd. But Jeremy, honey, are you sure you aren’t seeing monsters where there’s only shadows?” she suggested. “No one gets to adulthood without collecting at least some baggage along the way and Harrison isn’t going to be any different. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be anything like Aaron. Unless…” She paused for a moment, as if an unsavoury idea had occurred to her. “He is nice to you, isn’t he?”
Jeremy’s gaze dropped, and he flushed at the thought Anna felt it necessary to ask such a question. But she’d witnessed the depths he’d fallen to in the name of loving Aaron. She, more than anyone else, had the right to ask. “Yes, he’s nice to me,” he assured her. “He’s amazing.”
“Isn’t that what’s important?” Anna said with a relieved smile. “I’m not telling you to rush into anything with Harrison. A month from now you might realise he’s not the one for you. All I’m saying is, I want you to be happy and this is the happiest I’ve seen you in years. You deserve to have some fun for a change and if Harrison gives you that, why not go for it?”
Jeremy wanted to go for it. Despite the quirks and the suspicious hesitations, being around Harrison made Jeremy feel alive. Their personalities seemed to complement each other in a way Jeremy had never experienced before, even with Aaron. Not to mention, every time they got within reaching distance the very air between them ignited with sexual energy. The strength of his desire to be with Harrison, to draw him closer in every way, scared the crap out of him.
“You’re probably right and Harrison is probably an average guy with average problems,” Jeremy said, raking his hands through his hair. “But what if he’s not? If he turns out to be anything like Aaron, I’m out. I don’t care how much I like him. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”
“This isn’t about Aaron,” Anna insisted. “This is about you and what you want. That man allowed what happened to him as a kid to spread through him like cancer. It infected everything around him, including you. If you want to avoid repeating a mistake, avoid that one,” she added. “Don’t allow what Aaron did to you, to infect what you could have with Harrison or anyone else.”
Jeremy was taken aback by Anna’s perspective of the situation. Was that what he was doing? Searching for trauma in Harrison’s past when in fact there was only the usual obstacles that came with every human life? Was he allowing his own past traumas with Aaron to hold him back?
He’d insisted on staying single these past few months because he’d believed it was the right thing to do. At first that had been true, he was sure of it. The decision had stopped him from falling into any number of superficial flings with men who had shown nothing more than a passing interest in him.
It wasn’t until he locked eyes with Harrison that day at the Comic-Con he’d felt a true stirring of attraction. Despite his words to the contrary, nothing about their relationship so far felt casual—and he was no longer sure he wanted it to be. Maybe it was time to put aside his solitude and take a chance on someone new. Harrison Winters, with his quirks and rules and hidden emotions, was a man worth the risk.
