“Can I come in?”
“Of course.” I stepped aside to let him pass, glancing around the dark to see if Otto was lurking. “You’re on babysitting duty?” I guessed when I didn’t see him.
Stan shrugged with a small smile. “Not babysitting so much as protection detail, I think.”
I sighed and settled back into the nest of blankets on the couch. “He’s not coming back.”
“No. Otto came to the house and said he had something urgent to address at home. He asked me to take you back to my place until he could send someone up to watch over you.” Stan hesitated for a second and then pushed on. “He seemed pretty upset.”
I huffed out a frustrated breath. “Yeah. He was but I’m not sure what I said that set him off, to be honest.”
Stan cocked his head which apparently was all the invitation I needed to unload the entire story from start to finish in a massive word salad. To his credit, Stan seemed to be following without a problem and when I finished, he reached over to pat my knee.
“That’s got to be a lot for you to handle,” he said kindly. “Now I understand why you were surprised that Otto came looking for you.”
I nodded and dabbed at my stupid eyes. “Sorry, hormones.”
“No need to be sorry,” Stan assured me, standing up. “Have you had dinner yet?”
I shook my head. “I, um, was waiting for Otto.”
“Okay. We need to get some food into you,” Stan said gently. “I can fix you something here or, if you agree with Otto’s suggestion, we can go back to my place and I’ll feed you there?”
I shook my head. Knowing that Otto was out in the dark, alone and upset because of me had my skin feeling too tight. “I think I should go look for Otto.”
“Nope,” Stan. “He specifically told me not to let you do that, as if I would have.” He snorted in amusement. “He’ll be fine and you need to protect the little one, yeah?”
I huffed again. “I know but I need to tell him I’m sorry. I need to know he’s okay.”
“What are you sorry for?” Stan asked from the kitchen where he was sifting through the food he gave us earlier in the day.
“Upsetting him,” I said. “I don’t exactly know what I did but I do know it was me.”
“About that,” Stan murmured as he struck a match, lighting the gas under the stove burner and setting a well-loved cast iron skillet over the small flame. “I think I can offer a little bit of insight, if you want?”
“Really? Did he tell you what was wrong?”
Stan shook his head, testing the skillet with a few drops of water and nodding in satisfaction when they danced on the hot pan. “No but far in my distant past, I was in love with someone who didn’t feel the same way, so I think I might know how he feels.”
I felt my brows knit together. “I think I was maybe talking too fast. I’m the one with the stupid crush, not him.”
Stan chuckled and laid a salmon fillet in the skillet. “You’re right,” he said agreeably. “Otto doesn’t have a crush. He’s head over heels in love with you and doesn’t have the first damn clue what to do about it.”
What now?
“But..”
“No buts,” Stan said, his voice still gentle. “Think about the evidence you just laid out for me. Granted, it’s hardly a stretch for a young man to hit every willing target when he’s horny, but the other things he did? Bringing your coat to you, trying to defend you in that bar? Hell, he not only came up to search for you when he thought you were missing, he went full-on jealous mate mode when he saw you with me, and then, when you stepped between us, he didn’t just back down so you wouldn’t be injured, he submitted to you and shifted.”
I shrugged. “Then he also took off and left me.”
“He did,” Stan agreed, flipping the fish. “Although, if a man I was in love with had just told me we were fuck buddies and said that I treated him like a cheap hooker, I might not be in the best frame of mind, either.” He shook his head. “Honestly, even if I was fuck buddies with someone, I would be upset to find out I made someone feel like that.”
“Then he shouldn’t have done it,” I snapped.
“That’s true and I’m not trying to defend him,” Stan assured me, bringing me the plate of pan-seared fish and salad I didn’t even notice him preparing. “But didn’t you also tell me that he spent several years in prison and just got out recently? He may not have had the opportunity to learn proper relationship etiquette.” He smiled when I moaned after a bite of fish. “The thing is, it seems to me that what you saw as attempts at cheap payment might have been him trying to take care of you but not being sure how to.”
“Do you think that?” My fish was gone, and I was halfway through my salad already.
