He pats my hands as they clasp around him, and I know he’s forgiven me.
“Omigod, I never asked how your weekend wentthistime around,” he says, pulling on his jacket. Heath is picking him up, and they’re going on a double date somewhere with Jon and Cooper—that was one of the things Brandon was chattering about this morning in my ear.
A few weeks back, it might have made me jealous, thinking about howtheyget to go out and have fun, while I’m stuck here at the hotel until midnight. But I’m too worn out right now to even worry about it.
And too sad.
Every time this shift when I stopped to think, my mind went back to Elliot, and my heart hurt all over again. For him, for me, for…us.
But it wouldn’t work. Itcouldn’t. I can’t take any more time off, and he’s leaving the country in November, anyway. He won’t be back until next year, and I…
I can’t face a long-distance thing. It wouldn’t be fair to him, either.
“Ollie?” Brandon waves a hand in front of my face. “Your weekend?”
“It was…good.” I head to the microwave and start heating up my depressing dinner: a can of minestrone soup-for-one.
“Good, huh? So, that bad?”
“No, it was…” I don’t know why, but I don’t want to tell him about Elliot, about what we got up to, andespeciallynot about Elliot’s ex. I couldn’t stand hearing Brandon get his gossip on about the wedding that wasn’t. “It was great,” I say, “and I wish I could go back, but I need to concentrate on work for now.”
Brandon snorts. “Suddenly finding yourself as a service sub? Do I even know you?”
I bite my tongue and don’t send back the sharp answer I want to give him. “You know, I feel like we haven’t had much time together lately,” I say instead. “I miss you. I know you’re busy with your Sir, but we need a besties date.”
“Sure,” he says, grinning widely. “I’ll ask Sir when I can do that.”
I turn away to take the soup out of the microwave and grope for another topic of conversation before I turn into an asshole. “I’m looking forward to the Halloween Carnaval,” I try, as I dump a few stale crackers on a saucer to have with the soup. “What are we going as this year?”
But Brandon’s hands have flown up to his face. “Oh-Em-Gee. Did you seriously not hear? It’s canceled.”
“What?”
“Canceled. Iknow, right? I can’t believe it either, but those assholes went ahead and called it off this year, something about…”
I don’t even hear the reason, I’m so thunderstruck. “Um. So…is anyoneelsehaving a party?”
“I think one of the kink nights is on,” Brandon says vaguely, “but Heath and I thought we’d stay home this year, hand out candy to the kids, you know? It’s our first Halloween as a couple, so…” He gives a little smile.
I stare at him. “But…we always do Halloween together.”
Brandon gives me a pat on the arm. “You’re welcome to come over to our place if you like? Watch a movie with us or something?”
The words sink in, and it’s official: my transformation from functional human being to sack of whimpering sadness is complete. “You don’t want to go out?” I ask in a small voice.
“You don’treallymind, do you?” he asks, turning back to his locker and pulling out his bag. “Heath’s been working really hard lately, and besides, now that we’ve found each other, there doesn’t seem much point going out to kink clubssoconstantly.” He gives a shrug, like this is no big deal, and I’m being needlessly dramatic.
I’m hurt, so I say something I probably shouldn’t. “Actually, I had an invite to this reallyexclusiveparty out at Dr. Dubois’s place, so I guess I’ll be going to that.”
“Really?” he asks. “Cool. Wow. That would beamazing. I bet Heath wouldloveto go to something like that for Halloween.” He pauses, obviously waiting for me to offer to get him on the invite list, but I focus on crumbling one of the stale crackers into my soup.
He pulls on his jacket slowly. “Did you try the sex dungeon this time?” he asks, almost longingly.
I lift up a spoonful of my soup and let it trickle back into the bowl from a height. “I don’t think thereisa sex dungeon.”
“Oh, there’sdefinitelya sex dungeon.”
My cup of irritation runneth over. “How the fuck wouldyouknow, Brandon? You’ve never evenbeenthere.”
