“No, qin ài de. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t always make the wrong decision. You’ve just lived a long time being told that you do.”
“It feels like I do,” he whispers.
“We’ll work to get you to a point where you don’t feel that way. But in the meantime, I can do it for you. If you’re comfortable with that.”
“Everything?” he asks.
I don’t miss the hopefulness in his voice.
“Everything,” I promise.
“All the little things too?”
“Every little, tiny thing too. If you want me to tell you how to breathe, I’ll do that.”
After a minute, Felton picks his head up and for the first time ever, I think I see what Felton Badcock looks like when he’s free from pressure. All pressures. There are tears in his eyes as he looks at me and he shakes slightly.
He nods. It starts small but then gets bigger. As a tear tracks down his cheek, quickly followed by several more, he buries his face into my shoulder. I hold him while he lets it out.
As this man shakes and trembles in my arms, I realize he might be one of the biggest men I’ve ever known, but it’s all just a shell. Felton is actually the softest, sweetest little bunny I’ve ever met. And he’s let people walk all over him for far too long. If he doesn’t have the capacity to protect himself, I’ll do it for him.
The destructive behavior ends now.
TWENTY-FOUR
FELTON
Ren holdsme against him for a while until I can get myself under control. I feel foolish. I can’t even explain why I feel so emotional when he tells me he’ll make my decisions for me. Combined with him telling me hereallywants me? Honestly, if he doesn’t change his mind because of my blubbering now, I may just faint or something else equally dramatic.
When I think I can face looking at him again, I pull back. I hope I’m not this much of a mess when his parents get here. What will they think of me? They won’t want their son to see me if they see what kind of horror I am.
Or what kind of failure.
Still, I don’t meet Ren’s eyes when I sit up again. I’m not this… pathetic. I swear, I’m not. I have some semblance of adulting under control.
Ren pushes my bowl back into my hands. “Eat. We’ll hit the gym after.”
I do as I’m told.
Throughout the rest of the day, Ren basically tells me how to breathe, just like he promised he would. After the gym, we come back and shower. Separately, though I find I’m slightlydisappointed by that. Not that I’d say so. I also avoid touching myself since I’m not sure I’m allowed to. Is it wrong to get off in someone else’s shower?
When I walk back into the bedroom, there are clothes laid out for me on the bed. The warmth that it brings to my chest has me smiling like a fucking loon.
Ren hands me my tablet and a protein shake after and tells me to get comfortable in the living room while he showers next. There are a few games I play; they’re all either the matching kind or the endless Tetris kind. They’re really only entertaining for a few rounds.
By the time I’m bored, Ren’s back and there’s a knock at the door. My heart races thinking that it’s already his parents.
It’s not. It’s food delivery. As I help him put the food away, I find it amusing that he ordered more. His pantry and fridge were already bursting at the seams. It’s only as we’re putting the stuff away that I see the difference between what he had delivered and what’s already here.
“You bought this stuff for me, didn’t you?”
He looks at me and smiles. “I did.”
Shaking my head, I say, “You really didn’t need to. I eat pretty much anything.”
“Since we’re talking about food, is there anything you don’t like? Any allergies?”
“No,” I say, shrugging. Then pause. “Actually, those green things that twist.” I make a little pinwheel in the air. “I think they’re called… well, I think it begins with an f. But I don’t like those at all.”
