“What I should have done from the beginning.”
He didn’t say anything else or answer any more questions while he herded us out to his truck.
Carol and Michael waved to us, smirks on their faces, from where they’d found a table to eat some dinner before going back to the house we’d all rented in the city. From the corner of my eye, I noticed them lean their heads together and whisper.
Jerks. They were probably saying something along the lines of it was about time. And maybe it was.
The ride passed in silence.
Once we were inside, Evan did what he always did, putting away the equipment and hanging up coats while Alan sorted through a pile of mail on the nearby counter. I went straight to the oven and turned it on to preheat so we could warm up some dinner.
“So.” Evan stood by the couch, balanced on the balls of his feet. “What are we chatting about?” He started bouncing up onto his toes and I wanted to go over there and hold him down.
“How the pair of you are going to manage the pressure going forward. It’s only going to get worse and we need a plan.” Alan turned to me. “You can’t fuck his energy away every night and think that’s going to be enough to ground him forever.”
“Like you would know anything about it, or him.” And like I didn’t already know that, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Especially not to him.
“I know enough to know his flirting is so blatant it’s almost painful.”
“Hey!” Evan scowled at Alan.
I should not have found the sight either endearing, or a relief, but it was both.
“Have I been complaining?” Alan asked Evan, then rounded on me. “But you’ve left him out there hanging, trying to hold everything together, keep the option open while he waits for you to catch up.”
“The option?You, you mean? Exactly what indication have you given that you’re still interested?”
“He’s given me plenty,” Evan said.
“Well yeah, he has, because you, he wants to fuck,” I said, feeling the meanness of the statement so deep in my soul I felt it shrivel.
Evan looked like I’d gut punched him.
Alan glared at me. “In fact,” he said, voice low and ominous, “from where I’m standing, you’re the one who needs a good fucking.”
Evan gasped.
My mouth went instantly too dry for speech and my cock twitched. Thank god he hadn’t said that in a more private setting because I didn’t know if I would have challenged him or bent over for him. As it was, I could not break away from his gaze and the fall into his dark eyes was beginning to seem endless and terrifying.
“Don’t talk to him like that.” Evan’s voice shook, but his grip on Alan’s arm was hard enough to turn him away from me, releasing me from the man’s galvanizing focus.
As he always did, he slotted himself between me and the entire world.
Alan let out a huffed breath. “You have to get a handle on your spiral, Perry. You’re trying to be everything to everybody. It’s impossible, but you pretend you don’t need any help.”
“He’s—”
“And you.” Alan turned on Evan, cutting him off. “You can’t disappear into video games and pretend you’re fine when we can all see you’re not.”
“I’m—”
“Not okay, Ev,” I said quietly, exhausted beyond the capacity to even argue.
He sighed. “Well, neither are you.”
“No.”
“So what do we do?”
