Doing as he asked, to take everything out on him, I completely unleash. To his credit, he’s giving me his all back, and at no point in between all the grunts and curses does he utter the safe phrase. Damn, he’s gotten better at fighting since our first time on the mat. The fuck’s he doing, training with Micah? That thought causes my blood to boil more, as I hit him with a few more jabs and kicks, careful not to leave any cuts or bruises anywhere they’d be seen and raise questions.
I’ve just gotten him into a rear-naked chokehold, when there’s pounding on the door. “Dad?!” I hear Taryn yell from just outside. “Iseverything alright?”
I go still, as does Gannett. The only sound in the room right now is us fighting for breath. “I’m fine!” I call out.
“Whatever you’re doing is fucking loud downstairs! What’s going on?”
Shit, how do I explain that I’m just casually giving Gannett the worst ass-whooping he’s probably ever had in his life?
“Uh, that’d be my fault, T-dawg! I let Gulligan back in, and we’re trying to catch him!” Gannett jumps in, ready all too quickly with a lie to protect me.
“Who?” Taryn asks.
“My seagull! Don’t come in here, we’re trying to get him to go out the patio door!” Gannett replies. Then he whispers to me, “Dude, are you going to fuckin’ remove your arm from around my neck so I can breathe, or what? And… are you fuckinghard?”
Now that the adrenaline is coming down, I note that, yes, I am, in fact, pressing a full blown erection into Gannett’s back right now. Fuck my life.
“Okay, well…” Taryn trails off. “Just, uh, keep it down or something?”
“We’ll try!” Gannett offers back. Once Taryn’s boots thunk downstairs, Gannett shimmies out of my hold. “Soooo…” he drawls, looking down at my crotch. “It would appear that fighting with me gets you just as turned on as I am from fighting with you.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and puff out a beleaguered breath. “Don’t make this weird, Gannett.”
“Oh, contraire, mon frère,” he snickers. “Awkwardness is my foreplay.”
I blink at him. “Fortéis what I think you mean.”
He shakes his head. “Foreplay. Like that thing you do to get in the mood.”
“I’mnotin the mood. Nor do I want to be.”
“Oh, come on. I think we’ve both established that we’re, ya know, into each other. I just—I mean, how do we go about this carefully? I don’t want to, like, trigger you or whatever.”
“And that already makes things weird enough. I’m not doing this with you, end of story. Now, I need to get ready for work. When I get back, forget this ever fucking happened.”
I don’t even give him a chance to rebut before I stalk off and head for the shower—locking the door behind me.
Chapter Fifteen
Alright, the girls are in bed, and Gordy’s downstairs working, so that means I’ve got at least a couple of hours to do some hardcore research. What the fuck do I do about his latest revelation? It’s obvious he needs help, but I am nowhere near qualified to give him the help that he needs. I’m barely able to to have a minor grasp on the English language, for fuck’s sake. So, how do I go about navigating a mutual sexual attraction, when he’s too guarded to allow it to get any further than begrudgingly acknowledging it?
I rummage around until I find Gordy’s laptop he has hidden away in his coffee table, and plug it in. When I open it up, I snort at the incognito web browser he left open. It’s more porn. Very gay, veryinterestinglooking porn.
My eyes narrow in on the guy down on his knees, specifically. He’s wearing a collar, by the looks of it. The other dude standing has a leash wrapped around his fist. Shit, initial thoughts? That’s—that could behot.I mean, in a possessive kind of way—not like I want to picturethe guy barking and panting like anactualdog. Curious to find out more, I want to click play, but I stop myself before I do.
Right. Pay no mind to the stiffening in my pants. Maturity. Invasion of privacy. Stay focused. Research.
I open up a new tab and start searching for ways to help someone overcome a lifetime of trauma. Gordy has enduredwaymore than any one person should ever have to, and I know that I’m way out of my league here, trying to help him, but I still have to try. It’s not like I can go to Brooks either. While I have no doubt he’s more than qualified to give me advice, I’m sure he’d put two-and-two together and know that I’m not just asking "for a friend." Gordy would absolutely put me in the ground if I went to my social worker brother-in-law.
The more I click around, trying to do a deeper dive into how to help, the more ads I see flashing before me about getting help and connecting with therapists trained to deal with cPTSD—complex post-traumatic stress disorder. So, I deep dive into that rabbit hole next.
Now, I’m no doctor, but Gordy literally ticks off more than enough check-boxes to be fairly certain that’s what he’s dealing with. I bet he knows it too, since he’s gone to treatment before. But it makes sense now: his detachment from people, his aggression when he’s provoked, his feeling of worthlessness, even his night terrors—they could actually be flashbacks, which he can suppress during the day.
Fuck, if this doesn’t break my goddamned heart for him. No wonder he’s always so tense, his body on high alert, waiting for a strike to come out of nowhere. It’s also no surprise that he shuts everyone out, unwilling to even forge friendships. He’s afraid that if he gets too attached, he’ll wind up alone and hurt all over again.
It also occurs to me now that me pressuring him into feeling out this physical attraction to one another also didn’t do him any favors. Ifanything’s going to happen, it needs to be at his pace. Which, knowing him, just means that I need to back the fuck off entirely, because it’s never going to happen. He’s too controlled to let it.
I close the laptop and puff out a resigned breath. Well, that’s the end of that, I guess. The best I can do is just be there for him whenever he needs me and guard his secrets with my life. I can do that, be the purely platonic friend he needs me to be. So, let’s start with something simple.
