Sab.
Worse than that, I walked out without telling him it wasn’t his fault, and I hate knowing he’ll think it is.
Because someone else hurt him first.
Goddammit. I heave a sigh and scrub a hand down my face, aware of Logan’s parental stare absorbing it all as I spiral into the memory I can’t block out, no matter how hard I try. And trust me, I’ve tried. I have the hangover to prove it.
Sab’s wide-eyed confusion as I pushed him away.
His shuttered face as I walked out on him.
The sound of his front door closing, even though I was halfway home by then.
I haven’t laid eyes on him since. I’ve worked a lot, and when I’ve been home, I’ve kept the blinds shut and done nothing more than drink whiskey and sleep. Haven’t seen him online either, but that’s because I haven’t looked. Haven’t been on FlingIt or any other app. I’m dead inside, save for missing Sab like I’ve lost a limb, and I don’t know what the feck to do with myself.
“Seriously.” Logan tries again. “Are you okay? Sonny said you shouted at an old lady in the street.”
“Sonny’s a grass,” I retort, glancing over my shoulder for my new wingman who isn’t all that new anymore. “And for your information, I did not shout, when I should’ve done considering how many extension plugs the old gal had piled on top of each other. Fecking death trap.”
Logan grunts, a chesty rumble that comes from deep within him and sounds like a literal bear. I sigh again and wonder how long I have to talk to him before I can palm him off on someone else. It’s not just me—everyone misses Logan around here. That’s why I called him in the first place.
As it happens, though, he gets bored of my bullshit before I can pass my phone along. He calls me a daft twat and hangs up on me, and he’s right enough about that too that I don’t leave him an outraged voicemail. Instead, I wander over to the station Christmas tree and run a critical eye over the decorations.
Someone’s tidied it. It’s still fecking awful, but not awful enough. Does no one follow traditions anymore?
I mess it up.
Then trudge myself to the dorm. It’s by the appliance bay so we can roll out of bed and onto the engine within seconds of a call coming in. Rapid response. But I already know tonight’s shift is going to be a quiet one, I can feel it in the air, and I hate that too.
Still, it’s not a bad thing to find the dorm empty, everyone else either gossiping in the gym or dozing in front of the telly. My favourite recliner is at the back of the room, where the beds used to be before some desk-based knobhead decided we didn’t need them. It’s the same one Logan used to sleep on, and I like it better than the one I used before he left. Before I got my lungs smoked out, when sleeping came easier to me.
I make myself comfortable and stare at the ceiling, resisting the call of my phone. Any other night I’d be on FlingIt by now, waiting for Sab to come online, knowing it was fifty-fifty if he’d show, if he’dstaylong enough to talk. Tonight, though, like every night since I saw him last—since you left him—I just…can’t. And that ache in my chest hurts worse than any lung burns ever have.
You’re a fecking eejit.
Again, I know it’s true. But what am I supposed to do? Watch him fuck other people when it makes me feel like clawing my damn eyes out?
You could tell him. Ever thought about that?
Tell him what, though? That the idea of him exploring his sexuality with anyone but me is like pouring acid in my veins and I’m too dense to figure out why? Even though I feckingknowthose quiet moments I’ve spent with him and Esme are the most content I’ve been in years?
Christ. I need Logan back, so he can thump some sense into me instead of sighing through a phone screen. I need him to make me understand why a grown man who’s been loved his whole damn life, albeit by a clan that skirts around emotions, doesn’t know how to give it back. How I’ve circled myself into this corner of meaningless hookups, swinging from one body to the other without catching a single feeling until him.
UntilSab.
The heating in the station comes on, old pipes clanking until they settle and I’m alone in the dark with the low hiss of the radiators. Alone with the knowledge I need to name the ache in my chest or bury it, but too feckwitted to do anything about it while I consider calling Logan back.
A little while later, the rest of the watch filters in to get some sleep, no one daring to utter the cursed words we all fear.
Quiet, innit?
Because it is, and it stays that way all night long, and yet somehow I’m more tired than ever when I drive home the next morning under skies still stained by endless winter gloom. Past houses with their Christmas lights still on from the night before.
I don’t advise that, folks. Just for the record. But after long hours staring at the ceiling, it’s kinda nice to see, until the sparkly trees make me think of Sab and Esme, and I realise the glow from the flamboyant willow in their back garden is the first thing I look for as I trudge through my house to the kitchen.
Can’t see it, obviously. Blinds are still shut from my whiskey-fuelled sulking, and I lack the emotional energy to rectify it.
Yet I find myself reaching for the cord anyway and cracking it open enough for the first strains of dull morning light to filter through, a grey haze that does nothing for my mood.
