It looked like he’d slapped his dad across the face.
The regret washing over Emil was immediate and immense. He got halfway off the bed, but Dad had already turned around to go.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“No, you’re right.” Dad cleared his throat, stopped, but didn’t turn back to face him. “You’re an adult. I should try to remember that.”
“I’ll… I’ll be careful, okay?” He didn’t say that they both knew there was no other way for him to be in any case.
“Yeah. Dinner’s in twenty, if you’re up for it.” Dad left to go change out of his uniform, and Emil went back to his bed, feeling dejected as fuck.
He knew better. He knew it wasn’t fair to even bring up the past, because he fuckingknewhis dad felt guilty still. Always would, most likely. After all, it had been directly because of his dad’s job that he’d been taken in the first place.
He tried to think about what his dad had said in an objective way. On the surface it made sense to be cautious of a new person in town, especially knowing what he did of Makai’s past. But the man himself was nothing like Emil would’ve expected him to be based on assumptions and prejudice.
Sure, he could probably snap Emil in half if he wanted to, but so could many other people in town. Hell, all Dad’s deputies could do it, Erin included. All it took was skill to hurt someone—you didn’t have to be big or strong.
He’d gone through enough self-defense training to know how to get away from a bad situation. At least in theory. He thought he’d most likely freeze if something bad happened to him again, but he could hope the training would kick in instead. More than anything he hoped he would never have to find out.
Sighing, he put the photography book on the floor because it couldn’t fit on the bedside table, and curled up on the bed. There were things he knew for sure, like that Makai was a stranger and he should be careful in any case. He also knew his whole being reacted to Makai in ways it hadn’t to anyone in years, and the hopeless romantic he’d tried to bury with all the other things that had been taken away from him couldn’t help but to yearn.
The one thing he knew with absolute certainty was that he wasn’t one of those people who were drawn to so-called bad boys. That was actually a deterrent for him, not an aphrodisiac. So that definitely wasn’t a factor in what he had started to feel around Makai. Nobody who knew Emil could blame him for that, at least.
He also couldn’t see a way this all could end nicely, in a neat little relationship package with a bow on top. First, he wasn’t even sure Makai liked men, despite the vibe he’d been getting from the guy a couple of times in a fleeting way. Even if he did, it didn’t mean he’d like Emil back. Those were just the bare bones of the scenario.
When Emil added his issues on top of it, he was pretty much done with his reasoning. Nobody needed to be part of figuring out Emil’s shitty life and his complexes. That in itself was a deal-breaker even in the imaginary scenario.
But there was another thing altogether to think of. Having been through a lot himself, he could understand that someone who had survived what Makai had would have issues of his own. It didn’t matter how calm Makai seemed to be or how caring. It didn’t matter that Emil felt like Makai radiated something that eased the knot inside his chest like nothing had before.
The reality of it all was that there were just too many things working against them. Even just in Emil’s imaginary little scenario that had nothing to do with real life.
