Mark smiled back, and Francis leaned in close as if to kiss him, and Mark—“Red!”
Chapter Six
Francis stepped out of the shower, his heart beating fast. He remembered what he’d heard about aftercare after someone using their safeword. Everything was to stop, stock was to be taken, and most of all, the submissive needed to be made to feel comfortable and cared for. Except this wasn’t a scene anymore, was it? And it wasn’t Mark who needed the aftercare.
Francis dried himself with a towel Mark had assigned to him and left it on top of an overflowing hamper. Then he retreated to the bedroom and got dressed quickly and efficiently. He needed to get out of there.
Mark didn’t follow him when he walked through the little house and pulled on his shoes. For some reason, he felt the urge to leave his number anyway, just in case. Just because it seemed as if Mark had nobody else who knew anything about the situation he had with his parents. Francis went into the kitchen and scrawled his number in the magnetic notepad on the fridge door. Then he went to the front door and sighed. At the last moment, he turned to look toward the back of the house, and saw Mark standing in the bedroom doorway, watching.
Neither of them said anything. Francis opened the door and left.
* * * *
All through the evening and the next couple of days while he drove back home, he tried not to think of Mark and failed miserably. When Kaos and Padraig had asked where he’d been, he gave them a vague enough answer that it made them understand that he didn’t want to talk about it.
He’d left them with a promise to be back soon, and maybe even relocate if things at work went awry. But Mark, he couldn’t talk to them about Mark.
Francis kept questioning himself. Why had his brain and his fucking heart latched on to the man? Francis knew when his heart made a connection, he hadn’t had one in years now, not to anyone, not until a certain closeted deputy.
There was a vulnerability in Mark that spoke to Francis. The way he needed someone to be kind to him, to want him, called to the heart of a nurturer. Francis was a nurse for a reason. He didn’t see Mark as a patient, of course, that would’ve been weird. He didn’t want to heal Mark, but he wanted Mark to have someone reliable to lean on, because it seemed he hadn’t had that in a long time.
But then there’d been the almost-kiss that Mark had safeworded out of, and Francis felt like shit. He wasn’t sure if it was an internalized homophobia like he assumed the bottoming thing was, or if it was intimacy thing on a whole other level. He hadn’t asked. He’d been too freaked out about the lapse to stop and ask, because even in his panic he’d known that feelings weren’t a thing he should try to ask Mark about.
So there he was, parking in his spot in front of his apartment building late on Sunday evening, and trying not to think about Mark. And failing.
His neighbor, a student called Minnie, arrived in the lobby at the same time and brightened visibly when she spotted him.
“Francis! I have your mail at my place if you want it right away?” They had miniscule mail slots, so he’d given her the key to handle it for him.
“Yeah, sure,” he gestured for her to go into the elevator first, and they leaned on opposite walls, looking at each other tiredly. Then they realized how silly the situation was and burst out laughing until tears were rolling down their faces by the time they made it to the fifth floor.
“Hard trip?” she asked over her shoulder as she unlocked her door.
“Yeah, sort of. Good one though.” He followed her inside and crouched down to pet her fluffy cat while she got the mail.
“Here, Squishy got into them one day before I had time to put them into the cupboard.” She frowned apologetically as she handed the mail and the key to him.
He chuckled at the couple of corners that had been gnawed by the cat. “It’s okay. It was nothing important anyway,” he assured her.
“Okay, good to know. Oh hey, will you be around next weekend? I might need someone to feed him if my plans with the gang pan out.”
Francis’s face must’ve done something interesting, because her eyes widened. “I mean you don’t have to—”
“No, no, that’s not it. I have some fucked-up stuff going on at work and I have no clue about my schedule. In any case, I doubt I’ll be going anywhere far yet, so of course I’ll watch him as much as I can.”
“Yet?” Her eyebrows scrunched together.
“Depending on how the work thing goes, I might be relocating soon.” The more he said it out loud, the less daunting the idea started to feel.
“Oh…. Well, if that’s happening and you need any help, let me know, okay? You’ve been a great neighbor and helped out when I’ve needed, so whatever you need.” She reached to touch his shoulder and he felt a bit choked up.
“Thanks, Minnie, really. I keep thinking I don’t have many friends here, but….”
She stepped closer and hugged him. “You have more friends than you know, Fran, trust me. I think….” She hesitated as she pulled away, and he waited for her to continue. “That friend of yours, Josh? I think he’s been a bit weird about your other friends. Like Jack and Rita, for example. I think he got a bit too territorial, so they sort of gave you space, I guess….”
Francis felt horrible. “Oh my God, I had no idea. I thought they’d decided that it wasn’t worth working around my shifts.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “This isn’t public knowledge yet, but Josh is trying to get me into trouble at work. He says I harassed him and I might lose my job over it.”
She looked so pissed off that for a moment he thought it was directed at him. “That son of a bitch! I always thought he was skeevy but holy shit, Francis!”
