He pressed his lips together, and a muscle moved in his jaw as he sat stiffly beside me. For a second, I thought I'd pushed too hard and said the wrong thing. I was getting ready to walk it back when he let out a breath and relaxed against my side. "Yeah, that's fair."
"Yeah?" Fuck, he was gonna make my salt-and-pepper hair go fully salt.
"Yeah." He put one hand on my knee and held close but didn’t do anything else. "It's annoying. But it's fair."
I almost smiled at that. "You’re not the first person to call me annoying."
"Probably not the last." He grinned briefly and rested his head on my shoulder. "You're also not wrong, which makes it harder to be annoyed at you."
We went inside, and I made pancakes and eggs. The boy needed more protein. When I put the plate of food in front of him, he picked up his fork and looked up at me with an almost shy expression. "For what it's worth, I don't feel taken advantage of."
That was actually worth a lot. "I’m glad to hear it."
"It’s weird, but I feel like I got to do something I wanted to do with someone I wanted to do it with." He dug into his eggs and kept his eyes down. "That's a feeling I haven't had in a long time, and I'd like to keep having it, so…" He shrugged and put the bite in his mouth.
Fuck, I needed to hear that.I turned back to the stove and took a second to get my face back in order before I turned around again. "Eat your breakfast, Joshua."
9
JOSHUA
The week turned out to be nothing like I had expected. Granted, I didn’t expect to even be around to start the week, but I quickly settled into a new routine with Matthew.
In the mornings, we’d have coffee on the deck and watch the fog burn off the water. Matthew usually threw something together for lunch without making a big deal of it, and when he was done with work, we usually went for a run. It felt good.
When I wasn’t staring at him and trying not to get caught, I was reading one of the many books and magazines he had in the house about building and architecture. That, and my therapy appointments. I had a daily online appointment with Dr. Kim, and that wasn’t nearly as painful as I’d expected it to be.
I used Matthew’s iPad for the video appointments in the guest room with the door pulled shut behind me.
"Hi, Joshua. How’s your day going?" Her voice was kind and focused, like she genuinely wanted to hear what I had to say.
"Good, actually." I sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to bounce. "Really good, which feels kinda weird to say."
She kept her eyes on me and her voice soft. "Why does it feel weird?"
"Because a week ago I was—" I stopped and shrugged, not sure if I needed to keep saying it out loud. "Well, it just feels like I should still be in the bad part, but I’m past that or something."
"Recovery isn't linear." She glanced down like she was taking notes but didn’t miss a beat. "Having good days doesn't mean you're skipping over the work you need to do. It just means your nervous system found something to regulate around. That's worth paying attention to." She smiled like it was a good thing. "What's it regulating around?"
I looked at the door and bit back a grin. "I guess the guy I'm staying with. Matthew."
She seemed to jot something down again but kept talking. "Tell me about him."
Once I started talking about him, I couldn’t stop. I probably told her more than I meant to and definitely more than a rational person would have said. Especially so soon after a suicide attempt. But he made me so happy. Every moment we were together felt like a healing balm on my broken body. After just a few days, I wanted to believe I was fully healed. And I told her that.
Dr. Kim let me talk, and when I was done, she took a second to process it all. "Joshua, what you're describing sounds really meaningful." Her voice was careful in a way that made me brace for a lecture. "But I’d like to remind you that after a crisis event, it's very common to quickly and strongly attach to whoever was present during the recovery. It's not a character flaw, and it doesn't mean your feelings aren't real. But it can make itharder to assess what's actually happening versus what your subconscious is reaching for because it's scared."
"What I feel is real. And Matthew feels it too." As I said the words, I heard how naive I sounded. "I mean, I think he does."
"You might be right. I'm not saying you aren’t." She didn't back down, but she didn't push either. "I'm just saying that right now, your brain is still in an acute phase of recovery, and major decisions, especially about deep relationships, are worth taking slowly. If something’s real, it'll still be real in a few months."
Months? That felt like an eternity. But it also felt like a point in the future that I would definitely be around for. "Matthew said that too."
She smiled, and I could almost see the relief in her eyes. "Sounds like he’s a smart man."
I frowned dramatically. "An annoying man."
She chuckled and glanced at her watch. "Will you do one thing for me, Joshua?"
