It was all I could do, wasn’t it?
NINETEEN
santos
I’d been up here with Ever for three months. My family hadn’t said a single word.
No idea why I woke up thinking about it, but now that it was in my head, it rattled me. I didn’t want their contact. My relationship with them was miles apart from Ever’s with their parents, which wasn’t to say his came without issues.
It made my skin itch, regardless, which wasn’t a new feeling, but I didn’t think I’d been so aware of it before this…past month?
That sounded about right.
“What’s wrong?” Ever mumbled.
He spoke in his sleep sometimes, mostly when it was only an hour or two before his alarm started recreating the sunlight. He never remembered, but he was oddly coherent most of the time.
“Sleep,” I whispered. “I’m just going to go for a run.”
After I kissed the top of his hair because I really needed to figure out where he bought his shampoo.
“Hmm.” Ever stretched sleepily. For some reason, even with the heating in the house, after I’d had to drag him to bed last night, he’d begged for one of my old hoodies. I didn’t remember him being this sensitive to the cold before, but he looked too fucking good on them. I wasn’t a big hoodie person anyway.Most of the ones I had came from the academy or guys in our unit buying them for my birthday or Secret Santa. “You run a lot.”
I snorted, my knee dipping into the mattress as I got out. “Why, you wanna join me?”
Even in his sleep, he scrunched his nose at the idea, right before turning so his back was to me.
I tucked him back in and slid out toward my own room, moving fast. Mornings in the north of Spain were no joke, and unlike Ever, I slept in just whatever pair of underwear I’d grabbed that morning.
The visit from Ever’s parents had lasted less than a week, thankfully. I knew we were adults, but I’d still felt weird, sneaking in and out of his room as if afraid I’d get caught. Afraid that I’d get in trouble again.
There had never been much of a thrill in doing it. Not while we were in school, and I spent weekends and holidays here. Not when things started with her. Not now. I didn’t care how many audiobooks talked about the adrenaline and the high from it. Those were usually DNF’ed soon after sharing that sentiment.
I shrugged off the dreary thoughts and went through the motions of putting on my running gear and heading out. I’d picked up running when I first joined the academy. It was multi-purpose. It gave me time to be on my own, and it helped me stay fit for all the tests, while it was something the other guys couldn’t berate me for. One of the guys who had shared a room with me used drawing as a coping mechanism, and he’d gone through hell.
Running was safe.
It was still safe now. I might not need to hide, and I might know that it was okay to not be strong, and perfectly fit, and to have coping mechanisms that didn’t feed into a toxic idea of masculinity, but by now, running had become meditative, too. Itcleared my head, and it was an easy routine. Something I didn’t have to train myself on from scratch. It was just there.
Now it came with the bonus of fresher air and quieter paths across the fancy as fuck but mostly uninhabited neighborhood that housed a bunch of property the Royal Family had acquired over the centuries.
It was a better landscape than just blocks of buildings housing soldiers with zero attention to detail or artistry, that was for certain.
Thoughts about the scenery soon turned into the reason—the multiple reasons—that had me running in the first place.
While Ever’s parents had been here, I’d been okay. Focusing on keeping the peace and on making sure Ever was not too overwhelmed, and the conversation didn’t drift into topics that would quickly turn into conflict, took over my brain. Everything was about keeping a positive image in front of them, keeping Ever close, giving him comfort while they weren’t looking.
Even the few days right after they left, things were fine, too. I was still focusing on Ever, making sure that he wasn’t going to crash like he did after things went south with that Dom he was texting.
Focusing on whether or not he was okay was familiar. I could spend all my energy there.
It wasn’t sustainable long term, though. After a few days had passed, and Ever was making plans to meet with some of his friends from the BDSM club, it was clear I wasn’t needed.
Which wasn’t a bad thing.
I didn’t want him to depend on me. I wasn’t a Dom, and even if I were, I wouldn’t be that kind. I couldn’t deal with that kind of pressure.
Still.
