“You can’t keep running away from me like this,” he said, gripping Desmond’s arm tightly and lowering his voice. “I’m not the enemy.”
“No, I know you aren’t, but I can tell you’re angry with me.”
Javier’s brow shot up, which was uncomfortable, considering the amount of glitter caking his eyebrows.
Once again, he was dressed like an idiot and covered in glitter in front of Desmond at a crucial moment in the man’s life.
“I’m not angry with you,” he said, heart bleeding for the man he couldn’t seem to help, no matter what he did. “Frustrated, yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Desmond said again, sounding truly defeated. “You deserve better than this. You deserve better than me.”
Desmond pulled out of his grip and tried to escape again, but he only got a few steps before a pack of wild children blocked his way. The only route available to him was to go through a lurid puce bouncy castle, and against all sense and reason, that’s exactly what he did.
“Desmond, what the hell?” Javier almost laughed, then threw caution to the wind and climbed into the bouncy castle after him.
Desmond evidently wasn’t ready for the obstacle that was a bouncy castle. He still had his shoes on, which didn’t help and was probably bad for the castle. He tried to cross through to the exit on the other side like he was walking normally, but normal wasn’t going to happen when the floor dipped and bounced under him. After three clumsy steps, he fell, sprawling on his stomach.
“Babydoll, you need to stop,” Javier said, going straight to his knees and crawling across the undulating floor to reach him. “Stop running and talk to me.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” Desmond admitted, still face down on the castle floor, bobbing subtly up and down as Javier made his way to the center of the castle with him.
“Yeah, I get that,” Javier said. “Two grown men in a bouncy castle, one of them in designer jeans and the other dressed like a giant, psychedelic flower is pretty fucking embarrassing.”
Desmond glanced over his shoulder, then rolled to his back, attempting, and failing, to lift himself to a sitting position. “You can’t say that. This is a children’s party.”
“Have you heard these kids?” Javier asked, flopping back on his arse and bouncing with the movement of the castle. “They start swearing like sailors at six years old these days.”
Desmond made a sound that might have been a laugh or a huff of derision. He struggled against the buoyancy of the castle in an attempt to right himself but only got as far as sitting crisscross and trying to grip the air-filled plastic as he wobbled.
“Not to add insult to bouncy castle injury, but you look like you’re about to be sick,” Javier said.
“That’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility,” Desmond said, not looking Javier in the eyes.
Javier waited and watched to see if the man would say anything else, but he looked completely tongue-tied and sinking deeper into himself. He had to do something.
“I’m not angry with you,” he said. Unfortunately, he sounded angry as he said it. He took a breath, scooted a little closer across the air-filled floor, and said, “Yes, it hurt to be left behind at the hotel.” Desmond flickered a glance up at him. “But I get why you did that. I get why you felt like you needed to handle things on your own.”
“I haven’t done a very good job of handling anything at all,” he said, gloom hanging over him like a shadow. “I thought I was doing the right thing by rejecting the award and leaving my job.”
Javier waited for more of an explanation, but none came.
“I went to your office on Wednesday to see if you wanted to have lunch and talk about things,” he said.
Desmond’s gaze had begun to lower, but he jerked his head up and gaped at Javier. “You did?”
“Yep,” Javier said, moving closer still. “Some guy called Marcus told me you’d quit.”
“I did.” Desmond sighed. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but now I wonder if it wasn’t just silly and dramatic.”
The corner of Javier’s mouth twitched. “We’re sitting in a kid’s bouncy castle, and I’m dressed like a demented milkweed.”
Desmond’s shoulders softened by a hair and the faintest hint of a smile touched his face. “More like a pink, glitter-infested dandelion, if there was such a thing.”
Javier’s smile grew. “You would know, mister horticulturist.”
“I’m just a hobbyist,” Desmond murmured. For a second, they were quiet. Then Desmond went on with, “I got the anthurium, by the way. Thank you. I…I named it Bob.”
“Really?” Javier asked, his lips twitching. “I would have thought a better name would be Dick.”
