Page 29 of Love Language

“Fuck.” He murmured out loud. Then he screamed it into the empty air of his bedroom. The bedroom that wasn’t theirs anymore. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!”

Because he was aroused and suffering now for a man who wasn’t even there. A man who he’d loved beyond everything. A man who’d left him.

He let himself whimper into his pillow. “Sir. Sir. Richard.” It was all he could think of to say.

He hadn’t cried at all in the last three years. Not really. Not since Sir made him cry.

He wished he could.

He wished Marco could make him cry.

And then he felt horrible.

God, Marco. They had a date tonight. Or a dinner thing. Not a date. Was it a date?

Either way, he had to cancel.

As soon as he… God, got up and had to do all the stupid things that people had to do in the morning. Brushing teeth and making coffee and all that other meaningless bullshit.

Because it used to have a meaning with Richard, and now Richard wasn’t there.

He didn’t have an erection anymore, at least.

But when he did get up, and do all that morning stuff, exactly the way that Richard had liked him to, the pointlessness of it settled in. Setting out his clothing before he entered the shower. Lining up the coffee mug at exactly the correct angle, always on a saucer.

His little morning rituals used to mean something.

They used to earn him praise, that bubbly feeling that started in his chest and reached down to his toes.

Now they felt empty. Worse than empty.

And what was he going to tell Marco anyway? Sorry I can’t eat a meal with you because I had a sex dream about my dead lover?

Part of him wanted to sit at home, sealed off from the rest of humanity, mourning his Sir.

The other part felt like the cocoon was starting to chafe. Like he was outgrowing the remembered rituals and ready to transform into… well, not a butterfly. A moth, at least.

He didn’t want to make new friends, but he suspected that he needed to.

Or new… whatevers.

So, he went to work, and got through most of his emails and politely harassed authors who were late and praised a proofreader who’d been particularly efficient.

But all day he was thinking about the dream. And thinking about Marco.

Maybe he wasn’t in a cocoon at all, but a spider’s trap. He felt caught, anyway. Tangled and sticky and unable to break free.

God, he exhausted himself sometimes.

He was nearly sick by the time he arrived at the restaurant that evening. Maybe he really would need to cancel.

But no, there was Marco, striding toward him with a grin on his face, sending him a warm greeting before he’d even crossed the street.

He looked different during the day, in relaxed-fit jeans and a burgundy polo shirt that highlighted the narrow column of his throat. More masculine, but more casual, too.

He was shorter than Greg remembered, until he remembered this, too. So much power and command in such a small body. He felt a shiver race down his spine.

But right now, it was a regular Thursday evening, and Marco was smiling at him in the fading rays of the sun. His teeth shone white, and the black hair on the backs of his muscular arms caught Greg’s eye as he signed.