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Icouldn’t concentrate worth a shit.
The board discussed the midyear updates and reports a month late due to two of the members being overseas since early July. We didn’t have much to hash out, but a few members looked through papers with fine-tooth combs, painstakingly slow. Thorough to the point their anal retentiveness needed a damn enema.
Or perhaps, for the first time since being hired to oversee Humanity House’s daily operations, my priorities focused elsewhere.
Mason hadn’t wanted me to go with him to the courthouse. He’d sounded almost…flippant in brushing aside my suggestion we head over there together to file the harassment order. Didn’t he know I would drop everything at a moment’s notice for him? Work, family…nothing meant more to me than him and his well-being.
He’d said he could do it on his own.
The reminder tightened the vise around my chest I’d been struggling with since hanging up with him and returning to the meeting a half hour earlier. Sips of water didn’t help take my mind off feeling useless. Clearing my throat only earned me a few glances from those around the table.
I could sense Zeke’s stare from his seat beside me.
Did he notice my hands clenched on my lap to keep from fiddling due to the churning in my stomach? Had my bouncing knee caught his eye? Was my shifting backside disturbing enough I gave my anxious state away?
Fuck.
Swallowing hard, I closed my eyes. My palms grew damp, my pulse speeding.
I’d never had a panic attack—was that what rose inside me? That sense of being out of control, powerlessness? I hated not being in charge of my emotions or anything else when it pertained to my personal life.
I fucking floundered because my lover had gotten through his own stress, then declared he could take care of business himself.
He no longer needed me.
Once he accomplished his task at the courthouse, would he realize he easilycouldstand on his own two feet without a hand to hold? Would he no longer see me as his rock, his post to lean on? Would the connection, that fulfillment of our emotional needs we’d found with one another, unravel at his independence and the sudden confidence he found?
“Jasper,” Zeke whispered, touching my forearm and jerking my eyelids open.
I shook my head, too worked up to answer.
“Hey, guys…mind if we take a little coffee break?” Zeke asked. A few voices murmured their agreement, and he clasped my shoulder as others climbed from their chairs. “Let’s go.”
Like a marionette, I moved with his hand grasping my arm to my feet. Away from the table we’d sat around. Out the conference room’s door.
He led me to my office down the back hallway before speaking a word. “Sit.”
I collapsed in the nearest chair, the one across from my desk as he closed the door, giving us privacy.
Zeke dragged the other seat beside mine closer, spun it around to face me, and perched on its edge. Concern etched in his brow as he shifted forward, elbows on his knees. “What’s going on?”
I’d already explained to him about Joseph at Dunks earlier that morning when giving him his breakfast. I’d also leaned close to him after returning from Mason’s phone call to let him know who’d been behind our secretary pulling me from the room. But I hadn’t been able to share the whole story or ask him for help in directing my scattered thoughts in that moment.
I should have—I wouldn’t have spiraled nearly as bad as I did.
“Joseph is texting him again. I told Mason I would go to the courthouse with him and file the harassment order.” I swallowed hard. “He…he said he didn’tneedme.”
Zeke didn’t normally crack his counselor’s calm façade, but a hint of a smirk curled his lips. “He’s finally showing a bit of confidence in himself, and you get all unsure in your relationship? Jasper.” Zeke shook his head. “I’m not invalidating your feelings, but this is agoodthing. Healthy. It’s exactly what you’ve been hoping for, isn’t it?”
Cursing, I tipped my head back, eyelids slamming shut. “I’ve never felt this way for a man before—the power he holds over me…I’m acting insecure as fuck. And what he did makes me think I’m no longer necessary, you know?” My voice broke, and I swallowed hard.
Zeke knew about my father and how he’d treated his “useless faggot son”, but I’d kept what had brought on that conversation in my childhood from Zeke. It was bad enough he was aware of the kind of bullying I’d endured as a kid. The man didn’t need to know the horrific details of what Mason had endured that doubled down my need to be a “real man” as my father had often said.
Zeke chuckled and clasped my knee, giving it a friendly squeeze. “Mason adores you. Even if he had a backbone of steel and enough confidence for ten men, he would still need you, my friend. Trust me. He looks at you like Levi does with me. Mason would lay down his life, face fifty Josephs, in order to be with you.”
A huge exhale flattened my lungs, and I sagged. Adrenaline crashes sucked ass. “I feel like I’m going to puke,” I muttered. Another snicker left Zeke, and I glared at him. “It’s not funny.”
“I understand the agonizing wondering, the not knowing, of being on unsteady ground in a relationship that hasn’t been clearly defined. It was the same for me until Levi showed up at my parents’ that Sunday afternoon, and we clarified what we both hoped for. The future both of us had dreamed about. Eventually, we made it happen.”
