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We’d both promised we’d try to get home tonight at a decent time. Anything before eight was the agreement but when I whisk into the apartment at six with a bag of groceries, he’s on the couch, with just not a glass of wine, but a bottle. It’s almost gone, and this tells me everything about Xan’s day. He loves his wine but he barely drinks more than a glass or two a night.
Setting down my groceries on the kitchen island, I walk toward him, after pulling out a glass from my cabinets. “Is this all for you, or would you like to share?” I tease, straddling his waist. But when I do, he lets me see the tears he hasn’t bothered to wipe away. “Oh, baby, come here.” I tug his torso away from the back of the couch and hold him, and he lets the tears fall, and they continue to flow down his cheeks.
“I miss her, Clark. I miss her so much, and between the SEC and my brother up my ass over the parameters I’ve laid out for him, all I want to do is talk to my mom. Just the sound of her voice made everything better. And I had this plan, I’d make my favorite meal, something she’d make on the nights Dad worked late or was out of town because an ordinary chicken dish wasn’t good enough for him. And I searched old emails and text messages. I even called Rosa, our cook for many years. Mom never shared the recipe with her, but she tried to help me recreate it. I even googled a similar dish but nothing compared to Mom’s recipe. I want to share it with you. And I can’t, Clark. I fucking can’t.”
I hold onto him. I won’t let go. I promised him I’d be his rock when he needed me because he’s mine most of the time.
“Does it get easier? The grief, the pain, the urge to pick up my phone, only to remember she won’t answer on the other end?”
“Does it get easier? I wish it was that simple, but it isn’t, baby. It’s something over time you come to accept but I hate to say you never get over them being absent in your life.”
I won’t lie to the man. I respect him and love him too much.
“It’s a physical pain, and my body aches, physically aches from the loss.”
I understand the emotion too well. The pain isn’t as intense, because over time acceptance was something I finally was able to do, but I’ll never get over the loss of my father.
“And that little shit, the evil son of my bastard father. He has retained legal counsel to contest the will, stating our father had a will that preceded it.”
You don’t need a law degree to understand the clause in the will where it states all previous wills are null and void. “He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, you know that, babe,” I assure him.
“Sure, but we’ve seen crazier shit happen. But it’s not the company, I honestly thought I could find that long-lost brother I always wanted and we’d be friends, or at least fake it. But, there’s no way we’ll ever be more than two men who share Lyle’s DNA.”
I’ve yet to meet the little prick, but I’ve seen a picture on the company website. There’s no doubt the dick is a Lynol. He looks exactly like Lyle.
“And worse, I don’t want to go back to Minnesota.”
It’s not what I want either but I won’t say this. His day has been bad enough.
“So, I decided something, something I’ve been mulling over in my mind.”
“You did, did you?” I reply, a little bit of his fun-loving nature returning in his tone.
“I’m going to be working out of New York full time and flying back to Minnesota a couple times a month. The investigation of embezzlement needs to be vetted out in order to recognize it’s not coming from any other place, and hopefully, it’s just a hefty fine and nothing else.”
Nothing else means an injunction or even worse. I won’t ask what the hefty fine is because it most likely will be chump change compared to the company’s net worth.
“You mean, you’ll be here, with me?”
“If you’ll have me? I can get my own place. I didn’t think we’d start living together straight away.”
My eyes find his, and my hands reach his face. “I don’t mind you in my space, your paper towel usage and a dirty sink and all.”
“I wasn’t fishing for an invitation, Clark. After all, the newness will wear off, and what if…”
“What if you drive me crazy because I find out you mix reds and whites together? Or even worse, you wash your towels with your clothes?”
His face is blank of expression, but it soon splits into a broad smile. “Or I find out you’re anal retentive and unable to let a mess slide?”
“Or, Lynol,” I jest, “that you’re so used to being catered to that you don’t pick up your mess behind you?” His hand reaches between us, and he twists my nipple. “Fuck, that hurt, asshole.” Again, my tone doesn’t convey this.
“And?” he questions.
“And it was fucking hot. The first one upstairs gets to top.” I hop over the couch like a ninja, but his footsteps are behind me. I reach the bed first, but it won’t matter. I’m positive we have enough energy between the two of us that we’ll go several times before we succumb to sleep.
* * *
I’m in his arms,and after fucking one another three times in the last five hours, taking breaks to get a bite to eat and rest, sleep is looming over both of us. His hands are playing with my hair, twirling locks around his fingers.
