AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did you tell him to fuck himself and then hang up?” Renzo asked.
Emil turned his head and grinned into his pillow. “No. I’m not as brave on my own as I am with you.”
“Oh, my baby,” Renzo breathed. “Want me to fly to…where is he?”
“Fuck knows,” Emil answered honestly. “One of his chalets somewhere in the Alps?”
“Well, that sounds expensive,” Renzo said.
“Good thing you have a rich man obsessed with you,” Emil told him, still grinning. “But I’d rather save an Alps trip for when we can have our own private sanctuary and you can fuck me breathless.”
“Christ, I miss you,” Renzo said, and Emil felt those words almost like they were a physical touch. “How long ’til you’re back again?”
“I wish I knew,” Emil said. “Feels like forever, and I’m so angry I won’t be with you tomorrow.”
“Me too,” Renzo whispered.
“If travel wouldn’t upset Matty’s routine, I would have invited you two along,” Emil told him, his fatigue making his private words trip off his tongue. “I have this big, ugly suite with two bedrooms and a fucking grand piano. Like, who even plays a grand piano in these places?”
“Frank Sinatra?” Renzo said. His voice sounded a little strange and almost tense. “Would you have seriously wanted us there? You said you didn’t want us to?—”
“I know,” Emil interrupted. “Past Emil didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about when he said he wanted to keep you away from all this. There’s nothing here except ghosts, and I’d never let them hurt you. But…I don’t know, maybe we can work up to a family vacation. Let Matty know ahead of time so he feels good about traveling?”
Renzo was quiet for long enough that Emil started to feel tendrils of panic. Had he gone too far? He knew he was jumping twenty steps ahead, but he was so goddamn gone on Renzo he couldn’t help himself. “I haven’t done that in a long time,” Renzo eventually murmured. “Matty was younger. My parents were still around.”
Emil buried himself deeper into his blankets. He was fighting sleep and losing the battle. “We could go anywhere. We could…see the Northern Lights. We could build igloos. And snowmen.”
Renzo’s laugh was soft and faint, but Emil knew it was because he was fading fast. “Or we can keep it simple. A suite in a nice hotel by the ocean.”
“I have that now. God, I wish you were here. Give me a reason I shouldn’t just let that little fucker take my money so I can come home,” Emil begged quietly. He wasn’t sure what he wanted Renzo to say. He only knew he felt wild and reckless and would immediately get on a plane that night if Renzo only asked.
“It’s not worth it to let someone like him win,” Renzo said after a beat. “I’m not going anywhere. And soon enough, you’re going to open your eyes, and I’ll be right there.”
Emil’s chest ached. “I want to kiss you.”
“I want to kiss you too,” Renzo said. “Soon, okay?”
“Promise me,” Emil said. “I know I’m being needy and probably wildly unattractive, but if you could just forgive me for that?—”
Renzo’s soft laugh interrupted his word vomit. “I think you’re the sexiest man I have ever met in my entire life. And the fact that you want to need me, of all people, is kind of giving me an ego.”
Emil grinned and curled up on his side. “The idea that you didn’t have one before fills me with rage. I want to meet your ex and do something that lands me in jail until my very expensive, shady lawyer gets me out.”
Renzo made a soft, agonized noise. “Stop it. I’m serious,” he added when Emil burst into laughter. “The idea’s tempting, and this is not the man I normally am.”
“I like all the parts of you. Even the ones who secretly like the idea of me beating the absolute fuck out of your ex.”
Renzo chuckled along with him, but he went quiet after a beat. “You know that doesn’t mean I still have feelings for him, right?”
Emil blinked in surprise. “Yeah. Of course I do.” He hadn’t considered that at all, but maybe he was a fool for not worrying more. “Do people think that about you?”
“I thought it about me,” Renzo admitted. “I talked it over with my therapist because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t let go. I was grateful when the relationship ended and pissed off at myself that I had to catch him cheating before I ended it. He reminded me that even when you hate someone—like truly hate someone—you’re still allowed to grieve. You can grieve the life you were supposed to have and were denied, or you can grieve the loss of small comforts that made up your day-to-day routine. He said I was allowed to grieve losing him, even if it was for the best.”
Those words hit Emil like a physical blow. He’d never let himself feel anything about his mom because of the pain she’d caused. She hadn’t loved him. She’d used him to fulfill her compulsions instead of getting help for her illness. She saw him as a means to getting her fix. Not as a person.
Things had been so bad he had chunks of time missing, so he told himself he wasn’t allowed to be sad when he was finally taken away. And he’d carried that with him for so long now he had no idea how to think any other way.
But with time, maybe it would get better.
