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But something about it…he sent her a text.
I’ve always been able to hear you, Mistress.
About thirty minutes later, during his walk back to his truck, he got a heart emoji response. Nothing else, which should have been enough. But as her words stayed in his mind, so did an odd feeling of disconnection.
On the curved staircase to the second level, Skye stopped as her phone chimed. She read what was on her screen. Seemed to read it two or three times, her hand tightening on the device.
Bastion noted she seemed…lost, as she stared at the words. Then she snapped out of it and headed up.
He glanced at the message on his screen she’d sent him a few minutes ago.Shoot me a text that Ros needs me.
What had happened in the garden that she needed an excuse to leave Tiger’s company? Bastion watched the tall man walk to the gate and buzzed him out without making him call it in. Tiger turned toward the front door to wave an acknowledging hand. While he looked okay, there was a pensiveness to him, as if he'd picked up on Skye’s mood.
Bastion frowned. Doms often forgot that subs could be every bit as intuitive as they were. Particularly a sub who’d hadmultiple sessions with the same Master or Mistress, like Tiger had with Skye. Bastion didn’t know what was going on, but he hoped whatever it was would work out. Skye had looked happy during the weeks she’d been with Tiger.
She’d never been an unhappy person, but she was intensely self-contained. As if she took the lead on handling every bump in her life because she was afraid to get out of the habit.
Yet when someone took hold of a person’s heart, there was a change in gear. She’d definitely had a change in gear, an opening up, these past few weeks. It had made her closest friends consider she hadn’t been as happy as they’d always assumed. True happiness gave her a very different look.
Enough for them to notice when it had taken a hit, or vanished altogether into the void of status quo. Where life went from good to good enough.
Bastion frowned and glanced up the staircase. Skye had reached the third level and disappeared. He made a mental note to clue Ros in if it seemed necessary.
Skye had a family here that could find her if she got lost, tend to her hurts, and help her up when she fell down. Even if she could handle every damn thing in her life, she didn’t have to. She always had a hand to grasp within reach, and people at her back.
Those born into that support system often didn’t recognize how precious it was until they saw how much someone they loved needed it. That would be Ros and maybe Vera.
Those who’d never had it took time to trust it, but once they did, they would protect that family like mindless savage animals. That would be Cyn, no question.
Because she’d always walked on quicksand, Abby valued love and friendship, and all its precious moments. She’d known they could slip through her fingers and disappear into an abyss, from one moment to the next.
Then there was Bastion. A mix of all of those things, he reflected, and the guardian at the gate. Ready to hold the line between the circle of women he loved and anyone who tried to hurt one of them.
He didn’t think Tiger was one of those. On the contrary, Bastion had suspected Tiger was close to stepping inside the circle and giving himself over to its binding with no regrets. Like Lawrence and Neil.
Life liked to fuck with happily-ever-afters, but he and the Mistresses here had an arsenal of skills to put it onitsass if it messed with them.
Bastion pursed his lips. Now if it was Skye herself who’d fucked with it…well, that required a different kind of family response. He might clue Ros in sooner rather than later.
Over the next couple weeks, sounds notably sharpened. Tiger had some nasty headaches, but each time they passed, he had more of his hearing back. He accepted the tradeoff. By the time the final bay was repaired, he could hear like his grandfather. Since Gramps had been too stubborn to wear a hearing aid, they’d had to shout at him, but he’d pick up enough from that to get by.
The doc was a champ. Tiger couldn’t shell out thousands of dollars for a hearing aid, especially one he hoped would be temporary, so she’d fitted him with a 30-day trial pair. Gramps should have been less stubborn. Suddenly Tiger could hear most of what the doc said, and she only had to raise her voice an octave or two. He’d sent Skye a text, telling her. She’d returned a thumbs up with cheerleader emojis.
He missed her. They hadn’t had their “celebration” get-together, but in their text exchanges over those first few days after his visit to her office, she’d hinted things were getting crazy at work. A rollout for some big account. Busy, like she’d said. Over these two weeks, she’d stayed in touch, texting him for status with the doc, seeing how his day was going, how things were going at the garage, but she also made it clear she wasn’t in a position to meet yet.
Two weeks wasn’t an eternity, no matter that it felt kind of like it. He’d been seriously considering another drop-in at her office, even if she was only available for a few moments, when she sent him a text he didn’t expect.
Usual session day coming up. Nine o’clock. Ready to get back to that?
Made sense, right? They were friends, she’d helped him through a hard time, and things were getting back on track. In that efficient Mistress way, she was paving a return path to the life he’d had before. A life he’d enjoyed a lot—going to the club, working in his garage and taking care of his own business. Every level of it.
Hell, it was hard to believe all of it had started only a handful of months ago. In his head, it had been so much longer, dealing with Nicole’s death, the shit with his family, losing his hearing, and working with Skye to deal with that. While digging into parts of his psyche he hadn’t even known were there, he’d gone from denying he was deaf, to facing it might be permanent, to finding out it wasn’t.
Skye had taken a big part of that rocky journey with him, so yeah, it felt like a bunch of things had changed with her. But most people wouldn’t consider it long enough to be true, permanent change. Right?
He’d had that moment of hesitation before he told her about the return of his hearing, wondering how it would change things.Now he was thinking harder about that, and why he’d so readily accepted her not seeing him these two weeks without pushing it.
Was he supposed to feel guilty that the other night he’d stood on his back porch, grinning like a fool when he could hear the trumpeting of a flock of geese going over the house?
