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“Why do I have a notice from HR that Dashiell Davis is no longer employed with us?” I asked, cutting her off.
“Ahh, let me look into that.” To her credit, it only took her a moment to find me an answer. “Oh, I see, sir. He withdrew his application.”
“He what?”
She was silent for a moment, then she cleared her throat. “It’s a simple one page document, sir. There’s no reason indicated, but it’s definitely his signature. I recognize it from going through all the original paperwork with him, sir.”
“Dashiell hasn’t mentioned anything to me about any problems,” I said tightly. And while Jackie had been maddeningly close-lipped about helping to “sort things out” with my boy, I also trusted the little shit, even when he was driving me crazy. And since he’d promised me that he was taking care of everything, I had assumed that was true.
“Well,” Andrea said slowly, sounding uncertain. “I know he’s still been staying at your apartment…”
“Yes, I know.”
In my bed, where I’d barely been able to refrain from asking him if he was making a mess each night, “thinking” of me. I’d avoided letting our conversations become too explicit in the four days since I’d left him in New York, though. Partly because the thought of scaring the boy off before I could be there to move things forward in person was unacceptable. I simply couldn’t take the chance. But also because our nightly phone calls had become a study in the most delicious edging, and the joy of flustering him—and the sweet, needy responsiveness he showed to even the smallest sign of praise—had become a bit like a drug to me. Utterly addictive.
Speaking to him each night had become the thing I looked forward to the most. He was every bit the sweet, pretty little thing Jackie had teased me about craving, and it brought out a side of me I honestly hadn’t known I possessed. More than once, I’d been tempted to blow off the final meetings I had scheduled for tomorrow and fly back early, and after he’d finally opened up to me about the circumstances I’d found him in, I’d only wanted to take care of him more.
But not once had he given me any hint that he wasn’t happy with the way I was doing that, and while I’d be more than happy to spoil the shit out of him just because I could, I wanted him to have the security of knowing he had some income of his own—above and beyond the little bit he made at La Vigneta—along with a roof over his head.
Had something happened? Had something changed? Or had I misread everything, right from the beginning?
The idea gutted me.
“Would you like me to check in on him?” Andrea asked cautiously.
“No,” I said briskly. “I’ll take care of it.”
I ended the call and did what I should have as soon as I’d gotten the notice—called Dashiell. I hadn’t wanted to worry him if it was just a clerical error, but it clearly wasn’t, and I needed to know why.
No, I needed to know what I had to do to fix it, because Jackie was right, about everything.
I wanted the boy. I wanted to keep him.
It took him three rings to answer, and when he did—with a video call, the way he knew I liked—he was flushed and beautiful and a little bit breathless, as if he’d run for the phone. “Callum?”
My jaw clenched. He sounded just as eager as always, and if I lost that, lost him, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
The boy’s face fell as soon as he saw mine. “What’s… what’s wrong?”
“I heard that you declined my job offer,” I said, my voice stiff and formal and an ache in my gut that I’d never felt before.
“Oh,” Dashiell said, sinking down onto the bed behind him. “They told you that already?”
“They did. But they didn’t tell me why.”
He swallowed. “Um, because Jackie got me a different job? He said... he said it would be better.”
“Whatever it pays, I’ll double it.”
Dashiell’s eyes went wide. “Oh! No. It’s not, I didn’t mean it paid better. I don’t want you to spend even more money on me! Jackie just said, he said I shouldn’t work for you. And he’s renting me his spare room now! The one that was his weight room? So he helped me move the new clothes over there, and I’ll pay you back for them! I know you said it was a business expense and it might take me a while, but since I’m not—”
“Dashiell,” I interrupted softly, the ache in my gut spreading throughout my entire torso, squeezing my chest like a vise, until I could barely breathe. “Don’t go.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. I’d never even bothered to ask when past lovers had decided to leave me—for being too controlling; too overbearing; too much, even though I’d always been holding back with each of them—and this boy wasn’t even that yet. I’d barely touched him. Never tasted him. Had denied I even wanted him the first time he’d caught my eye.
And yet the idea that he wouldn’t be there when I returned tomorrow was almost more than I could bear.
“Go? What?” He shook his head, looking stricken. “No. I’m not going anywhere. Unless… unless you want me to?”
