As I chewed on a sour blueberry that had been hiding in the sweet dough, I watched my father give her a brief peck on the lips.
“Can you stay to eat a little?” Mom asked, the hope heavy in her voice.
“I can take a muffin,” he offered weakly.
There was a flash of disappointment behind her eyes, but as soon as it appeared it was gone. “Well, all right.”
He took a few steps towards where I was sitting, snatched one of the stale pastries from the center platter, looked me in the eye for a second, and then he was gone.
But in that flash of his eyes, I saw it there again: Disappointment.
He took a few steps towards the door, bid us farewell, and then he was out of the house.
I poked at my food with my fork, the metal scraping against the ceramic with little clinks.
My mother sat down wordlessly next to me.
She knew. I knew.
Dad didn’t like that I’d come home to get better. He thought me having anxiety made me weak; it made me a failure. Not being able to power through it made me less of a man than he expected me to be.
When I stopped eating, my mother’s steely eyes were on me.
I tried to force another bite into my mouth.
“I… I really don’t want to be a disappointment,” I said finally.
“You’re not!” My mother said, some kind of strange panic growing in her eyes. “I love having you here!”
“He doesn’t,” I said sadly. “He wants me out of the house as soon as possible. I’ve got to finish my degree…”
“Your father loves you,” My mother said, as if willing me to believe it.
And by the way she said that, I knew that everything I’d suspected was true, and that this discussion was over.
As she prattled on about her plans for the day: Going to the garden center, meal prepping for the week, stopping by the office to take care of some paperwork for the upcoming parade, I couldn’t help but feel like even more of a failure.
Here I was in this perfect all-American family, being a complete failure.
I was disappointing everyone.
* * *
Despite my mother’s insistence that I go with her, I decided to stay at home.
I had a book to read, after all.
And honestly, I couldn’t deal with her perfect-wife-and-mother act all day. She’d gloss over everything real; everything that mattered. Like the fact that I wouldn’t take medication for my anxiety.
She didn’t ask why; she didn’t care why. In her mind, this problem I was having was some dirt on the floor that could be swept under the rug.
We never talked about the incident, the thing that debilitated me in college. I didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t want to know.
But the one thing that made me feel better about everything was this.
Double and triple checking to see if the house was deserted that I was completely alone, I went to my room and pulled the book out from under my mattress.
Obey.
Even reading the title on this thing got me excited, and I felt a stirring in my lower belly.
Laying on my bed, I turned page after page, reading about how the two main characters — two guys, for once — met, fell in love, and explored their BDSM kinks.
When the Dom character was described, all I could picture in my head was Adam. His tall, muscular form, his gentle but commanding eyes hidden behind a wild beard…
My eyes slid over to his business card that was still laying innocently on my bedside table.
Would it really be so bad if I… if I just texted him, even though it wasn’t an emergency?
I sat for a few minutes biting my lip, trying to decide what to do. Every one of my senses was on high alert, trying to reason with me that this was a bad idea; that he didn’t want to hear from me.
I’d gotten him into some kind of trouble.
After humming and hawing over it for a few minutes, I finally decided to take the plunge and just text him. What was the worst that could happen?
My mind was spiraling out of control with a plethora of pre-prepared images of all the worst things that could happen, as if it was waiting for me to do this.
But I thought of Adam’s gentle presence, and how just being next to him in that bathroom last night calmed me down. I was able to type something out, re-composing it a few times, then finally hit send.
The message was in blue on the screen: “Hey! Thanks for the ride home last night. What are you up to?”
I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but then saw those three dots appear on the screen right under my message.
He was typing!
6
Adam
I was out on my back porch again, this time with a hungover Jake to keep me company.
I was still pissed at him for being a dick to Luke last night and scaring him away. Apparently, he’d been having more drinks than I thought.
After I followed Luke into the bathroom, he’d gone up to the bartender and tried to have a friendly chat.
“She wouldn’t even look at me…” he lamented again, for the fifth time, as he stared out at the lake.
“Why do you care? You’re married.” I said.
“I know! I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean…” his shoulders sagged, and I could tell from his gaze that he was a thousand miles away. “Have you ever met someone, and felt this powerful connection with them?”
I was motionless, careful not to give anything away. But all I could think about was the first time I’d seen Luke. How much I wanted him — the powerful need to take care of him flooding my senses.
“I can’t say I have,” I started carefully, not trusting my brother with my true feelings. I could easily see
