16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Christian

It takes a fuzzy moment as I wake to remember where I am. But the sight of Specs sprawled so casually in front of me clears up the confusion fast.

We’re not tangled like we were when we fell asleep. Emil is on his back now, his head turned gently to the side, but my arm is slung over his chest, as if I wanted to keep him close, even in my sleep.

I watch him for a moment, feeling a strange—but not unwelcome—sort of disconnect. For once, I’m not across the alleyway while my neighbor is sleeping. I’m right here with him.

I don’t dare move, don’t dare shatter the moment, but Emil shifts before long, letting out a soft sigh. I pull my arm back, wondering if… Yep . Emil raises his arms above his head, stretching and letting out a soft groan, his hands flexing into fists.

I bite my lip.

He pauses mid-stretch, and I can see the moment he realizes he’s not alone. His eyes fly open, and his head turns my way slowly.

“Hey,” I practically whisper.

Emil tugs his arms down, instinctually reaching for his face before seeming to remember he’s not wearing his glasses. He grabs them off the nightstand, sliding them onto his nose before blinking at me a few times. “Um, hi.”

“Told you,” I say lightly. “Just like a cat.”

He blinks again before snorting. It feels like a lifetime ago that I called him out for his feline behavior. Back then, I didn’t even know Emil’s name. He was my kinky neighbor, my sorta friend, but not more .

“I, uh,” Emil says, clearing his throat. “I need to use the bathroom.”

When he doesn’t make a move, I ask, jokingly, “Do you need a hand?”

His eyes widen before he huffs a laugh and throws back the covers. They smack me in the face, and I pull them down, catching the side of Emil’s smile before he’s out the door.

Sassy kinky neighbor.

As Emil takes care of morning necessities, I get out of bed and find a shirt. Hopefully, he won’t mind. I take a whiff of the collar, humming happily when I find it smells like him. Clean laundry, mostly, but also something that’s simply Emil.

Dressed, I head into the living room and sit down in front of Arthur’s terrarium. It takes me a minute to find the crab, but eventually I see a tiny peek of orange among the fibrous material at the bottom of his tank. A leg, maybe.

“I don’t have an extra toothbrush,” Emil says from the hall, startling me somewhat, “but you can use my toothpaste if you want.”

I shoot him a smile. “Thanks, Specs.”

He nods and disappears into the bedroom.

“Arthur,” I say quietly. “Can you keep a secret?”

The crab doesn’t budge.

“I kinda like your daddy,” I admit. “But I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had a boyfriend before.”

Arthur has no response.

“It’s scary, you know? When I stop to think about it, it freaks me out. But…when I’m with him, it doesn’t feel scary at all. He’s a man who dotes on his hermit crab. How can that be scary?”

Arthur still doesn’t reply. With a sigh, I pick myself up off the floor, gaze catching on the pictures on the wall. The three brain maps.

I don’t want my choices to be based on fear. Specs said we’re all just trying to survive. That all of the chaos in this world is proof of that fight. He also said to trust my gut.

Well, my gut is telling me there’s more to living than survival. And am I really living if I keep myself relegated to a safe, easy existence like my mom did after my dad died? She won’t let herself be happy. Not truly. She grieves the life she could have had, ignoring the one she’s been given. She’s surviving, but she’s not living .

I don’t want to end up like that. Yes, I’m scared. Scared of failure, of loss, of heartbreak, even. I’m scared I might not be enough for Emil in the end. That I might disappoint him, the same as I have my mother.

But fuck , if Specs can be brave enough to admit, even indirectly, that he’s scared of me leaving, I can be brave enough to tell him I don’t want to. Is it really so hard? It shouldn’t be.

I head to the bathroom before Emil can emerge from his room. Using my finger, I brush my mouth until it’s minty fresh. Then I step back into the hall, on a mission.

I find Specs in the kitchen, sifting through the contents of an open cupboard. He looks mildly alarmed as he spots me strutting his way. Before he can speak, I stop in front of him and open my mouth.

“Can I kiss you?”

He makes an aborted sound. “Now? Here?”

“Yes and yes.”

“I, um… Yeah,” he finally answers.

I breathe in, my chest swells, and I take Emil’s face in my hands.

His lips are soft, just like I remember, but we’re not in the studio. We’re not in front of the cameras. This is just me and Emil, kissing for no other reason than because we want to.

It doesn’t surprise me when Emil’s hands fist my shirt, pulling me closer. I bump into him, bump him into the counter. He moans, a soft sound, but there’s no doubt in my mind it’s real. And only for me.

When I pull back, Emil blinks his eyes open, and I carefully adjust his glasses on his nose. “Can I take you on a date?”

He inhales. Exhales. “Another one?”

That startles a laugh out of me. “Have we been dating without me knowing it?”

Emil licks his lips and says, “The garden felt like a date. Last night felt like a date.”

I can’t even argue it. “Can I take you on another date, then?”

His lips twitch. A small smile. “I guess that would be okay.”

“Well, shit, Specs. Don’t sound so damn excited about it.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, pushing me away before pulling me close again. We bump together, and he stares at my chest, working his lip between his teeth as his fingers twist in my shirt. His shirt. “It’s been a while since I’ve dated.”

“Yeah?” I ask, caging him against the counter. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“I had a boyfriend before I started working at Elite 8,” he says, continuing to toy with my shirt. “We were pretty vanilla, which was fine, but, uh… There was this one time I blew him in the car. We thought we were alone, or I wouldn’t have. But we got caught, unintentionally, by a couple guys getting into the vehicle next to ours. Dane was mortified. But I…”

He huffs a laugh, and it’s not hard to guess.

“You liked it,” I say.

He nods. “So much. It was like this jolt to my system. I came in my pants, Christian. No one even touched me.”

Damn. That’s hot.

“After that,” he goes on, “I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kept trying to engage Dane in semi-public places, but he adamantly refused. We broke up shortly after that. Not really because of that. We weren’t a great fit. But that was when I got a little reckless.”

“What happened?” I ask softly, smoothing my fingers along his sides. For whatever reason, it seems like this is a story Emil needs to tell. And I’m happy to listen.

“I started having sex in clubs,” he says. “In the bathrooms, mostly, but, uh… There was this one time when it was right in the hall. Plenty of people saw us, and I didn’t even care. I loved it. It was like a drug.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I say gently.

He shakes his head, eyes meeting mine. “That’s the thing. I’m not ashamed of it. Not in the least. But I’m on my way to getting my doctorate in psychology. I want to go into research, and I can’t have a record, Christian. It could seriously affect my options.”

“Whereas porn is legal,” I say, making the connection.

He nods, eyes imploring me to understand, but I already do. “It’s safe,” he says. “And it’s consensual for everyone involved. I couldn’t…couldn’t trust that someone I started dating would understand how much that matters to me. Because when I’m in that place, that hazy, intoxicating place, logic shuts off and want overrides everything else. I’m not in control of myself. At least, I don’t feel that way.”

“Which is why you warned me last night.”

There’s a beat of silence before Emil says, “It’s why I trusted you last night.”

My pulse kicks, and Emil tugs me closer, his arms wrapping around my back.

“Christian… Before I even knew you, the very day after I moved in, you wrote me a letter. You saw me through the window, and you cared about my consent. You could have kept watching me, and I would have been none the wiser, but you didn’t do that. I’ve trusted you since the beginning. I never have to worry when I’m with you. I know I’m safe.”

I swallow roughly, my throat tight. “Specs… You’ll be my first.”

He cocks his head slightly. “Your first what?”

“Boyfriend.”

His eyes pop wide, but all he does is tighten his arms. We’re already flush, but the added pressure is nice. “Christian,” he says softly.

“Mm?”

He leans close, tilting his head up so his lips are near my ear. “I’ll go easy on you.”

I bark a laugh, and Emil pulls back, grinning at me.

“Fuck, Specs,” I mutter, tracing the shape of his mouth with my eyes. “My brave exhibitionist.”

He snorts. “My beautiful voyeur.”

There goes my heart again, thumping loudly, the beat impossible to ignore. “I was never much of a voyeur before you,” I tell him truthfully.

He breathes out. “And I may be the one with boyfriend experience, but I don’t really know what I’m doing, Christian. I’d never even cuddled on the couch until you.”

“So I guess we’re kind of in this together, huh?”

“That is the implied intent of dating,” he says, lips twisting. “You do it together.”

“You’re such a little shit,” I say fondly.

He laughs, lifting his chin in a proud display or a bid for a kiss; I’m not sure which. “You like it.”

In answer, I drop my mouth to his. He sighs against me, hands flattening on my lower back. In no hurry to be anywhere else, I keep Specs pressed against the counter, and we kiss and kiss and kiss.

“So we have a couple different species of hermit crabs available,” the pet store employee tells us as she leads Emil and I down a row of glass fish tanks. “You got your last one here?”

“Yeah, I did,” Emil answers. Despite being nervous when he asked if I’d come with him to get Arthur a tank mate, Emil seems determined now as we stop in front of a selection of hermit crabs. He points to the ones that look like Arthur. “He’s a Coenobita clypeatus . I think I’d like to get one about the same size.”

“That’s a good idea,” the employee says. “You’ll want an isolation tank for the first thirty to sixty days. What size is your terrarium?”

“Thirty gallons,” Emil says.

“That’s great,” she chirps. “Plenty of space for two young crabs. Do you know the process for isolation and introduction?”

As Emil and the employee discuss the logistics of adding a crab to his terrarium, I bend down and watch the little crustaceans. The ones in this tank are itty bitty, like Arthur, with bodies in varying shades of orange. It’s hard to imagine that Arthur could, one day, be the size of a baseball.

“What do you think of the one on the rock?” Emil asks, bending down next to me. “He’s pretty cute, right?”

I glance over at my brand-new boyfriend as he bites his lip. “Adorable.”

He nods absentmindedly, eyes sweeping the tank. “What if I choose wrong?”

I knock his shoulder gently with my own. “What does your gut say, Specs?”

He looks at me, letting out a breath. “For some reason, it’s saying the one on the rock.”

“Then that’s the one you should get.”

He nods again before standing upright. “Um, we’re ready.”

The employee helps us gather everything Emil needs for the isolation tank before loading his new hermit crab into a transportation carrier for the short trip home. Emil glances over at me and the crab in my lap every available chance as he drives.

“He’s fine,” I assure him for the tenth time.

Emil nods, but his tension doesn’t dissipate until we’re pulling into the parking lot behind his building. Between the two of us, we manage to bring everything up to his apartment in one trip. Emil sets to work outfitting the small tank, adding substrate and rocks and various bowls for water and food, while I continue to assure him his new crab is alive and well.

“Okay, it’s ready,” Emil says some time later.

Ever so carefully, he transfers the new hermit crab into the terrarium, a mini replica of the one Arthur resides in. We both watch, and Emil holds his breath as the new crab immediately burrows out of sight.

“Yeah, good,” he says, blowing out a breath and nodding. “He’ll need some time to destress, possibly molt. This is good.”

I give Emil’s shoulder a squeeze. “You’re a good crab dad, Specs. Everything will be fine.”

He snorts, but there’s relief in his eyes when he looks my way. “Thanks for helping me do this.”

“I’m not sure I did anything.”

He shakes his head, resituating so that his leg is pressed against mine. We’ve barely been apart all weekend, but I like it. The closeness. Spending time with Specs.

“You’re here, Christian,” he says softly. “That’s everything.”

My gut swoops, the briefest sensation of free fall. It’s so simple. And so big.

Is this what people mean when they say they’re falling?

Slowly, I edge my pinkie over until it touches Emil’s. He loops his own over top of mine and lays his head on my shoulder. Locked together, it’s all too easy to make a vow.

If Emil needs someone to be there for him, I’ll show up. Time and time again.