23. Dylan

CHAPTER 23

DYLAN

When I woke up, the clock told me it was the middle of the afternoon. My shoulder hurt, but it was the same kind of dull throb I’d gotten used to over the week since my discharge. The lights in Alex’s bedroom were off, but the windows were east facing and I could tell by the gray and blue shadows across the floor the sun was on its way to the other side of the house. Somewhere inside, a door closed, and I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.

I was due for a pain pill, which meant it was only a matter of time before Alex came looking for me. Thankfully, his egg-based punishments were saved for the morning. The rest of the day, he was content to let me find snacks or he ordered takeout for us. Admittedly, though…I was starting to go a little stir crazy. His house was gorgeous and large, smaller than where I’d grown up, but far bigger than my apartment with Tate, so there were always places to go, but I’d been out of work since my hospital stay. I’d gone from having two steady jobs and the occasional music gig to no jobs, no gigs, no nothing.

Alex’s footsteps grew louder as he made his way up the stairs. I was already familiar with the soft tread of his footfalls, and I turned toward the door just as he twisted it open. He had a glass of water in one hand, the orange pill bottle in another, and his face was flushed and pink.

“How long have you been up?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

I scooted into a seated position and held out my hand for the pill. “Not long.”

He passed me the water and I took a swallow, sending the pill down my throat.

“You look like you have something you want to say.”

I handed him back the glass and gave him a small shrug with my good shoulder.

He clearly didn’t like that response, reaching forward and brushing my hair away from my face. “I thought we made some progress this morning.”

Shifting my weight, I found myself reminded of exactly how much progress we had made this morning. Not with the egg, but with the way I’d cried bent over his bench. It had been embarrassing the first time, but now it was like opening a drain and letting out everything that I’d accumulated for no good reason. The release I found from playing with Alex was beyond anything I’d experienced our first two times together, and it was enough to pique my interest in him further.

The thing about Alex was he was always full of surprises. I thought I understood him the first time I took his money, then I thought I knew him better the second time. When we argued before my injury, I clearly knew enough to hurt him, but the Alex that showed up at the hospital…he was a different man entirely. This new version of Alex was so much more whole than what he’d given me before, and I was far too broken to hold him safely in my hands.

“It’s just me,” I said softly, pressing my fingers into my thigh, playing through the chords of a song I hadn’t had a chance to write yet. “I know this is probably stupid, but…do you know what happened to my guitar?”

“I didn’t see it at your apartment,” he answered.

I stilled the melody. “I had it with me when…”

“It wasn’t at the hospital either.”

I swallowed thickly, fighting back another surge of tears. That was an additional unexpected result of my stay with Alex. I cried. Constantly. To call me hyperemotional would have nearly been an understatement. It was as if the first time he spanked me he’d flipped a switch that never quite turned off. I was always primed for a fresh wave of tears, even if I didn’t know what had caused them in the first place.

“You can’t play right now anyway,” he said quietly, brushing wetness off my cheek. I wanted to tell him it was useless, because as soon as it was gone, two more tears took its place.

“I know, I just…”

“What kind of guitar was it?” he asked. “I can get you a new one.”

“You don’t need to buy me a new guitar,” I said.

“Green, Dylan?” Alex arched a brow at me, and I swallowed back another protest.

“It was a Martin D45.”

“Thank you.” Alex nodded. “But you still can’t play. Probably not for a while yet.”

“They said six to eight weeks,” I told him, reminding myself that two months was nothing. It was no time at all. It was the same amount of time I’d known him.

“You’ll have it tomorrow,” Alex said, “but you’re not allowed to play it until you’re cleared for that range of motion.”

“But I’m cleared to bend over that bench of yours to get spanked every morning?”

Alex sighed, body swaying away from me.

“And speaking of that,” I continued, sliding my back straighter against his headboard. “Why won’t you touch me?”

“I touched you two minutes ago.”

“Like touch me , touch me,” I said, shoving the sheet down past my hips to reveal the sleepy bulge between my legs. “You haven’t fucked me, touched my cock, nothing since the hospital.”

“No,” he agreed. “I haven’t.”

“Why not? Do you think that because of what happened…You know that they didn’t…the hospital checked…”

“Dylan, stop,” He reached up and pressed his fingertips against my lips. Touching me again, almost as if to prove his point. “Even if something had happened to you in that way…that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

I smacked his hand away from my mouth. “Why then?”

“Because you can’t always get what you want when you want it.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“If you could have your way, what would you have right now?” he asked. “What would your life be like?”

“I’d be a famous musician,” I said automatically. It had been the answer for as long as I could remember. “I wouldn’t need my parents’ money. I wouldn’t have to worry about when the next gig was coming up. I wouldn’t have to worry about finding gigs at all. They’d be calling me to come play, all across the country. Around the world.”

My heart hammered against my chest, shoulder finally feeling numb, unlike the backs of my thighs and my ass. That was a pain I welcomed, though, one I could manage and make sense of.

“And that is why, Dylan,” he said simply.

“Why? Do you think you’re too good for me?”

He rolled his eyes, standing up and smoothing his hands down the front of his jeans. His fingers trembled when they reached his knees and he was quick to pull his hands back, but I’d already seen. His cheeks were still flushed, his jaw now tense.

“I am not interested in doing things by half,” he said. “Not anymore and not ever again.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Your future is about you, as it should be. But if there’s no place for me then, there is no place for me now,” he said.

It was instinct to argue, and my mouth opened before I even knew what I wanted to say. But any argument died in the back of my throat, and Alex reached forward and pressed his fingers against the bottom of my chin until I snapped my mouth back closed.

“I’ll give you what I can afford, Dylan,” Alex whispered, mouth twisted into a grimace. “Nothing more.”

I bit my cheek, another fresh wave of tears welling up. My face crumpled, and Alex’s arms were around me before the first sob fell out of my mouth. I was grateful, in that moment, that affection was something he could afford me, because the thought of crying alone on his bed was too much for me to handle.

“You’re okay,” he soothed, kissing the top of my head and stroking his hands down my spine. “You’re okay and you’re safe.”

That sent another wash of tears out my eyes, and I curled my good arm around him, fingers digging into the rich cotton of his t-shirt.

“You smell like sunshine,” I mumbled against his chest, smearing tears and snot all over him.

“I was sitting outside,” he said.

“Can I sit outside?”

Alex huffed a laugh into my hair and rested his chin against the top of my head. “Of course you can sit outside.”

“Now?”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

I clutched his shirt tighter. “Yes, please.”

He let out a quick, low groan, then shifted out from underneath my weight. There was the promise of an erection growing between his legs. I could see it, feel the heat of it, but he adjusted himself with one hand and helped me out of bed with the other. Even though I didn’t need help walking, Alex helped me anyway. One hand pressed softly against the small of my back as we made our way downstairs.

There were two empty bottles of wine on the table out there, four empty glasses, a mostly eaten tray of meat and cheese. Alex’s usual crossword sat finished in front of one of the chairs, pen clicked closed on top of it.

“You had company?” I asked.

“Brooks, Ford, and Kale came over for a bit,” he said.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Good.” He pulled out a chair for me and I sank down into it gratefully. Even though the sun was already working its way toward the other side of the house, the brightness of the sky was welcome after being inside for so long. The fresh air would have been enough on its own, and I tipped my head back, sucking in a deep breath.

Alex sat down across from me, stare appraising. “You’ve been cooped up all week.”

“I know.”

“You should get out more.”

“You should let me out more,” I countered.

He pursed his lips, unimpressed. “The only thing I’ve dictated since your arrival is your morning routine. Everything else has always been up to you. The morning is up to you, as well. If you wanted to get technical about it.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” I grunted.

“Clearly, I do.” He leaned back and curled his fingers around the arms of the chair. “You’re not a prisoner here, Dylan. I thought you wanted to be here.”

“I had different ideas of what it would be.”

“That seems to be a trend with us,” he said.

“I wish sometimes…” I looked down at the table, at his crossword. I’d taken his seat—or he’d given it—without even asking. “I wish we could start over.”

“I thought we had.”

“Not fully,” I said, glancing up at him. “Not really.”

Alex reached for the half-eaten meat board and rolled a piece of prosciutto with his finger. “Start over how, then?”

“Maybe we met at the bar that night and I wouldn’t have slept with a patron.”

That earned me a smirk and a quick adjustment of his glasses.

“My loss there,” he murmured.

“Maybe it’s another world where we met under different circumstances.” I shrugged my good arm, exhaling loudly when he passed the rolled up slice of meat to me.

“A world where you’re a famous musician and I’m out for a night with my friends?” Alex cocked his head to the side, mouth quirking up in the corner. “I’m so captivated by you that I wait for you after the show and buy you a drink?”

“I don’t drink anymore,” I told him.

His expression made it clear that the revelation was news to him, but for some reason, he didn’t press it. Didn’t ask how long ago I’d made the decision.

“I wait for you after the show,” he started over again, “and give you my number. I ask to take you out on a date.”

“Where do you take me?” I asked.

“Wherever you want to go.”

Even born from privilege, that was a life that could have never been mine. Just because my upbringing hadn’t given me anything of note didn’t mean the rest of my life had to remain unremarkable. It was okay, I imagined, to feel sorry for myself for a little while. To cry every morning about the future that I’d never even had a chance at, every strike of Alex’s hand against my backside pushing it out of me. Maybe one day, all of those lost dreams would be gone and I’d be able to focus on the reality in front of me instead of the pipe dreams in my head.

My fingers dropped to the table, pressing out another series of chords I’d not yet had a chance to put to paper. It was part nervous habit, part hope.

“Could we still maybe start there?”

Alex worried his lower lip between his teeth, a thousand thoughts I’d never make sense of racing through his mind, barely visible in the dark brown of his eyes. He scratched the corner of his mouth, head tilted in question. The silence stretched for what felt like hours. I wanted to take it back, so I didn’t ruin whatever the thing between us actually was with dreams of what I wanted.

“I would like that,” he said carefully, looking up at me even though his face was downcast toward the table. There was a glare on his glasses that made it hard to see his eyes. “But I’m not sure if you’re there yet, Dylan.”

“Forget I said anything.”

“No.” He raised a hand to stop me, shaking his head. “That’s not what I said. That’s not what I want.”

“But you don’t want me.”

“I do want you.” Alex dropped one of his hands into his lap, immediately reminding me of the erection from upstairs. “I want you more than I should, but…it has to be right.”

“You have to be able to afford it,” I repeated his statement from earlier.

“I have to be able to afford it.” He licked his lips, exhaling and turning his attention toward the sky. “Don’t for one second think that I don’t want you, Dylan. It’s not that at all. Do you believe me?”

I didn’t need to see his face to know the truth of his words.

“I believe you.”