Strangely, though, after I'd gotten over my initial shock, I found myself thinking about the stronger empath, wondering about him. Hell, I didn't even know his name, and I wanted to. I wanted to meet him again when Ellery wasn't there so I didn't have to worry and feel defensive.
I'd always been too damn nosy for my own good.
I felt guilty about wanting to see him again, and then I analyzed it. By now I'd had enough counseling to be able to counsel myself sometimes, about some things, talking through my emotions the way my therapist would've made me.
I'd rarely known other empaths, had never had any real friends or enemies amongst them. I'd never known someone I couldn't read before. Of course I was curious, and there was nothing wrong with that. I wasn't going to endanger myself or Ellery by seeking him out, but that curiosity was nothing to feel guilty over.
The guilt lifted, and with it, the obsessed wonderings. I might never see him again, and that was okay. It was okay if there was someone in the world I couldn't read, who was an enigma to me, who denied being gay but not very convincingly. Usually I knew if people were telling the truth; with him, I'd had to guess. I told myself I'd guessed right; he was a closet case.
Another good reason I shouldn't mind never seeing him again.
A month passed, then another two weeks, and one day Kev said, "No, no work today, you two need a break. Where do you want to go?"
Ellery sidled nearer to me, unable to avoid that sudden burst of panic that always came when someone wanted a snap decision from him. For an awful moment, his fear spiked and his mind went blank, the awful, emotional "I can't do this" of a terrified student facing a test he'd known the answers to only moments before, only to find them all gone.
I turned to Ell and drew him to me, proud of myself. Stuff like this — reaching to comfort him, moving towards him instead of away when one of us was upset — was becoming natural. It was deliberate, but I didn't have to think it through and figure it out first. I just did it.
Protecting Ell was natural to me, and reassuring him was becoming a lot easier than it had been when we were first together and I didn't have any idea what I was doing most of the time.
He calmed quickly with a few ragged breaths, letting himself lean against me then looking up with a sheepish, smiling apology in his eyes. If I was learning how to handle the sudden panic, he was, too. He lived through it, got over it as best and as quickly as he could, and didn't let it spoil his day.
Panic was a message, not something shameful. It meant 'slow down, calm down.' He was learning to take that message and work with it, instead of seeing panic as a personal failure. It wasn't; it was something he was continuing to work through. Ninety percent of the time, he was fine.
"I'm sorry," said Kevin, speaking softly. "Is now not a good time, or was it the surprise?" He looked at both of us, alert and concerned. He knew he'd triggered that burst of fear, but he didn't understand why. Probably none of us did, not completely.
Ell looked at me and shook his head. He wasn't up to explaining yet, and I felt that he wanted me to. But at the same time, he didn't necessarily have anything against a vacation. I was glad I could read him well enough to understand what he meant.
He loved vacations. He got lots of them — enough that the average person would be extremely jealous of his time on tropical islands. But it was an important part of the way The Shardwell Group looked after him. Vacations helped Ellery de-stress and let him continue to function without having an emotional or mental breakdown over the strain of his abilities and the people he knew were counting on him all the time to run interference against possible difficulties in future events. No one else could really do his job.
Jobs, money, and, frankly, lives depended on him not missing something important. For an already fragile person like Ellery who'd lived through a lot of bad shit in his life, it was a heavy burden to bear, and sometimes he had to get away from it. Kevin and Erin were good at spotting when he needed to, and I believed Kev was correct now. All the same, I kept my arm around Ellery as I picked through the words that might explain this.
I kept my arm loosely around him, and it felt good. It was a pleasure to have him leaning against me, trusting me. His slim body was muscular and warm. I felt calmness replacing his anxiety, trust instead of fear. He watched me as I spoke.
Kev watched me, too, believing me, trusting me as he always did. That felt good as well. "It's not that we don't want to go. Vacations are always fun. I for one would love to. But Ellery's not sure where to go and can't pick somewhere really quickly. Maybe we can talk about it. You can suggest somewhere, or he and I will decide together later." I was being tactful; I would probably end up deciding so he wouldn't have to face any more panic over it. He'd enjoy wherever we ended up going.
After we'd almost gotten kidnapped from his favorite resort, there had been more choices added and greater security at all of them. We'd probably still end up going back there, though. It was perfectly safe — an artificial little island with a beautiful resort and beach area. It was where we'd first made love — where we'd become an item.
I had good memories of the place despite the later danger, which frankly hadn't been about the resort anyway but a plot inside the company, a coup in the making that had involved getting us out of the way and then going after Kevin.
I looked at Ell, and he nodded quickly, leaning against me more closely — almost a snuggle. I gave him a quick, decisive nod back and drew my arm around him more snugly. "So, we'll take lunch to talk about it, okay?"
Kevin smiled, and it made the area around his eyes crease. "That's fine, Pete. I'm sorry for the surprise, Ellery." He meant it; he held no disdain for Ell. Perhaps because he knew, in some ways even better than I did, all the things Ellery had been through. I knew some of the vague outlines of Ellery's life growing up and getting tossed into and out of mental institutions. We rarely discussed the actual details because he didn't want to.
Kevin, on the other hand, had the files — thick files — from Ell's time before the ESRB, and had read all of them, grimly, angrily. He'd once confessed in a quiet moment to me that he'd been in tears and had had to get drunk to finish them. If he felt protective and possessive of me, he did of Ellery as well.
The two of them weren't as close as Kev and I were — and certainly not as close as Ell and I — but there was a steady, sturdy relationship of trust there, and Ellery, on his worst days, the ones when he could barely get out of bed, had known Kevin was on his side and wasn't going to hurt him or discard him.
Kevin was really a very nice person, always thinking of ways to help us get and stay happy and healthy. Of course, I might have been biased. Aside from Ellery, he was the best male friend I'd ever had.
Men usually either wanted to sleep with me or else had a knee-jerk reaction of hating me and wanting to smack me across the mouth for being too gay, or having an annoying personality and a restless streak. Kevin had never fit into either of those categories. If he wasn't asexual, he did a good job of seeming like it. He definitely had no sexual interest in me, but I also didn't annoy him at all. He liked me.
That was so incredibly rare and precious for me. Someone liking me without sexual interest, without getting fed up with me, not wanting to grind his teeth or having to clench his fists to contain his growing rage. There are people who annoyed Kev; the man was still human. But I'd never been one of them. Never. When Kevin thought about me, he felt . . . light inside. Happy. Honored.
I worked with him, and he trusted me, and he liked me. He considered me a friend, as I considered him. I mean, we tried to stay professional — we worked together; it was an important job, blah blah — but there was so much more underneath. When we had to travel for work, he let me put my head on his shoulder and fall asleep. I felt so incredibly safe with him, and I loved that feeling.
There hadn't been too many steady people in my life who continued to like me no matter what. I was a big fan of Kevin, and probably everybody around us knew it
. Many of them seemed to think we were having sex, and wondered what kind of odd three-way relationship we had going on here, but that didn't bother me.
I wasn't offended by the rumor that I was having sex with Kevin. He was attractive enough, if not my type. It just wasn't true, and it was never going to be. For me, having a friend was so much more important than having another person I was attracted to, or vice versa. There were a lot of hot men in the world. I'd be fine with never noticing any of them again, now that I had my own guy.
That wasn't going to happen; I'd always notice, although I planned to stay faithful to Ellery and fight for this relationship to work. But I was going to notice; I was definitely not going to be offended by someone flirting with me or finding me attractive.
A large part of my identity, for most of my life, was about being noticed sexually, having people want me. It was the only area where I had any self-confidence or could feel good about myself for a long time.
I always knew when people were turned on by me; it helped make up for all the ways people in general hated me for all the unlikeable things about myself that I couldn't help. Being gay. Being hyperactive. Being short and cute. Being loud-mouthed and talkative. (Believe me, I'd tried to change that, and it hadn't worked. I'd have tried even if I hadn't gotten my face punched in for it more than once.)
No, I was pretty happy with the way things were between the three of us, and I wasn't ashamed to realize I loved Kevin. It was pretty cool to love someone so much without wanting to get into his pants. It wasn't like he was even related to me, making it an obligated feeling, or something I grew up into, from family always being there in one way or another.
It felt like that a lot, though. The way family's supposed to be, and sometimes is.
Now Kevin gave me a reassuring smile and a nod. "Take your time. Sorry, Ell."
"That's okay," said Ellery, still sticking close to me. "We'll let you know."
We went to lunch, and he crunched on breadsticks and nothing else, even though there were, as always, delicious and varied things to eat at the buffet. I knew from experience that he got an upset stomach after a bout of panic, and I didn't push him to eat more. The breadsticks he could handle; if someone tried to push him into a big meal, it would probably find its way back up later, and he'd be extremely miserable.
For someone with a sensitive stomach, he'd never made his peace with throwing up. It was one of the most intense miseries he knew, that feeling of hunching over a toilet bowel and retching. It hurt him both physically and mentally, and we both dreaded any stomach upsets from him.
In contrast, I had a pretty strong stomach, but there had been times in my past where I'd thrown up at least twice a week because I'd drunk too much. (I'd outgrown that eventually, thank goodness.) But I'd never felt as bad as he did about throwing up. I was more like a cat. It might happen, and it was never really pleasant, but it was over quickly and then I could get on with my day. I wasn't one to crouch trembling and crying and waiting with horror and dread for the coming pain. I also wasn't going to feel sick for the rest of the day from a quick barfing session.
We didn't actually talk about the whole vacation thing. We sat quietly and ate. I could feel him relaxing more the longer we sat. He radiated gratitude that I wasn't asking him, but really, there was nothing to talk about here. Of course we'd go on a vacation. If Kevin was suggesting it, that meant he thought we needed to go and could be spared. We both loved the beach; it wasn't going to be an issue.
Ellery had a fear of flying, but that fear was of helicopter flight, not airlines with smooth rides and lots of amenities. Sometimes we even got to take the private jet. I always felt very spoiled when we got that kind of treatment. Which we did, a lot.
It was so very strange to move from being a lower-middle-class to a poor person worrying about how I was going to pay my bills and trying to get steady work, and then becoming a valuable asset to a big company. They were willing to drop major bucks on me — in the form of salary, perks like the buffet and gym, and speedy flights to gorgeous vacation places. It still felt unreal much of the time, and I knew it did to Ellery, too.
I'm sure it had shaped our relationship in some ways — having this safe cocoon, and so much time together because we basically worked the same job. I wasn't sure if it was better or worse than if we'd met some other way. Frankly, I didn't want to know; I was content as-is.
After we had more or less finished eating, he raised his eyes to me. "Um, you wanna, um, take a break?" He didn't blush — not quite. He was really quite bold sexually, at least when it came to me. Perhaps because he knew I wanted him. How, I'm not sure; I wasn't usually so see-through. But damn it, I did, always.
Ellery wasn't the hottest guy I'd ever been with, but he was damned close. He'd become a ten all the way to me. He was slim and pretty, cute, with soulful blue eyes, a wonderful smile, a beautiful body and some lovely muscle definition despite his not being a very big guy. If you didn't mind a guy not being huge, he would almost have to be your definition of hot. And naturally I didn't mind. It was actually nicer being with someone about my height instead of feeling like a short-ass fuck toy for some big bruiser.
Of course, there was more to it. I mean, we had feelings for each other. When we slept together, it wasn't casual fun to get through the night. There was trust, warmth, tenderness — we knew what we both liked, but at the same time, we hadn't exactly fallen into a rut with each other. It was all good. And I didn't have to go to sleep alone afterwards; he still liked me in the morning.
I didn't go around in a constant state of lust, panting after my boyfriend. But I was aware of him. Sometimes I looked at him and just about needed to pinch myself. Because this hot guy so casually next to me was my boyfriend, he liked me back, and before long we were probably going to be sleeping together.
So, yeah, when he gave me that little look of his with the raised eyebrows and the sparkling, slightly humble suggestion in his eyes — and I was very aware of the feelings that went with it; it was such a turn-on being wanted — I scraped back my chair and stood up immediately. "Yep. Little break sounds great."
He laughed, soft and delighted, like he was as thrilled as I was knowing we were together, we had great sex coming up, and neither of us was going anywhere . . .
We headed back to his room. It wasn't something we discussed; our rooms were near each other and we still divided our time pretty evenly between them. I suppose if pressed, I'd have said we picked his room because he'd been feeling anxious a little while ago, and he'd probably feel slightly more comfortable there. But it was an automatic decision between the two of us, not something we thought about consciously or discussed.
We made more and more decisions like that lately. Part of it — perhaps most of it — was my empath talent. I told myself it was something all couples went through, though, that silent communication, automatic decisions without discussing them. It was less scary that way.
When I thought about it too hard, I had scary questions. Was I starting to actually read his mind? Was I losing myself as one half of a couple? Neither of these seemed to be true, but the ideas scared me. I was used to being independent.
At any rate, he was feeling good enough for sex, and that made me really happy. It turned out we both liked sex a lot.
Soon we were in bed together, the topic still unbroached, neither one of us thinking about it particularly. It had really already been decided; it was my turn to pick. If Ellery minded, he'd let me know before I told Kev. Either way, it wasn't important right now. What was important was sex. Lots of sex . . .
We got out of our clothes, not exactly breathlessly hurrying but not slowly, either. Pausing to kiss, we started feeling each other up, and got out of some more clothes. Couch or bed? I wondered, trying to guess how he felt. I couldn't hear thoughts, so I wasn't exactly sure how I knew or if I'd just imagined it, but I felt the little sliver of something-or-other that told me he wanted the bed.
Was I reading something from
his emotions or his body language? Was I guessing? I didn't care right then. When he led the way to the bedroom I followed, glad I'd gotten it right, but also glad he was leading. That meant he was feeling a little confident after all. If he was feeling good enough to initiate and lead the way, that was a pretty big deal, especially on a day when anxiety had hit him with a club.
I slid a hand up his slim, firm thigh, enjoying the feel of his skin. We kissed some more, got on the bed, and he lay down on his back, wriggling into position, looking up at me with shining eyes. The confident question in his eyes was answered firmly by my lack of hesitation. Knees in the air, he was ready for me . . .
Mm, so ready . . .
A fumble for some lube — we were both tested and clean, and exclusive, so condoms weren't a big concern lately — and pretty soon I was ready for him.
He liked this. I could feel the waves of pleasure rolling off him before he was anywhere near coming. It felt so good. His pleasure and confidence fed into my own. I was riding high on the feelings, the emotions, and the way his reflected back and added to my own.
Where before, one mean, private thought could influence how shitty I felt about myself, even if I just caught the emotion of it, now I had a lover who reflected good, positive, happy, loving and supremely sexy things to me. It felt so good.
We fell into the perfect rhythm; I closed my eyes, giving it my all, giving him my all. I love you, I love you, I love you, I heard from me, and then realized I was saying it out loud.
"I love you too . . ." said Ell.
At last we fell into a sweaty heap, riding high, sleepy and feeling sated and good. He was in my arms, and he laughed, a happy, delirious sound, and put his arms around me, and kissed me very softly on the edge of my chin, below my ear. He nuzzled his face against me, still panting, shaking with laughter. He felt so happy, so triumphant.
"Me too," he repeated, wanting me to know it for sure. "Mmm." He drew me closer, and kissed me again, and then said, "We should see Kev, shouldn't we?" It was a sleepy mumble, and he didn't really mean it. That much would've been obvious to anyone, even a non-empath.
SURE (Men of the ESRB Book 3) Page 11