Empty-Handed Heart

by Tymber Dalton

  As Niall walked up, his father opened the front door and gave him a smile. “Weeellll?”

  “Ah, sure.”

  Dr. Ygor Renard, PhD, laughed and hugged his son. When he next spoke, there wasn’t a hint of Irish accent in the native Floridian’s voice. “Missed you, kiddo.”

  “Missed ye, too, Da.”

  Niall sounded nothing like his father—not for lack of trying when he was growing up in Ireland—but he looked like him, both tall and lanky, with brown hair, although Niall had inherited his mother’s blue eyes.

  “Did you eat yet?” Although it came out sounding like, Jeet yet? in Ygor’s almost-drawl spoken by many urban Floridians who’d been born and raised there.

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll make you a plate. You go sit in front of the TV and relax.”

  He wasn’t going to argue. “Thanks, Da.”

  He was torn between wanting to ask about Aden and praying his father didn’t mention him. For right now, he could exist in a hellish dual-universe where Aden was still available and also…not.

  That he’d run into him at the convention and they’d have a reunion…and that he wouldn’t.

  Eventually he’d have to lance that wound but he didn’t have the physical or emotional strength to do it right now. He’d cut back on his meds during the drive, forcing himself to deal with the stress because he didn’t want to risk them making him sleepy. Normally, he timed it to take them when he’d be at work or at home when they kicked in so he didn’t have to worry about driving.

  The past couple of years, he’d had to subtly adjust them, increasing his dosage. No self-medicating—his own doctor prescribed them, a GP, who worked in conjunction with his psychologist, not a psychiatrist.

  Crowds were a big trigger. Stress was another, but part of his stress the past several years had been self-induced by being an idiot and leaving Aden.

  And he got the irony, that he loved teaching. It was stressful, yes, but the actual teaching wasn’t. He enjoyed it, loved sharing knowledge, loved the crowd’s reactions. Loved helping people, because at the core of what he did was helping people.

  The before and after socializing with large groups of people?

  Absolutely, he hated that. Necessary evil, though. Especially when, as the instructor, it was his duty to answer questions.

  Another thing he missed about Aden. Something about Aden’s presence, having him with him, had always calmed Niall during a class, even if he wasn’t using Aden as a subject. Even if Aden was just standing off in the wings watching and listening. After, Aden was always a silent shadow, standing just behind him, sometimes a comforting hand on the small of his back when he could tell Niall was especially stressed or tense or struggling with crowd anxiety.

  It’d taken him a while to get comfortable teaching without the man’s presence, a deep and hollow ache in his soul that would distract him almost to the point of tears, at first. Especially when it meant he had to use others for his demonstrations. He was frequently able to ask convention organizers ahead of time to arrange someone on their staff to volunteer. That meant he had time to work with them when he first arrived so he wasn’t starting out cold with an unknown subject.

  This weekend, he hadn’t prearranged a volunteer.

  Not just because it was Tampa, and he’d likely run into old friends there.

  But…deep in his heart—and he knew it was stupid—he hoped maybe Aden might be there.

  His father brought him out a plate of meatloaf and vegetables, with a glass of iced tea. “Here, eat this. You look like you haven’t been eating lately. You’ve lost weight.”

  Had he? He thought about it and realized yeah, he’d been pulling his belt in an extra hole lately. Not that he’d been fat before, but…

  Shit.

  “Thanks, Da.”

  His father lowered himself into his recliner and sat back. “Good to have you home.”

  “It’s good to be home again.”

  Another reason he wanted to return to Florida, once he realized Aden wasn’t ever going to follow him to California, and he realized he was absolutely miserable—he wanted to be close to his father. Before, he’d usually seen him an average of once a week, especially after his mother’s death.

  His father wasn’t getting any younger, and neither was he.

  “So you’ve been teaching without Aden?” his father finally asked. “How’s that been working?”

  His father knew what he and Aden were. Niall hadn’t wanted there to be any misunderstandings. His open-minded father had accepted him without question—as had his mother—when he’d come out to them when he started college. The kink thing developed a little later, but his father had accepted that, and Aden, without a second thought. Niall’s parents had both taught in a university—which was how’d they’d met. Ygor had fallen in love with Neala, and they got married and settled in her native Ireland, until it came time for their dual-citizenship son to go to college. Then they’d been more than ready to retire back to Ygor’s native state.

  Niall struggled to swallow the mouthful of meatloaf he’d just taken. “Difficult, at first, I won’t lie. I’ve managed. I enjoy sharin’ what I know.”

  “And this weekend?”

  “I don’t want to know if he’s going to be there or not,” Niall said before the subject could be expounded upon. “I don’t want to know if he’s got someone else, or any of that. I want to make it through this weekend, start my new job and find a place to live, and figure out how to move forward, one way or another, from there.”

  His father nodded and returned his focus to the TV.

  Whatever the man had on his mind, he’d keep it there. Niall couldn’t read his father the way he could many people. He didn’t know if the man’s demeanor meant he knew something Niall didn’t or not.

  Or if he did, whether or not Niall would like the knowledge.

  Once he finished eating, he took his plate out to the kitchen and washed it, then went to unload his things from the car. He sorted the dirty laundry from the clean and started a load of lights and headed to the bathroom to shower.

  A long, hot shower, where he stood with his head against the wall and cried.

  * * * *

  He’d be sleeping in what had been his old room, and it felt more than weird, in some ways.

  Before bed that night, Niall upped his dosage, wanting to actually sleep and not lie there spinning a thousand and one scenarios through his head. He didn’t want to plan what to say to Aden, if he even attended that weekend.

  He didn’t want to plan his reactions, either. Any combination of the above scenarios.

  How to keep his smile right if Aden introduced him to his partner.

  Or—worse—husband.

  Of if he was there with someone who wasn’t a romantic partner.

  Or if he was there—highly unlikely—alone.

  Niall wanted to sleep, all the way through the night. He wanted to awaken not having spent most of the night staring at the ceiling or hating himself.

  He wanted to move forward and was still trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to do that.

  The hypnosis had started out as fun, a small private workshop he’d found out about through one of the munches he’d attended. That made him take a harder look at hypnotherapy. It wasn’t something he was studying as part of his degree, but he did enough research he realized it had a legitimate therapeutic benefit. He found a local instructor, for non-erotic hypnotherapy, and studied it on the side. That had led him into studying NLP as well, both helpful tools in his arsenal to help people as a psychologist.

  The kinky uses were a bonus. And when he’d met Aden, the younger man had been eager to try and learn and experience everything. They’d both blundered head-first into the deep end of the pool and ended up keeping each other afloat.

  Until he’d gone and fucked everything up.

  Yeah, the job he’d taken in California had made him a lot more money. Had allowed him to p
ay off his student loan debt, but the cost of living out there was more expensive.

  Everything was more expensive.

  The personal cost had been the most expensive.

  It hadn’t been worth the trade-off.

  The loneliness.

  Hurting Aden.

  What the bloody hell was I thinking?

  He’d always had more fun teaching with Aden, too. He always gave his insight as both Niall’s slave and as a fellow presenter and practitioner of erotic hypnosis.

  Teaching solo and using pre-arranged volunteers wasn’t as satisfying, for him.

  Life wasn’t as satisfying.

  He hadn’t yet forced himself to answer the what-if question that loomed above all others—

  What if Aden had moved on?

  Logically, he knew he’d need to face it sooner rather than later.

  Didn’t stop his heart from hoping otherwise.

  * * * *

  “So what finally triggered it, then?” his father asked at the breakfast table the next morning.

  Niall held the cup of coffee in his hands and stared into its mocha depths. “It wasn’t any one thing.” There was no reason to keep the truth from the man. “A friend of mine who’s in the same field had been spendin’ a lot of time in LA for work with his partner. He’d been living out there and moved back to Sarasota, workin’ for a clinic there. I told him to please keep his ears open if he heard of anything that I might be interested in. And he did. Not as much pay, but that’s all right, then, because I finished payin’ off my loans, finally.”

  “And it’s cheaper to live here.”

  “Aye. And yer here.”

  His dad smiled. “Aw, you big softy.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around.”

  “You did what you had to do. You’re back now, and that’s what matters.”

  Niall came as close as he wanted to touching the stove today. “I don’t want to talk about Aden yet. I…can’t. But it doesn’t bother me he comes to see ye. I’m glad he does. I know he loves ye.”

  His dad slowly nodded. “I’m glad to hear that, because I wouldn’t tell him to stop, anyway.”

  Despite what he’d said, he had to ask. “Without any details…is he well, then?”

  His father met his gaze for a long moment before slowly nodding again. “He is.”

  “Okay.” He closed his eyes and struggled against the tears threatening to fall. “Thanks.”

  He felt his father’s hand on his. “Love you.”

  “Love ye, too, Da.”

  Chapter Seven

  Etsu practically vibrated with excitement in the passenger seat of Aden’s car late Thursday morning. “I’m finally going to a fetish convention!”

  She’d spent the previous weekend at his place, leaving for work from there on Monday morning. Monday night, she’d spent it at her apartment, much of it locked in her room and ignoring her mother, who’d come over not long after Etsu had returned home from work.

  She’d made the mistake of answering the door and letting her in, and then her mom wouldn’t leave.

  Demanded Etsu talk to her about Aden.

  Demanded she move back home and go back to school. That they’d pay for all of it.

  All she’d have to do was ditch Aden.

  Etsu couldn’t even blame Molly that time, because Molly hadn’t been home yet.

  Etsu had ended up putting on headphones, turning up her music, and texting Aden. He’d offered to come over to help, but she was actually enjoying ignoring her mom this time. Now that she knew no matter what she did they were going to try to sabotage her relationships, it was easy to have a guilt-free “fuck it” attitude about them.

  A few months ago, she would have been a nervous wreck. Thanks to tricks she’d learned from Aden, she managed to control her anxiety and maintain her chill.

  Molly had texted her once her mom left and Etsu could emerge from her room.

  Tuesday, her mother had been waiting for her when she arrived home from work, and Etsu ignored her when she went inside, locking the door behind her.

  It’d shocked her when, after locking her out, her mother let herself in with a key Etsu didn’t even know she had, a key Molly had given her.

  And left Etsu wondering if her parents had been coming over when she wasn’t home and going through her stuff.

  Which had led to a screaming match with her mom, and later Molly, who now looked like she wished she’d never agreed to be roommates with her.

  Her mom had refused to return the key, but finally left when Etsu threatened to call the cops.

  Aden told her to pack for the whole weekend, including work on Wednesday, and to come over that night. Without telling Molly where she was going, except that she’d be back the next Monday night, Etsu left.

  She’d half expected her parents or one of her brothers to show up at her work on Wednesday, but they didn’t. She sent their calls to voice mail and didn’t even play the messages, using the text preview function to see if it was important or them just trying to suck her in.

  It’d been soooo nice to wake up this morning in Aden’s arms and not have to rush off to work. They’d taken a long shower together, played around a little, and left Sarasota for Tampa after having a long, leisurely breakfast.

  She’d turned her phone off after changing her voice mail message to a politely worded “fuck you” to her parents.

  The convention’s schedule was light today. There were a couple of classes she was interested in attending this afternoon, including one on erotic hypnosis. In the wake of her hellish week, Aden had already told her that she was in charge of the schedule, that they’d do or see whatever classes or demos she wanted that weekend. He’d been to plenty of BDSM conventions in his time, because he’d helped Ren teach. This was the first one he’d felt like attending since they’d broken up.

  She felt a little melancholy about that, that he was doing this for her. She’d been the one to find the info about it a couple of months ago and ask if they could go. He’d bought the tickets without telling her until he had them, and he was paying for the hotel room.

  Which she hadn’t asked him to, but she was glad he did because her budget was tight.

  And knowing she’d likely have to move and find a place on her own, without Molly there to hand out keys to her nosy parents, it meant she needed to pinch her pennies.

  “I’ll pay for meals this weekend, too, pet,” he said as if reading her mind.

  She looked at him. “Sir?”

  He wore a playful smile. “And, if you want to, we can talk about you maybe moving in with me when your lease is up. If you want to.”

  A shiver rushed through her. So spooky like that, Aden frequently said what was on her mind before she even spoke it. “I was going to try to find a cheap place I can afford on my own. I need to be on my own.”

  “It’s just an option. We could draw up a lease and everything. I promise I won’t give your family a spare key.”

  “The more I think about that, the madder it makes me,” she said. “My mom swore she hasn’t gone through my stuff, but how do I know for sure?”

  “Maybe talk to your landlord about changing the locks?”

  “Molly.” She shook her head. “I get it, they probably gave her some song and dance excuse. But it pisses me off. Why hide it from me? That’s what pisses me off. They did it behind my back and hid the fact.”

  “I agree, it’s a massive violation of trust all the way around.”

  She studied his profile. He kept his straight brown hair neatly styled. Not super short, just long enough to grab a handful of it during sex. And he liked it when she did that, too. It was barely long enough that it brushed his ears and mostly hid the small captive bead ring in his upper right ear.

  She knew what it meant. He’d never hidden that from her, either, and she didn’t begrudge it.

  In a way, it was sadly sweet.

  “Will you one day get my ear pierced, Sir?”


  * * * *

  Aden had been thinking more and more about that lately. Especially in light of her family’s crazy behavior.

  “I consider a collaring every bit as serious as a marriage vow,” he said. “I don’t want to make it lightly or have you regret it later. If anything, I’d like to try us living together for a while first, to make sure you’re comfortable with me and my rules. If it doesn’t work out, we can still be roommates.”

  She stroked his thigh through his jeans. “I’m sorry he hurt you, Sir.”

  It didn’t matter if she saw through his grimace or not. He’d never lied to her about his feelings for Ren. He wouldn’t. He didn’t ever want her later thinking he’d kept stuff from her. Especially in light of the recent events with her family.

  She needed to know about his past, because it made him who he was now.

  “It is what it is, sweetheart.” He laid his hand over hers and squeezed. “I know he still loved me as much as I loved him. He did what he thought he had to do. I just…I wasn’t willing to walk away from the life I’d started building for myself. Maybe it was selfish of me. That’s something I’ve asked myself. Maybe I should have at least tried to visit him out there. Or made a better effort to talk him back. I don’t know.

  “He grew up with two loving parents. I had nothing, not even reassurance growing up. I was lucky that I was older when I hit the group home, and I had kind foster parents, for the most part, before then. I could have had it a lot worse. But I needed this.”

  “What if you could do it all again now? What if he showed up on your doorstep?”

  A wave of familiar pain rolled through him. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I’d like to say I could be friends with him without it being more, but I don’t know if that’s possible for me.”

  “I still say I’d be okay with it.” He spotted her playful grin, her attempt to lighten the mood.

  It pulled a genuine laugh out of him. “In all honesty? If you had me and him going after you, you’d probably be safewording after the first week. Between the BDSM and the two of us dragging you into bed, you’d need a break.”