Love Him Breathless

by E M Lindsey

  Antoine nodded. “It was probably quick, but it felt like…”

  “An eternity?” Parker offered, and Antoine nodded. “I don’t doubt it. Ronan said he was out of his mind with fear.”

  Closing his eyes, he nodded and tried not to think of how it felt to sink into the water without hope of finding the surface again. “What’s going to happen to him? To Owen?”

  “I think that depends,” Parker replied.

  On you, went unsaid. It would probably be up to Antoine how far he wanted to push it—and he didn’t. Owen thought he was lying about being able to swim. Maybe. Owen wanted to scare him, maybe even hurt him a little. The kid didn’t want to kill him. It could have gone very wrong, but it didn’t.

  “Is it safe for me to nap? I just want to sleep,” Antoine admitted.

  Parker leaned forward and removed the clip from Antoine’s fingers, then tucked everything into his bag. He kicked it aside, then held out his hand and Antoine grabbed it, mostly on instinct. Hauled up to his feet, he let Parker lead him back to the bedroom and tried not to flush when he saw the bed was a mess, and it still smelled like sex.

  Parker didn’t seem to care, though. He urged Antoine to lie down, then even tucked him in with a small grin on his face. “I like you. I really hope this shit doesn’t scare you off.”

  Antoine blinked at him. “Um.”

  “Jesus, no. Not like… I don’t want to bone you. I mean, I would. You know, if you and Fitz weren’t a thing, and if I didn’t have my gorgeous, tangled mess of a husband. You’re hot as fuck.”

  “Thank you?” Antoine offered. He was starting to see what Fitz meant about the guy, but he kind of liked it. “I think I’m going to sleep now.”

  Parker laughed, then adjusted Antoine’s blankets more. “Sleep is good. Sleep is great, actually. I’ll head down to the station and send Fitz back here to cuddle you.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” Antoine said quietly, but stopped his protest when Parker fixed him with a stern look.

  “You’re going to be fine.” He stayed just long enough for Antoine’s eyelids to get heavy, and the last thing he was aware of was the creak of the door closing, and footsteps on the wood floor.

  Antoine wasn’t sure how long he slept, but with the light coming through the curtain, he was sure it hadn’t been more than an hour. The only difference from when he’d dropped off was the arms holding him tight. He allowed himself a bare few moments to enjoy the comfort, but only because he could tell Fitz was awake.

  “How’d it go?”

  Fitz startled just a little, tightening his grip before releasing Antoine so he could turn over. “Uh. About as well as can be expected. Gwen was furious.”

  Antoine closed his eyes and took a breath. “And your nephew?”

  “Owen’s still maintaining his stance that he thought you were lying about being able to swim. Bruce is looking into it.”

  Antoine nodded. He figured as much, though he wasn’t sure what the hell to do. Owen couldn’t get away with behavior like that, but he wasn’t interested pressing charges against a kid. “I won’t personally press charges.”

  Fitz’s face did something complicated, then he let out a shaking breath. “Just because you and I…”

  “This is not about us,” Antoine told him. He didn’t mean for it to come out so sharp, but the idea that any of his decisions—any of his life—would be altered by some man he’d fucked twice was almost too much. “He’s seventeen, right?”

  Fitz nodded curtly. “Yeah.”

  Antoine closed his eyes again, rolling onto his back. His chest still felt tight, and his limbs ached like he’d spent the entire day at the gym. He had almost died, but Fitz had been there. He’d been there just like with every other time Antoine found himself in danger, and he wasn’t sure what the hell the universe was trying to tell him. Was it that Fitz was a man worth counting on? Or were these subtle warnings that for as much as Antoine desperately wanted what the Cherry Creek residents had, it would never be for him?

  “I’d like to drop it if I can,” he said again. No good would come from pursuing something harsh against that kid. “His mom should try and figure out why he’s so angry though. I’m not a psychiatrist. Not even close. But that doesn’t seem like normal teenage anger.”

  Fitz made a soft noise in the back of his throat, then sighed and Antoine opened his eyes just in time to see him rise up onto his elbow. “I’m not going to thank you. If it were me, that kid’s ass would be in so much trouble.”

  “I know,” Antoine said softly.

  Fitz pushed his hand through his hair. “You’re also probably right. This has been going on a while, but not a long while.”

  “It’s not like…I mean, I met his mom. It’s not her. But his dad…”

  “No,” Fitz said, but he didn’t sound angry or defensive. Just tired. “Gwen got a donor. She doesn’t do relationships, but she wanted to be a mom.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t think it’s absent father angst.”

  Antoine winced, because he knew what absent father angst felt like, though maybe not in the way Fitz was talking about. But he and his brother, in spite of being a wanted pregnancy, had never been more than a pet project for his parents. And when they were old enough, they were simply in the way. Marcel had done what Antoine had never been brave enough to do—he’d absconded. He took what pieces of himself were left and he put them back together in a life he wasn’t letting anyone else be a part of.

  Antoine wanted that, but he had no idea where to start. The job he was in, his apartment, his money, his relationships, they were all the byproduct of the person his parents wanted him to be. And he was miserable.

  He just wasn’t sure this was the answer.

  “Listen,” Fitz said, and by his tone, Antoine braced himself. “I’m going to have Parker drive you back to the Lodge.”

  Antoine’s throat went hot and tight, but he willed himself not to react. “I’m going to stick around with Ronan and…figure this out.”

  With a nod, Antoine pushed himself up to sit. It was difficult, his limbs still weak, but when Fitz tried to help him Antoine shook him off. He knew the tone in Fitz’s voice all too well. It was a polite kiss-off. It was a gentle admission that the moment either of them could think straight, Fitz was going to end it.

  “You can just say it,” Antoine told him.

  Fitz let out a tiny sigh, but he remained silent, so Antoine pushed himself up to stand and hunted for his clothes.

  “I get it. This has been nothing but drama, and it’s not worth it.”

  “I’m tired of seeing you get hurt,” Fitz said.

  Antoine looked over his shoulder and laughed. “I…yeah. I’m not a big fan either.”

  “Just,” Fitz said, a helpless look crashing over his face.

  Antoine waved him off. “This thing between us wasn’t anything, right? You said yourself, you just wanted some time together. And we had some. I have a few weeks left in Cherry Creek but most of that is computer stuff. We don’t have to see each other again.”

  “Antoine,” Fitz whispered.

  He shook his head and managed to sling his bag over his shoulder. “Thanks um…for the rescue. I hope it works out with your nephew, okay?” He left the room and tried not to feel like his heart was full of spiderweb cracks when Fitz didn’t get up and go after him.

  Parker was waiting, his face carefully blank, and Antoine knew then he’d heard the entire thing. He was kind enough not to bring it up, or try to touch Antoine in any comforting way. He simply took his bag, and led the way to the car, and got him safely home.

  Or well, not home, Antoine thought to himself bitterly as he shoved his key into the Lodge door. Not home at all. Because in reality, he didn’t have one.

  Antoine clicked through the photos on his laptop, eyes heavy lidded from his lack of sleep. His coffee sat a few inches from his hand, his elbow pressing into the tabletop, and everything felt muted, tasted bitter. It had been exactly three
weeks and four days since he’d seen Fitz. Three weeks and four days since he walked away from the cabin by the lake and got into Parker’s car.

  His ribs were mostly healed, he didn’t dream of the endless black of the lake taking him down. He just…existed. It felt like a break-up, which was overwhelming and terrible because they hadn’t been together at all. They were two men who had barely started to like each other. Two men who got off a couple of times to take the edge off feelings that were too big to ignore.

  But those feelings hardly mattered when Antoine was leaving, and Fitz was refusing to give him a reason to stay. Not even that. He was refusing to give him a reason to hope. And he wanted Cherry Creek, but he wasn’t sure he wanted it alone.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Antoine glanced up and saw Charlie hovering near the unoccupied seat at the table. He’d snagged one of the few window tables that were open, and planned on eating, but his stomach had rebelled against anything that wasn’t coffee. In truth, he didn’t want company, but he did need to go over the final design with at least one of the Motel brothers, and he liked Charlie.

  “Just going over the photos Greyson sent me,” Antoine told him. He’d had one, very short meeting with the Mayor’s husband, and the rest of their business had finished online. Antoine was fine with it. He wasn’t really interested in making new friends now that he was certain this was about to come to an end. “I wouldn’t mind a second opinion, actually. I asked him to capture not only what was good about Cherry Creek, but the things that have always been. You know? Like a nostalgia factor?”

  Charlie laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck, shrugging. “I might not be the best person for that. I haven’t been here very long.”

  Antoine lifted a brow. “Didn’t your father leave you this place?”

  Charlie’s face went dark for a moment. “Yes but that bast—that man—didn’t spend a lot of time at the Lodge, and none of us actually set foot here until after he died.”

  Antoine’s eyes widened. “Oh. Well…”

  “I can try though,” Charlie offered, taking pity on Antoine’s obvious distress. He shifted his chair a little closer, and Antoine turned the laptop so they could both see the screen.

  Greyson had done an amazing job, which was no surprise. Antoine didn’t know his story or history with the town, but he did know the guy had an amazing eye. The candid shots of people made Antoine want to be there hanging out with them. The photos of nature, of the buildings, of the lakes, and the Lodge, they made him feel safe. Like he could stay forever and never want for anything.

  “Are you going to use some of these for the website?” he asked. He reached out absently and touched one of the photos by the pool. There was a man in the background, Antoine could see, standing by one of the loungers and looking up toward a window.

  “Yeah. I mean, if you’re okay with them. I wanted to go over the final design.”

  Charlie cleared his throat, then pulled his hand back. “Maybe not that photo. I’ll have to ask Eddie if he wants to be immortalized on the screen like that.”

  Antoine raised his brows, but he didn’t want to intrude on whatever it was about the photo of Charlie’s husband that was giving him such a soft look. “No worries. I’ll send you all the Lodge files and you can tell me which ones you like best. It’ll take less than an hour for the website to go live once it’s done.”

  Charlie’s smile was small, and that look in his eyes had faded back to his usual customer service kindness. “You’ve done amazing work here.”

  Antoine couldn’t help the slight bitterness of his laugh. “I am good at my job. I just didn’t expect,” he stopped himself and shook his head.

  Charlie’s look was full of sympathy, maybe bordering on pity, but Antoine knew he deserved it. “This town has a way of doing that.”

  His laugh was a little sadder this time. “Yeah. I’ve been to a lot of places, but nowhere like Cherry Creek. It’s unexpected.”

  Charlie’s grin widened. “You should use that for the motto or something. Because that’s definitely a good way of putting it.”

  Antoine dragged a hand down his face, then sat back. “What was it like? When you first got here?”

  “Probably a lot like you’re feeling,” Charlie said with a soft grin. “Maybe less near-death experiences, but I remember feeling out of my depth, and a lot like a stranger.”

  “Well,” Antoine said with a shrug, “I mean, you were dealing with a death in your family.”

  “That wasn’t the problem,” Charlie answered. “My father was never really much of a father to any of us. I was mostly angry that he put us all in the position to uproot our lives. Or to make it look like we were choosing cash over family.” His eyes went dark a moment and he let out a heavy breath. “It felt like that sometimes. My brother Andy chose to leave and…” Charlie went quiet a moment. “It took a while for me to realize that even after his death, my dad was still manipulating us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Antoine said quietly.

  At that, Charlie smiled and looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. “It’s fine. It got easier.”

  “You don’t regret staying?”

  Charlie laughed and twisted the wedding ring on his finger. “No. I don’t regret staying. There were moments I wasn’t sure that the five of us were going to get out of this on speaking terms, but…” He trailed off and shrugged.

  “I just.” Antoine sucked his lips between his teeth and bit down before releasing them. “My brother kind of did that. I mean, not the hotel thing, but he just left. He just packed up all his shit and took off. And when his life crashed and burned, I thought the first thing he’d do was come home, but…”

  Charlie watched him, a patient look on his face.

  “San Francisco was never home for him. It isn’t home for either of us,” he clarified, and saying it aloud like that felt strangely cathartic.

  “You know,” Charlie told him, leaning his elbow on the table, “I don’t think anyone around here would mind if you wanted to look at real estate.”

  Antoine laughed. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it?” Charlie sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “My younger brother was involved before we moved here. And it put strain on them. His partner is older than he is. Owned a house, had a good job. But in the end, something about this place made leaving all that behind worth it.”

  Antoine bit the inside of his cheek. “Just like that?”

  Charlie laughed. “I mean, maybe that’s a bad example, because they didn’t stay in the end. Cameron wanted to go to school, and Luke was happy to follow him wherever. But I just mean to say, if it’s worth it, maybe it is that easy.”

  Antoine swallowed thickly, then nodded. “Maybe.” It came out a pained whisper, because while torching his life and starting over was easy—the logistics of it, anyway—coming here would mean falling back into Fitz’s orbit. And it was obvious Fitz didn’t want him. Or, if he did, it wasn’t enough to put effort into making it work.

  “If you want to talk about it,” Charlie started, but Antoine shook his head.

  “No. I mean, I appreciate it, I really do. I just need to sort it out for myself.”

  Charlie nodded. “Sometimes it’s worth fighting for, and sometimes it isn’t. One isn’t better than the other.”

  “And what if the thing you’re fighting for won’t…fight back?” Antoine asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “Sometimes that person just needs a bigger nudge. A gesture.” He pushed himself up to stand and twisted his wedding ring around his finger again. “That’s something I know intimately.”

  “And was that worth it?”

  Charlie beamed. “Yes. More than I can say. Let me know if I can help with anything else.”

  “I will,” Antoine told him. But right then, he just needed a moment to be with himself. He really was at a crossroads, and this wasn’t a decision he could make lightly.

  Chapter Nineteen
<
br />   Fitz crossed his eyes, staring first at the tip of his nose, watching the fire pit split into two. His entire body ached, for no other reason than he’d pushed himself to his limit—and maybe a little beyond—but it was the only thing keeping his mind off Antoine and on the task at hand which was trying to figure out with Gwen how to get Owen to talk.

  He’d refused to give anything up to Bruce, who sat with him patiently for an hour before Gwen lost her temper and told the sheriff to take him in and hold him overnight. Fitz had already told his sister Antoine wasn’t pressing charges, but she wanted something to be done.

  “This isn’t…this is not my son,” she insisted.

  Fitz had been thinking the same thing, long before Antoine pointed out that Owen’s rage had to come from somewhere other than teenage hormones. But he was tight-lipped and stoic, no matter how they tried to address the problem.

  “Maybe this is my fault,” Gwen said.

  Fitz uncrossed his eyes, then shook away a little vertigo before he looked over at his sister. They were at his place, lounging in the back yard with a fire roaring. It was Thursday, and for the fourth week in a row, he was skipping the Farmer’s Market. Ronan had offered to take over for him, and he knew then how obvious his pain must be to his friends. Ronan hadn’t voluntarily attended the Market for longer than a few minutes in years, but it wasn’t an offer Fitz wanted to turn down.

  He tried not to think of Antoine, tried not to wonder if he was down there, smiling with Fitz’s friends, integrating himself further into these people’s lives. And then, just like that, he’d be gone.

  Just like that, it would be over.

  Fitz had no promises to keep, no promises to cash in. They had something, and then it was over.

  “You’ve done everything you could,” Fitz told his sister after a beat. He shook the thoughts of Antoine away and tried to focus on the task at hand.