Redefining Home

by Megan Linden

  While his head was stuck on the surreal aspect of it all, his heart seemed to have no problem recognizing Roy. Ten years and it was still doing somersaults at the sight of him. It was still speeding up at Roy’s closeness. It was still breaking at the knowledge of notmine-notmine-notmine.

  Ten years ago, Bill had been more of a concept than a man of flesh and blood. He’d been this person Roy had told him about way too late as well as the reason Roy had left. Now, though…

  Now Adrian looked at the man and couldn’t help comparing himself to Bill, couldn’t help feeling hollow when he came up short. Because, when the first shock and pain had passed, Adrian noticed the presence Bill had, sort of a grounding force inside him. He seemed…settled, in that ‘this is who I am, take me or leave me’ way.

  And Adrian couldn’t blame Roy for choosing to take.

  Maybe it was wrong or sick, but he also found Bill to be incredibly attractive. Not only was he tall—taller than Adrian, which didn’t happen often—but he seemed to fill the room. Whether he stretched his arms along the top of the booth or stood up in one swift motion, he was taking up space effortlessly and surely. Adrian sometimes felt like he was going to stumble over his own legs and he tried to seem smaller in public, but Bill was the complete opposite.

  He appeared to be a guy who could push Adrian down and fuck him hard—keep him in place and not even break a sweat. And if thinking like that about the partner of the guy he’d been in love with for the last ten years wasn’t completely fucked up, Adrian didn’t know what was.

  Bill hated his guts and he’d deliberately set out to hurt him, to rub it in his face that he was the one who had Roy, not Adrian. What reason he had for playing the protector later, Adrian had no idea, but it didn’t change the rest.

  Adrian was a persona non grata. Bill didn’t want him here, and he didn’t want to be here, either. Seeing Roy was as good as it was painful, and there wouldn’t be a happy ending to this story either way. Once this meeting was over, Adrian needed to get into his car and drive away as fast as he could. There would be time to lick his newly opened wounds later. He would not give Bill any satisfaction of seeing him hurt.

  Hearing Roy say his name pulled him back to the present.

  “I saw Adrian right after I came in. I was shocked, since we haven’t seen each other in years and I didn’t expect him to be here.” Roy stared down at his hands under the table. “What happened next and what brought us here is, I think, a string of misunderstandings and a lot of confusion.”

  It was both a bullshit answer and an apt description of what had happened. Adrian was impressed. He wouldn’t have been able to distill this whole mess into anything like that, even with all his experience of spinning bullshit to clients or in court.

  “A confusion that led to both of you almost coming to blows?” Taylor asked, gesturing between Patrick and Bill. His tone suggested he didn’t buy Roy’s version of the story but he was willing to play along, for now.

  “I think the tempers were flying high, especially mine.” Bill nodded and glanced between Taylor and Patrick. Adrian didn’t miss that he avoided glancing at either him or Roy.

  “Some tempers are still flying high,” Taylor said and Adrian frowned, looking around the room. Everyone seemed calm enough, given the situation.

  Maybe it’s a werewolf thing, he figured. Then it hit him. Werewolves had not only better hearing, sight and smell, but they could also guess emotions based on sensory input.

  What it came down to was that he was naked in a room full of clothed people and he hated it. He didn’t want his emotions to be so easily picked up on when he had no idea what the other side thought or felt.

  God, he’d been thinking about Bill fucking him. He hoped they hadn’t picked up on that.

  “I— We,” Roy corrected, gesturing between him and Bill, “were surprised and thrown off. When a werewolf I didn’t know pushed back in support of Adrian, I acted out of instincts and came back too strongly. I apologize for that.” He nodded at Patrick.

  “I did the same, I’m afraid,” Bill said. “I identified the situation as threatening, which I shouldn’t have done. I apologize as well.”

  Something in Adrian squirmed with unease at their words, especially Bill’s. Threatening? Adrian was in a town he didn’t know and had been forced to look at the man he couldn’t have, as well as the man’s lover. Bill wasn’t the one who had anything to be afraid of here.

  “My instincts are on high alert, for obvious reasons,” Patrick said next, keeping his gaze at the Alpha Son and his mate. “I might have reacted too defensively.”

  When Taylor turned to him next, Adrian raised his hands in the gesture of surrender. “I don’t have anything to add.” He was not going to apologize for anything because he’d done nothing wrong. He’d barely spoken through the entire disastrous scene.

  “We’re good, then?” Taylor searched around the table and apparently took their silence and anemic nods as the satisfactory answer. “Very well. Patrick, I’m sorry our first meeting happened like this but I look forward to starting over.”

  “You have my word that you won’t have to wait long,” Patrick said, squaring his shoulders. “I planned to reach out to the Alpha later in the day to announce myself.”

  This level of formality felt foreign to Adrian but he knew it was customary in werewolf culture. No one else in the room seemed even a bit surprised and Taylor nodded.

  He addressed Adrian next. “Again, I’m sorry your first impression of Harrington Hills was like this. I hope we’ll get the chance to change your mind.”

  No way. “Thank you, but that’s unlikely. As I mentioned, I’ve never intended to stay in town for long.” He had considered staying one night to rest after a long journey, but it was out of the question as of right now. He needed to get away and he needed to do it fast. “As soon as this meeting is over, I’m dropping Patrick off at his place and leaving.”

  He told himself he glanced over at Roy and Bill only because he was following Taylor’s gaze. Bill’s face was closed off, but Roy’s was… Roy was obviously in distress, and Adrian wished he could make it right.

  He couldn’t.

  “All right then, I’m not going to keep you,” Taylor said, standing up, and everyone followed suit.

  Adrian was relieved no one offered any handshakes, but there was still tension coiled in his shoulders as the whole group left the building. He wanted out of there, far away from everyone but Patrick.

  Unfortunately, Kevin asked Patrick something, pulling him into a conversation, and Adrian was stuck there, waiting. He was jittery and tense, so he stepped away from the group and closer to the road.

  With his back to the men, he closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath despite the tightness in his chest. He could see it in his mind as if he were watching a movie—a lone figure standing right on the edge of the sidewalk, separated from the other men and wishing that felt better. But that short distance wasn’t enough, and, Adrian suspected, it would be a while before any kind of distance would make him feel better—or less lonely.

  He was still determined to leave, though.

  With that thought in mind, he opened his eyes, just in time to see a pickup truck turning the corner and coming straight at him.

  Then suddenly, Bill was blocking his vision, pulling Adrian hard against him then down onto the ground.

  Adrian had a split second where every one of his senses was overwhelmed by solid-strong-safe, but then the pain exploded and swallowed everything, leaving him gasping and swearing into Bill’s chest.

  Chapter Five

  “Adrian!”

  Roy was half a step behind Bill and fell on his knees next to them as they landed on the ground.

  “You okay?” Roy looked down at Adrian’s pain-stricken face, putting his hand on Bill’s shoulder at the same time. Bill’s instincts might have been all over the place today, but they’d also helped him save Adrian just now.

  Bill pulled back, retri
eving his scraped hands from under Adrian where he’d been probably trying to soften his landing.

  “I’m fine,” Bill said, but his eyes were fixed on Adrian and he was tapping gently down his body.

  Roy knew he was checking for injuries but it settled something in him, too. If Bill was taking care of Adrian, it was going to be fine. There was no one Roy trusted more with anything important.

  “My leg hurts like a—” Adrian hissed when Bill got to his left calf.

  “I called Priyanka. She’ll be here in a few minutes,” Taylor spoke up from somewhere behind them and Roy’s shoulders sagged in relief. Priyanka wasn’t a werewolf and neither was her wife, so she wasn’t a true part of the pack, but she was a good friend and a doctor in the clinic close by.

  “Don’t move him,” Patrick said from where he was now kneeling by Adrian’s head.

  Roy swallowed a snarl. He needed to get a grip. His instincts were telling him to get Adrian away from anyone but Bill, and he had to fight against them so he wouldn’t lose it.

  For Moon’s sake… He couldn’t recall being so out of control since he’d been a teenager.

  “I’m not dying,” Adrian told his friend. He managed to roll his eyes and grimace in pain at the same time, right before he tried to lift himself up on his elbows.

  Bill’s hand on his chest stopped him.

  “Stay down.” His tone didn’t leave any room for discussion, and for a split second, Roy thought the fight would erupt all over again. Instead, Adrian lowered without turning away from Bill, who nodded and went back to inspecting his leg.

  “It doesn’t seem to be broken but let’s see what the doc says.” He peered up again. “Does anything else hurt?”

  Adrian shook his head as he continued to stare at Bill. He didn’t seem afraid of him but rather…confused. Roy couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t every day someone went from hating one’s guts to jumping between them and a moving vehicle.

  Then Roy frowned as he thought of possible concussion. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No.” Adrian looked at him for a second before turning to Bill again. “He took the brunt of the fall.”

  Bill cleared his throat, sitting back on his haunches. “Yeah, well. We heal much easier.” He glanced down at his scraped hands. “There’ll be no trace of anything on me in an hour or so.”

  “Still… Thank you.”

  Roy watched them stare at each other and realized something weird was going on.

  He could hear both of their heartbeats, loud and clear.

  It had never happened to him before. One heartbeat at a time, yes—usually Bill’s, although he could pick up someone else’s if he concentrated—but two at the same time, like this? That was different.

  Then he noticed they were harmonizing—not only Adrian’s and Bill’s, but his own, too. What the hell?

  But before he could try to make sense of it, Priyanka was there.

  “Give me some room, guys,” she said in the way of greeting as she kneeled next to Roy. He pulled back and Patrick did the same. Bill hesitated the longest but finally moved away, although he still kept a close watch at Priyanka’s every move.

  Roy shook his head and focused on Adrian’s face. The grimace was back and he bit his lower lip, probably to keep quiet. Roy had to curl his hands into fists so he wouldn’t reach out for him.

  If Priyanka was intimidated by three anxious werewolves breathing down her neck as she worked, she didn’t show it. She questioned Adrian about his pain level and checked his mobility and reflexes before coming back to his leg.

  “The good news is that your leg’s not broken and you don’t seem to have any other injuries other than a few scrapes,” she said. “The bad news is that the ankle is sprained, although not severely, I don’t think. I’ll need to do an X-ray to make sure.”

  Adrian groaned but it seemed to be more out of frustration than pain.

  “In two to three weeks, you should be okay.” Priyanka likely thought she was calming him down, but from what Roy could see, it had the opposite effect. Adrian covered his eyes with his hand.

  “The world officially hates me,” he muttered.

  Patrick squatted next to his head. “I guess that second bedroom in my place will come in handy after all, huh?”

  As annoyed as Roy was with Patrick taking charge of Adrian’s recovery, he couldn’t help feeling relieved that there was at least a separate bedroom involved. With how much the two of them smelled of each other, he’d been afraid they were more than friends.

  Still, thinking of Adrian living with someone else here in Harrington Hills… It didn’t sit right with Roy.

  Kevin, who together with Taylor had been busy dealing with the teenage driver who’d hit Adrian, came up to them now.

  “Do you need a ride? I can—”

  “No, we’re fine,” Roy cut in without looking at anyone but Kevin. He didn’t want either Adrian or Bill to protest. Although, seeing how Bill has behaved in the last few minutes, he should have no problem with that, Roy realized.

  And he was right. “We’ll drive him to the clinic,” Bill said, backing Roy right away and cutting off Adrian’s protests before he could even voice them.

  Damn, I love you, Roy wanted to tell his partner, but it was the wrong time, wrong place and definitely the wrong audience.

  It would have to keep for the time being.

  * * * *

  If the silent ride to the clinic had been uncomfortable, sitting in the waiting room was way worse. Adrian was in with Priyanka, being treated, and the three of them—Bill, Patrick and Roy—couldn’t do anything to make the situation better. It was driving them all nuts.

  It was definitely driving Roy nuts.

  Patrick was sitting on the other side of the small room, alternating between ignoring them and sending them annoyed glances. So much for the truce, Roy wanted to say, but he didn’t want another fight. The guy didn’t like them and, to be honest, Roy couldn’t fault him for that. If his friend had gotten caught up in a situation like the one they were in—meeting his ex-something and that man’s partner, along with the whole mess afterward—Roy would probably react the same way, perhaps worse.

  Still, it was getting on his nerves. He’d already been high-strung over Adrian’s accident and everything that had happened before—Fuck, has it only been a few hours?—so Patrick’s antagonistic behavior was the last thing he needed.

  Bill put his hand flat between Roy’s shoulder blades and it worked like magic. He closed his eyes and let out a shuddered breath as he let the warmth from Bill’s touch spread through his body, relaxing his tense muscles.

  Roy had been leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees but he turned to Bill to offer a small smile. It hit him, then, how lucky he was to have this guy in his life, always by his side. They could fight and they could fight ugly, but at the end of the day, Roy had never felt alone—not once, not even when they had slept in separate rooms, not even when they were giving each other the silent treatment.

  Not even when, once upon a time, Roy had admitted to Bill what had happened in San Francisco.

  Bill had never left him and Roy was sure that he never would. But what he realized—and he couldn’t believe he had never thought of that before—was that perhaps Bill didn’t have the same certainty when it came to him. Perhaps Bill wasn’t as sure, as certain, that Roy would never leave him either.

  He straightened in his seat and turned to Bill. As their gazes met, Roy’s heart started hammering.

  It was still the wrong place and the wrong audience, but Roy realized that maybe there wasn’t such thing as a wrong time to say what he had to say.

  He leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. His wolf rumbled in contentment.

  “I love you,” he whispered, putting a hand on Bill’s thigh, needing more contact. “If I’m certain of anything in my life, it’s that.”

  Bill’s muscles tightened and relaxed under his hand, and Roy heard the sharp intake
of his breath. It was clear that whatever Bill had expected him to say, it wasn’t that.

  “I love you, too,” he whispered a moment later, squeezing the back of Roy’s neck.

  Roy kissed him hard to silence the moan that threatened to escape. His nape was the most sensitive part of Roy’s body, aside from his dick, and if they were alone, it was a sure way to make him instantly hard.

  Now, here, it was more about the reassurance, the closeness, the feeling of ‘I’ve got you’ and ‘I’m here’.

  And for the first time today, Roy felt like the storm inside him had disappeared. Everything went quiet, save for their heartbeats, not synchronizing this time, but falling into their own, familiar rhythms.

  That reminded him of Adrian, though, and he pulled away just as the door to the waiting room closed.

  Patrick. Damn it. Roy had forgotten he’d been in the room with them.

  “Don’t worry about him.” Bill squeezed the back of Roy’s neck again before pulling away and dropping his hands to his lap.

  “This is a mess,” Roy said, apropos of nothing—or maybe apropos of everything. Patrick, Adrian, the tension between Bill and him… It was all a mess that needed sorting out. Roy just had no idea how to do that.

  Bill nodded. “Yeah.” He looked down on the floor and ran a hand over his short-clipped hair. “Listen. I’m sorry about”—he paused then shrugged—“about my part in the whole diner thing. I came in and saw… I stopped thinking.”

  Roy grimaced, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah.” He’d been furious at Bill earlier but now it felt so far away. “What were you going to do next, fuck me in the middle of the diner to stake your claim?”

  He thought a teasing tone would take some bite out of the words but when Bill stayed quiet, Roy glanced at him. He balked at what he saw on his partner’s face.