by Aiden Bates
“So, it’s just a matter of time now,” I said, grimly, suddenly understanding.
“That’s in god’s hands, Mr. Acosta. For better or worse. I just wanted to make sure we were doing our part to keep you informed.”
Right. Informed.
I thanked the doctor again before he really did leave.
Yes, I was informed. I was informed that the stupid plot to save his life was for nothing because it didn’t save his life. It saved his life from Mami ending it on her schedule. But how did I really know that was such a bad thing? Sure, it would have meant we would have lost him sooner, but was that really so much worse than choking to death on your own blood?
I didn’t know anymore.
Honestly, what the fuck did I ever know in the first place?
Nothing. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know whether I should have just let Mami do what she wanted to do, whether I should have ever gotten involved with anyone, or whether, last night, I should have been at home with my baby’s parents or here with my brother.
I didn’t know.
All I knew was that I was sorry. Profoundly, miserably, rottenly sorry.
I sat at Pedro’s side and grabbed one of his hands, sometimes rubbing it, sometimes squeezing it, trying to communicate an apology as best as I could.
Don’t worry. Don’t worry, man, I’m not going anywhere.
I won’t leave you alone anymore. It won’t happen again.
Ever again.
20
Mitch
I cooked eggs, and I worried. I made bacon, and I worried. I started toast and coffee, and I worried. Marcos was pale as death when he’d rushed out of the house early this morning, stumbling over himself to get out to his truck and peel out. And since? Nothing, not a peep. In the end I decided there wasn’t any real sense in waiting for Marcos to call when I could call him instead.
After a few rings the call was sent to voicemail. “Hey, this is Marcos, leave a message.” I considered it for a second, but then decided against it. He’d call when he was ready, I guessed.
“I hope everything is okay,” I said to Oliver.
Oliver was sometimes a bit muzzy in the morning before his coffee, but he was quiet this morning even by his own standards. I turned to see him staring dejectedly at his coffee cup. At first I thought it was about Marcos, but when I settled into my seat at the table, he made to get up, and he didn’t meet my eyes.
He turned his back, and I couldn’t help it. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.” It was out before I could have even tried to hold it in.
Oliver’s shoulders tensed and then released as he turned around and ran a hand through his hair. “No, no. It’s nothing.”
“Mmm. Doesn’t seem like it,” I said, popping some eggs into my mouth.
Oliver sighed and glanced down. Oliver wasn’t always extremely open with his feelings, but we’d moved past this stage of things months and months ago.
“Just stuff on my mind, I guess.”
Whatever it was, I knew it had to be pretty heavy. Oliver never stressed over anything petty. I thought again to this morning and Marcos. Could that have changed something for Oliver? What if he was just realizing he was having cold feet about all of this. Did he have doubts about it? Is that what this was all about?
“Is this about us? The three of us?”
“What?” Oliver asked, brow creased in confusion. “Oh. No, no. Nothing like that.” He paused to look away and ruffle his hair. “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, and I know it will, but I promise I’m only asking because…”
“Oh, god. Please get it out. I’m dying over here.”
“Rob called me.”
Shit. Double shit. Double shit with a cherry on top. Goddamnitgoddamnitgoddamnit.
“Oh?”
Oliver nodded. “Yeah, and he asked me if I wanted to make an…appointment with you.”
It was my turn to be confused. That wasn’t what I was expecting, and I wasn’t following him.
Oliver started pacing. It reminded me of the last time he’d done so when we were waiting for the results of the pregnancy test. “Well, it’s just I know you’re home alone a lot, and I trust you. I promise. So… It’s stupid to think about, but I can’t get it out of my head until I do. And I know it’s even stupider to ask, but just to help me deal with the irrational part of my brain… You did quit escorting. Right?”
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Oliver managed to have the decency to look ashamed of himself.
“Is that what you think I do while you’re at work? Just slip up to Charlotte and see other people, sleep with other people?”
“No, I mean—”
“Do you think I would do that to you? To Marcos? What about our baby? Do you think I’d be that kind of parent? That I’d do anything, any-fucking-thing that could put our baby at any sort of risk? Do you think so little of me? How could you even ask me that?” With each question I got louder and louder, feeling frantic. Rob was already breathing down my neck to come back, and I’d turned him down. Now, I wondered if I should have even bothered.
By the end, I wasn’t even looking at Oliver. He came up to me and softly took my hands in both of his.
“Mitch.” I could hear the pain there. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry—”
All the anger flew out of me. I knew it was misplaced. “No, no. I’m sorry—”
“What? You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Oliver said.
“No, I do. This isn’t me and you. Alright? We don’t do stuff like this to each other. It’s not us. It’s him. It’s Rob trying to rattle me. He’s testing things. He’s trying to fuck things up, hoping you’ll throw me out and I’ll be forced to go back to him.”
“Over my dead body,” Oliver said firmly.
“If anything, I’m just sorry you got on Rob’s radar. I’ll deal with this.” I was already trying—at the moment, trying and failing—to think of anything I could use to make Rob leave us alone. In general, Rob ran a pretty clean establishment, and since hardly anyone ever escaped his clutches, I wasn’t likely to find many allies.
“Hey, I see you thinking over there,” Oliver said gently, reminding me of his presence. “I’d rather if we just cut him out, honestly. Just cut him off completely. I’ll just change my number, too. I mean, we were already going to change yours anyway. Besides, it’s not like Rob knows where we live now.”
I felt some of the tension ease. Slightly. “Yeah, that makes sense. It definitely couldn’t hurt anything.”
Oliver tugged me into his chest, and I melted into him. I breathed in the soothing scent of our laundry soap mixed with the cologne I’d bought him at Christmas, and the sweet, rich vanilla of his skin. I also willed my racing heart to slow, as if I had any say in the matter at all.
“It will be fine,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m sorry I even wondered, Mitch. You gave me your word and that should have been enough. I’m sorry I doubted you for even a second. You’ve never been anything other than honest with me.”
“Rob’s like that. He has a way of getting into people’s heads. It’s what makes him so good at what he does. He knows you and he knows me, so it’s not hard to pull strings.”
“It should be harder than that. Because I know you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes and reach up to stroke his hair. “I’m not trying to guess what’s going on in that clever head of yours, but I imagine that’s probably something you’re worried about. But I promise you, I’m done with that life. I swear. The second you suggested the idea I could leave it behind, the second you gave me the opportunity to get out, I took it. I don’t ever feel any temptation to go back, okay?”
Oliver relaxed in my arms and gave me a small smile.
“I believe you. I do.”
Things felt better afterward. I helped Oliver gather his things and sent him off to work with a kiss. The house
felt shockingly empty. In the past few weeks, when Oliver had been at work, Marcos would still be here for a few hours, leaving in the mid-afternoon to go see Pedro, and coming back before Oliver was home from Charlotte. I’d gotten used to having someone else in the house with me. I busied myself with clearing the table and washing the dishes, my mind still playing and replaying everything with Rob despite my assurances to Oliver. I meant it. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t regret becoming an escort. Without it, I wouldn’t have ever met Oliver, maybe wouldn’t have made it out of Fort Greene. But now? All I wanted were all the things I’d never had.
After my parents had left me, I’d learned in bits and pieces what it was that had sent them so far into debt in the first place. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. No other kid in class was spending hours in smoke-filled gambling halls while their parents played slots for hours and hours at a time. I guess, at some point, it had been just a hobby, but by the time I was actually aware of what was happening, rent money, grocery money, every spare dollar and some that weren’t, was being poured into a machine in the hopes they’d get more than they’d put in. The few times they did manage to win anything other than a few dollars, though, it had all been blown the same way, and we wouldn’t be any better off than we had been before they won.
It hadn’t been easy. And then, while I was living with my grandma, I’d snuck off and tried to make it on my own. It hadn’t taken long for Rob to come along and the rest was history. But even that had ultimately been unstable. The money was constant, but there was hardly any opportunity for a meaningful relationship. For starters, there wasn’t much time outside of clients. And starting a relationship with a client? That was always a gamble, one I’d learned the hard way.
Then Oliver had come into the picture and offered me something I’d never really expected to have. A house. A baby. And then, even more out of nowhere, had come Marcos. It was still difficult to understand what it was about me that had made Oliver come back again and again, but whatever it was, I was impossibly grateful for it. I wanted all those things now, more deeply than I’d remembered wanting anything.
I was in the middle of washing the dishes when I realized I was crying. God, I was just so tired.
I don’t remember how I got to the floor, but I was in the corner of the kitchen, back leaned up against the cabinets as I tucked my knees to my chest and let myself cry. It would have been easy to blame it on the baby. All the hormones flooding my system would have been the perfect excuse for having a breakdown on the floor. But it wasn’t that. It felt like everything was happening all at once. We’d moved and I’d left my job. There was the baby. There was Marcos, but then again, there wasn’t Marcos currently. I’d fought with Oliver, which was a rare thing for us. All I wanted was to look forward to the relationship I had with both of them and the little family we were creating. I knew better than to think what Oliver was proposing was actually going to resolve the issues with Rob. This was just the first shot across the bow. I doubted it was the only thing Rob had planned. The real question was how far Rob was willing to go in all of this.
I knew I needed to talk to someone, but who? It wasn’t like Bennet, Charlie or Silas knew what this was like, same thing for Marcos and Oliver really. The only people I could think of that would understand were the omegas I’d worked with at Rob’s. There was no hope anyone who still worked there would take my call, and even if they did, that would only be worse. Every word would be repeated back to Rob the second he caught wind of it. There was no one on the outside.
Just me.
As I wiped my face with the dish towel, I wondered what in the world that meant for me. I reached down to my still flat stomach. For us.
21
Oliver
After the startling way Mitch and I had been awoken that morning, and after hearing nothing from Marcos since he’d left in panic, the day was feeling more and more precarious as it went on. It certainly didn’t help things that Mitch and I had had that…what? Disagreement? Argument? Discussion? I didn’t know what to call our conversation earlier, precisely. We hadn’t fought, and it didn’t feel like we were angry with each other. But even if Mitch wasn’t upset with me, I was upset with myself for giving in to that stupid, nagging, annoying little voice in my head that Rob had prodded with a stick.
Mitch had seemed outraged at my lack of trust in him even though I really did trust him, frustrated that Rob was trying to get in between us, and scared I might really think badly of him and throw him out. If he’d been angry, I would have understood. But, more than anything, underneath it all, he’d just seemed disappointed. And that? That was worse.
I sighed and put my face in my hands.
I was a fucking idiot.
My spreadsheets hadn’t gotten the benefit of my full attention all day today, either, and there wasn’t any point in staying any later than I had to if I wasn’t going to be able to focus on work. I gave up and packed my stuff up while mentally mapping out all the places I would pass on the way home and where I could pick up everything I calculated I needed.
Flowers, chocolates, wine? Not wine. Scratch that, obviously. No wine for anybody for at least the better part of a year. Maybe a card? Did they make “I Love You. I’m Very Sorry I Let Your Old Manager Make Me Feel Vaguely Insecure Enough To Doubt You” cards?
Maybe if things were really bad with Marcos, and if Mitch still seemed as hurt as he had been earlier, maybe it would be necessary to bring out the big guns. Maybe it would be necessary to get him that kitten he always hinted at wanting.
How did Marcos feel about cats?
How did Marcos feel in general, actually?
Earlier, I’d called Marcos to no answer. Now, before I started the car and left the parking lot, I sent a text to Mitch about whether he’d heard or seen anything of Marcos all day.
Close to home I got an answer from Mitch. Nothing. No call, no text, and certainly no sign of Marcos at home. And from Mitch’s reply it didn’t sound like worrying about Marcos was doing anything for how hurt Mitch’s feelings already were. Well, maybe the flowers and chocolate would have to wait. I changed direction and headed for the VA hospital.
It was lucky I’d decided to go to the hospital when I did as I only just managed to catch the tail end of visiting hours. Still, I made puppy-dog eyes and strongly implied I was visiting my boyfriend and his sick family member. I wasn’t allowed into the ICU since my name didn’t show up on any visitor’s lists, but without necessarily confirming or denying that anyone called Pedro or Marcos Acosta was back there, one of the nurses finally agreed to “look for” one of the Acostas in the ICU.
There was a long delay before anyone came back out to get me. I’d sat down in the waiting room and had taken to searching online for florists near me for long enough to lose track of time, but eventually, Marcos emerged from the double doors that led into the intensive care unit.
“Marcos! Jesus!” I said, jumping up and opening my arms to hug him. Marcos accepted the hug stiffly and patted my back with one of his hands, but completely failed to melt into my arms the same way he usually did at home. Discretion in public. Right, I got it. I quickly stepped away from the hug and looked up to search his face for any clues as to what was going on.
His eyes seemed red and tear-stained, but there was also something else there. A sort of awkward coldness, and the barest hint of an undercurrent of anxiety that ran beneath his stony expression. It shocked me to see him looking the same way as the night we first met.
“What’s wrong? Is he alright?” I whispered urgently to him.
“Pedro had a… They keep calling it ‘throwing,’” Marcos said, lowering his gaze to the floor.
“Throwing?” I asked anxiously.
“Yeah, he ‘threw’ a clot they said. He developed a blood clot in his legs, and it went up to his lungs. They had to take him to emergency surgery last night,” Marcos said, shrugging. “Last night when he was here by himself.”
“Oh,” I sa
id, blankly. It was hard not to hear the double meaning in the last part of Marcos’s sentence, though. “It’s not your fault, Marcos, you can’t be here twenty-four hours—”
“Yes, I can. I can because I usually am here twenty-four hours a day.”
“Well…” I was about to protest, about to point out that wasn’t exactly healthy. Marcos didn’t seem like he’d be receptive to that, though. “Well, come home. Just for the night. I can take off work tomorrow, and we can all come back and—”
“No,” Marcos said. “No, I can’t go anywhere. I’m going to stay here.”
“For the night?’ I asked, dumbly, crossing my arms in the chilly room as I waited for a definitive answer, already afraid that Marcos’s answer wasn’t going to be that he was only staying here for the night.
“Yeah,” Marcos said, before shaking his head quickly. “No. Not just for the night.”
He could have been implying he wanted to stay longer, at least until he was convinced of Pedro’s recovery, at least. But something in his eyes and voice told me that wasn’t really the type of conversation we were having right now.
“So then, how lo—”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, man. I wasn’t here yesterday because I’ve been getting a little too distracted, you know? Like, I’ve been getting a little too wrapped up in…”
“In us,” I said, flatly. “In us and the baby. Right?”
Marcos looked up, obviously embarrassed that had been his implication, but not really moving to correct me or to tell me anything different.
Wow, so that was it, then. We were proving to be too much of a distraction from Pedro, and last night had made Marcos feel he had to choose. So, he was choosing. He was choosing Pedro.
