Empty-Handed Heart

by Tymber Dalton

  Aden didn’t even have a legit right to feel jealous over that, because Ygor wasn’t his father, even if he still called him Da and for the past thirteen years the man had been the closest thing Aden had to a real father.

  Tony and Shayla had graciously invited Aden to join them on holidays, and he’d accepted to not be alone.

  No one mentioned Him, either.

  * * * *

  Aden had dinner ready when Etsu arrived a little after seven. He’d left the front door unlocked for her and she let herself in, calling out to him.

  “Sir?”

  “In here, sweetie.”

  As soon as he saw her, he immediately dialed back his plans for the night. Dark hollows under her eyes and no makeup.

  Hadn’t been a good day for her.

  A little over-the-knee spanking and some sex and cuddling, then. Maybe some pressure points.

  “How many times?” he asked after she kissed him hello.

  She tucked her hands behind her, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  One of her tells.

  “Twice, Sir,” she quietly said.

  Two times using her rescue inhaler. “Oh, sweetie.” He pulled her in for a hug. “We can still have fun tonight.”

  He always proceeded with an abundance of caution when it came to playtime. Whenever they went to Venture, he made sure he had her emergency inhaler in his pocket. They even had a special safeword for it—grey.

  Sometimes it frustrated her, but some of Aden’s patients had asthma. It was something he had to be aware of when working with them, to walk a line between their sessions doing them good, and not pushing them so far it triggered an asthma event due to exertion, pain, stress, or anxiety.

  Which was another problem—Etsu was severely claustrophobic. On top of that, she had severe anxiety and was prone to panic attacks, all of which could also trigger her asthma. That meant no hoods and no heavy leather collars. The one time he had let her wear a thick leather collar, she’d had an asthma attack, so that was that.

  While he hadn’t formally collared her, he had bought her a charm bracelet she could wear as a sort of day collar. It helped her anxiety a little, and gave her something to focus on when they couldn’t be together.

  “I wanted a heavy scene.” She laid her head against his chest, her long, curly red hair spilling down her back.

  Etsu’s father, Yukio Faulk, had been born to a green-eyed, red-haired father of Irish descent, and a mother whose parents were first-generation Japanese-Americans. The only Japanese Yukio could speak was to order sushi, but to appease his mother and grandparents, they’d given all four of their children Japanese names. Kim Faulk, Etsu’s mother, was blonde and blue-eyed.

  That all four kids were red-haired and green-eyed and didn’t look the slightest bit Japanese had apparently provided interesting interactions during school for the siblings.

  “I know you did. We’ll still play.”

  She had an adorable pout. “Not like I wanted to play.” Another irony—she was a heavy masochist. Loved it.

  Needed it.

  Craved it.

  Something else he could sympathize with.

  Something else they had in common.

  He made her look up at him, her sweet green eyes rimmed with red. She’d already cried, probably on her way there, knowing he’d put the kibosh on a heavy scene.

  “Who’s in charge, pet?” he quietly asked, trying not to think about how He used to say it.

  She sighed. “You, Sir.”

  “Who decides how we play?”

  “You, Sir.”

  He kissed her. “Did your mom go off on you?”

  A scowl furrowed her brow. “I wasn’t even in their door two seconds before Mom took one look at me and demanded I spend the night there, dammit. Like I don’t have a job I have to be at tomorrow.”

  This would be sooo much easier if she was living with him. Less stressful on her in many ways. Not having to stay on alert all the time around her family and roommate. He suspected it was an ongoing contributing factor to her anxiety.

  It’d be even more stressful on her moving in with him, at least initially.

  Except…

  After living alone for five years, he needed to be sure he was really ready to do this, to put the offer out there. After having his heart scorched once, he wasn’t eager to do it again.

  “Do you want to cancel going to the convention?” It was the weekend after next, and they’d both taken time off on either side of the weekend, Wednesday through Monday, and would be staying at the hotel that entire time.

  Time alone. No risk of her family trying to drag her into a dinner or something to deliberately interrupt their time together.

  “No!” She glared at him. “I’m going if I have to go by my damn self! Sir,” she belatedly tacked on.

  He let it go because she was so fucking adorable when she got angry. “What’d you tell Molly and your folks?”

  “That I was going out of town with you for the weekend. That unless it was an emergency, they’d better not call or text me. And that if they did call or text me for something that wasn’t an emergency, I’d shut my phone off until Tuesday morning. I’ll probably shut it off anyway.”

  “How’d they take it?”

  “Molly actually went to bat for me, shocker of shockers. I think she feels a little guilty, now that she’s got a boyfriend of her own. She knows how much you love me and how patient you are. That’s a lot more than anyone else has ever been.”

  He tucked her hair behind her ears and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Go put on your cuffs, sweetheart.”

  “Naked?” More than a little hopefulness in her tone.

  “Yes, sweetie. Naked.” He turned her around and gave her a gentle swat on the ass to send her on her way. She cast a sultry smile over her shoulder and his heart did a funny little twirl he hadn’t felt…

  Well, in five years.

  Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do with my life now.

  He’d just have to learn to live with the glaringly obvious absence he somehow hadn’t yet managed to ignore.

  Or forget.

  He reached up to touch the captive bead ring in the shell of his right ear.

  The ring he still couldn’t bear to remove, even five years later.

  Chapter Two

  “Have you told him you’re moving back?” Doyle asked.

  Niall stared at his drink. That Wednesday night, he and Doyle were having dinner and drinks at a place only blocks from Doyle and Mal’s LA condo. Mal was in the recording studio tonight and wouldn’t be home until late.

  Well, he was drinking. Doyle was having iced tea.

  “I haven’t tried to contact him,” Niall softly said. “I’m afraid to.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t know he’s still single, right? He could tell me to go jump off the bloody Skyway.”

  “I thought you two parted ways amicably?”

  “We did.” Niall took a large swallow of his bourbon on ice. The cold alcohol burned all the way down.

  “Haven’t you kept in touch with him?”

  “I decided to stop running myself through that emotional woodchipper early last year. That I’d see if he’d try to contact me if I didn’t initiate it. Sort of just…faded out. I know he still talks to my Da.”

  He swirled his glass, watching the ice cubes dance in the amber liquid. “I asked Da not to go out of his way to relay stuff back and forth unless one of us ask him to. I don’t want to interfere with Ade having a relationship with him when Ade has no family of his own.”

  “Is he dating anyone?”

  “Da?”

  Doyle rolled his eyes. “Aden.”

  “I don’t know. And before ye ask me, mate, no, I haven’t asked Da, or Tony, or any of the others if they know if he’s datin’.”

  “I haven’t been around much to tell you. Mal and I have been traveling a lot. If I’m home, I’m usually working. Aden hasn’t been to the
private parties lately, though, that I’m aware of. Not the ones I’ve been to.”

  “I appreciate the job lead, by the way.”

  “Yeah, well, we were both kind of miserable out here in our own ways. Sorry I didn’t realize you were so close, or I would have been getting together with you on a regular basis. For some reason, I thought you were up in San Francisco.”

  Niall offered him a smile. “Ye swinging for the other side of the slash now, then, eh? In need of a good beatin’?”

  Doyle laughed. “Not even close. I meant get together as friends, asshole.”

  Niall smiled again. “I gave it a go out here, and it’s not for me. Too expensive, too many damn people, and all my friends are back in Florida. Five years of misery is five years too damned long.”

  He took another burning swallow of the liquor. Yes, he knew stereotypically people thought he should be able to drink a gallon of booze without it putting a dent in his Irish liver’s ability to process it, but the truth was he didn’t drink very often.

  Because when he did, his thoughts tended to go to bad places that filled him with self-loathing.

  “How’s your anxiety?” Doyle asked.

  “Through the roof. Another reason I’m not happy out here. I miss Florida. Maybe it’s because Florida’s the first place I lived after coming to the States, or because it’s where Da’s from, I don’t know. Miss my Da. Miss him terrible.”

  “How’s he been doing since your mom’s death?”

  He shrugged. “He’s bloody quiet. He encouraged me to move out here, if it was what I wanted. It’ll be good to see him again. He’s still in Tampa. I flew him out here for Christmas last couple o’ years.”

  Which Niall had felt guilty about, knowing Aden had driven up to eat with him the previous years. But he’d missed the man, and he was his father, not Aden’s.

  “So what else have you been doing lately? To keep yourself out of trouble outside of work?”

  “Teaching erotic hypnosis. Like fish in a barrel, that is. Fun times. In fact, I’m teaching at a fetish convention in Tampa weekend after next.”

  “Erotic hypnosis?”

  “Aye.”

  “I thought you stayed away from teaching that after you two broke up?”

  “I stayed away from teaching in the Southeast. It’d be too tempting to show up on his feckin’ doorstep an’ beg him to come back to California with me. An’ too easy for me to want to press his buttons to try to get him to agree. That’s not a win, that’s a coup, an’ I’m not into that.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s been, what, five years? Who’s to say he’d be a pushover for you? He stood up to you the first time, didn’t he?”

  “Five years, aye. But I refused to force him out here wi’ me, didn’t I? You an’ Mal, then, eh?” Niall felt the alcohol kicking in and was glad he’d chosen Uber tonight.

  His accent thickened and he made no attempt to Americanize it like he usually did so people didn’t have to struggle to understand his thick, natural brogue.

  “Yer sayin’ as Mal’s Master, an’ knowin’ what ye do about the brain, an’ about addiction, an’ what it is that we do now, that ye couldn’t twist Mal into knots an’ back out again to bend ’im any way ye wished? That he’d be able to resist ye?”

  Doyle’s gaze dropped to his own glass for a moment. “That’s different.”

  “Not in the slightest.” Niall signaled to the waitress for a refill and drained his glass. “Aden let me walk through his heart an’ soul an’ I ended up shatterin’ ’im in the process without meanin’ to. Wouldn’t let me unset his triggers, either. Told me he wanted ’em left in place.”

  “I’m not a hypnotherapist, but even I know they’ll fade in time. It’s not a magic bullet.”

  He pointed a finger at Doyle. “True, true. We were together fer eight years, though. Did a lot in that time. A lot.”

  Niall thanked the waitress when she set his fresh drink in front of him and waited until she’d left again. He dropped his voice. “Win ’im back or not, I want it to be fair. Because he wants it. Wants me. He might hate my feckin’ guts by now, eh?”

  “Or he might have moved on.”

  Niall stared at Doyle’s glass, but his focus was on the other side of the country, a heart full of memories and pain and regrets. “Part of me hopes so. Part of me hopes not.”

  “Hopes so?”

  “I couldn’t. Move on. Tried datin’ a couple o’ times.” Another sip of his drink, burning all the way down. “Ain’t even slept wi’ anyone. Lonely business, that. Didn’t have the heart to. I n’er want ’im to be that lonely. If I lost ’im, it’s my fault, an’ I own it, a’ight? But n’er in good conscience would I e’r wish ’im to feel as lonely as I been.”

  “Maybe he’s been following you on FetLife.”

  Niall snorted. “Not very bloody likely. I abandoned the profile an’ started a new one, new name. Couldn’t bear the thought of takin’ ’im off mine. I know he did it ’imself, eventually. But I couldn’t bear to.”

  “You haven’t even looked him up on Fet to see what he’s doing?”

  Another swallow of liquid liver punishment. “Profile’s been dormant a couple o’ years now. As of over a year ago. No one listed on it as his partner.”

  “Ah.”

  At some point in the evening, Niall had another drink or two, or maybe it was four, or…more…

  He was vaguely aware of staggering down the sidewalk as he leaned against Doyle for support while he sang old Irish folk songs at the top of his lungs, songs he’d grown up learning, his Ma singing them to him.

  When he awoke the next morning with a hangover as big as Ireland, he groaned.

  Bloody hell.

  Worse, he had no damned clue where the fuck he was. A comfortable bed in a guest room, and he still wore his briefs, but his clothes were draped over a chair by the window.

  Pain hammered through his skull as he peeked through the blinds and realized from the view outside he must be in Doyle and Mal’s condo.

  He pulled on his jeans and found his phone on the dresser, along with his wallet and other stuff that’d been in his pockets.

  11:24 in the morning.

  Goddammit.

  No work today, fortunately. He was done with that. Shirtless, he staggered out of the bedroom and across the hall to the bathroom, where after relieving himself he stuck his head under the sink’s faucet and ran cold water over the back of it to try to help the headache.

  The tears hit him, hot and heavy, and…yeah.

  Now he remembered why he didn’t drink very often. At least, not to excess.

  Especially when in a bad emotional place about Aden.

  His sweet Florida boy. They’d met while attending USF. Aden was studying to be a physical therapist and he was working on his psychology doctorate. Within a week, he didn’t just have Aden in his bed, the man was living with him. Aden had aged out of the state’s foster care system and was using his scholarship to do something with his life that interested him and he knew he could make a living with. Aden had been a few weeks shy of turning nineteen, and he’d been twenty-four, and the two of them could light the entire Gulf of Mexico on fire with the heat of the chemistry between them.

  Except gay marriage still hadn’t been legal back then, and Aden had his own emotional demons to deal with. Like needing security and a home of his own and the ability to support himself after a childhood of the exact opposite kind of life. Aden had landed himself a good job after completing his internship, decent pay and good health benefits, and then Niall had received the job offer in California.

  With no guarantees if Aden would be able to easily transfer his degree and accreditation to a similar job in California. He’d begged Niall to reconsider and stay there in Florida, with him. Niall thought he’d wanted to see more of the country, thought the job would lead to bigger and better things. Allow him to pay off his considerable student loan debt faster.

  That he’d scope things out
and convince Aden to follow him.

  That Aden would want to follow him.

  And…they’d said good-bye. Niall would never force Aden to drop his life and leave, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t sting that Aden hadn’t wanted to move with him, even if he did understand Aden’s reasons for staying. Or that he hadn’t been able to talk Aden into at least coming out to visit him and maybe see if he’d like it.

  In the long run, Niall hated himself for walking away. It had not been worth it.

  At all.

  Finally getting his tears under control, he turned off the faucet and grabbed a clean bath towel that had been left folded on the counter. When he heard the knock on the door, he already sensed it was Doyle.

  “Yeah.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Thanks, mate. Black, if ye please. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  When he finished drying his hair as best he could, he ran his fingers through it, brushing it back against his skull. Short, and just about in need of a haircut, a few threads of silver in the mostly brown. His blue eyes looked bloodshot and red-rimmed and he felt like utter shite.

  He finally emerged and headed for the eat-in breakfast bar, sliding onto one of the barstools.

  Doyle, dressed only in shorts, slid the mug in front of him, as well as a glass of water and bottle of ibuprofen.

  “Thanks.” He shook three of the tablets into his palm and swallowed them, chasing them with water.

  Doyle didn’t speak, waiting on Niall to break the silence.

  “Please tell me I didn’t make a bloody arse out o’ meself,” he eventually said.

  The other man finally smiled. “Not too badly. You refused to let me pay for my own dinner, though, so it’s on your card. And you left the waitress a twenty-five dollar tip.”

  “Aye? Well, thanks for keepin’ me safe. Appreciate it.”

  “How you feeling?”

  “Like shit beaten up in a bucket, I do.”

  “Yeah, well, I figured you were a big boy and you weren’t driving. As long as I kept you safe, you could still hate yourself in the morning. Although with your singing, I don’t think you have a shot at competing on The Voice.” He smiled as Niall winced. “When are you leaving?”