Page 6 of Chasing You

Exactly the answers Kash had been given. That wasn’t good enough for Adele, but he also wasn’t going to push the issue. He knew Kash would kill him for going to Renato in the first place. Kash had been adamant that this was his problem to solve, and anytime Adele hinted at getting involved, Kash shut him down.

“You have a life to live and a son to raise. Please let me handle this.”

It was the pleading in his eyes that got Adele to back down. He spent sleepless nights researching on the internet, but most of what he found were bullshit pseudoscience posts on Reddit from people touting random essential oil supplements and MLM tonics. He didn’t think Kash would appreciate turning him on to that.

So he let it go, mostly because he didn’t have a choice.

Kash also banned Adele from going with him to the appointments, which was the thing bothering him most. He expected to be there for his best friend. To fill in as a partner since Kash was currently single and shouldn’t be doing all this alone. But it seemed like with Kash back, he was even more self-isolating than he had been living thousands of miles away.

Adele wanted to push—to force the issue. To make Kash see some goddamn reason. But he knew that would only make things worse.

His biggest worry right now was thinking maybe the distance was his fault. Maybe Kash knew that Adele was in love with him, and this was his way of creating space between them. Adele wasn’t the most subtle guy, after all. He never had been. And all the guys had seen it and called him on it.

Only Kash was playing ignorant, and Adele didn’t know if that was real or if that was for his benefit so they could remain friends with the truth sitting between them, bare and vulnerable to the elements.

Or maybe he was reading into it too much, and the distance was simply that. After all, they’d been apart for so many years. Maybe that was the natural way of things.

Whatever the reason for it though, it hurt. Adele feltmore alone than ever, and he was living with the ever-present fear that he might lose the only man he was ever truly in love with.

He didn’t need Kash to love him back. He’d never needed that. He just needed him here, and alive, and safe. But how did he say that without sounding like a complete whacko? He didn’t think practicing what to say at his desk was helping matters, but it was all he had.

“We’re in this together,” he told his stand mirror perched beside his keyboard, leaning toward it. He studied the lines on his face. Christ, when did he get so old? “It’s you and me, okay? You don’t have to do this alone. We’ve always had better luck when we were a team, right?”

“Look, I’m not here to judge, but I’m pretty sure talking to yourself in a mirror is a bad sign.”

Adele’s gaze shot up and fell on his newest employee. Ridge Marks was a transfer from a small Jersey Shore town. He’d arrived four months back with his toddler in tow, and Adele had immediately gotten his hooks into him.

He was a good-looking guy—somewhere around Bowen’s age with kind blue eyes and light brown hair that he wore short and stylish. He wasn’t as big as some of the other guys in the department, but he was deceptively strong, which Adele appreciated on the more difficult jobs. He was also a good guy, which was why Adele had been hounding him to join in with the other guys and commiserate on the woes of parent life.

Like most of the guys, Ridge hadn’t been completely on board with the idea of a Dad Club—name changed now that all of them except Adele and Ridge were happily in love—but after meeting the guys and realizing he had free babysitters for life, he was in.

Frey was particularly excited for Ridge, too, because likeRex, Ridge’s daughter was Deaf. She was younger, and she had cochlear implants, but she hated them, and Ridge had finally accepted that she was allowed to drive when it came to whether or not she wanted to hear.

He was passable in ASL and currently taking classes so he could be fluent in his daughter’s language. Frey was helping—tutoring where he could and making sure that Rex spent plenty of time with Ina, though he was slightly annoyed because he was at the age where toddlers weren’t as fun as his other friends.

But it was working out very well. Ridge fit in like a member of the family exactly the same way the other guys had. It was good.

No, it was better than that.

The only thing wrong was the pit in Adele’s stomach, but none of the guys could help with that.

“Don’t judge me,” Adele said as he sat back. Ridge walked in and took one of the chairs from beside the door, flipping it around and straddling it in front of Adele’s desk. “Is there something you need?”

“Yeah. I need a schedule adjustment. Ina has therapy starting next week, but they could only get her in on Thursdays, and they want me to be there. I could ask one of the guys to fill in and save you the trouble, but I’m the rookie here and?—”

“What? No,” Adele said quickly. He woke up his computer and pulled up the schedule, frowning at the spreadsheet. “Let me talk to the team and see what we can do. I think Chelsea has that day free. She’ll probably swap with you.”

Ridge sighed. “I hate to lose my weekends.”

“You still have Sundays, which means you can still do barbeques at mine,” Adele said.

Ridge rolled his eyes. “I swear to God, brisket is the only thing you care about.”

“And slaw,” Adele said with a sniff.

Ridge laughed, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was clear the man had a thousand pounds of stress on his shoulders, but much like Lane had been, he wasn’t ready to open up. The only things personal they knew about him were that Ina was an unconventional adoption and that he hadn’t been in a relationship when he became a single dad.

There was a story there, but Adele knew he and the others could be patient while they waited for him to feel safe enough to open up. That was how it always worked, and it hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

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