Page 95 of The Cartographer

“Yes, sir.”

Matthew closes the door to my bedroom, and I roll onto my back. Would it be the worst thing in the world to sleep for a few more minutes? To not be showered and shaved when Knight comes knocking at my door? It wouldn’t be problematic to pick up my phone and text him I’m feeling under the weather and would he be terribly put out if I needed to reschedule? It wouldn’t be difficult, but it would be impossible.

I have no qualms about, shall we say, fibbing, but this isn’t a circumstance that requires prevarication. The fact is, I’m not sick. Tip-top shape, actually. Just…

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. I have a job to do, and I’ll do it. So I force myself to sit up, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and pause briefly to put my head in my hands. I don’t often feel tired, and I can’t even say that’s what this is. I could run a marathon…if only I could get out of my bed. Which I can, and which I do. Every day for the past three weeks, I have gone through the motions of being alive.

I eat when Matthew sets food in front of me. I get on planes when my itinerary tells me to. I shower, I dress carefully, I am on time for my appointments. I do not skimp on my obligations. Beyond that, though, all I want to do is stay in my bed, so that’s what I do. Not reading, not thumbing through my phone, not watching a movie or even rubbing one out.

No, I lie on my cool, clean sheets because Matthew’s a dear and replaces them every day, and I remind myself of all the things I always tell my clients:You can’t always get what you want. If you’ve committed to something, you had best see it through. Sometimes what you want is not what you need.I remind myself Julian is what Hart needs and I was right to hand him over. Surrender him to the proper authority.

With alarming regularity, I find myself rubbing a spot on the left side of my chest, which is idiotic, because I’ve never felt an ache or a pain in my life, but somehow there’s a feeling where my heart is and it’s not that warm, glowy pleasure of seeing a couple I puppet-stringed together. It’s not the icy sensation of fear for someone I love. It’s… I don’t know, but I don’t like it.

In fact, I’m rubbing that spot right now, absentmindedly, and I have to stop. Get myself presentable because I’ll be working quite closely with Knight today. He’s asked to be tutored in micro-bondage, and I had been only too happy to oblige when he’d set this up about a month ago. It’s rather devilish and so small it doesn’t look at all threatening, but it packs a wallop—or it can. Under Knight’s control? I have no doubt it will. My enthusiasm for it, however, has dimmed. Like everything else.

I refuse to be a burden, though. Other people need my help, not the other way around, and Matthew has enough on his slim shoulders that I ought to be taking better care of myself and be more careful of my attitude so he doesn’t worry about me too.

Soles planted on the floor, shifting my weight into my heels and pushing up until my knees are straight, and then putting one foot in front of the other until I’ve reached the tile of my bathroom floor. This is how I’ll get through my days until they get easier, and they will, because a man can’t live like this forever.

*

After my sessionin Los Gatos, I haul back up the 101. Usually I’d have Matthew drive me since it’s not a particularly scenic route, but I need to be away from his concerned gaze, even with the distance his reflection in the rearview mirror would provide. I’d still be able to feel him looking at me.

I’ve also turned off my phone for a rare hour. I love my job, I love my people, I love my family—who have been calling more often these days, and it’s beginning to make me bristle. I don’t need their concern. I need to get over this, get over myself. Or perhaps I should be kind to myself. Run away for a while, and when I get back, the world will be in full color again. I could call Kenji—he’s always inviting me to Japan and I’ve never taken him up on it because I’ve always been too busy. Not to mention being his guest wouldn’t be a purely stress-free experience. Maybe that’s what I need. A jolt to put things in perspective. Perhaps.

My neighborhood is much as it ever is when I find a parking spot on the street. Everything is right in the world. It is. Except I have to pause at the bottom of the steps up to my house because they seem daunting.

I’m tempted to turn around, get back in the car, and drive to Kendra’s bar. I definitely have not done that a time or two in the past few weeks, hoping to catch a glimpse of Allie. Nope. Nor have I called his cell in an uncharacteristically masochistic impulse. What I actually haven’t done is call Julian to check up on him, on them, because Julian would actually answer his phone and then I’d have to hear about it. While someday I’ll delight in their pairing off much as anyone else’s I’ve orchestrated, today is not that day. Taking two months to check in wouldn’t be negligent, surely?

I don’t head to the bar. I climb up, step by step, slip my key in the lock, and turn. It’s dinner time. Perhaps Matthew will have made me that quinoa and shrimp salad I used to like. That I still tell him I like.

Instead of seeing an apron-clad Matthew moving about the kitchen at the end of the long hall, I hear a low murmur of voices. Did I forget I have a client? Has Peter come to pick Matthew up? This is…unexpected, and I don’t care for the unexpected. Petulance starts to crawl up my spine, which is entirely unfair to Matthew. Even if he’d tried to get in touch with me about a change of plans, my phone’s been off.

I try to regulate my breath and my mood as I walk down the hall, but when I get to the den, my heart skips a beat. Just the one, though, because I’m nothing if not in control of myself.

“To what do I owe this…assembly?”

Eight people’s gazes zoom in on me, and it makes me feel as though I have one of those sniper targets on my forehead. But I refuse to get agitated. Instead, I let my eyebrow kick up. “Well?”

Matthew stands from his place sitting by Peter’s feet. “It’s not an assembly. It’s an intervention.”

He wrings his hands in front of his belt buckle, and I notice Peter’s big slab of a hand come to the small of his back and rub lightly, offering support. There’s a small pinprick of happiness and satisfaction, but it’s overwhelmed by a field of affront.

“I’m sorry, did you say intervention?”

Now it’s Glory’s turn to stand up, bouncing out of Constance’s lap as though she’s some kind of hyperactive lapdog. “Yes, he did.”

“What precisely am I in need of an intervention from?” Crossing my arms, I curse myself.Knock off the defensive body language, Walter. Take control of the situation. Assure all of these crazy people you are, in fact, fine and send them home to lead their happy lives—their happy lives you gave to them. “I don’t do illegal drugs, I don’t smoke, my drinking is slightly more than moderate but entirely in control, I’m not a hoarder, my spending is well within my means, I haven’t been engaging in risky behaviors like unprotected sex—” Or any sex for that matter, but that’s a different story. “—or hardcore kink or driving too fast or anything of the sort. So please, enlighten me.”

Normally I wouldn’t use a tone so arch, but these people have earned it. The nerve of them. An intervention? Are they shitting me with this?

They exchange glances, each of them daring the other to answer my question. Matthew, Peter, Constance, Glory, Cris, India, even Slade and Pressly. Aside from Peter and Matthew, none of them live anywhere nearby. How dare they disrupt the picture-perfect existences I engineered to come and do…what, exactly?

Then there’s a clearing of a throat, and I notice a phone on the coffee table I hadn’t before. Matthew’s. “You’re in need of an intervention from yourself, darling.”

“Mom?” What the hell? I point at India and Matthew in turn, the most likely suspects for having concocted this particularly humiliating aspect of this little enterprise. “You called my mother? That’s it. We’re done here. Every single last one of you. You can either stop this right this instant, and I’ll have Matthew break out some of my best bottles from downstairs. We’ll have a party and forget this ever happened, or you can get the hell out of my house.”

They all blink at me. Maddening human beings.

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