Page 2 of Protecting Little Phoebe

Yeah, he wouldn’t be doing that. Melly scared him. “I told you that I’m fine.” He was getting sick of saying it, if he was honest.

“Walk in a straight line and I’ll believe you.”

Barren spun around to do just that. And found the floor coming toward him. How the hell had the floor moved like that?

Suddenly, Eliot wrapped an arm around him, holding him up.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Yep,” Eliot agreed.

“I’m in a bad way.”

“You are. But I’m here now. Let’s get some coffee into you and then tomorrow we can have a chat about what comes next.”

Fun. Talking was the last thing he wanted to do. Yet he knew Eliot was right. He couldn’t continue to drown his sorrows in vodka and beer.

Something had to change.

“What the hell was I thinking?” Barren moaned the next morning as he sat at the kitchen table. His head was thumping and he felt queasy. The smell of food cooking wasn’t helping. Nor was Eliot’s cheerful whistling. He loved the guy, but he needed to shut up.

Now.

Eliot placed a plate of toast in front of him along with a cup of coffee.

Barren took the coffee gratefully. The toast could wait until he knew it wasn’t going to come back up.

“You’re hurting,” Eliot told him. “I get it. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”

And now he felt like a complete asshole. Because Eliot’s wife had died. She hadn’t left him for a twenty-something nightclub DJ.

God.

How was this his life?

“I’m sorry,” he told Eliot.

“Why?” Eliot sat across from him with his own cup of coffee.

“For acting like an idiot and causing Melly to get so worried that she called you. Did you bring Isla and Marcus?” He hadn’t met Eliot’s new boyfriend and girlfriend. It was still hard to wrap his head around Eliot being with a man and a woman.

Two Littles.

Lucky bastard.

“Nope. They’re back home.”

“You left them alone?” He raised his eyebrows. He couldn’t imagine ever leaving his Little alone. He had the feeling he’d be so possessive and overprotective that they’d rarely be allowed out of his gaze.

And you’d probably cause them to run from you. Just like Krystal.

He winced as he recalled her yelling at him that he was too controlling.

You have to change.

“They’ll be all right for a couple of days. Marcus is busy at work, and I didn’t want to uproot him. Besides, you needmy attention right now. They understand. They know you’re important to me. You can’t keep going like this, Barren.”

Barren rubbed his temple. God, the inside of his mouth was as dry as the desert. “I know,” Barren said. “I just needed to break down for a while. I spent so much of my life with Krystal and now it feels like all of those years were a waste. She said she didn’t love me. That she wasn’t sure she ever had loved me, and she only stayed with me because of my money.”

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