Page 40 of Tender
He blinked and shoved the thought from his head. This was no time to get inappropriately hard. After all, they were probably trying to figure out a way to ask him to leave without being super direct about it.
“Cosimo and I are both very busy most of the time,” Emmett said slowly.“My job is hard, but his job is draining.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Cosimo cut in, his voice a little rough, “I love it, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but sometimes I just need to get out of my head completely. I need to give up total power.I’m a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon, and a lot of the time, I’m the only thing that stands between these tiny, helpless infants living and dying.It can be too much for me some days. The responsibility, the ego, the devastation…” He trailed off and shrugged.
“I get it,” Miles said very quietly.He did—in an abstract sort of way.
Emmett opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.Then he took a breath.“Sweetness, how much are you comfortable knowing about us?”
It took Miles a second to realize that Emmett was calling him sweetness. His ears burned with pleasure. “How much are you comfortable telling me?”
Emmett gave him a flat look.“I’d draw you a diagram of his dick if it helped you understand that no one here is being hurt.But one of the rules wehavenever, andwillnever,break on purpose is consent.We already fucked up once tonight.We’re not doing it again.”
Miles felt a charge in the room.The question was simple, but it felt like there were layers to it.It felt like he was standing on the edge of a precipice, and the answer he gave could and would change his world.
He took a fortifying breath.He looked at both men.Their expressions were passive, but both of them held something in their eyes he couldn’t read.
“Everything,” he finally said. He felt bold, and his answer felt dangerous. He didn’t actually need details. He understood. He believed both men. And yet, selfishly, he wanted to know their deep, dark secrets. “Tell me everything.”
Emmett stiffened, and Cosimo relaxed.It was an odd juxtaposition.
“Several years ago—way before we had a child—Mo was struggling,” Emmett began.“He asked me for a break in the marriage, andI was crushed. For a while, I thought maybe I could just let him go, but I realized I didn’t want to live without him. He needed something from me, and I was going to figure out what.”Emmett’s voice was trembling, and Miles felt that like a punch to the gut.The fact that he thought this man had ever hurt his husband was absurd.“He was staying at a hotel, and I convinced the front desk to give me a key to his room?—”
“Something I still think we should have sued them over,” Cosimo grumbled.
Emmett rolled his eyes as he went on.“I walked into his room, and he was watching porn I’d never seen before.A man who looked a lot like him was on his knees being verbally degraded.It horrified me at first, but then I saw the look on Mo’s face and something just sort of…clicked into place.It took us a long time to figure out what he needed—and what would work for us, and what was actually realistic since you know pornisn’t.It took me even longer to be comfortable with saying the things to him that he needed to hear.”
Miles could never and would never understand why someone needed to be told they were pathetic.It had happened to him too often in his life growing up.But maybe that was the point.He wanted to be loved.Doted on.Cherished.
Maybe that’s why Cosimo needed something else. If all he got was praise, and if that praise weighed heavily on his shoulders with the responsibility of having to save lives day in and day out, Miles could easily see why he needed something else.
To be taken down to, well, nothing.
“I needed to hear that I was scum, that I was nothing, while also knowing Emmett doesn’t actually feel that way,” Cosimo said, his voice a very soft rumble.“I needed to have all responsibility taken out of my hands.I needed to be told that I’m a disappointment because being a disappointment to him doesn’t mean that I’ve failed at anything.”He took a long pause.“It’s difficult to explain.”
Miles quickly shook his head.“No.I get it.I, um…”He hesitated.“I have a thing.”
Emmett’s gaze zeroed in on him.“Okay. If you want to tell us, we’re ready to listen.”
Miles glanced away and bit his lip, but the moment felt safe—he felt safe.“I grew up unloved.And I don’t say that for pity.I was taken away from my parents when I was about two.I lived with my grandparents until I was three, but my grandfather died, and my grandma was put into a care facility.There was no one left to take me.The foster system sucks for disabled kids—especially traumatized ones who act out.”
Emmett made a quiet noise of sympathy.
“I bounced around, had a few families, but they always gave me back.I have a couple of friends who I’m still in contact with who were in there with me.So I’m not entirely alone, but I feel like it a lot of days.And sometimes I watch, um, porn,” he struggled to get the word out, “where someone like me is being taken care of. Like…by a Daddy. I like that. I fantasize about being praised and doted on and spoiled. So…I get it. Kind of.”
Cosimo went even more relaxed, and Emmett looked like he was about to jump out of his own skin.Cosimo reached over and put a hand on his husband’s thigh.“Thank you for sharing that with us.”
Miles shrugged.“Fair’s fair, right?”
Emmett’s gaze darkened as he focused back in on Miles.“You never owe anyone pieces of yourself.Not like that.We can share our entire life story and that doesn’t mean you owe us something even as small as your middle name.”
Miles smiled in spite of himself.“It’s Edward.”
Emmett sat back, then burst into soft laughter.“Miles Edward.It sounds very…Victorian.”
“The point of this is,” Cosimo cut in, like he was afraid for this all to go too off topic, “we need to know you understand what this is. I need you to believe that Emmett would never hurt me in ways that I don’t want to be hurt.”
“I understand it,” Miles said quickly, and meant it.“I’m sorry I overreacted.”
