Page 7 of Tender
Emmett pulled his hand back, then cradled his husband’s face. He knew Cosimo wasn’t talking about what they did behind closed doors. Emmett knew he meant the hell Emmett had gone through to conceive and birth the child who now treated them like walking ATMs.
“I wanted her as much as you did. And she’s still our daughter. I will always have hope that she’ll outgrow whatever the fuck this is. But there’s only so much we can do. We can meet her boyfriend again, but I’m not paying her fines. She can go down like every other person who made a foolish mistake and deal with the consequences.”
Cosimo smiled and took his lips in a chaste but heated kiss. “Ti adoro.”
He didn’t hear words of affection too often either, but he felt loved and adored all the time. “You are my absolute world, my love. Now get off me. I have to finish this report up if you want my full attention Thursday.”
Cosimo shivered. “I really do.”
“Good.” Emmett stole a last kiss before his husband slid all the way off his lap and backed away. “I’m stopping by the lab later, then the pharmacy for my T. Is there anything you need me to grab for you?”
“Snickers,” Cosimo said with a grimace. “I have a feeling after the meeting tomorrow with IT about this new fuck-ass reporting system they want to upgrade us to, I’m going to need chocolate.”
It was nice to step away from work for a little while. Emmett’s current research was a dream project, but it was also one that he was convinced was starting to smooth out the wrinkles in his brain until it was nothing more than a formless blob floating around in his skull.
But theorizing warp speed and the light speed energy bomb consequence that could potentially take out an entire galaxy would do that to a person. He had the same experience in college when he first learned about the Mandelbrot’s set and the weird as fuck fractal nightmares that gave him for the rest of that sleep-deprived semester.
He knew how to compartmentalize a bit better now that he was older and more seasoned—and that his brain had come to accept infinity as a concept without deep diving into contemplation that actuallyhaddriven lesser men to pure insanity. But there were days he did regret his choices.
He could have become a stay-at-home dad and did this shit in his free time for fun instead of killing himself for scraps of evidence that things like warp speed could exist and then going on a begging tour for grants to fund something that would never come to fruition in his lifetime.
And, with the results he was getting, maybe ever. He really didn’t want to be a galaxy killer. He’d save that for the villains in Star Trek.
“How bad will caffeine pills be for my heart?” he asked as he stepped up to his favorite pharmacy tech.
Her name was Ninea, and she had blue streaks in her hair and a very tiny piercing directly in the center of her bottom lip. “Don’t do it. You’re better off drinking a Red Bull.”
Emmett wrinkled his nose. “Hard pass, but thank you.” He slid three Snickers across the counter toward her. When she lifted a brow, he rolled his eyes. “Dr. Grumpy is having a rough week.”
“You’re such a good husband,” she said, smiling softly as she rang up the sweets with his prescription. “You’re the reason I broke up with Mike last month.”
He didn’t know about Mike, but he felt immediate guilt. “Oh, honey, I’m so?—”
“No,” she interrupted as she grabbed his receipt and shoved it into the bag. “Do not even think about apologizing. One of the AC drainpipes busted and flooded us a few weeks ago. I ended up working until three in the morning trying to save as much stock as we could. Then I had to get up at the crack of dawn the next day because me and the other two techs that were available had to call patients to let them know their scripts were damaged and replacements were going to be delayed. I got cussed out so much that afternoon.”
Emmett’s heart sank. “Ninea, I’m so sorry.” He dug into the bag and pushed one of the Snickers toward her. “I know that was a month ago, but chocolate still solves so many problems.”
She laughed and pushed it back toward him, her eyes shining a little. “This is what I’m talking about. I got home straight updeadon my feet, and his ass had the audacity to askme if I was going to cook the paprikash I’d promised to make that week.”
Emmett’s eyes narrowed. “He what?”
“I told him I was too exhausted, and he told me that if I couldn’t balance work and home life that maybe I needed to rethink my career.”
Emmett pulled his bag close. “So…where does he live now? I just want to have a little chat.”
She grinned. “And this is why you inspired me to leave. Someday I’ll find my happily ever after. You two seem so perfect.”
He managed a smile at that, but he knew it didn’t reach his eyes. He wasn’t about to shatter her world and tell her that his marriage was far from perfect. That he could feel cracks forming because sometimes love wasn’t enough to make it all work.
He’d been having nightmares recently of finding a man who could give Cosimo what he wanted. Emmett would be standing at the edge of the street listening to Cosimo shout out an apology and then leave.
And he was alone.
He woke up sweating and on the verge of tears. And the shit at home with their daughter and his work being too much and Cosimo needing more and more from him without being able to offer what Emmett needed in order to feel grounded was…
It was starting to feel like too much.
Like if he had to try and take on any more bullshit, he really was going to crack and end up living in a cave behind a waterfall in some forest where no one could find him again.
