Page 36 of Leather and Longing
That thought cut into him.
I keep telling myself I want to be independent. That means I need to figure out how to do these things for myself. Paul won’t be around forever, right?
For fuck’s sake, how big a deal would it be to learn to clean up after himself?
He paused at the threshold to the kitchen, listening to the sound of activity. The aroma of fresh coffee filled his nostrils, along with the delicious odour of toast. His belly growled in response.
“Oh. Good morning.” Paul’s voice was subdued. “Do you want your breakfast in here or in the library?”
Adam tapped his way to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. “In here will do.” He sat, resting the cane against the table. The clink of the coffee pot and the sound of liquid pouring was followed by the dull clunk when Paul placed a mug on the table.
“Six inches in front of you.” Paul moved away and Adam let the soundtrack waft over him without really taking it in: the fridge opening and closing, the scrape of a knife over thetoast, a plate clattering onto a worktop. He winced as the noise reverberated through his head.
First things first. “I need painkillers.” He might not have gotten roaring drunk the previous night, but that was more alcohol than he’d had in a long while, and he was feeling the aftereffects.
A brief cessation of sound effects. “Are you okay?”
“Apparently not,” Adam said through his teeth, “otherwise I wouldn’t be asking for painkillers, would I?” He pinched his lips together and clenched his jaw, which only exacerbated the pain.
“Where’s the pain? I need to know if it’s muscular or not.”
“I need something for a bad headache.” He waited for Paul to come back with some remark about being hungover, but he was strangely silent. A cupboard opened and closed. The sound of running water.
“Open your hands.” Adam complied and a glass was placed in one, two small pills in the other. “Two paracetamol with codeine, extra strength. That should do it. They’ll work better with food.” A dull thud in front of him. “Here’s your toast.”
Adam swallowed the tablets with a mouthful of water, grimacing when they caught at the back of his throat. He drank down all of the water and felt for the mug. Coffee wasn’t a good idea on top of a headache, but he needed that jolt of caffeine. The smell of the buttered toast was too good to ignore, and he dug into it.
It was only when he’d eaten the last morsel that he realised Paul had been silent the whole time. Adam’s stomach quivered and his scalp prickled.
This was not good.
Paul cleared his throat. “Can we talk about what happened last night?”
Fuck. No.
Adam took a couple of deep breaths. “Oh. I didn’t realize you wanted feedback.” Even to his own ears, he sounded like a prize bitch, but he didn’t want Paul making more out of it than just sex. “It was okay.”
There was a brief silence before Paul spoke, his voice whisper quiet. “That’s not what I meant.”
Adam was damn sure it wasn’t. “Okay. I fucked you. End of story.” In the silence that followed, he couldn’t even hear Paul breathing.For God’s sake…. “What did you expect? Flowers? A marriage proposal?”
That got a response. He heard Paul gulp in air, but no words came forth.
“What?” Adam retorted. “Didn’t you enjoy it? Because you gave every indication of loving it. At least, I don’t recall you having to beat me off with a stick to stop me from taking you. Far from it. There was definite begging going on.”
Adam heard the rough sound of the chair scraping across the floor and Paul’s soft footfall across the wooden floor and out the door. He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward to place cool hands on his aching head.
Did I have to be such a bastard?He knew he’d taken out his anger and frustration on Paul, knew it as he was doing it, but had felt unable to stop. Sometimes he wished he had a filter for that mouth of his.
But this would accomplish nothing. There was work to be done, and he had no time for dramas.
“Paul? Come back here.”
A moment later, he heard Paul return. Adam needed to start this day on the right note, and with Paul’s present mood, that would be difficult.
It was up to Adam to set the temperature.
“I didn’t thank you for speaking to Caroline yesterday about my belongings.” It wasn’t an apology, but he hoped Paul wouldget the message: he did not want to discuss the sex. “I’d like you to spend today bringing down as many boxes as you can find.”
