Page 10 of Binding Their Hearts

“Can you put a name to how that feels, Jay?”

“Like shit.” Growling now, too. He’d probably get a fucking failing grade on his first day.

“In your body. What got you out of the chair?”

Ice swept over him like a sudden downpour on a windy day. He stuck his feet to the floor. “Sorry, I didn’t—are there rules for—should I sit—I’m sorry, Dr. Harrington.”

“Hell, pace if you want to, Jay—and call me Danny. ‘Dr. Harrington’ sounds like a bad medical drama.” The therapist dropped the notepad and the pen on the table with the paperwork. “You might not believe me just yet, but I promise you I’m not judging you for how you sit or stand or walk around. This process isn’t about that, Jay.”

“But you’re the expert. You do—” The thing. The wrench twist, the tire check, truing the wheels. “The evaluation and make the fixes.”

“I’m not your judge, Jay.” Dr. Harrington—Danny—settled back in his chair and spread his arms wide, his hands open and empty. “You are.”

What the hell did that even mean? The bees clogged up his throat, and he shook his head to clear them, hair flying. “I’m not qualified for that.”

“You’re the only one qualified for that.” Danny narrowed his eyes, irises dark as Jay’s and intent as Henry’s. “For the work we’re going to do here, Jay, you get to decide how things feel, and what makes something important, and where you want to go. I’m here to facilitate you finding you. That’s all.”

“What if I…” He pushed the stone into his pocket and wiped clammy palms on his shorts. Walking, slower now, he moved just enough so the bees left him alone. “What if I know who I am, I found him, and I’m”—dropping Henry’s hand at concerts—“afraid to be him?”

When Danny nodded, his hair didn’t fly like Jay’s. “Do you have times when you can be him now?”

“If I’m out riding my bike, or out exploring, when nobody’s watching.” Without eyes on him, he could be anybody, and nobody could say shit about it.

“Describe how that feels.”

“Peaceful.” Closing his eyes, he let himself drop into the sway of pedaling, his body loose-limbed and relaxing into the exertion. No more bees. “Like everything is flowing the way it should.”

“Are there other times when you feel that peace?” Danny spoke in a hush, the quiet of libraries and museums and churchy places.

“When I’m with Henry and Alice.” Within the walls of their apartment, where all the expectations were known and he exceeded them like a dozen times a day. When he hung his bike on the rack and left his shoes on the mat. When he slicked up in the shower and followed Henry’s instructions for the orgasm he’d earned. When he knelt and wrapped his tongue around Henry’s cock or Alice’s clit and blissed out on the scent and taste and feel of their skin as they told him how much they loved him. “Subspace.”

“Is that peace something you want more of?”

Greedy, Alice had called him. But with affection, her fingers threaded through his hair before she kissed him. Trade the anxious wondering if he’d fucked up for that comfort and confidence all the damn time? Shit, sign him up for that. “Always. I wish…”

The silence held for a long while, and he swayed into it like a refreshing, cooling wind.

“What do you wish, Jay?”

The important words didn’t feel so out of reach now.

“I wish it would stay. I wish it didn’t go away when they do, or when I hop off the bike. Like it’s theirs, and I just get to borrow it for a while.” Henry’s rules helped, when he focused on that guiding hand out in the world. But when he got overwhelmed, nothing helped. The buzzing drove away thinking at all. And then he did stupid, stupid shit, like letting Peggy throw Henry and Alice off the farm. “I want to be worthy. Happy.”

“Are those the same goal or different ones?”

“Are what?” He found the stone in his pocket and skimmed the edge. Round side. Soft and smooth under his fingers.

“Being worthy and being happy. Do you have to be one to be the other?”

He blinked open, considering. Danny hadn’t moved, still slung back in his chair, his legs sprawled, his arms flopped over the sides like a ragdoll. That didn’t seem so bad. Jay circled around his own chair and dropped back into it.

“Different…” The times he’d been truly happy, Henry or Alice or both had been there. Or nobody, just him and the ride, when the world fell away and whatever he had in front of him was the most beautiful thing in that moment. But with Peggy, with his parents, he could never feel worthy. So he could never be happy. “But linked. Like two gears for the same chain.”

He slouched low, wiggling his ass almost to the edge of the seat, and rested his neck against the chairback. Smooth, white ceiling. A blank canvas, like Henry started with. “When I feel worthy, I’m happy, but only for the right people.” The Henry-and-Alice-shaped people. “I tried my whole life to be worthy for people who were never gonna see me that way.”

The truth burned his throat, stung his eyes, but he held on to the stone and found the smooth side again. Nat could safely join the list of people who loved him for him, too.

“I pretended to be happy”—easier, by far, than letting Peggy see him angry or upset—“but I wasn’t, not inside. A few weeks ago, I…”

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