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HE WAS SO STIFF IN my arms, as if he was afraid to touch me. I didn’t know what I’d done to bring this out of him, it was certainly about more than just the carriage house. I mentioned Charles with bile in my throat as my stomach lurched. I couldn’t understand how he could miss someone who had harmed him so, but I knew now that he was suffering from the loss.
I didn’t know what to do, what to say to him that would take away his pain. Holding him, my head against his heart, I could feel it as it thumped too fast. “Please baby. You need to talk to me,” I whispered, reaching out, trying to pull his hands down onto me. He resisted and I let go, looking up at him. He didn’t look at me, so I reached up, taking his face in my hands, forcing him with his incredible height to finally bend.
“What do you want from me?” He finally spoke and the question cut me through and through.
“Nothing. If not everything you have and are. Keegan, I love you. That hasn’t changed. I think I’ve loved you since I met you, maybe before. All I know is that you are in pain and I don’t know how to stop it.”
“You can’t.” There was a choke in his voice as he swallowed, I could feel the tightness of it, as though it was my own body forcing down the words.
“You’re right. I can’t. Not if you don’t talk to me.” I held his face, making him see me, not just look at me, but see that I wasn’t going anywhere. “If you miss him, then miss him. The fact that I don’t understand it doesn’t change how you feel, and how you deal with those feelings, that is what matters to me. This lashing out? It isn’t going to work. If the carriage house means so much we can rebuild it. Just how it was, perhaps dedicate a part of the garden to him. You told me once how much he loved to run the path.”
“My doing something like that wouldn’t offend you?”
“There is little you could do that would, my love.” I felt his jaw twitch in my hands as he swallowed back his tears. His entire body gave and we sank to the floor. He wrapped his arms around me, finally nuzzling into the crook of my throat. I stroked his head as he began to cry.
“I miss him so much.” He admitted aloud, at last.
“I know, and that’s perfectly okay, it’s okay that you loved him too.” He pulled into me tighter, his hands running up my length and I felt the burning when his teeth broke the skin of my throat. I cradled his head, if this was what he needed, then I would let him have it.