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SEAN PACED AS MUCH as the confines of the small office allowed. Asbjorn’s butt was propped against a file cabinet credenza. He was as tight as a coiled spring. Detective Mark Falwell was pool of calm in comparison as he put together the slide assembly of his 9mm Sig Sauer 230 semiautomatic. He clicked the mechanism back into place, locked it, and inspected the cleaned handgun once again before loading it with a full magazine.
“This is interesting.”
Sean looked at Dr. Adrian Rios, who was sitting behind his desk, propping his head and pressing his tired eyes into the palms of his hands. It had been a long day, and this special project of his had had to wait till after his regular working hours as a psychotherapist.
“So he sounds as concerned about you killing yourself, Sean, as about you testifying. Does he have a reason to think you would, in fact, kill yourself?”
Sean, who’d never have thought spending time at a police station would count as doing something “constructive,” nodded. He focused on Adrian, doing his best to tune out all the other guys who crammed inside Adrian’s office. “Sure. I told him I’d kill myself and then come haunt him.”
“Do you intend to kill yourself?” Adrian’s voice was calm, free of judgment.
“No! Of course not. I want him to follow me around, though. I want him to meet me in person.”
Sean saw Asbjorn stir, the muscles of his chiseled jaw working hard in an effort to keep his mouth shut.
“So you’re the bait?” Mark asked, just for the record.
“Yeah. I’m the bait.”
They listened to all four recordings again.
“You sound so normal, talking to him like that, Sean. Like he’s a regular guy. I don’t know how you can stand it.” Asbjorn almost shivered.
“He’s doing a great job.” Mark nodded. “The sooner you can lure him out, the better.”
“Sean. Where are you, Sean?” Frank Pattel, a.k.a. Joe Green, was displeased.
“Now what?” Sean’s voice came across as sleepy even on the recording.
“You are not in your room.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I need to know you won’t kill yourself, Sean.”
There was a silent pause.
“I want you to forgive me and move on.”
Another pause.
“I will forgive you, Joe Green. There is something I must do first, though.”
“As long as it’s not testifying against me. So what do you have in mind?”
“I need to understand why you’d do such a thing. You’re obviously not a bad guy. You’re obviously pretty intelligent. Why... why would somebody like you need to break in and attack me? Why not just ask me out?”
A startled silence followed. “You’d go out with me?”
“Well, now I won’t – you’ve blown it. But had you asked me out before, I might have.”
“But... but... you would have?”
“I’d have at least given you a fair chance, Joe Green. But instead you have to kick my door in and beat me up and do – ”
“I didn’t rape you!” The scream almost overwhelmed the recording microphone.
“How can I forgive you unless I can see that you are sorry? That you really mean it?”
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“Not just upset. Traumatized. I’m disgraced before my family and all who matter to me. I don’t see any other way out, Joe Green.”
“So aside from staying out of the courtroom, your forgiveness is his Holy Grail right now,” Adrian said. “He’s an unusual case. Most rapists just follow the rage-batter-rape-kill scenario, but this guy seems more interested in controlling the situation – and maybe getting some fringe benefits out of it. And he doesn’t seem to think he can get those the ordinary way. Giving him hope was a good move. He is stalking you and reporting to you on all your movements anyway. It gives him a sense of control. Best as I can tell, that’s all he does. He’s completely obsessed with you.”
Adrian frowned. “When do you think you’re most vulnerable?”
“Whenever I’m alone,” Sean replied without hesitation. “But several people walk with me from class to class. Sheila recruited some of my aikido students to keep me company, and Nell did the same with some of the karate students.” He felt an embarrassed blush flood his face, feeling like a useless problem-child.
“You don’t like it much.”
“No. I don’t.”
“If he’s unable to approach you alone, it will push him into doing something unwise. That’s to our advantage.” Adrian’s voice was smooth and hypnotic, a world away from the cocky young man who issued Sean his first challenge at the Warehouse.
“So you think he’ll make his move soon?” Sean shifted in his chair. Pacing back and forth got old within the confines of Mark’s small office.
“Well... you could force his hand a little. Insist on a personal meeting, but never be alone. That will give us more options when he makes his move.”
Sean nodded. “Mark thinks it will happen after dark.”
“Probably. He’ll probably want you to meet him immediately after he calls. Stall him. Make sure Mark and his team have enough time to get into position. How much time will you need, Mark?”
Sean shifted his eyes to the police detective.
“Give us half an hour, minimum. An hour would be better,” Mark said. “You got your spray, Sean?”
Sean nodded and pulled the black, orange-topped canister out of his jacket pocket.
“Good. Keep it that way.”
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IT HAD BEEN THREE DAYS since December first, when they handed the recording to the police. Asbjorn felt like he was sitting on a ticking bomb. Classes and labs flowed by on invisible eddies of time. Mealtimes. Bedtimes. He watched Sean’s back disappear out the door or down the campus, accompanied by another student, never alone. Sometimes Asbjorn walked with him, but never often enough to make their deeper connection apparent to an outside observer. It was killing him – the feeling of letting go, of no control. He felt the roaring of blood in his temples, then, and noted his morning coffee didn’t get along with his stomach anymore. He forced himself to take deep breaths, centering himself.
Compartmentalizing.
Thinking of possible solutions to four-dimensional matrix series, equations forced into animated suspension in his head, bending his will to solve them and only then check his work on paper. He would do almost anything to distract himself, and only Sean’s agreement to keep him in the loop made the stress of the situation bearable.
“Deal?”
“Deal.”
Yet he saw the resentment in the cocoa-brown eyes, eyebrows scrunched in a scowl that asserted itself as Sean’s default expression. Sean hated being under surveillance as much as he hated having to accept the help of others. There had been a wild, volatile quality to their lovemaking the night before. Sean strained against the merest hint of Asbjorn’s gentle control the way he strained to keep his temper in check when he greeted his daily escorts.
Fear flooded him then. Now that they were finally settling into a rhythm and had a plan, the period of relative peace felt like the calm right before the storm.
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SEAN’S PHONE RANG, and he fished around in his pocket. The phone, the pepper spray, the recording device. He slid the jack into its port and flipped the phone open.
“How are you doing, Sean?” The now-familiar voice was almost a relief – relief from endless waiting. The relief of knowing the resolution was near.
“None of your business, Joe Green.” Sean took note of the date immediately. December fifth. Sunday.
“Sean. That grand jury in ten days. Don’t go.”
“Why not, Joe Green?” Sean rolled the name on his tongue, mocking it.
“My friends.”
“Your friends made a bad mistake. Not my fault they got caught.”
“You interfered.” The voice growled, seething.
“I thought of not going, but... I can’t not go. I have to obey the law.”
“That doesn’t work for me, Sean. If they roll on me, they will spoil our fun. We could have had a good time together.”
Sean shuddered, the smooth wall of a coffee-shop bathroom stall suddenly less solid behind him. “I’m here just to study, and you screwed that up for me. I... I’ve lost all honor on account of you and don’t have much to live for anymore. There is just one honorable thing to do.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
Sean sighed, his mind reaching for something, anything, this man might know about that sort of a thing. “I may be Irish, but I come from an ancient family of Viking warriors. Our sense of honor is not something you will never understand. If my family loses face, there’s just one thing to do.” Sean shut his mouth. The thing to do was to challenge the offending party to a duel, not commit suicide – and Sean bit his lip hard enough to draw blood in silent hope that his prey was ignorant of the customs of ancient Vikings.
Silence stretched for a short while.
“Like that Japanese-suicide thing?”
“Exactly,” Sean improvised. “Unless I had a reason to forgive you, I guess....” He let the words trail off, hoping his adversary would come to a logical conclusion.
“Oh.” The man who called himself Joe Green thought for a bit.
“Then I guess you better not do anything dumb, Sean. Remember how I said we’d have good time together? Next time will be very good for you.”
Sean heard the line go dead.
He dialed a number he had committed to memory. The man answered on the third ring.
“Hey, Mark. Got another one for you.”
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NEXT MONDAY’S LAB WAS long and arduous. His oscilloscope wouldn’t settle down, making it impossible to take readings on his circuit.
“Where’s the interference coming from?” Nobody had the same problem. Professor Nimmo peeked over his shoulder.
“Did you turn everything off?” she asked.
“Yes. Even my laptop.”
“How about your cell phone?”
“I never turn my... oh.” Sean cursed himself for wasting hours, building a needless Faraday cage instead of just pushing that one button on top of his phone. He felt strange doing it. This was the first time he turned his cell phone off since the night of the attack. Surrounded by twenty-one students, he felt a sudden sense of isolation with his lifeline dead. It angered him and he pushed against it, scowling.
He settled on his wooden stool, tuning his oscilloscope all over again. It was turning into a long day already.
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THEY SAT IN WHAT USED to be the parlor of the Pile, a gracious room with tall ceilings and architectural pillars flanking the ancient, mosaic-tile fireplace. Old green curtains were drawn across the bay window, shielding them from view as got to work on one of the ratty sofas. Mark’s laptop sat on the scarred, wooden coffee table.
Sean watched as he and Adrian downloaded yesterday’s telephone call.
As they listened to it, Sean felt numb inside.
“This is great, Sean. Now we can get him on tampering with a witness too.”
Two women walked into the parlor, dressed in the college uniform of well-worn jeans and hoodie shirts. They turned the large old television on.
“Hey, Katie, hey, Suzanne. We’re in a meeting.” Sean greeted them, hoping they would turn the TV off.
Suzanne plopped down in the opposite sofa, clicking the remote.
“This is police business. Could I ask you to give us a few more minutes, please?” Mark’s voice was more of an order than a request.
Suzanne turned the TV off, her face sullen. She tossed her curly brown hair over her shoulder with her left hand and glared at Sean. “You should have moved when the Administration offered you a new room. Your presence just puts the rest of us in danger.”
Mark gave her an annoyed look. “His presence here ensures we catch the guy so you and your friends can be safe.”
“You could catch him from somewhere else,” Katie chimed in, playing with her phone.
“It’s so annoying, having these goings-on in here. And the other students keep asking about it all the time. Especially after the paper came out with that story.”
“What story?” Sean asked, alarmed.
“It’s in here somewhere.” Katie pointed at a pile of newspapers, both college and local, on the table.
Exasperated, Suzanne tossed the remote onto the table and stood up again. “We’ve talked to the Dean. We don’t feel safe with you around. Did you get the message on the dorm meeting with the school psychologist on Thursday?”
“It’s in my e-mail.”
“Yeah. Think about moving, Sean. Please?” The two women exited the tense atmosphere of the parlor, leaving its faded grandeur behind.
Sean met Adrian’s eyes and straightened from his slouch. He felt a sudden stiffening of his spine, a tightening of his jaw. “Like hell! I’m not moving out of here. They’re just a bunch of cowards. If I move, the perp will get tipped off, and it will be so much longer before we catch him. Then they can walk around, playing bait.”
“Okay.” Adrian’s voice was calm, noncommittal. “You’ll still take precautions, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Sean’s hand wandered inside his pocket and he fingered the trigger guard on his pepper spray canister.
“Let’s see what the stupid paper leaked this time,” Mark groaned, pushing himself out of the sofa.
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ASBJORN’S BARE FEET padded on the cool dance-studio floor. He viewed the way his students lined up, expressions of frustration and concentration mingled on their faces. He sighed, feeling like he was not getting through to them. The feeling was not pleasant.
“All right. Look. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest ones to do. We’ve been working on leading with the punching fist, and you got that. Now hold that idea. Our next step is to precede the punching hand by pulling back with the opposite arm. Elbow back.” He swung his elbow back on its natural diagonal, his left fist stopping by his left hip. “Now see how this action activates the whole system and my right fist wants to move forward?” He demonstrated the move twice more.
“Everybody, seisan stance, left foot forward. Punching with the left. Elbow back! Fist swings out. Round those shoulders – this is an obuki technique. Sit into it! Bounce up as you twist that fist. Again.”
And again, and again, and again.
Asbjorn walked up and down the row. The technical details were so crucial – yet so difficult to internalize because of their very simplicity.
“Everybody pair off. Now we’ll do it with a partner. Dud-sempai will present a target made of his two hands, palms out.”
Dud grinned, making a target over his solar plexus.
“Now make sure you’re the right distance away. You’re hitting an inch or two beneath the surface, no more. Elbow back, fist out, sit, bounce and twist.”
Dud was pushed off-balance by the slow punch. Asbjorn made it look so easy. It was, after all, elementary.
The class struggled for twenty minutes before Asbjorn called a break. “We’ll do some sparring exercises.”
Muffled noises of relief and excitement filled the air.
He sympathized with them. Simple wasn’t always easy. Ripping through katas at high speed felt satisfying, but they were just fighting air. He wanted every move to mean something, to be effective as a technique in its own right. Rethinking already internalized katas meant ripping them down and rebuilding them from ground up. It also meant his students would feel stupid and incompetent for some time. He understood the feeling all too well, but there was no help for it.
“However, we’ll go at half-speed only. No hurrying up, no cheating. I want you to focus on the elbow going back with every single technique. That’s where your power begins.”
“You think they’ll get it?” Dud asked.
“No. Not the first time. But over time, they’ll find their punches are stronger.”
Dud shrugged. “Seems like you should save these detailed break-downs for senior seminars. Some of those kids will drop out if you make their brains work so hard. They come here to relax.”
“You think?” Asbjorn growled at his friend. “Okay, then, I’ll try not to flood them with it. But I cannot possibly dumb it down.” Asbjorn’s mind flitted to Sean, wondering if the stalker was following him that very moment. He felt his adrenaline spike and drew a deep breath to keep his physiological reactions under control.
Dud’s sigh echoed Asbjorn’s exhale. “No. I guess you can’t.”
Neither could Tiger.
Only half an hour later, Asbjorn unlocked the door to his apartment, surprised to find it dark. Asbjorn set his gi bag by the door, shed his boots and jacket, and tiptoed into the bedroom, careful not to wake Sean.
He must’ve been really tired.
He smiled, sliding out of his clothing as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The pillows were in their customary disarray and the comforter was bunched up to one side.
Sean, the master blanket-thief.
Asbjorn shuddered as his bare skin touched the cold sheets, and he couldn’t wait to feel a jolt of warmth and pleasure once he pressed himself against his lover’s supple body. He reached out in the dark. The blinds let him see only the outlines before him. “Sean?”
His hand met only messy, cold blankets.
“Sean!” Asbjorn turned on his reading light.
There was no Sean. The bed hadn’t been made in the morning and the sheets still bore evidence of last night’s activities. Goosebumps rose on his pale flesh as he bounded out of bed and struggled into his still-warm jeans. He grabbed his phone and dialed Mark.
“Mark here.”
Asbjorn exhaled in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. “It’s Asbjorn. Did I wake you?”
“Yeah. It’s okay. Whatsa matter?” Mark cleared his raspy voice with a cough.
“I can’t find Sean.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s missing. He’s not answering his phone. I thought he’d be here, asleep early. He ain’t here.”
“Bjorn. Has it occurred to you he could be staying at his room?”
“No. He’s living here now. He’d tell me first.”
“Okay. Adrian and I were at the Pile, listening to his latest recording. Adrian offered to arrange for some help with his PTSD with a colleague of his, but Sean refused. He says he doesn’t need any help. Then he went downstairs, and we left. That’s, oh, three hours ago.”
Asbjorn stiffened.
“Asbjorn? Are you there?”
Asbjorn cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
“You okay, Asbjorn?”
“No.” His voice was cold, controlled. “I’m not fucking okay. He... he’s got no discipline. He totally shut me out again. Anything could have happened to him, and I don’t even know where to start looking for him! He and I had this deal! He didn’t even let me know what happened today. He should have called to update me about, oh, two things? Four? Where the fuck is he!” There was silence on the line until Asbjorn interrupted it again. “Oh god. Mark. I don’t care anymore. I just hope he’s all right.”
Sean hadn’t called him. They had a deal, and Sean welshed on it. Gone for more than half a day, not telling him about the call, about Mark and Adrian’s visit, his plans for the night... and he wasn’t answering his damn phone.
“Should I go check on him?” Asbjorn’s tone of voice made it clear he was ready for action.
“Wanna get arrested again? No. I’ll send a cruiser. They’ll knock on his door. It’ll be quieter that way.”
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THE BLARING SOUND OF his intruder alarm launched Sean out of his bed. He slept fully dressed and with his sneakers on – his paranoia obviously paid off. It was good to meet the intruder fully dressed. Adrenaline flooded his system as he readied himself for immediate action. He checked his jacket pocket for his mace and grabbed his iron pipe from its place by the door. Lights off, he waited.
“Turn that damn racket off, Gallaway!” A powerful baritone bellowed from the other side of the door. Sean beeped the system off and silence assaulted his senses – but only until the man on the other side banged on the door.
“Well, open up, Gallaway! Police!”
“How do I know you’re the real police?” Sean asked, suspicious.
“Look outside.”
Sean stepped on his mattress to peel the blackout shades off his window. Sure enough, two cruisers stood parked by the curb up the hill with their lights flashing. To his utter mortification, he heard two sirens up the street. They were getting closer and closer. A big red fire truck with shiny chrome accessories showed up, closely followed by an ambulance. The sound of the sirens stopped, but their colorful strobe lights remained on, lighting up the street in a dizzying carnival of color.
“Police! Open up!” The door shook with impact once again.
“Coming!” Sean yelled. What happened? An accident? A tight feeling squeezed his chest as he unlocked his door and hid his improvised weapon. He turned the lights on. “What happened?” he asked the two uniformed officers before him. “Is everyone okay?”
“You alone in here?”
“Uh... yeah.”
“Did anyone come and give you any trouble tonight?”
“Uh... no. Is that perp prowling around? Is that why you guys are here?”
Several housemates crept downstairs, observing the scene by the basement-room door with wide eyes.
“No. Not to our knowledge. We’re here to see that you’re okay.”
“At this hour? Why?” Sean pushed his way past the cops and through the students crowding the narrow basement staircase. He walked the gauntlet of the foyer, feeling their burning eyes upon him. Once he opened the door, a blast of cold air freshened up his reddened face and, incredulous, he watched students lean out of windows and pour out the doors of surrounding dormitories. A camera van, bearing the insignia of a local TV station, screeched to a stop in front of the Pile and a cameraman jumped out. He trained the lens of his camera at the spectacle. Sean retreated into the shadows of a wide pillar. A local on-scene reporter disembarked, took her coat off, and fluffed up her hair.
“Take the angle toward the door, Joe,” she called out as she faced the camera and its accompanying bright floodlight.
Sean retreated back inside the house, almost colliding with one of the policemen. “You better make it look like a fire alarm. The perp doesn’t know I’m working with you guys.”
Without a word, the cop pulled on the red fire-alarm switch. The sound of the fire siren split the air. “Everybody out!” The cop called out. “Fire alarm! And don’t talk to the press!”
The students poured out of the building in their pajamas. Sean hid in the shadows, fully dressed, staying away from the camera.
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SLEEP WAS THE LAST thing on Asbjorn’s mind after talking to Mark. He was dressed, drinking a cup of mint tea at his dining room table, his Physics of Solid Surfaces text swimming before his eyes. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well try to read until he heard from Mark again. He kept twirling a bright yellow highlighter in his fingers. He scanned the text, skimming over familiar words, but none of them were connecting enough to make any sense.
Sean.
Visions of blood and gore mocked the frayed edges of his consciousness. That lithe, well-muscled body laid stripped and broken, life spilling out onto Sean’s bed onto the dark and filthy ground of a neighborhood alley. The eyes that smiled with the sweetness of molten chocolate were open and flat, unseeing. Lush lips parted, bruised and bloodied, the air between unstirred. Bones broken, spirit crushed, sunshine extinguished.
The blaring sound of sirens broke the silence of the night, getting nearer and nearer. Asbjorn jumped up in his chair, hot tea spilling in his lap, the odor of spearmint inundating his nostrils. He cursed and grabbed his keys and phone. Then he shrugged into his jacket and ran out his door, down the stairs, and out the front door.
The mile and a half to the Pile was the fastest he ever ran that distance.
He heard the honking sound of crowd-control horns and the screaming of more fire trucks and more ambulances. The street was crowded in the glow of flashing strobe lights. He looked up and down, eyeing the crowds gathering by the Pile. They seemed to have thronged around the TV camera truck.
Asbjorn stopped, breathing hard. TV coverage was never a good sign.
He looked around. No medical examiner’s truck. Yet.
He forced himself to center. He pretended to relax.
There was no doubt in his mind that the perp would be around, watching, waiting.
Asbjorn yanked the hood of his sweatshirt from underneath his leather jacket and pulled it up, disguising his face. He crossed the street, trying to look natural. There were no shadows to hide in anymore. He scanned the crowd, approaching a bystander. “What happened?”
“I dunno. They said another assault in the basement. Somebody heard the alarm go off. The girl said it woke the whole house.”
Asbjorn paled, tightening his jaw. Time to talk to the police.
Unfortunately, the police had no interest in talking to Asbjorn. Unwilling to cause a scene with the TV cameras around, he slunk away to the side of the house and pulled his phone out. Just as he was about to dial Mark’s number again, the phone buzzed in his hand.
“Hey, Bjorn. It’s me.” Sean’s voice sounded rather small on the other side.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” The halting words got out despite the roaring heartbeat in his ears.
“Cut down the lawn behind the Pile, across the parking lot. There is a laundry room in the basement of the big dorm there.”
Asbjorn disconnected without saying good-bye. His relief at hearing Sean’s voice was immediately replaced by a dark, familiar feeling of blood roaring in his ears – a feeling associated with broken noses, detentions, and subsequent lectures by Tiger-sensei.
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SEAN PLACED HIS PHONE next to his pepper spray and his recording device as he sat on the first washing machine, his legs swinging idly in the brightly lit room. He called. He called just like Mark told him he really, really should, but that didn’t make him feel good about having to do so. All this stupid circus was going on outside because Asbjorn’s irrational concern over his safety had triggered an overreaction by the police department. Sean could only speculate that the news people found out about a posse heading for the Pile again, and came to investigate.
Fuck that. Fuck his housemates, who’d kick him out because he’d become inconvenient. And fuck Joe Green. He wasn’t budging an inch on account of that sorry excuse of a man. Nor was he putting up with being mother-henned anymore.
So he didn’t call earlier. Big deal. Asbjorn would just have to take a chill pill.
He was startled from his quiet contemplation by a sound so loud it made him jump. The door flew open, kicked hard enough to fly off its hinges, the glass of its window shattering on the floor. Asbjorn stood in the empty doorframe, filling it with wild and feral energy.
Sean met his eyes and found them aflame with emotion. He noticed the hood ripped off the head, his hair pasted against his temples with sweat.
Asbjorn took three steps through the suddenly too-small space and grabbed Sean by the lapels of his jacket. Silently, Asbjorn lifted Sean off the washing machine and, twisting from the hip, threw him across the room into the opposite wall.
Sean, shocked by the violence of the sudden action, slid down. He barely regained his footing when Asbjorn was on top of him, pulling him up with his left hand, his right hand balled into a fist. “Bjorn!” Sean’s voice escaped him, panicked, his eyes wide.
“Aaarrrgh!” Asbjorn’s fist flew at his face along with Asbjorn’s scream, deflecting at the last moment and landing on the concrete block wall with a sickening crunch.
He watched Asbjorn’s grimace of pain come and go. The grasp on his jacket loosened and Asbjorn took two careful steps backward.
“Sean.” The word was a pain-filled sob. “I ran all the way here. I thought you had died.”
Still stunned into silence as Asbjorn took another two steps back until halted by an unyielding row of washing machines, Sean watched his tall body crumple at the knees and slide to the concrete floor. He pushed off the wall and came closer. Asbjorn’s eyes were flat, spent. Sean reached out to embrace him, shocked at the bleeding hand against Asbjorn’s chest.
A hand that had stopped from hitting him.
“You broke your word. You said you’d keep me in the loop.”
Sean saw the blue eyes return to his, hard and resolute. “I stuck to my end of the bargain. I didn’t interfere until you fell off the end of the earth. It was killing me to see you do your thing, just staying back, being as supportive as I possibly could.”
“I’m sorry, Bjorn.” Sean’s eyes were glued to the crazed, pain-filled look in Asbjorn’s eyes.
“I’m sorry too. I thought we had something. I thought there was trust between us.”
“Wait....”
“No.” Asbjorn rose to his feet. He looked clumsy and awkward, with his good arm swinging by his side “I can’t go on like this, Sean. It’s killing me. If you can’t stick to your end of the deal and keep me at least informed, at least fucking text or call, then I’m not good enough to be by your side.”
“Asbjorn! Wait....” Sean struggled for words. “I love you, Asbjorn. How about sleeping together? Was that so bad too?”
Asbjorn gave him a small smile full of loss and regret. “The sex was great. But this ain’t about sex. It’s about love. About trust. I love you so much. You keep pushing me away, and it’s...” He took a moment, then continued in a broken yet controlled voice. “If I can’t stand by your side, be a full partner, then we have nothing to discuss.”
Sean felt his stomach drop. “So you’re walking out on me.”
Asbjorn shook his head. “No. You’re killing me by walling me out. I can’t... “ he sucked in some more air and expelled it. “I can’t live like this.” He gave Sean a mournful look. “If you need anything, call. I’ll help you, but only as a friend.”
“You can’t just walk out!”
“Look. I ain’t perfect, okay? I’m sorry I burst in like this. You owe me a punch or two. I’m not walking away from you, Sean. I’m just trying to preserve what sanity I have left. You’re so reckless, you’re driving me fucking crazy. In my old unit, you’d end up on the brig by now. Except you don’t answer to me, and I get that. But I can’t sit on edge all day long, fucking terrified that something horrible happened to you.” He didn’t raise his voice as he said that, which made his words even more final. “See you around, sunshine.”
Sean watched Asbjorn pick his way through the broken glass and disappear out the broken door.
Oh, fuck.
Asbjorn.
Asbjorn...
He stood there for a long time, motionless and alone.