On work nights, Jav knew to give Stef a wide berth for at least an hour after coming home. He didn’t hover or chat or even ask, “How was your day?” If he could, he took himself out of the equation and went for a run or to pick up food. Or else he went benignly invisible and left Stef alone.
Stef came home tonight and hit the shower straight away. The bedroom door closed and soon Jav could detect the sweet, cedar smell of incense. Stef was sitting at the corner shrine, prying off his armor.
Jav had sent revisions of The Chocolate Hour back to Michael, which meant his time stretched out, empty and luxurious. He’d hit the gym hard this afternoon and now he was drained, not wanting to do anything more strenuous than read. He flopped on the couch’s short end, Roman curled at his feet. His nose was sunk deep in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere when Stef finally emerged. He rolled over the back of the couch and fell into the cushions, his head on Jav’s chest.
Jav kissed his brow and went back to reading. It was peaceful with just one circle of lamplight falling on them. A quiet evening at home. Roman sighed, his back paw giving a twitch. Jav read, the paperback balanced in one hand while his other fingers combed through the hair at the back of Stef’s head.
Then all at once, memory pressed him on all sides.
“My cousin used to lie on me like this,” Jav said.
“Mm.”
“Funny, I never thought anything of it.”
“It didn’t turn you on?”
“No. It just made me feel loved.”
Stef turned his face into Jav’s shirt. “Those last years of his life, he must’ve missed you like crazy. I bet he still does.”
“You think?”
“I do.” A warm yawn against Jav’s sternum. “You take a shower and I miss you.”
This was an odd, rather mushy side of Stef. Playing along, Jav closed the book and scooched down in the cushions. “I like being missed.”
Stef smiled. “I miss you when I close my eyes.”
“So open them.”
Stef shook his head and slowly the smile faded away. “I’m going to be starting a tough case,” he said. “I mean really tough. I can’t share the details but…”
“Bad?”
“I don’t have a word for what it is.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to do everything I can not to bring it home with me, but some of it’s bound to. I have a tendency to pull way, way inside during these kinds of cases. I may act like I don’t want you around, but I really do.”
“I appreciate the heads up.”
“If I’m distracted, or if I’m short with you or pissy, it’s not you. It’s me trying to hold boundaries in place. Or I might push at ours. Just because I can.”
Jav kept a straight face, long knowing Stef was one of those people who liked to name everything. “I got it,” he said.
“And since we’re on the subject, thank you for being low-maintenance.”
Jav put on his most insulted expression. “I’m low maintenance?”
Stef chuckled as he took the book out of Jav’s hand and tossed it aside. He pulled both Jav’s arms around his head. Jav held him and held still, staring at nothing, listening to Stef breathe.
“I have kind of a weird question,” Jav said.
“Hit me.”
“It might offend you.”
“I love when you offend me. Fire away.”
“Working with male sexual assault victims, I wondered if your being bisexual ever presented a problem.”
“Fair question,” Stef said. “It’s not typically something I put on the table with a patient.”
“It’s not about you.”
“Right. But I’ve had occasions in my career when it was discovered and ended up being a problem, sure.”
“Like they’d actually terminate the therapy?”
“Yeah.”
Jav affected a professorial tone. “And how did that make you feel?”
Stef smiled. “What can I do? A patient is only going to do well in therapy if they trust the therapist. If their gut is already on high alert and suspicious of my motive, we’re not going to get anything done. I can’t take it personally. The majority of male sexual predators identify as straight. Not that it’s much consolation to survivors. But it’s a fact.”
“Has a case ever affected you sexually? I mean, after hearing description of their ordeals, has it ever turned you off from having sex?”
“Sex with men or with anyone?”
“Both.”
“Is this curiosity or anxiety?”
“Slightly anxious curiosity.”
Stef rubbed a fold of Jav’s shirt between his fingers, thinking. Jav ran a fingertip over the wrinkled brows, trying to smooth them out.
“Sometimes,” Stef said slowly. “I come home with part of a case sticking to me, and I don’t want anyone or anything. I don’t want to be touched until I deal with it. But other times, the only way I can deal with it is being touched. Sometimes I can only shake off the echo of a sexual abuse story by making love. Like, this is crass, but I need to be fucked back to myself. Make sense?”
“Mm.” Jav fitted his thumbnail into the scar across Stef’s eyebrow. “Man, I don’t know how you do what you do.”
“I don’t know how you write books.”
“I make up bullshit. Your work is so much more important. You know how men make love with each other and you know how men make war on each other. You kind of stand at the middle of this range of male behavior and…” Jav chuckled. “There I go making up bullshit again.”
Stef nodded against Jav’s chest, mouth slightly parted and his gaze going far away, toward some horizon of revelation. “No, that’s true,” he said slowly. “You’re absolutely right.”