Chapter 4

 

After leaving Konnor to soak up his advice, Lachlan headed home for a few hours of work. He was tired, both in the regular sense and emotionally; this whole thing with the cabin 'intervention' was exhausting to think about. There were so many ramifications if it went wrong.

Everyone was just starting to settle down into their lives, happy and putting the past behind them. Konnor was right to worry that this week together might drag all those hurt feelings, violent encounters and emotional pain back to the surface, so needlessly.

Thankfully, his friendship with Konnor was the only thing he didn't have to worry about. After all they'd been through, they'd never have to risk losing each other again. Nothing was too difficult for them to talk about or move past.

A phone call, just as he walked in the front door, made him pause to dig his phone out of his pocket. “Hello,” he sang, feeling much happier as he kicked off his shoes and wangled out of his jacket.

“Hey. Cormag isn't there, is he?” Monroe answered, sounding far too quiet and unsure for his liking.

Lachlan paused by the coat stand, just in case he had to put his shoes and coat back on. “No. Why?”

“Oh, good. Um...I talked to Tyrone,” he revealed, easing his mind a little, as his voice became much firmer and more calm. Clearly he hadn't wanted Cormag to overhear him, just in case he went back into big brother mode again.

“Okay. So what happened?” he asked, heading into the bedroom. With one hand, Lachlan grabbed the two duffel bags out from under the bed and placed them on top of the duvet.

Monroe cleared his throat and sighed. “I told Tyrone that Cormag thought he was flirting with me and he didn't deny it. In fact, he said he was and asked if it made me uncomfortable. When I said no,” he said, rambling a little too fast, as though he was either panicked or excited, “he said that he couldn't help himself. Then he started saying all this nice stuff about me; how I'm smart and funny, attractive and how he can't stop thinking about me.”

Lachlan smiled as he began removing items from the wardrobe and laying them over the bed, in consideration for the cabin trip. He liked hearing the excitement that crept into Monroe's voice as he talked, as though all the things Tyrone had said or done today made him feel alive. “That's really great. It's hard to find a good man like that,” he admitted, knowing fine well that he was a lucky bastard for tripping over Cormag in the pub, that day. If he hadn't gone there, he wasn't sure how long it would have taken for them to actually meet, but he knew it would have happened. Destiny worked like that.

“He said he was fascinated by me, Lachlan,” Monroe revealed, with a light chuckle. “That he wants to get to know me and that my Aspergers and bipolar don't mean anything to him, other than that they make me unique and special, in more ways than just being different to other people.”

He stopped there, leaving a long, pregnant pause that Lachlan was uncertain about. Was he supposed to fill it? If so, with what? Approval? Support? Monroe knew he had both of them already. Was he asking for permission to go ahead and act on it? Because that would be awkward.

“You okay, kiddo?” he asked, worried that he'd missed something important.

With a deep breath, he said, “Lachlan, he asked if he had to stop showing his feelings for me and I said no. Well...that's not true. I didn't actually say anything. I...Lachlan, I kissed him!”

“What?” He laughed and gasped at the same time, ending in a brief coughing fit. Which only grew worse as he began to think of what Cormag would say about all of this. “That's...that's amazing!” he promised, once he finally got his breathing under control. “I'm so proud of you. Go you, for making the first move.”

“I know, right?” Monroe laughed with him, sounding so happy that it made Lachlan's cheeks ache with smiling for him. “I figured it was something you would do, so it would be okay. And, I think it was. Tyrone asked me to go to Dublin with him, in separate rooms, but to look at it as a sort of trial run for dating. We'll have to go for dinner and see the sights anyway, which is normal for business trips like this, where there will be a lot of free time in the evenings. But, since it's just the two of us, he's asked if it's okay to sort of practice date, during our trip,” he revealed, in a big long speech that warranted a gasping breath at the end of it. Then he kept going. “I said yes, because I really like him. He makes me smile and laugh; he never looks down on me and when I can't meet his eyes, he doesn't push it or get angry. Sometimes he smiles, as if I can't look at him because I want to and don't want him to know. And, I think maybe sometimes that's true.”

Lachlan took a slow breath and sat on the edge of the bed, abandoning his attempt at packing for a moment. “Monroe, stop and take a breath with me, before you hyperventilate,” he suggested, running through three long breaths with him, before he spoke again. “I am so happy for you. I know that you'd have said something to Cormag about dismissing Tyrone's flirting, when he mentioned it, if you weren't interested. So I'm really happy that you were strong enough to make the first move. That couldn't have been easy, knowing he's your boss.”

“Yeah.” Monroe's breath was a little shaky now, probably from the adrenaline rush of having acted so out of character. “But, I think it's okay. I mean, he's never treated me different all this time and he says that he's felt this way a long time. Maybe even since we met. So I don't think he'd change how we work together, if we did date,” he admitted, which was a relief.

“That's good to know.” And, though he didn't say it, would ease Cormag's mind a little. “I promise I'll work on your brother while we're away at the cabin. It will give him time to stew and calm down. You do know it's not that he doesn't trust you or want you to be happy, right? He's just being over-protective and is scared that you'll get hurt,” he mentioned, hoping Monroe understood that. Cormag would never try to ruin his happiness, on purpose or by accident.

“I know.”

There was a smile in his voice that convinced Lachlan, so he changed the subject. “So...first kiss. How was it?” he asked, since his own memories of his first kiss were abysmal. But that happened when a person tried to ignore their true feelings and attempted to fit a round peg into a square hole.

“I asked him if I did it right and he said it was perfect. He looked surprised, but I think it was good,” Monroe replied, clearly more concerned with how Tyrone had taken the kiss than his own thoughts. Which was just so like him that Lachlan wasn't even surprised.

He smiled to himself and rose from the bed to continue packing. “I'm glad to hear it. And you liked it?” he checked, hoping he hadn't just gone along with it, after knowing it wasn't something he liked.

“It was very nice,” he admitted shyly. “I'm just…it's a lot of new things at once. I want them, but it's a little scary. I really like him and I don't want to make a mistake.”

The confession wasn't a surprise. He'd once felt the same about Cormag, so all he could do was make a solemn promise, “You won't.”

“But what if I do?”

“Then he'll tell you it doesn't matter. Tyrone really likes you,” he swore, knowing that for a fact. Though, he had a sneaking suspicion that it had grown beyond 'like' if he was having a hard time hiding it.

“How can you tell?” he asked, sounding just scared enough to reveal how much that mattered to him.

Lachlan thought of how to phrase it, but decided just to come out with it. “Sweetie, if he didn't like you so much, you wouldn't even know he was flirting with you. It sounds like he's having a hard time hiding it from you, because he's felt this way for so long that he can't hide it. It's...it's like a heavy weight on top of you, when you feel that strongly for a person. And, eventually, you just have to share that weight, if you want to come out alive.”

God, how long had he felt like that? Far too long. His whole teenage life he'd been suffering a weight that didn't belong to him. It was the weight of faking being 'straight' and not really knowing what he truly was. The weight of pretending to be whole, while knowing there was a gaping hole inside of him.

Then, when Cormag came along, it was like that weight was lifted. It let him breathe for the first time. Let him know what it felt like to share something so intense with another person. But for a whole new reason.

Monroe sighed and whispered, “I think I'd like to share it.”

The sweet words made him smile. He knew how that felt, too.