Chapter Twenty-Two

 

Finnley

 

It was dark when I woke. Aven was asleep beside me with his arm draped across my chest as though even in sleep he knew I would try to escape. It was a sound assessment considering I rarely, if ever, made it until morning beside him.

I shimmied out of his hold and sat on the edge of the bed, a pleasant ache reminding me of just how sneaky my damn boyfriend was. It wasn’t the first time he’d lulled me into a dream world by fucking me until I was too exhausted to fight sleep any longer. I couldn’t complain about his methods.

I was at the end of my rope the previous night. Since leaving his house, my routine had slipped through my fingers, and I’d lost the minimal progress I’d made. Which was kind of a joke, because my lack of progress was why I’d left in the first place.

Except, I had made progress, I just hadn’t realized it until I once again fell back into the same habits I was working so hard to extinguish. At Aven’s, I was more compelled to follow doctor’s orders. Aven’s presence at night kept the darkness of my mind at bay and allowed me to take those tiny steps forward.

At home, the loneliness was suffocating, and my mind was relentless.

I crept out of bed, found my discarded joggers, and headed down the hall. The apartment was dark, so I clicked on a table lamp in the living room which illuminated the vast majority of the kitchen as well.

When the light extinguished the dark, my gaze flew about the two rooms, scanning the clean surfaces, bare of all the clutter that had been screaming my problems to the world.

Aven. He’d seen my decline and cleaned up after me. His actions stabbed painfully into my heart. It wasn’t fair that he dealt with my shit constantly.

When I’d gotten up, my initial inclination had been to make a coffee, but with Aven’s radical clean-up and knowing he was in my bed, I didn’t. There was no sleepy haze pressing in on me at the moment, so the need was strictly impulsive and one I could deny.

The doctor was right about a lot of things. I relied too heavily on caffeine and pills to keep me awake. I used Friends as a crutch. I’d been traumatized as a child and misguided about death—even though I understood the reality as an adult. I was forced into a job I didn’t like nor want. And, I was the only one who could make the changes to get better—and I hadn’t, because I still refused to take meds or stick to a routine.

But, she was wrong about one thing. Being home wasn’t better. Not once had Aven made me feel like a guest at his house. It had nothing to do with being relaxed enough to make a routine work. I was more at home with him than I was in the place where I grew up. The obstacles I faced at Aven’s were the same ones I faced at home. Except at home, I lacked any support, and it was too easy to fall off track.

I sunk onto the couch and reached for the remote but paused. It was the middle of the night. No television after eleven. Covering my face with my hands, I sighed. My fleece blanket had been folded at the end of the couch, so I pulled it around my shoulders and stared at the blank TV screen.

I should go back to bed, but I couldn’t make my body follow through. Squeezing my eyes closed, I took a few deep breaths and told myself to stand up and just walk down the hall and lay beside Aven. It wasn’t hard. It was a short walk, and I could curl up in his arms and enjoy his comfort.

But the panic will follow me.

My mouth went dry, and my eyes filled when I couldn’t summon the courage to do it. It seemed impossible to believe I could ever get better. Imagining that one day I would simply head to bed like a normal person and sleep the night through was a pipedream.

I forced my mind back to the handful of therapy sessions I’d had and tried to recall everything the doctor had preached. She’d suggested narrowing down my thoughts and trying to examine exactly what it was that made me feel afraid. Write them down, she’d said. Make a journal. Keep a rigid routine.

Take the anxiety meds.

I sighed and laid my head against the back of the couch, examining the ceiling. “Take the fucking pills. Yeah, I know.”

They wouldn’t make me sleepy. I knew that, but I couldn’t sort out why it was so difficult to just do what I needed to do.

A shuffling made me lift my head and open my eyes. Aven appeared in the hallway, hair tousled, wearing nothing more than a pair of briefs.

“Hey,” he said, voice gruff as he came and flopped on the couch beside me. He rested his hand on my knee and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “You okay?”

“No,” I said with defeat. “I’m far from okay.”

He stretched his arm across my shoulders and tugged me against his side. “You’ll get there.” He nuzzled his nose against the hair at my temple and sighed a sleep-heavy sigh. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long. A half hour maybe.”

“What time is it?”

Aven yawned and curled against my side, looking like he was determined to just get comfortable beside me and pass out.

“Just after two.”

“You slept eight hours, baby. That’s good. You crashed really early.”

“I think I was tricked. Someone fucked me into a coma.”

He chuckled as he rose his head, his dark eyes gleaming with love. “Guilty, but it worked.” He nudged my side. “Lay down so we can snuggle.”

“I’m not supposed to be out of bed. Doctor’s orders. No couch after eleven.” I indicated to the dark TV. “And no Friends.”

He pulled me down regardless, and I didn’t put up a fight, finding a comfortable spot in his arms, his warm body wrapped around me.

“You’ve struggled with those rules. I know you have.”

“Every damn day.”

“You’ll get there. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

I feathered kisses along his shoulder and breathed him in. “I did better when I was with you every night,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. “She was wrong. Being here… alone… it’s not easier… it’s harder. I’ve failed miserably.”

He clung tighter and turned his head to join our mouths. We kissed lazily for a minute before he pulled away, his soft smile shining in the dim light of the room.

“Move in with me, Finn. I know three months seems soon, but you belong with me. We belong together.”

My heart fluttered as I pulled back to examine the honesty in his eyes. “Are you serious?” I could see he was. “Don’t I make you crazy?”

“Not even a little. I never wanted you to leave. It broke my heart when you went home. I loved having you there every day. I loved cooking for you, even though you’re a bitch to cook for. I loved cleaning up after you, because let’s face it, you’re kind of a slob. But most of all, I loved having you in my bed every night.”

I smirked with a cocked brow. “I think you are confusing me with your other boyfriend. I’m rarely in your bed at night. When I’m there, you sleep alone most of the time.”

He chuckled and yanked me closer until our mostly naked bodies were crushed together under the blanket.

“Well then, I want you warming my couch until you can take those steps forward.”

“You’re really serious?”

“I love you, Finn. Move in with me.”

“I… But what do I do with this place? Who’s going to rent an apartment above a funeral home?”

“We’ll sort that out. Just say yes.”

I threaded my fingers through his dark hair as I took in the unmistakable love radiating off him. “Yes. Yes, I’ll move in with you.”

Our lips came together in a suffocating kiss. Aven rolled me until I was under him and his long body was wrapped all around. He nipped and sucked at my mouth hungrily as his hands found their way under the covers and relieved me of my joggers.

 “I’m beginning to think sex is just a ploy to make me sleepy. I’m on to you, Mr. Woods.”

He chuckled into our kiss and rolled his hips, pressing his straining erection, the one still contained under his briefs, against my own.

“You are really sleep deprived, and I’ll take one for the team every night if I must.”

We laughed and kissed as he continued to brush his hard length against my own.

“I thought there was no fucking on the couch,” I said on a moan as he rocked our bodies together again.

“Who made that rule?” Aven rid himself of his underwear and the next time he thrust against me, it was a thousand times more sensitive, and I gasped.

“You did.” I gripped his ass and rocked up to meet each movement.

“Ah…” He kissed me deeper and explored my mouth with his tongue. “You shouldn’t listen to me. I’m no doctor. I have no idea what I’m talking about.”

The next few glides together were lubricated with pre-cum, and Aven sucked in a breath, held it and let it out on a moan as his eyes fluttered shut.

“Finn…”

I hooked my legs over his lower back and angled my hips to give him access. He broke our kiss and spit into his hand, coating himself before pressing inside, slowly and cautiously, always on alert to ensure he was being gentle enough.

We’d had sex earlier, and my body accepted him with ease. When he bottomed out, he held himself there, looking down at me in awe.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.”

At that moment we simply absorbed one another and shared the silent connection without moving and without any more words.

When Aven moved, he dropped his head to my shoulder and clung to me, rotating his hips, and thrusting in a slow, controlled manner. He planted kisses on my shoulder, moved to my neck, and nibbled the tender skin.

It was a moment I never wanted to end. He rocked into me over and over as he sucked marks into my flesh. When our lips came together, I kissed him with a hunger I couldn’t satiate.

Aven broke the kiss first, his pupils blown as he stared down at me, tiny beads of sweat forming at his temples.

“I’m not gonna last.”

When I reached between us and started stroking myself, he hooked my legs over his arms, and his thrusts became more determined. Each strike hit my prostate until I was blubbering words that made no sense. Aven’s brow pinched with his impending orgasm.

I fell over the edge first, my entire body tensing as the waves of pleasure took over. Even at the peak of orgasm, I felt the moment Aven came. His fingers dug into my sides, and he held himself as deep as he could inside my body, his warmth filling me without a barrier.

In the next moment, he collapsed beside me, gasping and unable to catch his breath. He reached for a box of tissues on the coffee table and cleaned us up. I curled against him and kissed him as I ran my fingers over his sweat-dampened skin.

“Love you so much,” I mumbled into our kiss. “So, so much.”

The heavy sedation brought on by the force of the orgasm made it easy to rest against Aven and close my eyes. I was still floating in euphoria and too consumed with Aven’s love to remember to fear sleep.

It was only as I drifted off unaware that I heard his tender words whispered in my ear. “Sweet dreams, sleepy owl.”

 

* * *

 

I moved all my necessities into Aven’s house the following week. For as natural as it was to share space with Aven, it wasn’t without obstacles. But they were obstacles of my own creation. It took time to return to a moderate level of routine, but he was always supportive and didn’t show annoyance at my failures.

After another two weeks of stubbornness, I started taking the anxiety meds and also invited Aven to join me at sessions with Dr. Kelby when he was available. Allowing him to listen in about my past was difficult, but again, he never showed anything but support.

Summer slowly came to an end. It was a week before his sister’s wedding when I expressed my concern about sleeping in a hotel room while we were away.

“What if everything goes to shit and I slip backward because I’m tampering with my routine?” I asked as I snuggled against Aven’s side.

We’d just made love, and although I wasn’t tired yet, it was after eleven, and I’d been trying hard to be strict with my doctor’s orders—which meant staying in bed and handling any rising panic as it came, not avoiding it. It was the newest step I’d taken in my healing, and the hardest one to abide by. Instead of running from the panic, I was learning to confront it head-on. The pills dampened the intensity of attacks but didn’t take them away fully.

“We’ll worry about it if it’s a problem. No sense getting all twisted up about it now. You might be okay.”

“Okay.”

We fell silent, but I knew Aven was still awake because his hand ran a continuous motion up and down my thigh which was draped over his nakedness. It helped knowing he was awake. For whatever reason, being securely held in his arms helped me manage the straying thoughts that often sent me over the edge. I could focus on Aven, being with him, touching him, remembering the closeness we’d just shared without having to look directly at the impending night.

When his hand stilled twenty or so minutes later, and his breathing changed, I knew he’d fallen asleep. My heart jolted, and I couldn’t help squirming closer and holding him tighter. The longer I lay in bed, the more I felt the pull toward sleep. Even with the anxiety meds, the erratic heart rate and tingling across my skin never quite ceased. It was an ongoing battle I fought nightly.

What the doctor and I had learned was that my thoughts generally were the culprit for my slip into panic attacks and subsequent trips to the couch to hold sleep at bay for as long as possible. If I could handle them, channel them elsewhere if possible, I did much better. Talking about my past, getting it out in the open, removed the power it held over me. Often, once I said it aloud, the fear wasn’t as consuming.

As Aven slept in my arms, I pushed my mind toward other things. He’d been nervous about attending his sister’s wedding. Exposing me to his judgmental family was causing him a lot of stress, but I’d assured him, I couldn’t be rattled. My own father hadn’t exactly been loving and supportive of my choices. Sometimes, I thought he saw me as soft because I was gay. It had often made me wonder if that was the root cause of him pushing me my entire adult life. If he could toughen me up, maybe I wouldn’t be gay anymore.

My mind inadvertently drifted back to the day he’d died and the conversation we’d had in his hospital room. Each word rang through my mind like it was only yesterday that I’d heard them. The memories of his cold demands. My pleading request that he not make me follow through. The tears I knew I couldn’t let him see for fear of being called weak.

Then, the days that had followed.

Cold fear coated my skin and spiked my heart rate. Panic leaked in around the edges, and I gasped air through my tightly constricting throat.

Fuck…Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I dislodged from Aven as carefully as I could and shot out of bed with a desperate need to move. Run. Flee. I clutched my hair as I stood in the middle of our dark bedroom and spun, as I tried to force the panic back down. I blew out even breaths and closed my eyes, willing my heart to calm.

When the fear of a full-blown panic attack subsided, I considered leaving Aven to sleep and relocating to the living room. The draw was strong, especially since crawling back into bed was an impossibility at that moment.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head, knowing I had to fight it. Dr. Kelby and I had talked about nighttime attacks and how I could try and manage them since the world was asleep and I had no one to talk with. So, I fought against instinct and sat down on the edge of the bed again. In the bedside table, I’d placed a notebook and pen for exactly those occasions, but I had yet to take the doctor’s advice.

I hesitated to flick on the bedside lamp, even though it was extremely low wattage, because I didn’t want to disturb Aven. He’d told me it was fine when the doctor had suggested it and assured me he probably wouldn’t notice. The idea was, I wasn’t supposed to leave the bedroom, and I was supposed to write down what I was thinking or seeing that was causing my sudden panic.

I clicked on the light and peered over my shoulder at Aven. He slept on without flinching, so I turned my attention back to the book in my lap. Frowning, I stared at the blank page and considered what to write. What had thrown me into a near panic?

I bit my lower lip and twisted the pen in my fingers. It was the one huge incident I hadn’t discussed with Dr. Kelby yet. It had crippled me too many times to ignore, but I didn’t know how to express that one particular memory.

She wouldn’t ask to see my journal, so I knew whatever I wrote was for my eyes only, but it didn’t make it easier. I knew—my mind knew—what had happened when my father died needed to be let out. Bottling it up would only hamper my healing. We’d already determined my father and childhood played a large part in my problems, so why couldn’t I get this one thing off my chest? Why hadn’t I told her?

A hand smoothed up my spine and made me jump. I darted my gaze over my shoulder as Aven yawned and scooted closer, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my bare shoulder.

“Owl’s not sleeping?”

I leaned against his hold and chuckled. “Have I ever told you it’s weird hearing you call me that?”

He traced his nose along my neck, inhaling deeply and sighed. “It’s fitting, and you hate it when I call you baby.”

“Hasn’t stopped you.”

“Can’t help it.” He rubbed his hands up and down my arms as he planted more kisses over my skin. “What’s got you up and journaling?”

I held the book up, showing him the empty page. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing if you pulled it out.”

“Just don’t know how to write what’s in my head.”

Aven tilted my face to the side and kissed my mouth solidly before pulling back and searching my face. Sleep still clung to him, and his dark eyes were only half-open.

“Do you want to talk about it instead?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, no, but I bit back the words and pressed my lips together into a tight line. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It’s not exactly pleasant.”

Aven removed the book from my hand and placed it on the side table. He leaned back against the headboard and encouraged me to join him. I rested against his side and found his hand, linking our fingers together.

“I’m here for you, you know. Pleasant or not. Good and bad. Don’t do this alone, Finn.”

I wet my lips and looked down at our joined hands, trying to figure out how to begin. Closing my eyes, my father’s stern face looked back at me.

“He made me prepare his body for his funeral.”

Aven drew in a breath and held it as he asked, “Who?”

“My father.”

He ducked his head to look me in the eye. His brow was pinched, and the disbelief in his eyes shone through. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I knew long before he died that it would be expected of me. I knew when my mother passed, he took responsibility for her. I’d been informed it was my obligation. His last day in the hospital, he ensured to remind me. I… I knew he saw me as weak. He made a point all my life to try and make me strong, but it never worked.

“When he was dying and reminding me what was expected of me, I… I broke down and asked him not to make me do that. I told him I couldn’t. He didn’t care. Then… then he told me it was time for me to go, because… because it was time for him to sleep.”

Aven’s arm squeezed me tighter. There were no tears as I shared, only an impenetrable numbness I couldn’t shake.

“When I had to follow through. In the basement... I tried to be as emotionless as he always seemed. Worked hard to be detached and closed-off to the shitstorm brewing in my mind, but…” I shook my head. “I couldn’t,” I whispered.

Aven kissed my temple when I stopped talking and encouraged me onward. “What happened, baby?”

Baby. He really couldn’t help it. The moment I was breaking down or suffering at all, it spilled from his mouth automatically. Maybe I didn’t hate it as much as I let on.

I sighed and drew up the horrors of that day. “I lost it. It didn’t initially start off as a panic attack, but more a fit of rage. I was so fucking mad at him for making me be there and do that. I… I started yelling at him, cursing him, telling him I hated him for making me who I was. I screamed until my throat was raw, then, I trashed the room, and when that didn’t help…” I paused and swallowed the lump climbing up my throat. “I… I went after him.”

The vision behind my eyes was too much, and the tears that had been absent surfaced. “I shook him and told him to wake the fuck up because I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t the strong one, and he knew it. I beat on his chest and told him… begged him not to abandon me.”

“Wake the fuck up, you asshole. Wake up because I don’t want your fucking job.”

My own words from not too long ago rang in my ears and brought more tears to the surface.

“I attacked my dead father and screamed at him until I was hoarse and collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. Then, I was hit with a full-blown panic attack. Margret found me there hours later curled in a ball and unable to do anything more than cry. She called Gus. He took me home because I hadn’t moved into the apartment yet. Margret… she did what I couldn’t do. She took care of my dad, even though it went against his wishes… because… I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

 Aven pulled me onto his lap as the floodgates opened. I straddled him and buried my face in the crook of his neck, hating the emotional wreck I always seemed to be.

“Baby, I don’t even know what to say to that.” His words ghosted across my ear as he embraced me. “I don’t want to talk bad about your dad, but what he asked you to do… it’s not right. Finn, I can’t imagine.”

“I failed him.”

“No.” Aven lifted my head and brushed a thumb over my tear stained cheek. “You just aren’t that person, Finn. Your dad had the personality to handle that job. He could detach himself and seemed to have a much more solid acceptance of death than most people. Most people couldn’t do what you do, Finn, never mind it involving a loved one. It doesn’t make you soft or weak. It means you have a heart.”

He kissed me and rested our foreheads together. “I don’t think your dad even had a clue the kind of damage he was causing you.”

“He didn’t really know how to be a parent.”

I folded myself back into Aven’s arms and lay cradled to his chest for a long time.

“Have you considered walking away from it? Selling and maybe doing something different with your life?” Aven asked as he played with the ends of my hair.

“It’s a family business.” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I could do it. It’s supposed to be passed along through the generations, you know? I don’t know if I could live with myself if I handed off everything my grandfather built.”

“What about hiring more staff and taking on more of a management role. Maybe not handling everything so directly? The apartment is still empty. It might be something to consider. Bring someone in who is willing to work beside Margret on the stuff you really don’t want to do and take a step back.”

I hadn’t considered that. In fact, when I thought about the family business and what would happen to it after I was ready to retire, a knot formed in my gut. It was always something that made my father’s nose curl. In his mind, my being gay meant he couldn’t have grandchildren. Seeing as we never discussed my sexuality openly, there was no point in explaining that in our day in age, gay men had and raised children all the time.

I frowned as my mind drifted down that road. If the family business was going to end with me anyhow, if my retirement in the future meant selling, what difference did it make? Aven and I were still fresh and new. Marriage and children weren’t exactly something we were ready to discuss. But, if that was where we headed someday, I knew in my heart I would want to have a family with him.

With my mind wandering down those forbidden paths of marriage, children, and a future with Aven, I drifted off to sleep, encased in his loving embrace.