About thirty seconds into the ride up, there was an abrupt jerk and the elevator stopped suddenly, the lights flickering, then going out before some sort of backup light clicked on. My mother had let out a panicked gasp. I thought nothing of it, moving to the buttons, wondering whether or not it would start if I simply pressed the one for our floor again. It didn’t. I punched it several more times with the same result. Nothing.
Jamie had fallen asleep on my shoulder at that point, clinging to my neck, her body—warm with fever—making me sweat. Still, I remained calm, trying to figure out how to fix the situation. My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t faring so well. I looked over to see her pressed up against one of the walls, her fingers curled around the thin metal bar behind her. When she started gasping for breath, I knew something was wrong.
“Distract me, baby,” she had pleaded. “Please, Zeke.”
To this day, I could still hear the terror in her usually sweet tone.
Not sure what she wanted me to do, I had walked over and stood in front of her. “Count backwards from ten, Momma.”
She had. Twice.
“Now the alphabet,” I had suggested. “Starting with J.”
That had been one of the toughest days in my childhood. Watching my mother, the fear in her eyes, her voice trembling. A man’s voice had come over the speaker advising they were aware of the issue and looking into it immediately. I’d wanted to tell him to hurry, but I knew to remain calm.
Someone had to.
Luckily, the elevator had kicked a few minutes later, then began its ascent to the higher floors. A short time later, my mother was stumbling out of the elevator, her face pale, hands trembling. It had taken another fifteen minutes before she was able to breathe regularly and the tremors in her fingers stopped.
From that day forward, my mother never took an elevator again.
Seeing the pretty boy’s face as he stumbled along behind the cowboy had stirred something inside me. A strange urge to protect him from whatever had put that terror-filled look in his eyes. At the same time, I wondered how he would fare in the cage beneath my bed. I’d purchased it with the intention of utilizing the confinement but hadn’t yet had the chance. However, in recent days, I’d entertained the notion of putting the pretty boy and the cowboy in there, keeping them safe while I slept.
Now, as we strolled into the dog park—the same one Tank and I had left only a few minutes earlier—I wondered why the fuck I’d bothered to get involved. This wasn’t like me. I wasn’t prone to worrying about anyone who wasn’t Jamie.
Good news was the pretty boy was getting some of his color back. Now that he was sitting, I didn’t have to worry that he would fall over.
“You stay there,” I told him. “Tank, looks like it’s your lucky day. Let’s play ball.”
That word ball had Tank’s ears perking up.
As I strolled across the park, I didn’t look back, refused to be concerned for the pretty boy. He wasn’t my problem. The last thing I needed to do was concern myself with his well-being. It would ruin everything. No way could I play with those boys if they thought I gave a shit about them. That was only asking for trouble. I’d been down that road before. Submissives who thought I was denying my feelings when, in actuality, I didn’t have any. Not for them.
However, I still had an overwhelming urge to give them exactly what they needed. Something they were missing from the sweet little love fest they’d built for themselves.
Now, I simply needed to figure out whether or not I could get in that pretty boy’s head and chase out all those nonexistent demons so I could fill the space with only one demon.
Me.
*
Brax
(The cowboy)
AFTER ORDERING A LARGE BLACK coffee and a bottle of water, I headed in the direction Zeke had told me to go. It took a little longer than it should have because, while I dodged the people walking toward me, I was busy searching my phone for potential rentals in the area. A house, to be specific.
Ever since Case learned we would be staying in an apartment once we moved here, he’d been giving me shit. Since he gave me shit about a lot of things, I hadn’t put any stock in it. I thought it was his way of bitching and moaning just to get a rise out of me. He was good at that.
I honestly thought he would get used to living in the same building where he would be working. Convenience was a big thing for Case. That was one of the reasons we’d lived relatively close to Trent Ramsey’s Dallas home. Most of our time had been spent there unless Trent was traveling. At that point, Trent generally had a place for us. If not, hotels were the norm, and Case was usually the one who picked those out. Like I’d said, Case was the diva in our relationship, yet it worked for us.
