Coffee, Brownies and the Ruthless CEO (MxM)| FILLING THE VOID series, BOOK 1

47. Chapter - Stability

OLIVER's POV

I was walking from side to side in Kyle's kitchen, nervous and stressed at the same time. Matty was sitting at the table and eating a sandwich I prepared from the little I found in Kyle's fridge, and Joshua was by his side, watching me with worries written all over his face.

It had been a few days since all the hell broke out, and I still couldn't get used to it. Whenever I went out, people were looking at me. Some of our regular customers stopped coming, and for each, another dozen started to come by to see the miraculous guy who gave birth to McNemara's child. It was insane.

The impact this whole mess had on Matt was a different kind of a problem. Nothing big happened, not really. But he knew something changed. Who wouldn't, when you were constantly followed and bothered by hungry journalists? He was asking nonstop why the strange people were following us all the time, why daddy was on TV and in magazines, and why were they taking photos of us every time we got out. And even though he was a smart child, he didn't understand the situation at all. I tried to explain it to him more than once, but he was still too little to know what business and being famous meant.

We were lucky nothing really bad had happened yet, but I was scared shitless for the moment it would.

"Calm down, Ollie. It's going to be okay," Josh said, giving me a crooked smile.

His face was strained and darkened as much as mine. The situation was hard for him too, maybe even harder than for me, considering he was the extra-in-between me, Victor and Matty, right now. Some spineless assholes didn't mind to go so far as to stalk him to his workplace, bother his coworkers and then, as if it wasn't enough, write some shitty article about him being a homewrecker and man-whore who stole the big bad Victor McNemara his man and son. It was disgusting.

With that, and his boss not happy with paparazzi all around their workplace, he had about enough of everything. We even fought two days ago, and I hated the fact it was happening to us. I knew there was no such thing as a perfect relationship without any conflict and arguments, but I hated we were fighting because of this. I wouldn't mind if it was something like a color of the carpet, or me looking at another guy and admiring his nice ass. Just let it be something normal, not this insane situation.

I was about to reply and tell him I would calm down after all of this was over when the doorbell rang. I spun around, staring into the hallway with a dread creeping up my back. In the past few days, I had to think about Victor more than I ever did in all of the five years we hadn't seen each other. It was terrifying and freeing at the same time, and knowing today might be the day our relationship would get resolved was, to say the least, weird.

"Go get it." Josh stood up, walking over to me and giving my forehead a passing kiss.

"I'll be in Kyle's bedroom if it's not too messy." He chuckled, ruffling my hair, winking at Matty and leaving us there all alone, in front of one of the hardest situations in my life.

Breathing in and out for a few seconds, the bell ringing once again, I went to the main door and opened it. Victor was standing there, stepping from one foot to another, looking extremely out of place.

"Hi," I said, opening the door more widely so he could get in. It was weird, having him over in Kyle's place like this. It was part of my private life, life Victor didn't share with me. Inviting him in was like inviting him into my life, and that made me scared shitless. But it had to be done.

"Hi, Oliver." He smiled, coming inside and – to my utter surprise – stopping and looking around the entrance hall. When he noticed all the shoes there, he took his off as well and continued towards the kitchen. Any other time, he would have continued without even thinking about whether the people living there walked around in shoes or not, but he was actually considerate enough to check and follow. He was either still trying to impress me, for whatever reason, or he really changed in the past five years. I wasn't sure which option was scarier.