Acceptance | Gay MxM |

39. Getting Nowhere

Maybe next time he would do something to himself...

I had to look away, but I still held his hand. I should've let go of it... This was how I kept endangering his life.

"You know what?" he spoke, and I snapped my head in his direction. "I like Vaughn."

"Huh?"

"Yeah... I mean, I don't really want to even think about what happened, but the idea of talking about it with him feels... I don't know... Safe?"

"That's good," I said with a smile. "You trust him."

"Yeah. Like I trust you."

I smiled wider, even though the little voice at the back of my head kept saying he shouldn't trust me at all. I was selfishly still holding his hand, after all.

I really needed to talk to Vaughn as well.

"You know who I also like?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"You," he said.

I laughed lightly and looked down at our hands.

"Is this all right?" I asked. "Holding your hand?"

"Yeah. I like that."

I took a really good look at him. He did seem fine, but...

"But is it making you uncomfortable?"

"We've already kissed several times. Holding hands is fine," he said, clearly trying to joke around a bit, but I couldn't force a laugh out of myself.

"But you ran..." I whispered, ruining his attempt to bring up the mood.

"That had nothing to do with you," he said sternly. "You did nothing wrong."

"But you–"

"I ran because of my father. Not because of you. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to be held by you and I want... Whatever more there is to do in a relationship. But he keeps ruining it for me."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to take his words as reassurance, as proof that I wasn't doing anything wrong, but that made me feel even worse about myself.

"Cole?"

My name on his lips... It distracted me, but the guilt returned.

"If you do something to yourself, it means I pushed you to do it," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "He may have started it, but it will be my fault if you–"

"Please, don't do that," he begged, sounding almost frustrated. "You're the reason I've gotten this far. You're the reason why I want to fight him. It hurts when you blame yourself for things that were out of your control. They were out of your control, and out of mine. So please, stop blaming yourself."

"You could've ended up dead," I said. "And I'm supposed to keep you safe."

He stared at me for a brief second, then looked away. "I never should've run... I hate what it did to you..."

"It's not your fault."

"It's not yours either."

We were getting nowhere...

"Cole..."

"Yes?"

"Stop blaming yourself. That's not what I need from you," he spoke almost silently.

"What do you need?" I asked just as quietly.

"I need your support, but right now I feel like I never should've set foot in your bar. Your life would be so much better without me in it."

"That's not true!" I hurried to say. "You know how much I l-l... how much I like you."

A small smile formed on his lips. "Then you know how I feel about you," he said.

I stopped to stare at him. I wanted so badly to be happy about his words, but...

"We'll talk to Vaughn, okay? He knows how to help us. He knows how we can be safer from now on," I said.

"I'm sure he does," he said softly, squeezing my hand. "I'm so sorry I ran off. I'm so sorry I scared you."

I shook my head. "You don't have anything to–"

"Neither do you," he said sternly, without letting me finish. "What happened was out of our control."

It shouldn't have been out of my control, but I decided not to argue back. He was fine. He didn't get hurt. He came back without a scratch. But I had to learn how to be more careful, though I trusted Vaughn could help us with that.

"I try to believe that," I said quietly. "Since you are the most important thing to me, and I can't stand the idea of you getting hurt. Especially because of me."

"I'm getting better. My father... I'm doing everything I can so he can't control me anymore. I'm done running. I'm done hiding. I'm done missing out on things like this," he spoke, looking at our joined hands.

I wanted so badly to bring his hand on my lips, but I was too scared to do so.

So... When he suddenly lifted my hand up and pressed his lips on my fingers, I froze and forgot about everything else.

And I smiled.

"We'll talk to Vaughn together tomorrow," he said.

"Okay," was all I could say in my happy state of mind.