Legend (MxM)

Chapter V

He got the point. "Oh! Yes, very jealous. I should take you right here in this lobby in front of everyone. Everyone will have to know you're mine."

I understood that Thom knew better. He was just distracting Ryker, which was working. Ryker did hold Thom a little closer. I also suspected that Thom was bracing himself for the inevitable cold and needed his human heater as close as possible.

We let Kyra and Mav lead the way for a bit. We found ourselves in some hole in the wall shops. There were travel mugs, anything that pertained to coffee was brought to Thom's attention. It was sort of like a scene out of a teen disney movie, but if the cast was older. No one tried anything on besides sunglasses. Thom might have stalled once or twice. I couldn't blame him. The winds were no joke out there.

It was probably after the 3rd shop (Thom and Kyra had both acquired a couple of shopping bags each so far) that I was able to walk beside Maverick. It was time to feed Kyra and Ryker. "They're very protective of you." Maverick said.

"I am, sort of sorry about that? I know they can come across as intense."

"Especially that Ryker fella, he hasn't taken his eyes off me the moment I came to walk beside you."

Right on cue, I turned and sure enough Ryker was almost glaring. Maverick wasn't worried though. He uh, I guess he looked really happy. I found myself smiling with him but it fell. I knew he was watching me.

"You know, there is sort of a reason for that." I started and started to second guess if I wanted to proceed or not. Maverick just kept looking at me with an expression of sympathy. Like he'd understand if I didn't want to. "You see, the last guy I dated turned out to be pretty horrible."

Maverick's eyes shifted away. I could see it on his face. He was drawing his own conclusions. Before he could start getting stormy, I continued.

"He was in the closet for starters. So that caused some issues. What made it hurt so much was that we dated over 7 years when he ghosted me." Maverick looked confused. "I know. That kind of had us all scratching our heads." The stormy expression appeared and I almost winced. "He cheated on me twice. I was willing to forgive and forget."

"What the fuck?"

"Exactly, but take that, he was in the closet. He was also kinda boring. Like trying to talk to him was like trying to pull out teeth. It got aggravating."

"That sounds like his problem and not yours."

"That's what everyone told me." I realized I was slowing down, which likely meant Ryker would be catching up. I turned, worried but I saw Thom had started leading Ryker across the street. If Ryker's head could do a perfect 360, it would have. There were almost daggers. Kyra had to run over and take his other arm. They quietly spirited him away.

I was trying to convey that Maverick was the reason behind my distress.

"I am sorry if this is still too hard for you to talk about you. You don't have to."

"Ah well, I figure if you're going to be my friend, friends do confide in each other. What was that saying? Worries shared are-"

"Worries halved." Maverick was shaking his head along. His expression was a few degrees warmer from before. There was also maybe a sort of sadness that hung in the air between us?

"Besides, as much as the situation sucked, it could have been so much worse."

"Yeah, you could've still been with the jerk." I heard him mutter but pretended not to hear it. He noticed his slip and glanced over at me. "Sorry."

"Nah. You're actually pretty spot on. Where are we going again?" I started to look for my friends.

"The Firm, I think? I heard Thom casually bring it up at least 5 times so far."