Escort || manxman

Part 12

He'd turned toward the bed then, where the sight of the tangled, empty mess of his sheets had accentuated the absence of another person lying there, as if their earlier presence had left an imprint that couldn't be erased even after it was gone.

What was missing was Alex.

Adam gasped around the sudden intense longing that bloomed in his chest. Alex should be there, resting in Adam's bed, smiling lazily and blinking sleepy yet bright eyes at him as his languid body reached out for Adam to come back and join him, to come rest with him in a tangle of limbs and slow, steady breathing.

Slowly moving forward, Adam had turned to slump onto the edge of the mattress, letting his head fall into his hands as the room spun, cradling the soft cotton of the t-shirt against the side of his face. His ears had been ringing when a thought suddenly dawned on him and his heart had skipped a beat when he found an explanation for the yearning he felt. It had hit him with the unexpectedness and force of an avalanche going off in his mind, dumping him in shocking sobriety.

Without meaning to or even being aware of it happening, Adam had let himself do the last thing a person with his occupation should ever do – fall in love.

The realization had left him breathless and desperately scouring his memories in search of the moment when he'd let things get to this, when he'd allowed Alex too close to his heart. But it was a futile search because there was no one moment; it had happened slowly, over time, carefully etching itself into Adam's subconscious, until its presence had grown too large and too bold for it to go unnoticed anymore.

Adam had slowly realized that all the signs had been there. The way his chest squeezed when Alex had told him over the phone that nothing compared to the feel of him.

The way his own body had felt like it was filled with scorching lava at the jealousy he felt when Alex responded to the attention of another man.

The way his heart filled and grew by increments every time Alex shook with pleasure in Adam's arms. The signs had all been there; he'd just been too blind to see them.

And so there Adam was, in the aftermath of his elevated awareness, not knowing what to do. He was lost. He let himself blindly spiral off into a whirlpool of unwanted emotions and he was utterly and completely lost. The swirling force had him in its grip; he was in too deep and there was no way he'd make it out unharmed now that he knew that his heart had given itself over to Alex freely yet still without his knowledge.

Hence the state he was currently in, looking like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a week - which wasn't far from the truth at all. Adam felt like he was straying off course and fumbling blindly in the dark. During years of dealing with matters of the body, he'd fiercely avoided having to deal with matters of the heart. It scared him. Where did this leave him?

Where did it leave them?

Adam turned off the hair dryer and reached for his styling paste, scooping some of the sticky substance onto his fingertips and rubbing it between his palms before beginning to run his hands through his hair.

He had no idea what to do from here on out. Everything would be different now. Adam knew that he wasn't a good enough actor to pull off trying to hide his newly acquired understanding from Alex. If he tried, he suspected that Alex would be able to see right through him, glean that something was up, and probably ask all kinds of uncomfortable questions about it. Questions that Adam wasn't willing to answer.

And that was the reason Adam had stayed away from any attempt at contact in the past week. Because he wasn't sure that he would be able to keep from accidently revealing how he felt. He had, after all, no idea how Alex would react if he knew.