set on stage, so he probably did have hearing issues.
“Raf,” he said, sounding less than enthused by my sudden appearance. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I answered, confused by the question. “Something has to be wrong for me to talk to you?”
“Of course not,” he mumbled, his arms folded tightly over his chest. His wool coat was more than thick enough to fight the mild chill in the air, so I knew it was a protective gesture, which was just more confirmation I had fucked up. “What did you want to talk about?”
I hesitated, since my original plan of asking him if he wanted to go back to the apartment and enjoy the fact that we had the place to ourselves didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Are you okay?” I asked instead. “You’ve seemed a little off all night.”
That wasn’t true, really. He’d seemed perfectly fine at the ceremony, and when he was talking to the other guests. It was just me he was being weird around.
“I’m fine,” he said in a tone that made it clear he was anything but. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
“I’ll walk you back,” I said eagerly. “Or we could call a car.”
His hesitation gave me pause. If he was tired, the only place he would be going was back to the apartment, which meant he just didn’t want to go back with me.
“Chaz…” I studied his face, trying to make sense of the guarded expression on features I was used to seeing in every arrangement of pleasure, or at least contentment. Granted, I hadn’t been active in that department lately either. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve had my head up my ass lately, and I’ve been neglecting you. You have every right to be upset.”
His brows knit in confusion, throwing my perspective into doubt once more. “What? No. That’s not it. And there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, too, but I don’t think it’s...” He trailed off, and the few moments of silence that followed were the longest of my life. “It’s fine. I know tonight was hard for you, and I don’t expect anything from you.”
“It wasn’t,” I admitted, surprised we were actually speaking about it candidly while we were both stone cold sober, since it usually took a few bottles of wine to get to that point. “And you should. I’ve been a shitty friend, and a worse dom. I promise, I’m going to make it up to you if you just give me the chance.”
I only realized I had expected him to take me up on it and forgive me like he always did when I got a different answer: more silence.
Okay. If he wasn’t going to talk, he was just going to have to listen. I took him by the shoulders, holding him firmly. If he wanted to tell me to go to hell once I’d said my piece, I’d give him the space he wanted, but I couldn’t let another minute pass by without getting the words out.
“I love you, Chaz.”
We both froze, because those definitely weren’t the words I’d planned to say. They just came out, and while I hadn’t actually put those feelings into such a solid form yet, even in my own head, they rang with truth.
Oh, well. Might as well lay it all on the table now.
“I’m sorry for telling you like this, and I’m sorry it took me this long to figure out, but it’s the truth,” I continued while his stunned silence at least guaranteed me a captive audience. “I love you, and I want to be more than friends. More than dom and sub. I want you to be mine in every way, and mine only. Our past means everything to me, but I want us to have a future, too. Whatever it takes for you to trust me again...I’ll do it.”
He didn’t answer at first, just stared at me with disbelief in his gaze alongside something else that resembled regret too closely for comfort. “Raf...I don’t know what to say.”
Ah. So I did have expectations that he’d just fall into my arms and profess his love for me in turn. The night was just full of revelations, and I really fucking needed to stop thinking I knew what was going to happen, because it was pretty fucking obvious I didn’t have a clue what was going on in the world around me.
Especially with him.
“That’s cool,” I said, clearing my throat. “You don’t need to say anything, I