Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,4

might make some things bearable.

They will meet here, at Quatre. Or at Luciano’s. They will sit, he’ll drink, Avery will talk. He hasn’t heard it much, but in the short time Alejandro has been around the younger man, Avery’s voice quieted the storm raging in his head. Their initial meeting to sign the contract lasted only half an hour, but he’d gone home that night and things felt softer. He slept soundly for several hours, and it was the first time he’s felt rested in years.

The reality is that he’s a boiler and Avery may be his vent. It’s probably wrong—it’s almost cruel, but Alejandro has long-since stopped pretending like he’s a good man. He’s barely a man at all. He has a beating heart that, in spite of its pain, continues to supply him with life. His organs function, and his limbs are controlled. He speaks in meetings and when his parents ring him and when his brother drops by his office, and when his sister visits. He says hello to the receptionists, and he answers the questions interns come to him with.

But he wants to let his words die when Avery sits across from him. He wants to offer his own silence as he listens to Avery’s soft voice, and he can’t help but wonder how long that will last. A man like Avery deserves better, and it won’t be much time at all before he figures that out.

“You this isn’t a sustainable relationship,” his brother had said to him right before he left the office. “You don’t marry your sugar babies.”

It was maybe the first time Alejandro had come close to laughing in years. Instead, he stared across his desk at his brother. “Why the bloody hell do you think I’d want to marry him?”

The way he felt about Avery was just the by-product of a person so bright and good and perfect that he was defenseless against him. He hired him because he could make a small difference in the grand scheme of Avery’s future. He could provide a little something that would let him reach his goals and not worry where the money was coming from—even if it hurt him when it all came crashing down.

He taps his fingers on the table again as he returns to the present, desperate to focus. He needs Avery to hurry up and get there because his thoughts are spiraling out of control, and that’s the exact reason he hired him. His sugar baby had to do nothing but show up and talk, to soothe the chaos inside his head, just for a little while.

And it’s not for nothing—it’s for money and safey and expensive gifts. He has one waiting for him now, the keys to his new car, which was delivered to the valet parking lot. Alejandro isn’t sure how Avery’s going to react, but he doesn’t really care. If he hates it, he can take it back and buy something else.

All that matters is that Avery lives comfortably, that he’s happy enough to show up for these dinners twice a week, and that he never, ever asks Alejandro to give anything he’s incapable of. Like conversation. Like love. Like touch. In another world, he might be a better man, but he knows from living in his own head, there’s no point in fighting reality. He is who he is.

He takes another drink of scotch, then there’s movement at the front doors, and he knows Avery’s there.

His breath catches in his throat as the younger man appears in front of him. He looks good—somehow even better than he looked that day in the car park. He’s got his hair down, which curls around his ears, and he’s in a leather jacket that he slips off and hangs on the back of his chair. He looks all wrong and all right with the crowd at Quatre, but no one even so much as glances at his way because no one questions Alejandro.

He sits down and offers a smile then reaches for the glass of wine that Alejandro hadn’t even noticed the server pouring. Avery isn’t twenty-one yet, but no one bothers to check, and that’s perfectly fine with him, because right now he doesn’t want to be interrupted. He wants to watch Avery tip the glass to his full lips, watch the way his throat works around the swallow. His fingers are slim, hands on the smaller side. He wears a ring on his middle finger that was cheap