touch before he pulls away. “The more you work yourself up with the what-ifs, the worse it’s going to be. You need to ask him. Face to face.”
Alejandro drags a hand down his face, and it comes away kind of greasy. He’s never been very fastidious. There are days he wishes his OCD meant he spent time cleaning everything rather than a single spot on the counter or one area of his desk. His compulsions leave him unable to do anything more often than they force him to do everything, and this week has just been wallowing in his own sweat and tears.
“He won’t take my calls,” he reminds him.
“Then find him,” Louis says, and he laughs when Alejandro stares at him. “Oh, I know you know where his parents live. You probably have files on every person he’s ever spoken to ever in his life.”
And well, that’s not true, but it’s closer than he wants to admit. He should burn them—metaphorically since they’re on his computer. But he should delete them and let it all go. He has money ready to transfer to end the contract, but he was waiting—hoping. Praying.
“Just show up. The worst he can do is tell you to piss off, right?” Louis says with a raised brow.
Alejandro can’t help but think about how little Louis has suffered that he thinks being told by the love of his life to piss off is something he can just walk away from. But it’s not his brother’s fault his life has been charmed. He rubs his face again and then pushes to his feet because he needs a shower at the very least.
“I’m not leaving,” Louis says as Alejandro heads for the bathroom.
He smiles because he didn’t think he was, but he sees something flicker across Louis’ face that stops him. “What?”
“I haven’t seen that look on you since…” He doesn’t finish the words, but Alejandro knows what they are. Since before Gabrielle died. Since before he knew how much pain a person could survive. “Please tell me you’re going to go.” He steps closer, reaches, then pulls his hand back with a sigh.
Alejandro doesn’t have an answer for him, but he knows the answer he should give, because Avery deserves the fight. “I need to shower,” he says, and Louis lets him go.
It’s hard to be in spaces where he found so much purpose and joy with Avery. His own home feels almost contaminated by the hope he’d been drowning in from the moment he picked Avery up from his apartment and brought him home for the holiday. It was supposed to be a goodbye, and it had formed into a new beginning, but the universe had snatched it from his grasp the way it had with every other happiness.
He wants to believe it means nothing. The part of his brain that still clings to logic tells him there’s no cosmic reason behind it. That he can be happy—if he fights for it. If he works for it. Losing Gabrielle was not some sort of punishment for not being good enough or strong enough. It just…was.
Avery is still out there, he thinks as he rinses the soap from his hair. There’s a reason he walked away, and Alejandro can make it better—can solve any problem put before him, if only Avery speaks to him. And there’s every chance Avery just doesn’t want him, and he can accept that, as long as he knows.
The decision is made before he’s really aware of it. Hell, it probably always was—he just needed someone to drag him out of bed and get his feet moving, one in front of the other.
He dries off and takes his pills with a cupped hand under the sink, then he packs a travel bag of all the things he’ll need because he’s hoping—god, he’s hoping—that he won’t be turned away. There’s two more nights of Chanukah left, and if he can do this the right way, as the sun sets on the final one, his lips will touch Avery’s and taste the final notes of the blessing.
He doesn’t believe in miracles, but Avery is as close to one as he’ll ever get, and he knows he has the strength to work for it now.
He understands how Connor can love again—can breathe again. He understands why the world kept turning—why hearts kept beating and lungs kept breathing after Gabrielle’s stopped. Because there’s more. She will always be his daughter. She will always exist as that small