Love Him Desperate (On the Market #5) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,41
was wanting more now than he was when he first saw the application. He needed something else to cling to, and maybe the college thing would be good for him too because it meant fresh faces who didn’t look at him as some non-sexual, troubled kid with no identity and a criminal record.
Parts of those things were him. He was ace. And he was still troubled some nights, and his criminal record had gone by way of turning eighteen, but he’d still done those things. That one thing. That one, stupid, thoughtless thing that painted the picture of who he was for Cherry Creek, and it would last the rest of his life.
So, the college thing could work. For him and for Raphael. There would be a whole new blanket of souls for him to meet, to get to know, to assess. He wouldn’t settle for anyone not worthy of Raphael, and it might not be as easy as he hoped, but he’d be willing to try. And for himself, he’d settle—because being with anyone except Raphael was settling.
And then he wondered if it would ever be fair to another person, because loving someone second—because the one he loved first would never love him back—seemed cruel. But he probably wasn’t the only pining man out there, and he’d wait. He’d wait until it fit.
For now, he could put his focus on Raphael.
“Dmitri?”
He realized he’d been silent for way too long, and he chanced a look up. Raphael had finally eaten some of his eggs, which were probably cold and congealed. But Dmitri knew he’d done it for him. “Sorry. It’s been a weird day.”
“I know change is hard for you, and I understand why you need to do this the way you’re doing it. I’m just going to leave it out there.”
“The…roommate thing?” Dmitri asked, his voice miraculously steady.
Raphael’s lip quirked up at the left corner. “In case you ever need it. In case you’re ever forced to choose—so you won’t be.”
The death of a thousand kindnesses, and Dmitri was powerless against the way it drained him of life, but what a way to go.
Summer passed in a blur, and Dmitri found himself standing at the entrance to the community college with a backpack weighted down with a handful of textbooks that cost more than his rent over his shoulder. The fact that the park funding had taken care of it didn’t make him feel better though. The pressure to perform to top standards squeezed around his lungs like a vice, and he had half a mind to see about getting a refund and telling Ronan he couldn’t do it.
But he’d spent all summer learning the ins and outs of the job. Ronan was patient and kind, and never hesitated to repeat himself. He came to work no matter how his body was feeling, and later, he confessed it was because he didn’t trust any of the other rangers to train Dmitri the right way.
In between the lines, he heard the truth: I don’t trust them to care enough about you to really help.
It was mundane though, more than working at Indulgence. And he was alone a lot. Dmitri hadn’t realized how terrified he was of his own thoughts—or how quickly they’d lead to gutting self-doubt—until he spent hours by himself wandering the lake and surveying the land. There was a moment of peace though, somewhere between July and August, where his life started to make sense.
Or, rather, his life no longer seemed like a jumble of pieces that resembled a man. He didn’t hate his own sexuality. It felt absurd to dislike something about himself he had no control over. He wasn’t the status quo, and he had never fit into a box, but he didn’t want to be a cardboard cut-out version of a man simply to make other people comfortable. Someone would love him. And it might not ever be Raphael, but there would be others like him.
There would be other people, too big or awkwardly shaped for their own boxes, just like him. And he knew it was mostly fear that kept him from looking for them. It was that fear that sat there and faced him with the cold, dead, concrete eyes of a community college. This new journey stared at him with seven buildings, and too many windows, and people close to his own age who didn’t have the same amount of life weighing their shoulders down.