The Other Man by Matthew J. Metzger

Author:Matthew J. Metzger [Metzger, Matthew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBT Romance Fiction
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Published: 2019-10-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Aled left the flat the following morning, and it was intact.

He returned just after six in the evening, and it had been destroyed.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, standing in the open doorway, spare key still in hand, and staring at the clothes everywhere.

Gabriel, wearing nothing but a pair of jogging bottoms, shrugged. He folded himself up to sit amongst the melee again and returned to sifting through the piles.

“Deciding what to take,” he mumbled.

Aled frowned slightly and hunkered down on the threadbare carpet to join him. “Hey,” he said, squeezing Gabriel’s knee. “Everything all right?”

“Not really,” Gabriel admitted. “Michael was round earlier banging on the door and swearing at me. My boss texted to say I need to come in tomorrow for a big meeting about the future of the shop—i.e. I’ll probably be imminently unemployed. And I decided if I’m going to lose my job, I might as well tone down on the stuff and figure out what I can sell on eBay.”

“Sell your underwear on Grindr, you’ll make a fortune,” Aled quipped, then slid his arm around Gabriel’s hips. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about tomorrow, and Michael hasn’t got the first idea where I live, so no more door-banging for a fortnight.”

The smile was faint, and Gabriel’s focus didn’t shift from sorting the clothes. Aled grimaced. A bad day was one thing, but Gabriel wasn’t in the habit of niggling and picking at his bad days. He usually threw a bit of a paddy, had a tantrum for half an hour then got back on track and cracked on.

This wasn’t just a bad day.

“You’re worrying about this, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t really a question. Gabriel’s shrug wasn’t really an answer.

“Gabe—”

A flash of a frown.

“—riel,” Aled added with a grin.

“I’m just tied up in knots between it’s you and it’ll be fun and fine and nothing’s really going to change except I’ll get squashed to death every night in my sleep, and—and it’s a dominant who asked me to dump another regular and gets off on pretty extreme games.”

Aled twitched but allowed the sting. “So do you,” he said quietly.

“Yeah. Which brings me full circle to it’s you and it’ll be fine.”

“Hate to say it, sweetheart, but there’s no way I can prove to your skittish psyche that it’ll be fine until you put yourself in that situation.”

“I know.”

Aled chewed on his lip, then tapped Gabriel’s hip and hauled them both up from the floor. “Come on,” he said, steering Gabriel to the sofa. “You’re tired and tense, there’s no rush to get home, and if you forget to pack something then we can always pop back and fetch it whenever you want.”

“I’m not really in the mood for—”

“I don’t always shove you onto sofas to shag you, sweetheart,” Aled chided gently, pushing Gabriel to lie flat, then retreating to the other end of the sofa and perching on the arm. “Like I said, you’re tense.”

“So what are yo—ohhh, my God…”

Aled grinned. The press of his

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