Salvation (The Protectors 2)

Work had been uneventful but only because I’d spent most of the day hiding out in my office so I wouldn’t have to explain the bruises on my face. The only person I’d told about the mugging was my father’s business partner - I still hadn’t gotten used to calling him my business partner, though that was what he was now. Stan had been horrified and hadn’t argued when I’d told him I would be hiring a security company to monitor the garage twenty-four hours a day. I’d left at lunch for my daily ritual of driving out to my old house and had been insanely proud of myself for having the courage to make the trip to my car by myself, despite Stan’s offer to escort me back and forth. Stan was the only person besides Barry who knew how much I struggled with leaving my house. And while I liked how supportive Stan was, the first person I’d wanted to share the small success of being able to make it into work today despite what had happened yesterday was Ronan.

But Ronan was gone…because I’d asked him to go.

I tried to focus on the computer in front of me but couldn’t make sense of the words I’d been staring at for several minutes now. I left the office early every day since I wasn’t yet comfortable enough with my driving skills to be driving around downtown Seattle during the worst of rush hour, but I almost always continued work as soon as I got home. But it was clear that today was going to be another exception but, unlike yesterday when I’d had the excuse of the mugging and Ronan’s untimely arrival to distract me, today it was just my own self-pity that kept me from making any progress on the contract I’d been studying. I turned off the computer monitor and started putting my papers back in the laptop bag I carried back and forth with me to work, but stilled when I heard the front door open. Bullet was outside but since I hadn’t heard him barking like a maniac, I had to assume it was someone I knew.

I hated the silly little flicker of hope that flashed in my chest for just a brief moment before dying a sudden death when I heard Barry calling my name.

“In the study,” I said loudly enough for Barry to hear me as I finished putting my stuff away.

Barry was becoming more and more of a problem for me, but I had no idea how to deal with it. When I’d first called him nearly six months ago to ask him to help me deal with my anxiety about leaving my house, I’d been grateful for his support and insight into the trauma I was dealing with. I hadn’t told him all the details of the attack on my family, despite his incessant pressure to tell him everything. But he had offered me some tools to deal with the stress that came over me whenever I considered trying to walk out the front door. He’d even been the one to help me get my driver’s license since I hadn’t had an adult available to teach me to drive when I was sixteen.

I knew Barry was gay from early on because he’d told me he was when I’d admitted my sexuality during one of our early sessions. I wasn’t sure why he’d told me – maybe he’d thought it would help me open up more, but since my parents had always been supportive of my sexuality, it wasn’t something I was overly concerned with and I had mentioned it to him only when he’d asked if I had a girlfriend. I hadn’t really ever thought of the relationship Barry and I had as being anything other than professional, but I’d started to realize a couple months ago that maybe things had changed for him. It had been subtle at first – touches here and there, a little bit of flirting that even I recognized. His questions about whether or not I had ever had a boyfriend, his jokes about me just wanting to get out of the house so I could date someone and his comments about how attractive I was, had all made me start dreading our sessions rather than anticipating them. But I knew from experience that I wasn’t the best at reading people - my actions around Ronan three years earlier were proof of that - so I’d brushed all my discomfort off and focused on trying to find the courage I needed to get out of the house and finally start living. But when Barry had actually started to discourage me from testing myself with trips outside my comfort zone when he wasn’t around, I’d known that I’d have to do something about our professional relationship sooner rather than later.