“What’s that mean, Arik? You did a background report on him that you still haven’t shared with me?” Kellus threw up his arms. “Of course you did.”
“How can you be mad at me for that?”
“Because he’s not your business,” Kellus yelled, toeing on his Vans before crossing the room to grab his wallet and cell phone off the dresser. He looked back over his shoulder at Arik, who was still nude, standing a few feet away with intense hurt on his face. Fuck! He’d cause that, too. His heart sank and intense guilt bubbled up from the pit of his stomach. “I didn’t mean that. I’m going to work. They got me back in the studio today. Yesterday. Whatever.”
Kellus left the room, bypassing his jacket even though it was cold outside. He closed the door behind him and headed down the elevator.
He relished the feel of the wind as it hit his heated skin, chilling him to his core. He pressed the key fob and got inside the car Arik had provided for him. He pushed the button to start the ignition and rolled his eyes. He hung on to his anger, but palmed his phone. No matter what he said, Arik absolutely didn’t get it, but he’d been very good to him.
“I’m sorry.” He typed, and right as he pushed send, a text came through.
“Don’t leave. You haven’t slept. I’ll take the guest room.”
Another text followed. “Come back upstairs or wait for me. I’ll take you. You haven’t slept well since this happened.”
Kellus dropped the phone in the cubby and put the car in reverse. He needed to be alone, and at the very least, he didn’t need to hear any more about everything he kept doing wrong and all his fucking mistakes. He knew each and every one of them by heart.
~?~
This was becoming a habit. Arik stood outside, propped against Kellus’s car, wrapped in his long dress coat. Even with a scarf and his suit underneath, he was still freezing. He lived in Texas for God’s sake. He didn’t think he would ever get used to the weather here—eighty degrees one day, freezing the next. He let his leather glove-covered hands warm inside his pockets as he cooled his heels, waiting for Kellus to leave the hospital. Sure, his multi-million-dollar company had struggled with his recent absence, and he wasn’t at a point that he could turn the day-to-day operations over to anyone else, but apparently, none of that truly mattered. Kellus had left him last night, and he hadn’t talked to him since he’d sent that text. His heart couldn’t take how they had left everything last night.
There was one unforeseen problem with his current plan: he might freeze to death before Kellus got out there. He should go inside the hospital, stand by Kellus’s side; he just didn’t feel like he deserved to be there. Since this accident, he’d thrown so much shade John’s way that he shouldn’t crowd in on the discussions of his long-term care.
Thankfully, Kellus came through the main doors, walking quickly across the parking lot. He didn’t have a coat on, just a long-sleeve button-down. Lisa, John’s mother, hugged him before veering off in a different direction. The relief of having John’s mother around helped in the guilt he had about leaving Kellus alone.
Kellus finally looked up to see him standing there. He did feel a little like a stalker, but he couldn’t help that either. He just wasn’t able to process all the feelings having a relationship with Kellus evoked.
“You look like you should be on the cover of GQ,” Kellus said when he got about ten feet from him. He had no idea what that meant to his current goal of finding out where they stood, so he grinned and reached behind him then extended Kellus’s coat in a sort of peace offering.
“That’s what I think about you regularly. But I’m here because you didn’t take your jacket.”
Kellus’s eyes lit up, and he heard the humor in his words. “So I see you drove all the way from Westlake to bring it to me.” Kellus took the jacket from his hand.
“I hated what happened last night. I couldn’t let it go, so I came to talk to you in person.” Arik hoped he’d made the right decision.
“I’m sorry about how I acted. I owe you an apology.” Kellus shrugged on his jacket, and zipped it up, then tucked his hands in the pockets.
“I shouldn’t have pressed you like that. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. I keep adding stress, and pushing at you all the time. You have me all mixed up. I’m not processing well.”
“You don’t add stress at all, A. The opposite. I couldn’t do this without you,” Kellus said, taking a couple of steps forward. Not touching him, but standing very close. Arik reached out, pulling Kellus closer by sticking his hands in Kel’s pockets, awkwardly threading their fingers together.