Trust Me (Rough Love 3)

“I know she’s here.”

I pushed past him into the living room. Craig stood up from his place on the couch, but didn’t greet me.

“I need to talk to her,” I said.

“I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” said Andrew. “In fact, she told me to give you this. She doesn’t want it anymore.”

He held out her garnet ring. Fuck. I wasn’t shocked that she’d taken it off, but it wasn’t staying off, not if I had anything to say about it. I shoved it in my pocket.

“Is she in the back?” I moved toward the hallway, but Andrew jumped in front of me, his skinny arms held out, his lips pursed in a stubborn line.

“She doesn’t want to see you. Aren’t you listening? She needs some time.”

I stared at him, at his wild, blond, curly hair and his childishly innocent features. Cute kid, trying to play the hero. The protector. His boyfriend hovered in the background, doing some protecting of his own. Both of them were good guys, but they weren’t going to keep me from retrieving my runaway.

“I know you’re her friend,” I said calmly. “I understand that you want to help, but the best thing to do right now is to let us talk.”

“Talk?” His frown deepened. “When do you two ever talk? You give orders, and she obeys.”

“Yes, that’s the way we work,” I retorted. “You understand about us, about our dynamic—”

“No, I don’t understand. I don’t get why you treat her like a dog on a leash, like a child who needs to have every aspect of her life micromanaged.”

“Andy, hon,” said Craig. “This isn’t your fight.”

“It is my fight. Because he—” He pointed angrily in my direction. “He’s taken all the fight out of Chere. You saw how she was when she got here.”

“She was upset because we argued,” I said. “We just need some time to work things out.”

“No, you’re going to leave her alone.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, to no avail. Damn toppy subs.

“Chere’s my best friend,” he said, sticking out his chin. “If she won’t speak up for herself, then I’m going to speak on her behalf.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, because I had to listen. It was that, or beat up a twenty-two year old gay kid wearing a lavender scrunchie, and I already had a police record from beating up Simon last year.

“If this is about the thing with Chere’s ex—” I began.

“No. It’s about more than Simon’s overdose. This is about all your rules and consequences. This is about the fact that you monitor my texts to Chere, and take away her phone whenever you want. This is about Chere and I having to hang out at the Big Apple Diner because I’m not allowed to be alone with her anywhere else. I mean, what the fuck?”

“Every relationship has rules.”

“Yes, but most relationships also have freedom, and consideration for the other person’s feelings. Most relationships involve some fucking trust. She used to love you.”

“She still loves me!”

He shook his head. “She’s lost faith in you. She told me so when she got here, that you don’t care about her, that you only care about yourself.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, I believe you care about her,” he said, looking me up and down. “I believe you love her, but you need to think about how you show it, because from the outside, your relationship looks majorly fucked up. To me, from the outside…” He faltered, then persisted. “To tell the brutal truth, you come off like a desperate, cowardly man. The way you behave toward her—”

“Cowardly?” I interrupted. The word felt disgusting in my throat. “Cowardly?”

I heard Craig shift as I raised my voice, but Andrew didn’t back down. “Yes, cowardly. You’re afraid of losing her, so afraid of losing her that you’re scaring her away. She showed up here scared out of her mind. I only just got her calmed down.”

“Scared? Scared of what?”

“Of your jealousy! What would it have hurt, to let her try to help Simon?”

“It would have hurt Chere.”

I was shouting now. Craig came closer and held out a quelling hand. “Can both of you calm down? We have neighbors.”

“I care about her,” I said to Andrew. I worked hard to modulate my voice. I had to get my shit together. I had to be the strong one, so I could get Chere home and calmed down, and get us out of this fucking mess. “As for the rules, she agreed to every one of them.”

“Of course she did. She’s a submissive, and a masochist. She’s never going to put the brakes on. Believe me, I know the mindset, but your job is to—”

“To keep her safe. To keep her out of the hands of users and abusers.”

Andrew glared at me. No, it wasn’t a glare, exactly. It was a stare. Craig stared at me too, and then, like a lightning strike, I got it. They thought I was a user and abuser. They thought I was a threat to Chere. Not Simon Baldwin. Me, the man who had saved her from that relationship and given her my love at great fucking risk to my peace and sanity.