SafetyInNumbers-Final (26 page)

“You mean so you can make yourself crazy every time a star is removed.” There was no point in denying that, so Owen just shrugged. “No, that doesn’t work for me at all. Goals and approval are positive things and that’s what I want to be in your life. I lived with negativity and disapproval for too long to allow that in our relationship for even a second. So if you’re waiting for me to be some hard ass who’s gonna come down on you for not eating a proper lunch, it’s not gonna happen. I refuse to play the monster in your life.”

The last words dripped with venom, and if he was waiting for Chris to be mad, he succeeded in the most horrible way. He’d been so wrapped up in his own needs that he totally ignored the pain Chris endured. The crazy thing was, he wanted exactly what Chris described—goals and approval—and always assumed you couldn’t have that without some form of disapproval. It’s a basic lesson of life that he remembered from pre-school when the teacher used color-coded cards to let everyone know if you were good or bad, and if you had more good days then bad, you got a reward. It may not have always been so boldly stated, but that system of judgment followed through every aspect of life. Seeing how that destructive thinking hurt Chris and them made him determined to change it.

“You cringed.” It was more a hiss than words, but the pain was heart-wrenching. “In my arms, I felt you cringe as if you expected me to fly into a rage over lunch. Lunch!”

“I’m sorry, Chris. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way and I definitely don’t want you to be the monster in my life.” Anger made the sharp angles of Chris’s face more pronounced and his normally gentle eyes were nearly black with emotion. Knowing that he made Chris feel like a monster made him physically ill, but fixing this was more important than his weak stomach. “Will you show me how to be a positive person? I really want to be a positive person in your life.”

“You are the most positive thing in my life, Owen, and I’m going to prove it to you.” The breath shuddered through Chris as he tried to get his emotions back under control and Owen felt horrible for causing him a second of pain. “We gotta get those negative thoughts out of your head. They’re just wallowing around in there with no outlet and I hate when they show up between us.”

“What if I wrote them down?” He’d tried journaling before and hadn’t been successful on his own, but he’d be willing to try again if it helped them.

“Then you’d be looking at them constantly.” A small, thoughtful frown marred that handsome face and he felt his heart sink a little. He needed them to figure out a solution.

“We could shred the pages or throw them in the fire pit and watch them go up in smoke.” It seemed kind of symbolic, but actually seeing his negative thoughts go up in smoke might work for him. For them. “It would get them out of my head and I wouldn’t be able to go back to look at them because they’d be gone forever.”

“That’s a really good idea.” When Chris smiled at him like that, he felt like he just solved one of life’s great mysteries, and maybe he had. His own. “But not in a notebook. If you’re making a list, that gives you too many hours in the day to revisit each item. Scraps of paper thrown in a lock box will work better and I’ll have the only key. Then we’ll throw them in the fire pit and make s’mores.”

“I love s’mores.” But Chris already knew that, which was probably why he suggested it. “Let’s make a decision right now that it’s going to work.”

Instead of verbally agreeing, Chris sealed the deal with another of those toe-curling kisses. Of course his stomach grumbled loudly just as Chris was lowering him to the pillows and they both laughed at the unfortunate reminder. “Your mouth is very distracting, but if we keep doing that, you’ll never find out why we’re eating on the floor of Billy’s old room.”

“I’d say it could wait, but stomach noises aren’t good for the mood either.” There was a lot of reluctance to sit up because he didn’t want to leave the shelter of Chris’s body. And why did he have to? They were together—he didn’t have to keep some respectable distance between them anymore. “Fluff up those pillows and get comfy. I’ll serve while you tell me about the room.”

When Chris got situated, Owen plopped himself down right between those tree trunk sized legs and wiggled until his ass was snug against Chris groin. He must have been feeling really brave because he found his best saucy smirk, shot it Chris’s way, and said, “Just so you don’t forget what comes next.”

Chris choked on a surprised laugh and gave his ass an appreciative leer. “Thanks for the reminder.”

The conversation had been a roller coaster and it wasn’t the first time. He didn’t know how Chris was keeping up with the swings and he really hoped their idea of making s’mores with his negative thoughts was going to work. As loving and patient as Chris was, how long would he want to live with someone so manic?

“That’s one for the box.” Chris cut through his thoughts and he groaned.

Yes, one negative thought in the crazy box. He didn’t even ask how Chris knew what he’d been thinking. He never did have a poker face. “Yes, yes, tell me about the room. Give me something good to think about.”

Chris looked at him closely for another second, and Owen could feel him doing a full assessment. On the one hand, he appreciated Chris’s interest in his wellbeing—emotional or otherwise—but on the other, he wished it wasn’t necessary. He only had himself to blame, though, because he’d gotten comfortable in his misery and hadn’t sought solutions, just ways of coping. With Chris’s support, he felt confidence for the first time and believed that together they’d find those solutions. He had to believe it because anything else would make him more of a burden than a partner, and he refused to be that to Chris.

“How about a study slash drafting room?” Chris asked, drawing him from the edge of another negative thought. “I’ve been thinking about my future career. Bull put me through auto mechanic training and I love it, but I’m finding I love the bike work just as much. There’s no way I’m moving to Orlando to go to MMI and there aren’t any local courses, so I found an accredited motorcycle mechanic course online. Ty already agreed to let me do the hands-on work in the shop and train me, but I need a quiet place to get my classwork done and take tests.”

Owen was so amazed at how many major changes Chris was making since he broke his silence. That wall crumbled and Chris was like a whirlwind trying to jumpstart a life that had been stalled for so long. It was really inspiring to watch. “Would you leave the garage completely?”

Chris quickly rejected that idea. “No way. We’d make a more formal arrangement, but I really do like doing both. Plus, Bull’s bringing in a restoration that I’m itching to get my hands on.”

“I think it’s a great idea.” He was too proud of Chris not to support him a hundred percent, so he would find a way to deal with the additional hours apart. “Will you be designing bikes too? Is that why you’re calling it a drafting room?”

“Oh, no, that’s for you. I figure if you have a place at home to work on those ideas you get, you won’t stay so late at the office. If we’re both burning the midnight oil, I’d really rather do it in the same space.” Chris hummed a little and added, “But designing might be a fun thing to learn.”

“How do you do that?” Owen had to ask because Chris always seemed to be one step ahead of his thoughts.

Chris just looked at him in confusion. “I’m not sure what that is. Coming up with this idea so we aren’t spending more hours apart than together? What’s the saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. I find it necessary to spend more than just the sleeping hours with my boyfriend, so that’s my invention.”

Hearing Chris say that it was necessary to find ways to spend time together no matter how busy their schedules were rocked him to his core. He didn’t doubt Chris’s feelings for him, but he somehow believed he was the needier of the two. That was probably still true, but of course Chris would have needs and it had been unreasonable to think otherwise. It wasn’t the disparity in their needs that was the issue, it was that he was always trying to hide them, while Chris seemed to have no trouble expressing them. Or expecting them to be met.

“Are you still hungry? Because I have a new necessity we need to address.” The clawing need to prove how amazing he thought Chris was trumped hunger pains, career goals, and solutions to negative thoughts. When Chris tossed his plate aside and opened his arms, Owen knew that Chris wasn’t a step ahead of him, they were perfectly in sync.

Chapter 22

October 5, 2015 - Liam

“Are you staring at the new guy again?” Saul’s normally deep baritone sounded ominous in the hushed silence of the office and had the three of them jumping in fright.

“Holy fuck, you scared the crap out of us.” Liam put a hand over his racing heart as he peeked over at Red and Javier. “Where’s the damn bell over the door? How did you sneak in here?”

“Please,” Saul scoffed. “The better question is why my three stooges are staring at a guy when they’re all taken. Does Billy know? Or Bull? And you—” Saul shook at finger at Javier. “There’s no more room in our bed.”

Javier rolled his eyes. “He’s not even that cute. We’re trying to decide if we like him.”

That had Saul assessing them differently. “Is there something about him that bothers you?”

There was no doubt that both Red and Javier had a bit of a sixth sense when it came to danger, and if either of them felt threatened in any way, then Stephen, aka the new guy, would be out on his ass faster than he could ask why.

“No, it’s not like that.” Red was quick with the reassurances. “It’s just weird to see a new face in the garage.”

“And he’s quiet. Like Chris quiet only without the vow of silence,” Javier added. “I think he’s got something to hide.”

“That’ll be a switch.” Saul’s sarcastic tone got another eye roll from Javier.

“You’re not going to offer him a room in the house, are you?” Liam didn’t care about a new face at work and didn’t care if that face hid secrets. All he cared about was their home.

“Did someone move out when I wasn’t looking? I heard a lot of rearranging and remodeling going on over the last couple of weekends, but as far as I know, all the rooms were accounted for.” That was true, there had been a lot of movement in the house recently, and Owen was almost done building their new home office. “And even if there was a room available, say one with a Justin Bieber dartboard hanging on the wall, it would still require a unanimous vote to invite someone to move in.”

“That room isn’t available. It’s under construction.” Or it would be once he and Billy figured out what they wanted to do with Chris’s old room. “Rent’s paid on it and everything.”

Saul glanced out the door from the office into the garage bays and back at the three of them. “I still don’t get the problem.”

“Everything is changing. Bull’s barely here, Billy’s over there with Ty practically full time, Chris is over there part time, and Red just told us you’re trying to find a replacement for the front office.” Liam wasn’t prone to panic, but watching everything they’d come to rely on get rearranged was freaking him out just a little. None of the changes were bad, but what happened if you couldn’t change with it? The last time major changes occurred in his life, he lost everything. “What’s next? A damn Keurig?”

Instead of looking at him like he’d lost his mind, Saul reached out and pulled him into a hug. “Change can be scary, but I comfort myself in the knowledge that no matter how many ways we rearrange and remodel, all our parts stay the same. We may gain a few parts along the way, if they fit just right, but we’ll never lose any.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because we’ve proven it time and again. This family has been through a lot together and we stand by each other no matter what.” Saul was right and that reminder eased the fear inside him. Change was good. It showed that they were healing from their pasts and moving forward. It was a long time in coming and had taken a lot of work, but it was right.

“Thank you.” Liam pulled back and saw that Chris had come into the office. His brother, his rock, had overcome so much and the changes he was making were well-deserved. Maybe it was time to really think about what other changes he needed to make to move forward. “You missed my nervous breakdown.”

“Can’t say as I’m sorry to be late to that party.” Chris grabbed him in a one armed hug and rubbed the top of his head. He remembered being the bigger brother and doing the exact same thing. Change was good, but it was nice to know that some things never would. “Owen just pulled in. You want to grab Billy so we can go to lunch?”

“I’ll go see if he…” The bell over the door chimed, cutting off his words, and he turned to glare at Saul. How had he come into the office without being heard?

The woman who entered was young, early twenties at the most, and lost. Like deer-in-the-headlights lost. Big green eyes blinked at the five of them as she took a couple of steps back. It wasn’t a new customer reaction by any stretch of the imagination. “Uh…”

The rest of them looked at Red, even though it wasn’t going to be his job for much longer, since he was the friendliest looking of their bunch. He hesitated, and Liam didn’t blame him. One wrong move could spook her and then what? “Welcome to Bull’s Garage. Do you need help?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” She fumbled with her backpack, dragging it around in front of her like a shield, and started rifling through it. “I’m looking for Jon or Owen Connor.”