“Mm.” Grudge nodded sharply. Learned what trust meant. Loyalty. Respect. Being a person.
“Being in a brotherhood,” I agreed.
He laughed again and continued writing. Wouldn’t call ‘em my brothers. Love them, but not like that.
I looked at him. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Smirking, he huffed out an amused breath. We’re brothers like you and the medic are “friends”.
“I don’t lov—” My mouth clamped shut as my face burned. I couldn’t even bring myself to say that alien word.
No, that definitely wasn’t why the need for her touch had replaced my drinking habit. I was just a shell of a man, trading one vice for another to escape the past. It definitely wasn’t the reason I purposely ended her tattoo sessions early, just to ensure I’d see her again. I was nothing but a thief, stealing time and attention from a woman who would never be mine.
Grudge gave me a knowing look. Tell her how you feel.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I shook my head. “Even if there was, she has three men. All of which know how to actually be with a woman.”
You a cherry?
“No,” I sighed. “Just service girls, that’s it.” And her, who I was never supposed to have. “I know what hole I’m supposed to go in, but nothing beyond that.”
“Hmm.” Grudge just stroked his beard as he smiled at me, laughing at some internal joke I wasn’t privy to. Some advice?
I shrugged. Whatever he wanted to tell me wouldn’t apply to my situation, as nothing would ever happen between me and Mariposa. But being able to listen and relate to someone who’d been through what I had was not likely to happen again in my lifetime. He understood me. And in my situation, that was incredibly rare.
He thought for a moment before returning to his notepad. Be yourself. Don’t hide who you are. Not even from her.
The bitter scoff left my mouth before I could contain it.
“I appreciate it, Grudge. But I still have no idea who that person is.”
Four
MARIPOSA
I stared at the cat long enough for her to grow bored of me and begin grooming herself.
“So we’re on the brink of a full-fledged apocalypse, huh?”
Yes. Not exactly the nuclear meltdown your fictional stories presented, is it? Freyja’s tail flicked. Although the political unrest and slaughter of citizens is not far off.
“So where do you come in?” I asked. “Have the gods come to save us?”
Oh, we were always here. You just stopped listening. She yawned, revealing more teeth than I ever remembered seeing in a cat’s mouth. As for the saving business, that’s on you to do yourselves.
“Then why are you here?”
To remind you. Her sharp, feline gaze returned to my face. Me, specifically, I’m here to fuel the love stories. I’m the magic you feel in the smiles of children. The celebration of life. I’m here to kindle the flames of desire, to accelerate that muscle beating in your chest. I’m here to remind humanity of the beautiful vulnerability that happens when you give yourself to another. And when a life ends due to a selfless act of love, I reveal my true form and guide that soul to peace.
I sank into the couch, small moments with my men over the last few months flickering through my mind like a highlight reel. Everything, from a sweet touch and tender words spoken, to the roughness and heat that my body craved with the most primal desires.
“So how many thanks for my three-way love life do I owe you?”
None. An amused chuckle laced the goddess’s voice. I only steer with gentle guidance. I do not manufacture what is already there. The success of your relationships has everything to do with your compatibility, and the strength of your human hearts. However, Freyja walked across the couch to me, bumping my hand with her forehead, I sense some resistance in regards to a certain tattoo artist.
“Shadow?” His name burst out of me so loudly that I straightened up and looked around to make sure he was really gone.
The sexual attraction is palpable. Your care and affection toward each other is clear. You have clearance to take another lover. So what stops you? She lowered to her belly next to me, tucking her front paws in toward each other as she stared at me expectantly.
How to explain why I didn’t pursue a man who nearly drank himself to death to avoid nightmares? Who, when he did have nightmares, was uncontrollably violent to the point of needing to be locked in his room?
The answer seemed obvious when putting his most glaring flaws at the front and center of my mind. But I couldn’t ignore what the medic in me knew—those flaws were only symptoms, not the cause.
Even thinking of him purely as a patient, without feelings clouding my judgment, I knew kindness and compassion were the best measures to counteract the root cause of his issues. To be treated as a person and not something other. He just needed practice and exposure to forge new neural pathways in his brain—pathways that told him women were just people too. That we weren’t so different.
What Shadow didn’t need was me selfishly projecting my own desires onto him. Of course I was attracted to him on a deep, primal level, but as his medic, I was also responsible for his well-being. To pursue things physically or romantically, especially while he was healing and still learning social norms, would only be looking out for myself.
“I don’t want to scare him.” It seemed to be the easiest way to sum up my feelings to Freyja. “His trauma with women runs deep and I don’t want to trigger anything that could set him back.”
His ability to adapt is stronger than you give him credit for. The cat goddess almost sounded like she was chastising me. You don’t need to be a god to see that he doesn’t associate you with his painful past.
“I don’t even know if he likes me like that,” I said. “He’s easy to be around in just a normal context, but I have no idea what’s going on in his head.”
He doesn’t know how to express his desires, because these desires are not something he’s ever felt before.
My eyebrows lifted. “So he does like me?” I felt like a teenage girl gossiping with a friend.
Your presence soothes him. He finds comfort in you. He’s finding it easier to communicate in general, now that he’s realizing he won’t be punished simply for existing.
A twisting pain rolled through my chest. “What happened to him?”
The cat blinked slowly at me.
That man has wounds only love can heal.
I stepped out to Jandro’s front porch after that bizarre conversation, then turned to close the door behind me. Freyja acted completely normal, so nothing alerted me to the figure behind me until I felt arms wrap tightly around my waist and throat.
“Break my hold, baby girl.” Gunner’s warm breath tickled my ear.
“And slam you straight into this door?”
“Well, pretend to.”
I tapped the side of his knee with my boot, just hard enough for him to feel, then drove my elbow back toward his gut before surging my weight forward. He followed my momentum, catapulting over me until he slapped a palm against the door.
“Nice job!” His smile beamed through the hair in front of his face before he raked it back. “You’re getting faster, babe. Don’t forget, you can also swing a fist down to hit ‘em in the crotch. That might be more effective than the elbow.”