Page 33 of Watch Over Me

"Thanks for hanging out for a while. I feel…" Eddie hesitated. "I'm not so hyped up anymore."

James understood the reluctance. He wouldn't be able to honestly say he felt better now, either. There was none of the usual ease between them, and it left him unsettled.

"Get as much sleep as you can." He stepped out of the apartment onto the chilly corridor. "See you on Monday."

"Yeah." Eddie nodded without looking at him. "See you."

After the door closed, James stood there, wondering if he hadn't just lost something anyway, despite his best efforts.

When he left the building a while later, he still didn't have an answer.

* * *

Waking up after a late night was usually a bit disorienting, but this time James went from asleep to awake in an instant, a part of him surprised he was in his own bed and his own apartment.

Where else would you be?he asked himself, and the last remains of the dream flew through his head—Eddie lying on his stomach in James's bed, with mussed up hair, bare, pale shoulders, and a smile half-hidden behind his arm as he watched him.

James closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillow—his own, in an otherwise-empty bed.

Fuck.

Last night had definitely messed with his head. A stray romantic thought or two about a friend was one thing but dreaming about him lying in the bed next to James, in a clearlydomestic, definitely-not-the-first-time scenario, was something completely different.

And he was hard now, too.Brilliant.

He pressed his erection against the mattress for a moment, before more images of Eddie flooded in and James tossed the covers aside to get out of bed.

Cold shower it was, then.

After leaving the bathroom, he put on a pair of sweatpants and an old Army T-shirt and planted himself on the couch with a coffee and a big bowl of cereal. He clicked through the channels for a while, hoping to find something that would grab his attention, but couldn't focus on anything for more than five minutes. And even that long was solely because he saw a familiar face—Pascal was talking about the changes the education reform had already made since its passing.

Once the segment was over, James went from thinking about Pascal to Jeremy and their current assignments, which of course brought him back around to Eddie.

Who was the sole witness able to link the culprits, which put him at much greater risk than even James had first imagined.

And despite wanting to shield Eddie from any danger that might come his way, there was actually nothing James could do.

You'd be able to do much more if you were right by his side instead of keeping a safe distance, a traitorous voice at the back of his head supplied, but James only grunted in displeasure. First of all, that was no reason to get involved with someone, and second of all…

It simply couldn't happen.

Which sounded awfully weak, as far as arguments went, so James decided to go for a run to clear his mind.

Since it was a cold day, there weren't many people in his favorite park nearby, and for the most part he was able to tuneout everything else. Not completely—he'd never met a veteran who was able to do that—but enough to ponder things he hadn't thought of for months, if not years.

Nothing lasts foreverwas a lesson he'd learned decades ago, and while he'd resented it at first, with time he'd started to make peace with it. After all, life kept reminding him of that any time he'd thought he might have found an exception. All the foster homes before the last, Philip, his one serious boyfriend, or even his unit in the Army—everything came and went. So was it really that surprising that now, when he once again was tempted to believe in something different, his entire being resisted it?

Well,mostof his being. There were certain parts of him very interested in breaking his self-imposed rules.

But he'd tried that with Philip, once.

Fuck. James hadn't thought about his ex in a long while. Last he'd heard, Philip was an entertainment lawyer in LA, married with twins and a house up on the hill.Good for him, James had thought back then and moved on, as if the heartbreak had never happened. As if the fights, and the fear and helplessness he'd felt back when Philip had given him an ultimatum about leaving the Army before James had been ready to—as if all that had been nothing but a foregone conclusion.

Looking back, James wished Philip wasn't the only real boyfriend he'd ever had, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Besides, he hadn't really met anyone he wanted to be in a relationship with…

Until now.

Until Eddie.

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