Page 48 of Hold Me Down

Dave was more than ready to have Travis back with himright now, so the answer came easily.

"I'll apologize, sure. But I'm afraid he's not going to simply accept it."

"Why not?"

Because I said too much.

Dave rubbed his eyes.

"Because he'll want an explanation for some of the things I said, and I'd rather not talk about it."

"Did you—"

"If I'm not ready to have that conversation with him, I'm not having it with you, either."

Colin had suspected Dave wanted what he couldn't have with Travis even before Dave had fully realized it himself, but that didn't mean Dave had any desire to get into it with him now.

He wanted to bury it deep inside him again, where it belonged.

"Fair. But even without having that conversation, you know he's going to forgive you eventually, right?"

"You weren't supposed to make any assumptions," Dave muttered, even though he nodded at the question.

Yeah, Travis would forgive him. That part was easy.

It perhaps hadn't been, for a minute there, when Dave had been at his lowest, but only then.

Colin snorted. "Fair enough, assumption withdrawn."

"What if we can't get past it?" Dave murmured quietly before he stopped himself. "Not the fight part, but the other part. I don't want things to change. I'm already an obligation now—"

"You're not an obligation, shut your mouth," Colin cut him off. "And that's not an assumption, so I'm allowed, by the way. That's you being stupid because you're in a bad place."

"I'm barely a few weeks in and I'm losing my mind!" Dave pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I'm bouncing off the walls, saying stupid shit, and I'm frustrated nearly all the time." He took a shaky breath. "I want my life back."

"Your independence, you mean."

"That, too, but it's more than that. It's my everyday life, my work, my friends, everything."

"Sure, yeah. It sucks to have your routines so utterly destroyed."

"I feel like shit."

"Yeah."

"I mean, if everything goes well, I'll return to work, but who knows how long it will take? And would things even be the same once I'm back?"

"Why wouldn't they be?"

Because they'll get used to being without me.

Because Travis will, too, and then he won't need me in the same way and—

Dave dropped his hands and stared at the wall as his heart pounded in his chest.

He wanted to be needed, and, at the same time, he didn't want to need anyone himself—not even Travis.

Of course, Dave failed at that miserably—he did need Travis, in many different ways. He'd needed him for almost as long as they'd known each other.

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