Page 24 of The Barn: Frost and Q
He got up off the couch and moved to the wheelchair.
“Breathe. Slow. I’m in no hurry. You don’t have to choose your words so you don’t upset me. Just be honest.”
“Because I want to be able—I’m more recovered than that. Not better than that. There’s nothing wrong with the chair. Seriously. It’s a tool. And a lot of people live amazing lives while using that tool. But I feel as if I’m a bit of a liar sitting in it.”
“Because you can walk?”
“Yes.” Was that crazy?
“But just because you can stand and walk unaided at times doesn’t mean you might not always need the chair at times, too. Or maybe you won’t. But that doesn’t freak me out. And it doesn’t make you weak or a fraud.”
He searched Frost’s eyes and only saw truth. “Okay. Then I’ll greenlight it.”
“Thank you, love.” Frost smiled, and it was so damn beautiful that Quentin wanted to cry. He couldn’t breathe, but he let it flow, finding his air. “Let me show you the cuffs.” This was one of their little rituals. Frost always showed him whatever equipment they might be using, because often he ended up blindfolded. That way he knew ahead of time what things felt like and looked like, and he spent less time allowing his imagination to run wild.
Frost got into the bag and pulled out a pair of cuffs. They had a figure-eight style setup, so they would fasten to his wrists and then to the chair.
“They’re beautiful.” He just kept staring at the cuffs, waiting for Frost to close them. “I don’t know how to do this anymore,” he admitted. He was so caught up in a mixture of excitementand reluctance and worry and anticipation, that everything was wrong, he was in the chair, and they weren’t at home. “We didn’t live here the last time we did this.”
Frost simply said, “No, baby boy, we didn’t.”
Then Frost picked up the blindfold and showed it to him. It was supple black leather, and the inside was soft, covered in a cloudlike lining. He knew because he’d worn it again and again while Frost sent him to heaven.
“I don’t know if I can wear that.”
“Sir.” Frost winked at him and popped the end of his nose with the gentlest finger. “You don’t know if you can wear that, Sir.”
Asshole. “I don’t know if I can do the blindfold, Sir.”
“You have your words, baby boy. You know how to do this. It’s just been a while.”
A while? “Forever. We were different people. I was a different person.”
Frost nodded to him, calm as a still pond. “Everybody’s different. Everybody.”
Yeah, but his different was intense. His difference was visible.
Frost was doing that thing again where he was just watching. Waiting for him.
Quentin’s anxiety was steadily ramping up. He tried to push it away, because he didn’t want his worry to steal this. He wanted this to be real.
Frost put the blindfold to the side. “You’re okay, baby boy.”
“I don’t feel okay.”
Frost didn’t answer that. He just opened the cuffs and held them open for Quentin to put his wrists in. Simple as that.
His heart was beating so fast that he could barely breathe, and his soul hurt a little bit. He watched himself put his wrists in the cuffs. He saw his fingers curl at the little touch of cold on hisskin. It was as if he was somewhere else, because he was outside of his body, watching this whole thing happen.
“I haven’t had cuffs on since that day.” He hated himself for saying the words, because he knew this would stop everything.
He knew Frost would tug away from him, would back away and not give him what he needed because he had to bring up that awful day because he was a fuckup, and he wanted to fuck it up. He wanted to make this wrong and weird and prove to himself that his worst fears were right.
He waited for the fallout, for the look of disgust and worry and stress and guilt to cross Frost’s face, but basically Frost looked up at him with those hazel eyes and nodded. “I know, but those were zip ties, and this is done in love.”
Then Frost clicked the cuffs shut.
It tookeverything in Frost not to pull away. Not to drop the cuffs and just say,I can’t do this.
