Page 92 of Refrain
Spook grimaced. He wanted to say that he was sorry for all the misery he was causing but couldn’t see how words could ever convey that.Don’t stress over it,Xane would say. Keep focussing on what steps you can make to straighten yourself out, other people’s baggage could wait. It’s just, increasingly, he wasn’t sure he had the tools for it. “Xane,” he said, lifting his gaze to look up at him. “Would you do something for me?”
“I’m fine phoning your sisters, honestly.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean, I do want you to do that, but there’s something else.”
“Oh, okay. Well, what?”
A bolt of vulnerability shoved a frog into his throat, causing him to hesitate. He ran his finger around the hole in the knee of Xane’s jeans. “I think…”
Was he sure about this?
No, but it just wasn’t in him to go on being selfish indefinitely. And tying his friends and family up like this felt like the epitome of self-indulgence. Plenty of days he wanted to slap himself and tell himself to fucking get over it. Obviously, it wasn’t that simple, or he’d have done it long ago. “I’ve been thinking about what you said… about seeing someone. Not a doctor, but a therapist, maybe.”
“You want to see a counsellor? Wow! I mean, yeah. I can do that. Course. I can help you find someone, if that’s really what you want?”
“Honestly, I’m not certain. I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk to someone that I don’t know about it, but you’re right, I shouldn’t write off a whole profession over one bad experience. It’s helped you.”
“A bit,” Xane agreed. “Not in a fixed me sort of way. It’s more like a tool in the arsenal. Maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t. You won’t know until you try it.”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s what I figured.”
Xane swirled his hair around his fingers, then dropped from the island to his feet. “I guess I’ll get to it. I’m not sure how many local practitioners there’ll be.”
“Wait.” Spook reached for his hand, then entwined their fingers. He wasn’t done with what he had to say. Those hours in bed had been put to good use. He’d churned stuff over, rather than pushing everything into a closet to sort out another day. Alle’s accusations had hurt, but he wasn’t going to apologise for what he’d done. The truth was that being selfish was the only reason he was still upright and breathing at this point.
He’d needed the space to concentrate wholly on himself, and to figure out what he actually wanted and who the fuck he was. He was still figuring it. All his life, he’d been letting other people define him, label him—celibate, kinky, and all the other far more hurtful stuff. It was past time he stopped handing over that power and really sorted out the truth from the fiction. “What if you looked further afield?”
Xane agitated his ring-piercing, a sure sign he was finding this conversation stressful.
“I just… therapy, it’s about trust, right, and building a relationship. I wouldn’t want to find somebody and then have to relocate and start afresh. It makes more sense to find somebody and stick with them, right?”
Xane shrugged. “You might not find the right person straight away.”
“But If I did, I wouldn’t want to forfeit that.”
The furrow between Xane’s brows deepened, and shadows shifted across the surface of his silver-grey eyes. “What are you saying, Spook?”
“That…” It really was past time he grit his teeth and swallowed his doubts. “That we should do as you keep hinting, and relocate to Ric’s place, get the guys there, and record the album.”
“Wha—”
He’d managed to render Xane speechless.
“For real,” he gasped, at last. “You’re ready to relocate?”
Ready? Not remotely. His skin was crawling over the very thought, but he drew back his shoulders, and stood so that he could look Xane in the eyes. “Honestly, I’m not sure I can even walk out of the yard without having a total meltdown, but I’m willing to at least try to do it. I can’t stay here forever. I don’t even know that I want to anymore.”
For most of the last six months he’d absolutely wanted nothing but that. Xane—and Luthor—had helped him see that he did still want more than what existed within the boundaries of his hermitage. He wanted people in his life. Only a select few to begin with. He wasn’t ready for the mayhem of his former existence as a member of Black Halo, tour buses and cramped quarters, constant bustle, and people buzzing around him like flies. What he did want was to drink his fill of different horizons and to feel the thrum of life in his veins again. Fuck the people who’d robbed him of it.
He wasn’t fooling himself that any of it was going to be easy. Some of it was going to be damned excruciatingly hard. There’d be times when he was certain he’d wish he’d stayed here in his blanket fort and kept the world firmly shut out. At some point he was going to have to face the press.
Xane looped a hand around the back of his neck. “Wow, I’m… I’m shocked. But I’ll give you all the help you need. Always. Luthor will too.”
“What am I being volunteered for?” Luthor asked, sauntering through from the bedroom, still towel drying his blond hair. He peered lopsidedly at their intimate embrace. Spook had wound up standing between Xane’s knees.
“Helping Spook fly this place.”
Luthor ceased his rubbing and straightened to his full height. “Assuming you don’t mean literally, where to?”
