Page 91 of Stupid Dirty

“Silas?” He moves closer to me, concern obvious in his eyes.

I want to thank him for taking care of everything today, and apologize for being such a mess.

“I love you,” is what I say instead.

Cade’s head tilts, like a different angle will help him figure out the deeper meaning of it all. Then a slow smile spreads across his face and he reaches for me, pulling me towards him and relieving me of the towel in one movement.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, his lips so close to mine I can barely hear the words. I don’t need to hear them though, because when he kisses me, it’s all right there. I can feel that he means it in every way he touches me and pulls us closer together.

Somehow, we collapse to the mattress together. I’m already naked, and it doesn’t take long for Cade to strip his clothes off item by item, in between kisses. We’re warm and tangled together, but even though we’re both turned on, there isn’t the desperate urgency we usually get when we’re together. Neither of us makes a move to do anything other than kiss, and for once I’m content to lie here and luxuriate in it.

After a while, my eyelids grow heavy but my mind is just as loud and chaotic as it was in the shower. Cade pulls away, studying my face for a second before he speaks.

“Do you wanna sleep? You look exhausted.”

I sigh. “I can’t seem to turn my brain off. I’m normally so good at that. Shutting down is my go to. But it’s like everything is on a loop in there and it won’t shut the fuck up.”

“Welcome to my life,” Cade says, smiling. “I know exactly what you mean. All the lights are on but nothing makes any sense, 24/7, right?”

I huff a laugh at the mental image. “Pretty much. So what do you do? How do you turn down the volume?”

“Well, there’s a lot of unhealthy ways that I don’t recommend, but the most effective way I’ve found is letting you rail me into blissful oblivion. Your magic dick shuts my brain right the fuck up. All those endorphins, baby,” he says, grinning at me like an idiot and tracing his fingers over my semi-hard cock as he says it.

I know he’s being playful, but I’d never really thought about it like that before. It puts everything that I was worried about before in a totally different light.

“You mean that doesn’t scare you?” I ask.

Cade frowns at me. “What?”

“When I lose control and get rough with you? You never said anything, but I was always worried you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, or whatever.”

There’s a long pause while Cade squints at me, and I can almost see the wheels turning in his brain as he figures out how to phrase whatever he wants to say.

“You mean I never said anything other than good stuff? Like ‘that was awesome’ or ‘God, we’re so good at sex we should start filming ourselves’.”

“I mean,” I squirm, trying to figure out what I really do mean. “Yes? No? I can’t always tell when you’re joking or beingpolite or trying to placate me or what. I know you’d tell me if you wanted me to stop doing something, but I don’t know how much you put up with for my sake, not because you really want to.” Panic is creeping into my voice. I can see how serious this conversation has become from his face, but I’m not sure where I went wrong.

I’m never sure where I went wrong when it comes to this stuff. All I do is flounder and wait for things to fall apart.

Maybethat’swhere I’m going wrong.

“Oh, Silas,” Cade says softly, rubbing his hand over his eyes before reaching out to cup my face. “Our communication skills are a fucking dumpster fire. I can’t believe you’ve been worried about this the whole time. I’m so sorry.”

The right words to answer with are there, but whenever I reach for them, they duck out of reach. Silence stretches between us while we both come to terms with the idea that we have more to work on than we thought.

“Silas, I know we were both raised on bread crumbs of affection and emotional stability, so this stuff feels like speaking in code sometimes,” he says. “But I need you to promise me that you’ll at least try to talk to me about it. Whenever something’s bothering you or you can’t figure out how I feel, you have to say something. Otherwise, I won’t be able to help you. It’s the only way we'll be able to make things work when we have the combined emotional intelligence of a celery stick, okay?”

Nodding, the tension is already relaxing its grip on my body at the knowledge that Cade isn’t really angry with me. If he sees this as something we can learn to cope with, then maybe we can.

He kisses me quickly, slotting one of his legs in between mine and pulling me closer to him before he continues.

“There’s one more thing I need you to promise me. We don’t need to start today, because things have been crazy, but promise me that you will see a doctor about your mental health stuff. Wecan figure out the money. I can save on every ER bill by putting you back together with duct tape and superglue; I’ll do the same thing with my bike, but I don’t have emotional duct tape and I don’t know the first place to start, so I need you to see someone for real. Please.”

The vulnerability and fear in his eyes is unnerving. His fingertips dig into my skin everywhere he’s clutching at me, and I can feel his sincerity dripping off of every word.

“Yeah, Cade. I can do that, if you want.” I wrap my fingers around his hip and give it a reassuring squeeze. “I never thought about it before because it wasn’t an option, but I guess there’s nothing stopping us now. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll do anything. I don’t want you to end up like my dad, feeling like you have to watch over me. I didn’t come back to burden you like that.”

Cade nods, and his breathing slows down as the panic spiral that was trying to take hold of him seems to dissipate.

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