Page 102 of Mine

I went to make sure the radiator was on because you could hang meat in our apartment.

“Gross,” he mumbled from the kitchen. “I think the oranges are moldy.”

He was fine. He had been on the phone with both the women who worked for him, waking them up, I was sure, but they were both so happy to hear his voice that it didn’t matter. He was asking about sales and how some new piece was selling and how the fall promotion was going. The man had been kidnapped, his life had been turned upside down and inside out, and he was perfectly fine. He was actually very interested in going out for breakfast with me as well as others, having called Javier and Dave, Jeff and Tim, and Russell and whoever the flavor of the month was.

“They might not be able to, babe,” I told him. “It’s Monday morning, after all. Everyone has to work.”

This was not a consideration, and I was certain once I explained to everyone, they would change their plans to be there for him.

“I’m dying to see the restaurant Gabriel’s setting you up in,” he said happily, dumping what was dirty into the hamper and hanging up what was clean. “Is April excited? I bet she’s excited. I bet she can’t wait to quit working at the bank and start training her staff and thinking up menu items. Oh honey, I’m so psyched for you. Your restaurant dream is finally coming true! We have to celebrate and have a huge party as soon as your mother gets back from visiting your aunt.” He sucked in his breath. “Oh my God, did you call your mother and tell her the good news? Does she know that her—”

“Jesus, Landry, could you shut the fuck up?”

“What?”

His brain and his mouth were going a hundred miles an hour.

“Trev?”

I took his face in my hands, staring at him, studying him.

He was looking at me like I was nuts. “Baby, are you okay?”

“I am, but how can you be?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Landry.” I choked on a breath.

He started laughing, and I shoved him down onto the couch. “You’re not—”

“Love,” he said with a giggle, sitting up, “I understand that to you this is weird. I mean, I was kidnapped and held for ransom, and I had a SWAT guy on top of me when I heard them fire the shots into Brendan, and I should be freaking out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I should be a puddle on the floor.”

I nodded.

“Because I’m fragile, I break easy, and I break a lot, right?”

What was I supposed to say? “I’m just worried that—”

“I’m gonna fly apart.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded and bit his bottom lip before he made a face at me like he’d bitten a lemon. “Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

I flopped down into the overstuffed chair beside the coffee table, just staring at him.

“Listen, I know your life has been a little surreal over the past week, but really, my life used to be like that all the time. Everything changed constantly. I mean, my father traveled for work every week, my mother had so many social engagements I never saw her, and us kids, we were so heavily scheduled that we never even saw each other. I saw our housekeeper, our nanny, our chauffeur, but between school and sports and activities and friends… I didn’t have the kind of life you had. Once I left, once I left that life and came here for college, between working all the jobs I needed and friends and then parties and guys and everything else I was into—it was the same. It was a big blur. So what you have to understand is that only within the past two years, only since I’ve been with you, has there ever been a routine in my life. You are the only constant I’ve ever had. Do you understand that?”

I didn’t, not really.

“So we’re fine? I have my routine back, and I’ll go to work tomorrow. I’ll come home after that and make you dinner. When you get home, you’ll tell me about your day, I’ll tell you about mine, and it’s all good. I’m good. All that crazy that we just went through, all that shit, I can shake that off easy as long as this, this right here, doesn’t change. This, us, can never, ever, change. Do you understand?”

I stared at him.