But those are the days he desperately wishes Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was the way they always showed it on telly. That it started and stopped with wanting his cupboards organized and his grass cut in even rows. Those are the days he wishes it was just a matter of washing his hands and clicking locks, because maybe he wouldn’t spend some nights starving and unable to eat, with his back pressed to the kitchen cupboards trying to stop the feeling of all the air being wrung out of him by invisible hands.
But that’s just life. It’s his life, and has been for as long as he can remember. And while it got easier with therapy and medication, mostly it’s just living as the person he is and hoping it’s enough.
He would have laughed himself stupid back then, if someone had come along and told him what his life would be like in twenty years. That he’d be creeping toward fifty with a hole where his heart once was and his hand in the pocket of some college kid ready to bleed money from his veins for some semblance of peace.
And the reality is, Alejandro has no idea what he’s doing. He’s a lonely, divorced man who can’t stand human touch, who just became a sugar daddy. He’s stepping into a world he’d only heard of in the periphery of his too-rich colleagues, trying and probably failing to look like had has his shit together. And, of course, he’d asked for this. He’d set the wheels in motion, had drawn up the contract, had invited Avery to sign. Regret is as familiar and constant a companion as grief, though, so nothing feels alien as he sets foot inside and nods to the nervous woman behind the tall desk.
His only saving grace is that Avery isn’t there yet, so he can get down at least two glasses of scotch to calm his nerves. No one would have known he was shaking apart inside though, because Alejandro has been a master of his outward emotions for longer than he cares to remember. It was his ex’s biggest complaint about him, and he thinks it’s almost ironic that they got divorced for the very opposite reason.
When he met Connor, he was just as stoic as he was now. He was quiet, he was reluctant to give or receive affecting. But Connor wasn’t like men he’d dated in the past. He spent most of their first year together reassuring Alejandro that he wouldn’t need to hide is compulsions or compromise himself.
Connor was bright and he was beautiful, and he looked at Alejandro like the sun rose and set in his smile. Being with him made sense in ways most things didn’t. Alejandro might not have felt fireworks—his heart beat the same way every single day, but he didn’t need more than that.
And it stayed easy with Connor as time passed. They got married after a few years because that made sense, speaking vows that Alejandro didn’t really envision himself breaking because Connor offered Alejandro everything he was supposed to want in a future. They were well off and something akin to happy. They had big careers and big dreams and the vague notion of family planning in a few decades when it made sense to take those steps.
It took the death of their child to crack Alejandro into a billion pieces and leave him unable to do anything but express the wordless ache he would never, ever stop feeling. And he knew his grief was drowning those around him. He was flailing, but he’d lost the will to save himself, and Connor knew the only way he could breathe again was if he let Alejandro go.
Not that he blames Connor for it—or for this current mess he’s in. He lost all sense and reason long ago, so the day he saw Avery standing there looking like a drowned puppy in the freezing November air, he had no defense against him. He was dripping and sudsy, looking like some Greek god with his hair tied back in a bun and two nipple rings showing through the impossibly thin fabric of his t-shirt.
He looked like a wet dream and an emotional nightmare all wrapped up in one beautiful package. Alejandro hadn’t so much as glanced over at the two women holding signs on the corner, so he didn’t exactly know what he was stopping for, only that he couldn’t stop staring at the hope glinting in the younger man’s eyes.
The rest of the moment fell like dominos, the kind that reveal some intricate portrait once they all fall.
And they’re still falling, Alejandro thinks as he taps out his rhythm on the tablecloth. He has no idea what the endgame is, what the big picture will reveal once they all finally hit the ground. He knows that it’s not him and Avery riding off into the sunset, because he’s not a fool. He’s a walking curse that brings pain and death every time he allows himself to love and care for something.
It’s been a fear of his for so long, and losing his daughter made it feel like every vague delusion his therapist had walked him through were at risk for coming true. Fleeing England, taking over his father’s American offices and losing himself in work has only done so much. It’s helped him bury his grief deeper, withdraw from people further. It’s helped him become this vague shape of a man, who fell for a person standing outside in the winter chill trying to raise money for a trip to Crete.
If only he was able to offer Avery more than the mess he is.
He wants to blame his disorder for it sometimes, but he can barely do that because Connor had spotted him and looked past all of the things that made him unapproachable and awkward and loved him—maybe for it, maybe in spite of it. He never did get the chance to ask him though, and by the time they were signing divorce papers, he just stopped caring why Connor stuck for nearly two decades.
What little progress he’d gained being married to Connor for all those years had been obliterated by Gabrielle’s death. What little feelings he’d taught himself to express openly without fear that they were going to cause some global disaster had been frozen in ice and buried in the tundra the day she took her last breath.
And with eight long years of living without either of them, he’s sort of settled into whatever man he knows he’s going to be for the rest of his life. Of course, he hasn’t offered more to Avery, and that alone comforts him as he sits at the table waiting to see if he’s going to show up for this date. The day Avery showed up to sign the contract, Alejandro made it very clear what he expected.
“Dates,” he’d said, and Avery’s eyes—wide and watching—narrowed a little. “You’ll get a text with a few hours to change any plans you might have. I will send a car or you’re free to drive…”
Avery had laughed, his head shaking. “I don’t have a car.”
“We can remedy that,” he’d said, and made a mental note to have someone take this man car shopping. After a beat, he cleared his throat. “All I require is that you show up, we converse, and then you go home.”
“Okay…”
“And I have four rules,” Alejandro went on. He was already tired of talking, but he was desperate to get this over with. “The first, you don’t dig into my past. Not online, not through friends. The second, you show up for every date, no matter what the circumstances are. The third, do not touch me. Ever. The fourth, you are not to see other people for the duration of our contract.” Simple, straightforward, and he’d expected Avery to balk at every single one.
But he didn’t.
Avery seemed confused, like he had a thousand questions, but he asked none of them. He simply signed his name on the dotted line that held all of his personal information, which would transfer control of his school expenses and every one of his bills, then he took the envelope of cash and didn’t offer to hug Alejandro or shake his hand before leaving the room.