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Oscar huffed, pushing upright with a shake of his head. “No, I’m up now. No going back to sleep for me.”

He’d never been good at rolling over and going back to sleep once he’d woken up. Honestly, the only times he’d managed was when he was more tired than he’d ever been or curled up in bed with Troy. Oscar found it all too easy to wrap around the smaller man in the early hours and drift back into a peaceful sleep.

“You can at least call me back when you’re more alert,” Gabriel chuckled.

“I’m awake,” Oscar shot back as he slid off the bed.

“So, I should expect you to keep zoning out then?”

“Oh, God, maybe you should call me back. Don’t abuse me when I just woke up.”

“This isn’t abuse, it’s love.”

“With love like this, who needs hate?” Oscar grumbled as he shambled into the kitchen.

“A shame you’re not a coffee drinker. You could be angrily staring at the drip machine and willing it to brew faster,” Gabriel said.

Oscar chose a bottle of water from the fridge instead. “So what’s up? Why are you calling me at this hour?”

“Well, you’re normally pretty good about calling me every few days when you’re in the States. Since you’re here for who knows how long, I noticed it’s been well over a week, almost two since we last spoke.”

Oscar did a quick calculation in his head and winced. “I guess it has been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry, I’ve just been?—”

“Busy?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, you were bitching that not enough happened around there. I guess you got your wish.”

Oscar flopped down into a kitchen chair, frowning. “I don’t know if this is what I was wishing for, but I certainly got something.”

“I probably know the answer, but do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

Oscar sighed. “Not really, no.”

“You sound a lot more tired than waking up early should sound. You sure you don’t want to lay it on me? I’ve got all morning.”

Oscar frowned. “Don’t you have actual patients to be all therapisty on?”

“Not till the afternoon. Had a morning one, but she bailed because her mother got into a car accident this morning.”

“Sounds like a good reason to cancel.”

“It would be if she could keep her lies straight.”

“Lies?”

Gabriel laughed. “Shelly is a chronic liar. Her mother has been in a couple of ‘accidents’ and even got mugged once, according to Shelly. She forgets that I know her mother passed away when Shelly was in her teens, and her father never remarried.”

“And...you didn’t call her on it?” Oscar asked.

“What, over the phone? That’s a good way to get her to cancel next time too. No, she and I will talk about it when she comes in, don’t worry. I’m more worried about you.”

“You don’t have to,” Oscar said.

“So you’ve said since you were thirteen. You said it when the cops brought you home at fourteen and again a few months later. And then again, when you came home from the desert, missing an arm and with shrapnel in your hip. Your idea of what I should and shouldn’t worry about isn’t very reliable.”

Oscar frowned at the phone. “Shit, when you lay it out like that, I sound like a fucking disaster.”