Page 161 of Nine-Tenths

Sarah looks away for a moment, hand on her cheek, thoughtful. "He was like you. He didn't see the advantages of life in a hoard."

"What happened?" I ask, dread crawling up my throat.

Sarah chuckles. "Master Tudor didn't roast and eat him, if that's what you're imagining. He left."

That piques my interest. "How do you mean?"

"He asked to go, and Master Tudor said he could." She stands. "The price was that he would never see his children again, but that was fine with all of us, frankly. The boss has been a better father to Martha and Nate than that dipshit ever was. You look surprised."

"I didn't think…" Sarah leaves me space to finish the thought, but I haven't formed it yet. So I repeat: "I don't want to be owned."

"No. But you do want to be loved. And so does the boss."

Chapter Forty-Two

There's a tray of food in the hall. The scent of it whirls into the room as Sarah exits. I'm suddenly starving. Under a cloche, I find roasted potatoes and an omelet made of vegetables from the kitchen garden, still warm. I eat, and then shower. While I'm in there, thinking-not-too-seriously about whether it's worth shampooing my beard when I plan on shaving it all off in a few minutes (don't picture Dav with beard burn around his mouth) (okay, picture it a little) I alsothinkthink.

See the thing is… I've been pretty directionless. No secret there.

It's been well over a year since I graduated, and if I'm honest with myself (which, hey, I don't tend to do a lot. GenZ GallowsHumor, it's a thing,) I can admit that I wasn't trying all that hard.

The pressure to go from Degree to Career to Marriage to Home Ownership to Happy Little Reproducing and Consuming Member of Society is late-stage capitalist nonsense, we all know that. But it's so pervasive. It gets its hooks into you. It feels like it's natural to want, toneedthose things.

And maybe I've been resisting it, as much as my queer ass can. I didn't reallywantthe picket fence, kid, and 2.5 dogs. Rebekah and I had madeplans,and the minute they stopped matching up, they melted like candy floss in the rain. But that's not what kept me working a job that, while enjoyable, isn’t what I want to do with my life. It's not the reason I kept slogging through a tedious string of one-night stands.

It was apathy.

It was aimlessness.

It was, to be honest, grief.

I wanted my father to be grinning up at me from the audience when I was awarded my degree, and when he wasn't?

It knocked the stuffing outta me.

I’ve been drifting because things didn't happen the way I expected, and I… I wasn't being proactive, or thoughtful, or even concerned about my own choices. I was just letting life happen to me,aroundme. Even Dav. I let him justhappen.

Thank god he just happened.

Where would I be if he hadn't? Not standing in a shower, wondering if I could reconcile my own moral values with the reality of my situation, that's for sure.

But also, not being adored by one of the most emotionally available and kind men I've ever met. Dav's charming, and thoughtful, and gives a shit what I think. He doesn't want to change anything about me. (Even though he keeps trying to get me to dress better. He’s not the first.) He doesn't make fun of mefor the romance novel thing. He gets it about Dad. He's felt the same kind of devastating grief that comes of losing someone so quickly, so unexpectedly, and so permanently.

He has terrible jokes, and terrible socks, and he tries so damn hard to be what everyone needs him to be. He's so fucking selfless, and he's really good in bed.

He doesn't rush me. He understands the choices I need to make, and he's not trying to make them for me.

He meets me where I am.

I don't get what he sees in me. There are hundreds of humans like me out there. He could have picked any of them. I was just convenient.

But then again, people don't completely overhaul the way they run their farms for convenience.

It's a fuck of a Grand Romantic Gesture.

My friends, my family, my roommate, my goddamnedtherapistkeep asking me: "What do you want, Colin?"

I want…