Page 18 of Hold Me Down (KRK Security #4)

What the fuck was he thinking?

Dave stared at the doorway as if Travis were to appear again, but he wasn't, he wouldn't, because he'd left . Dave had pushed him away, and he'd gone.

You wanted it, you got it , a voice at the back of his head supplied, and Dave lowered himself back to lie on the bench.

That wasn't what he wanted. He was a mess, and the frustration was thrumming in his blood almost constantly now, and he'd—

He'd pushed away his main source of comfort. Brilliant .

Tilting his head back, he looked at the weights of the bench press and winced. Travis was right. They'd had an agreement, and Dave had been the one who had suggested copying some of the rules from their work gym.

He'd never gone over the limit before. It was easy enough, because they usually trained together, but still. They'd made those rules and he broke them, so to go off on Travis for pointing it out was an asshole move.

Dave was just so tired of not being able to do things.

When his eyes prickled at that, he promptly sat up. He needed to get a grip, because he was all over the place today.

His phone vibrated with an upcoming call, and he clambered off the bench.

It probably wasn't Travis, but maybe…

Nope. It was Colin.

Swallowing the disappointment, Dave accepted the call and put it on speaker as he headed out of the room.

"Hey."

"Hey, what's up? You've gone silent on me, so I'm checking in."

"I haven't gone silent," Dave protested. "What the hell's with you people, I'm not fighting for my life or anything. I don't need constant check-ins."

Colin was silent for a moment.

"Okay, let me rephrase that. What has crawled up your ass?"

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, Dave glared at them.

Damn it , he hadn't thought about that. He needed a shower, but he wasn't looking forward to making that trek up to his room now.

Since it was impossible to do during a call anyway, he headed to the kitchen instead.

"Nothing has crawled anywhere," he muttered. "It's just been a rough—" week "—day."

"What happened?"

Dave put his phone on the counter before opening the fridge and pulling out a pitcher of water.

"Can't it simply be one of those days?"

Colin sighed. "It could, but I don't think it is."

"Great, another person who knows better." Dave shut the fridge door a little harder than necessary, then caught himself. "Shit. Sorry, that was stupid."

"A lot of people having opinions, huh? It must be hard."

Slumping into a chair, Dave leaned on his forearms against the table.

"You don't have to coddle me, either," he said, but the fight that temporarily reared up its head inside him was gone again.

"Wow, there's no winning today, huh?"

"Looks like it, yeah."

"How about we start over, you tell me honestly how you're doing, and I promise not to assume I know any better."

Dave stacked up his hands on top of each other and rested his chin on them.

"Well, if you must know, I'm currently wallowing in self-pity over how stupid I am."

"Uh-uh. What did you do?"

"I fucked up."

"Which means what?"

"I had a fight with Travis—and a stupid one, too. I went off on him because I was tired, frustrated, and pissed off, and he… Fuck, I don't want to get into it. Suffice to say, he left with a door bang, so, you know, not great."

There were another few seconds of silence on Colin's side before he spoke up again.

"Wow, I don't think you've ever told me about you and Travis having a fight."

"Yeah, well, we haven't. I mean, we've had disagreements, don't get me wrong, but we've never… This one deteriorated quickly, and it's mostly my fault."

Going off on Travis would have been bad enough. But to throw that other thing at him…

"And how did you usually handle your disagreements in the past?" Colin asked, dragging Dave's attention back before he could go down a rabbit hole.

"Like most people—by talking it out, or giving ourselves some breathing room and then talking."

A few times they also opted for a hard fuck to relieve the tension, but Colin didn't need to know that.

"Okay, so there's a pretty good chance that you're going to talk it out once you both cool off, right?"

"I guess. I don't know. I've said some things I shouldn't have, and I feel bad about it."

Wasn't that the understatement of the year ?

Colin hummed. "Do you feel like apologizing or are you not ready yet?"

Dave was more than ready to have Travis back with him right now , so the answer came easily.

"I'll apologize, sure. But I'm afraid he's not going to simply accept it."

"Why not?"

Because I said too much .

Dave rubbed his eyes.

"Because he'll want an explanation for some of the things I said, and I'd rather not talk about it."

"Did you—"

"If I'm not ready to have that conversation with him, I'm not having it with you, either."

Colin had suspected Dave wanted what he couldn't have with Travis even before Dave had fully realized it himself, but that didn't mean Dave had any desire to get into it with him now.

He wanted to bury it deep inside him again, where it belonged.

"Fair. But even without having that conversation, you know he's going to forgive you eventually, right?"

"You weren't supposed to make any assumptions," Dave muttered, even though he nodded at the question.

Yeah, Travis would forgive him. That part was easy.

It perhaps hadn't been, for a minute there, when Dave had been at his lowest, but only then.

Colin snorted. "Fair enough, assumption withdrawn."

"What if we can't get past it?" Dave murmured quietly before he stopped himself. "Not the fight part, but the other part. I don't want things to change. I'm already an obligation now—"

"You're not an obligation, shut your mouth," Colin cut him off. "And that's not an assumption, so I'm allowed, by the way. That's you being stupid because you're in a bad place."

"I'm barely a few weeks in and I'm losing my mind!" Dave pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I'm bouncing off the walls, saying stupid shit, and I'm frustrated nearly all the time." He took a shaky breath. "I want my life back."

"Your independence, you mean."

"That, too, but it's more than that. It's my everyday life, my work, my friends, everything."

"Sure, yeah. It sucks to have your routines so utterly destroyed."

"I feel like shit."

"Yeah."

"I mean, if everything goes well, I'll return to work, but who knows how long it will take? And would things even be the same once I'm back?"

"Why wouldn't they be?"

Because they'll get used to being without me.

Because Travis will, too, and then he won't need me in the same way and—

Dave dropped his hands and stared at the wall as his heart pounded in his chest.

He wanted to be needed, and, at the same time, he didn't want to need anyone himself—not even Travis.

Of course, Dave failed at that miserably—he did need Travis, in many different ways. He'd needed him for almost as long as they'd known each other.

And yet, needing him now to accomplish basic things had thrown Dave completely off balance.

It was worse than being stupidly in love with the guy. That, he knew how to handle. But to be dependent on him, to feel like a weight pulling Travis down instead of being right there with him every step of the way…

Dave didn't know how to do this. At all.

He had to figure it out, though.

He had to.