Page 5 of Rowan’s Renewal (DKAG Summer Shorts #6)

Rowan tries the sashimi after me, and we compare how fresh and light the dish is, compared to the comfort and warmth of the salmon meal. Neither of us can pick a favorite, but we do agree that we need to have dessert afterwards.

“Here, or from the gelato place down the street?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t mind, I—” His eyes widen and his body tenses up, his shoulders and spine going rigid. A pink flush dusts over his cheeks.

“Are you okay?” I ask, leaning forward. “Were you allergic to something in the food, or—”

“No. No. I just…Excuse me.”

He pushes back from the table and hurries towards the bathrooms again, and I frown at his retreating back. I wonder if the meal didn’t agree with him, or whether jetlag has messed with his constitution. My concern grows the longer he’s away from the table.

Should I follow him?

Both the doctor in me and the Daddy seem to think I should.

When the waitress swings by to collect our empty dishes, I assure her that everything was amazing, and I ask for the check. Rowan still hasn’t resurfaced by the time I’ve paid for the meal, and that is enough to allow my concern to override my fears of crossing a line.

I weave my way through the still-crowded restaurant and into the bathrooms. The men’s room has three stalls, but only one is occupied, and there isn’t anyone at the urinals.

Closing the main door and sliding the lock across to guarantee a modicum of privacy, I step up to the far stall door and tap on it.

“Rowan?”

There’s a hitch of breath, then a defeated, “Sorry.”

That does nothing to ease my worries. “Sorry? Why sorry? Are you all right? Did the meal not agree?”

“No,” there’s a wobble to his voice that brings Daddy Aaron ever-closer to the surface. “No, my stomach is fine. I…I just…I…Fuck, you’d think after twenty years this would get easier, but it never does, and—”

“Sweetheart,” I cut him off, hearing the wobble in his voice escalating into panic, “you’re working yourself up. Breathe for me.”

His breathing is shaky, before he quietly pleads, “I just want to go home.”

There’s something incredibly heartbreaking in the way the words come out, his voice clogged with tears and…shame? He might not be aware of it, but he sounds so young and helpless, it tugs at my heartstrings.

“We can do that,” I tell him, aware that I’ve dipped into the soothing Daddy voice I reserved for Jerry’s meltdowns. “We’ll go back to the resort and—”

“N-no,” he sounds so broken, “I want to go home . I sh-should never have come here. I…I miss my house, and cold weather, and s-sweaters…”

“Rowan, honey, breathe.” I have no idea what has triggered this, but every instinct in me screams to comfort him and fix it. “Can I come in?”

He’s silent for a long moment. Then there’s some shuffling and the latch over the handle of the stall door turns from the red ‘occupied’ sign to the green ‘vacant’ one. The door swings inwards, and Rowan stands in front of me, his eyes downcast.

He’s slightly taller than me, and certainly bulkier, but he’s once again doing his best to shrink into himself.

“Sweetheart, what’s” —he lifts his hand at his side, holding an item I’m intimately familiar with, and gently eases past me to drop it into the trashcan in the corner of the room, where it lands with a telling thud — “wrong?” I finish, though the wet patch on the back of his jeans, dark blue over light denim, answers my question for me.

For a moment, we stand in silence, the only sounds coming from him washing his hands and sniffling.

Then I come to my damn senses.

“Rowan, baby, look at me.”

His face is bright red, his embarrassment more than obvious, and he cringes as he complies, speaking before I get a chance to try and assure him that it’ll be okay. “I…it’s a medical thing. I…I know I’m d-disgusting, but—”

“What?”

“I…I must have…the wine…I…” He closes his eyes, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob almost violently. “Alex always said my bladder can’t handle wine. Guess he was right about that, too.”

I’d bet the Rolex my dad gave me when I graduated from med school that Alex is also the reason this sweet man thinks he’s ‘disgusting’. I want five minutes alone with this Alex. I swear, I just want to talk. With my fists. And not like a cute puppet show.

“Firstly,” I tell him, firmly but calmly, “You are not disgusting. I can understand why incontinence can be embarrassing at times, but you are not disgusting. I need to hear you repeat that.”

Bewildered, red-rimmed, wet eyes flash upwards to meet mine. “What?”

“Repeat it.”

“I’m not disgusting,” he mumbles.

“Good boy,” the praise slips out, but I stand by it, “because you are not.”

“But—”

“It’s just pee, Rowan. We all pee.”

“Yeah, well, most people manage to make it to the bathroom.”

I want to tell him that some people enjoy not making it, but I don’t think he’s ready to hear that right now. Not while we’re standing in this men’s room, anyway. Later, when he’s calmed down, I want to try to undo some of the damage this Alex person has done.

Instead, in response to his self-deprecating snark, I say, “You did everything you could to mitigate that. Sometimes, protection fails.”

“Pretty sure that’s how I came into existence,” he mutters.

I snort. “Me too, to be honest.” Not that my parents were anything less than loving and supportive, but I’m sure they thought they were done and dusted with my older siblings —the youngest of whom was nine when I came about— when I appeared.

Still, my words do the trick and the corner of Rowan’s plump lips ticks upwards.

Relieved, I smile and softly tell him, “We can fix this. Do you trust me?”