Page 57 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

“And then…” Obie trails his fingers down Chester’s side.

“And th en we can find some hobbies for you, too. Something you can relax and enjoy without worrying about being perfect. You can still come bowling with me if you want, but if it’s not your thing, that’s okay.

I can just bring you home mozzarella sticks and curly fries and ridiculous stories about the twins.

We can let our guard down and be safe and just…

have each other.” He gives Chester a small smile. “How does that sound, sweetheart?”

For a long moment, Chester searches Obie’s eyes.

And then he says, “What are you talking about?”

The words are like ice water over Obie’s head. “What?”

“Obie?—?” Chester sits up on the mattress, staring down at Obie in bewilderment. “Obie, we can’t do any of that. We still have so much work to do here, so much we can still do to take down the Sanctum from the inside.”

Obie’s chest tightens. He pushes himself upright, matching Chester’s pose.

“Chester, we’ve pretty much bled all your sources dry.

There’s nothing else you have access to that we haven’t already searched, and even Nehemiah’s sources aren’t turning up much anymore?—hell, that snippet you found about Kingsborough last night was the first new lead we’ve had in ages. ”

Chester sets his jaw. “But will any of that be enough to bring the Sanctum down? Or to convince Bryant?”

Bryant. Goddamn it. Obie almost forgot about Chester’s obsession with getting her out with them.

“Okay, let’s back up,” Obie says, holding up a hand.

“I’m not saying that we’ll stop trying to destroy the Sanctum altogether, okay?

Of course not. I’m just saying that we can continue the fight somewhere that lets us actually have a life together. At my house, where it’s safe.”

“But that’s?—?” Chester shakes his head sharply. “Obie, that isn’t the plan. That isn’t what we talked about, isn’t what we’ve been working towards, isn’t?—isn’t what we wanted. ”

Obie’s stomach is twisting tighter with every word. There’s a little bit of dread rising in his throat, a little bit of apprehension, but at the same time??—

At the same time, there’s a little bit of resignation, too. A little bit of bitterness.

Because of course this ended exactly how Obie should’ve known it would. Of course Chester doesn’t actually want what Obie wants.

Of course, when Obie finally found someone he truly cares for after fifteen thousand years, he still can’t have him.

Suddenly, sitting here in his true form feels like an invitation to get hurt. In a flash, he snaps his human facade back into place, back to where it belongs.

Chester flinches away, pain flickering over his face. “Obie??—?”

“Just to confirm,” Obie cuts in. His heart feels raw. “Last night didn’t change anything for you?”

“What?” Chester’s eyes widen. “No?—no, Obie, last night changed everything, okay? Last night changed everything, and it meant everything to me, but?—?” He wraps his hand around Obie’s wrist. “Baby, it changed everything between us. It didn’t change anything about our mission.”

“They’re the same thing, Chester,” Obie snaps.

“Sixth love language, remember? Vengeance was our relationship, but it doesn’t have to be?—not anymore.

We have more than that now. We don’t have to keep playing this game and using you as a weapon and just surviving instead of actually living.

There are almost a dozen people working to take down the Sanctum and the Chain at this point. We can join them on the outside.”

Chester’s shoulders hunch, but his eyes don’t leave Obie’s. “But we can do more from in here. Our intel put the Conspiracy Fam years ahead in their investigation, remember? Now is the time to push to the finish line, not change tactics. ”

“That’s not?—?” Obie squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his thumb and forefinger against them. “Chester, I’ve been alive for a very long time, okay? Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it didn’t fall in a day, either. We might be looking at decades, not weeks or months.”

Chester’s voice cracks. “Then it takes decades. I can handle that.”

Obie’s chest clenches. It feels very nearly like panic. “Chester. Puppy. This place is going to kill you. It’s been trying to kill you for years.”

“I know.” Chester’s eyes search Obie’s face, like he’s trying to figure out how to make Obie understand.

“That’s why I have to stay. I was?—I was the prototype, remember?

The successful experiment. The reason why the Sanctum started murdering families and making orphans and destroying lives like mine and JJ’s. I can’t just let that go.”

“And you won’t,” Obie stresses. “We won’t, okay? But we can keep fighting from the outside, from somewhere safe. It doesn’t have to be our entire lives. It doesn’t have to be your entire life.”

“But it is my entire life.” Chester’s voice is strained. “It’s literally my life. Obie??—??”

“Come on, puppy.” Obie hates that it sounds like he’s begging, but he can’t bring himself to stop. “Come with me. Let me take you home with me. Let me take care of you. I just?—I just want to spend the rest of your life taking care of you. Keeping you safe.”

Chester’s breathing sounds shaky. “I?—I don’t need you to protect me, Obie.

Or take care of me. I’ve been doing that myself since I was ten.

” He grabs Obie’s hand, squeezing tightly.

“What I want?—what I need? —is for us to take down the Sanctum together. Just like we always planned. I want to spend the rest of my life doing that, okay?”

Obie’s heart cracks. “I… don’t. I don’t want that. Not for you, and not for me, either.”

Chester’s face crumples. “Obie??—? ”

Obie shoves himself to his feet, pulling his hand out of Chester’s.

Putting some distance between them. “I need to run some chores around town,” he lies, running his hands down his jeans.

Trying to erase the feeling of Chester’s skin underneath his fingertips.

“And you have work. I’ll be back tonight.

Probably after bowling, if the binding spell lets me stay away for that long. ”

“What? But that’s?—” Chester grabs for his cell phone, checking the time on the screen. “Obie, it’s not even six a.m. yet. That would be over sixteen hours.”

“Great,” Obie says, trying to inject some false cheer into his voice and probably failing miserably. “New record, right?”

Chester’s eyes narrow. “You know as well as I do that we don’t need to test the binding spell, Smith. It doesn’t need to work to keep us from leaving each other, not anymore.” His jaw twitches. “Or it didn’t before now, at least.”

He looks almost angry. Good. Anger is better than the gaping hole that’s currently raging in Obie’s chest. “Last night was… probably a mistake,” he says briskly, and Chester jerks back like Obie slapped him. “We rushed into things. As usual. Won’t happen again.”

Chester’s lips press tightly together. “Obie??—?”

Obie peels open a rift before Chester can say anything else.

“Later, Locke,” he says, and he escapes back to his own house, landing in the middle of his bedroom.

He tries not to let his eyes wander, tries not to remember all the ways he’s imagined Chester in this room, tries not to linger on how he wanted to weave their lives together??—

Tries not to think about how everything just shattered in less than ten minutes.

He’s left standing there for a long time.