Page 5 of The Barn: Frost and Q

Frost looked at him like he was unsure, like he just didn’t know what to do next. It broke Q’s heart, because he was the only person on earth who made his utterly confident Frost unsure about anything, and it just sucked.

“Go on, go swim, do your laps. I’ll be here waiting for you when you get done. Work out some of that extra energy.”

He waved Frost off, going to sit on one of the steps at the edge of the pool, his legs kicking restlessly. He didn’t bother to try to keep them still. He just let them be what they were.

Sometimes, he wished the bullet had killed him. That way Frost could have just mourned him and been done with it, and he wouldn’t have cared because he would have been gone.

Then he thought how fucking whiny that was and pulled up his proverbial socks and got on with his day. He wasn’t anyone’s inspiration porn or reason for living or any shit like that. He was just a guy doing the best he could.

Frost did about twenty laps of hard swimming, clearly working off his divorce settlement comment.

And he felt bad for it. He did. But sometimes, he didn’t feel so bad that shit like that just came out of his mouth.

He wasn’t even meaning to get a rise. It was like bitterness filled him up and then spilled out.

God, he hated that shit.

Finally, Frost swam back over to him, then propped himself up on the steps between Quentin’s floating legs. “So, do you feel less caustic now?”

“I don’t know. I feel small and petty, but I also feel like you’ve been pushing and pushing, and you won’t even talk to me about a divorce!” Quentin slapped the water with one hand.

“You’re right. I won’t. When you showed me the papers, you hadn’t even signed them, and they had coffee rings all over them. Obviously, you’re a wee bit conflicted about that.”

“I am… Not. Yeah, okay, maybe I am.”

Frost knelt up and took his hands. “Come swim with me.” He tugged, dislodging Quentin from the steps. They half-floated, half-paddled to the center of the pool, where Frost bounced a little, one foot down, keeping him afloat.

He didn’t know what Frost wanted. Not that that was a surprise, really. He spent an enormous amount of time not knowing what Frost fucking wanted from him.

It used to be that Frost just told him, that Frost understood.

Now he had to guess, and he wasn’t tickled with the idea.

Ever.

He’d always hated surprises.

“You’re scowling,” Frost told him. As if he didn’t feel the frown lines on his own face.

“Yes. I am. What do you want, Frost?”

“You mean right now? I want you to swim with me.”

“Well, that too.” He rolled his shoulders when they tensed up. “But I mean in general.”

“I want you.” Frost never looked away, even when he growled.

“Are you sure?”

“What? Of course I am. That’s why I’m here, baby boy. If I was ready to give up, I would have left.”

“Well, you say you want me, but the last few weeks, all you’ve done is run people at me to change me. Or improve me. Therapists. Physio people. Boone. All trying to snap me out of this funk I’m in, or whatever.”

Frost’s mouth dropped open, and he let go of Quentin. He started to sink, and he yelped, flailing a little. Frost caught him. “Shit! Q. I’m sorry. You just surprised the fuck out of me.”

“I did? How?” He wanted to just swim back to the steps, but Frost held him where he was.

“I’m not trying to make you get over anything. I was ready to meet you where you are. Ready to do whatever you needed. But you just wouldn’t let me in. And then suddenly you asked me to spend the night, and I thought?—”

“What, that I was ready to recover? It’s not that easy!” He was panting, his feet trying to move him away and not quite doing it.

“I never said it was!” Frost was roaring now, his full-on Dom voice and his firefighter leader voice melding into one huge sound.

“But dammit, you just won’t let me do anything!

You keep accusing me of pitying you. So I thought if I did everything I could think of, something might get you to tell me what you want! ”

“And what if what I want is a divorce?” he asked quietly.

Frost deflated right in front of his eyes, the tired lines on his face thrown into stark relief. “Is that what you really want?”

“It would be easier.”

“But is that what you want?” Frost had gone all stony now, his expression morphing so fast.

“No.” The word popped out without his permission. But it was still true. “No, that’s not what I want.”

Frost relaxed, not smiling, but pulling him in to press a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Thank God.”

“I wish we could go back to where we started.”

They’d been poor and living in a little one-bedroom apartment. Quentin had been in school when he’d met Frost, who’d been the hottest thing he’d ever seen. He’d been beautiful, strong, masculine. He’d just taken Q and turned him inside out about fifteen years ago.

And now, there was money that he’d never asked for, and that they’d never worked for. There was this huge complex. There was this goddamn pool. And he didn’t want any of it.

He wanted that one-bedroom apartment and its silly bed that creaked every time they made love. Just that.

“You and I both know that that’s not going to ever happen.

We can’t go back. I could give all the money away.

We could walk away from this place. We could run for years, but the simple fact is that some asshole still kidnapped you because they were pissed, and you still have a bullet in your brain.

” Frost shook his head. “I’d take it all back in a second, but I can’t. I can’t fix this, baby boy. I’m sorry.”

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Frost couldn’t fix it.

And the Dom in him needed to fix the situation.

For the first time, he honestly understood, and he thought Frost did too.

He couldn’t give Frost what he needed, but that was his job as a sub, as a husband, as a lover, as a friend. And he couldn’t.

“So how much longer until I get to get in the hot tub?”

Frost smiled at him. “Let’s see if we can swim from one end of the pool to the other. That’s where we are anyway, so just go over to this wall and then back to the other wall, and we’ll be good to go.”

“Fair enough. I want to bubble.” He was gonna suck this up. He didn’t know how, and he knew it was gonna hurt no matter what, but that was the way life worked.

Sometimes, it had to hurt.