A/N: Double update! Make sure you read chapter 5! ☺️💝
REUBEN • POV
Pressure.
I was feeling it like a creeping stalker hiding around every corner, hovering, waiting, coercing me into making changes in my life that I found to be frankly terrifying and I wasn't sure if I was willing to give into his demands or if I should be fighting his creepy stalker ass away with a stick.
Nolan's presence here was stirring everything up into a whirlwind and he was making me see and realise things I'd been perfectly content to remain ignorant about, yet now I could no longer ignore them. Watching Daddy break down like that out in the hallway because I'd admitted to, and apologised for, my passive existence in our relationship and tendency to hurt him without remorse, had been like a slap in the face.
It was confronting, terrifying actually and I think it really hit me that Daddy would've walked away from me if we hadn't met Nolan and he was perfectly justified in doing so. I'd given him little to no reason to stay. I was a brat, I didn't work or contribute financially in any way. I fought him, I hurt him. I loved him - yes - but intent and outcome were drastically different and impact mattered.
My behaviour had been nothing but harmful to us both and I couldn't be sure what kind of lasting damage I'd done to our relationship and to Daddy's heart in the past. Though after seeing him sobbing so brokenly like that, I was pretty sure there was a large hole in my Daddy's heart that needed filling and I wasn't sure how to do that.
While I could step back and reflect on my life so far, the bad choices I'd made, the hurtful things I'd said and the many apologies I hadn't offered, I also found it difficult to determine how I could change the feelings that triggered those actions in the first place. I ran when I was scared. I made bad choices when I was angry and well... I never apologised because facing Daddy's hurt and pain and rage was harder than facing my own.
It made me feel insecure and small and disposable.
Though, I could admit that Daddy and I had been through enough hell together that I'd fallen into a false sense of security. He would never leave. No matter how many fights I got into, or how many times I stole from him or ran from him or broke into his house, he'd stay. I'd really believed that nothing could push him away and that was... unhealthy, for the both of us. A mind fuck.
In the end, he had wanted to leave, my fight with Prescott and being banned from the club - our community - pushing him over the edge.
The safety net was torn away and now Nolan was holding it back together. In my heart, I knew that he wouldn't be enough, that I needed to pull my own weight too and show them both that I was worthy of being wanted, of being forgiven... of love. Because I loved them both so much that the thought of being without them was more terrifying than being locked in a bathroom with Michael Myers.
Either way I wouldn't survive.
Blowing out a deep breath of air, I pulled my blankets up around my shoulders and fell back against my pillows, staring up at my ceiling, looking for answers. I'd locked myself away in the Reubix cube after dinner, after our serious meeting with Nolan about our plans for the future and expectations and all the scary, adult things that came along with commitment, triggering an existential crisis I needed to work through alone.
Both men had seemed surprised at my request to retreat to the Reubix cube instead of watching a movie with them downstairs before bed, but I'd need to retreat to my safe space, just for a little while to work out the confusing, unsettling way that I was feeling. They respected me, of course they did, and they left me alone, promising to be around if and when I needed either one of them.
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Their Boy Blossomed [MxMxM] (Taming His Blaze 2)
RomanceTheir Boy Blossomed is the second book in the Taming His Blaze Series. Reuben Brett, Maseo Pascal and Nolan Steele have finally come to accept and pursue the feelings sparked between them after Nolan was brought in to train Reuben and save his relat...