Triphilia - the third time has it's charm | book 3 | Scomavi

Chapter 16

Later that evening, Mitch just came home from spending some time with his best friend from school. As always, he cherished this time especially because they had so much to catch up with and it also served well to distract him from the upcoming funeral and whatever was going on on social media and everywhere.

However, when Mitch opened the front door of his childhood' home, he noticed immediately that something was different. He breathed in and thought he was dreaming when the faint smell of warm leather and Avi's signature perfume hit his nostrils. "This can't be" he said more to himself then to anyone in particular, but when he heard voices from the living room, he smiled even wider and almost ran into the room just to see his boyfriend talking to his parents.

"Avi" he said breathlessly. "You are here."

Avi got up immediately and opened his arms. "Where else should I be..." he whispered when he hugged Mitch tightly. "I'm so glad that I can be with you..."

Mitch didn't say anything. Even though he had a lot of questions, he just enjoyed being in his boyfriend's arms for the moment. It was all he needed. He was so happy that he couldn't help the tears that were streaming down his face.

"Love... don't cry" Avi said softly. "You're ok, I'm with you..."

"I'm just so relieved..." Mitch sobbed.

"Me too" Avi replied. He glanced over at Mitch's parents who smiled at them and nodded. "We'll go upstairs, come on Mitchy."

The smaller man let himself be led up the stairs and into his room. Together they said down on the bed with Avi pulling his boyfriend in, holding him tight.

"How are you here?" Mitch asked after a while.

"Esther" Avi simply stated. "She cancelled everything just so we could come here. It was merely a reaction to what happened on social media and everything, but still I'm just so glad..."

"When you are saying we..." Mitch began.

"Kirstie, Kevin and Scott are here as well..." Avi replied.

"Is Scott at home?" Mitch wanted to know.

"I assume..." Avi returned. "He had offered Kevin to stay in the guest room."

Mitch furrowed his brows. "Why do you assume?" he wanted to know. "Did anything happen?"

"Well... we might have had a little fight" Avi confessed.

"A fight? Why?" Mitch asked alarmed. "And when? Is it bad?"

"I don't know" Avi returned. "It was stupid, from both of us."

Mitch hummed. "Tell me what happened? Because I want to help you. I need you both. I mean I'm glad that you're here right now, but I wished that Scott was here, too."

Avi took a deep breath. "I will..." he replied. "It was at the airport... we had just checked in and were on our way to security. He wanted to take my hand and I didn't. I was uncomfortable, because we were in public and... I don't know. I apologised and explained, but then... I don't know how it happened, we started accusing one another, for what went wrong at the event yesterday. I don't really remember the whole thing, it was short, but heated. I basically told him off for holding me afterwards when I was on the phone with you and he argued that I shouldn't have taken his hand. It was so stupid. He then went away, saying that he didn't want to fight. I wanted to talk it out during the flight, because we had seats next to one another. But when I sat there, waiting for him, Kevin joined me. He told me that Scott just needed some time and yeah. He talked to me, but just the bare necessities... "

Mitch listened to his boyfriend's words patiently and tried his best to make sense of it. "Okay... I assume that you fought because of all the stress that was upon you. Just imagine, you in a way had to deal with me being here on my own. It might sound strange, but I guess you both were longing to be here instead of in New York. And then you had the event to attend. You also had to take care of me from afar, which you did wonderfully. And then today there was the shitstorm, with the really disgusting articles and tweets and then there's you hurrying to get here... it was just too much. For the both of you. Scott probably did the right thing when he walked away. You needed time on your own."