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Sazahk clasped his hands behind his back to hide the pink and brown twining around his fingers. “Likewise.”
I want more time.
Come back.
“Right.” Garin licked his lips, glanced at everyone in Squad M, then looked at Sazahk again. Their eyes locked. “Take care.”
Then he turned, jerked his head for Patrick to take the lead, and walked away.
Shock.
Sazahk dimly registered that the cold numbness gluing the soles of his boots to the dusty, unpaved ground was shock. Three hours ago, he’d been trying not to confess his feelings—feelings he’d never thought he’d have for anyone—to a man who was now walking away.
For two weeks he’d been attached to Garin night and day, waking and asleep, but now Garin followed Patrick around a corner without a single look back.
That was it?
That was the culmination of all their time together? Their experiences, their revelations, their challenges, their accomplishments, their discoveries, their conversations, their secrets, the nights and mornings in each other’s arms? It just ended?
It was over?
“Hey, Sazahk.” Bar’in turned Sazahk toward him and his and Tar’s nostrils flared. “What’s up? Why do you smell like that?”
Sazahk let the pink, red, and orange seep out from under the cover of his clothes. “I hadn’t expected him to make such a sudden departure. I had assumed we’d have a much longer time to debrief our experiences together.”
Bar’in’s eyes widened slowly, and he glanced over his shoulder to where Garin had long since disappeared. “Oh.” He looked back at Sazahk, his yellow gaze searching his face before meeting Tar’s. “Oh.” Bar’in bit the lip under his left tusk. “I mean, he’ll come back when Dom comes back. And we both know Dom’s gonna come back.”
That was probably true. And perhaps by then Sazahk wouldn’t care. He’d hypothesized his senses would reassert themselves with time and his feelings would fade if not completely evaporate. So logically, this was a fortunate outcome.
But logic didn’t ease the pit in Sazahk’s stomach. To Sazahk’s heart, the two of them confessing their feelings to each other and embracing the unknown of a relationship had felt like an inevitable conclusion. It had felt certain.
It didn’t anymore.
Garin had barely gone, but already he felt out of reach.
He felt so out of reach, Sazahk wondered if he’d ever really been within Sazahk’s grasp in the first place.
He felt silly now, standing there in shock as though he’d expected something different. As though men like Garin pursued relationships with men like Sazahk in the real world.
“Oh no, don’t do that.” Bar’in shook him, then pulled him into a tight hug.
“I’m not doing anything,” Sazahk mumbled into Bar’in’s shoulder, arms straight down at his sides as he held off the hated, irrational panic of constriction.
“You’re turning gray and smelling like the only whore left at the end of the night.”
Sazahk’s confusion paused his panic. “I’ve never been to a brothel. What does the only whore left at the end of the night smell like?”
Bar’in sighed and patted Sazahk’s back. “Sad and embarrassed because no one wanted her.”
Oh.
“Which is not you,” Bar’in added quickly, pushing Sazahk away to glare at him. “So stop smelling like it.”
Sazahk’s shoulders rounded under Bar’in’s palms. Despite Bar’in’s protestations, the description in fact sounded quite a lot like his current emotional state and the external realities that had elicited it. “Please let go, Bar’in. I would like to return to my lab and begin a more complete analysis of the samples I collected.”
Bar’in released him but exchanged a pained glance with Tar. “Yeah, about that. There’s someone in your lab that you’re not gonna be so happy to see.”
Chapter Thirteen
