One Hundred and Twenty-six

Later that afternoon, Bram was still resting in bed when a quiet knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts. It was a rare moment when Izabella or one of the children weren’t in the room with him, but Iz had wanted him to get rest and decided to go down and have lunch with everyone else. He also may have gotten too handsy with her, and she didn’t think he was ready to ‘overwork’ himself.

“Come in.” Bram answered.

He wasn’t surprised as Tyler entered hesitantly. He knew that Gavin had been prepping them to leave sooner than later, and he knew that Tyler was pressing against it. He’d wanted to argue and complain himself too, but he knew he couldn’t stop them. Gabe was his fault. He should have listened to Eudom. That couldn’t be helped now, but Bram was in no position to chase after him like this. And they certainly couldn’t leave the two out there on their own.

Tyler ran his hand through his hair, closing the door behind him, he crossed over to the bed. “Mind if I sit here?”

Bram smiled, “Of course not. Are you guys all packed and ready to go now?” Pulling himself to half sitting, he put his head on Tyler’s shoulder.

“Yeah.” Tyler sighed, he didn’t sound happy about it. “Bram, are you sure you’re okay with us leaving? You’ve never had issues like this before, I feel like I should be here with you.”

“You’ll always feel that way, Tyler. You run the possibility of losing Gavin if you don’t go. And that would just be stupid.” Bram chuckled. “He’d be pissed if he saw us like this even.” Tyler’s arm wrapped around Bram’s back, holding him close.

“Yeah,” he sighed into Bram’s tousled hair, “he wouldn’t like it at all. I should have been more honest with him about our relationship in the beginning. Maybe he wouldn’t be so jealous about it. I mean, Izzy seems fine.”

Bram shook his head, “It wouldn’t have made a difference. I think your view and my view of things are different too. Iz knows that she’s the only one I want. And, she’s not a particularly jealous person overall. Gavin feels threatened by our relationship because he’s afraid that if I ever changed my mind, that you might too. But Izabella doesn’t worry about that. Especially because she can’t imagine what can change in a hundred years. Gavin understand all that, and has a completely jaded past to boot. I can understand why he would worry. Regardless, I’m going to miss you like fucking crazy.”

“Yeah. Me too. Not working for you will be interesting too. I’m going to just text you all the time, you know that right?” Tyler rubbed Bram’s hair back, out of his eyes, relaxing into each other, the two of them sat there in silence a while. “You know, even if you changed your mind, I don’t think I’d agree to be with you again.”

“Good. You deserve better than what I could give you. I don’t know how you took it all those years.”

“Because I love you. I still do, you jerk.” Tyler chuckled, kissing the top of his head. “It’s just different now.”

“Yeah.” Bram sighed. “I know. I still love you too. I always did. That’s one of the reasons I called it off. I couldn’t stand that I made you that miserable. I’m thinking of selling all the business off and just going into retirement. It’s not like we need to work. We can live off investments and interest for at least a century if not longer. Would that bother you?”

Tyler chuckled, “Leave it to a new mate to make you lazy about going to work. I told you to do that a year ago when Devon first came to live with you.” Before either of them realized it, they were laying back in the bed, laughing over their past and conspiring about the futures they saw ahead of them. Another knock came, but Izabella didn’t wait to open the door, sticking her head in Bram caught her smile into the room before she backed out, closing the door again. “God, I wish Gavin was like that.”

“Do you?” Bram looked at him curiously, “I think you like having someone jealous over you. You like to feel wanted. You always have.”

“Why are you closing the door?” Both men quieted, they could hear Gavin in the hall. He already sounded pissed.

“Because they’re having a moment. Let’s just let them be.” Izabella was whispering, as if it would make a difference to them hearing her.

“Excuse me? A moment?”

“Yes, they’re laying on the bed together laughing. It’s the last time they’re going to see each other for a while, let’s leave them alone.” Izabella seemed to be having a hard time with him, she sounded worried. Bram slapped Tyler on the arm and pointed toward the door. Tyler shook his head, cupping a hand around his ear. Both sat up, listening.

“You know they were lovers, right?”

“Yeah? So? They’re not anymore.”

“Yet they can lay in bed like nothing ever happened?” His words had a bite behind them. Bram scowled at Tyler, pointing to the door again. “Even you can’t seriously be that naive.”

“How can you say that?” She snapped back, “Do you really not trust them? Do you honestly think Tyler would cheat on you?”

“It’s easy to grow bored of things after a living as long as we’ve had. Are you really so sure your precious Bram won’t do the same as hundreds of people have done to me through the years? It’s part of our nature. We’re fucking devils. You can’t trust a devil, no matter how much want to.” Bram threw the covers off him and started to slide off the bed, but his legs crumpled under him when he tried to stand. A moment later the door was thrown open. Tyler was half around the bed, going to help Bram up as Gavin stormed in. “I know you could hear me, were you both rushing to make sure you weren’t caught in some precarious position.”

“No, Gavin, Bram heard you yelling and swearing at Izabella and tried to get out of bed.” He leaned over to try to help him up.

“Don’t. Fuck! My side is burning again.” When he pulled his hand away, it was stained with blood. Izabella rushed past Gavin hunkering down beside Bram.

“Are you okay? Let me take a look. Tom said something like this could happen. That it might start to present as a normal wound. Hopefully your healing will kick in and start working. The templar magic shouldn’t be as potent anymore, so it’s going to hurt, but it won’t kill you.” Izabella was already grabbing a towel and a bowl of water she had set aside on the nightstand already. “Deep breath, babe.”

“You didn’t need to talk to her like that, or run into the room like a mad person. Izabella’s right, you can’t trust me?” Tyler asked, feeling hurt. Was he really that jaded?

“Not a month ago let you let me walk away from you so that you could follow him.” Gavin snapped, “I’ve watched you, my fucking mate, fawn over him for a century. I’m not a fool.”

Tyler crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head. “If you hadn’t gone into a jealous rage over nothing, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Fine, let me go crawl into bed with my past lovers and see how you feel about it. But it still wouldn’t be the same, I don’t call any of them my *best friend* and I’ve not chosen any of them over you.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.” Tyler could feel his anger boiling under the surface now.

“Would you both just shut it?” Bram snapped, as Izabella tried to help lift him from the ground. He plopped back on the bed as she stood between his knees bent over him, looking over his side.

“Can one of you get me more towels and some bandages from the bathroom please?” Gavin stormed out of the room. At first, Tyler thought he was running off, but as he went to go get what Izabella requested, Gavin was back with the items already. “Thank you.” She frowned up at Gavin as she took the items. “Are you okay?”

“This isn’t my fault.” He said the words, but they were quieter now, and his face had gone flush with embarrassment.

“No one said it was, Gavin. It was going to happen one way or the other. It just serves as a lesson to a thick skulled guy I know that was trying to get all handsy on me earlier thinking he was fine. Now you know.” She turned that unimpressed glare at Bram whose features darkened.

“Well, I might have been half dead, but I’m not completely dead.” She tsked, shaking her head as she bandaged him up. “But really, Gavin, Tyler and I are over. But you do need to realize we’re still very close. I’m going to text and call him all the time when you guys go. You need not to get worked up over it. Don’t let your jealously ruin a good thing.”

“Yeah, sure.” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking away from everyone as he slunk toward the door. “I get that you want me to give you both space, but all I’m really hearing is that you want me to bend for you, and no one’s even asked why it fucking bothers me.” With that, he slipped out the door, closing it behind him.

Tyler sighed, pressing a hand through his hair. “I suppose I should—”

“No, Tyler.” Izabella stood, checking over the bandage once more. “Help Bram get comfy and you finish this. I don’t think he needs an angry lover right now, what he needs is a friend. Bram would be ideal at the moment, but he’s not leaving this bed and I don’t think I’ll get Gavin back in here short of a miracle.” She wiped her hands on her pants, leaning over to give Bram a quick kiss. “This is where learning how to compromise will come in handy.” Booping his nose, she left, leaving the two of them alone again.

“Was I an ass?” Tyler turned to look at Bram.

“I mean, when he started talking about how others have treated him, we should have done something. He’s right, you know. We don’t want anything to change, but it already has. We need to be willing to add him into the fold and he needs to know that he’s not going to be tossed aside again.” Bram struggled to pull himself up onto the bed again.

“I guess I need to work on that. You don’t think he really believes I’ll just abandon him, do you? Will it be easier for him when we leave, you think?”

“I think that’s going to depend on you. Help me back into my spot, half dangling off the damn bed isn’t very comfortable.” Grabbing his legs, Tyler swung him around as gently as he could, frowning at the red blossoming under the bandage already. “So, has he talked to you about it at all? His history?”

“He’s very secretive about it. Now that we’ve gotten to this point, maybe I can pull it out him so that I can try to be more sympathetic to his needs.” He made a face, shrugging. Hunkering back down on the bed, not laying with Bram this time, just sitting beside him, he looked over. “If he wants me to change how I act around you, it’s only fair he start sharing. He knows about my past.”

“Don’t be a dick, Tyler. He’s not one of our employees. Don’t dangle shit over his head expecting to win points.” Bram frowned. “There may be things he doesn’t want to share, especially with you. Maybe you should listen to what he’s willing to tell you and not try to force it out of him.”

Tyler’s eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open a moment. “Who the hell are you, and what did you do with Bram?”

“I fell in love… and for fucks sake, Tyler, when things come up between Iz and I, it’s usually my past that fucks shit up. You think she tries to bully anything out of me? Nah, she insists that it’s fine, and that I’ll tell her when I’m ready. Gavin needs someone who can act more like Izabella in this instance.”

“Well,” Tyler ran a hand through his hair, leaning back he rested his head on Bram’s thigh which was once again covered by the blankets, “I’m fucked.”

“It’s an easy answer, just don’t act like you.” Bram laughed.


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**Happy Reading. Gosh, it feels so good to be back in this story. I'm excited about the next chapter, we'll have a bit of back story coming up.**