“I’m not…” Ezra sighed before giving in to temptation. He began pacing. “I’m not good at this.”
“I know you’re not,” Agni agreed readily—too readily—his tone lit with humor. “Need I remind you that I voluntarily entered a relationship with you knowing of your extreme emotional inadequacies?”
Ezra offered him a scathing look before trying again. He had to do this, if only to prove Agni—and himself—wrong. “I may have called out to you six months too late, but that doesn’t mean your absence didn’t impact me.”
It appeared as if Agni finally recognized what was upsetting Ezra. A quiet smugness settled across his features as he slowly rose from the divan. “Say it,” he demanded. When an uncomfortable silence stretched, Agni stalked the distance between them and cornered Ezra’s rigid form. “Say it,” he demanded again, unrelenting. “You cannot hide under the excuse you’re ‘not good at this’ forever. You must try.”
Ezra seethed as Agni blocked his path. He tried and failed to hold the god’s eyes, seeing only twin pools of remorseless, mocking fire. “Just because our actions may have been different…”
Agni appeared ecstatic as he stooped low into Ezra’s space. “Yes?”
Ezra lifted his chin, his gaze cutting and determined. “…doesn’t mean I care any less than you do.”
I lived six months as an incomplete, cold shell because of your absence.
Avery Hendrex 