Royal Indiscretion, chapter 32 (Patreon)

“Yves, are you okay?” Doug knocked on the bathroom door again. It was a lot of stress to go up against not only your father but the soon-to-be king of your entire country. Doug wasn't sure he would have the balls to do something like that. He would probably just find a different country to live in. He knocked again. “Do you need me to get a doctor? The hotel has someone on staff.” Doug listened to muffled shuffling.

“I'm fine,” Yves eventually said. But his voice sounded off. He sounded a lot like a man who on the verge of a panic attack… either that or someone in the early stages of food poisoning when the stomach gets tight but the vomiting hasn’t started yet. Doug had tasted what these people tried to pass off as food, and food poisoning was entirely possible. Anyone who ate brains deserved to spend some time worshiping at the porcelain throne. 

Deciding to give Yves a little space, Doug retreated to the far side of the room. Considering that this was a fancy hotel, it was damn small. A full retreat meant he got about twelve feet away from the bathroom door. Yves’s retreat had Doug worried, but he wasn’t sure what he could do. It seemed a little awkward to call Lady Anne and suggest that Yves had digestive issue problems. And if—as Doug suspected—the problems were emotional rather than intestinal, Yves deserved privacy.

Doug watched the crowded city central and the garden courtyard. The whole time, the bathroom remained eerily silent. Yves didn’t even run the water. A niggling doubt whispered that he might have drugs in there, but for all the tabloid stories Doug had read online, he’d never seen Yves with drugs or even jonesing for something to take the edge off. And Yves had taken some pretty serious emotional blows in the short time Doug had known him. 

But even if drugs were out, Doug could imagine any number of problems that might require a doctor—of medicine or psychology. He wondered how much they would charge him if hotel security had to break down one of these historically significant bathroom doors.

When the bathroom door clicked open, Doug looked up from his phone. Yves didn't have the flush of a man who had been vomiting recently, but he did have an unhealthy pallor. 

“Are you okay?”

“Given that the bathroom has a mirror and I can see how I look, shouldn't you be asking me if I've done drugs?” Yves raised his chin.

That took Doug by surprise. “I thought you were in remission.”

“I am.” Yves definitely felt defensive, but then he had some cause. If Doug had grown up around that asshole Gerard, drugs would have been a more serious temptation. At least Doug’s father had turned most of his anger toward people outside the house. Well, that an his mother... but he had doted on Doug more often than he had backhanded him.

Doug kept his tone calm. “Why would you take up drugs when you need a clear head in order to avoid your father?”

“Why would I not take up drugs with so many people in my life, suggesting that my father would rather have me dead?” Yves’s mouth twisted into a grimace.

Ouch. He had a point, but Doug just slipped his phone in his pocket. “That would be a good reason to give your father drugs—something like arsenic. Hell, I'm sure there are some newer poisons that we could come up with. However, you doing drugs wouldn't fix anything, which is why I assume you're not doing drugs.” Doug stomped on a tiny bit of guilt about his earlier thoughts.

Yves leaned against the door jamb. “Thank you for that vote of confidence.”

“Hey, anytime. I'm just a confidence booster here. Now, no offense, but you look like shit.”

“Charming,” Yves said dryly.

“I call it like I see it, and looking at you, I’m really wondering if you need a doctor.”

“I am fine. I am simply dealing with significant shock.” Despite his words, Yves sounded shocky and exhausted.

Sympathy washed through Doug. He couldn't imagine how horrifying this whole situation was for Yves. It was one thing to grow up knowing your father was an asshole, but to find out he killed your mother… that was going to fuck with a man’s head. “Don't let Duke Gerard win by letting him become the center of your attention. Focus on yourself.” That was the advice Coach Johnston had once given him, and it had worked out okay for Doug.

Yves gave him an incredulous look. “Duke Gerard is the least of my concerns right now. And I thought we were focusing on you and your insane plan to blackmail me to flee my country.”

Doug offered up a carefully practiced boyish grin. “I'm not sure it's blackmail when a person threatens themselves. Pretty sure blackmail is when people threaten you.”

“Yes. Thank you for the English lesson. That is what I was missing in my life.” 

Doug laughed. He liked sarcastic Yves.

After shaking his head, Yves said, “You are quite psychotic.” His lips twitched in a suppressed smile.

“Strangely, you are not the first person to suggest that.” Doug leaned back. “So, do you want to give me a hint as to what's going on in your head, because I seem to be guessing wrong.” Other than Duke Gerard and his murderous past and potentially murderous future, Doug couldn’t figure out what would cause such a strong reaction. For long minutes, Yves stared at him as though unable to form words. Actually, despite Yves’s excellent English grammar, it wasn’t his first language, so maybe he had run into a subject he didn’t have vocabulary to describe. In an effort to be supportive, Doug forced his body to remain still during the silence.

Yves finally threw his hands up into the air. “You put yourself at risk!” Now he sounded angry, not that he had any reason to be. Doug waited for some further explanation, but Yves stared at him expectantly.

“Yeah,” Doug said slowly. “You're going to have to give me more hints because I still don't understand this conversation.” He waggled his finger between them.

When Yves crossed his arms over his chest, he looked a lot like his father. “You put yourself at risk and counted on me to come to your rescue. You put all of your faith that I would show up and save you from getting pilloried in the press.”

The idea that Yves had worried about him made Doug smile, but Yves’s scowl deepened.

Doug cleared this throat and took a second to school his features. “I don't actually know what pilloried means, but I'm going to assume that you didn’t like my reputation being in danger. I'm going to take that as a compliment.”

“Do you have any idea how stupid that was? How dangerous?”

“What? You think somebody's going to jump me because they think I'm a homophobe?” London might be progressive, but Doug was fairly sure that gay guys were still in more danger than homophobes. “As a quarterback, I don't have the sheer mass of one of the defensive linemen, but trust me, no one is going to jump me without immediately regretting their life choices.” Doug flexed. He had nothing to apologize for in terms of physical prowess. And if he had to throw a punch, the person on the other end was going to feel it all the way down to their socks.

Instead of being reassured, Yves looked more horrified. “Don't you get it?”

“Honestly? No. What am I not getting?”

Yves huffed. “I am not reliable. You cannot trust me to come to your rescue!”

Now Doug got it. The idiot was scared to have someone rely on him. Doug got it. Hell, he’d been exactly where Yves was now, and he knew that Yves wasn’t being logical. “Why not?”

“Why not?” Yves's voice rose to a shout. “Because I nearly didn't come at all. I have money in my pocket and I stood in that park and looked at a man I suspected had drugs on him, and I wanted them.” In trying to point toward the park, Yves pointed in almost the opposite direction, but Doug didn’t point that out. He just listened as Yves got his rant going. “I nearly abandoned you in order to seek my next fix, and where would that have left you? Where would that have left your career?” Now Yves poked a finger in Doug’s direction.

Doug gentled his voice. “It would've left me in a difficult situation. I can see why you would be terrified and having someone rely on you, but I have a lot more faith in you than you seem to have in yourself.”

“Because you are a brain-damaged cretin.”

Doug had hit a raw nerve. “I've taken several hits to the head, but they make us do concussion testing, so I’m almost sure I'm not brain-damaged. Besides, I have faith in you.”

“You shouldn't.” Yves hesitated before adding, “Do you have any idea how close I came to abandoning you?”

Doug didn’t want to offer platitudes, but this was the first time he’d been on this side of a familiar conversation. “I don't think anyone fully trust in themselves, Yves. I don't.”

A flicker of doubt crossed Yves’s face. “Do you mean you want drugs?” 

“That's not my demon of choice. For me it's anger. I get so frustrated that I scare myself,” Doug admitted. “I can’t believe my coaches put up with the shit I did after my father got arrested. I punched walls. I broke shit. Hell, I took a swing at my favorite teacher. I’m just lucky he ducked.” Doug didn’t like even thinking about that incident. If Mr. Chavez had turned him in to the office, Doug’s life would have taken a different path. He would have been suspended or even expelled. He would have lost his college scholarship. Fuck. So much would have been different.

“Now I try to laugh,” Doug said. “The more I want to throw a punch, the more I laugh because I scare myself. I don’t want to turn into my father.”

“You would never be like him,” Yves said without a hint of doubt.

“I hope not. But I feel my temper.” Doug tapped his chest. That’s where he always felt it—his chest got tight. “It scares me sometimes. My father killed a guy over some stupid fender bender. He started swinging, and he never stopped, not even when the guy was on the ground.” Doug swallowed around the lump in his throat. “He beat the guy to death in front of his family, and when the cops tried to arrest him, my dad did his best to beat a couple of them to death. He paralyzed one. Even a Taser didn't stop him. I have no idea why they didn't shoot him in the head right there on the street.” So many lives changed that day.

“The government executed him for that?” Yves asked. He sounded shocked.

As far as Doug was concerned, that was enough for his father to deserve death, but he shook his head. “After he was in prison for that murder, he murdered another prisoner. He was a mean bastard. They say the way you raise a kid become sort of a default button. If you’re an alcoholic, alcohol will be your kid’s go-to coping strategy. And with my dad, everything was worthy of rage.” Doug had seen his father blow up thousands of time.

Yves moved to the other side of the couch and sat. Because it was so small, that left their knees inches apart. Yves folded his hands in his lap, and Doug watched his long fingers. Despite the fact that he had a very slight build, his hands looked strong. “I'm sorry you had such a poor father.”

Doug shrugged. “And I'm sorry that your father's disdain for you taught you to be so disdainful of yourself.”

“Do I disdain myself? I never really thought of it that way.”

“You didn't?”

Yves threaded his fingers together. “I really didn't, but maybe you’re right. However, the risk you took was not justified.”

“I don’t regret what I did. My reputation is not worth more than your life. And even if you had taken off, I wouldn’t regret it.”

Yves’s face scrunched up like he’d bit a lemon. “You are an idiot, and I’m not going to convince you to change. However, no more scheming behind my back. I struggled to walk away from that man on that park bench. Maybe if I had known that you were counting on me, it would've been a little easier.”

Doug held out his hand toward Yves. “No more schemes.” 

Yves solemnly shook Doug’s hand. “No more schemes,” Yves repeated, “or at least any schemes we have, we do together against my father.”

“Now that's a plan I can get behind. You do know I pretty much hate your father, right?”

Yves rolled his eyes. “I had assumed.”

“You’re just smart like that. So, first we need to figure out how to piss him off by getting the press to eat out of your hand. Caro wants you to call so we can start scheming with her.”

“My father would hate it if I found a way to be happy,” Yves said thoughtfully. “That sounds like a good reason to try.” When he smiled, he was ethereally handsome.