Chapter 458: Who doesn’t love a good meatstick?
Kellen felt numb. He felt so exhausted from his emotional outburst that he could barely lift a fork to his lips, but he needed to. Rhys was babying him, and that only added the heavy weight on his shoulders.
He should be able to take care of himself, of feeling himself and making sure he was okay. He’d been able to do this before. Had always been able to do this before. He’d never really had people who he could fully rely on when he’d been on the front lines, outside of Brent, but Brent wasn’t always at his side. Brent was a busy man, so Kellen had to go through the bursts of anxiety and worry on his own mostly.
He felt terrible for putting this weight on Rhys, and tried to apologise for it too.
Rhys wouldn’t let him.
They were both rubbed a little raw, not as smooth around the edges right now, so Rhys wasn’t as polite as he normally was about it. Not as sweet.
"Shut up, Kellen. If you’re about to apologise for the state you are in right now, I swear to god I’m going to get really mad." Rhys growled, and the hair on the back of Kellen’s neck stood on end. Kellen shuddered as Rhys sat next to him at the island, holding up a fork.
The spread of food that Kellen had ordered was in front of them, and Rhys was warming up each plate individually so that Kellen could take his time eating all of the food he had ordered. Kellen was pushed up to the edge of the island by Rhys so he’d either need to push hard to get out from under the countertop, or Rhys would have to pull him back out to get down. Rhys was hovering beside him, shoving food into Kellen’s mouth rather lovingly despite everything.
Kellen was feeling loved, even given the situation that they were finding themselves in.
"I-I just...I just feel you shouldn’t be looking after me like this. I’m just...out of sorts." Kellen admitted in between bites. Rhys stared at the man like he had two heads, not even hiding it.