He Loves Me - 4. Chapter 4: Warren's Job

Warren getting a real job should have been a triumph. After years of sweeping nacho cheese dust and getting yelled at by teenagers at the 7/11, he had finally stumbled his way into a legitimate career. He was selling luxury imported cars at a dealership two towns over. It turned out that Warren’s total inability to read standard social cues, combined with his earnest, weird, encyclopedic knowledge of engine specifications, made him an accidental, highly effective salesman. People trusted him because he was entirely too strange to be lying to them.

He was making actual money. He bought a belt. He started using hair product. He was moving up in the world.

And I was losing my absolute mind.

Because his new boss, a sleek, terrifyingly polished woman in her early forties named Evelyn, had hired him with intentions. She hadn't just seen a quirky salesman; she had seen fresh meat.

It started small. Keeping him fifteen minutes late to "go over inventory." Then it was mandatory "team building" drinks where she somehow managed to seat herself directly next to him. Then it was weekend texts about "client emergencies." She was systematically, deliberately isolating him under the impenetrable, untouchable cover of professionalism.

The worst part was that Warren was entirely, hopelessly blind to it. He had spent his entire life feeling invisible, convinced he was a solid 3 on his best day. He had absolutely no framework for understanding that a wealthy, attractive older woman might be using her professional power to groom him. He just thought she was "really supportive of his sales numbers."

I had been spiraling for three weeks, terrified that if I said something, I would sound like the psychotic, jealous, controlling boyfriend I swore I would never become. If I told him to quit, I was ruining his career. If I said nothing, I was just waiting for the trap to snap shut.

Which is how I ended up sitting at my sister’s kitchen island on a Thursday night, ugly-crying into a cup of chamomile tea.

"I don't know what to do," I gasped, wiping my face with a paper towel. My chest was heaving. "I can't tell him to quit. It's his first real job. He's so proud of himself. But I see the way she looks at him when I drop him off. I see the way she touches his arm. She keeps finding excuses to be alone with him, and he just... he doesn't see it. He thinks she’s just being nice. And I don't know if I'm making it all up. I don't know if I'm just so terrified of losing him that I'm seeing predators that aren't there."

My sister stood next to me, gently rubbing circles into my back. She didn't look like a villain anymore. She looked tired, grounded, and entirely empathetic.

"You're not making it up, Tom," she said quietly, her voice steady. "I did the exact same thing. I knew Chet didn't love me the way he should have. I knew it the whole time. But I convinced myself I was being paranoid because I wanted it to work so badly. You're not paranoid. You're just paying attention."

From the sink behind us, the sound of running water stopped.

"Warren's not smart enough to cheat, Tom," Chet said.

I looked over my shoulder. The former golden boy, the all-American quarterback who had broken my heart and ruined his own life, was currently wearing a tiny, floral-patterned apron that my sister had absolutely bought him as a joke. He was scrubbing a lasagna pan with a sponge, looking deeply humbled and entirely domesticated.

"He's a moron," Chet continued, not looking away from the pan. "A loyal moron. If he was going to cheat, he'd do it by accident, panic, and then immediately confess in tears because he felt guilty about stealing a company pen. He's not going to leave you. He's just too stupid to realize someone's trying to get him to leave you."

Before I could process the weird comfort of my ex-boyfriend validating my relationship from a sink of soapy water, the front door opened.

Chet's brothers—the three massive, golden-retriever groomsmen who had adopted Warren at the wedding—shuffled into the kitchen carrying two twelve-packs of beer. They had clearly been briefed on the situation.

They didn't offer deep emotional platitudes. They just sat heavily at the kitchen island, taking up all the available space.

"Big W-Dude is one of us now," the tallest brother said, cracking a beer and sliding it toward me. "He's not going anywhere, bro. The dude is actively obsessed with you. It's actually really annoying. We had to make a hard rule: no Tom-talk at poker night. He broke it in fifteen minutes because someone mentioned pizza and he had to tell a ten-minute story about how you eat your crusts."

"He's stupid about you," the second brother agreed, nodding sagely. "Like, clinically stupid. Like, 'I would die for you but I also can't remember to buy milk' stupid. He's not cheating. He doesn't have the brain cells for a double life. He's got exactly one brain cell, and it's entirely dedicated to you."

I let out a wet, shaky laugh, leaning my forehead against the cool marble of the counter. For the first time in a month, I let myself breathe. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't alone. And Warren loved me. I just needed to go home, sit him down, and explain the reality of the situation using small, clear words.

I stood up, wiping my eyes. "Okay. Okay, you're right. I'm going to go home and talk to him."

My phone rang in my pocket.

I pulled it out. The caller ID read: POLICE CONSTABULARY.

A cold spike of adrenaline shot straight through my chest. I answered it, putting it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Is this Thomas?" a bored, slightly exasperated voice asked.

"Yes."

"This is Sergeant Miller down at the station. We have a Warren here. He listed you as his emergency contact."

"Is he hurt?!" I practically shouted, gripping the edge of the island. The brothers instantly went quiet. Chet put the sponge down.

"No, he's fine. But he's been arrested for assault and battery. He punched his boss's husband in the face."

The world tilted on its axis.

Twenty minutes later, Chet was pulling his sensible sedan into the parking lot of the police station. Because Chet was technically a solicitor—even if he mostly handled real estate contracts now—he had instantly offered to drive me, shedding the floral apron and slipping back into crisis mode.

I practically sprinted through the sliding glass doors of the station, Chet right on my heels.

I slammed my hands down on the front desk. "I'm here for Warren. What happened? Why did he punch Evelyn's husband?"

The desk sergeant, a balding man with tired eyes, looked up from his computer. He looked at me, then down at his report, and clearly fought a losing battle to keep a straight face. The corner of his mouth twitched violently.

"Right," the Sergeant sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "So, your... partner... was invited to his boss's house for a 'performance review.' Apparently, it wasn't a performance review. It was a bait-and-switch. The boss and her husband made some very forward advances. Your partner politely declined. The husband pressed the issue and placed a hand on his knee. Your partner then punched him."

I stopped breathing.

He didn't cheat. He didn't fall for the grooming. They backed him into a corner, and instead of giving in, my dorky, anxious, non-confrontational boyfriend threw a right hook to defend our relationship.

"Is the husband pressing charges?" Chet asked, stepping up beside me with a sharp, professional tone.

The Sergeant snorted. "Unlikely. It wasn't so much a punch as it was a mild inconvenience. There's no bruising, no real damage. Given the Sexual Assault that occoured the husband is infinitely more embarrassed about the entire ordeal than he is injured. They just want an apology to drop the matter entirely."

"Great," I breathed out. "I'll make him apologize. Let me see him."

The Sergeant hesitated, looking pained. "That might be tricky. Your partner is being... difficult. He's currently in holding, loudly demanding to be officially recognized as the 'Alpha,' and insisting to anyone who will listen that no one tries to steal him from you. He's been at it for two hours. We offered him his phone call. He refused. He said he was waiting for you to come get him, because you'd 'understand the protocol.' He also asked if we had any snacks."

I buried my face in my hands. The sheer, overwhelming wave of love and profound exasperation nearly knocked me over. "Take me to him."

The officer led me down a short, brightly lit hallway and unlocked a heavy metal door.

Warren was sitting on the metal bench inside the holding cell. His tie was gone, his nice button-down shirt was wrinkled, and his hair was standing up in frantic, sweaty spikes. His arms were crossed defensively over his chest. He didn't look scared. He didn't look sorry. He looked furious, rigid with the indignant righteousness of a man who had gone to war and had been arrested for winning.

He looked up as the door opened. When he saw me, the rigid posture broke. Just a fraction. The vulnerability peeked through the anger.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Warren said immediately, his voice echoing off the cinderblock walls. His voice was defiant, but there was a tremor in it. "They tried to... they said they wanted to talk about my quarterly numbers. But then they started pouring wine. And touching each other. And then they said they wanted me to join them. They called it 'workplace synergy.'"

I walked slowly into the cell. The officer stepped back, giving us the room.

"I said no," Warren continued, his eyes locked desperately onto mine, searching for approval. "I said no three times. And then the husband—he put his hand on my thigh. I told him to stop. He laughed at me. So I punched him in the nose."

He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.

"I didn't cheat, Tom. I know you've been weird the last few weeks. I know you've been worried about her. I didn't know how to tell you that you were right—that something felt wrong. I didn't want to believe it because I really liked the job. But when they touched me... I just couldn't. I thought about you. I thought about our apartment. I thought about the statue in the living room. And I hit him."

I didn't say a single word. I couldn't. My throat was too tight.

I walked over to the metal bench and sat down next to him. I reached out and took his right hand—the hand he had used to throw a punch for me—and tangled my fingers tightly with his. His knuckles weren't even red. The cop had been right; it was a tragically weak punch.

"You punched a guy because he hit on you," I said quietly, staring at our joined hands.

"He touched my knee," Warren corrected stubbornly. "After I explicitly said no. That's a boundary violation. I was asserting dominance."

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

"You could have just left. You could have walked out the door."

"An Alpha doesn't retreat, Tom."

I finally looked up at him. I had spent an entire year treating him like a project. I had folded his laundry, managed his schedule, and guarded him against the world because I was convinced he was too fragile to survive it. I thought I was the only one protecting our relationship.

But looking at him now—sitting in a police holding cell, refusing to apologize for defending us—I realized he had been fighting for us the entire time. He just hadn't known how to articulate it.

"You're my idiot," I whispered, leaning my forehead against his shoulder.

"I know that too," Warren breathed, a massive, shuddering sigh of relief escaping his chest. He turned his head, burying his face into my messy curls. He was exhausted. He had been holding it together for hours, demanding respect from the local constabulary, and now that I was here, he could finally let go.

Chet handled the legalities with ruthless, clinical efficiency. True to the Sergeant's word, the husband was entirely too mortified by the prospect of a public police report detailing his failed swinger ambush to press charges. Warren was released with a warning and a piece of paperwork.

Evelyn, as it turned out, had a long, documented history of "synergizing" with young sales hires. Chet promised to make a few phone calls to the dealership's corporate HR department the next morning. Warren didn't care. He was never going back there anyway.

We walked out into the cool night air, the automatic doors sliding shut behind us.

We sat in the back of Chet's sedan as he drove us back to our apartment. The streetlights flickered rhythmically across the backseat, casting long, moving shadows over Warren’s exhausted face. He was leaning heavily against me, his head resting on my shoulder, his hand still locked in mine.

I turned my head, pressing a kiss to his temple.

"You're really the Alpha now," I murmured into the quiet dark of the car.

Warren didn't open his eyes. He just smiled, a small, tired, incredibly smug thing.

"I've always been the Alpha, Tommy," he whispered sleepily. "You just didn't know it."