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It’s been dark outside for over an hour. It’s no brighter inside the store as David sits among the last of the boxes, staring at the loose wires sticking out of the wall where he was supposed to call the electrician three days ago.
But there was the delivery from that one farm, he can’t remember the name now. Then the tallow soaps, and the hand creams. There was the insurance, which he hasn’t figured out no matter how many times Patrick reminds him because he doesn’t know how any of this works.
Vision— David could do vision. Execution? Patrick hadn’t been wrong when he said the man needed help.
Hadn’t he always? If there’s a bully at school? Pay to transfer. Too anxious to pass a driving test? That’s what chauffeurs are for.
He stares at those wires, rubbing a hand over the worry lines on his forehead. Tomorrow half the town will pour through the doors of Rose Apothecary— even if that wasn’t what David wished for. Even if he’d wanted a soft launch. He should have counted on literally nothing going to his plan. He should have known that this venture, like all the rest, would come screaming into existence frantic and suffocating without someone else, someone un-David-like, to grab hold of the reins.
The galleries. He thinks about the crowds of people, and wonders what their polite smiles and appearances had cost. If it weren’t for the Rose name, and the money to back it, would anyone have even shown up? Or would he have sat in the dimly lit gallery, like he is now, waiting.
For what? He isn’t sure. Someone to call the electrician for him, if miracles are real.
The faint clicking of the door lock startles David. Who could be at the store at this hour, without a single light on in the place? Patrick smiles through the glass at him, and the relief he feels isn’t just due to the familiar face.
But David doesn’t want an audience for his pre-launch mental breakdown anymore than he wants to explain what he’s doing there at eleven pm or why he’s sitting in total darkness, dissociating.
“What are you doing here this late?” Patrick asks. Friendly, direct, too airtight for David to evade with a vague answer he comes up with on the fly.
“What am I doing?” He repeats the question, with more gesticulation, needing a breath of time to think. “At my own store?”
Patrick smiles, but there is too much knowing behind it. It’s like David is covered in a rash that’s plain to see. They both pretend nobody is itchy.
“Fair enough.” Patrick says. He follows David’s eyes over to the wires hanging out of the wall. “I take it you forgot to follow up?”
David wants to scream that this is a bad time. He wants to point Patrick to the door and tell him that this is a party for one tonight.
Instead, he raises a brow in utter annoyance and summons all the indignation that Moira Rose ever had.
“Do you even know all the work I’ve done today in preparation for tomorrow? Hmm?” He asks. A hand flies to his hip, and settles there for the long haul as he unloads about wool scarves— no, evening shawls— and discounts and soft launches that aren’t happening.
Patrick stops him when he starts in on businesses that are dead in the water.
“David.”
“I need a stiff drink, a soft bed,”
“David.” Patrick may as well be talking to the wall.
“a Xanax, and a lobotomy.”
“David.”
David stops then, because that tone isn’t one he’s familiar with. Alexis likes to goad him into getting more riled up, and his parents try to calm him with coddling, but this— this almost sounds like scolding. He scowls at Patrick.
“What?? Don’t you see I’m going through something?”
Patrick stares back at him for a moment, like he’s deciding something.
“I do. I see that you’re upset, and I don’t think this is helping.” He gestures to the dark store around them, and manages not to smirk when David rolls his eyes.
“How astute—.”
“David.” Patrick says it again. Just his name, but it goes straight to David’s chest, and works on unfurling the tendrils of anxiety holding tightly to him. “Why don’t we go to my place tonight? We can make a plan for tomorrow, have some soup, and you can sleep somewhere that isn’t a twin-sized motel bed.”
David hesitates, tilting his head as he considers. Patrick reads the apprehensive twinkle in his eye, and quickly adds
“I’m not proposing we sleep together. I just think some rest would do you good.”
David isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or not. He would sleep with Patrick— has wanted to for weeks now, but he can’t deny that this, whatever this is, feels good too.
“So?” Patrick asks, not sure he’s ever seen David quiet for this length of time.
“Fine.” David agrees with a huff. “I just need to finish up a few things, so…”
He trails off, turning to straighten a few products on a shelf nearby. They’re the ones he’s been arranging and rearranging since lunchtime.
“I think those are fine. Why don’t we lock up and go?”
It’s a question but David senses that Patrick isn’t asking. His eyebrows knit together and he directs what he believes to be a glorious glare in Patrick’s direction.
David doesn’t do demands. He makes demands.
“Or,” he’s as sassy as he ever is, like he’s about to give the ultimate solution that no one thought of, “I meet you at your place later, after I finish up here.”
Patrick shakes his head, and David catches it out of the corner of his eye.
“You’ve done enough here for tonight.” Patrick grows more insistent with each turn of conversation and David can feel his resolve weakening. That makes him more upset than anything else.
“Oh, well do you know what I think?” David starts.
Patrick doesn’t flinch at his intensity, and doesn’t break the almost painful eye contact he’s holding with David, which means David can’t, won’t, break it either.
“I think I’ve been bossed around enough for one night. I don’t remember waving you down to come in here and tell me what to do, and I definitely didn’t ask for a hero to come ‘save me from myself’ or whatever.”
Patrick nods, listening carefully, waiting for more because he knows there’s more.
“I don’t expect you to understand the importance of product placement, Patrick, but I’m not leaving until I finish these displays. I need—.”
“A spanking?” Patrick quips, cutting him off.
David’s skin flushes red all the way down his neck, and Patrick’s words hit him somewhere south of his designer sweater.
“Excuse me?” David stutters, blinking in shock.
“You’re acting like a twelve year old girl who wants to stay up all night organizing her lip gloss collection.” Patrick says, but the statement is free of judgment. Facts, not persecution. “And if I had any say, I’d do something about that.”
David is frozen for a beat before setting down the hand cream. Patrick doesn’t miss that he has David’s full attention now.
“Um, let me just clarify real quick,” David says, his fingers playing nervously over his lips. “You want to spank me?”
He smirks at Patrick when he realizes that the man is as flustered as he is, even if he doesn’t wear it as openly as David.
“Probably not in the way you’re hoping,” Patrick explains, “but since you haven’t slapped me or said no, maybe we should talk about it.”
“Maybe we should.” David says, narrowing his eyes. Part of him desperately wants to know if Patrick would actually do it. He looks at the man, a challenge in his gaze.
Patrick returns his intensity, pulling up a stool and sitting in front of David.
“Okay.” His voice is gentle, but sure. “Have you ever had a spanking before, David?”
David loses some life-force to that question, and who does Patrick even think he is asking something like that so casually?
“Do I strike you as someone who’s been spanked before?” He asks. That terrible word catches in his mouth, but he spits it out anyway, because something tells him Patrick isn’t going to lay a finger on him until they talk.
Patrick doesn’t say anything, waiting for David to give a solid answer. David sighs.
“I’ve had my ass slapped, during sex.” He admits, unable to comprehend that he’s talking about this with his business partner, in the middle of the store he’s supposed to be opening tomorrow.
“What I had in mind would be a lot different than…uhm…that.” Patrick says, and it’s so rare for him to stumble over his words that David can’t help but smile a little before fixing his face to look as earnest as possible. Like he’s really listening.
“If I spanked you, I’d make it count. It would hurt, but it might help take your mind off of tomorrow. You might even sleep well tonight.”
“Hmm.” David nods carefully, his heart beating a bit faster at the promise of pain. “And why would I let you spank me?”
Patrick smiles then, like he’s been waiting for that question.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that I like you, David. I just want to help.”
David is silent for some time, but Patrick is patient. He’s pretty sure he’s waited a lifetime to meet the man standing across from him, so what’s a few more minutes?
“Fine. You can— ”
Help.
David wants to say it but it’s somehow even harder than talking about spanking.
“I can help?”
David nods.
“Like this?” Patrick clarifies, making sure they are on the same page.
“Yes.”
Patrick stands from his stool and squeezes David in a hug. He doesn’t miss the way the man relaxes a bit in his arms.
“Alright then. Let’s give it a try. I'll lock the back door and meet you at the car.” Patrick says, not even pretending to ask.
“Right, I’ll be out in a second. Just gonna move these hand creams over there.” David explains, pointing to a shelf across the store. He’s pushing. He knows he is and he’s practically daring Patrick to do something about it, but he doesn’t expect to find himself looking at the ground so quickly.
Patrick grabs his arm, returns to his seat on the stool, and easily upends David over his knee. Shocked by the ease with which he’s being manhandled, David yelps girlishly and wiggles with all his might.
“P-Patrick!?”
“Did you mean your yes?”
David growls.
“Yes.”
“Is it still a yes?” Patrick asks.
David stomps the one foot that can still reach the ground and whines.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He feels a sharp smack land on his ass, and then another, and a third. David gasps, words failing him as Patrick sets an impossible pace. His ass is burning through his jeans— which are made for comfort and style, not protection.
“Ow!”
“You’ll be alright.” Patrick coaches him, and David swears he can feel the man chuckle when he kicks his legs at a particularly nasty swat to his thigh.
“This is barbaric! How does this help!?” David wails.
“You’ll feel better afterward.”
“I doubt tha—ahh oww!”
It doesn’t matter how much of a fuss David kicks up, he can’t move between the solid thigh beneath him and the solid arm across his back.
“Pat-RiCk!” David huffs, tears stinging his eyes.
“Da-vid.” Patrick answers. “Are you ready to try again?”
“Try what again!?”
Patrick stands him up, and thumbs away a tear escaping down his blushing face.
“You lock the front door, I’ll lock the back door. You’ll meet me at the car.” Patrick says fondly, squeezing David’s shoulder and reaching back to pat his bottom once before heading toward the back.
David stands there in shock, his ass stinging fiercely, his eyes wide.
“I mean it, David. The pants come down next.” Patrick calls.
When he remembers how to walk, David makes his way out the front door and locks it behind him. As he gets into Patrick’s car, he finds his voice again.
“Do you always do that to your business partners?”
Patrick laughs at this, like he can’t believe David is even asking such an absurd question. He pats David’s knee with the hand that isn’t on the steering wheel.
“You’re the first business partner I’ve had.” There’s a pause as he pretends to think very hard about the question. “But no, I think my spanking hand is specially reserved for David Rose.”
David swallows hard, unsure why that, of all things, stirs up butterflies in his stomach. He can’t deny that he feels better, and he couldn’t care less about the displays now.
“Lucky me.” David groans, expelling another laugh from Patrick.
No, lucky me, Patrick thinks.
END