Cobb Cobb Cobbin’ On Holden’s Door
#22 of Hockey Hunk Season 3
Rory gets all Cobb he can ever want...and then some!
Hehhey, everyone!
Welcome to the Friday chapter of my ongoing furry soap opera extravaganza "I'm With the Hockey Hunk"! You're now invited to enjoy the amazing 94th chapter of the story, and I hope you'll have fun with this 4k-chapter - I seem to be having extra fun nowadays, considering that I always find plenty to write! *chuckle* The story is progressing, I think, and there are many things coming ahead of us...so don't forget to stay tuned!
Don't forget to comment, either - the comments are the best measure of the quality of my work, and I always love hearing from my readers! Also remember that all faves, votes and watches will help others to find these stories to enjoy as well. Those days on the front page count a great deal.
Now, enjoy this read, and I bid you...cheers!
*
"Jacob Holden, Holden & Holden Cyber Logistics, good day!"
_ _
Oh my God...
I swallowed.
"Cobb? It's...it's Rory here...Rory Gliese...can we talk for a minute?"
I fell silent, and waited for the onslaught of Cobb that I was fully expecting, based on the sum of my previous experience in dealing with the cumbersome brother Dobie. At any moment, and the thought made my tail flap heavily over the bed, the Cobb would open his muzzle and...and...say something VERY MUCH LIKE COBB AND THAT'S ME! and I wasn't sure whether I was mad or something, for going along with this plan Peter and I had hatched in a way to try to get back into good terms with Victor.
"Rory!" the Dobie's voice snapped through the line and made my ears flick quickly, with surprise. Cobb sounded positively puzzled.
"Hi!" I mumbled, my heart racing almost painfully in my chest. "Can you...uh...can you talk privately for a moment? It's important."
I didn't want Victor hear this conversation, obviously, and even though it was quite sneaky to do so, I knew that the whole plan depended on it, and that's why I had to make sure that I would have Cobb all to myself before I could go on saying anything else.
That thought gave me a pause, too.
To have a Cobb all to myself...
What a twisted world it was for me, now.
"Yeah, I'm private," was the Dobie's reply, after another moment's pause.
"Okay," I breathed.
One step completed, I thought, off to the next.
"How did you get the number to my work phone?" Cobb got there first, of course.
His question was spoken in a surprisingly soft tone, and I wondered whether he was indeed deliberately lowering his voice, or whispering, in an attempt to not to alarm Victor to the fact that he was having a phone conversation with none other than one Rory Gliese.
Damn.
I huffed to myself. I probably should have started this all by dealing with that question...shit!
"Oh, my friend Peter gave me the card you gave to him earlier, "I explained, trying to sound cheerful. "I... I have been wanting to talk to you, Cobb."
Well, for about 2 hours, but it was the truth. I had been going about it in my head all afternoon, how a conversation with Cobb could turn out, and how it would me to accomplish my goal of making up to Victor, and so that we could...see each other again, and see where we stood in this whole business at the moment. And that required a bit of...delicate treatment of the Cobb.
I felt almost like someone sent out to dispose of a Dobie-sized bomb ready to burst at any moment. And I didn't even have a robot to help me out on it!
"Okay," Cobb said.
Still that quiet voice. Guess he was really making an effort in trying to be sure that Victor was not hearing what he was speaking on the phone, or to whom. I wondered whether Cobb already had to make an excuse on why he had to take this phone call in private.
"So how are you guys doing?" I tried to muster a more cheerful tone, a healthy voice of curiosity and care for the wellbeing of Victor, and of Cobb, too, of course. It must have been hell on him, too, watching his brother go through all the pain and the hardships of recovery...while hiding some other things under the surface as well.
Yeah...I guess it wasn't just Victor I wanted to hug.
"We were just eating," Cobb replied. "I made some supper."
I could still remember the immense cuts of Beef Wellington, swimming in delicious sauce and surrounded by side dishes that had filled me so well that I had barely been able to move from my seat once I was done eating and dodging Cobb's outrageous questions about my happyhappy gay homosexual queer life.
"Heheh, I'm sure Victor is enjoying that!" I enthused. "A good hearty meal goes a long way!"
I chuckled a little, and well expected a deep, masculine rumble from the other end of the line as well, but it did not come.
"Why did you call, Rory?" the Dobie questioned instead, in another whisper.
Well...guess Cobb had to keep this quick, so that his brother wasn't going to get any suspicious ideas about it, and wanted me to get to the point. I kinda appreciated him for that, too...with Peter out in the other room, I was really all by myself, here, and feeling quite shaky and jittery with excitement over the fact that soon I might be seeing Victor again, and get to talk to him properly, if I managed to pull this off just right.
"Well...uh..." I rubbed my paw over my chest, in another self-comforting gesture of sorts, as I wondered how to put my flimsy plan into simple words that Cobb would have no trouble understanding.
"Yeah?"
I took a deep breath, and went on.
"Oh, you see, it's that Victor and I haven't seen each other in a while, and with both of us on the mend now, and I just came back to town again, so I was thinking that it'd be great to see Victor again...and I was thinking that maybe it would be fun to surprise Victor a little," I began by explaining my reasoning behind what I planned to propose.
I hoped that it would appeal to the more...cub-like thought processes going through Cobb's mind even now, I suspected.
"So...do you think that would be a good idea?" I added, trying not to sound too excited, and with readiness to plead, if I needed to.
Cobb cleared his throat. Over the phone, it sounded almost like a bark, and made my ears jump with the surprise intensity of the quick hacked breath.
"I don't think it's a good idea, Rory."
Cobb spoke in a quick, low voice that was so different from his usual loud drawl that it almost shocked me, rather than simply caused a surprise with its dissonance to my usual experience of him. In fact, the tone was such an odd thing to hear that my ears didn't even register the actual words until a few moments later.
My heart seemed to freeze in my chest. The quick disapproval was not what I had expected. Complaints, maybe, about how Victor needed a lot of care only ME, NURSE COBB CAN PROVIDE TO MY ONLY BROTHER! - were something I had prepared to answer to, but such simple negative declaration was something else.
Maybe there was a reason to it. Maybe Victor wasn't feeling so great in the moment, and Cobb thought that it would be best to not to have guests at the time, let alone surprise guests, that it. Perhaps he was simply being like he was, overprotective and on the edge from the stress of having to go through this harrowing time where so much was at stake.
"Oh?" I said in a measured breath. "Is Victor alright?"
I could hear Cobb let out a deep breath. It sounded like a fire extinguisher going off, hissing into my ear through the phone. I clutched the small plastic rectangle more firmly in my paw.
"No he is not," Cobb dictated.
My face must've darkened into a deep scowl, along with my mood, too. My mental scowl felt as bad as the new tension lines over my muzzle and on my jaw. I was sure that veins were bulging on my neck from the act of biting my teeth together as the tension grew.
"Is something wrong, then?" I asked cautiously. "Does Victor need medical help or something?"
Another pause.
"I don't think it's your concern, Rory."
So what was this then? Why was Cobb trying to keep me in the dark about how Victor was doing? Was this some sort of a new protective streak and an expression of him that I hadn't met before, even at the hospital? He had been so much welcoming of me, practically jumped on me on my sickbed at the sight of me, when Peter wheeled me in to see Victor. Had there really been some sort of a change in Victor's health that Cobb was loathe to disclose to me? I needed to know.
"What's wrong? I asked between my clenched teeth, hissing it out quickly.
My stomach hurt.
"I think we both know what's wrong, Rory," Cobb said.
I froze.
"Cobb?" I whispered automatically.
"To be honest, I expected a bit more out of you than some of the other guys, Rory. I thought you were quite honest with yourself and ready to commit. But I guess I was wrong."
No...
Cobb...
"And I can't tell you how disappointed I am, because I 'm pretty fucking tired of getting to see my brother hurt by you selfish fags who don't know what's good for you."
Oh my God...
"I really thought you would have had some backbone instead of being just one of those selfish furs who don't care for other's feelings and even when you're WELCOMED with open arms into our family you just go on acting on your old selfish ways."
His voice didn't rise, which was probably a feat to someone as loud as Cobb, but in reverse, my own voice was pretty much gone by this point.
"How could, Rory? How could you smile and laugh with me while you were just ALL lies, Rory? Why do you keep on hanging on Victor if he means so little to you and then PRETEND otherwise?"
He hacked the word "pretend" out in a sharp husk that felt like something being stabbed into my chest. My muzzle was paralyzed half open.
"Yeah, I don't think I've been this badly disappointed yet, Rory. I'm sorry but I don't want you to call again, or harass Victor again. We really don't want to hear from you again now that we know that you're no good. Don't call me again, Rory."
"Cobb!" I moaned.
"I fucking mean it. Goodbye."
He hung up on me.
The sharp tone signaled to me that Cobb had cut the phone call short right there and then.
He had nothing else to say to me.
Nothing I could have said would have made any difference.
*
I was really brave and smiled, when I knocked the doorway into Victor's bedroom.
"The lunch is ready now, Victor," I said.
Victor lifted his eyes from my iPad and nodded.
"Great," he said.
Victor tapped something on my iPad and put it then down onto the other side of the bed. I had borrowed it to him, since I thought it was easier to use in bed than his laptop, and Victor had found out it was really fun to play around with it! Maybe I should get him his own one as a get well present soon.
"Need any help getting out of the bed?" I asked as I watched Victor fold his covers.
"I'm fine, "Victor rumbled.
"Alright!"
My brother is a fucking brave man, I think. He was in terrible accident only a couple of weeks ago and now he's already back to his paws and coming to eat his own dinner. And he even talked about going to work, yesterday, which worried me because he still has some pain and his ear is still bandaged up, but I suppose it's his way of trying to get better.
It pained me to think about the other things he told me yesterday, too, when I had a beer and Victor had a healthy smoothie I hade for him, and he told me what had happened.
Shit!
Why did things have to go bad for my brother like that? Hadn't it not been enough that he wrecked his car and his body ,and now I learned that his relationship had been wrecked too. And by Rory being dishonest, too!
I almost wanted to be angry at Victor for not telling me earlier. I could have said and done the right thing, and not just concentrated on his physical wellbeing. I could have been telling him for the past weeks that there were other better men out there and that he would fine one waiting just behind the corner.
One that wasn't a cheat like Rory.
It was really a shame, I thought when I went to the kitchen and made sure that the way was clear and everything was ready for Victor to come through.
He'd been so nice...even brought me a gift and liked me food...and he didn't get angry with me, like some others have in the past, when I had made them questions about how they would be a good boyfriend to my Victor, and they hadn't known how to answer in a way that satisfied me. Or they got angry with the questions and then got angry with me. Rory didn't seem to get angry, but I guess that was just pretending, so that he could keep Victor.
My poor gentle Victor. He didn't deserve this kind of shit in his life, he really didn't! It'd really been so bad to watch him date a guy or another and it never seemed to last for really long, and then he was alone again and I felt bad for him.
Victor walked into the kitchen slowly, and I stayed close to the door, in case he needed some help. He was only wearing his blue pajamas, because they were easy to get on and off when he needed to, even with his sore chest. A big white bandage still covered one half of the top of his head and the ear, too, which the doctor had told him last week was healing well. He'd be able to flick it and all. That was good. He deserved to be all handsome so that some good, proper man would be able to fall in love with his good looks and be there for him.
Unlike that Rory. Damn! Why did Victor always fell for these cats you couldn't trust? Hadn't it been the same with Isaac, who was a total ass in the end, and not worth anyone's trust? That total piece of shit!
"Everything's ready, come on right in!" I smiled and flicked my ears happily when Victor approached the table and the food it carried.
"Thanks," my brother rumbled deeply.
I hurried to pull the chair for him, and helped Victor to get down to it comfortably. I winced a bit when he grunted as he sat down, and I knew it had hurt. I rubbed his shoulders quickly and listened to his deep, quick breaths.
I wished I could carry some of that pain away from him.
"I'll get the soup", I said once I felt that it was safe to leave him sitting there again.
I moved to the kitchen, slowly, deep in thought. Had a lot on my mind, I did. Wasn't such a happy thing to think about, this whole day.
I rounded the kitchen counter and stopped on my tracks.
"I forgot the crackers," I said, turning to look over to Victor who sat quietly on his chair.
My brother gave me a tired look.
"Never mind," Victor rumbled.
I turned on my heels and opened the cabinet which I knew contained all sorts of things that kept well and quickly grabbed the plastic packet of crackers which I knew were essential for the enjoyment of the noodle soup I had prepared for Victor to eat. It was just what mother used to make to us when me or Victor or Evelyn were sick. Well...knowing me and Victor, we were almost always sick at the same time, because we always went everywhere together, and caught the same germs.
I waved the packet in my paw and flicked my ears and wagged my tail when I approached the table again and put the crackers down onto the table.
"Can't do without these!" I smiled widely.
Victor looked at the packet and then remained there, staring at them.
I hurried to back to the kitchen and grabbed the big oven mittens off the kitchen counter so that it would be safe to lift and then carry the pot of soup over to the dining table. I did that slowly, too, because I didn't want to spill the soup all over the floor or myself, and I really concentrated on it, too.
"Here we go!" I said loudly. "Good nice noodle soup for my Victor!"
Victor smacked his lips and watched how I put the pot down to the table and then pulled the mittens off my paws and tossed them to the side before I sat down.
"Thank you, Cobb," Victor said.
I smiled and sat down onto my own chair. It creaked a bit under me, but I guess it hadn't been really made with me in mind, heheh.
"Do you want me to put some butter on your bread?" I pointed at the slices of bread I had put ready onto a small plate next to Victor's fork and knife that were waiting for him.
Victor grunted and shook his head.
"I can spread butter on my own bread," my brother rumbled.
It was sad to see him in such a bad mood. He really seemed to take a turn for the worse after he told me that Rory hadn't been honest with him, and now I wondered if he had been hiding this all along from me, and pretending to be all happy and cheerful while really he wanted to tell me all about these painful truths. It didn't feel right to me, not at all, that Victor had felt like he had to keep it all to himself. I didn't know why he felt like that, and it hurt me to think that he'd been carrying painful secrets within him and didn't share them with me. I could have helped him with them so many times over these past weeks...if only...
Maybe it really hurt so much, that he didn't even know how to talk about it, even to me, his very own brother. How could he ended up feeling that bad, it was not a nice thing to think about. I didn't even know what to think about it. It all seemed so...bad.
I watched how Victor grabbed the knife from the box of butter and then spread a good amount of the stuff onto his slice of bread. I kept watching him for any sign of pain, because I knew that his chest hurt still and he couldn't really comfortably lift his arms much without getting a lot of pain all over his chest. At least it wasn't quite as bad anymore as it had been at first when he got home from the hospital. Back then it was almost scary how even breathing seemed to hurt, and I couldn't do a thing.
Didn't like feeling this helpless, either.
I lifted the lid from the pot and breathed in the smell of curry and rumbled happily. At least the food was promising to be good, and I knew that nothing helped better with sorrow and heartache and pain than some nice, good home-cooked food you could trust to enjoy over and over again.
I put the lid down to the side so that it sat on top of the oven mittens, and then took the ladle I had put there to be ready.
"Can I at least get you the soup?" I offered, well knowing that if Victor tried to do that himself, it might hurt a lot.
Victor nodded.
"Yeah," he said.
"Heh," I smiled and then ladled a good amount of soup to Victor's plate, so that he soon had a big nice steaming plateful in front of him and ready to be enjoyed.
Next, I took some of the butter for myself and spread it on my bread. Victor was just eating a piece of his own.
"I have strawberry ice cream in the freezer," I said, smiling widely, "Thought we could have a bowl afterwards. Got some chocolate sauce too, and if you want, I could slice up a banana."
Victor swallowed a piece of his bread.
"No thanks," he rumbled.
My ears took a mournful turn. If ice cream couldn't cheer him up, then things really had to be extremely sour. I didn't like that, and I didn't like the fact that it wasn't because Victor couldn't live his normal life that was making him sad, but the fact that he had been cheated by that damn lion.
Why did Victor have to have such a bad luck anyway? Weren't there any decent gay guys in Kirk City? It's not like there were only a dozen or something like that here, and I bet they all couldn't be all crap like Victor's past men had been. What the hell was the problem with them anyway? Why couldn't they be happy with what my Victor could offer? He was a good guy, really friendly and loyal and probably dudes also thought he was sexy, too...so why cheat on someone so gentle? What the hell was wrong with this world?
I knew I shouldn't have been thinking about it all the time. Victor might start thinking I was in a bad mood, and then he'd worry for me, and it wasn't his time to worry for me, but I had to worry for him, and try to make him feel better with all of this stuff. Not the other way around.
"Well I'll certainly have some," I said happily, "and definitely a nice cup of coffee!"
"I wouldn't mind some coffee," Victor rumbled with his eyes on the soup.
"You'll get it," I said. "And then we could maybe watch a DVD, if you don't want to go back to browsing the net or something."
Victor chuffed.
"Another Police Academy?" my brother asked.
I flicked my ears cheerfully.
"If you like!" I grinned. "I know you love all the funny gay bar scenes!"
Victor grunted.
I decided to get myself some soup.
"Well I like them too," I replied and hoped that it might cheer Victor up a bit, too.
"Can't we watch something else, if we have to watch anything at all?" Victor rumbled.
I stopped my happy stirring of my soup and look at him carefully. Thankfully I had a quick idea to propose, should I need to.
"How about some JAG?" I grinned. "Been a long time since we watched that!"
Victor huffed.
"Sure."
"That's great!" I waved my ears in approval.
I was just taking a good scoopful of soup when a sound alerted my ears. My right one turned and curved as it searched for the source of the sound, and because I hadn't heard it in a while, it really took me a moment to realize what it was.
Even Victor was looking to his side.
"Must be Evelyn," I said as I got up from my chair, "won't be long at all."
Victor nodded quickly and I went over to my bedroom to find my work phone, which was currently ringing over and over again. It probably was last Friday when it last rang, with Evelyn asking me about some business with the company. I'd really been away for a month, and I wasn't sure how long I could stay here without the business starting to suffer from my absence...but we were still doing well. Evelyn understood, and we kept things going. Anything for our brother Victor. He needed me.
"Where are you...?" I muttered to myself as I searched for the phone.
I hoped it wasn't anything serious. Sometimes the guys at the warehouse mixed some bar codes up and it'd be a huge mess trying to find out just where they'd put the things we really wanted, that had been mislabeled by accident. It'd taken me all day...hmm...
Well, there it was, under a crumpled T-shirt on the floor. I wondered how I had managed to drop my phone there.
Hmm...
I picked up the phone. It wasn't Evelyn calling, nor any other familiar number, so I guessed it had to be a client, perhaps. Hmm.
I lifted my phone up to my favorite ear, cleared my throat, and gave my most professional greeting, just like a vice president should.
"Jacob Holden, Holden & Holden Cyber Logistics, good day!"
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*
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