Summer had been feeling … off, for hours. That horrible, “something is wrong but I can’t figure out what” feeling that made her restless and snappish. When she’d gotten Tony’s text, she’d flung herself out the door so fast she was barefoot, loose-locked, and still wearing house-lounging clothes, wrapped up in a big woolen cloak. She dropped to her knees beside Tony, grabbing his hands.
“What happened? You feel like you just walked through hell.”
Tony laughed weakly, letting his head thunk back against the wall. “I, ah,” he cleared his throat, “I had an incident with Dummy. He asked me to marry him. And I freaked the fuck out and left.” He snorted. “So I went back to talk to him, and everything just kind of locked up once the word polyamory got involved, and he broke up with me. So I left, only to have to run back because he shot himself. So I had to drag him to the workshop to put him back together, and he’s telling me not to the entire way, and when he woke up later he would have started trying to take himself apart if I hadn’t showed up as soon as I did.”
He leaned his head to the side to scrub his eyes against his upper arm, since Summer had his hands. “So I got him calmed down, and I think we got everything figured out and I’m pretty sure we’re okay now, but it’s, uh,” he laughed, short and somewhat hysterical, “it’s been quite a night.”
He lifted his head to look at her again, eyes wide and damp, and there was a tense pause before he managed a somewhat strangled, “Shit,” and let his head drop to his knee, pulling his hands away from Summer to bring his arms up to hide his head. Because that would magically hide the fact that he was having a break down in the middle of his office floor.
With every word, Summer’s heart sank more. “Tony, why didn’t you call me?” She put her arms around him, dragging him out of his curl to hold his head to her chest. “Shh,” she murmured, rocking a little. “Let it go, love, please let it go.” She laid herself completely open to his emotions, tears dropping from her eyes into his hair, stroking her fingers through it. With one hand, she got the shot glass away from him, putting it up on the desk.