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its-all-stardust · 4 months ago

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Sugar || 9

Masterlist || Part Eight

Steven Grant/Sugar Mommy!Reader

Word count: 2.2k

Series Summary: You meet Steven in a museum gift shop and feel an instant connection. Before you walk out the door you decide, perhaps against your better judgment, that you need him to be your sugar baby. Now you just need him to let you treat him right.

Note: this chapter is very late and fairly short. tbh i could have added a lot more, but seeing as it's been 2 months since the last chapter, i wanted to get something out. But I am still working on this fic!! I'm going to finish it i swear, so please please yell at me to get my ass moving!!

When you called the next day, Steven didn’t answer. You waffled about whether to leave a voicemail and ultimately decided not to—not on that call, anyway.

On the second call, later that day, Steven still didn’t answer. That time, you left a message asking if he was feeling better and asking him to please call you back.

He didn’t. There wasn’t even a response when you sent his payment for going with you to the auction, something entirely unlike him.

By the third call, another day later, you were afraid of once again being too much, too needy. Yet you left another message anyway. You tried to keep it professional, not wanting to let on how upset you were.

“Steven, I still haven’t heard from you. I was just checking in. If there’s an issue with our business arrangement, please let me know as soon as possible.”

You wonder if he’s sleepwalking again or whatever disorder is causing him to blackout. Perhaps it’s like that first time, and Steven will come back confused but well and whole. You try to tell yourself that’s what’s happening now, trying to remain positive.

But, of course, the worry still creeps in.

What if he’s lost?

What if he’s hurt?

Should you call someone and report him missing? Is he missing?

There’s a chance you could be taken seriously, but you also know you could be seen as a psycho jilted ex-lover.

You contemplate the merits of hiring a private investigator or going to Steven’s apartment yourself to see if he’s there.

You can’t go in, you don’t have a key, but you could knock. Maybe even ask his neighbors if they know anything.

You simultaneously try to convince yourself that nothing is wrong and something is.

If something has gone wrong, he needs you, and you can’t get to him. If it hasn’t, then he’s purposefully avoiding you for whatever reason.

You remind yourself you shouldn’t feel this way. Shouldn’t feel so attached.

By Sunday evening, you’re a bit of a mess. If you bit your nails, they’d be gone by now. Instead, your anxiety manifested outward. Your apartment is both chaos and order.

You went on a bit of a cleaning spree. Normally, once a month, you hire someone to come deep clean your home, moving furniture and putting in more elbow grease than you typically care to. These last few days, though, you attempted to take matters into your own hands. And while you were already cleaning, you figured you might as well sort through your cabinets, closets and shelves to see if there is anything you no longer feel the need to hold on to.

As a result, the bathrooms and Steven’s bedroom are spotless. The living room and the kitchen have been destroyed. Only your bedroom is untouched, but that’s only because you got distracted after going through the walk-in closet.

You would have kept going until something in you snapped, or everything was back in order if only the hunger pangs weren’t so distracting. It was a blessing in disguise that your nerves never seemed to affect your appetite.

You’re at your kitchen table, barely tasting whatever leftovers you had in the fridge and staring off into the middle distance when your phone rings.

At first, the sound doesn’t register, drowned out by the constant static filling your head the last few days. But then you realize what it is and lunge toward the counter where you left your phone.

Your heart stops when Steven’s name flashes on the screen. You don’t have to think before pressing the phone to your ear a second later.

“Please tell me it’s still Friday,” Steven blurts as soon as you answer. “Or even Saturday, and I got really drunk on champagne last night.”

Relief fills you, but it’s quickly overshadowed by worry.

“Baby, it’s Sunday,” you tell him gently, sinking back into your chair at the table.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Steven says, dejected.

For the past few days, you had thought, perhaps, that Steven was going to end your relationship. That he no longer wanted to be your sugar baby and didn’t know how to tell you. But his losing time, unable to recall anything during his blackouts, is much more frightening.

“It’s like I’m losing my mind,” Steven continues. “First, I’m losing days, and now Gus regrew a fin.”

That catches your attention. “Gus what?”

You distinctly remember Steven talking about his pet goldfish only having one fin. “Goldfish don’t regrow body parts, Steven.”

“Well, it’s either that or someone broke into my flat, stole Gus, and replaced him with an imposter,” Steven says, his voice bordering on joking and hysterical.

As ridiculous as it sounds…

“You’re sure you don’t remember doing any goldfish shopping?” you ask feebly. Someone replaced Gus after who knows what happened to him, and the most likely culprit would be Steven himself. Not that any attempts at regaining blackout memories have proven fruitful, nor is there an obvious explanation as to why he would do that in the first place.

“Not that, at least,” Steven answers quietly.

“You remember something?” you ask quickly, excited. Whatever it is, it might help you both figure out what’s happening.

“There’s…something alright.” He’s hesitant, like he isn’t sure what to tell you. Perhaps afraid you’ll think him crazy or maybe be disturbed by what he does remember.

“Can I…come over?” Any confidence Steven had around you seems to have been washed away by whatever happened while he was gone. In its place is the same uneasy timidity he had when you first began your relationship when he wasn’t sure what he could and couldn’t do.

“Steven, you never have to ask.”

When he walks through the door, Steven goes straight for your embrace, desperately, it seems, needing your arms around him. He breathes a sigh of relief, melting into you.

You don’t say anything and simply enjoy the feeling of Steven in your arms again. Before, you could survive a few days without him next to you. Now, you can’t imagine letting him out of your sight.

You don’t know when that change happened.

“Do you need anything?” you finally ask, your voice breathless. A mixture of relief and Steven squeezing you a little too tightly—not that you’re complaining.

“Just you,” Steven mumbles, his face buried in your neck. A pleasant heat fills you.

The two of you stand there for a moment longer, tangled up in each other, relishing in the comfort. You want to move to the couch to hold Steven properly but don’t want to be the first to let go. You don’t want Steven to think for even one second that you’re abandoning him in any way.

Steven shifts, lifting his head, and presses his forehead against yours, closing his eyes.

“At least I know you’re real,” he mutters more to himself than to you.

You have no idea what that means. It’s likely a part of what he has to tell you about the last few days.

“What happened?” you ask softly, prompting him.

Finally, Steven stands up straight, his arms loosening around you but not completely letting go.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Then, with a slight shake of his head, he says, “I don’t even know where to start.”

With your hands on his arm, you lead Steven to the couch. “May I?” you ask, and with Steven’s nod, you continue. “Let’s start with the auction. You seemed fine at first, but something happened to you.”

Steven’s brow furrows in concentration, trying to remember what happened just a few short days ago.

“I remember going. We met your friend, but then…” He shakes his head. “It’s blank. Part of me didn’t feel right, but… I don’t know how to describe it. One second was with you, and the next, I was dreaming or something before waking up in my bed.”

Steven’s eyes widen, apparently realizing something. “Oh God, I didn’t just leave you there, did I?” he quickly asks, eyes searching yours.

“You didn’t,” you assure him. Even though Steven has the right to walk out on your arrangement anytime he wants, aside from your assumptions after the auction, he’s never shown any sign of wanting to do so. “You had me take you home, though. Do you remember that?”

Steven shakes his head. “When did that happen?”

The best place, you decide, is the beginning. Instead of guessing at what Steven doesn’t remember, you replay the whole night for him—even the parts he’s already mentioned himself.

“I thought you didn’t like being there. Maybe you were bored, or the crowd was too much for you. You got so quiet. And then you asked me to take you home.”

“I don’t…feel like myself.”

You weren’t sure what he meant at the time, but now it makes sense that that was when Steven’s memory started going blank.

“I don’t remember that,” Steven says softly. “Did something happen afterward? When did I leave?”

“Leave?” you repeat, slightly confused.

Steven continues, not hearing you. “Did I say where I was going? Or…or did I sleep in the spare room?”

That’s when you realize that Steven didn’t think of his apartment when you said you took him home. He thought you meant yours.

“Steven,” you say, interrupting him before he could keep trying to fill in the blanks himself. “I didn’t bring you back here. You had me take you to your apartment. Something about you needing to be there.”

Steven’s face scrunches up in confusion as if that course of action doesn’t make sense to him. He goes silent, and you let him think.

You want to ask about what he said that night, what it could have meant. What it was about himself he couldn’t tell you.

But you don’t. He didn’t want to talk about it then, and there’s a reason he wouldn’t know what you were talking about if you did.

An eerie feeling washes over you. At the time, you knew something was wrong, but looking back now and realizing that something inside Steven had changed, and he was no longer remembering what he was doing leaves you unsettled.

Whatever is happening to him, you need to help figure it out. The problem is, as far as any doctor could tell, it wasn’t anything physical, nothing that left an outward sign of its presence, leaving you at a loss.

“I followed you in,” you tell Steven, needing to say something about what happened in his apartment. “Pretty sure you didn’t want me to. You kind of…ran, but I needed to know you were okay.”

“Well, now I know something was definitely wrong with me. I would never run from you if I were in my right mind,” Steven tries to joke, but it comes out weak, without much feeling behind it.

It’s nice to hear nonetheless, especially with how this whole ordeal had left you feeling.

“I didn’t stay long,” you continue, no longer meeting Steven’s eye and instead turning your attention to your still interlocked hands. “It didn’t seem like you wanted me there.”

It was Steven, yet not Steven, sitting awkwardly at the table as you made him tea. Though he didn’t seem to hate you, he was clearly uneasy with you being in his space. Your heart pangs in your chest.

Before you can stop yourself, before you can even think, words spill from your lips.

“And then you wouldn’t answer my calls. Now I know why, but I thought I had done something, and maybe you didn’t want me anymore.”

Steven’s breath catches.

No, no, no, you weren’t supposed to say it like that. You should have practiced the words beforehand.

You lo-like Steven, but your relationship doesn’t have room for that. You’re in this position specifically, so you don’t get caught up in feelings. You don’t want them. They’re messy and complicated and leave you hurt more often than not. You pay people to avoid feelings, and it’s always worked so well.

Until Steven.

It shouldn’t matter if he wants you, whatever that entails. As long as he’s happy to accept your money for his services, you should be content.

The last thing you want is to pressure Steven into anything, which means keeping any and all ill-advised emotions to yourself.

You don’t want this relationship to end; admitting anything is a surefire way of making that happen.

“I thought you didn’t want to be my baby anymore,” you correct. Your first admission is true, but it’s best if Steven thinks this is what you meant, and you can pretend it doesn’t sound just as desperate.

Steven squeezes your hand and doesn’t release the pressure, making you meet his gaze.

“When I woke up, I saw you had called,” he starts, his voice quiet, eyes intently looking into yours. “I was so scared, I didn’t listen to them. I just needed to call you. See you.” He takes a shaky breath. “And…I think I’ve known for a while, really, but I realized something just now.”

Your brow furrows, wondering what he’s thinking.

“I have…so much I still need to tell you, but I think I need to say this now.” He starts talking faster as if he thinks if he doesn’t get the words out quickly enough, they won’t come out at all. Then, in a rush, he says, “I don’t want to be your baby anymore.”

Your heart stops beating, and pain fills your chest.

“I’d rather be your boyfriend.”

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