“I know,” Holden said. Gabriel could hear him moving around in the kitchen, rummaging for things in his cupboards. He walked over to where Gabriel was and handed him an ice pack, a glass of water and a bottle of pills. Gabriel smiled at him.

  “Thank you,” Gabriel said. He popped a pill into his mouth, washing it down with the entire glass of water, then tried to put the ice pack on his head. It hurt so much that it made him flinch, which earned him a snicker from Holden.

  “You’re not allowed to laugh at me,” he said. “I did this for you.”

  “I think that’s exactly the reason I’m allowed to laugh at you,” he said, then twisted his lips. “And yeah, about that. I have some tea brewing.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Gabriel said, his heart beating fast. He wasn’t sure what about this particular conversation he was dreading so much, since Holden and Gabriel had already had plenty of talks that started with those exact same words.

  Never from Gabriel’s side—he knew better than to make Holden feel like he was going to drop a bomb on him for no reason—but when Holden started a conversation like that, all that Gabriel usually felt was a combination of curiosity and giddy anticipation.

  That wasn’t how he felt then, though. He felt a sense of dread in his stomach that he didn’t think he had ever felt before, something potent and weird.

  “What?” Holden asked.

  “Nothing,” Gabriel said. “Are we just… are we just going into it?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Holden said. “We need to talk and putting it off isn’t going to help either of us.”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “We could just sit here and not talk to each other. I think that would make me happy.”

  Holden rolled his eyes, laughing again. “You know you’re a giant fucking baby, right?”

  “Whatever,” Gabriel said, pointing at his face. “Would a little baby have this on his face?”

  “You would,” Holden replied. “And you’re a baby, so obviously, yes.”

  Gabriel scoffed, though he was smiling. “So what happened?”

  “With Sean?”

  “With you,” Gabriel said. “You came home looking like you’d ran over by a truck.”

  “Coming from you,” Holden replied. The kettle whistled and Holden made a gesture that meant that Gabriel should hold that thought.

  Gabriel watched as Holden got off the sofa and walked toward the kitchen. Gabriel watched him, his gaze glued onto Holden’s body as he got up. There was something about his new look; about his raven black hair and the disheveled thing that he had going on that Gabriel couldn’t help but find attractive.

  It was ridiculous. Gabriel knew better than to be attracted to his best friend. There was too much to lose. Gabriel had always known that his best friend was cute, in fact, when he was still a teenager and people had teased them about dating each other, part of the reason that he hadn’t minded was that he felt that Holden, with those big blue eyes and those gorgeous boyish features.

  Holden had always said that he was going to become ruggedly handsome, but it had been something of a joke between them. His father was baby faced and young, and he looked about ten years older than Holden. It was a running joke between their group of friends that whenever someone new was introduced to Mr. Brochu, they would say he was his older brother.

  Mostly everyone believed them and since Mr. Brochu wasn’t that eager to be part of his son’s social life, they had tricked people into believing that for months, even years.

  In fact, he remembered doing it with Sean when they had first started dating. Instead of being funny, though, it had been a little disturbing. Sean had acted like he was more interested in Holden’s dad than Holden and that had stopped the joke in its tracks pretty soon.

  Holden hadn’t said anything about it, though. He had simply kept his end of the conversation, continuing to eat when his father had walked away.

  Gabriel had wanted to ask him why he hadn’t introduced Sean to his parents before, but it was clear to him that he didn’t want to be in competition with his own father. Not that Mr. Brochu would have ever entertained that idea.

  Sean had just gone out of his way to make it obvious that he was still looking at other men.

  Holden didn’t say anything—because he never said anything—but Gabriel could tell that it was making him uncomfortable. Not that he was going to talk to Holden about it. His relationship was his business, and if he thought his boyfriend being a flirt was okay, then it was. Gabriel had no say in that.

  He walked to the kitchen to help Holden. He grabbed the cups that Holden had already taken from the cupboards and passed them to him. Holden flashed him a little smile. It wasn’t a big smile—it was the kind of smile that was supposed to work as a thank you—but Gabriel could feel his heart aflutter.

  He cleared his throat as he tried to contain his emotions. He wasn’t sure when it had happened or how, but something had shifted, and he had become less guarded around Holden.

  It wasn’t good, in fact, it was the definition of a problem. He needed those walls. He needed them to be there so that they could remain friends for the rest of their lives, even as they went through partners, even as they went through changes that might pull them apart from each other.

  Holden poured the coffee and looked up at him. “Are you okay?”

  Gabriel nodded instantly. “Sure.”

  Holden sighed. “You’re a bad liar.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He stirred his tea with a little spoon he had grabbed from the drawer in front of him, hitting the sides of the cup so it would make a satisfying noise. He wanted to delay this conversation for as soon as he could, but with the way that Holden was looking at him, Gabriel was sure that wasn’t going to be too much longer.

  Holden turned to face him. “Look,” he said. “We’re already not in a good place. You don’t have to lie to me, okay?”

  Gabriel sighed. He drank a sip of his tea, but it was too hot, so he winced and moved it away from his face. “I just—I’m confused. And I’m worried about you, too. Revenge?”

  “I know,” Holden said. “I’m worried about me too. I got so swept up in everything, in what would make me feel better. But it didn’t, and I was so surprised, and I couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t. Until I realized I was destroying someone’s property instead of, I don’t know, doing things that do make me feel better.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Holden said. “Watching movies that I’ve seen a million times. Spending time with you.”

  Gabriel coughed, trying to swallow down the knot in his throat. “You can still do this thing,” he said. “I want you to do those things, Holden.”

  Holden shook his head. “I was just… so afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear it? Because it’s really fucking stupid,” Holden said.

  Gabriel smiled. “Dude, look at my eye. You’re in good company. I am the king of bad ideas.”

  Holden smiled, blowing slightly on his tea. It didn’t do anything. Holden knew it didn’t do anything and Gabriel knew it didn’t do anything, but he was stalling and Gabriel couldn’t blame him. He wanted to put this off for as long as possible too. “I guess that for the last couple of years of my life, I’ve tried to make myself someone that Sean would like,” Holden said. “And I… I never felt like he liked me that much. When he asked me to marry him, when he upped all the romantic gestures and told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, I wanted to believe him.”

  “You didn’t?”

  Holden shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I wanted to, and he said he did, but I never really took Sean at his word. And he was so persistent, but it felt like he kept missing what I actually liked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, when he took me to that trip to Chicago,” he said, hugging himself. “I fucking hate the cold. It makes me feel like everything is so much worse, and it makes my skin break-out. You know I need the sun.”

  “I know you do,” Gabriel said.

  “Or when he bought me that planner,” Holden said. “When I told him I was anxious with how I was falling behind at work and he bought me this big planner that I could put in my office. But you know how much I hate analog planners, right? Looking at them makes me feel like—”

  “You haven’t accomplished anything,” Gabriel said. “I know.”

  “But I wanted us to work,” Holden said, shaking his head. “It felt like… the first real relationship where I needed it to work. I wanted to be this adult thing that would work between us and it would be the end of my search, I don’t know. It sounds so stupid now.”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid.”

  “No, it does, and I know it does,” Holden said. “I thought that being with a guy was going to solve all my problems, but it didn’t. And you know, the funny thing is, I never even liked him that much.”

  Gabriel swallowed. He closed his eyes and took a sip of his drink. “You didn’t?”

  “I mean,” Holden said. “When I close my eyes and I try to think of what I’m going to miss about him, I come up blank. And that makes me feel sick to my stomach. I was with him for so long and there isn’t even one thing that I like about him? I mean, what does that make me?”

  Gabriel drank more of his tea, unsure of what to say.

  “That was a serious question,” Holden said.

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel replied. “I don’t think it makes you anything but complacent, really.”

  “You can say that it makes me an idiot,” Holden said quietly.

  “I don’t know if it makes you an idiot,” Gabriel said. “It just makes you a person.”

  Holden closed his eyes tightly. “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What about what I did to you?” Holden said. “I made you go speak to him, I made you get into this fight. I practically abandoned you.”

  “I’m an adult, Holden,” Gabriel said. “You hardly abandoned me.”

  “You know what I mean, though,” Holden replied, shaking his head. “I always make you take the fall for me.”

  “Not always,” Gabriel quickly replied. “And I could stand up to you if I wanted to.”

  “Stand up to me?”

  “You know what I mean,” Holden said, shaking his head.

  Gabriel sighed, putting his tea on the counter. “Sean told me that the reason he didn’t say things to you was because you were fragile.”

  Holden cocked his head. “Is it wrong if I say that I can see that?”

  Gabriel didn’t say anything.

  “I hope you don’t treat me like that.”

  “I don’t, normally,” Gabriel said. “I have lately.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Okay,” Gabriel said. He turned around to face Holden and narrowing his eyes. “What the fuck are you doing, Holden? You can do so much better than Sean. You can do so much better than this.”

  Holden sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m a fucking mess. Who’s going to want this?”

  He was trying to laugh, but Gabriel could hear how close to breaking his voice was.

  “You’re not a mess, Holden,” Gabriel said. “You’re just imperfect. You’re a human being and you were thrown for a loop. There’s no… jilted people at the altar club, it’s not a thing that happens.”

  Holden watched him, his eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

  “People die, they break-up, they leave,” Gabriel said. “We know how to act when that happens. We have a social contract that tells us how to act when shit happens. But we have no idea what to do after a shit wedding.”

  “And oh boy, was it ever,” Holden said.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabriel said, shaking his head. “I wish I had been a better friend.”

  Holden raised his eyebrows. “Are you joking?”

  “I’m not joking,” Gabriel said. “If I had made you feel like you could talk to me, you wouldn’t have ended up almost marrying him.”

  “That’s not true,” Holden said, shaking his head. “I knew you were there to talk to me. I just—I didn’t want to seem like too much of an idiot to you. I knew you didn’t like Sean and I didn’t want to give you more of a reason not to like him.”

  “It’s okay,” Gabriel replied, smiling at him. “For what it’s worth, I think there’s very little you could have said to me that would make me like him any less.”

  “That’s good to know, I guess,” Holden replied. “I don’t know how I got so swept up in it. And I don’t know when we stopped talking to each other.”

  “You and Sean?”

  Holden frowned. “No, silly. You and me. Before Sean, I felt like I could tell you anything.”

  “You still can,” Gabriel said.

  Holden looked him up and down, then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Does your face still hurt?”

  Gabriel smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Like a bitch.”

  “If anyone can pull of purple, it’s you,” Holden said. It was a silly throwaway compliment, but it made Gabriel’s heart jump in his chest. He smiled back at Holden and he was sure that they stayed there, looking at each other, for what felt like a very long time.

  Then Holden closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slammed the tea cup down on the kitchen counter. He took a little step toward Gabriel and looked right into his face, right into his eyes.

  “Gabriel?”

  Gabriel watched him, unable to say anything. He just cocked his head as a response, trying to prompt Holden to keep talking. “Hmm?”

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Gabriel frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course. Always.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Holden wasn’t exactly sure what prompted him to close the space that was still dividing them.

  Maybe it was the fact that he believed Gabriel when he said that he was always going to be there.

  After the last few weeks in his life, that felt like exactly what he needed to hear.

  He didn’t realize just how afraid he had been that his temporary detour into… whatever the hell that had been… would have turned Gabriel against him. And he wouldn’t have blamed him, he had been more than childish. He had put Gabriel at risk because of his petty plan instead of talking to him.

  When he had gotten home and seen Gabriel with that bruise on his face, he had felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t even imagine the circumstances that could lead Gabriel to get into a fight that left him looking like that.

  Holden wouldn’t have blamed Gabriel if he’d told him he never wanted to see him again, but instead, Gabriel had been sweet and understanding. He had wanted to know what had happened to Holden. That was so much like Gabriel, worrying about what had happened to Holden instead of what had happened to him, and Holden couldn’t help but love him a little for that.

  Now he was telling Holden that he was always going to be there for him and he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to turn this into a hug, but it wasn’t, and he had to be careful about the way that he touched Gabriel’s face.

  For a split second, he was sure that Gabriel would jerk away from him. Rejection wasn’t the worst thing that he could think of, though he knew it would be awkward. He was expecting it, though, but he had already committed to this and he wanted to try and kiss him.

  He could think about the consequences later.

  But Gabriel didn’t move, he simply stood there as if he was frozen in place, and when Holden’s lips touched his own, he didn’t do anything.

  Holden heard him take in a sharp intake of breath and he moved back, ready to apologize.

  Before he could, though, Gabriel’s hand was on the back of his neck and he was pulling him in close as he kissed him fully on the mouth, his lips firm and perfect.

  Gabriel pulled away from him for a second. He was breathless when he spoke.

  “Holden,” he said. Their foreheads were touching and his eyes were closed. Gabriel’s skin was warm and perfect on the back of his neck and Holden wanted to kiss him again, but this felt important. “Are you sure about this?”

  Holden swallowed. “Sure about what?”

  “About this,” Gabriel said, smiling.

  “Yes,” Holden replied.

  He leaned forward so he could kiss Gabriel again, and soon his tongue was inside Gabriel’s mouth, and his heart was going so fast that he felt like he might actually faint.

  Gabriel slipped his hands down from his neck to his waist and yanked him so that they would be close to each other, every part of their bodies touching.

  Holden moved away from him for a second, trying to catch his breath.

  His hands were on Gabriel’s shoulders, but he didn’t want to touch his face in case that he hurt him.

  When Holden spoke, his voice was trembling. “What about you? Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. He smiled at Holden and his eyes sparkled. “Definitely.”

  Holden smiled back at him. He kissed him again, small, sweet kisses that soon turned into something more. He opened his mouth to allow Gabriel access and soon their tongues were playing up against one another’s inside Holden’s mouth.

  Holden was panting when Gabriel moved away from him. His cheeks were red and his eyes were only half-open and he could feel, from the way that Gabriel was holding him so close, just how excited he was for this to happen.

  “You’re fucking gorgeous,” Gabriel said between pants.

  Holden moaned, throwing his head back. Gabriel traced his fingertips down his jawline and then over the front of his neck, pressing only slightly harder than he had to. It was weird and wonderful and it made Holden moan again.

  Gabriel leaned down and kissed the side of his neck, licking him and breathing on him until all he could feel was the way that Gabriel was on him, his hands, his skin, his breath.

  Gabriel’s hands went down to his back. His fingers grabbed the bottom of his shirt. He moved away from Holden for a second, a question in his eyes. Holden nodded and held his arms over his head, which allowed Gabriel to take off his shirt. Gabriel bit his lower lip as he looked at Holden’s chest.

 

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