Never Let Me Go (Inevitably You #2)

Chapter 21

21

GAVIN

“ Y ou ready?”

I turned at Beck’s softly spoken words, finally daring to meet his deep blue eyes. I wanted to drown myself in those eyes. I was sure they were deep enough. I could do it.

My mind was in turmoil over the experience I’d just shared with him. I had jumped from a cliff I’d never be able to climb back up, and I had no one to blame but myself.

But I knew Beck would be there to break my fall. I just wondered if it would kill him in the process.

I was selfish, though. Just like he’d said all those weeks ago. Because now that I’d had him like that, now that I knew what he tasted like, how he felt, the sounds he made…I never wanted to give him up. I never wanted him to give me up.

All week I had to watch him grappling with clients, men who got to be as close to him as possible, got to rub against him, got to feel his strength, his warmth, his grace.

I wanted to be those men. I wanted Beck to take me down and make me submit with those thighs, those arms, those hands. I wanted him to rub himself all over me . It was driving me fucking crazy to watch him do that, over and over again, wondering if he liked touching them like that. Wondering why he didn’t touch me like that.

It was torture. I couldn’t take it anymore. The bitter jealousy was burning and building until it was an inferno of unstoppable rage and lust woven so tightly together I couldn’t pull them apart.

I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him. And he…

He kissed me back.

He gave me everything I’d been wanting for years and years and years. Everything I’d been denying myself because of a man who’d thrown me out like garbage when I messed up. A man who treated me like garbage even when I was good. A man who was garbage.

And god, kissing Beck was like that first step into the sun after being stuck in a cold, dark room for years. He tasted like the bite of a winter morning, waking up all my senses and making me feel alive. He was refuge from everything wrong; he was comfort and security and strength and hope.

He kissed me back, and now I didn’t know who I was.

But…did I ever?

“Gavin? You’re scaring me.”

Beck’s hand was warm and firm on my arm, and I looked down at it. He had a scar between his first and second knuckle, a small white line he’d gotten when we tried peeling potatoes for a dinner we were helping his mom make. We were goofing off, carving faces into them, and his peeler had gotten caught, then slipped, and he’d cut himself, bleeding all over the potatoes. I’d put a Snoopy bandaid on it for him.

I brought my hand up and touched a finger to it, feeling the slight bump of scar tissue, as if I could feel the memory itself. He turned his hand over and clasped my fingers in his. I looked up into his eyes again, then at his birthmark.

“Let’s go home, okay?” he said softly.

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

He let go of my hand, and I shoved the disappointment aside, following him out to his car.

My mind wandered back to when he was just holding me. I was so drained after coming, so fucking relieved that it finally happened—with him —that all I could do was let him hold me.

And he did.

It took everything in me not to beg him to hold me again. To wrap me in his strength and let me lie there, insulated in all that security.

“Are you hungry?” he asked once we were in the car. “I think Anya said she wants to make enchiladas tonight.”

I looked over at him. The red and orange glow of the sunset made his hair seem like it was golden fire, and I remembered how soft it was. I wanted to touch it again, to sift my fingers through it and leave them there.

“Sure,” I said, turning my head to look out the window. I might be feeling all these things, wanting all these things, but it was still hard to face him head on. I was terrified he would tell me it was all a mistake, that I needed to leave, that of course he didn’t actually want things like that with me. Why would he, after everything I’d said and done to him over the years?

And before I knew what I was doing, the fear of him doing that reached into me and yanked the words from my chest. “Are you gonna make me leave?” I didn’t turn to look at him. My face began to heat when I realized what I’d said, and I wanted to run away from how fucking pathetic I was.

“What? Why would I ever make you leave, Gavin?” His incredulous words were tinged with a small amount of anger, and I did look at him then.

He was leaning back in his seat, one hand on the wheel, his body slightly shifted toward me as he frowned. The intensity of his gaze snagged mine and held, and underneath the anger and confusion was a softness that drew me deeper.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Because I’m too much to deal with?”

He slowly shook his head. “No. You’re not. I think I’ve been handling you just fine.”

I scoffed at that and turned away from him again, even though I didn’t want to. And then his hand was on my jaw, gently forcing me to look at him. He was closer now.

“I won’t ever make you leave. You’re the only one who can make that decision, okay? You are always welcome in our home.” He started stroking his thumb up and down my cheek as he held me, and I closed my eyes.

“Tell me you understand that,” he said softly.

I nodded as much as I could in his firm grip.

“Tell me with your words.”

I opened my eyes and fixed them on his. “I understand,” I whispered.

And then, before I had a chance to react, he leaned forward and placed the softest kiss on my cheek. It burned into my skin.

“Good,” he murmured.

As he started the car and began pulling out of the lot, I lifted my fingers to my cheek and brushed them over the spot he’d kissed.

“And why would you think that Beck doesn’t want you around?”

I stared at Dr. Varu, who was staring right back. Except, unlike my scowl, she wore a patient, kind expression.

“Because I’m just an asshole and all I do is hurt him,” I said. I’d given up on trying to resist her endless onslaught of questions. She was relentless, and I had to give her props for the amount of patience in her arsenal. That seemed endless, too.

Besides, she usually made good points. I’d never tell her that, though.

God, therapy sucked.

“Ah. Is that what he thinks, too?”

I had no idea what Beck really thought of me. Ever since Friday, he’d been annoyingly nice, but was keeping his distance. I thought he regretted what happened at the gym, and that made me so embarrassed about the way I’d acted that I tried to avoid him. As much as I could, at least. He never let me out of his sight unless I was in the bathroom.

“I have no fucking idea what he thinks. He’s too nice to ever tell me to fuck off, and I’m sick of being this…this thing he pities. I’m sick of feeling like he’s just doing this because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Or out of guilt.” I sighed and leaned back against the cushions.

“What would he have to feel guilty about?” She scribbled something on her notepad, then brought her gaze back to mine.

I shrugged. “I dunno. He said he feels guilty about not realizing what my dad was doing sooner. But how would he have ever known? I pushed him away. I was horrible to him because I didn’t want him to know. And if my dad ever found out I was talking to him again, he’d—he’d?—”

Last week, I’d finally told Dr. Varu everything my dad had ever done to me. It was hard, at first. Those initial few sentences made me feel like I was flaying myself open and baring my entire soul to a veritable stranger. Except…once I started, I couldn’t stop. She listened so patiently, letting me say everything I needed to, and when it was over, she let me cry.

And then she told me that what my dad did was one of the worst things a parent could ever do to their child. That it was a crime. That none of what I’d endured made me pathetic. That I was strong for being here now, being brave enough to tell someone. That I deserved every good thing that life wanted to offer me. That I was worth a lot more than I could see right now, but she would help show me just how much I deserved to be happy.

She also told me that the horrible things I’d said and done to queer people was a result of my trauma and most likely came from a place of deep envy. The homophobic words and actions were a product of my fear of my father and the anger and resentment of having to suppress a very important part of my identity. She said it would probably take some time to untangle the gnarled roots he’d planted. When she told me all these things, I thought the relief of her words might break me.

But it didn’t. It made me want to untangle those roots and then burn them into nothing. It made me want to help her help me, no matter how much I hated all this shit.

When I didn’t finish my sentence, Dr. Varu said, “I think his guilt means that he cares deeply for you. From everything you’ve told me about your relationship, it sounds like he’s maybe doing this less out of a sense of obligation and more because he wants to see you get better. Do you want to see yourself get better?”

I felt like I was getting better, whatever the fuck that actually meant. The depression meds were helping to lift the fog of despair that had been ever-present for years. I didn’t want to die anymore. But I also didn’t have a single fucking clue where to go from here. I just felt tired. Worn down. More than a little lost.

“Sure,” I conceded. “I just don’t really know what that looks like.”

“Hm. Have you considered going to an AA or NA meeting yet? They can help with more than just the addiction aspect. There are a lot of people you can connect with who struggle with their identity. There’s a lot of wisdom to be found in those meetings.”

I sighed. We’d talked about this almost every single session. “Maybe,” was all I said.

“All right. I’m going to give you a little bit of homework, if that’s okay with you.”

I wanted to roll my eyes and tell her to fuck off with that bullshit. Instead, I muttered, “Fucking fine.”

Dr. Varu’s lips twitched. Oh, she thought this was amusing?

“All right. I want you to look in the mirror every day and say five positive things about yourself to yourself. Do you think you can do that?”

Jesus fucking Christ. “Whatever,” I said.

“Good. I want to hear all about what you tell yourself in our next session.”

Fucking hell.

Two days later, I got my cast off. Beck had an important lesson he couldn’t miss, so he’d dropped me off at the doctor’s office. This would be the first time he let me do anything alone in six weeks, and it was obvious he was anxious about leaving me by myself—especially where we’d seen my dad. I could see it in his eyes, in the way he gripped the steering wheel like he was trying to crumble it into dust.

I wanted to soothe his anxiety, so I told him, “I’ll be right here when you get back. Just fucking go to work, Beck.” There was so much doubt in his eyes that I added softly, “I promise.”

He cleared his throat and said, “Okay. I’ll see you in a couple hours, princess.”

I’d never tell him, but when he called me that, it made my chest burn with pleasure. It made me feel precious when I’d spent a lifetime feeling worthless.

I turned and walked into the building before I said anything else to him. Like why would I ever leave you when you’re the only person that makes me feel like I’m worth something? Or how could you think I want to be anywhere you aren’t?

The cast came off and the doctor told me I’d still need to be really careful with my foot. If I felt like I needed to keep using the crutches, I should.

Fuck that.

My foot stank like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and I just wanted to go home and wash it. I could finally scratch it again, and the bliss of being able to do that was almost orgasmic.

Beck had put an extra sock and shoe in a bag for me—I’d been wearing his shoes, too, even though they were too big—and it felt so fucking weird to be wearing two shoes again.

I kept my crutches and left after thanking the doctor. I was hesitant to wait outside. I didn’t want to take any chance of being caught alone if my dad happened to be here, so I waited in the lobby area and stared at the little waterfall fountain on the wall. I would be able to see Beck from here when he pulled up.

An hour later, I was starting to get nervous. He’d been worried that I would leave, but shouldn’t I have been worried about the same thing? I was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to me until now, and I guessed I’d been more concerned with making Beck feel better.

What if he didn’t even come back? What if he didn’t even have an important lesson, what if he’d had enough of me, and now that my foot was mostly better, he didn’t feel like he needed to look after me anymore?

Panic and fear surged through me, making my heart pound and my mind race until all I was at that moment was a dizzying hum of anxiety and doubt. I tried to get rid of it, to tell myself he would come back, of course he would, but these fucked up feelings weren’t listening to that.

Just as my breathing started to get choppy, Beck’s car pulled to a stop at the curb outside.

“Oh, thank god,” I panted, grabbing the crutches and practically running out the door. My foot protested the quick movement, so I slowed down and limped a little. Beck got out of the car and gave me a slow once-over, eyes lingering on my feet. A smile crept across his face, and when he brought his gaze up to mine, my heart thumped in my chest at the warmth I found there.

“Well, look at you,” he said once I was near enough. He reached out and took the crutches from me. “How’s it feel? Everything go okay? What did the doctor say?”

I stared into his eyes, more relieved than I’d ever be able to put into words that he was here. “Um…” I cleared my throat and tore my gaze from his, moving toward the car. “It’s fine. Doctor said it’ll still be hard to walk on and to use the crutches if I need to.” Beck made it to the passenger door before me and pulled it open. I shot him an angry look, then sat down and yanked the door closed.

I thought I heard him laugh as he rounded the hood.

We stopped for burgers on our way back to the gym, and for the rest of the day I didn’t let Beck out of my sight.

“Bullshit!”

“Anya…” Beck gave his stepsister a warning look.

“What? I’m pretty sure you’re bluffing,” she said, obviously choosing to misinterpret what he was admonishing her about.

I had to admit, Anya was growing on me. She was smart, kind, and generous. But she was also devious and liked to play pranks. She could be a little chaos gremlin sometimes, and it was usually aimed at Beck.

We were sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, playing a card game called BS—or ‘Bullshit’, as Anya was preferring to say despite Beck telling her to stop saying that. I still didn’t want to sit with them to eat, but Beck threatened to starve me every single night if I refused, so I didn’t really have a choice. And when I started doing the dishes after everyone was done, nobody said a word. Tonight, Anya had slapped a deck of cards down on the table after it’d been cleared and proclaimed, “It’s time for some bullshit!”

She wouldn’t stop saying it, and it was driving Beck insane. I was pretty sure that’s why she kept it up.

I glanced at him sidelong, immensely enjoying the irritation on his face. Beck and Anya loved each other, there was no denying that. But Anya loved to bust Beck’s balls, and I figured that was one of her love languages.

I wholeheartedly approved.

“‘Kay, Becks, it’s your turn,” Anya said cheerfully, rearranging the cards in her hand.

Beck was staring down at his cards, his brows drawn tightly together, as if he was trying to figure out a complicated physics equation. When his eyes unexpectedly shot up to mine, an electric spark ran through my system. Fuck, those eyes were cutting into me so deep, and it was making an anxious heat hum through my lower body. His lips parted, and my gaze flashed to his mouth.

“Is there something on my face?” he said. Was his voice huskier than it’d been a moment ago?

“Is there…” I was still staring at his mouth, and when the corner of one side quirked up, I swallowed hard. I raised my eyes back to his, and the knowing that glittered in those midnight blues made me want to throw my cards in the air and then turn the table over.

It made me want to lunge across the table and wrestle him to the ground. To grapple with him until I inevitably lost, until he mounted me and forced me to submit.

Until he yanked my head back with a hard grip on my hair.

Until—

Fuck.

The temperature in the room was getting warmer and warmer, and my cock was thickening in my sweats. I did not want to be fucking hard right now, and I was so uncomfortable that I wanted to get up and leave. But if I got up, then it would be more than obvious why I was leaving.

“Why is your face so red, G?” Anya asked.

I glanced over at her and scowled. She’d taken to calling me ‘G’ just like she called Beck ‘B’ and I didn’t know how to feel about it. “It’s not red,” I said, feeling the tips of my ears start to burn.

“Um, I’m looking right at it. You look like Violet Beauregard from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Except red,” she continued. “Are you even breathing over there?” She turned toward Beck. “Beck? Please confirm that his face is the exact shade of a cherry tomato?”

Beck’s lips were twitching, and I wanted to kiss the beginnings of that smile right off him. His eyes glinted with amusement as they trailed a lazy path over my face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Anya, he looks good to me,” he said. His words made my skin feel too tight.

“Don’t you dare gaslight me, bro!”

“I thought it was ‘bruh’ now,” Beck said, leaning back in his chair. He kept staring at me, which wasn’t helping cool anything down.

“Bro, bruh, breh, whatever it is, quit lying. Ugh, you suck. I’m done with this, I have a test to study for.” She laid her cards on the table and declared, “I won because I’ve got the least amount of cards.”

“We didn’t finish the game, Gavin or I could have beaten you. Plus, you’re the one cutting it short. It’s a three-way draw.”

“I. Won,” she said, scooting her chair back and getting up.

“Three-way draw,” Beck said again.

Anya started walking out of the kitchen toward the stairs and called, “Won!”

Beck answered, “Draw!”

When her door slammed shut, Beck chuckled quietly. His eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that stole my breath. “Why is your face so red, princess?”

There was a sultry lilt to his words that made my dick pulse, and I had to resist the urge to grab it and squeeze.

“It’s not red,” I rasped. Christ, why couldn’t I even talk? Beck’s presence was scrambling my system. It was a wonder I could function at all when I was around him. It felt like every moment was spent denying myself what I really wanted, preventing myself from reaching out and touching him, from rubbing myself against him, from pressing my lips to his.

I wanted to ask him what I meant to him, but I was a coward. If the answer was nothing , I didn’t want to know. Right now, I could live in that space between the cracks, pretending I meant more than I did.

Beck brought his forearms to the table and leaned toward me. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he said. His voice was as soft as his eyes, and I was getting lost in them. I wanted to get lost in them, to stay lost in some part of him, because then maybe he would have to keep me if I couldn’t find my way out.

“I’m not…” Beck raised his eyebrows at my words, challenging their truth. “I’m?—”

I wanted him to kiss me gently on the cheek like he did last Friday, or hold me in his arms again. But he’d been keeping his distance, and I didn’t know if it was out of respect for me and what he thought I wanted, or because he deeply regretted doing anything like what happened in his office with me.

Again, I was too afraid to know. Too afraid to ask.

A coward through and through.

I shoved my chair back from the table, trying to keep my groin angled away from him, but before I could even get up, he wrapped his fingers around my forearm.

“It’s okay,” he said, eyes boring into mine. “Whatever you’re feeling is okay. If you ever want to talk, Gavin, I’m always ready to listen.”

I couldn’t find it in me to get anywhere close to angry, despite how raw I felt. I just wanted to cry.

“Yeah,” I said roughly. “I have to—I’m really tired.” I pulled my arm away from him, and he let me go. It was only seven thirty, so my excuse was obviously bullshit, but Beck didn’t say anything. I felt his eyes on me as I limped out of the room, burning a hole into my back.

If you ever want to talk, Gavin, I’m always ready to listen.

What if the things I told him were what finally drove him away?

“And that was when I got in the car and drove to the liquor store. I just couldn’t do it anymore, you know? But I didn’t have the tools then that I have now, and it’s been sixteen months since my last drink. Thanks for letting me share.”

I stared at the chipped tile to the right of my foot, studying the jagged lines of the cracks spiderwebbing across its surface. A whole corner was missing near my heel.

“Thank you for sharing,” the group said in unison.

Fuck me, I hated this so much. My only consolation was that Beck had found me an AA group in a different town so that I wouldn’t have to be surrounded by people who might judge me and take away from the experience.

His words.

I wasn’t a fucking addict or an alcoholic. I didn’t have a problem. I wasn’t physically dependent on any of that shit. But here I was, sitting with twelve other people who did have a problem, and they all kept talking about their problems, whether it related to their addiction or not. The only good thing was that I didn’t have to say anything if I didn’t want to.

But the bad part was I’d done this to myself.

Because it was my idea to come here.

When I told Beck, his shocked expression had quickly shifted to one of pride. He’d looked so damn pleased that it made my chest feel so hot and tight I thought I might not be able to breathe anymore because my lungs were melting.

I decided I’d be totally fine with having melted lungs as long as he kept looking at me like that, and I desperately wanted to see it again. More often than not, he was irritated or exasperated with me, and I didn’t blame him. But I wanted to see him look at me—really look at me—and smile like he did then. There wasn’t an ounce of disdain or disgust or resentment or anything bad when he looked at me like that. When he gave me that smile.

It had been on my mind for a while now, coming to something like this. Especially after I’d taken more painkillers than I needed in an attempt to escape a few weeks ago. Dr. Varu kept talking about it, kept asking me if I’d consider attending one, just to try it out, and I kept telling her I didn’t have a problem. I just wanted to get away from myself for a while. Just take a little break from me .

She’d just raised her eyebrows and nodded, as if to say That sounds like a problem to me .

So in a rare moment of honesty with myself after my latest therapy session, I decided it couldn’t hurt to go to just one. The hospital had sent me home with a bunch of AA and NA pamphlets—I was pretty sure Beck had told them something to make them think I had a problem—and I’d thrown them in the garbage.

They’d magically been taped back on the fridge an hour later, courtesy of Beck, I was sure.

I really wanted to stop being so fucking angry all the time, because that was just another way I tried to escape, too—according to Dr. Varu.

It scared me when the anger fell away and I was left sitting in the cloying muck of what I was actually feeling. When the cover of anger was gone, the pitiful husk it left behind was fragile enough that one touch would crumble it into nothing.

The fact that I knew my anger was a shitty cover for all the fear twisting like an inescapable vortex inside me only made all of it worse. I had no right to claim ignorance when I knew damn well what was going on.

I was tired of being a coward. Tired of constantly doing the wrong thing, making the wrong choice, being wrong . I was tired of myself in a way that had nothing to do with wanting to die.

I just wanted to not hate myself while I was alive.

But why—why oh why—did I think an AA meeting would help with any of that? What in the fuck was I thinking? I should’ve just gotten up and left, walked out the door and up the stairs and told Beck to never bring me back here.

I didn’t, though. I just kept sitting here.

At least I got an hour’s reprieve from Beck.

“Hi, my name’s Ricky, and I’m an alcoholic.”

I glanced over at the small, narrow-shouldered man sitting right next to me. We were in the basement of a church, a circle of plastic chairs making a ring of misery in the center of the room. It was musty and damp down here, and I was pretty sure I was breathing in mold spores. That couldn’t be good for my lungs.

“I had my first drink when I was eleven years old. My parents were out at some work party and I was home with my older brother. He got some liquor from our dad’s stash and told me to drink with him. So I did. And for the first time in my life, I actually felt happy . I spent the next sixteen years chasing that feeling. I guess I always felt…different, growing up. Like I didn’t really fit in anywhere, and everyone just thought I was weird. A loser. A freak. Being gay when your family is really religious isn’t easy. At all. So I felt alienated from my family as well as my peers.”

Ricky shifted in his seat, smoothing down non-existent wrinkles over his thighs. I looked at him sidelong, my stomach churning with anxiety. Over what, I didn’t fucking know.

“I didn’t really have many close friends, and I didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell my family about my sexual orientation because I knew exactly what their response would be. So I didn’t tell anyone until I went to college and was able to find people like me. But all those feelings of not being good enough stuck with me, and I kept drinking. I lost friends, had to drop out because my grades had plummeted and I’d stopped going to class. My parents were outraged, basically disowned me, and then I was really on my own, instead of just feeling like I was. My rock bottom was living under a bridge and sharing a tarp with a heroin addict to protect us from the snow. I wasn’t me anymore, just some… thing that needed alcohol to survive. A thing whose only purpose was to consume it, and then find more. And then the heroin addict—his name was Gordo—he OD’d one night while I was passed out, and I woke up in a holding cell. Spent a few nights in jail, then got sent to the homeless shelter. It scared me shitless, knowing that a person—a human being—died right beside me, and I didn’t even know. If I hadn’t been drinking, I wouldn’t have been there, I know that. But if I hadn’t been as drunk as I was that night, maybe I could’ve—maybe I could’ve saved him. And it could’ve just as easily been me that night. That’s what scared me the most. I thought I didn’t care about living or dying, but I really, really did.”

There was a sniffle, and he dug into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.

“So…anyway, I went to rehab, got my shit together, and started to really try , for once in my life. To be okay with who I am and not run away from my feelings every time they get to be too much. To find people who love me and accept me as I am, and to be grateful that I’m still alive, because for the longest time, I didn’t want to be. And that’s why I drank.” Ricky blew out a harsh breath. “But now, ten years sober, I actually am happy. Anyway, thanks for letting me share.”

The group thanked him for sharing, and when someone else started talking, I tuned them out.

Jesus Christ. This guy just poured out his whole life story to a room full of strangers. How was that so easy for him to do? He just didn’t give a shit?

Ricky’s words floated through my mind like debris in space, slow moving and out of place. My hands felt clammy, and I wiped them on my pants.

Beck’s sweatpants.

There was a buzzing in my ears, and my knee had started bouncing at some point.

When people started getting up, I realized the meeting had ended.

I couldn’t stand up fast enough. I pushed to my feet, ready to get the fuck out of here.

I turned my back on the group and headed out the door and up the stairs, where Beck was waiting for me.

I paused at the top of the stairs and just watched him for a moment. He was sitting on a narrow bench in the hallway that didn’t look comfortable for someone his size. His shoulders were resting against the wall, his head tipped back, eyes closed. He had his hands folded over his flat stomach and he almost looked like he was sleeping.

I started moving again when I heard someone coming up the stairs behind me. When I was a few feet away, Beck opened his eyes and gave me a slow once-over, a lazy, conspicuous perusal that made my face start to heat.

“How’d it go?” he asked once his eyes were locked on mine again.

I took a small step closer to him. “Fine.”

He leaned forward. “Yeah? Anybody recognize you?”

“No.”

Beck’s eyes lifted to a spot above my head, and when someone bumped into me from behind, I stumbled forward and my bad foot twinged in pain. I let out a small sound before I could bite it back, and Beck was on his feet with his arms wrapped around my waist before I face-planted into the hardwood floor. He pivoted my body and carefully set me on the bench he’d just vacated, and when I saw a tall man walking toward the exit, I realized it was him that had knocked into me.

I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not.

“Watch where you’re going!” Beck called after him, but the guy was already pushing out of the heavy double doors. “What a fucking asshole. Do you want me to go after him? Did he do that on purpose?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” I muttered, wincing in pain when I started to put pressure on my foot.

“Of course it fucking matters. You’re a goddamn human being, Gavin. You matter. Is your foot bothering you now? That motherfucker, I’m going after him, he?—”

“Beck, stop, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

He sighed and crouched down at my feet, grabbing my calf and pulling my shoe off. My heart was thumping hard as I watched him carefully hold my ankle as he ran gentle fingers across the top of my foot, sweeping over the side and then underneath, feeling the sole.

Then he grabbed the shoe and slipped it back onto my foot. His hand slid up to my calf, scorching me through my pants, and when I finally looked into his eyes, he was staring at me with an intense expression that made me make a tiny sound in the back of my throat.

He just stared up at me, imprisoning me in all that blue, and when he started sliding his hand even further up my calf, I started panting. Practically hyperventilating.

“Hey man, I’m glad I caught you,” someone said. I whipped my head to the right with wide eyes, my heart battering my ribcage, pulse throbbing in my ears.

“What?” I said, way too fucking breathlessly, but I couldn’t get ahold of myself. I was all too aware of when Beck let go of me and stood up, turning toward Ricky.

Ricky smiled at me, and it was a kind smile. He seemed like a genuinely nice person, and after hearing what he’d gone through, I wondered how he could be so nice.

“Yeah, I saw you were new and I thought you could use a friend in the program. I’m not a sponsor or anything, but I could try and help you find one if you need that. Anyway I’m really glad you came tonight and—here.” He held out a business card to me, his pale cheeks stained pink and his brown eyes big and dark. He had really long lashes for a guy.

When I just sat there and stared at him, Beck reached out and took the card. Ricky glanced at Beck, looking almost sheepish, then turned his gaze back to me. “Um…my cell is on there if you ever need someone to talk to or help with anything.”

I peeked at Beck and had to do a double take because he looked absolutely pissed. He looked fucking mad as he glared at Ricky, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a look like that on him before. He was often annoyed with me , yeah. But right now he looked like he wanted to punch a hole in something.

Like Ricky’s face.

I glanced down at his clenched fists, then looked back at Ricky. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Cool. Well, hopefully I’ll see you next week.” He smiled at me, then turned it on Beck, although it wavered drastically. Then he walked around Beck, giving him a wide berth, and left.

“Who the fuck is that guy?”

“That’s Ricky,” I said, studying Beck carefully. He’d turned around and was glaring at Ricky’s back like his eyes could fling daggers at him if he stared hard enough.

Beck’s eyes slid to mine, all fire and ice, and an intense blast of pleasure rushed through my cock and tugged at my balls. The air was knocked from my lungs like I’d been punched, and all I could do was hold his gaze.

“And why is Ricky giving you his phone number?” His voice was soft, but there was an undertone of something almost venomous that coiled around his words.

I held his gaze and shrugged dazedly.

He walked toward me as he slid the business card into his pocket, and my heart started racing. When he stepped between my spread legs, I was panting again, my chest heaving, and there was no way he couldn’t fucking see that. But I was ensnared in those eyes; the way he was looking at me was raw and powerful and I felt completely stripped. He raised his hand and cupped it under my jaw, and I was trying so hard not to make a sound. And still, a slow, small whine began to push its way out of me. Beck’s nostrils flared and he moved his thumb down my jaw, right toward?—

Voices echoed up the stairwell. He dropped his hand and took a step back, breaking eye contact.

“We should get home,” he murmured, glancing at me from under his curling lashes.

I swallowed hard, my throat so thick I felt like I could barely get any oxygen in.

Was he just being nice, or was he telling me that last week hadn’t been a mistake? That he wanted me just as much as I wanted him?

Fuck if I knew.

Fuck if I knew anything anymore.