Liam
I’m shepherding him home and I’ll be damned if I lose him.
Ryker pulls onto the driveway, Freddie pulls up next to him, then I block him in by parking directly behind.
Freddie narrows his eyes at me as he gets out, and I read his lips through the windscreen. “Seriously?”
Yes, I’m serious. I’m extra angsty at Ryker not being able to find out who Freddie’s staying with, and he won’t be leaving our place until he’s at least given up the person’s name and address.
If I have my way, Freddie won’t be leaving at all, but Ryker keeps telling me we can’t lock him up in the house against his will.
There are laws against that, which I’m well aware of, but I frankly don’t give a shit.
Ryker unlocks the door then steps inside without looking back.
He’s kept it open for Freddie and didn’t slam it back in his face—which is something, I guess.
It’s unsettling to see Ryker this . . . well .
. . unsettled. He’s not sure how to act around Freddie, and I’m wondering whether he thinks “Alice” really had been on Freddie’s mind when he came.
It’s ludicrous, and he tells me he knows Freddie only said it to hurt him, but there’s a difference between knowing with a roll of the eye and knowing down to your bones.
A doubt, as small as can be, can still grow.
After a hesitation, Freddie goes into the house. I follow behind him and lock the door. I slip out of my shoes, then hang up my stab vest.
Ryker’s headed into the kitchen where he starts prepping the coffee machine while Freddie hovers in the doorway.
When I’m a few feet from his back, he steps inside but sits down on the chair closest to the door.
I don’t like that, but I take a deep breath and remind myself his car is blocked in and if he chooses to run, I’m faster.
I sit down on the seat opposite him. Ryker left red marks on Freddie’s neck that pop from his pale skin.
Two are a deep burgundy, and the faintest is at his throat beside where his Adams apple bobs.
The rash on the other side of his neck is all mine, a big expanse of skin I’d scraped my beard against.
The domestic sounds of Ryker making coffee sets my teeth on edge.
I usually enjoy silence, but right now it’s just a reminder that something is very wrong between us.
Ryker and Freddie should be chatting away, filling our kitchen with laughter while I listen with a warm feeling in my chest, but that isn’t what’s happening.
The chime of Ryker tapping a teaspoon against a cup raises the hairs at my nape. This silence is hollow and hurt, and it’s coming from both of them.
“We know about you and Keegan,” I say.
Freddie hits Ryker with a venomous glance before turning the look on me. Ryker doesn’t notice with his back to us, and I’m more equipped to deal with fury than my brother. He’s the heroic firefighter, and I’m the meddling police officer, that’s how it goes, so I soak up Freddie’s anger.
I don’t tell him I’m sorry about the news, because I’m not, and I also don’t ask him why he didn’t reach out to us because both Ryker and I know.
We’ve been pushing him away.
“Ben,” Freddie says, and he flashes his angry eyes at Ryker.
“The stepbrother,” Ryker says coldly, and I don’t know if that ice is for Freddie or for Keegan. “How cliché.”
“Go to hell,” Freddie snaps, and like that, in the hollow silence, something ignites.
Freddie hides his hands beneath the table, and I know without seeing that they’ve tightened into fists.
He hasn’t jumped to his feet to take a swing at Ryker, which is one positive, but his nostrils flare and his jaw shakes as he holds in whatever else he wants to yell at my brother.
“It isn’t Ryker’s fault she cheated.”
The words knock the air from him, and he deflates. “I know that. But he’s the one who turned up yesterday and fucked up my night.”
Ryker laughs behind me, a savage, humourless laugh that doesn’t help the situation in the slightest, and a sting of humiliation hits Freddie’s cheeks. They turn crimson. I know things are about to get ugly, but I’m not sure how to stop it.
“I was looking forward to taking Alice to a hotel room,” Freddie says.
A teaspoon clatters; there’s a rustle of material as Ryker’s trousers rub when he turns. “You ended up with us, and you loved every second.”
Freddie’s top lip curls. “In my head it was her.”
“There were two hard cocks rubbing on you.”
“In my head,” Freddie says slowly. “It was her. Alice.”
It doesn’t make sense. It’s the kind of thing Ryker usually bows over and laughs at, but his complexion turns purple.
Ryker takes a step closer and waves a finger. “Stop it.”
Freddie’s eyes gleam, his lip’s part, and I know he’s about to say the name, again and again, but I can’t let this go on.
“Ryker made you come,” I say. “And before that, we made you wet with arousal.”
Freddie presses back in his chair. “You . . . you finished what she started.”
I lean over the table. “Bullshit.”
“Screw this,” Freddie surges to his feet and leaves the kitchen. “I don’t know why I’m here,” he shouts back at us.
I keep my calm and pursue. “We need to talk.”
“No we don’t.” Freddie snaps. “We really don’t.”
Ryker is so much better at this, but he stands behind me with his lips in a bloodless line.
“My car is blocking you in and I’m not moving it,” I say before Freddie tries to open the door.
“You can’t do that. It’s . . . it’s against the law.”
“I am the law.”
“I’ll call a taxi, then.” He tugs his phone free of his jeans.
“I’ll take the phone from you before you get the chance.”
Freddie widens his eyes, pressing down with his thumb to unlock the phone. He swipes, and I get ready to pounce at him, but finally Ryker speaks.
“This is ridiculous,” he says. “We don’t want to fight; we want to talk.”
“What if I want the fight?” Freddie murmurs. “What if I need it?”
Ryker holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m waving the white flag. Throwing in the towel. You’ve KO’d me, babe.”
Freddie looks away. “Don’t call me babe.”
“You want to fight?” I ask. “Then fight me.”
“Liam,” Ryker warns from behind me, but I’m watching Freddie who’s frowning, first at the coat pegs, then at the shoes by the front door.
“Where’s Keiron?” he asks.
“Gone.”
“Gone,” he snorts. “Just like that?”
I don’t know what Freddie’s hoping I’ll reply with, so I stare instead.
“When?” he asks.
“Last night when we got home.”
Freddie gapes like I’ve revealed a sordid confession, but it doesn’t feel that way for me.
It’s brutal, and honest, and it may not have been what Keiron wanted, but it’s what he needed.
What we both did. We’ve gone through this before, many times, and he didn’t even seem sad or surprised when I told him it was over.
“Jesus,” Freddie breathes. “Is it really that easy for you?”
I don’t understand the question.
“To just switch your feelings off like that?” he clarifies.
I get what he’s asking now, but I won’t answer him. My feelings have never switched off, and that’s the problem. I might have been able to move on, make it work with someone in a toxic relationship, but my feelings are intricately linked to Freddie, and they always will be.
“I mean, I get him,” Freddie says waving a flippant hand towards Ryker. “He fucks without feeling, without consequence or care, but at least he’s honest, at least the men he’s with know the score, but you . . . how many years have you been off and on with Keiron?”
“Six,” I answer.
“Six years, and you can throw him out like he’s nothing.” Freddie blinks to hold back tears. “Like you did to me.”
And that’s why he’s here, and why we need to talk.
We’ve been in a relationship since we were all nine years old, and although it had never crossed into sexual territory until now, it’s always been deep and intimate.
We love each other, but right now that love is clouded by the past few months.
Its depths are hidden by the scum on top, and we’ve got to break free and clear the debris.
“Is there even a heart in your chest?”
“Yes,” I say “But Keiron never had it.”
In my head it sounds as close to romantic as I can get, but I’m sure Freddie hears something different. He surges forward to shove me, then shoves me again when I stumble back a step.
“Six years and you never loved him?”
Freddie dates, he falls in love, then he gets into relationships.
Ryker and I have seen it happen countless times.
To be in a relationship and not love the person is an alien concept for him.
He’s fine with sex without emotion, accepting Ryker’s ways, but it becomes clear he assumed I was like him, tying myself emotionally to the person I shared a bed with for seven nights of the week.
“Enough,” Ryker says as he gets in between us.
Freddie struggles. They tussle and end up colliding with the living room door. It swings open and they tumble inside, managing to keep their footing. I go in after them with my eyes fixed on Freddie, stalking him.
“Have you ever cared about anyone?” he spits in my direction.
“Of course.”
“I mean anyone other than Ryker?”
And I realise I’ve got to face facts; I’m in love with an idiot.
“You’ve had boyfriends, ever since you came out you’ve had them, and before that you dated . . . you dated Tara Green.”
“Are you asking whether I loved Tara Green at eleven years old?” I ask.
“No.” Freddie runs a hand through his hair. “But any of them? Did you love any of them?”
My answer is no, but it’s not the one he wants to hear.
If Freddie thought about it— really thought about it—he’d realise that my relationship history runs parallel to his.
When he got into a relationship, I did too.
I needed the distraction, and I don’t have Ryker’s energy to search for it from different sources.
I pick one person, and I get with them. For the last six years, it’s been Keiron, who saw the pattern long ago.
“I was going to marry Keegan after two years.”
“We’re well aware,” I say. “We declined being your best men, remember?”