Chapter 27 #2
I ground my teeth, not upset that he wasn’t returning Amara’s affection, but because something was wrong.
And if I thought about it, maybe he’d always been like that, but being in close proximity to him made me take notice.
I’d been so wrapped up in my own bullshit and getting my head on straight, that I hadn’t called him on how tense he’d been the last few days.
Of course, he tried to hide it from me, and when he focused on my issues, he seemed to forget about his.
But he retreated to his office often and had tense phone calls or private conversations with Ben and Nik.
I knew that his assault on Devlin’s business had ramped up. I’d been involved to a certain degree to tell them everything I knew, but Con had also pushed me often to focus on my relationship with my sister and nephew. But in doing so, I’d neglected him.
When he wouldn’t meet my gaze over my sister’s head, I knew I had do something. Con had made me look in the mirror. It was time for him to face himself.
When Con had first told me about his past with Devlin, he’d acted personally responsible for the man.
But Ben had grown up with them too, and he spoke without that heavy mantle of guilt.
I recalled the conversation after I’d learned about the warehouse burning down.
Con’s words had been clear. I’m not fucking around with him anymore, Tav. I told you this is where I end it.
He’d been all I and not we. Why did Con make himself seem like the source?
I couldn’t let it go, and I didn’t want to. I started to see Con in a new light—his seriousness and composure now seemed rooted in something other than an earnest responsibility. There was more to it in the way he spoke about Devlin. And it seemed all tied to me. To Amara. To his whole life.
Later that night, after my sister left, I found Con in the bedroom wearing a pair of thin sweatpants and nothing else, staring out at the city through his large windows with a glass of amber-colored liquid.
I rarely saw him drinking. He had wine with dinner sometimes, but not more than two glasses at most. I’d already been on edge about his mood, but this was a bad sign.
I walked up behind him, wearing my boxer briefs, and wrapped my arms around him.
He swayed as I leaned my weight on him, and he placed the glass on a nearby table before gripping my wrists.
I pressed a kiss on the curve of his shoulder, and the skin shifted beneath my lips.
His body was relaxed, maybe from the half-glass of alcohol, or maybe because it was just him and me.
“How was your day with your sister?”
I rubbed my head against his. “It was perfect.”
I could see his small smile in the reflection of the window. “I’m so glad.”
“How was your day?”
“It was fine.” His words were curt.
“What’s going on with Devlin?”
He answered quickly, like he had an answer ready and waiting. “Don’t worry about it. Nik has it covered.”
This was the way he often brushed me off when I asked, and I always let him do it, maybe because I’d been selfish the last few days.
But that ended now, with nothing but Con, me, and whatever was in his head.
I let my lips trail over the rim of his ear and then down his neck.
There, against his pulse point, I said, “What happened with Devlin ten years ago?”
His whole body stiffened, and I gripped him tighter, preventing him from turning or getting away from me. I was stronger than him, and I wasn’t above using it. Not for this.
“I—” he licked his lips and reached for his whiskey glass. He took a long sip before swirling the melting ice. “The three of us had a falling out.”
“Over what?”
His gaze was down, on his glass, which he carefully placed back on the table. His fingers trembled. “I think you can guess based on his line of work now.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to guess, Con. I want you to tell me.
I want to know why Ben doesn’t seem to take Devlin’s actions as personally as you do.
” His heart pounded against my palm where it rested on his chest. He stayed silent, but I could almost hear the frantic explanations rattling around in his chest. “I could always sense your guilt over Devlin, but this seems like more than just a friendship falling out.”
He lifted his foot, but my grip was too tight, and he couldn’t move away from me an inch. His eyes locked with mine in the window, and his were blazing. “Let me go.”
“No,” I shook my head and squeezed my arms. “You made me, and now I can make you.”
“I’m not like you.” His nostrils flared, and he vibrated like a caged animal.
“Talk to me, Con. This isn’t fair that you get to see everything that makes me ugly and not show me your ugly too.”
He growled, an actual growl, and it made me smile into his neck. But I wasn’t giving up. “Why did your friendship with Devlin end?”
“Tav, you can’t—”
“I can. We’ll stand here all night.” I recalled his words when he’d forced me to look at my own reflection.
He made a scoffing sound and turned his head away from mine, but that was the only protest he could make, since his body was locked against mine, and I wasn’t budging.
His chest heaved, a few deep sighs that felt more performative than anything.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and I could feel the moment he gave him, when his shoulders slumped, and he dropped the irritated mask enough to let the pain streak across his regal features.
“Fuck you, Tav.” But there was no heat to his words, only defeat.
He dug his nails into my forearm where it handed across his chest. “When we were teens, Devlin had a crush on me.”
My lips parted. In all the times I’d known Devlin, I hadn’t gotten even a whiff that he was attracted to men.
“I guess it was a crush. I don’t really know.
For as long as I’d known him, he’d looked up to me like a big brother—Dennis was a lot older and never around—but then one day, it changed, and Devlin wasn’t looking at me like a brother anymore.
And he wasn’t subtle about it. I’d been with boys a lot by then, so he knew about me.
And Ben’s bisexual, so nothing was taboo.
But Devlin was intense. He wanted…” Con shifted his weight and leaned back into me, as if he needed the support.
I locked my knees and let him give me the burden.
“He wanted more than I could give. I’m not sure I ever admitted this, not even to Ben, but Devlin scared me in how he wanted me. ”
“How so?”
“I think even then, he saw that I tended to lean dominant, and that part in me called out to that part in him.” He sighed.
“At the time, I’d been young, like twenty, and I hadn’t been able to understand what it was about Devlin that scared me, but now I think…
he wanted to be owned. Collared and leashed.
Controlled. In a way that I could never do, that I’d never want.
I held him at a distance for a long time.
He hadn’t confessed to me, not yet, even though I could feel how badly he wanted to. ”
“Were you attracted to Devlin?”
Con shook his head, and his voice deepened, like this was hard to admit. “No. Just… no. I saw him as a younger brother. Always had. Always would. Always will.”
I could guess what came next. “So eventually he confessed?”
Con swallowed. “Yes. And I turned him down. It didn’t go well.
He begged. He pleaded. On his knees. I told him I’d never be that for him.
Not ever. The entire scene was ugly. I said things I shouldn’t have, needing to hurt him, and I regret them often, because I think that broke him.
But I needed to end this obsession he had with me or…
” He blew out a breath, and his knees buckled. “I need to sit down.”
I half-carried, half-dragged him to a large chair in the corner of the bedroom. After kicking off some pillows and dirty clothes, I sat him down on the edge while I tugged an ottoman over with my foot. He hung his head, hands clasped between his knees, while I sat down across from him.
“I haven’t thought about this in a long time.
” His eyes met mine, and the thick sludge of shame swam there.
“Sometimes I wonder if he was less obsessed with me, and more obsessed with what he thought we could have. Like he’d built up this fantasy relationship in his head and installed me there because I was someone he knew, I was gay, and I liked control. ”
He leaned back in the chair, legs spread wide, elbow propped on the armrest as he ran his fingers over his lips. His gaze went distant. “It doesn’t matter. That was when Devlin’s world changed. And mine too.”
I grasped his knee. “And you take full responsibility for that?”
His eyes shifted to take in my face. “It’s my fault.
I probably led him on, and I didn’t see the warning signs until it was too late, until he was attached.
And instead of confronting it, I let him carry this torch for me for years.
I let him build up the idea of us in his head.
” His jaw shifted, his eyes grew wet, and my heart broke.
“I should have tried with him. Maybe I could have toughed it out. Maybe I could have been what he wanted me to be, at least for a little bit. But I was selfish, and I—”
“Fuck off, Con,” I snapped, the anger rising in my chest surprising me. “You said yourself you weren’t what he wanted.”
“But I didn’t try—”
“And what, destroy both of you? Delay the inevitable when you broke up? Devlin was always going to be who he is, Con. Acting like this is on you…” I shook my head. “You really carry this guilt around with you every day? How do you breathe?”
“Not well,” he shot back, and I could see the defensiveness rising in him. “You weren’t there. You don’t know Devlin. You have no idea all the things I did wrong, and all the ways I could have prevented—”