Chapter 34
Knox
Knox sat slouched into the corner of his new couch, controller loose in his hands, staring at the TV like it might disappear if he blinked wrong. The place was open and clean, filled with furniture that matched instead of whatever had been cheapest at the time.
It was his.
Which was still weird as hell.
“Bro, are you playing or zoning out?” Logan’s voice cut in, followed by the sound of rapid button smashing.
“I’m playing,” Knox shot back, straightening a little—then immediately regretting it.
A dull ache pulled low in his body, sharp enough to make him shift again.
They hadn’t even made it to the bedroom earlier.
The second they’d walked into the loft, Dominic had pushed him onto the nearest flat surface and that had been it.
They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other long enough to make it any further.
Knox adjusted his position and kept his face neutral.
Miguel didn’t look up from his slice of pizza. “Your character hasn’t moved for two whole minutes.”
Tara snorted from the other end of the couch, legs thrown over Knox’s lap without asking. “He’s buffering.”
“No—no, no no—are you kidding me?!” Logan leaned forward. “That was bullshit.”
“That was skill,” Miguel said, grabbing another piece of pizza.
Of course, his friends had asked about the apartment, about Dominic, about all of it.
Knox had told them he was doing odd jobs for Dominic now, driving him around, running errands, handling whatever needed handling.
Whatever vague nonsense sounded plausible enough not to invite follow-up.
It didn’t explain everything, but it was enough to keep the questions from going any further.
“Okay,” Miguel said suddenly. “We need to address the real problem here.” He held up a slice like evidence. “Pineapple.”
Logan nodded immediately. “Yeah, that’s criminal.”
“It is not criminal,” Tara shot back. “It’s delicious.”
“It's fruit,” Knox said. “On pizza.”
“Exactly,” Miguel added. “We should have stopped you at the door.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “You’re all dramatic. Just don’t eat it.”
“We’re not,” Miguel said. “We’re judging you instead.”
Knox shook his head, relaxing back into the couch.
They kept arguing over it while the game kept going.
This felt normal. Knox found himself laughing more than he had in a long time.
It caught him off guard, how natural it felt.
For once, things didn’t feel so heavy. Life was easing up, giving him room to breathe.
Eventually, the pizza was gone and Logan dropped his controller onto the cushion. “Alright, I’m out. Early shift. Not ruining my sleep schedule for you idiots.”
“Same,” Miguel said, pushing to his feet. “If I stay any longer, I’m not waking up before noon.”
Tara groaned. “You guys are boring.”
Knox walked them to the door, exchanging quick goodbyes. Logan clapped him on the shoulder on the way out. He turned back toward the living room. Tara was still there, stretched out across the couch like she had no intention of moving. “You’re not leaving yet?”
She shook her head, eyes on him. “Nah. Thought I’d stay a bit.”
He dropped back down beside her. Tara shifted, sliding a little closer. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said.
“Work. Stuff,” Knox said, shrugging.
“Mhm.” She didn’t buy it. She never did.
“Missed you,” she said.
Knox exhaled, leaning his head back against the couch. “Missed you too.”
God. He had missed her.
Tara moved again, turning toward him fully, her leg sliding over his lap, fingers tracing up his arm. “C’mon,” she murmured. “Don’t act like you don’t know where this is going.”
Normally, he would’ve leaned in, been all over her before she even finished the sentence. That was how it worked with them. Tara had never been someone he hesitated with.
But his body didn’t move.
The longer it didn’t, the louder it got in his head. What are you doing? This is Tara. This is normal.
So why did it feel—
Wrong.
The word hit hard enough to turn his stomach.
Tara’s hand stilled on his arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said too fast.
She didn’t move off him, but the energy changed. “Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I just… can’t.”
She pulled back. “Did I do something?”
That snapped his head toward her. “No. No, you didn’t do anything.”
“Then what is it?”
His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The truth was sitting there—loud and obvious and impossible to ignore—and he didn’t want to say it. Once he said it out loud he couldn’t avoid it anymore. It became real. It became a fact about him that existed in the world.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “I’ve been sort of seeing someone.”
Tara blinked. “Seeing someone.”
“Yeah. It’s not… serious. We’re not exclusive or anything,” he added quickly.
“Then why’d you just shut me down?”
Knox closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Liar.
“Who is she?” Tara asked.
Knox hesitated. He could dodge it and keep it vague, but she was looking at him and he’d never been good at lying to her.
His father’s voice surfaced. Disgusting. Filthy fags.
The words made his stomach clench. Tara had never given him a reason to doubt her, but the old fear rose anyway. What if this made Tara look at him differently? What if there was disappointment in her face? What if he lost her?
He was tired of letting the fear decide things for him. “Dominic,” he whispered.
Her whole expression changed, confusion snapping into place, followed by surprise. “Wait. Dominic? You mean—”
“Yeah.” He cut her off before she could say it out loud.
Silence dropped between them.
She leaned back and stared at him. “You’re… you’re sleeping with him?”
“Yeah.”
Tara exhaled and scrubbed a hand down her face. “Holy shit, Knox.”
There was no disgust in her voice, just shock. It still hit him wrong, worry distorting it into something uglier than it was. “Say it.”
She looked at him. “Say what?”
His eyes flicked away before he forced them back to hers. “Whatever you’re thinking. That you think it’s messed up. That it makes you hate me… Just say it.”
Her expression softened immediately. “Knox, no. Of course I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. I’m just surprised,” she admitted.
His vision blurred. He let out a shaky breath and dragged a hand over his face, but it didn’t do much. “I thought—” He swallowed hard. “I thought this would be the thing that messed us up.”
“It’s not,” she said gently. “And yeah, maybe I’m a little hurt too. I came here thinking…” She trailed off. “But that doesn’t change how I feel about you. You’re still you. I still love you.”
He leaned forward and pulled her into him, arms tight around her. “I love you too,” he whispered.
She hugged him back just as hard—familiar and unshakable. Proving that nothing had actually broken at all.
* * *
The TV cast a glow across the room, washing over the couch where Knox sat stretched out, one arm resting along the back. Tara had curled into him at some point during the movie, her head tucked against his shoulder. “Don’t pass out on me,” Knox said, nudging her.
“I’m awake,” she mumbled.
He huffed under his breath and let it go. A minute later her breathing evened out completely.
Yeah. Gone.
A knock at the door cut through the room. Knox frowned. “Who the hell—”
Careful not to jostle her, he eased out from under her and guided her down onto the cushion. She stirred, uttered something unintelligible, and went still.
The knock came again.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” he muttered as he pulled the door open.
Dominic stood there in sweats and a T-shirt, casually dressed but visibly tense. His jaw was set, expression guarded, and eyes locked on Knox. “Come sleep in my bed.”
Knox blinked, thrown off by how direct it was. He leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms. “You always start conversations like that?”
Dominic didn’t react, just watched him.
“Tara’s still here,” Knox added, nodding over his shoulder.
Dominic’s gaze moved past him. Knox saw the exact moment it registered—the slight change in his posture, the way his expression closed off before his attention came back. “I’ll have someone drive her home.”
“You’re assuming I’m coming with you.”
Dominic’s eyes darkened. “Aren’t you?”
Yeah. He was.
* * *
Not even ten minutes later, Knox slipped into Dominic’s bed after helping a sleepy Tara into a car. He’d barely settled before the mattress dipped beside him.
They faced each other in the dim light, close enough that Knox could make out every shift in Dominic’s expression. What he found there wasn’t his usual control and unreadable mask. He looked more upset than Knox had ever seen him, tension sitting clear in his face.
Knox frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Dominic didn’t answer right away. His gaze dragged over Knox’s face like he was looking for something.
Knox shifted closer. “I’m here. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Dominic’s jaw flexed. “Did you fuck her?”
Knox’s eyes widened. That wasn’t a question he’d been suspecting. “What?”
“Your friend. The one on your couch.”
It took a moment for the words to land properly, then Knox shook his head. “No. I didn’t.” His brows pulled together. “Why do you even care?”
Dominic just looked at him with an expression that was getting more irritated by the second, and then it clicked. “You’re jealous?”
Dominic’s expression hardened. “I don’t get jealous.”
“You are right now.”
The silence that followed was louder than any admission would have been. Dominic exhaled loudly through his nose. “But you have fucked her before, right?”
“I’ll answer you,” Knox said. “If you admit you’re jealous first.”
For a moment, Dominic went so still Knox thought he’d pushed it too far. That this was where Dominic would shut it down, pull back, and put distance between them the way he always did.
He didn’t retreat.
“I feel possessive over you,” Dominic said. The words came out slowly, like admitting this was harder than anything he’d done all week. “And I don’t like to share what’s mine.”
Mine.
Knox’s breath stopped.
He should have pushed back. Should have bristled at being claimed without permission, at the assumption Dominic had that right. A part of him knew that.
The rest of him didn’t care.
What moved through Knox in that moment wasn’t resistance—it was warmth. Deep and certain and grounding, spreading through his chest. Being his didn’t feel like a cage. It felt like being chosen by someone who didn’t give pieces of himself to anyone, and had chosen Knox anyway.
It terrified him.
He leaned into it regardless.
“Yeah,” Knox said, keeping his voice steady even though his pulse was doing something ridiculous. “I’ve slept with her before.”
“Then why not tonight?”
Knox looked away. “You know why.”
“Tell me.”
He dragged a hand through his hair before letting it fall back. “She wanted to, but I couldn’t. She isn’t you, and apparently that matters now.”
Dominic moved before Knox could finish the breath that followed. His hand closed around the back of Knox’s neck and hauled him in, mouth crashing against his. Knox kissed back without thinking, gripping onto Dominic’s shoulders—the intensity hitting fast and hard.
Dominic pulled back just as abruptly. “Good,” he said against Knox’s mouth. “As long as I’m fucking you, you’re not fucking anyone else.”
Knox’s heart was hammering. “Then the same goes for you.”
“Yeah,” Dominic said. “It does.”
They lay there for a moment, their breathing settling, staring into each other’s eyes. The quiet that followed wasn’t empty—it was full with everything that had just been said.
“Can I ask you something?” Knox said.
Dominic’s grip eased at his neck without letting go. “Yeah.”
“A while back… you said you were straight.”
“Yes.”
Knox’s fingers tightened against Dominic’s side. “So how can you be straight if you’re fucking me?”
Dominic was quiet, actually thinking about it, which Knox hadn’t expected. He’d expected deflection, or nothing at all. Instead Dominic looked slightly bewildered and said, “Men don’t do anything for me. Never have.”
Knox frowned. “But—”
“It’s you,” Dominic said, like that explained everything. “Just you.”
Just you.
Two words. They shouldn’t have hit that hard. He had to look away before he trusted himself to speak. “I told Tara about you tonight.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “I thought I was going to lose her.”
“Why?”
“Because of my dad. He was really fucking clear about stuff like this. Growing up, it was always the same shit. How it was wrong, disgusting, weak. He drilled it in so hard I didn’t even question it. Just took it as fact for a long time.”
Dominic didn’t interrupt him, just lay there and listened.
“I guess I figured she would feel the same. But she didn’t leave. She stayed.”
The relief of it was there, tangled up with everything else.
“And now I’m lying here trying to figure out what the hell it all means.
” He stared at the ceiling. “I keep thinking about things from when I was younger. Things I never questioned because I knew what dad would’ve called it.
” His throat tightened. “I think maybe it was always there. And I think he knew. That’s why he never stopped threatening me. ”
Knox looked at Dominic. “I think I’m bi,” he said.
The words left his mouth and existed in the world, impossible to take back. Everything else seemed to fall away. The years he’d spent avoiding the question. The excuses. The things he’d refused to look at too closely. It was all still there, but none of it mattered as much as this.
Dominic knew now.
Knox felt the realization move through him in a slow, disorienting wave.
Dominic knew, and the world hadn’t ended.
Dominic was watching him with an intensity that made it hard to breathe. His thumb pressed under Knox’s jaw, tilting his face up a fraction higher. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Anyone who’s ever made you think otherwise—that was their weakness, not yours.”
Knox’s eyes burned, but he didn’t look away.
“If your father thought he could scare that out of you, he didn’t deserve to be your dad.
” Dominic’s voice had dropped to something dangerous.
“You don’t get to be ashamed of this. Not with me.
And you shouldn’t fear losing people over it either.
Anyone worth keeping doesn’t walk away from you because of who you are. ”
His thumb brushed against Knox’s jaw. Slower now, but the intensity didn’t ease. “You think you’re bi?”
Knox nodded.
“Then that’s what you are,” Dominic said, pressing their foreheads together.
All Knox could see staring back at him was acceptance, wrapped in something darker. He closed his eyes and breathed him in.
For the first time in his life, the thing he’d been most afraid of didn’t hurt at all.