“I’m seeing you today. I don’t care if I have to drag you away from your hot new lover myself.”

Kyle laughed softly. River had been texting him every day since the fire—not that that was unusual, but he’d been making even more of a point of it. He texted jokes in the morning, asked for input into his lipstick shade choices, and sent sneaky creeper photos of hot guys at the gym.

“Jealous?” Kyle teased.

River clicked his tongue. “Well, I’m not getting nearly enough details. I need someone to live vicariously through.”

“Fine, fine.” Kyle rolled his eyes. He glanced around at the loft that had become his home over this last week, but shook his head to himself. He didn’t feel comfortable inviting people over—especially when Nic wasn’t around. It still felt like taking liberties.

“How about that little hole in the wall by your work, uh… the thing with the orange door?”

“Perfect,” River exclaimed. “That’s dingy enough for a good night. They have good whiskey. Well, bad whiskey at good prices.”

“I look forward to experiencing it with you,” Kyle laughed. “Gimme half an hour.”

“I’ll be there in twenty. I’ll grab a table. We have a lot to talk about.”

Kyle groaned. “That sounds ominous. See you.”

He only had to straighten his clothes and find shoes before he headed out, so the walk to the bar was quick. By the time he made it into the dark, grimy place, River had a table and a few tumblers of dark amber liquid on ice sitting in front of him.

“There you are, darling! I started to worry I’d have to down yours.”

“I’m early!”

“Like I said.” River gave a disappointed shake of his head and pushed Kyle a glass while he laughed.

Kyle sipped and settled back in his chair, stretching out his legs. “So, hit me with it.”

“How are you?” River asked, leaning in over the table and folding his hands around his glass. “I can barely tell through your texts. Is this a brave front thing?”

“It was at first,” Kyle admitted, his smile fading. “It… fuck. You know how much I care about this, and someone wanted to wreck it, and we still don’t know who. They could still be roaming around, targeting us.”

“That’s terrifying,” River whispered, his brows pulling together. “Are you safe, though? Do you think?”

“Since that first night, there’s no more signs of anything,” Kyle murmured. “But I still haven’t even been back to see if my car’s all right.”

“Hon…”

“Not yet.” Kyle interrupted with a firm shake of his head. “No. I’m all right, I swear, but I don’t need it yet, and I can’t afford to do anything with it if they did break in, and…”

And he didn’t want to see the building.

“But you’re not just holding it together.” River said it as a statement, one thin brow quirked in a slightly ironic question.

“No. I’m a little spooked, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,” Kyle told him. “And Nic and I will go get the car soon.”

“Ahhh. Nic and you.” River let the fire go and focused on that subject instead. Now that he’d changed the subject, Kyle wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this, either. But he needed someone to confide in. River’s initial smirk faded to a curious, then a gentle look. “What is it?”

“I… I need to talk about him.”

“Yeaaah, you do.” River nudged the glass back into his hand and let him take a few more sips.

The cheap stuff burned all the way down, making Kyle’s eyes sting, but he gasped for breath and came to a second later. “Christ. What is that?”

“I don’t know,” River waved a hand like it was unimportant and waited for him to talk.

Kyle drew a breath. “I haven’t taken a chance on a relationship in… years now. You know me. I just…”

River was waiting so patiently that he couldn’t meet his eyes. He knew what River would say to him about it all, but it didn’t stop his brain offering up these worries. He had to get them out.

“I’m afraid I’m too much for him to deal with.” There it was. Kyle swallowed hard now that it hung in the air between them. “We’re so opposite. I’m so loud, and he’s so quiet, and I’m so… open about me, but he’s so repressed.”

River’s eyes sharpened at the word choice, but he still didn’t comment—just nodded slightly.

“And I want him, I do. I know he’s waiting for me to ask, and I’m afraid. I just… do I want this? Should I be following it?”

“Well, your heart sure wants it. You’ve never even asked me about another guy,” River pointed out. “Not the same way.”

Kyle laughed sheepishly. He’d mentioned guys before plenty of times, but not like Nic. His interest always faded, or they moved on, or they just didn’t click. Nobody had fascinated him and gotten under his skin as fast as Nic. “Yeah.”

“You might be a little more repressed than you think, too, hon.”

Kyle stared at River. He was the last person he’d apply that word to. “Me?” He looked around for anyone else.

“Yes, you,” River laughed warmly. “You’re afraid of being too much for someone to handle, because you have been for other people.”

“Shit. Don’t pull your punches.” Kyle’s heart twisted, but he knew River was right. His parents, his old boss in his first job, his last serious ex and plenty of dates and hookups… they all found him too much. But toning himself down wasn’t an option, either.

“Don’t let your fear hold you back from what you need.”

Kyle was hanging onto River’s every word. “Which is…?”

“Companionship,” River said simply. “You’re happy being around Nic. It comes through even in your texts. Doing errands with him, watching him work. You like that.”

Kyle’s blush was creeping down to his very toes, he was sure of it. He cleared his throat and nodded.

“And intimacy. Not just sexual. You told me you told him about… the past?”

“Parts of it. Most of it,” Kyle murmured. “Was that a bad call? It was so fucking fast. I didn’t plan to. But he told me things about himself and then I just…”

“You listened to your heart, and you two bonded over it. It’s wonderful,” River told him, leaning in to cup his hands. “Trust. You need that, too. You don’t trust people.”

Kyle winced. His chest was tight, but he recognized the truth in the words because he wanted to push them away.

He liked humanity—people, in general. Loved people, even. Wearing his heart on his sleeve, dressing and acting and speaking the way he did, seemingly without a care about others’ thoughts… it made people think that was all of him.

River was right. Kyle showed his heart off, but he didn’t trust anyone enough to give it to them.

Except, maybe, Nic.

“He’s great with Kevin.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And he’s good around the house. I’ve been cooking for him when he goes to the office but he cooks for me, too.”

“Uh huh.”

“He’s really smart.”

“Kyle.” River was smiling at him fondly.

Kyle blinked. He realized he was tightly holding the tumbler, so he finished it, then pushed it across the table. “What?”

“You don’t need to justify being attracted to him. Or should I say being in love with him?”

Kyle’s jaw dropped. What the—?

River leaned in and puffed air in his face.

That distracted him, at least. He smelled vanilla from River’s lip gloss. “Dude! What?” Kyle exclaimed.

“Just seeing if I could blow you over.”

Kyle snorted at River and shoved his shoulder until he collapsed back in the seat opposite him, laughing away. Kyle folded his arms, trying to ignore River’s amusement.

“Honey, you are so blind to yourself.”

Kyle fidgeted, tapping his toe against the table leg. “I haven’t told him. We’re not even boyfriends. Jesus, we haven’t even had that talk.”

“He’s waiting for you to be ready.” River winked. “You already said that. Do I need to check if your balls are still there?”

“Oh, no. I’m confident they are.” Kyle took his turn to smirk back. “They’ve been getting enough use, thanks.”

River’s cackle of laughter pealed across the bar, making heads turn. Kyle grinned broadly. It was impossible not to laugh when his best friend gave one of those true, full, distinctive laughs.

Kyle winked and slid out of the booth to grab them each another whiskey. When he returned, River smirked. “You, of all people, fucking a guy more than once. And liking it. You’re adorable.”

“You’ll get there, too,” Kyle threatened. “And I will mock you to the ends of the earth.”

“Oh, sure.” River rolled his eyes. They’d always seen it in each other—that tendency to assume nobody out there would understand them. And until now, they’d been right. But if Kyle could find someone who seemed willing to try, so could River. “Until then, I have a lot of dick to suck before I find the one that fits.”

“Poetic. You should be a writer.”

“I should,” River agreed. “I’ll write happily-ever-after tales of a nerdy prince coming to sweep a dashing peasant off his feet.”

“Why am I the peasant?” Kyle exclaimed. He fidgeted with the glass, but they hadn’t drunk yet.

“Honey, he’s in IT. He’s got money.”

Kyle groaned. “Yeah. I know.”

River eyed him and put down his glass. “And you’re not being an asshole to him about it?” When Kyle cleared his throat, River kicked him—hard.

“Ow! I said sorry.”

River held his nail against his thumb, ready to flick his hand. “If you use this to drive him away…”

God, River did know him. “No, no,” Kyle hastened to assure him. “We talked about it. He understands. That’s what led to the whole… past-sharing thing.”

“Good.” River shook his head. “Now,” he picked up his glass and waved it at Kyle, “here’s to you and loverboy.”

“Don’t call him that.”

They clinked glasses. “To you and loverboy,” River repeated with an obnoxious grin.

Kyle’s chest tingled in hot, satisfying waves of pleasure before the whiskey even touched his lips.