Close down was nice and quiet. Usually Seth was there, chatting it up and goofing off with Luke as they closed, or Adam was there supposedly reading some article or going over legal paperwork, but really just flirting with Luke like they were strangers in a bar and not getting married.

But tonight, there was no one. Luke said something about Seth having a night with friends, and Adam was up in the back office.

Paul couldn’t help thinking Luke had planned it this way.

He didn’t say anything, just focusing on cleaning up, but he kept Luke in the corner of his eye as he moved around. If Luke had found out what went on between Paul and Davis, this would be the perfect opportunity to confront him about it.

Paul waited patiently for the other shoe to drop.

They’d wrapped up just about everything when Luke finally spoke.

“You know, I’m not the sort of guy who believes in coincidences,” he said. He turned off the jukebox, and Paul couldn’t help remembering how he and Davis had danced to the music, what it felt like to have Davis trusting him and in his arms.

“I did, once,” Luke went on, grabbing the broom to sweep the floor. “When this gorgeous guy came into the bar after last call. Soaking wet from the rain, y’know? Needed to dry off. We hit it off, and I thought, wow, so these things really do happen.

“Then I find out he’s the lawyer for my asshole step-grandparents and he’s here to serve me papers.”

Paul paused. That wasn’t… “Are you talking about Adam? Is that how you two met?”

Luke nodded, grinning. “I know, right? Not exactly the kind of situation you’d think would lead to romance. But Adam busted his ass to help me out. Even if it was a bit rocky at times.

“My point is, it wasn’t a coincidence that Adam just walked into my bar one night. It reminded me that, yeah, there’s random happenstance, but if something feels like it fits a little too neatly, you might want to look at it a second time.

“So when you tell me that you’re putting in your two weeks the same day that Davis disappears from the bar…” Luke shrugged. “You can’t blame a guy for thinking those two things are connected.”

His tone was light, but his gray-green eyes were firm, boring into Paul from across the room. Paul figured he didn’t have much choice in avoiding this. Luke might say he was just thinking the two were connected, but Paul could tell by the guy’s expression that there was no doubt in his mind. He knew.

Paul leaned against the bar top. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth,” Luke replied. “I know you’ve got some issues. I can smell a bullshitter, I used to be one. But I like you. I’m willing to take a chance on you and think that you weren’t intending to screw anybody over, not really. But I want you to be honest with me.”

Paul figured the least he could do was be honest about this whole mess. “All right.”

He explained what had happened—how he and Davis kept seeing the other one operate, how he’d had the impulse to crash Davis’s date, and running into him at the grocery store afterwards. Feeling envious, feeling possessive, wishing that other men could see what he saw in Davis. Flirting with him, dancing with him, going home with him.

Realizing that he wasn’t right for Davis.

“I had to get out,” Paul said. “If I stayed—I knew I’d just wreck him. I couldn’t do that to him, I couldn’t hurt him like that. It would be better for him if I left.”

Luke looked—pissed off, yeah, but not like he was going to punch Paul, which was a miracle in itself.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Luke said. “I know that—I kind of figured that before, you know, but this… wow. This takes the cake.

“You realize how much Davis has to be hurting? And now you’ve taken away his one safe place. Here. There’s a reason why he never had any dates here. It was his safe place for if, or when, things eventually went wrong.”

“Why do you think I put in my two weeks?” Paul replied. “I’ve got no ties here, I’ll be out of his hair soon enough.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that he has the right to make this decision for himself?” Luke demanded. “Christ…” He shook his head, setting aside the broom and walking over. “Listen. I get it. You want to do the right thing. But if Davis wants to be with someone, then it’s his choice to be with that person. You should have at least told him what you were thinking. He can’t stop you from leaving town if that’s what you’re determined to do, but man, you just took his choice away from him, and that’s wrong.

“If you think that you’re not good enough for Davis then that’s how you choose to see things. But Davis has a right to choose how he sees things. You owe it to him to talk these things out, like adults. You don’t get to decide everything for him.”

“I can’t take care of him like he needs to be taken care of!” Paul blurted out. “It’s not that I want to—control him, or anything, I don’t, I just, I was scared, okay? I’ve never done this before. Ever. I’ve never dated anybody, not properly. My parents…”

He tried to stop himself, but he’d already opened his mouth and now Luke was looking at him expectantly.

Paul wanted to bang his head against the wall. But now that he was in it he might as well go all in, just burn the bridge as he got to it, right?

“My parents had a really nasty divorce. Before that, they were arguing for years. I should’ve seen it coming. Growing up, I thought it was a normal marriage. That couples just fought all the time. It wasn’t until I was older, and saw other people interact, that I learned that level of nasty wasn’t normal.

“But it was all that I saw. It didn’t start out that way, you know. Nobody enters a relationship planning on it blowing up in their faces. But—as a bartender, you have to have seen it, right?” Paul could hear the pleading in his voice and cleared his throat, bracing his hands on the bar counter to ground himself. He wasn’t going to get all blubbery about this, no way.

“You sit here and people kind of treat you like a therapist, you know Not that I’m complaining, I don’t mind. Just saying. You get to be there when people are drinking over someone they just broke up with, someone that hurt them. Sometimes you’re even there to see the breakup happen.

“And it’s nasty. It sucks. You can see the pain, the anger and despair on their faces and you’re like… shit, man. Does it always end that way? And it feels like it does. It feels like every time you see a relationship start out all happy and shit, a few months later those same people are in your bar drowning their sorrows, complaining about each other, acting like the other person was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

“And it just keeps going! On and on and on, it just—it never stops.” Paul laughed bitterly. “I find myself thinking about it with you too, no offense. Wondering when you and Adam are going to start... Not that—you two are great together, I’m not saying you’re not, I just… can’t help wondering when it’s all going to go south. Like I’m predicting it, you know?

“I couldn’t drag Davis through that. I don’t know what I’m doing, I can’t be what he needs me to be, and we’re only going to end up hating each other at the end of all of this. I wasn’t going to turn into another bad experience for him.”

Luke shook his head. “Don’t you get it? In abandoning him, you hurt him worse than if you’d stayed and tried your best. Trying your best, that’s—that’s all that we can ask of one another. And sometimes, I think, people let their expectations get ahead of the present and don’t communicate what they really want and need and so they make assumptions, about the other person and about themselves.

“If you’d stayed, and tried your best, and it hadn’t worked out, Davis could forgive that, I think. Hell, we all could, none of us are perfect. I was a pretty big jerk at times, just ask anyone about my high school days. You took away his ability to choose and you backed out of the relationship before it even started. You didn’t even try. And that—that’s the real jerk move.”

Paul nodded. He could see where Luke was coming from, with all of that. He’d known it was a jerk move to leave Davis like that, but… he hadn’t realized quite how big of a jerk move it’d been until now.

Luke walked over to him, leaning his own hands on the bar top so that he was now braced at the same eye level as Paul. “Do you have feelings for him?”

“What?” The question came out of left field.

Luke raised an eyebrow, adopting an expression that Paul was pretty sure he’d gotten from Adam. “Do you have feelings for Davis? Do you want to date him?”

Paul’s heart leapt into his throat. The automatic, tip of his tongue answer was yes, definitely yes. He cared about Davis, wanted him to be happy, wanted to touch him and make him laugh the way he had on Saturday. He wanted to kiss him, wake up next to him, make him coffee and see him drink it.

But the second answer was no, definitely not—because as much as he wanted it, it also terrified him. It was like leaping out of a plane without a parachute and being told someone would catch you. How did you know that person was really there to catch you? How could you be certain?

Luke’s eyes searched his for a moment. “You’re terrified, aren’t you.”

“Any time you want to cut the mind reading crap, that would be great.”

Luke stood up to his full height. He only had about an inch on Paul but in that moment, it felt like a foot. “You’re right to be terrified. Relationships are terrifying.” He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “You should’ve seen me right before I proposed to Adam. I was convinced that he was going to say no and we were gonna break up and it was going to be awful.

“Seth talked me down. Knocked some sense into me. But if even someone who knows that the other person loves them can get a case of the jitters, then I get how someone who’s not sure, when you’re just starting out and all, can be even more nervous. It takes a long, long time to go away. But the fear is there because you care. And that’s good—that you care enough about something to be scared of losing it, that’s what makes life worth living.”

“Fear makes life worth living.”

“Don’t be smart with me, you know what I’m talking about.” Luke looked like he was considering rapping Paul’s knuckles with the broom handle. “If you aren’t afraid of losing something, that means there isn’t anything in your life that’s really worth your love. Whether that’s a pet or a person or a job. We just… tend to put more emphasis on romance, I guess.

“What Seth told me, when I was scared… he asked if I’d been scared about losing him. Our parents died, you see, and Seth’s grandparents were suing for custody. That’s how I met Adam—and yeah, I was terrified of losing him.

“And Seth asked if I I ever considered walking away. Did I ever think about letting Seth go to his grandparents? I said no, not for a second. Because I didn’t—there wasn’t ever a time where I thought of anything but keeping Seth with me.” Luke’s voice took on a note of steel and his eyes hardened. Paul had no doubt that Luke would take someone on physically or otherwise, fight armies if he had to, if it meant Seth was taken care of.

“So, then Seth said, if I was terrified but did it anyway with him, why was I hesitating with Adam?” Luke laughed. “Kid’s gonna be a great lawyer someday, he’s already winning all our arguments.”

Paul chuckled. He hadn’t seen much of Seth, but he liked what he’d seen. The kid was wicked smart and seemed to take great pleasure in either embarrassing Luke or sassing him. Typical teenage behavior.

“Same thing with you,” Luke said, his voice growing quiet and serious. “I know it’s scary. But if you don’t fight for what you want, and perhaps fail, then what’s the point of life? Are you really going to be happy? You aren’t going to get anything good if you don’t reach for it. And, yeah, you’ll fail to reach it a few times. Maybe even a lot of times. But all those times that you tried… they’ll make you stronger and better for the time you do reach what you want. You’ll be able to handle it better.”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Paul said. “I know you want me to go after him.”

“Am I that obvious?” Luke grinned. “But hey, in my defense, I wasn’t trying to be subtle.”

“Is subtle even in your vocabulary?”

“According to Adam, nope.” Luke winked. “And yeah, I do want you to go after him. You two were bickering like anything when you first met but we could all see there was a spark. And Jake wouldn’t shut up about how you two were flirting this one night. Although… I’m not sure you two realized it was flirting. And then when you were all concerned for Davis at the café—”

“Wait, how’d you know about the café?” Luke hadn’t been there that day. In fact, nobody knew about that except for…

“Did Matthew snitch on me?” Paul wasn’t as surprised as he probably should have been. Matthew seemed the busybody type.

“Yup,” Luke said cheerfully, unapologetically. “We’ve all been waiting to see when the sexual tension would snap.”

“What if it took forever?”

“We’re very patient. We had to wait ten years for Travis and Lance to get their shit together.”

Paul rolled his eyes—a habit he was pretty sure he’d picked up from Davis. Damn, he was really stuck on him. “Look, even if I did want to date him, he wouldn’t take me back. Not after I screwed him over the way I did.”

“I think you’d be surprised,” Luke replied. “But, that’s after you answer the question about if you want to date him or not.”

Paul thought about it.

He thought about how scared he’d always been of trapping himself in a cycle of hate with someone—and how he’d gotten that anyway, with previous hookups and people he’d dated for a couple of weeks turning around and hating him for dumping them. Every time, just when it had started to get good, he pulled away. Not Jack, of course, that was all on Jack, but Harry, Pete, Luther, Marcus… the list felt endless, their faces blurring together.

He’d wanted to avoid hurting Davis—and had ended up hurting him anyway. He thought about how he didn’t want to end up alone—and how he was already alone, without friends, without a community.

He did want to date Davis. Not that, well, the idea of dating someone still terrified him. But the waking up with Davis parts, the spending time with him parts, the kissing, making him laugh and helping him feel better parts—he really, really wanted those.

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I do, I want to be with him.”

Luke grinned proudly, and clapped Paul on the shoulders. “Well, looks like we have some planning to do then.”

“Can I come downstairs now?” Adam asked, his voice floating down from the top of the stairs. “Or are you two still doing that alpha male bonding crap.”

“Yes, you can come down,” Luke replied.

“I knew you’d planned for it to just be the two of us in here,” Paul said, but he couldn’t make himself sound as accusatory as he probably should have.

He felt light inside. Not happy, not quite, but almost. It was good to know that there were people looking out for him, who cared enough to find out what was wrong and then didn’t abandon him when they learned that he’d messed up.

Adam came down the stairs. “I didn’t overhear anything,” he said, deadpan and blank faced.

“…sarcasm?” Paul hazarded, looking over at Luke for confirmation.

Luke nodded. “Sarcasm.”

Adam winked at him.

Paul decided to let it slide. “So, what do I do now?” he asked.

“Now,” Adam said, plopping himself down on one of the barstools. “You become a damn romantic cliché and plot to win him back.”