FIFTEEN

 

Ever since that close call, Taylor hadn’t been doing his homework at home very much. He had been staying at school, buried deep in the comforting, cool, soothing guts of the library, and he hadn’t realized just how much homework there would be. It was hard to stay on top of it, and he was spending, he knew, more time at school than he had accounted for.

It was different from high school, which had been a few years ago anyway. The classes were harder, the material denser, and he was out of practice at studying. Hopefully, it would get easier.

Tired mentally, Taylor slouched into himself as he parked his car and shouldered his backpack, stuffed full of textbooks and very heavy. He was doing this for a reason so that he could have a career, a real one, as a computer programmer so that he wouldn’t be dependent on freelance contracts.

It was just hard to keep that in mind when it was just after seven thirty in the morning, he still hadn’t blinked the sleep out of his eyes, and he hadn’t seen his own boyfriend for more than a few minutes at a time since school had started a few weeks ago. And even when Taylor did see Dane, there was so much guilt because of what he was hiding.

Blinking and rubbing his eyes to try to wake up, Taylor slid his backpack on and then grabbed the huge mug of coffee, gulping the dregs of it down. The caffeine barely even helped anymore, but it would all be worth it in the end.

If he could work at home, it would be easier, he thought. Which made him wonder, shouldn’t he just tell Dane? His reasons for not doing so had seemed so good at the time, but what was he going to do? Keep this a secret for the entire length of his program? It just didn’t make sense, and honestly, all of this sneaking around was exhausting. Taylor had never been the type to keep secrets before.

The whole thing was stupid. The next time he talked to Dane, he would have to sit down and … and what? Tell him that he had been lying to him, through omission, if nothing else, for weeks now? That was bound to be a fun conversation, though it would only get harder as time went on.

But he missed Dane. That was what it came down to. Maybe he could be forgiven. Explain why he had done it. With another sigh, Taylor stomped off toward the library. He was lucky, he supposed, that he had kept it a secret as long as he had. He had only been able to because Dane worked so much, but his luck wouldn’t last forever.

He fell into a seat at a private little study table and shook his head to try to briskly push out all of the thoughts which swirled and skipped around madly in his brain. He had work to do, and as long as he was thinking about Dane, he wasn’t sure he would be able to focus.

But Dane stubbornly refused to fade from his mind. Even as he cracked open the first of the books, to do the readings which had been assigned, he kept thinking of those big brown eyes, wondering if they would darken with scorn if Taylor did tell him about what he’d done. But did he have to feel guilty about going to school?

No. He had to feel guilty about lying about it.

His thoughts were so firmly on Dane, that at first when he heard the other man’s voice, he was positive that he must be imagining it. Dane had never been in this library, or even on this University campus. Dane had been so unwilling to talk about anything educationally related, and that was part of why Taylor had lied, in the first place.

“What the hell, Taylor?”

It was a good thing that, this early in the morning, the library was fairly deserted. Even so, the librarian looked up, her eyebrows drawn disapprovingly down as she turned her judgmental gaze toward them. Hastily, Taylor sprung to his feet and started to shove his books back into his bag.

Why Dane was here, he had no idea, but he did know that he wasn’t going to risk getting kicked out of the library. And since this showdown was happening, it should be somewhere else, somewhere private.

It seemed like Dane had other ideas. He pulled away from Taylor’s grasp when Taylor tried to pull him outside, but at least, he followed him. The moment they were outside, though, Dane had Taylor by his shoulder and was holding him firmly in place, looking down at him with a mixture of emotions in his eyes that made Taylor wince and look away.

There was anger, and that he would have expected. But there was also so much hurt, and betrayal, and honestly, the anger was easier to take. He deserved the anger, deserved all of it, he knew, but Dane furious was easier to take than a Dane who had been hurt by what Taylor had done.

Because hadn’t he known that he would hurt Dane with this? And he had just selfishly rushed forward with it, so glad to be freed after the years of caring for his sister.

“Talk,” Dane demanded, his voice terse, and Taylor looked around nervously. It was still so early, but many students had early classes, and the area was not by any means deserted. He even saw a young woman that he was sure was in one of his classes, and she shot him a curious look as she scurried by.

“Dane, let’s go somewhere we can be alone,” Taylor protested. They were going to have to have this out—he had known that, honestly, before Dane had even shown up—but there was no need for them to put on a public performance.

“Why? So you can distract me with sex again?” Dane asked, his voice dripping with bitter venom, and while Taylor winced back at the force of it, he couldn’t even deny that it was true. He had used sex to distract Dane when he had sensed that Dane was getting close to asking him inconvenient questions. He had thought that Dane hadn’t noticed, but he had underestimated the other man, obviously.

“Just stop, not here,” Taylor whispered, aware that he was almost begging, but Dane seemed to ignore him. Something hot surged through him, a flash of irritation, and Taylor welcomed it in. It would be easier to be angry in this situation, and maybe the force of it would insulate him a little from the bleak sadness he still saw every time he was brave enough to look into Dane’s eyes.

“Yeah. Here. Tell me what’s going on. I thought you were cheating on me but instead …”

“Wait,” Taylor interrupted, and more of that welcome anger flowed through him, giving him strength, as he looked up at Dane. “You thought I was cheating on you? You really thought I would sleep with someone else?”

Dane gave an unrepentant little shrug, and the fury blossomed in Taylor’s stomach. He focused on it, welcomed it in, and all of a sudden he didn’t mind nearly as much that this was happening out in public.

“You were hiding something,” Dane muttered, apparently unrepentant. “I thought maybe you got bored. You were acting like you got bored. So I followed you.”

Dane had followed him. Had mistrusted him enough to talk about him cheating, when all he had been doing was trying to better his mind and to give himself something like a future. Sure, he told himself with growing self-righteous irritation, he should have told Dane sooner, but then again, someone who could accuse him of infidelity probably wouldn’t have taken the whole thing very well.

Maybe he’d done the right thing, after all. Dane was unreasonable, and somehow, Taylor had known that his reaction would be bad. Perhaps his reluctance to tell Dane had just been something deep inside of himself warning that Dane would react terribly.

“You followed me. Because you thought …” Taylor took a deep breath and shook his head. It did nothing to settle the anger inside of him, and he didn’t want it to. “I’m not cheating on you. I just wanted to go to school. Learn something. Have a future.”

“A future you apparently don’t care much if I’m in or not,” Dane growled, glaring down at Taylor, so much judgment on his face that Taylor bristled more than ever.

“That’s not true,” Taylor protested, and Dane gave a little snort full of more disdain than Taylor could stand.

“This, the way you’re acting, that’s why I didn’t tell you,” he finally spoke, his voice so quiet, but shaking with a coldly burning anger. Dane had to lean forward even to hear him. “I knew that you’d be like this about it.”

“I guess we’ll never know now because you didn’t give me the chance,” Dane told him in return, and Taylor glared stronger than ever, more upset because he knew that Dane was right. Or enough that the rebuke stung, anyway.

While he was still struggling to think of the right thing to say in response, Dane continued.

“My old boss called. He wants me to come back.”

Taylor pulled away, backing up a full two steps and glaring at Dane, helplessness welling up in him. He had been waiting for a comment like that. For something to make Dane run, and it seemed that he had what he had been grimly watching for while hoping not to find it.

“I guess some things never change,” Taylor spoke, and his voice, at least, was a bit louder, and seemed firmer. “Some people just never stop running.”

For a long, long moment, Dane looked down at Taylor, and something terrible grew in his face, some resolve hardening there until he looked like a stranger to Taylor. He wanted to scream at the tops of his lungs that he hadn’t meant it, but part of him had. The anger dwelling inside of him seemed to choke him, to cut off his words so that they died before they reached his lips.

“You’re right,” Dane told him, and there was so much contempt in that voice that had once told Taylor that he was loved. Something closer to hatred. “Some people do never stop running.”

The meaning was clear, and while Taylor watched, too stunned even to open his mouth, his legs too weak to hold him, almost, much less go after him, Dane turned abruptly on his heel and left him. Going to the old, used pickup truck that he’d bought with the first paycheck he had brought in after he’d decided to stay. He swung up into it, irritation in every movement, and in seconds, he was gone.

Just completely gone, and it was then, when Taylor could have used it the most, that all of his own anger utterly evaporated. He missed it, and Dane, the moment that they both were gone.