Kris poked listlessly at his collard greens. He hadn’t had any appetite for over twenty-four hours now. Not that this had deterred Hunter Duke in any way.

“Do you want some more mashed potatoes?” he fretted as he dished up the pot roast he had spent most of that Sunday slaving over. His dining room table was groaning under the weight of all the pans he had laid out with the greens, black-eyed peas, cornbread and macaroni and cheese.

Kris did his best to smile at his gracious host. “No, thank you. Honestly, this looks amazing.” He managed to swallow a forkful of food, even though it churned in his stomach.

He also attempted not to acknowledge Chase sitting next to him, his expression full of pity. Or the way he and Hunter squeezed hands under the table, no doubt thinking up the best way to try and cheer Kris up next. He appreciated their efforts, but he wasn’t done wallowing in his misery just yet.

They weren’t the only ones on a mission, though. Lyla, Chase’s five-year-old daughter, hopped down from her chair, her cloud of red curly hair bouncing as she skipped up to Kris’s side. With her came Trooper, the seven-month-old three-legged Labrador puppy who served as her constant companion. She was wearing a Spiderman T-shirt and Wonder Woman pants. Apparently, superheroes were her favorite at the moment.

She tugged on Kris’s T-shirt. “Uncle Kris, why are you still sad? Do you want to play with Trooper? His special power is To Make You Not Be Sad. Isn’t it, Trooper?”

Trooper thumped his tail on the floor to affirm that, yes, this was indeed his superpower.

Kris sighed and smiled as best he could for her. “I’m sorry, hon. I’m being a stick-in-the-mud. Can I get a cuddle to maybe cheer me up?”

“Sure!” Lyla cried. “I bet I can eat more greens than you.”

“I bet you can’t,” Kris cried.

She scrambled up into his lap, and, once he’d handed her the fork from her own plate, they ate off his plate together. Reluctantly, he could admit that with her encouragement, he was able to tolerate a few more mouthfuls.

“Daddy says greens make you strong like Black Widow,” she chatted on. “She has red hair like me. I’m going to be a superspy or a chef when I grow up. Or a soccer player.”

“You can be anything you want, sweetie,” said Kris. He glanced at Chase, who was beaming at him. Kris was never sure if he talked to Lyla okay. Kids were kind of a mystery to him. But he also trusted Chase would set him right if he got anything wrong.

For a while, they spoke about this and that. Apparently, the hospital was going through some bad times, which obviously affected Hunter’s work as a physician assistant at the doctor’s office. It was all a big scandal, apparently. From the way things currently stood, it looked like Hidden Creek Memorial was going to be scaled down and lose its urgent care unit.

And here Kris was moping over a broken heart.

“Obviously, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,” Hunter insisted, like they were picking up from an earlier topic.

Kris sighed. He was incredibly grateful that Hunter had been willing to put him up for a couple of nights, but he knew he couldn’t linger. This was why he hadn’t accepted his offer of a room in the first place. Chase hadn’t even moved in yet, even though Kris knew they had talked about it. Kris just felt like he was totally intruding on this little family who was just starting their journey together.

But to escape Remi’s place quickly, he had taken it. They had even set up a large plastic storage box with water for Tay Tay to swim around in rather than her temporary Tupperware. This wouldn’t last more than a few days without supplies, but maybe by then, Kris could work up the courage to ask Leon to rescue the tank from Remi’s and install it in their apartment. If they weren’t able to let Kris stay, they might at least be able to house his fish for a while.

“What did Remi actually say?” Chase asked, again.

Kris could tell he was desperate for them to patch things up. Kris had only admitted there might have been a little something going on now that it was over. Chase had interpreted that as there was something worth saving. But Kris knew better.

He speared a strip of beef and wasted a few moments pushing it around in his potatoes. “It wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he acted. Like, I knew it was stupid to think this could actually work between us. But urgh. I just felt so damn small in that office. He was so offended.”

“But you also said he’s not out of the closet yet?” Hunter asked.

“And it was his boss that accused him of helping start the fire,” chimed in Chase. “He was just defending himself and worrying about getting fired.”

“And that he stood up for you to them over the alarm code and how ridiculous you setting fire to your job and home would be,” Hunter added.

“And,” Chase said, waving his fork at Kris, “that he ran after you and didn’t seem to know he’d done something wrong.”

“But he did,” Kris said, trying not to shout with Lyla in his lap. She looked up at him and frowned anyway.

“Who did what?” she asked.

“Honey,” said Chase sweetly. “Why don’t you go play outside for a bit before your bath?”

She gasped and wriggled down from Kris’s lap faster than he could blink. “Come on, Trooper,” she cried, already running for the backyard. “Let’s go see if the volcano has erupted yet!”

Chase smiled at his daughter’s enthusiasm for her imaginary expedition.

“What exactly did he do that was so awful?” Hunter asked. Kris’s expression must have been bad because Hunter quickly held up his hands. “I’m not saying it wasn’t awful. Just, well, do you think you might have taken something a bit personally or out of context?”

Chase reached forward and grabbed Kris’s hand. “Because you’ve been through a really shit time, we know that, we do.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Kris grumbled.

Chase squeezed his hand. It only reminded Kris of his and Remi’s first kiss. But Chase wouldn’t know that.

“All I’m saying is you’re allowed to be sensitive and raw,” Chase explained. “But maybe if we can work out what button in particular he pushed, we can work on fixing this with you.”

Kris huffed and laid down his fork, giving up on his food and gulping down some iced tea instead. “It’s my fault,” he said. “I expected too much. Not just from Remi, from work as well. I’m just…not made for those things.”

Hunter frowned and tilted his head. “What? A job you like and a partner you love?”

“I don’t love Remi!” Kris spluttered. “My god, it’s just a stupid crush from forever ago. That’s why it was never going to last. I was in love with the idea of him, sure. And now I’m just mourning the reality that it’s not how it is.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Dude, you are so young,” he said with affection. “Stop acting like your life is over at twenty-one! You don’t have to have everything right now.”

“But that’s the point,” Kris said, trying not to let his fear come through in his voice too much. “I have nothing. No job, no home, no boyfriend, no goals in life. All I have is a pet fish! The only reason I even have clothes is because I somehow have awesome friends.”

“There you have it,” said Chase excitedly, clicking his fingers at Kris. Hunter rubbed his back and smiled at him, but Chase was still looking at Kris. “That’s what you have. Friends.”

Hunter nodded. “My mom always used to say, ‘Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are.’”

“And if your friends are awesome, so are you,” said Chase proudly.

Kris chuckled and had to accept the compliment just a tiny bit. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I guess my life isn’t a hundred percent bad. But that doesn’t mean anything is going to work between me and Remi. You should have seen his face when PJ asked if he was my boyfriend. He was horrified.”

Kris took a moment as a lump rose in his throat and tears burned the back of his eyes. Fuck, he was an idiot to think Remi would ever want to be seen in public with a silly twink like him. Remi would want some other hunky guy he could go down the gym with, like Hunter. Not someone trivial and slutty without a brain cell in his head.

“He’s also been calling and texting nonstop,” Chase said gently, rubbing the back of Kris’s hand. “It’s not like I’ve been looking at your phone, but it’s kind of hard to miss.”

“Why don’t you just give him a chance to explain?” Hunter suggested kindly. Urgh, Kris hated when he was all reasonable and soothing. It was so hard to ignore.

He felt his lips betray him and twitch with half a hopeful smile. God, he would give anything for them to be right. After only thirty-six hours together, he knew he didn’t want to give Remi up now he’d finally, unbelievably gone that step further with him. But even with his friend’s hopeful faces looking back at him, he still couldn’t truly convince himself that Remi would really endanger his perfect straight life by coming out of the closet for Kris.

Like he said, he was hoping to do it for his own sake. But now Kris was entangled in more trouble, Remi was bound to see there were better, more compatible options out there for him.

Kris kept going over this business with the fire in his head. He knew he hadn’t given his login code to anyone else. So how had someone gotten in to start the blaze, and why? He kept coming back to the fact that it had to be a hate crime, possibly from one of the people who had been sending through those nasty messages. The idea that Kris could be involved in anything that homophobic made him sick. What if people thought he was one of those gays who secretly hated himself or something? That would devastate him.

Adding that to the crushing disappointment of realizing having Remi as a real boyfriend was probably something that had only ever existed in his dreams made him thoroughly miserable indeed.

He suddenly became aware that his melancholy thoughts had made him go quiet. He shook himself and laughed, rubbing the unshed tears from his eyes and pretending to flick his hair. “Oh, she’s gone all dramatic,” he cooed. But his friends weren’t fooled by the looks of it.

Thankfully, he was spared any further questioning by a knock at the door. Hunter blinked and looked between Chase and Kris. “Don’t worry. I’ll get that. It’s probably Girl Scouts selling cookies or something.”

They watched as Hunter left the dining room. Kris bit his lip and fiddled with his fork again, hoping Chase wouldn’t push him too hard on Remi. Kris felt like if he really looked hard enough at how he felt, he might have to admit his heart was breaking.

“Uh, Kris?” Hunter’s voice floated from down the hall. “Could you come here?”

Kris glanced at Chase with a frown, but he was met with a matching look of confusion. Chase shrugged. “Do you want me to say you’re dead?”

Kris snorted, the joke cracking through a thin layer of his self-pity. “No, baby, it’s cool,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll go see what’s up.”

He crossed paths with Hunter in the hall as he was walking back to the dining room. Kris raised an eyebrow at him, but Hunter just shook his head and jutted his chin toward the partially closed door. Fuck. Was it the police, come to take him away? They couldn’t really charge him with arson, could they? He hadn’t done anything.

Kris kept walking, refusing to indulge in the hope that was attempting to blossom in his chest. Because there was only really one person he wished might be on the other side of that door, despite the logical side of his brain telling him otherwise.

Therefore, he couldn’t really stop himself from gasping when he pulled the door inward, bringing a gust of warm evening air inside as he was faced with the sight of Remi Washington, dressed up in a shirt and dress pants, holding a dozen red roses in his hands and wearing a look of naked hope on his face.