Traffic through Atlanta was extremely light for a Thursday night. Zack’s stomach clenched with each mile that took them closer to Buckhead. He wasn’t ready to face the music. Not that he had to. He could pretend nothing had happened and go on with his life without ever seeing a single person. He could pack up the few belongings he had already moved into the new house and drive back to a hotel near the school. He could put the house up for sale and never see his in-laws in a city this size if he didn’t want to.

Brian grew quieter and more pensive with each mile marker. He could suggest the hotel idea now while there was still time to get out of traffic. He kept driving. Heading to the neighborhood they’d grown up in and both had left for good when they’d turned eighteen to live in that rundown little apartment not far from Georgia Tech. The little apartment that he’d vacated on his wedding day never to return. They could have gone back there. They could have gone anywhere but where they were going.

Zack heard the buzz of a phone on vibrate and watched Brian wince. Zack’s phone was dead and packed in his luggage. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to get back to real life. Brian checked his phone and clicked the ignore button. It stopped vibrating. His face clouded over.

“We don’t have to…” he started to say everything he was thinking but thought better of it. Brian’s family should be happy for him. But Zack feared they wouldn’t be. It wasn’t just his own cowardice. He would never admit he didn’t want to face his former fiancée. Not in a million years. He didn’t want to know why she changed her mind. He really did not want to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t. Would he be making this drive with her now? Where would Brian be? Everything about the wedding that should never have been made him sick to his stomach.

“I have to,” Brian answered anyway. Zack drove on through the city into their neighborhood and to their street. He stopped at the intersection in front of the house he’d grown up in. The brick had been painted white sometime in the years since his grandparents had sold it. He thought he saw the ghosts of two wild little boys playing ball in the front yard or riding bikes in the street. Brian’s house was just across the road and down the street on the curve. He could see it from there. It was lit up like Christmas, with four cars in the driveway. One was hers. Maybe she wasn’t there, maybe she never came back.

Brian dragged in a nervous breath and stared straight ahead. His phone buzzed again, this time it was a text. He checked it and cursed. “She sees us.”

So much for driving by and never coming back. “What do you want to do? I’ll do anything. Tell me to keep driving and I’ll keep driving.”

His phone buzzed again. He didn’t check it. “She won’t stop texting until she’s had her pound of flesh.”

The stomach ache he’d been fighting since the Florida state line almost doubled him over. Brian’s mother would never let them hear the end of it if they didn’t come inside. “We don’t have to tell them anything you don’t want them to know.”

Brian flinched, almost as if Zack had struck him.

“I’m not ashamed,” he hurried to add so that Brian knew it was totally up to him. “I’d tell everyone right now. Have some big party tonight, or tomorrow night if you’re still here. We can have a reception.”

“It’s going to be ugly.” Brian looked at him for the first time since the Atlanta skyline came into sight. “Just… if… tell me you love me. I can get through this night if you love me.”

Zack reached across the console and took Brian’s hand and squeezed. “I love you. We’ll do this then get the hell out and go to a hotel.”

Brian squeezed his hand in return. The phone buzzed again. Brian checked it and went white. “She’s sending Jimmy out to check on us if we don’t park.”

Zack noticed for the first time that Brian never called his father Dad anymore. Just Jimmy. Since their first year of college, before Brian left for California. Zack squeezed his hand once more when the big man with the now graying dark hair stepped out onto the front porch and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d done that when Brian had stayed too long at Zack’s, when they’d been ten years old and the street lights were curfew and Brian never wanted to go home.

Brian didn’t squeeze back this time, he dropped Zack’s hand and ducked his head. Almost as if he was the one ashamed. Zack checked the mirrors and drove past the four houses that separated them and crossed over to park the wrong way on the curb. “We won’t stay long. I have to be at the university early in the morning. We’ll say hi. And we’ll go. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, sure,” Brian muttered as he stared at the man on the porch. Jimmy O’Daly didn’t wait for them to get out, he went inside and left the door open. One of the twins came out. Zack never could tell them apart. They were three years older and mean to him when they were kids. He never took the time when they were all grown. He knew Brian and he almost knew Veronica. Colleen and Kathleen were strangers to him.

This one had the same dark hair all the O’Daly girls had, she wore it long and straight. She looked sideways at something inside the house before stepping out and closing the door behind her. She met Brian at the car with a hug.

“We were worried when you didn’t check in,” she said and Zack could hear the worry in her voice. “Did you have a good time? You both look good. Tanned and rested.” Her blue gaze swept Zack as she stepped out of Brian’s hug. She looked almost… like she pitied him. “You shouldn’t have brought him here. Ronnie is on the warpath.”

“She came home?” There was very little emotion in Brian’s voice. He sounded as if he didn’t want her to come back.

“She lives here. Where else would she go? She got back on Monday, and lost her ever-loving mind when she found out you went with Zack on her honeymoon. It’s been hell since then. Kath took the kids and went back to Birmingham and Mom keeps calling me for help. Jesus, Brian, y’all should have never come back.” She looked at the ring on her brother’s finger, if she recognized it for what it was she gave no outward sign.

“Thanks for the heads up, just going to go in and say, ‘hi and bye’. I have a plane to catch and Zack has to be at school and…” His mother stepped out onto the porch. She looked upset. “Jesus, Ronnie needs her ass beat.”

“Yup,” Colleen agreed and ducked her head. “She’s mad as a wet hen.”

Zack didn’t know why? “She’s the one that didn’t show up.”

“Yup,” Colleen said again, this time giving him a longer look, her gaze settling on his left hand. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she’s going to make Sherman’s March look like a walk in the park when she sees those.”

Zack could tell Brian had stopped breathing, he closed his eyes and stood so very still. “Colleen…”

Colleen waved away whatever he was going to say and hugged him again. “Congratulations… and, if I must say so, about fucking time,” she said, letting her brother go to hug Zack.

Brian blinked several times, his face nearly white as he stared at his mother on the porch. It was too late now. They were here. And they had to tell them. Colleen already knew. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Colleen tucked her arm into Brian’s elbow and started to lead him into the house, she stopped and hooked Zack the same way and dragged him along with her. No way they were getting out of this now. No fucking way.

Should have kept on driving, all the way to California.

“Mama,” Brian said when they reached the porch, he let go of Colleen and hugged his mother. “You look good.”

“So do you,” she replied, patting him on the back. “Are you staying for supper?”

“No, ma’am, I have to get to the airport.” Brian lied again. He looked nervous. More nervous than Zack had ever seen him. He didn’t even glance at Zack as he went inside and Zack stopped to hug his… mother-in-law.

Norah O’Daly looked him up and down and patted his cheeks. “The Caribbean agrees with you, Zack, you look tanned and happy.”

“Instead of pasty and neurotic,” Ronnie shouted from somewhere inside the house. “And fat.”

“Jesus, Ronnie…” Brian started, but Zack took his hand and everyone in the house stopped talking and stared. Brian clasped their hands together and stared straight ahead at his father as if daring him to say something.

“Mom, Jimmy, there’s something I need to tell you,” he said quietly. The shriek of some mythical banshee like creature cut him off.

“You fucking asshole, that was my honeymoon. You did it on purpose. You wanted him for yourself. I knew it. Should have known it. You couldn’t just let me have him. You couldn’t let it be. You took my…” Ronnie stopped shrieking long enough to throw a book at her brother. “I was going to marry a rich man. I was meant to marry a rich man. I didn’t even care that he was gay.”

Colleen stepped between Ronnie and Brian and grabbed her younger sister before she could throw something else. Jimmy and Norah stood there staring at them. Norah’s mouth hung open, shock in her eyes. Jimmy just looked pissed.

“Looks like you dodged a bullet, baby girl,” Jimmy said, giving Zack a go to hell look. He turned to Brian, there was no emotion in his eyes. “Don’t come back here,” he said and walked away leaving his wife and children too shocked to respond.

Norah didn’t say one damned thing to Brian, she followed her husband out of the living room. Colleen and Ronnie stood as they were, Colleen closed her eyes looking devastated. Ronnie closed her mouth on the nasty words she’d been about to screech before her father kicked her brother out of the family, a nasty grin spreading slowly over her face as she realized what their father had said.

Zack tugged at Brian’s hand and dragged him out the door. They walked slowly and Zack opened the door to the rental car and shoved him inside. Brian didn’t say a word as Zack drove on down the street instead of leaving the neighborhood. He went three blocks and made a turn onto the cul-de-sac and turned into the third driveway on the right.

The house was almost an exact replica of the house he’d grown up in. The brick was still red. The inside had been remodeled into a modern floor plan but it retained enough of the original design that Zack could pretend his parents were still there. He put the car in park and turned off the lights. They sat there for a long time. Brian stared out the window into the dark. It was cold. He shivered in the car. They needed to change into long sleeves before going back out.

“I can’t go in there,” Brian said after several long minutes. “I can’t stay here. Not even for tonight.”

“I know.” Zack drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. He needed to go inside to get his computer bag. He didn’t need anything else until after he was assigned. “Let me run and get—”

Brian grabbed his arm and stopped him. His eyes looked funny. He didn’t look like Brian. Not the Brian he’d made love to that morning in Lake City. “No,” he said calmly, almost coldly. “I’m going to the airport. I’m leaving. Tonight. I’ll drop the car off at the rental desk.”

It was over. Just like that. It was all over.

“Brian?” He was going to argue, but there wasn’t any point. Not really. Brian wasn’t welcome here. He couldn’t stay. It would be cruel to make him stay. Even for one more night.

“Call me when you know where you’ll be,” he said, choking back what sounded like tears. “Call me, okay. I… just have to get away now. The longer I stay… the harder it will be to leave.”

Zack reached for his hand, he didn’t pull away. He leaned across the console and kissed him. Probably for the last time. “I love you.”

Brian closed his eyes and pulled away. He looked… gone. He looked long gone. “Okay. Let me get my bags out of the trunk. I’ll call you in the morning. Your morning. I’ll know by noon this time.”

Brian nodded and looked away. Zack saw him gulp and knew he was barely holding it together. He shouldn’t let him go. He should go with him. He should just drop everything and go. He left the rental keys in the ignition and Brian in the passenger seat and went to the back of the car. He dragged his overstuffed luggage out and fished through the carry-on bag for his keys and phone. It was still dead. He would have to find a charger if he was going to be able to call in the morning.

He slammed the trunk and dragged everything up to the garage door. His car was supposed to be inside with the few boxes he’d packed. Everything was supposed to be here. Everything except his life.

He went back to the car and opened the door, Brian was sitting in the driver seat now, his golden-brown legs bare in the chilly night air. Zack shivered in his own shorts. “Hey, Skip, I need a favor. I need… I know, I swear. I… just, please, okay, if you love me, get me on the next flight out of Atlanta. Tonight. I don’t care as long as it’s heading west.”

Zack felt the knife twist in his gut. It was over.

“Love you. Thanks.” Brian looked up at him, he didn’t smile. He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. Zack didn’t ask who Skip was. It would make it easier to take off the ring. Brian turned off the phone and put it in a cup holder in the console. “Zack…” he started but didn’t finish. He looked away and that was it. There was nothing left to say.

“Call me when you get there,” Zack said, his body so numb he couldn’t feel the temperature dropping. Brian nodded and Zack closed the door. He stepped away and watched as Brian pulled out of the driveway. He went the wrong way out of the cul-de-sac, Zack knew it was to avoid driving past his parent’s house. He’d take the long way out of the neighborhood. The drive to the airport would probably take most of an hour if traffic stayed light. When the tail lights faded from view, he let himself into his dark house.

He pulled his bags inside and left them in the doorway. He wasn’t staying long. Just long enough to charge his phone and gather up a few things. He’d send someone to remove his things from the house when he was ready to put it on the market.

He walked through the empty rooms to the kitchen. He plugged his phone into the socket at the island and stood in the middle of what he’d planned to be his future. He picked up the phone and tried to turn it on. He needed to call him, he needed him to come back. He couldn’t let it end like this. Without even saying goodbye. It couldn’t end like this when it had only just begun.

The phone was too dead to power up. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even looked at it. Not since the second day on the ship when Brian’s had rang scaring them both to death. He’d checked his then.

There had been no one he needed to talk to in fourteen days. The only person that mattered had been with him the whole time.

He set the phone down in disgust. He counted to one hundred and tried again. Still nothing.

The clock on the stove said it was half past six. It felt so very late. He tried his phone again. He had to call him before he got out of the neighborhood and on the highway. He had to get him to come back. He’d go with him. He’d fly anywhere in the world with him if he just came back.

Someone knocked on the door and Zack jumped, dropping his phone just as the screen lit up. He looked up to find Veronica standing in the living room holding the door knob in her hand. She looked around the house he’d bought her. “What do you want?” He didn’t have the strength to fight with her right now. He’d never wanted to fight with anyone.

“The door was open,” she said, she sounded almost apologetic as she stood there looking everywhere but at him.

“How did you find me?” He hadn’t told her about the house. She couldn’t have followed them.

“Stephanie told me you bought the house, she didn’t mean to, it was after the wedding… I guess she thought she was trying to make me feel sorry for walking out. I never did like her.” She wrinkled her nose up at the house and finally walked inside without being asked. She sidled up to the island counter, and leaned on the other side. She didn’t speak or even meet his eyes. His phone starting pinging and didn’t seem to want to stop. Of course, it wouldn’t, he had more than two weeks’ worth of messages to go through.

“Stephanie has a big mouth. I should have had better sense than to use your agency even if she did promise not to blab before the wedding.” He didn’t care that Stephanie had told her. It didn’t matter anymore. He was married to her brother, at least for now. They’d never be anything other than in-laws.

“It’s a nice place,” she said using her sweetest voice. The one she used when she was trying to get her way.

“You wrinkled your nose,” he pointed out as he scrolled through his messages, going back to the beginning. It would be easier to get them that way.

“I guess I pictured myself in something bigger,” she had the nerve to say. She looked at him with that same blank face she’d shown him since they started dating a little more than two years ago. He’d never noticed the guile behind her eyes. Or maybe he had and just hadn’t cared.

“Sorry to disappoint,” he answered, distracted by his messages. As soon as he had half a charge he was going to pack up and leave. He wasn’t sleeping in the bed upstairs. Not without Brian… or maybe because he bought it for her. Either way, he wasn’t sleeping here.

She walked around the empty room, the open floor plan of the house showing her everything in just a few steps. “It’s a blank slate. It could work.” She twisted the diamond he’d given her. The one he’d decided to let her keep. Now he wasn’t so sure. He’d spent enough money on a wife, he never wanted.

He let her explore, she didn’t seem interested in fighting. At least not yet. Maybe she was looking for something to hurt him with.

“Brian told me not to go to the church. Did he tell you that when the two of you were fucking each other? The night before, he came home, drunk or stoned or something and told me he’d kill me if I showed up.” She lost the fake cheer and went to her vindictive younger sister default voice which he hadn’t heard since they were kids.

Zack clicked open a text from his friend Hunter. It came late the night before the wedding. Hunter was drunk texting him. The fucker hadn’t shown up for his bachelor party and was off somewhere drunk texting him. He deleted the message and pulled up the one from Troy. His other friend. Who’d also skipped out on his bachelor party. And hadn’t shown up for the wedding either. Hunter was there, looking hung over and… Troy wasn’t drunk texting him. He sent him a video message. Of Hunter’s dick. And— oh god.

“What did you say about Brian? I wasn’t listening.” He still wasn’t listening. He watched the dark-haired beauty look back over her shoulder, her lipstick was smeared over her cheek, her mascara had run, she looked drunk and thoroughly debauched. Hunter’s dick disappeared into her mouth. Troy angled his phone down to her backside, filled with his dick.

“He came to the house, he threatened me if I showed up to marry you. Why aren’t you listening to me? Put the damned phone down and listen to me. He did it on purpose. He wanted to break us up. He wanted to come between us.”

The video went on, someone was in the room. Brian. They asked him to join them. He declined. Troy dropped the phone. When he picked it up again, Ronnie wasn’t on her knees between them. He got a shot of Hunter sitting with his dick in his hand looking wasted and desperate. Troy did the honors and leaned over him. He didn’t seem as into sucking Hunter off as Ronnie had. He forgot to focus the phone on the sex. He kept focusing on the darkened hallway that led from the den to the kitchen, instead. Catching every word that Ronnie and Brian were screaming at each other.

Ronnie finally stopped exploring and came back. Her face went stark white as she recognized her voice over his phone speakers. Zack held up the phone to show her Troy’s mouth on Hunter’s dick while she and Brian screamed at each other in the distance. He heard her shout faggot and the door slam. She came walking back in, naked and pissed. The video ended there.

“That’s not real,” she said softly. Her voice tight. Her face carefully blank.

“Oh, it’s real all right. It’s very real.” Zack jumped as a new voice entered the conversation.

He looked up to find Colleen holding on to the door knob in the entryway. She didn’t seem surprised. Or upset. Or angry. Maybe she seemed a little relieved.

“Guess it explains a lot.” Zack didn’t have the energy to let this bother him. What was one more kick in the nuts. “I mean, why would you be interested in me when you had more dick than…” he let it drop, wasn’t worth it. He deleted the video and turned off his phone. He wasn’t going to try to call Brian.

“What the hell did it matter to you? You were dicking my brother. You think we didn’t hear the two of you sometimes. We used to listen under the door when you slept over. We all knew.” Ronnie shouted at him and reached for his phone. He snatched it back before she could rip the charger out of the wall. Grabbing her wrist, he stood there, seeing red, and trying not to tear her damned arm from its socket. “Get your hand off me.”

He didn’t let her go. He slipped the diamond off her finger and put it in his pocket while she screeched and called him names he’d never thought he’d hear himself called. “Get out of my house,” he told her when he was tired of listening to her scream obscenities.

Ronnie started to fling herself after him, but her sister caught her by the arm and turned her toward the door. They whispered, loudly. Zack turned his back to the sisters and leaned over the counter again. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to get fucking drunk and… he sank to the floor and sat on his knees with his face in his hands.

He jumped again when a pair of gentle hands settled on his shoulders. He clasped one of the slim hands in his and held it while he composed himself.

“I’m sorry,” Colleen said after he stopped shaking. He didn’t know what he was doing. There were no tears to numb the pain of losing Brian. He couldn’t settle on an emotion. All of them. How did a person deal with every single damned emotion known to man as they all slammed him at once? Except happy. Or hope. He was living in his own Pandora’s box of misery.

“What happened here tonight?” He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Maybe he needed to know. “What the hell is wrong with your family?”

She laughed, sounding offended. He didn’t care. He’d just watched the man he loved lose his damned family and the woman he’d thought he could spend a life with turn into something vile right before his eyes. He didn’t give a shit if he offended a damned soul.

“The list is too long and detailed to even get into.” Colleen sat on the floor facing him, her back to the island. She looked as miserable as he felt. “He left, didn’t he?”

Zack nodded and wrapped his arms around his knees. There was nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. “He left.”

She sighed and leaned back against the island wall. “He does that. Dad is such a dick when it comes to him. I thought they’d outgrow it one day. I don’t know what their deal is but the longer Brian stays in California the angrier Dad gets. I wasn’t expecting him to throw him out like that when he finally found out Brian is gay. I just… I thought he’d figure it out like the rest of us did. God, he loves you, Zack. He’s always loved you. If he left it’s not because he’s rejecting you. It’s because of Dad.”

Zack nodded and wiped the moisture that stung his eyes. He knew this. On some level. But while he was sitting on the floor feeling deserted and lost, he couldn’t find the level where understanding dwelled. He twisted the silver ring at war with himself. Part of him wanted to pull it off and put both rings down the garbage disposal. The part of him that was hurting wanted to curl up and die.

“He threw him out years ago,” Zack said, remembering what Brian had said on the ship. “When we were nineteen and in school. Why do that again now? He’s still gay.”

Colleen looked at him strangely. “He didn’t know. Zack, Dad didn’t know until tonight.  After you left, he had a total fit about it. Accusing us of hiding that from him. He didn’t throw Brian out…” She stopped speaking and stared at him for a long time looking confused. “Oh my god. He did kick him out… I was finishing up school and you and Brian went to California and didn’t tell anyone. I remember how angry Dad was that he’d gone out there. He forbade him from going out again. Brian and Dad never got along. Hell, Mom and Dad almost split up because of Brian right after Kath and I graduated high school. Brian stopped calling him Dad about that time. They wouldn’t stay in the same room when we came home on breaks. And Ronnie… she is such a little bitch, Zack. I wish… god, I wish you and Brian had… I mean we know you did before, I just never understood why you wanted to marry her if you and Brian were… I have no idea what to say here. I mean, she’s right, we did hear the two of you. The walls were thin.”

It was his turn to say, “Oh, god.”

She laughed, sounding genuinely amused now. “Okay, so you’re bisexual and he wasn’t here and Ronnie was set on marrying a rich man, and there one was, right in front of her, one who would look the other way when she boned every dude in Buckhead and let her spend his money because he had an even bigger secret… guess that makes sense. For her. But not you. What the hell were you thinking, Zack? And don’t tell me it was with your dick.”

He shook his head and snorted, trying not to laugh. “Jesus, I don’t know. I guess I thought… she’d keep me close to him.” He realized how that sounded and buried his face again. “Guess I was using her as much as she was using me.”

“Looks like.” Colleen stretched out her legs and her arms, bumping her hands on the island overhang above. “This is a nice house. Must have cost a fortune.”

“It was a foreclosure. I got a good deal. I thought she’d like it.” He was happy the subject changed.

“Too much like our house, she was hoping for something along the lines of Twelve Oaks because Tara was too small. Ronnie is a spoiled fucking daddy’s princess. She gets away with shit none of the rest of us could. But I’ll tell you this much. Mom is not happy with her. Not at all. And not just because of that video. Ronnie doesn’t know it yet, but half of Atlanta has seen that video. She might not have a job left when she goes back to work. Nobody has told her yet. And that’s what y’all walked in on. Should have just kept on going and let Ronnie get her just desserts.”

Colleen was on her feet and heading for the door when Zack looked up. She stopped beside him and patted his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m thrilled for you and Brian. Don’t let him go, Zack. That’s all I’m asking. Just don’t let him go. He needs you. And you need him.”

Zack nodded and patted her hand again. He dragged his ass off the floor and hugged her. She wiped his face and patted his cheek. “Thanks, Collie.” And that got him a punch on the arm.

“Don’t ever call me Collie,” she said, wiping her own face as she broke away from him and walked through the rest of the lower floor going to look out at the back yard. She flicked on the porch light and gasped. “That is one damned gorgeous pool. If you decide to sell, let me know first. I might just take it off your hands.”

“I’ll do that,” he said waiting for her to turn off the light. He walked her to the front door and waited on the porch for her to drive away. The temperature had dropped significantly in the last half hour. He shivered in the thin surf shirt and shorts... that smelled like Brian and love and lust and happy memories. He locked up the front door and dragged his luggage out to the garage where his car and the boxes of his few belongings had been stored. He found his computer bag and his last bag of clothes and loaded everything in his car. An hour later he checked into a hotel not far from Emory and fell exhausted into a bed that didn’t smell like Brian.

He didn’t bother checking his phone, he turned it off and went to sleep still wearing the surf shirt that Brian had picked out for him.