Elliott pushed Innes back into the room without breaking the kiss, his eyes wide open. Innes allowed him to, but it only took a couple of seconds for Elliott to realize that he was the only one participating. The door slammed behind him, and Elliott finally let Innes breathe, if only for a moment.

“Come on,” he gritted, then dove in again, ignoring the sting of collision. He didn’t consider stopping because they’d always kissed with an edge of pain. Not like with Aiden, who—

With his vision blurred, the snatches of dark eyes and darker hair were too much like another Kent. Elliott grunted and squeezed his eyes closed. He fumbled blindly for Innes’s belt, then with a wet smack of their lips, Innes jerked his head back, and Elliott was left blinking and stumbling forward, but still as far from Innes as his outstretched arms could hold him.

“Wow,” Innes said. “You haven’t gotten any less good at that without my influence, I see. Elliott, as much as I appreciate spontaneity, this is—”

“Could you shut up?” Elliott said, his voice low and rough to his own ears. “For once, could you not talk and just have sex with me?”

Innes released Elliott’s shoulders and backed up, his chin lifting. “I could,” he said, his customary smirk in place. “But something tells me that would be a very stupid decision.”

“Shut up, shut up,” Elliott said, taking a step, but Innes moved out of his reach.

“No. I hardly think it’s too much to ask to be allowed to speak in my own home. Sound fair to you?”

Elliott clenched his fists at his sides and remained in mutinous silence.

“All right, then.” Innes crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at Elliott, even though they were close to the same height. “Why are you bothering me, Elliott? Not that I’m not overjoyed to see you, but I can’t help but be suspicious that you’d come here after all this time and suddenly want to pick up where we left off.”

Elliott had to physically unclench his jaw to answer. “I want to. Why does it matter to you why?”

“That’s the trouble,” Innes said quietly, some—but not all—of his habitual condescension gone. “I’m no shrink, but something tells me that you don’t really want anything to happen.”

“I do,” Elliott argued.

“Quit lying to yourself. You’ve obviously been through the ringer,” Innes said, bluntly. “‘Scared rabbit’ was always a good look on you, but only when it was an act. This? You pretending you want me after all this time? Not an act I’m interested in. So, if you wouldn’t mind, I was having a lovely evening with a bottle of Chablis—”

“Would you stop acting like you’re so goddamned noble?” Elliott hissed, getting up into Innes’s space and grabbing him before he could move away. “Just—just kiss me, touch me, whatever.”

He lunged, his only goal to shut Innes up by occupying his mouth. This time, when Innes pushed him away, it was more than firm. Elliott stumbled and had to grab a coatrack to keep his balance. His face flamed, his anger far beyond reason or logic, but Innes’s cold eyes and sharply pointed finger stopped him from saying anything in his own defense.

“That’s enough,” Innes said. “You need to cool it.”

Elliott wiped a rough hand over his mouth. “Why? You never wondered what was going on with me before. As long as you got your dick wet, I could’ve had the worst day of my life, and you wouldn’t have cared. Why start being concerned now?”

Innes blinked. “That’s . . . Well, it’s not completely untrue, but it isn’t the whole truth, either.” He crossed his arms again. “I didn’t particularly care if you were getting any emotional fulfillment when we were together. I certainly wasn’t, and I assumed you liked it that way. But I never said I didn’t care about your well-being as an abstract concept.”

Elliott scoffed. “Oh, screw you.”

“If this is your version of being seductive, I think you need to brush up on your technique. I taught you way better than that.”

Elliott shifted restlessly on his feet. “You never gave a shit about what I got out of it when we fucked. You never cared if I wanted to or not, why do you care now?”

“That is not true.” Innes’s voice was sharp and sudden as a whip crack, and Elliott, with his jangling nerves, jumped a fraction. He stared, wide-eyed at Innes. Gone were the smirk and the low-lidded eyes that looked down on everyone in their path. Innes was still, unmasked in a way Elliott had never seen him, and angry too. He seemed almost as angry as Elliott himself.

“You can insult me all you want,” Innes said. “A lot of it might be true. I don’t give a damn about whether you think I’m a good person, but don’t you ever accuse me of ignoring whether you wanted it or not.”

“I—” Elliott stuttered.

“I might be an asshole, but I have never and will never have sex with someone who doesn’t want it.”

It was such a shock to hear Innes speaking so frankly that Elliott couldn’t summon a word. His mouth worked like a fish while his brain blue-screened and reset itself. Innes did nothing but glare until he came back online.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Elliott said. The words tasted bitter, but a knot in his chest went slack as his anger drained away.

“Good.” Innes rolled his shoulders, and then the lazy lean was back. Well, lazy was the wrong word for his standard posture: one knee slightly bent, his weight braced on his back foot, his chin up to show the best possible angle of his impressive jawline, which was as clean-cut as Aiden’s, but unsoftened by stubble.

Elliott’s stomach clenched at the reminder of Aiden. The effort of trying not to think about him made his throat ache.

Coming here had been stupid, he knew that. He would have hated himself if Innes had let him go through with sex. He already hated himself a little bit for coming in the first place, and for pushing himself on Innes. He’d wanted to hurt Aiden by proving him right, somehow. See, I’m as untrustworthy as you said, he would’ve been able to say. What a bullet you dodged, eh, asshole? But he would’ve only made himself more unhappy.

Fingers snapped in front of his face. “Earth to Elliott. You with me, space cadet?”

Elliott blinked rapidly. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Innes raised an eyebrow, a gesture so reminiscent of Aiden’s that it caused another flare of anger and grief in Elliott. “You really do look awful,” Innes said. “You need to take your teenage angst out of here. Go home, call your father, and get him to put the fear of the law into whoever it is that’s made you want to make terrible decisions.”

“I’m not a teenager. And you don’t want me to do that.”

“Why not?”

Elliott let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Didn’t your family tell you? I’m your nephew’s new plus-one. Or I was.”

Innes blinked and his hand came up to idly stroke his chin where a villainy goatee might have been. “Oh. Yes, I heard a rumor that Aiden was dating someone. I didn’t know it was you.”

Elliott grimaced. “‘Dating’ is too strong a word.”

He struggled to keep his eyes on Innes’s as Innes teased out what he meant by that. Innes was a smart guy, so it didn’t take long for his eyes to widen.

“Ah,” he said, neutrally. “It’s like that, is it? That’s . . . interesting.” A long pause followed, in which Elliott fought not to squirm and Innes failed to keep the surprise off his face. “I have to say, I didn’t think Aiden had it in him. From his bitch-face whenever I showed up with you, I thought he’d rather be crucified than pay for sex.”

Elliott thought back to the gala he’d attended with Aiden. The night he’d started to lose his grip on his professional distance. He’d forgotten how curious he’d been about why Innes had canceled. He’d assumed that it’d been about him and Aiden, but perhaps that had been a bit conceited of him.

“You really didn’t know about it?”

“No,” Innes answered. “Why would I? Aiden hardly texts me details on his sex life.” He shuddered theatrically. “There’s a mental image I didn’t need. Thanks so much for that.”

“No problem.” Back when he’d been Innes’s pay-per-view boyfriend, he might have rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t manage it now.

“Why did you come?” Innes asked, point-blank. “Trouble in paradise?”

Lots of reasons. All of them shitty. To prove Aiden right, yes. But also to make what had happened with him mean less.

When he came down to it, he’d wanted to show himself that what he’d done with the nephew was just the same as what he’d done with the uncle. Now, a little more rational, a little more calm, with the anger leeching away, he saw how messed up that was, and how untrue.

Nothing about it was the same. Innes, he’d walked away from with ease. He was going to be attached to Aiden for a long time.

“No paradise,” Elliott said flatly, the strain from all the bullshit emotions he’d felt today catching up to him and dragging his energy down. “That’s not my style. Just trouble. The unfixable kind.”

Innes’s mouth twisted in a not-quite-smile. “Are you sure? I mean, for a lawyer, Aiden puts his foot in his mouth a lot. But did he say something that was really that unforgivable?”

It wasn’t so much about what he said as what he’d implied, Elliott wanted to explain. He’d offered to make all of Elliott’s dreams come true for the low, low price of his self-respect.

“Ye—” Elliott started, then he frowned. “Why are you asking? What happened to your bottle of wine?”

Innes waved his hand in the direction of his kitchen. “It can wait a few minutes. We might not be close, but we’re still family, Aiden and I. I don’t want him to be miserable. He’ll be hell to deal with in the elevator at work. So, if I can act as a couple’s therapist for you two now, I’ll save myself some trouble later on.”

“How generous of you.”

“You know me. Selfless to the core.” Shameless satisfaction with his own despicable self glinted in Innes’s eye, bringing back all the times Elliott had wished they were more alike. It would have been much easier than butting heads, like they always had.

Even at their most intimate, they hadn’t been anything close to friends. Both of them had been aware that they were a business transaction to each other, which would put anyone on edge.

Beyond their inability to trust each other, they just hadn’t liked each other that much. It wasn’t as if they’d had a lot to talk about when they weren’t having sex. Innes had flaunted his privileged upbringing in a large and wealthy family in a way Aiden never had, and Elliott hadn’t been able to relate.

At nineteen, Elliott hadn’t been at the same point in his life as Innes, either. There was only so much that they could have had in common. Certainly, they were both intelligent, and could’ve talked about current events, but that would have been boring. They could’ve discussed their tastes in music or books or art, but there hadn’t been much overlap there, either. Elliott read textbooks on topics the everyman would probably find boring. Innes only read books he found in airports that he could finish before his flight landed, regardless of whether or not he hated them.

Now, here Innes was, waiting for Elliott to pour his heart out about his problems with a blood relation.

Elliott was grateful that Innes had put a stop to a bad decision, but that didn’t mean he was going to tell him anything. He had people who actually cared about him for that. People who would take his side, no matter what. That was what he really needed.

Elliott took in, then blew out a large breath. “Thanks for your generosity,” he said, wryly. “But I’ll pass on your offer.”

“Suit yourself.”

He turned to leave, but the part of him that his parents raised right stopped him. “I really am sorry.”

Innes tugged the cuff of his sweater delicately into place over his wrist. “You said.”

“For coming here, I mean. And for getting . . .” A sweeping gesture that encompassed all of Innes was the closest Elliott could get to saying getting handsy when it wasn’t wanted.

With a quirk of his lip, Innes nodded. “It’s fine. We all make mistakes.” His voice was surprisingly benign, but any kindness was immediately negated. “Like that tragic shirt. You pick that out of the lost and found?”

All was right, at least in this part of the world. Elliott shook his head. “See you later, Innes. Maybe. Hopefully not soon.”

“Why hopefully?” Innes asked. “You don’t want to run into me at the family Christmas party? Aiden would be disappointed, I’m sure.”

Elliott’s jaw clenched. “He’ll get over it. He’ll have to, because we’re over. You and I aren’t going to end up as in-laws.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.” Innes grimaced. “There’s no way it wouldn’t have been weird.”

Elliott let himself out with a last wave of his hand. The elevator ride down to the lobby was a lot more composed than the ride up. The desk attendant still didn’t seem to have placed him, but nodded at him as he went by. Elliott was willing to bet the guy would remember who he was later that night, and he was glad he wouldn’t be there to see the guy recognize him as apartment 15A’s booty call.

Once he was in the fresh air, his impetus ran out. He stood on the sidewalk, looked up at the cheerfully blue sky, and wondered what he was supposed to do. Coming all the way here had only moved him along geographically. It hadn’t moved him from one stage of grief to another. The anger was still there, simmering instead of boiling.

The screen of his phone glowed when he checked the time. He checked his texts too, finally remembering that the phone had gone off in the cab.

Dad: When do you get your midterm marks back again? You probably rocked it. Those Greeks won’t know what hit em. Off to work, but call me tomorrow. Love ya, kiddo.

Elliott turned off the screen and tucked his phone under his sweater and into the flimsy pocket of his shirt, right against his chest.

Go home, Innes had suggested just now.

Not all of his ideas were bad ones.

When the cab slowed to a stop outside a small house with a slightly overgrown lawn on a quiet street, Elliott was slouched in the back seat, feeling all the aches and pains of a long drive.

His eyes were stinging and sandy as he used the debit machine to pay, already regretting the expense. As he fumbled with the buttons, he told himself it was only from the unhealthy amount of caffeine in the energy drinks he’d downed on the earlier bus ride, and not from the thought of worrying about money even more than he already did.

“Have a good night,” the cab driver said as Elliott opened the squeaky car door and pushed out of the low seat.

Fat chance. “Thanks, you too,” he gritted out, grabbing his hastily packed gym bag, which felt heavier than it actually was.

The steps needed to be swept, he noticed as he trudged up them. They were sprinkled with old grass clippings and a few seasons’ worth of dirt and leaves. From behind him, the lights of the departing car swung across the house, lighting up the door for a split second before Elliott knocked on it. Then knocked again a few times before it was unlocked from the inside.

“Hello?” Kevin said, his sleep-scrunched, confused face peeking out. “What time is . . . Elliott?”

“Hey, man,” Elliott said. “Sorry I woke you. I just needed—” His voice broke. “I needed to come home.”

Right there on Kevin’s doorstep, the tears he’d held back for hours decided they couldn’t wait anymore. Before he could wipe them away, Kevin was grabbing him and pulling him in, holding him tight as he crumbled, soaking the shoulder of his cotton shirt.

Neither of them said anything else, half in and out of the doorway, with the light of dawn barely fizzling on the horizon. Kevin was steady, warm, and uncomplicated. After months—years—of complicated, he was exactly what Elliott needed while his hopes came crashing down around him.