He frowned, taking another swallow of wine. He set the glass down and started to spin it again, making me wonder if the movement was a nervous habit, giving me the idea of tying him down and forcing him to be still and face whatever was eating at him.
“I want to talk to you about my relationship with Lincoln.” Silas turned his stool so our knees knocked together, and I made room for him to notch himself between my thighs.
“Talk.”
He was a bundle of nerves trapped in the body of a man, twitchy and unsure in a way I’d never seen from him before. Not that my experience with Silas’s moods was vast. The time we’d spent together was minimal in comparison to the time I’d spent with my brothers or the time he’d spent with Lincoln. Isettled my hands on the tops of his thighs, hoping the weight would in some way calm him.
“He’s my best friend.” Silas looked at me, looked away, looked at me again.
“I know.”
“We…our friendship…” He grimaced, turning his face downward. He traced his thumbs across the tops of my knuckles, and I was very worried he was about to tell me something that was going to break whatever this deal between us was. I didn’t know what the confession would be, but Silas’s body language had me prepared for the worst.
“You can tell me,” I said, even though part of the answer felt like a lie. “Whatever it is, I want to know. Do the two of you fuck? Is that it?”
Silas exhaled with a laugh, his shoulders caving inward, and he curled his fingers around the sides of my hands, tucking them up against my palm. Apparently I’d said the right thing—which I didn’t quite understand—because the earlier tension that had locked his spine straight had vanished.
“God, no.” He made an almost disgusted noise. “We’ve never slept together. We scene sometimes, rarely. But, no…we’re…we do sleep together, but not for sex. Just for sleep. We’re…God, this is so weird to say. We’re physical with each other, but not sexual.”
I worried the inside of my cheek, giving myself a minute to think before I reacted. Silas pressed his fingertips against my palms, one at a time, almost like he was tapping out a beat.
“Do you hold hands?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you share a bed?”
Another grimace. “Sometimes. Not always.”
“You hold each other while you sleep?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”
“What else?” I prompted, seeing something lingering in the backs of his eyes that wasn’t yet in the space between us.
“We kiss,” he blurted, “and I understand that you?—”
I groaned, taking one of my hands out of his grasp and covering his mouth before he could manage another word.
“Stop,” I warned him. “Don’t assume a single thing about whatever you think my response to this is going to be.”
He pursed his lips, the slightest pucker against my palm. Eyes wide over the side of my hand, he nodded, and I let my hand fall away.
“You and Lincoln have a platonic relationship, yes?”
“Yes. Yeah. We’re not…we’re not interested in each other. I don’t want him the way I want you.”
“And that’s mutual?”
Silas nodded, brows knit together in worry.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
“It’s been this way for years,” he said. “We talked about it a long time ago, and we’re definitely on the same page.”
“If the two of you are only friends, why do you kiss each other?”
“Because it feels good?” He phrased it like a question, adding a shrug. “Not good like it turns either of us on, good in like…I don’t know how to explain it. It’s more than a hug. It’s just…I don’t know, Marshall. I can stop. We can stop. That’s what I wanted to talk to you?—”
