Ash scoffs. “Am not.” He really isn’t. Sure, he’s intrigued, and Kieran’s needs tick many of his boxes, so naturally he’s drawn to him. Cares for him. He wants to make him smile. He wants to punish thepeople who have hurt him and be there to protect him. He wants to show him that he doesn’t need to be so guarded all the time, and that he isn’t as hard to love as he believes. He wants to?—
Oh. My. God.
Fuck me.
How did he miss this?!
“Yes, you are!” Gabe points a finger, as if accusing him of a horrendous crime. “Don’t lie! I got that tickly feeling in my chest!”
“That’s yours. You were just smooching your man.”
“Nuh-uh! I know the difference.” He studies Ash curiously. “Plus, it feels kinda achey. Maybe unrequited?”
“It’s not unrequited,” Ash mumbles, realizing his mistake too late.
“Aha!”
“You’re a pest,” he informs Gabe, who doesn’t seem to care in the least.
“I have sooo many questions.”
“Great. Keep them to yourself.”
Gabe glares at him. “You think you get to pester me about my love life, but I don’t get to do the same?”
“Exactly.”
“I hate you,” he lies. “At least tell me the poor guy’s name.”
At this stage, what would be the point in lying?
“It’s Kieran.”
“Kieran?!” Gabe shrieks in an eardrum-piercing pitch.
Ash brings a hand to his ear. “Ow.”
“Kieran?” Gabe whisper-yells. “You have a parade of people falling on your dick and you have to pick one that hates—wait.” He pulls back, cogs turning. “You said it’s not unrequited?”
“He’s been…very aggressive in his advances.” To put it mildly.
Gabe looks very torn, and more than a little concerned. “Have you been riding your motorcycle lately? Had a little accident? Hit your head, maybe?”
“No.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same person.”
“I don’t know how it happened,” Ash agrees. Gabe isn’t being a dick, his reaction is perfectly justified. “I just brought him home—his home—one night after he got a little intoxicated, stayed for a bit, then left once he was out. We bumped into each other here the next morning, and he was like a changed person.”
Gabe snaps his fingers, remembering something. “I saw you talking outside the other day, and then you were gone and he took off in a hurry. What was that about?”
Ash winces at the memory. The face Kieran made, as though Ash had stomped on his heart, will haunt him for a long time.
“He asked me out.”
“Oh my god! That’s fantastic!” He grabs Ash’s shoulders and shakes him. “Well, not for him, he has terrible taste, but good for you.”
“I said no.”
