Chess rubbed his shoulders. “I can already see how tense you are. Try not to get overwhelmed with everything that needs to be accomplished. Are you going alone, or taking Kyle with you?”
“I haven’t even thought about it. No, I don’t need him. Occasionally my law degree comes in handy. He can stay here and field the calls from my mother.” He smiled thinly as they left the library and walked the length of the hallway to their bedroom. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
As he packed an overnight bag, Chess sat on the bed and watched him. Something in the set of his shoulders caught André’s eye, and he stopped tossing in toiletries.
“You’re not happy. Or something’s really wrong. Which is it?”
Chess blinked, and André studied his face, noticing the faint lines across his forehead and the dark circles under his eyes. Chess was no longer the slightly nervous, fresh-faced man André had spied immediately upon his entrance to the university party that first evening, yet his heart yearned for Chess now just as much as it did without knowing the taste of his kisses and the feel of holding him in his arms.
“I hate to spring this on you on your way out. It can wait until you get home.”
“No. We’ll talk. You’re the most important thing to me, and if something’s bothering you this much, as I see it is, then we’ll talk now. Trust me.” His smile was grim as he sat next to Chess on the bed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “The issues with the insurance company aren’t going away so fast.” With Chess’s cheek resting against his, André closed his eyes, soaking in the calm before he left to face the storm. “Talk to me.”
“I went into the pool house.”
André stiffened. “Because?”
Visibly uneasy, Chess shifted away from him. “I don’t know…I couldn’t find you anywhere, and I thought maybe you were there.” His words spilled out in a rush. “It looked like such a nice, beautiful place, I wanted to see inside. I couldn’t understand why you stayed away.”
“So you did.”
Chess lifted his chin and met his gaze unflinchingly with solemn gray eyes. “Yes. And I found a photo album, so I looked through it, because you know how much I love seeing pictures of you and your brother and sister when you all were young.”
Anxiety and anguish seared through him, along with unexpected nerves. Why,whydid this have to happen?
“And you saw pictures of us all?” His voice sounded rusty and dry, creaking from his throat.
“Yeah. All of you. Including Kyle.” Chess put his hand on André’s. “Why, babe? Why did you lie to me and say Kyle was a fling when it was more than that? You were in love with him, weren’t you?”
Hearing Chess say those words made his skin crawl. “No. I wasn’t. He was my first, so I was in lust. I wasn’t the same person I am now.”
“None of us are.” Chess faltered for a moment. “So why hide it from me like it was some big, horrible secret? I didn’t think you were a virgin; of course you had love affairs. Why couldn’t you have told me the truth from the start? I’m more hurt that you felt the need to hide it from me than the fact that it happened.”
He could keep on lying to Chess and brush it under the rug, or he could finally cleanse his soul and hope Dawson would rest easy and forgive him. And, in return, maybe he could forgive himself.
“Because…I blame myself and my infatuation with Kyle for Dawson’s death.” Even now, decades later, the words left him breathless with pain.
“Babe, what?” Now it was Chess who held him close. “What’re you talking about?”
Once again, he was in that pool house, in the bedroom with Kyle.
“What do you mean you’re leaving for Europe at the end of the month?”
André lay naked on the bed. Kyle sat sprawled in the chaise lounge, wearing only his boxers and a smile, smoking weed.
“I got a job at my father’s law firm in the Paris office. I can’t wait to go.”
His insides still ached and his heart still pounded from their furious lovemaking, but Kyle’s announcement set him thinking.
“Paris? That’s cool. I could come over and be with you after I graduate. We have properties there.” The idea excited him. Living in Paris would be an amazing experience.
Kyle’s brows knitted before he burst out laughing. “Oh…you’re joking. Why would you do that?”
“B-because this way we could stay together. I know it’s been hard when I’m away at school, so now we can live together—”
“Whoa, wait, no.” Kyle set the blunt in the ashtray. “What the hell are you talking about? Live together?”
“Yeah, I mean, we love each other—”
