“It says here you think he’s pretty with a blindfold on.”
Kaz snatched the notebook and tossed it across the room, instantly losing that battle with himself to remain calm. Screwbeing calm if it meant no one listened to a word he said. “Stop. I know what this looks like—”
“That’s good,” Nate said. “Because that makes one of us. I don’t know what this looks like. A jealous ex? A current lover? Are you cheating on me or him? Or both?”
“I’m not cheating on anyone,” he placed his hands over Nate’s thighs. “I haven’t slept with him since—”
“Did you sleep with him after sleeping with me?”
Kaz internally swore. “Yes, but—”
Nate shoved him away and Kazimir landed on his ass. “I need to think.”
“It’s not like that,” he insisted, getting up off the ground to grab onto Nate’s arm. “Seriously. It was one time and only after we’d done it at the bar. You and I weren’t together then.” Sure, he’d been thinking about asking Nate out, making him his, but there’d been no cheating involved.
“Then why was he here just now, taking a shower?” Nate quipped.
The bastard had showered? Hell.
“Who are you going to believe? Me or—”
Nate tossed his free arm out and pointed at the green notebook. “You?”
Kazimir patted down his pockets, swearing when he realized his current notebook must have fallen out in the car. Or Zane had slipped it from his pocket when they’d been arguing without him realizing.
“Let’s go back downstairs and I’ll show you my recent one, okay? It’s only got stuff about you in there, babe. It’s just you. I told you—”
Nate yanked his arm free, brow furrowing. “A lot of things. You’ve said and done a lot of things. I just…I need to think.”
“About what? He’s full of shit. He came here to—”
“How’d he get in?” Nate stopped him yet again. “He knew the code, Kaz.”
He ran a hand through his hair, desperately scrambling to come up with some way to fix this. “Yes, I gave it to him, but that was Junior year. He needed somewhere quiet to study.”
Nate snorted derisively, the first show of emotion since Kaz had entered the room. “You really want me to believe he has the code to your apartment so that he canstudy?”
It sounded really stupid, but it was the truth. Last year Kazimir had been busier than usual with the Brumal and hadn’t been home as often anyway. When Zane mentioned he was frustrated with the renovations being done on the Little Palace where he lived with Lyra, Kaz offered him one of the empty rooms here. That had been all.
Had they fucked on some of the occasions Zane had come by? Yes. But had Kaz given him the code for that reason? No.
“Move in with me,” Kazimir suggested, only to have Nate stare at him incredulously. “If you live here, you’ll see that he doesn’t come over. You won’t have to just take my word for it.”
Nate stared at him. “Because you can’t just go fuck him somewhere else or anything like that.”
“That’s not going to happen.” He didn’t know what else to do here. “I don’t want anyone else, Narek. You have to believe me.”
“That’s the thing,” Nate said. “No, I don’t. I don’t have to do anything. Look at this from my perspective, Kaz. The two of you have slept together for years, and the guy was naked in your bathroom. There’s a whole book filled with notes about little things you find attractive about him, and you’ve never mentioned anything about your relationship with him to me before. I’ve heard you bring him up multiple times, but you never elaborated. Now I feel like the idiot who didn’t see what was right in front of him.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” he argued. “I’ve only ever been serious with one person, and that’s you.”
“I want to believe that,” he sighed, “I really do.”
“So then do.”
“I need time.” Nate took a few steps toward the door. “I need to think.”
“Think?” Kaz repeated. Only bad things ever happened when Nate got tangled up in his thoughts.
