“I have good fucking reasons for not playing anymore. Things I don’t want to talk about or remember, okay?”
“Okay.” Joshua held his hands up in surrender. “No more guitar talk with you. Promise.”
“Thank you.” Van’s expression shifted to something softer, almost sad. He looked very young in that moment, younger even than Emmett, and Joshua couldn’t help it.
He slid his arm across Van’s shoulders. Van sagged against him, a solid, warm weight that fit so perfectly his breath caught. His body tingled with the contact, and he tried to tell himself he was comforting a friend. A platonic friend.
Yeah, right.
Van shivered despite the warm night air, attention suddenly riveted on his knees, hands clasped in his lap. He almost seemed . . . vulnerable. And until that moment, Joshua never would have imagined assigning that word to the cocky bartender who strutted around Off Beat and flirted with everyone. Not even to the new friend who’d kidnapped him and driven him to Virginia Beach so he could get his boyfriend back.
This was a different side of Van, whose emotions were close to the surface, and who looked one wrong comment away from bursting into tears. Joshua’s insides rolled, terrified of fucking this up. Of saying the wrong thing, or making the wrong move.
Don’t get involved with someone you’re attracted to. This is a bad idea.
“What can I do?” Joshua whispered.
Van moaned softly, then met his gaze. Desperation and sadness clung to him like a second skin, and the need to make it go away hit Joshua in the balls. Van surged forward, and Joshua didn’t have time to avoid the hard, gasping kiss that Van pressed to his mouth. So many things tumbled around in Joshua’s mind—lust, desire, shock, worry, stop this now!—and locked him into place, unable to resist the way he knew he should.
Hands cupped his cheeks. Questing lips moved and plucked, and Joshua savored the song they played on his mouth. Hegrabbed both of Van’s wrists, uncertain if it was to keep him close or push him away, while his emotions ran riot, leaving him aching and hard and a little bit terrified. The kiss was everything he’d imagined, and everything he’d dreaded, and that conflict allowed his lips to part.
Van dove inside, licking and sucking on his tongue. Christ, it felt good. Too fucking good, and it was just a fucking kiss. Joshua made a sound that was half-encouragement and half-fear, and for the briefest moment, he started to kiss Van back.
No. No!
He tore away so fast that Van tilted over sideways on the street. Panting and trembling, Joshua backed up a few feet until he hit the grass of someone’s lawn, putting the entire width of the sidewalk between them. Van gaped at him with shock and regret etched across his face, his sprawled position doing nothing to hide his erection—the sight of which made Joshua’s mouth water. Christ, he needed to get it together.
I kissed him back. I kissed someone not my boyfriend.
He touched his lips, where the taste of Van lingered, horrified at what he’d done, but unable to actually regret it. He’d wanted Van for almost a month, and the kiss proved that those initial sparks of attraction were not a fluke. This was real.
And it couldn’t happen.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Van said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I am so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“The fuck it wasn’t. I kissedyou, not the other way around. Your boyfriend is going to cut my balls off.”
“No, he won’t.” Joshua hadn’t even considered what telling Benji might mean. He couldn’t take seeing Benji look at him like he was a horrible cheater, no better than his parents or siblings.
Oh God, I’m as awful as them.
Joshua’s chest ached so badly that he couldn’t breathe. He slammed his eyelids shut against hot tears, hiccupped, desperate for air and dizzy with the weight of what he’d done.
“Hey, focus on my voice,” Van said somewhere close by. “Deep breaths, okay? Just breathe.”
He tried, and finally the fist around his lungs let go. He sucked in oxygen, but couldn’t make his eyes open. His worst nightmare had come true, and he didn’t have the strength to face it.
“Listen to me.” Van squeezed his shoulder once, and then let go. “You did not cheat. I was the one who kissed you. I did this, not you.”
Joshua shook his head. The self-loathing in Van’s voice was what got him to open his eyes, and then the expression on Van’s face was almost worse. He looked devastated. And still so goddamn young. “We both did this,” Joshua said. “I’m as responsible as you. I won’t throw you under the bus to make Benji hate me less.”
Saying his boyfriend’s name churned his gut even harder with guilt, a toxic sludge that made him want to vomit.
“I’m the biggest prick on the planet,” Van said. “I practically forced myself on you. How do you not hate me?”
“I like you too much to hate you.” The inappropriate response slipped out.
