I hit the wall with my back as Nicholas stops two feet away, close enough that his body heat presses through the air. His hands are loose at his sides. He studies my face with the focused attention of a man cataloguing every change two years have carved into someone he once knew by heart.
“You were at the coffee shop today,” he says quietly. “I saw you.”
“I know.”
“You couldn’t come in.”
The wall is cold against my shoulder blades. “I couldn’t come in,” I echo back.
His hand rises, giving me every chance to pull away before his fingers find the curve of my jaw, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. A ragged sound tears out of me, something between a gasp and a whimper that echoes in the narrow space.
“I texted you back,” he says, his thumb still pressed to my cheek. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah.” Tears burn behind my eyes, blurring his face. “Nicholas, we can’t. Fuck, I can’t do this.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re his brother, and I can’t separate you from that. Because last time I wanted you it cost me everything. Because there are people in this building who need your money and I can’t sit across from you and pretend—” My throat closes as the truth of why I wanted to meet him sits on my tongue, tears spilling down my cheeks. “I can’t.”
His hand stays on my face, but he doesn’t close the distance. He just holds his palm against my jaw while I fall apart in a back hallway. “Okay.” His thumb catches a tear. “Okay, Will.”
My shoulder brushes his chest as I push past him. The contact jolts through me and nearly buckles my knees but I don’t stop until I get to the private bathroom and lock myself inside. In themirror, I see a man with red eyes, a damp collar, and a mouth twisted around words he refuses to say.
“You can’t have this,” I whisper to my reflection, fogging the glass. “You can’t have him. It’s all going to go away. It always goes away.”
I splash cold water on my face, the shock pushing the tears back. I straighten my collar, clamp my jaw, and piece together the mask until the man staring back looks functional.
Then the floor absorbs me. Drinks get poured, tables get managed. Words form in my mouth, hands form the drinks, and the machinery runs. Nicholas stands at the east corridor. Every time his gaze passes over me, another crack fractures the surface I rebuilt in the mirror. He’s looking. Always looking. Each pass of those brown eyes behind glasses sends another fissure skittering through me.
Near midnight, Oliver bumps my hip. “Still here?”
“Still here.”
He squeezes my elbow. “I’m right here when you’re ready.”
My hands tremble, a hidden tremor I mask by keeping them in constant motion. Nicholas crosses the floor to speak with a server at the bar, his amber scent flooding my workspace, and the mask shatters another inch.
At 12:43, I’m carrying a tray of empty glasses when a hand clamps around my bicep from behind.
“Hey, you work here, right? Can I get—”
Fingers tighten on my arm. They pull me backward as the tray rattles. The room narrows to a tunnel; cold metal presses at my throat; my vision shrinking to a pinpoint. I can’t breathe. I can’t—
“Wilson.”
Oliver. His hand closes around mine, warm fingers threading through my rigid ones. Someone else takes the tray. Oliverangles his body between me and the crowd, his expression so fucking soft, I nearly drop to my knees right there.
“Come with me.”
He leads me to a small room toward the back, near the office but clearly secluded from the rest of the club. I slip through the narrow door to find blankets, several pillows, and a battery-powered lamp wait in the gloom. His scent is everywhere, baked into every surface. Once the door clicks shut, the club’s roar drops to a distant heartbeat.
Oliver guides me down to the floor in this space until I’m pressed against the wall. “I had a lot of… not so nice starts when we first built up this place.” He dims the light and then settles beside me, his thumb finding the back of my hand. He strokes it slowly, my breaths evening out a little. “Lorenzo would always find me in weird, small places. A closet, a stockroom, sometimes even the car when everything got too loud while I was taking out the trash.”
I just stare at the vibrant Omega who looks like he’s taken a bath in glitter, the bright pastel colors he’s dressed in speaking of anything other than the past he’s telling me about.
“I’m way better now. I love the attention and the chaos but every now and then, I just need… a space that isn’t our apartment. So, Lorenzo built me these.” He waves a hand around the small nest. “I’ve got a few, the one in the office kind of disappeared over the years but there’s this one and like four more? But they’re there… if you need them.”
An Omega is offering me his nest, his safe space… and I don’t deserve that either. Even so, the offer loosens the knot in my chest as Oliver curls into my side, changing the topic completely.
