No. He’d untied Matt before leaving him in that room. He’d been sure of that. Except he’d been so drunk he didn’t even remember getting from that room to his car, and he’d never understood the depth of Matt’s hatred and anger.
Vincent flinched, nausea quickly slicing through his disbelief. “Matt,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Die and go to hell!” Matt shoved past him and down the stairs, with Keith hurrying after him.
He clutched the banister for balance, struggling to get a decent breath. He swallowed hard, forcing down the roiling emotions threatening to overwhelm him.
When he looked up, Jasper was still in his doorway, watching him with wide eyes. How much of that had he heard?
Not that it mattered. Whatever he’d done to make Jasper distance himself from him paled in comparison to Matt’s bombshell. Fuck, hewouldn’t even want a contract with himself right now. “I’ll consider our contract void,” he managed to say. He could at least spare Jasper the trouble of ending it himself.
He stepped back, nearly tripping down the stairs when his feet refused to work properly. He barely got the door to his car open, but it was probably a good thing he couldn’t get the key in the ignition. His fingers refused to cooperate, enough so that the keys finally clattered to the floorboard, and he couldn’t bring himself to try again. He gripped the steering wheel and pressed his forehead against it, struggling to keep his breathing even.
All these years he’d blamed himself for hurting Matt and ruining their friendship, and he’d never understood how much damage he’d done. He never should have let Matt talk him into tying him up. Even drunk he’d known it wouldn’t satisfy either of them. Matt didn’t submit easily, and Vincent had never been interested in anything less than a full-time lifestyle. But heneverwould have left Matt there without untying him. Never would have left him naked and powerless. At a frat party of all things.
He remembered reaching for the ties, pulling the knots free. But nearly every other memory of that night was a black nothingness or a blur, and there was little more than flashes of sense memory or disconnected images from the moment he left the party to waking in the hospital.
The sickening self-loathing he’d felt when he learned his accident had nearly killed someone returned with a vengeance. Somehow it was even worse now, fueled by a decade of ignorance and the fact Matt was living with that trauma because of Vincent’s careless mistake.
He should have died in that accident. There was no reason he should have survived. He didn’t deserve to be alive. He certainly didn’t deserve to be free, with a nice home and thriving business, all because of his grandfather’s money and expensive lawyers. Once he’d healed enough to be discharged, he’d completed his mandatory counseling while finishing his degree at Oxford. It was only when he’d returned to the States with Adam in tow that he’d found Dr. Cohn to ensure he never reached that low point again.
Footsteps smacked against the pavement, and he lifted his head to find Jasper standing near the car. “Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out rough. “I’m leaving.” He swiped his arm acrosshis face and fumbled for the keys with one hand, tugging the door shut with the other. He looked up again when the door didn’t shut, eyeing the hand gripping the top in confusion.
Jasper pulled the door open farther and stepped around it, expression somewhere close to furious. “What do you mean the contract is void?”
Vincent pulled back, unsure how to respond to that as he struggled to switch his focus from Matt to Jasper. “It’s fine,” he finally said. “You don’t need to worry about it. I won’t contact you anymore.”
For some reason that only seemed to piss Jasper off further, but a moment later his expression shattered. “Just like that?”
Fuck. He apparently couldn’t do anything right today. “Trying to keep a contract when one party isn’t committed is a breeding ground for resentment and abuse. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Who said I wasn’t committed?”
Frustration swallowed the dozen replies that got tangled in Vincent’s throat. Instead of trying to voice any of them, he forced in a breath until his lungs ached, then slowly let it back out. “If that’s true,” he finally said, sliding the key into the ignition, “we can talk about it later.”
For now, he needed someplace quiet. When he tugged on the door again, it shut easily, and he didn’t think too much of it until the passenger door opened as he was buckling his seat belt.
Jasper slid into the car, slammed his door shut, buckled in, and sank into his seat without so much as a glance at Vincent. “Go.”
JASPER LINGEREDby the front door of Vincent’s house until Vincent disappeared into his bedroom, then released a slow breath. He’d fully expected to be thrown out of the car and wasn’t even really sure what had made him get in to begin with. He knew he’d fucked up—had known he was fucking up the moment he decided to avoid Vincent—but the thought of everything crumbling between them because of that?
Fuck no. Like hell he’d let something likeironyplay a part in their breakup. When Vincent finally dumped him, it would be because Jasper tried to strangle him with his octopus tentacles of clinginess.
He slipped his shoes off and wandered into the living room, immediately turning towards the kitchen when he smelled somethingcooking. A large pot of soup was keeping warm on the stove. The same chicken noodle soup Vincent had brought him. Because he’d said he was sick.
That more than anything reassured him that what had happened with Matt was a misunderstanding. At worst a terrible accident. The horror on Vincent’s face when Matt had whispered to him was proof of that. Vincent hadn’t hurt him on purpose.
Vincentmade Jasper soupbecause he’d said he was sick. Even Amber had never done more than toss him a sleeve of crackers.
He swallowed against the tightness in his throat and filled a bowl with chicken noodle soup, then sent a quick text to Keith asking him to put the bowl he’d left in his room in the fridge. No sense in letting it go to waste.
He ate two bowls, then settled on the couch to channel surf. Vincent didn’t make an appearance after an hour, but Jasper waited another forty minutes before giving up and creeping up the stairs. He poked his head into the bedroom to find Vincent lying on the bed, one hand on his stomach, his other arm thrown over his eyes.
Jasper hesitated after one step into the room. He knew he had to suck it up and fix things or they’d only get worse, but he wasn’t sure how. He was relatively confident in his ability to patch a person together well enough to keep them alive if they had a minor stab wound, but relationships required skills he’d never managed to develop. But he’d try. He could only hope trying would be enough for now.
He inched into the room and onto the bed. When Vincent didn’t tell him to fuck off, he risked pressing closer, resting his head on Vincent’s thigh. “Hey,” he said softly, settling his hand on Vincent’s stomach. “You awake?”
Vincent sighed. “Yeah,” he murmured, his voice rough.
