“No,” Nolan said, trying to force his voice not to tremble. “I’m not like you. I don’t need a pay rise and if I wanted one I’d just ask instead of trying to trick you into doing it. This is about Finn.”
“Really?” Gavin raised an eyebrow. “Come on. You got laid, I’m sorry it wasn’t everything you thought it was, life happens.”
“But it was bullshit,” Nolan said. “Iknowit was bullshit.”
“Oh yeah? He prove that to you?” Gavin asked.
There was no way to prove a negative, and Gavin knew that. Finn could never offer any kind of proof that he hadn’t known about the donations.
Except he had. He had in every moment of kindness he’d shown Nolan, every time he’d taken Nolan’s side against Gavin, even from the very beginning. Nolan was sure he didn’t know about the donations, and even if hedid, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that he’d been there, and showed Nolan love and acceptance he’d never known before. It mattered that he was Finn, and that Nolan…
Loved him.
With all his heart.
And had been too slow and too scared to say so until it was maybe too late.
But Gavin wasn’t getting away with it this time. He’d taken too much.
“He did,” Nolan said. “He proved it to me by the way heis, because he’s not like you, either. He’s honest and open and he cares about what’s best forme, not what he wants me to do. You’ve spent your entire life bullying me. I’m done.”
Gavin, maddeningly, shook his head.
“Think about this, huh? We’re family. You and me, we go way back. You’re gonna throw that all away for some loser who was nice to you once?”
“He’s not a loser,” Nolan said, anger welling up in his chest, pushing out the rest of his nerves. He straightened himself up to his full height, narrowing his eyes and setting his jaw. “I love him.”
The smirk on Gavin’s face made Nolan want to smack it off. He’d never hit anyone in his life, and he didn’t reallywantto, but he would almost have made an exception for Gavin.
“Yeah, okay. I can see you need a little time to think about this,” Gavin said, not taking him seriously at all.
He never had.
They’d see how seriously he took this when his entire I.T. infrastructure started collapsing in a few weeks because he’d never be able to replace Nolan with someone who’d put up with his bullshit. Not with the same skills and expertise.
“We’refamily,” Gavin repeated. “Who the hell’s gonna look after you if I don’t? You thinkFinnis? Dude barely has a job.”
“I’mgonna look after me,” Nolan said. “Because I’m not a kid anymore. And I’m grateful to your parents for everything they did for me, but you’ve hated me for it since the first time they invited me to stay at your house. I can see that now. And I found a new family who doesn’t treat me like crap.”
Hopefully, Nolan could convincethatfamily—Finn, and Ezra, and Oscar, and Ryan, and May—that he was sorry for hurting one of them and he’d work on earning forgiveness.
They were good people. He didn’t deserve them, but he thought maybe they’d have him anyway.
He’d take good people who expected him to be the best person he could be over Gavin any day.
“They gonna want you back?” Gavin asked, twisting the knife in.
Nolan swallowed. It was too late to back down now, anyway.
And he didn’t want to. He wanted this to be over once and for all.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “All that matters is that they showed me I could expect better.”
“You can’t justleave,” Gavin said, heat and anger finally sharpening his tone.
He backed away a step.
