“I don’t need it,” Tag said. “I’m fine. We broke up. People do.”
“Never thought we would,” Keiran said. “Until we did. And maybe, yes, it was my fault.”
Tag raised an eyebrow. “That hurt?” He got up and folded his paper plate in half to toss it in the trash.
“Little bit.” A real smile tugged at the corner of Kieran’s mouth and then faded. “But people do things you don’t expect them to. Like get involved with… marginal elements.”
“Like the margins of staying out of my business?” Tag asked.
“I saw you arrive this morning with the young man on the bike.”
“Really?” Tag asked as he turned around. “You’re trying to pull ‘young man’ on me? Because Bass is older than Freddie and doesn’t work for me. So—”
The muscles in Kieran’s jaw tightened in annoyance, and the familiar inescapable pink flush crawled up from under his collar.
“That’s not the point,” Kieran said stiffly. “I am genuinely concerned about you and what you could get yourself into when you’re still… hurt. The last thing I want is for this to turn into another referendum on my apparent failings.”
Tag had to close his eyes for a second. He took a deep breath and made himself smile at Kieran.
“You’re right. It’s not my business who you f—are with,” he said, the coarse alternative trapped behind his teeth. He swallowed it as he grabbed his phone off the table and shoved it in a pocket. “The thing is that it’s not your business who I sleep with either. So there’s no need to have this conversation.”
“I’ve known you for over a decade, Taggart,” Kieran snapped as he stood up. “Long before I ever saw your penis. I’m not just your ex. I’m your friend.”
“No,” Tag said as he stalked around the worn old lounge chairs and headed out of the room. “You’re not. And you don’t know anything about Bass, so drop it.”
He was almost out when Kieran stated, “Ned told me.”
“What?” Tag already knew, but maybe he was wrong.
Kieran huffed in annoyance. “Oh, what do you think?” he said. “He told me what this Bass did to you last month. The biker with the knife in his leg.”
The door clicked shut again as Tag let go of it. “Screwdriver,” he said as turned around.
“Do I look like I care?” Kieran snapped as he bumped his knuckles against his chest. He stopped, exhaled, and smoothed a hand back over his hair. Once his composure was back in place, he tried again. “Have you forgotten why we moved to Plenty in the first place? Because you did this, the exact same thing, in New York and nearly died.”
The itch in his ribs was psychosomatic. He’d looked at X-rays and MRIs over the years, and the scarring was as good as you could hope for—no inflammation, no adhesions, no complications. But whenever someone noticed it or reminded him of it, he could feel it catch between his ribs like the knife was still in there.
“I didn’t have sex with Mallick,” he said. “He was just….”
He ran out of words. Always had.Patient.Friend.Mentee. None of that actually fit, before or after.Mistakedid, although it kind of undersold the part where Tag had gotten stabbed.
Kieran covered his face with his hands in frustration and snarled against his palms. “You gave him chance after chance,” he said. “I told you that the odds were against him, that kids from his background and his upbringing were nine times out of ten not going to turn their lives around.”
“He was seventeen. No one is done at seventeen.”
“Except I was right,” Kieran reminded him as he pulled his hands down his face, the skin stretched tight and pale under his fingers. His voice cracked, and Tag knew it wasn’t just frustration. “He nearly killed you, Tag. You tried to help him, and he stabbed you, robbed you, and left you to die in the road. How much blood did they need to replace? How many hours did you spend on the operating table?”
“A lot” was the answer to both. Old habits made Tag want to apologize, to offer an olive branch for that disruption of their lives. Under the circumstances, he resisted.
“It’s not the same,” he said.
It wasn’t. If he tried to explain it, he’d look like a horny idiot, but it wasn’t the sex. It wasn’tjustthe sex. He liked Bass, and for some indefensible reason, he trusted him. There was no reason to, but he did.
But that wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever be able to explain to Kieran. He liked to strip people down to cause and effect, every passion just another neurosis from their childhood or their brain chemistry.
“You’re a narcissist,” Kieran said.
“I’m not.”
