Boyd rolled over onto his side, one leg tucked through Morgan’s, and didn’t say anything for a second. “What if we have?” he asked. “From what you told me about your childhood, there’s nothing to say you aren’t him. Two DNA matches say that you could be. From what you told me, there’s nothing you remember from when you were a kid that says you couldn’t be.”
“Except I’m not.” Morgan let go of Boyd’s hand, sat up, and swung his legs out of the bed. The wooden floor was cold under his feet as he leaned over to brace his elbows on his bare knees. His cock hung between his thighs. “People don’t get those stories.”
“Would it be so bad if you were him?” Boyd asked. “You know I don’t care, but you know the odds are… not against it.”
“Life’s against it,” Morgan said. “Happy ever after is for kids. We get… what we take until someone else takes it away. Besides, I thought you didn’t care.”
Boyd got up and crawled to the edge of the bed. He sat down next to Morgan and leaned against him, his chin on Morgan’s shoulder and his hand resting on Morgan’s thigh, fingers spread over the muscles.
“You need to know. Shay—”
Morgan growled under his breath out of habit. A nudge from Boyd made him lock the grumble behind his teeth. He couldn’t help the scrape of jealousy. Boyd might love him now, but he loved Shay too, in his way. As a kid Morgan had learned not to share. It only left you short something.
“I already know,” Morgan said. “I’m not.”
There was a pause, and then Boyd nodded, his chin bony as it dug into Morgan’s shoulder.
“Okay,” he said as he pulled away and lay back down. “I need to get some sleep. You coming back to bed?”
“No,” Morgan said.
Then he made the mistake of looking around at the bed, at Boyd sprawled out over the sheets on his stomach, pillows folded in half in his arms. He wanted to crawl in there with him. He wanted to sit and watch him sleep like some pervert. There was nothing he could do until morning, he supposed, so he might as well get back into bed, even if he didn’t think he was going to get back to sleep.
“I love you,” he told Boyd again, just to say it aloud since Boyd was already out for the count. “If I could have this, I’d be him.”
THE JITTERof Boyd’s knee rattled along the row of linked chairs. They’d been in the police station for half an hour. Coffee and excuses were free. Explanations weren’t.
“Stop that,” Morgan growled. He grabbed Boyd’s knee, fingers too tight for patience, and pressed Boyd’s heel flat to the ground.
“Thank you,” Donna said tartly. “He never could sit still.”
“Leave him alone,” Shay objected. “He can’t help it.”
Boyd scowled but tangled his feet around the legs of the chair. A second later he started to tap the steel-shod sole of his boot against the metal struts. It jarred the seat under Morgan and made a noise. He clenched his jaw against his annoyance and tried to ignore it.
It was impossible.
Morgan impatiently shoved himself to his feet. The expectant expressions everyone turned on him put his back up more. Morgan didn’t usually have to justify what he did or when.
“I’m going to the vending machine,” he said irritably. “If that’s all right with everyone.”
Donna gave him a long, suspicious look. Since she’d given her permission—and her blood—for the test, it seemed to have occurred to her that he might not be Sammy. Now she seemed to weigh everything he did on an invisible scale of Sammy or Not-Sammy in her head.
It was Not-Sammy. Morgan knew that, but it still felt strange to be constantly weighed.
Boyd just fished a pair of earphones out of his pocket and popped them into his ears to drown them all out. The apology hovered on Morgan’s tongue, but the sharp, sullen part of him that was still angry didn’t want to let it escape.
He stalked out of the police station, a brisk “I’ll be back in a minute” tossed to Pitt as she tried to herd him back in, and around the corner to where the single dusty vending machine sat in its metal cage. Morgan fed in coins and grabbed the Mars bar it spat out.
“Hey,” a voice said behind him. In the vending machine Morgan saw a face he’d last seen on the back of a book cover. He turned around. The man stuck out his hand. “Ben Sullivan.”
“I know.”
“Popcorn,” Sullivan said with a nod at the machine. He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it over. “And once this has all wrapped up, maybe an interview.”
Morgan took the card. It was just black ink on white, a name and number in neat block letters.
“Nothing to talk about,” he said. “An hour from now I won’t be a story anymore, and no one will care what I have to say.”
