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“Because it did.”

“That’s not an answer.” He shook his head and sighed. “Same Alvin.”

“Fuck you.”

“You want everybody else to say exactly what they’re feeling, but the second somebody asks you⁠—”

“Because you keep choosing being eaten alive on a fucking porch over being in the same room as me!” The words echoed over the water, but neither of us moved. Fuck. Darius stared at me and the tears freely leaking out of my eyes. I looked away. “There. You fucking happy?”

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

“Alvy...”

I started to walk back up the hill. Dee grabbed my wrist, and my whole body went still even though his grip on me wasn’t hard. It never was. Darius D’Angelo wanted the whole world to think he was made of stone, but I knew him for who he really was. Soft. Curious and scared.

“That’s not why I sleep outside,” he said.

I looked at his hand. “Let go of me.”

He did, and the distance hurt the second I felt it slip itself between us again.

I stepped back to deepen the burn. “Then why?”

Darius looked like he was gonna answer me honestly for a moment, and then his walls went back up. “What the fuck do you want from me, Alvin? You’ve been punishing me since we got here.”

“Maybe you deserve it.”

“Maybe I do.” He nodded once, and that stole some of my anger but only some. Darius bent down and gathered his clothes in his arms.

I watched him. “You know those are going to smell like swamp ass.”

“It’s a lake.”

“Fine, lake ass.”

He sighed as if the world was too heavy on his shoulders. “No shit.”

“I’d wash them.”

“Brilliant advice.”

“You’re welcome.”

He stood up, his eyes dropping to my shorts before he shook his head again. “I still can’t believe you had those the whole fucking time.”

I looked down at myself. “Oh, we’re back to this, really?”

“You made me wear a skirt.”

“You looked cute.”

His eyes snapped to mine, and I grinned. A little crack in all that anger but he was determined to hold it as tight as those damn clothes. “Fuck you, Alvin.”

“Keep offering, and don’t be surprised when I take you up on it, pretty boy.”

“Ha! Not if you were the last man alive.”