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“Wanted to talk to you about Opal,” he said. “Maybe we can get a drink at the Fang if you’re not busy sometime?”

I talked to Vincent about it. He said it would make sense that Damian would reach out to me first instead of him. He said that whatever the break was between him and Damian, it wasn’t going to heal easily, but that Damian had less to be angry with when it came to me. Vincent said it would be up to me. Was I ready to start mending things with him? Did I want to at all?

I wasn’t sure.

But maybe it didn’t hurt to try.

We met at the Fang, and he bought my drink, and we talked about her.

He cried. I cried.

Most of what he said about Opal I didn’t find surprising. That he wished he’d been better to her when she was alive. That he felt they’d missed too much of the time they had together. That he couldn’t help but love the memory of her when he looked at his boys.

But I was surprised at the end.

“I know why she did what she did with Vincent,” he said.

“You do?”

“She was starved for my love,” he said. “I withheld it. I thought that I didn’t have any love to give her, but I’ve realized love isn’t like that. You don’t have a finite well of it. The more you love, the more of it that grows.”

I smiled, nodding. “Yeah, I think that might be true.”

“And Vincent, he…” Damian toyed with his nearly-empty glass. “I think Vincent just wanted someone to notice him.”

I tilted my head to one side, thinking that through.

“When he told me he was jealous, you know, I never thought about it before,” said Damian. “Because I was jealous of him. We both lost our parents, and he got to do whatever he wanted. He got to drink and chase women and live it up. And I had to go on cyning training sessions and then there was you. I had to hold back with you. I wanted—fuck, Leo, the things I wanted to do to you—and I knew I couldn’t. He just did whatever the fuck he wanted.”

“Yeah,” I said, because we’d talked about this.

“But,” said Damian, sighing, “no one paid any fucking attention to him either. I think there were all those girls because he just wanted, you know, to matter?”

I bit down on my lip, thinking that probably made a lot of sense, actually.

“But it wasn’t enough,” said Damian. “No matter how many women would have sex with him, even if it was Opal, even if it was my wife, even if it was… it was never going to matter. Because when you don’t feel like you matter already, no one can do that for you. You have to feel it yourself and then you can accept it from other people.”

“That’s insightful,” I said.

“I thought I was only worth something if I was being useful to other people,” said Damian. “So, I tried to pour myself into it, into serving everyone, the whole community, Opal, my kids, you—”

“Me?”

“Well,” he said, “I was shit at it. Because it was never enough. No matter what I did, I never felt worthy. So, I got resentful a lot. I got, uh, entitled. I would think to myself, ‘I’ve sacrificed so much for people, I deserve to take things for myself.’”

Like the way he had sex with me, for instance.

“But that wasn’t enough either. I had to realize, uh, that I was worthy. And then, when other people appreciated what I did for them, I could actually accept it. Vincent and I are the opposite in some ways, but in other ways, we’re the same.”

“I can kind of see that,” I said.

“I’m glad he has you,” said Damian. “I see the way you look at him, and it’s different than what we had. I took advantage of you, Leo. I’m sorry.”

“But maybe I let you,” I said.

“Oh, that’s bullshit.”

“Not to say that what you did was okay,” I said. “But I don’t think I thought I was worthy either. I thought that I was just here to please you, Damian. I was your prop.”