Page 25 of Part & Parcel

“And he didn’t even tell me of his own free will! Oh no, no, I hear about it fromTy, and why? Because Nick can’t talk right now, Nick’s handcuffed to the damn bed because he went and confessed to murder and stuff after stabbing himself for sympathy! He can keep it from me for an entire year of fucking me, but one puppy-dog look from Ty and he’s spilling his guts out. Literally!”

“Yeah . . . Doc, I was there.”

“Fucking fooledmejust like everyone else! Lied to me like I was his mother! That’s not the kind of secret you keep from someone while you’re asking them to marry you!”

“Doc, are you more upset that he murdered Richard Burns, or that he did it without you knowing and helping?”

Kelly scowled as Owen’s questions finally broke through the cloud of rage, but he didn’t really have to contemplate the answer for very long. “The second one,” he admitted. “He knows I would have helped him. I’ve told him dozens of times, I’m with him no matter what.”

“That’s sweet and kind of psychotic,” Owen mumbled. “Okay, back on track.”

Kelly huffed and nodded. “Bottom line, he thought I was punishing him. That I was withholding declarations of love as some sort of penance for what he did.” Kelly’s heart ached just thinking about it, what Nick had been going through, suffering silently with his guilt and pain because he thought that was what Kelly wanted him to do. He cleared his throat and ducked his head, tapping the ashes from his cigarette.

“I can see how that would be upsetting,” Owen said evenly. “For youandfor him. That was the fight?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said, not looking up.

“And that was why you got the weird feeling off him, because he was bending over backward trying to gain forgiveness. Like Nick does.”

Kelly squeezed his eyes closed. He hated that Nick had even considered the idea that he needed to regain anything from Kelly, hated that he might have asked Kelly to top him as some sort ofofferingand not because he’d wanted it. He hated Nick for it, and he hated himself for being so fucking blind to his own behavior and to Nick’s. He finally forced himself to meet Owen’s eyes again. “I felt like shit when I realized it. And you know how Nick is, he was just . . . anything he could say to make it better. I finally screamed at him, I didn’t want him to make it up to me, I just wanted him to behimagain.”

“Ouch,” Owen whispered.

Kelly nodded, his chest twisting uncomfortably. “And the look in his eyes when I said that? Johns, it was like I fucking punched him in the gut. He just . . . withered. All the fight in him is gone.”

“Well hell, Doc, what do you want from the man? All the fight in him is gone because he used it all.”

“I know. I fucking hate myself for saying that to him.” Kelly bit his lip and sighed, waiting for Owen to give him advice or a verdict oranything. His cigarette was almost gone when he put it between his lips.

“How’d you end up in Colorado?” Owen finally asked.

Kelly shrugged. “We both just stopped in the middle of it, like . . . you know, what the hell are we doing here? Nick told me it wasn’t fair to me that this was happening, that he wanted me to take a week or two and do whatever I wanted. And he wanted a week or two to himself to do the same. And it sounded like a good idea at the time.” Kelly sighed and stared off at the quiet woods.

“This was a week ago?”

“Roughly, yeah.”

“Have you talked to him since you left?”

Kelly shook his head.

“Did you call me because you needed to vent, or because you want advice?”

“Advice, please.”

“Okay. Get your head out of your ass and call your boyfriend.”

Kelly snorted.

“YouknowNick, Doc. You know that if he thinks he’s lost something, he’ll let it go. If you told him he wasn’thimanymore, that you might not be able to forgive him for what he did, he’ll take that as contract terminated and he’ll let you go without a peep of complaint, thinking that’s what you want. If you’re waiting for him to call you or come to you and tell you he needs you back, you’re going to be waiting just like Ty did that year they didn’t speak. That’s just not who Nick is.”

Kelly’s insides roiled. He smashed his cigarette out in the dish on the table, trying not to hyperventilate at the mere thought of it. “You’re right,” he croaked. “Jesus, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m pretty sure Ty’s still in Boston right now, you could ping him, get some inside info.”

“Ty’s in Boston?”

“Yeah. He went up to go to the home opener with Nick last week. He stayed all week so he could catch the marathon, too. You didn’t know? I just figured you were all there together.”

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