Page 35 of Part & Parcel

“Why?” Kelly croaked.

“What’s wrong,” Nick asked as he stepped closer. “What happened? What are you doing?”

Kelly stared into Nick’s green eyes, trying to wipe the image of the video from his mind and tell himself that Nick wouldneverhurt him.

“I . . .” Kelly was at a loss for words, though. He looked back at the laptop screen, shaking his head.

Nick slid into the banquette beside him, turning the laptop so he could see the screen. It took a few seconds of watching and listening for Nick to realize that he was seeing himself and Aidan. “Jesus, Kels. What the fuck?”

“I found an SD card in a file.”

“Kelly!”

“Needed to check what was on it.”

Nick stopped the video, then shoved the laptop away from them. “That was Aidan,” he said quickly, turning in the bench so he was facing Kelly. “He liked to use his phone . . . That was the guy I—”

“I know,” Kelly said, but he realized the words hadn’t quite come out.

“Kelly,” Nick said sharply. “Babe, that was before us.”

Kelly shook his head, clearing his throat, and then nodded.

Nick’s hand landed on his shoulder and shook him, turning him so he was forced to face Nick. “Kelly,” he said forcefully. “Look at me. Talk to me.”

“It just . . . I wasn’t prepared for what I was seeing.”

Nick ducked his head, maintaining eye contact when Kelly tried to look away. “Kels. Tell me what . . . Do I need to fix this? What do you want me to do?”

Kelly shut his eyes tightly. “No,” he said, trying to smile and meet Nick’s eyes. His mind flashed back to the look of possessive lust he’d seen in those eyes when Nick had watched Aidan move, and he tried to shake it off. All he managed to do was replay in his mind the moment that Nick had breached Aidan and they’d both moaned as they wrapped around each other. And there were four more videos just like that one. Kelly shook his head violently. “It’s in the past. It just caught me off guard.”

They sat together in the banquette, eyes locked, the laptop casting Nick’s skin in a bluish glow. Kelly’s eyes strayed to the screen, where the video was paused with Nick’s muscular shoulders strained as he held his former lover to the bed, where another man’s legs were wrapped around him.

Nick slammed the laptop closed and yanked out the SD card.

Kelly’s stomach turned and he scooted away from Nick, escaping from the other end of the banquette to stand and pace away.

“Kelly?”

“I need some air.”

“Doc, wait.” Nick scrambled to the edge of the bench seat and grabbed for Kelly’s hand. His grip was gentle, his eyes pleading.

Kelly grunted. “I just need some air, okay?”

“I’m sorry this upset you, babe. I had no idea it even existed. I didn’t know he saved them.”

“It’s not that,” Kelly groaned. He squeezed Nick’s hand, knowing it wasn’t fair to push him away when he’d done literally nothing wrong.

Nick sat on the edge of the bench seat, holding Kelly’s fingers carefully, watching him with a mixture of fear and hope. Kellyhatedthat Nick looked sick and nervous right now. He hated that Nick was probably ready to do whatever Kelly asked right now to make amends for something that wasn’t even wrong. They’d both been with people in the past. Hell, Kelly had watched Nick have sex with women before, live, right there in the room with him. They’d even shared one night with the same woman: Kelly’s first experience with another man anywhere near him in a sexual way, and it had been with Nick.

It wasn’t the sex that was upsetting him. Not really. Sure, Kelly wasn’t thrilled to have the mental image of Nick with another man in the very same sheets they had on their bed right now, but he knew himself well enough to know that a part of him was a little turned on by it too.

“It’s just . . . I thought it was of us at first,” he managed to say. “And then it wasn’t my voice talking to you. And it wasn’t me you were touching. And my first thought was . . . my first thought was, ‘When did this happen?’ And I hate that I thought that at all.”

Nick huffed out a gust of air like Kelly had jabbed him in the stomach. His grip on Kelly’s fingers loosened more. “You know I’d never do that, right?”

Kelly nodded jerkily. “I know. A year ago, I don’t think I would have even had the thought. But you know . . . I alwaysknewI could tell when you were lying, Irish. And Iknewyou would never lie to me in the first place. And Iknewyou would never, ever hurt me. And the past year, everything that’s happened? We bothknowI was wrong.”

---