Page 112 of Men in Shorts

“Of me?”

“Never.” Andrew bit his lip, knowing his next words would sound insane. “You didn’t scare me, because I wasn’t here.”

“What do you mean? Where were you?”

“I was…it was Frederick Street. The nineteenth of September.”

Colin’s body tensed behind him. “When I got stabbed? That’s what this is about? Are you still afraid for me?”

“No. Well, yes, I do fear for your safety, but also…” Andrew stopped, twisting the corner of his pillowcase. Evan had said Colin would understand what it was like to suffer in silence. But when it came to The Incident, Colin had been the hero. How could he know what it was like to live with the memory of doingnothing?

“I cannae help if you don’t tell me.” Colin pressed his face against Andrew’s nape. “Do you not want my help?”

“I do. I need it.” Andrew’s chest tightened, as if trying to crush the truth before it could escape. “I’m afraid for you, but also for myself.”

There. He’d confessed.

“That makes sense,” Colin said. “What happened to you would scare anyone.”

“Not this much. Every time I have to leave our flat, I think of a million reasons not to go. All I want is to stay here with you, and for you to stay here with me.”

Andrew stopped, too lightheaded to keep talking.

Colin whispered his name as he took his hand, his palm warm and dry against the icy slickness of Andrew’s skin.

Andrew turned his head slightly, fixing on a square of weak sunlight on the guest bedroom wall. “You must hate me now.Youwere the one hurt that day, not me. Nothing happened—” His breath caught in a near hiccup. “Nothing happened to me.”

“That’s not true.” Colin held him tighter. “You were the target. You were the one betrayed by people you trusted. You feared for your life.”

“So did you.”

“I never had time. I was too busy fearing for yours. But sometimes I still get stuck in that moment I saw you cross the street with Reggie, the moment I knew something was wrong. It’s like the memory grabs me and I cannae move.”

Yes. That was it exactly. “So what do you do? How do you get unstuck?”

“I try to ground myself in the here-and-now. Find something concrete to remind me where I am—andwhenI am. Like, if there’s a window, I look outside. I see trees with no leaves and I know it’s not September.” Colin’s shins brushed against Andrew’s calves. “If there’s no window, I just focus on the floor under my feet, or the chair under my arse.”

“Is that all it takes? If I do this, I can forget what happened?” For the first time in the new year, Andrew felt hope.

“You’ll never forget it.” Colin rubbed his thumb over Andrew’s. “But you can learn how to remember it in a way that doesnae do your head in. It just takes time and work.”

Andrew wiped his eyes, then shifted his head on the pillow again, trying to find a spot that was neither soaked with tears nor stiff and starchy from those he’d shed this week. He didn’t see what good it would do to think differently about the past. No amount ofworkwould change the fact he was responsible for Colin’s injury.

Colin fidgeted with one of the back harness straps. “It’d probably also help not to trigger yourself with this sort of madness.”

Andrew’s face heated. “How was I to know I’d react like that? We used to play this way all the time.”

“Aye, we did, but…”

But things changed, because of me. That’s why I have to change them back.

“Look, this was my fault,” Colin said. “I knew something was off. Should’ve listened to my gut instead of my prick. I’m so sorry.”

Andrew’s tension eased a little, now that they were discussing the present instead of the past. “I should have said ‘foosball,’ but once you tied me up, most of me left the room.” He had only a vague memory of Colin’s hands and mouth on him. “Also, I was right—I really don’t fancy being hit.” Even now, the thought of Colin’s blow made Andrew want to shrink into himself.

“Good, cos I really don’t fancy hitting you.” Colin stroked Andrew’s arm with his fingertips. “Were you spanked when you were a wean?”

“No one ever struck me. What about you?”

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