Page 49 of Confession
I want Roman to get help. I want … fuck, I want none of this to have happened to him.
I feel like I’m not allowed to say any of that. Instead I say, “I’m really glad you’re here. You and Lucas.”
Some kind of pain flashes in Roman’s eyes. He looks away from me.
I bite back my frustration. I remind myself that he has every right to hate me.
“Roman?”
I look up to see Lucas in his sweats and t-shirt in the doorway. His light brown hair is messy. His eyes are worried.
Roman is looking his way. His jaw is tight. He’s not happy.
Lucas approaches anyway. His eyes flick to me like he’s worried he’s intruding, but I’m glad he’s here. He’s the one Roman needs. I’m not.
I start to get up, thinking I should leave, but Lucas shakes his head slightly, so I settle back into my chair.
Roman’s hand lifts up and Lucas takes it. He swings his leg over Roman, straddling him face to face. He settles on my brother’s lap.
Nobody on earth could do that with Roman but Lucas. But even with Lucas, Roman tenses. He makes a bad sound like he doesn’t want this, but Lucas puts his arms around Roman’s neck and says quietly, “It’s okay for him to see.”
Lucas rests his face against the side of Roman’s head. A shudder wracks Roman’s body. His arms come up jerkily then close around Lucas, and Roman presses his face against Lucas’s shoulder.
I feel a strange mix of relief and sadness and understanding. Roman doesn’t want me to see him like this, but he trusts Lucas so much that he yielded to him. It’s so beautiful and so heartbreaking.
My throat tightens as I watch them. Their connection. Their trust.
Should I have gone after Quinn?
He and I aren’t like Lucas and Roman. There’s a block between us. That block softened over the last couple days, but it didn’t vanish. And Quinn didn’t leave to keep from waking me. He left to get away from me.
Roman gets up from his chair with Lucas in his arms. Lucas hooks his legs around Roman’s waist.
Roman turns away and walks through the kitchen carrying Lucas. Lucas looks back at me over Roman’s shoulder. I don’t know what he sees in my face, but he smiles a little. Gently. Kindly. Like he’s trying to tell me that everything is okay.
But it doesn’t feel that way.
SIXTEEN
Quinn
There’s a good chance I’m gonna lose my shit sometime soon, and I don’t have a good space to do it. I should’ve gotten away earlier today, taken a drive, gone somewhere remote, but like an idiot, I just worked on shutting down. That was fine while I was avoiding Vitali all day, but now we’re at Eclipse and it’s only a matter of time before he loses patience with me.
He wants me to come talk to him. I’ll admit, that’s a fair expectation, but I am freaking the fuck out and have been since the middle of last night.
I rarely sleep through a night. It shocked the shit out of me two nights ago, after Vitali and I fucked in his room for the first time, to wake up in the morning with him.
That was the start of it.
I sucked him off and came doing it, again, then I spent almost the entire day with him. He wanted to cook out by the pool and he obviously had a plan surrounding it. The problem was, it was so fuckingnice. The whole day. It was so, so good. Fun even.
I think that’s why I didn’t notice that, deep down, I was starting to panic. I didn’twantto panic. I still don’t want to. That’s why I’m walking a circuit of the club, overwhelming myself with stimulation to distract my nervous system.
I can’t think aboutwhyI’m panicking. If I do, it’ll boil up and actually happen. I just have to get through the night, avoid Vitali if possible, get him home, and find a place to lose my shit.
Or maybe I should text Sasha and ask her to take my place.
Fuck, I should probably do that.
