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I’ve just clicked the safe shut and rushed to drop in my dad’s chair when Alec bursts through the door.
I glance up with the intention of glaring, but instead, a loud laugh bursts from me.
Blood is dried and stained on his gray Blackline T-shirt. I’m assuming it came from that busted lip of his, maybe even a little from the black eye he’s also sporting, but I don’t see an opening there.
Alec does the glaring instead. “What are you doing?”
“Admiring Rowan’s work.” I smirk, scanning his face.
He ignores me, suspicion creating deep creases near his eyes. “This is the first time you’ve set foot in this office since we came back to work.”
“How the hell do you know?”
He shifts to lean against the doorframe, and I force my eyes away from the way his shirt tightens around his biceps as he does.
I clear my throat, and with a death grip around my bag, I stand and head toward him.
He doesn’t budge from the doorway, so I stop in front of him, slowly looking up to meet his eyes. My forehead creases the second ours connect, and his face falls.
A hand comes up to caress me, I’m sure, but I use the small space it’s created to dip beneath his arm and head back down the hall.
He’s hard to ignore, harder to resist, and when he looks at me like he’s the broken one, sad and desperate for what only I can give, I can’t help but wanna fix him.
Then, the moans of his wife replay in my ears, and I want to cut his dick off and then feed it to him.
“Oakley.”
“Back off, Alec. I’m only going to the storage room to check for something.”
I hold my breath until I hear the door shut behind me, letting me know he didn’t follow. Then, I quickly walk around the building to get out of view, spotting Rowan at the other far end.
He stands there with his hands on his hips, chin dropped to his chest. His lips are moving, but his eyes are on the ground. When his right hand rises to cover his mouth in thought, I walk closer, but as I do, a hand reaches out, locking around his wrist, and I freeze.
Rowan’s head lifts, his shoulders visibly dropping as he lets the person pull him closer. The hand lifts, smoothing over the bruising on his jaw before dipping into his brown hair.
I watch as Rowan’s head falls back from the feeling, and then the figure steps closer, closing the small gap that still existed, the body no longer hidden behind the end of the building.
My eyes widen as the two form one—chest-to-chest, eye-to-eye, and—holy shit … lip-to-lip.
My mouth drops open.
I try to move, to backtrack or disappear or something. Anything other than standing right here, right now.
Anything other than seeing what happens.
My bag slips from my fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud that might as well be as piercing as a fire alarm.
Four eyes fly to mine—one set narrowing, the other widening.
And my heart clenches when Rowan turns, shoving Gio away from him before storming off.
Gio stumbles back into the building. He turns, hitting the wall with the underside of his fist, his forehead dropping to the concrete wall.
Oh, Rowan.
I knew my best friend had a secret, but I never imagined it was something he himself was frightened by.
I continue forward, and Gio turns to stand tall, daring me to judge, maybe expecting me to berate him. Who knows what he thinks of me?
I step forward, and his body stiffens a moment, but when I wrap my arms around this guy—who, until sixty seconds ago, was nothing more than a recruit of mine—he lets me. It takes him a second, but then a shuddered exhale leaves him, and his arms clench around me.
I have no idea what to say, and I’m guessing neither does he because he pulls back, spins on his heels, and walks away without a word.
I let out a deep sigh, cursing myself, and then mirror the position he took against the wall.
I made my best friend feel bad about not loving me when, all this time, he was doing exactly as he said. I just didn’t hear the words between the lines, ones I’m betting he just learned himself.
He was trying to love me, without a doubt, with all he had, just as he told me.
But he couldn’t, and now, we both know why.
Rowan is gay. And he’s afraid of his own truth.
I look to my bag, the desire to read the files completely gone, as new urgencies require my focus.
I grab it and turn to jog around the corner, hoping to catch up with Rowan before lunch is over, but I freeze in place, gasping before I charge forward and barrel into the side of Alec, who has his hands around Gio’s throat.
