“You’re the one whowantedthis divorce,” Noah snapped. “And now you’re going to drag this out and have complete strangers dissect our personal lives?”
“I’m not splitting my 401k with you,” Larkin said shakily.
“It’s joint marital property,” Noah objected.
“Noah, I’m having a literal meltdown. I can’t talk to you.”
“If I had a dollar for every time you said that, I wouldn’t be needing my half of the account.”
Larkin pulled the phone away, tapped the screen three times with numb fingertips before he managed to end the call, dropped the cell on the floor—the loud crack echoing off hardwood—and scrambled to his feet.
He barely made it to the toilet before he threw up.
Sleep had long ago become an elusive beast, even on Larkin’s best days. But now, with Xanax withdrawals scratching his brain raw, and no more ZzzQuil to help exhaust his relentless thinking and all but force his body to catch a few hours of rest, the sudden glow of the bedside lamp lurching him from a precarious sleep was enough to boil Larkin’s blood. But then, in that hazy, semiconscious state, the unmistakable scent of neroli and sandalwood and cardamom flooded his senses.
Larkin opened his eyes and startled at the out-of-focus, haloed silhouette sitting on the mattress, leaning over him.
“It’s just me,” Doyle whispered, his voice low, warm, intimate.
Larkin sat up quickly, forcing Doyle to put distance between them or chance knocking their heads together. He glanced at the alarm clock on the other side of the bed—3:10 a.m. Larkin looked back at Doyle.
Witching hour or not, Doyle was beautiful, with that wild, finger-combed chocolate-brown hair, the perpetual scruff, those thick, expressive brows, and brown eyes that sparkled like sunshine hitting a cache of raw pyrite. He was dressed in a pair of light gray tweed trousers with a subtle herringbone pattern, a white button-down, and navy tie with a striking silver-and-gold motif. His suit coat had probably been shoved onto one of the rungs of the ladder on the other side of the french doors. He still wore a lanyard and nametag around his neck:North American Forensic Artists Symposium, Ira Doyle.
A carry-on-sized suitcase had been shoved up against the dresser.
“I was at a presentation hosted by the FBI when I got your message,” Doyle explained. “I tried calling back a few times.”
—Lying on the cool tiled floor of the bathroom, Xanax bottle in his hand, thinking about a relapse, wanting a relapse, needing a relapse, and the phone still in the kitchen, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing with unanswered calls—
“Hey….” Doyle reached out, threaded his fingers through Larkin’s ash-blond hair. “Don’t be upset.”
“I knew you were calling.” Larkin faltered, his voice thick. “But I couldn’t—I made you leave your conference.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Ira.”
“Okay. Well, you weren’t answering and I needed to know you were okay.” Doyle only then seemed to notice the lanyard around his neck. He tossed it to the nightstand before adding, “It’s not a big deal. I’ll miss tomorrow’s closing remarks and a mediocre hotel brunch.”
Larkin narrowed his eyes and swallowed the knot of exasperation in his throat.
But whatever Doyle saw in Larkin’s expression only made him smile. “Can I have a hug?”
The request was enough to put a pause on the beginnings of Larkin’s spiral, because even if he didn’t speak Doyle’s love language, needed reminders, needed prompting—and Doyle always asked because he knew unsolicited touch could trigger negative associations—fulfilling Doyle’s wants had, of late, become one of Larkin’s top priorities in life.
Larkin sat up on his knees—he wore only a ratty gray T-shirt and a pair of form-fitting trunks—slid across the bed until he straddled Doyle’s left leg that’d been drawn onto the mattress, and wrapped his arms around Doyle’s neck. Doyle drew both hands up Larkin’s thighs and around to the curve of his ass. Fingertips slid underneath the shirt to tiptoe along the links of Larkin’s spine, as if Doyle was memorizing every shape and texture, before he eventually held Larkin’s waist and sighed like cross-country jetlag had finally caught up to him.
Larkin wasn’t, by any means, a clingy personality when it came to relationships—physically or emotionally—but there was no denying that spending the last four days apart, of the only twenty-one they’d been dating, had been an unexpected difficulty that Larkin hadn’t enjoyed. He brought his hands up to cup either side of Doyle’s face, rubbed the gritty stubble, kissed his mouth once, twice, until Doyle made that incredible mewl of pleasure in the back of his throat.
Larkin broke the kiss. “You okay?”
“One more of those and I’ll need a cold shower.”
“Sorry.”
Doyle disentangled himself and stood. “Never apologize for how hot you are.”
Larkin drew his knees up, rested his arms atop them, and watched as Doyle undressed. In the first fifty-one days of knowing each other, they had occasionally kissed and hugged while carefully skirting the elephant in the room because Larkin had been on medical leave. Larkin had been in the middle of a divorce. And despite his bruised and battered and worn-out heart, Larkin loved too easily. Doyle had seemed content with their setup too—he’d never been quiet about his attraction, but respected the multiple barriers Larkin had erected. And even though Doyle had been single for some time, he only ever asked for companionship, for friendship, even at the cost of his own well-being.
