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Auden gritted his teeth, part of him wanting to tell Len to take a damn walk, that it wasn’t his business, but of course, it was his business. He’d dragged Len into this too.
“One, she’s not kinky,” Auden said. “We guided her into that.”
Lennox looked to the ceiling and laughed without humor. “Bull fucking shit.” His gaze drilled into Auden. “You think shefakedher reactions?”
Auden winced at the thought.
“Nothing about that was fake. She was into everything we did or would’ve safe-worded if she wasn’t. She loved it. And she doesn’t have the vocabulary to name it yet, but she’s got a praise kink a mile long.” He lifted a brow in challenge. “Or did you forget the part where she told you she’d doanythingto hear you saygood girl?Come on, dude. She’s inexperienced but not vanilla. You uncovered something that was already there. You didn’t put it there. But now she won’t have anyone to help her process that or help it flourish. You did the same thing to her that your upbringing did to you—left her to feel bad about it, to think how she feels is wrong.”
Auden’s fingers curled. He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to remember what O’Neal had said, what it’d done to him, how much he wanted to be the person to feed that craving in her. “Even if she has kinks, it doesn’t matter. You heard her. She loves me. I can’t give her what she wants. I care about her, but I’m not in love with her.”
Lennox stood and tossed the pencil onto his desk. He crossed his arms. “Say it again.”
Auden let out a frustrated huff. “I’m not in love with her.”
Len stepped forward, his green eyes burning holes into him. “We’ve always had one rule between us. We don’t lie to each other. Look me in my goddamned face and tell me you don’t love that woman, that the thought of her with someone else doesn’t drive you nuts, that you don’t want to show her all the things in bed but also curl up with her on the couch and hear what she thinks about movies and life and what she wants from it.”
Auden’s neck muscles tightened to the point of pain, cold dread moving through him.
“Tell me,” Len went on, “that she was just another girl to you.”
Auden turned his head, breaking the eye contact. His gaze landed on the drawings on Len’s desk. There were postcard sketches of O’Neal laughing and Auden looking at her with affection. A sketch of all three of them intertwined in twisted sheets, naked and sated, sleeping peacefully. He swallowed thickly as the images turned into full color in his mind, the night rushing back to him. He closed his eyes.
“Fine,” Auden said softly. “She means something to me. A lot. But it’s not that easy. Loving her isn’t enough. It’s complicated.”
Len let out a long, audible breath. “Thank you. Finally, we can talk about this like grown-ups.” The weight of his hand landed on Auden’s shoulder, and he gripped, shaking him a little. “It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“Right. Sure. It’s totally simple,” he said derisively.
“It could be,” Len went on, voice quieter now. “It’s okay, you know?”
Auden opened his eyes, a hollow tiredness overtaking him. “What is?”
Len’s expression was unreadable. “We’ve been ignoring the very handsome and charismatic elephant in the room since she told you that she loved you.” He put a hand on his own chest. “Me.”
Auden frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” Len crossed his arms. “I know how things have always been, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. She loves you. You love her. The math of that is pretty obvious. I don’t have to be involved. It can just be you two. Cut out the complication.”
Auden tensed, thrown by the suggestion. “Cut out the—you mean, cutyouout?”
Len gave a half-hearted shrug. “I mean, yes, I’ve developed feelings for O’Neal too, and that night together was…as great a night as I’ve ever had. But I’ve known from the start that she’s not just another woman we’re having fun with. I’m not blind.” He met Auden’s eyes, vulnerability there. “She’s special to you. You look at her in a way I haven’t seen you look at anyone before. I’m pretty sure you were already halfway in love with her when she stepped onto campus.”
“Len—”
He lifted a hand. “I’m just saying, I haven’t forgotten our original agreement.”
Auden’s words left him for a moment.
Their original agreement. The one where they promised that if either of them ever met someone they wanted to be in a committed relationship with, the other would back off with no hurt feelings. Panic was edging in.
“Len.”
“As your friend, what I want most is for you to be happy,” he said, a strained note in his voice. “I know what you’re going back to at home. All those expectations. I know these last few years are just your experimental ones. I’ve always known what we’re doing is just a college thing for you.”
A college thing? Experimental?Auden’s ears began to ring like he’d stepped out of a loud concert. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Come on, Aud. If that wasn’t the case, you’d be a film major, not a film minor,” he said, no ire in his voice. “You’re going to go back home and help run your dad’s company and be the boss one day and live in a nice big house in a nice fancy neighborhood with your loving wife and family behind you. I’ll be that weird, artsy friend from college you sometimes see when you’re in town.”
