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Oliver was immediately up straight, his eyes wide. “What? I’m not the arse here!”
“Really? So, you fuck your boyfriend, then run out on him immediately after?” Leo’s eyes narrowed at his sibling. “He told me what happened.”
Feeling a fresh wave of panic rippling from his gut, Oliver threw his hands over his face. “You don’t understand. I didn’t run out on him because we fucked.”
“According to him, thatiswhat happened. He said you fucked, then out of nowhere you just shouted at him to get out.”
Swallowing thickly, Oliver picked at a loose thread on the side of his blanket. His stomach was twisting around itself because that wasn’t what happened. Gabe had twisted the events. “It had nothing to do with that. The sex was bloody amazing.”
“Then you might want to explain, because I’m about four seconds from punching you in the face,” Leo warned.
Oliver gave him a withering look. “He saw my scars.”
Leo’s face immediately softened. “Did you tell him about—”
“No,” Oliver said in a sharp rush. “I told him I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“And?” Leo pressed, his brows still dipped into a low frown.
“And…he kept pushing.”
Leo let out a frustrated groan. “Believe me, I understand what that’s like, Ollie, but you shouldn’t have kicked him out like that.”
“Probably not,” Oliver said quietly, feeling like somehow he and Leo had reversed roles, and the younger was now more mature and understanding than he could ever be. “I didn’t…I can’t…” He sighed, scrubbing his face. “I don’t want him to know, alright? I don’t want to have to explain what she did, and how it made me feel about—” my body, he finished silently, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“You know at some point you will have to tell him,” Leo said. “And you have to trust that he’ll understand.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Oliver retorted. “He didn’t listen to me about what I needed.”
Leo’s gaze dropped to his lap. “I get it. But you need to tell him that. And your timing with this whole thing was piss-poor.”
“How?” Oliver demanded. “
“You made him think you panicked from the sex, Oliver. He’s been dysphoric all fucking weekend. He said you did a total one-eighty on him. He thinks the shirt thing was just an excuse to get him to leave without looking transphobic.”
“Well,fuck,”
Feeling like he’d been kicked in the stomach, Oliver got to his feet. He’d been so caught up in his panic, he hadn’t stopped to consider how his total mood flip might have looked to someone else. In his own head, it made sense. In his own head, where he understood every nuance of his trauma, his anger was justified.
But to Gabe who knew very little about Oliver’s past? Who had taken a risk fucking Oliver and bearing himself the way he did?
Leo was right. Gabe deserved some explanation. He needed to know it had nothing to do with his body.
Oliver was just shattered in a billion pieces, and he wasn’t sure there was a way to put him back together.
“For the record,” Leo called as Oliver shuffled toward the stairs for a shower, “he will understand. So maybe keep that close to your chest when you see him.”
Eight
“He’s the assistant manager over at the Fourth Street bookshop, and I believe he’s on shift right now,” Leo had called as Oliver was heading for the door.
He hadn’t known that, and had intended on first checking Gabe’s apartment, then posting outside the café until the other man arrived. But the information was helpful, and the little used bookshop wasn’t far from their house.
The late afternoon was nice, the slight breeze promising colder temperatures as autumn waited right around the corner, and it helped clear his head as he moved through the upscale neighborhood. His eyes wandered as he strolled, hands in his pockets, gaze flickering between the people he passed. All of them looked content, some even happy, and he wondered if he was destined to feel this aching pit in his stomach for the rest of his life.
Somewhere deep in the back of his head, he knew it was his own fault. No one else was doing this to him. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself, and he didn’t know why. He wasn’t foolish enough to think he could be saved by some prince charming swooping in—hell he had no desire for that at all. But he didn’t know where to begin.
Though, apologizing to Gabe was a good start.
