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The man offered his hand.
“Cody.”
Leo took Cody’s offer, but when they shook hands, a shiver raced down Leo’s spine as if someone walked over his grave and quietly whispered…please wake up.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
The next morning, an odd vibe filled the Air BnB Leo and Kai were staying in. Leo had caught Kai returning home in the early hours, much like he had himself. Time had been lost with Cody, so much Leo hadn’t wanted to drag himself back, but out of respect for Kai and hating the bad blood between them over all this mess, he’d made the trip home. He was just dreading walking out into the hallway and bumping into him, and he suspected Kai felt the same.
It was weird. He felt justified for being pissed off with Kai and Quint, but time with Cody, away from them had sharpened his perspective, or soothed it, he just couldn’t work it out. Being with Cody last night had mattered, and everything else? The grief? His head told him what his heart seemed to already know: let it go.
Leo heard Kai’s bedroom door swing open, Kai obviously having finished his morning meditation. He walked into the kitchen in his dressing gown, making a beeline for the coffee machine, then snapped a coffee pod into place in the machine as they awkwardly nodded at each other.
“You want one?” offered Kai.
“G’wan then.” Leo mocked Kai’s Irish accent.
Kai laughed softly, which brought a smile to Leo too.
“You okay, then? With me?” Kai threw him a look. “You left us pretty pissed off last night. Rightly so. We spent half the night looking for you.”
They had? Leo winced. Of course Kai would have done. Quint too. “I met someone last night.”
Kai slowly placed his coffee cup on the kitchen worktop. “Sorry, you what? Again?”
Leo snorted a chuckle. Yeah… again. “I can’t explain it, but we just clicked.”
Kai narrowed his eyes and Leo swore he read something in his soul Leo wouldn’t ever be able to see. “It go okay?”
Leo tried to think back, most of the night a blur after the cake. “Wemighthave done some stuff.” He blushed. “There’s something there, you know? More so than with Quint. God, I feel like a right shitbag, and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think this guy was someone special, but I kind of seized the moment and just went for it. I’m a bad person, aren’t I?”
“Because you’re with Quint, right?”
Leo huffed out a sigh and sat down. “Yeah.” He buried his head in his hands. “Look, I get it. He’s not sure about me. But I’m just not sure about him either. If I’m honest, I never really was. There’s something about him that’s so, I dunno… distant? But at the same time?” He sniffed, drawing his nose along his arm and catching Cody’s scent. “Something about him felt familiar. “I suppose that’s what all that shit was about last night when I kicked off. I kind of wanted to find some excuse to dump him, I guess. Sorry if that seems like I was using you as an excuse, I feel shite about that, I really do.” Mostly because he hadn’t really seen it clearly until this morning. “I just latched on to something I imagined I was missing and ran with it.”
Kai offered a soft smile. “And this… other guy. He’s giving you that something you’re missing?”
Leo shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. It’s all confusing, you know?”
The doorbell rang, and Leo went and opened it.
Quint stood in the porch, looking extremely guilty. “I, er…” He peered over Leo’s shoulder at Kai.
“You want to see Kai, right?”
Quint blushed, nodded. “You still look pissed. Has Kai said anything yet? About us needing to talk?”
“Talk?” Leo let him in, and they went over to Kai.
“Yeah. Talk,” said Kai. “We need one.” He frowned for a moment, then took a deep sigh. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but you were right. There was something weird going on last night at the club when we met. Quint and I, I mean,”
Leo folded his arms. Yeah, he knew something had been going on, all right. “Carry on.”
Kai eyed Quint. “We do know each other, but it’s not what you think. I didn’t know whoyourQuint was until we turned up at the club last night. We’d been chatting on an app for a couple of weeks you see and-”
“An app?” Leo frowned.
“A dating one,” said Quint. “I was on it when I met you, Leo. Kai and I had been chatting for a while before we met and I just kind of carried on the conversation. Nothing ever happened between us because of the distance thing, so we kind of stayed friends. I told Kai I had started seeing someone, but Kai had no idea it was you, I swear.”
