“Great,” he muttered. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Most importantly,” she went on, “the boys of the world get to see the man I had a feeling was in there.”
Tierney jerked away, slamming his spine into the booth cushion behind him. “You thought I was gay? Before?”
She shook her head “no” and waved her hand in the air, still chewing her bite of food. Finally she swallowed, wiped her mouth, and leaned across the table, her eyes twinkling. “I thought you were nice.”
He shuddered, and she laughed at him. “Don’t worry, sometimes the nice guy gets the boy.”
Changing the subject to whether she’d be part of his support system was a relief. Compared to fielding her comments on his love life, it was easy. Actually, he kind of wondered why he wanted her in his support system after that, but she dropped all the playfulness and took it very seriously, urging him to call her anytime and she’d do what she could to help.
“What about AA meetings?” she asked him.
“Well, I kinda wanted to wait and see . . .” If he really needed them.
Emily tilted her chin and lifted her eyebrows at him.
“Yeah, I’m looking into them.” He planned on making a list of all the places and times of meetings near him. It couldn’t hurt to have a schedule just in case, right?
After Tierney’d paid the bill—which Em let him do because, as she pointed out, “Our money comes from the same place”—and they were pulling on their coats, she said casually, “Chase would be there for you too, you know.”
Tierney snorted.
“He doesn’t hate you like you think he does.”
“The reverse isn’t true.”
“He knows that,” she snapped. “Why do you think he’s such a dick when you’re around?”
“C’mon, Em,” he said, trying to smooth things over, or explain. “How am I supposed to believe you when the dude is always a jerk? I mean, he doesn’t go out of his way to, like, show me he cares.”
She glared at him, but then it melted into a more thoughtful expression. “I’m going to tell you something he made me promise not to.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” He had a bad feeling about this. “Seriously.”
“When you came over after you got back from Dunthorpe and thanked me for finding a center with an LGBT treatment program? That wasn’t me. It was Chase who found it, and then he convinced your parents that was the best place for you to go.”
“See?” he half whined. “I really didn’t need to know that, ’cause the next time he’s a dick to me I won’t be able to be a dick back. I’ll be all grateful and shit.”
She ignored him to dig her keys out of her purse, and then started for the door. Tierney trailed along behind her like a chastised child. Out front she let him off the hook, though. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that—”
“Oh God, don’t apologize, that makes it worse.”
“—you and your brother have too long a history of hostility.”
Relief over her change of heart became alarm as she went on.
“Neither of you will ever be able to forgive the other, will you? Not unless one of you has some kind of drastic life change, and begins to accept reality.” Rising up to her tiptoes, she kissed Tierney’s cheek and turned to walk off.
It took him a couple of seconds to recover from her parting shot. “I see what you did there,” he called after her. “It’s not going to work, you know. Try it on him, why don’t you?”
She just waved over her shoulder.
Tierney nearly called Dalton on Saturday after his lunch with Emily to see if he wanted to hang out, possibly with a sleepover, but he didn’t.
The memory of him asking, “Did you get what you needed?” after he’d fucked Tierney stopped him.
That word: need. Everything that had happened between them so far, from the first day they met, had been about what Tierney needed. His need for a friend or reassurance, or his need to figure out how to be gay, or his need for help to not drink. He fucking hated that dynamic. He didn’t want to be anybody’s charity case, especially not Dalton’s. Dalton was beautiful and cool and totally out of Tierney’s league, and the last thing Tierney wanted from him was pity.
Emily may think that nice guys sometimes got the boy, but pathetic whiners didn’t deserve the boy.
His mood increasingly spiraled out of control, and by the time he went to bed Saturday night, he was pissed. Angry with Dalton for enabling his dependency but mostly mad at himself for being weak. As he slept, his anger didn’t fade, either. Tierney woke up Sunday morning livid. Thank God he had rugby to look forward to. Maybe he could work out some of his aggressions on the pitch.
He shoved himself out of bed, stalked into the bathroom, ripped his toothbrush out of its holder and took his aggressions out on his teeth. Except that wasn’t enough to cool his jets, so he got in the shower, scrubbing himself too briskly under water that was too hot. Then he attacked his hair with a brush.
Breakfast was brutal. That poor oatmeal never stood a chance. And the grapefruit . . . tragic.
None of it appeased his anger. In fact, his mood got worse. An hour later, standing on Ian’s porch waiting for the dude to answer his knock, he was seething. His breath grated in his ears, and a current of rage vibrated through him.
Sam opened the door.
“Huh.” Sam wasn’t the kind of guy he could just pop off on, or be a dick to as a way to relieve some of his foul mood. He wouldn’t understand.
“Hey T.” Sam smiled at him, stepping out of the way to let Tierney in.
“Um, is Ian ready?” He shifted his weight, but stayed on the porch. “We’re gonna be late.”
Sam leaned against the doorjamb. “He’s in the shower.”
“He’s showering before rugby?” Forget that he’d done that himself.
“Um.” Sam turned slightly pink, pressing his lips together like he was trying not to smile. “He kinda needed to.” The dude had beard burn in spots, especially his neck. His skin was so pale—although less pasty than it used to be—Ian probably roughed it up just by breathing nearby.
Dalton has skin. Lots of it.
“Christ, you two,” he muttered. “You’re like horny teenagers.”
“Ooooo-kay,” Sam said, eyes going wide. “So, you coming in to wait or what?”