Jack stood in the doorway, absolutely awkward and out of place, but he—he didn’t notice the mess, any of it, and didn’t even glance at Genni or her French lace stockings with frilly garters. He was just staring at Theo with such naked intensity that—fuck, maybe she was right.

Theo felt Genni tense next to him. She glared at Jack, then kissed Theo on the head as she picked up her jacket, stood, and muttered, “Do you want me to stay?”

He shook his head, reluctant but certain. He guessed this confrontation was inevitable, like they’d been hurtling toward it for twenty years. Hopefully he could get it over with fast and then get so damned drunk that he forgot his name.

Or maybe—he looked at Jack’s face—maybe there was something—

“All right.” Genni kissed him again, and in a whisper, “Just try, would you?” She crossed to Jack, the heel-clacking noise angry and brutal. “You!” she barked, and jabbed at his chest. “Testicles!”

“Understood.”

As she left—muttering with artistic profanity all the things she wanted to do with his intimate parts—Jack kept looking at him, and looking, and Theo—he was a mess, the burning butt of a cigarette in hand, and whiskey in his bloodstream, and he loved him, painfully, without doubt, and it was the absolute fucking worst, and—

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here,” and he dropped to his knees like a dramatic madman, the remains of the Ming vase cutting into his skin, “To beg.”

Jack was gone. An irrefutable fact. A truth.

Who cares, he thought, and who the hell needed him in the first place?

Theo stalked through the club, right to the middle of the dance floor, and wedged himself between two hard bodies, desperate for the cleansing fire of someone else’s touch. His muscles were sore from crying and trying not to cry, and he felt, for the first time since he’d gotten to Cork, entirely unclean.

He smelled something rotting. The scar on his lip almost burned.

“Hi, gorgeous.” A voice from behind him. Theo reached his arm back and wound his fingers through coarse hair. He felt solid, warm, good to lean on, but his scent wasn’t quite right.

And the man in front of him was attractive enough, but he couldn’t help compare—his hair was too tidy, his leer too obvious, and whatever he was grinding up against Theo’s leg was...unsatisfactory.

Please, please, Theo. Just forget about him. Forget.

He felt a stiffness against his ass—a promise of a fairly respectable size, there—and he arched back, turning his head and shout-whispering, “You wanna get out of here?”

“Fuck yes.”

Theo turned and dragged his eyes over his form. Well-built, dark hair, that blue-cream Irish skin. He looked like—

No, no, don’t do this, you stupid fuck, it’ll only—

It would have to be good enough.