And it turned out, of course, that he didn’t believe it. He’d lied.

Theo pushed himself back against the bench, feet planted, and he held on to that disappointment, and the feeling of being young and ripped apart, and tried not to think about how wonderful it had felt, then, to live.

Maybe he shouldn’t have put all of that away. Maybe he should have tried with someone else. Maybe he should have taken someone home, that last night with Phillippe.

Maybe he should have forgotten Jack Gardner and his stupid hair and his utter selfishness and the way he loved—

“Ugh.” Theo’s voice was too loud, and an older woman walking her Yorkie jumped. How embarrassing.

He stood up, lifted his head, relaxed his shoulders back. Held himself tall.

He walked across the street, put his hand on the door to the coffee shop, and put on the blank face that had kept him sane and made him despise himself for almost twenty years.

His eyes found Jack immediately. Jack didn’t see him—he was talking to the barista, an awkward smile and a flush as they spoke, those blue eyes wide and shy and so beloved.

He wondered if Jack had ever—if he had let someone else, someone like the barista or a friend or a stranger in a nightclub—if it had really been just sex, all that time.

He heard the barista’s flirting, and saw Jack’s clumsy smile, and Theo’s heart shattered into a million pieces.

“Again, please.”

Nine thirty and the sun was just beginning to set. The Thirsty was packed with American exchange students, and Theo was going shot for shot with a short, curvaceous girl with a Long Island accent. She was covered with tattoos, and he’d pulled off his own shirt to show her the wings he’d gotten as soon as he turned eighteen.

All healed now, the tattoo was still his gift to himself. God knew his parents had nothing to give him. And he had wanted to—to rebel, and say fuck you, and the girl here in the bar ran her fingers over his back and he thought, Yeah, this is me. Damaged, marked. What a relief to have the inside on the outside.

Gwilim at the bar was making some layered concoction of grenadine, blue curaçao, and Goldschläger. Theo could feel the alcohol starting to course through him, and he felt at his back pocket for his crumpled pack of menthol cigarettes. Wednesday night, trad about to start, and he hoped he’d be just drunk enough to shake off the memories of last night.

He licked his lips, feeling gold leaf under his tongue, and he thought about tight jeans and a thick cock and the look on his face, pained and desperate and hungry, and the way his own mouth watered, and the brief moment when he’d considered unzipping those trousers, and—