His tone is so matter-of-fact. The tone of someone accustomed to abuse; raised with it. Robbie knows he shouldn’t reach for him, but he can’t stop himself. “Lance.” His fingers brush Lance’s arm, and just like that, Lance is darting away from him like a bird out of a thicket. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed so that his back is to Robbie, lit with a silver glow from the moonlight in the window, and Robbie can see the knobs of his spine.

“I didn’t love Niall or anything. I was there for the stuff. The money.” His voice is hard, like he’s challenging Robbie to—what? Judge him for having been in a transactional relationship?

Just as he sensed he shouldn’t reach for Lance before, he knows he should wait, and let him talk, rather than speak up himself right now. But he can’t stop himself. “I don’t care about any of that. I just care about you.”

Lance wraps his arms around himself and doesn’t turn. “I thought it was worth it. And for a long time, it was. Niall knew people. He helped me get work. And I love working. I love my friends. I really thought I belonged in Chicago.”

“You need to talk to a lawyer.”

Lance glares over his shoulder. “That’s not—aren’t you listening to me?”

“I’m going to give you a few names you should call. And you can use my phone. You can use my phone for whatever you need it for. And—”

“Robbie,” Lance interrupts again, his voice sharper now. “Are you listening?”

Robbie sits up slowly, the sheets pooling in his lap. His expression will be almost invisible to Lance; the room is dark and all of the feeble moonlight is on Lance, highlighting the impatient gleam in his narrowed eyes, the sweep of the bridge of his nose, and the curve of his back and shoulders. “I’m listening. But what needs dealing with is tomorrow. The rest of it—”

“Don’t you think I deserve this, at least a little? I was basically—I told you I was only with Niall because he kept me.”

Robbie thinks about it. “I only care that you don’t go back to him.”

“You should hate me,” Lance insists.

“Lance. I’m never going to hate you.” An image of Lance as a wide-eyed, scrawny boy running through the woods flashes in his mind, and he smiles. “I’ve known you since you were nine years old. You’re family.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. He realizes this at once, but he can’t grasp the reason why. Lance’s expression shutters, and he’s off the bed and six feet away, still hugging himself, naked and barefoot and suddenly as untouchable and unreachable as if he were back in Chicago already.

“I don’t want to talk about this. I’m tired, and tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

“I’ll drive you,” Robbie says immediately, even while, in the back of his head, he’s panicking at the broader implications of this moment. “One o’clock, you said. I’ll have you there at twelve-thirty.”