Robbie parks the truck on the street. He’s staring at the car even though there’s not much to see. Its paint color is evident around the sides and the undercarriage, bright against the snow. But it’s mostly covered by the snowfall. The shape of the car still draws the eye—a testament to its design, Robbie supposes.

He thinks of what it means that Lance drives something like this. That the pictures on his phone exist. That Lance’s body is a honed work of art, and yet there was such a hollowness to his eyes when Robbie first picked him up. A hollowness that was banished by the warm expression on his flushed face when Robbie held him.

Take care of him.

Robbie pulls away from the curb, more confused than ever by what that means. But he can start by getting some kind of terribly unhealthy cereal with a cartoon character on the box, in addition to a dozen eggs.

Chapter Seventeen

Lance

While Lance sits alone in the hayloft, he finds he’s reached his limit for how long he can stop himself from thinking about his predicament.

He’s good at fooling himself. Just like he avoided untangling himself from Niall, even when it became clear that he’d become too dependent. Niall had always made it clear that he expected Lance to do as Niall liked—and Niall liked to have Lance close, so he’d never even considered getting his own apartment. Niall covered all of the expenses of the business and their extravagant lifestyle, so it would have been ungrateful for Lance to ask to draw a salary. Niall hadn’t even wanted him to have his own bank account, insisting that their lives were simplest and most pleasant when fully merged.

It had all built to an awful crescendo, where Lance felt like he couldn’t breathe. He barely remembered getting in the car two nights ago…only that it had seemed imperative that he leave.

He’d assumed his father’s house was empty. He’d figured he could stay there; it was the only place he’d been able to think of to go. Funny that he’d gone to the care home first, but a small, pathetic part of him had needed to see his father totally bedridden with his own eyes before going to the house. Otherwise, that part of him would have been sure that his father was inside, waiting for him, and he’d never bring himself to open the door.

But if he hadn’t gone to the care home, maybe nosy cops wouldn’t have noticed the Mercedes in the parking lot and decided to run the license plate. If he’d gone straight to the house and seen that it wasn’t the empty hiding place he’d pictured, he would have turned around and driven back to Chicago. He wouldn’t be facing criminal charges and he wouldn’t have had to endure a night in jail.

But he wouldn’t have had his time with Robbie, either.

That series of strange events led him here, where he still feels the pressure of Robbie’s hand on his hip and the thrill of Robbie’s hard, warm body against his.