After Thorne downed most of his in one go, he leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “I’m gay.”

Kathryn sputtered and sat her glass down. “What?”

“You heard me.”

She tossed back about half the liquid in her glass. “Wow. When you said I should sit down…”

“I really meant it.”

She took another sip, a smaller one, and set her glass down. “How long have you known?”

“That I liked men?”

She nodded.

“Since college.”

“No one at work knows?”

He nodded to confirm and then polished off the rest of his drink. He needed fortification after his confession. At least she wasn’t ranting at him.

“And this…” She waved her hand to indicate the blanket, the bourbon, his unkempt appearance.

“A complete breakdown.”

“If you’re admitting to it, then it’s worse than I thought. What the fuck happened?” His sister rarely cussed. He must have seriously shocked her.

“I fell in love.”

“With a man?”

“With a man I hired.”

“Hired? For…?”

He gave her a withering look.

“Ah.” She studied him for a few seconds. “The drink seems to have done you some good. You look more like yourself now.”

“My real self is an ass according to Dash.”

“Is that the man you fell for?”

Thorne nodded. “God. This… I didn’t mean to tell you all this. What do you think of me now?”

“I think you’re hurting worse than I’ve seen you since high school.”

“High school was never this bad.”

Kathryn moved to the couch, settled beside him, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “So, what are we going to do about it?”

“We aren’t going to do anything. You’re going to leave and let me wallow in misery.”

“What about work?”

“What about it?”

“Thorne, despite the fact that I’ve been telling you to take some time off for approximately a decade, you have a job. You can’t just ignore it.”

“I actually could. I’m owed several months off. I’m going to take some time.”

“First, you have to at least call the office and put people on your projects. You can’t just disappear and… Wow, this man has really changed you, hasn’t he?”

“You like the new me? Unwashed, undressed, and drunk at ten a.m.”

“No, but there’s something under all that, something good. I can hear it in your voice.”

“It was good, but he’s gone, and I’m worse off now than if…”

Kathryn shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Thorne scowled at her.

“Eventually—the sooner the better if we’re going to fix this situation—you need to tell me what happened in more detail, and—”

“I hired him to fuck me. Then, instead of telling him I’d fallen in love with him, I offered to hire him full time.”

“To hire him full time?”