The most unsettling part of the past twenty-four hours hadn’t been Desmond’s gnawing suspicions and jealousy, hadn’t been the way Russell acted so blasé and accommodating; it had been the way anger routinely rained down on Desmond and then, unaccountably, rearranged itself, molecule by molecule, into lust. Russell would turn his head a certain way or rub at his eyes, or make some other unsurprising, inconsequential gesture, and Desmond would find his whole body dripping with rage. Next thing he knew, he’d be lurching across the room, wrestling Russell to the floor or down onto the bed or pushing him up against a wall, unbuckling and unbuttoning.

At some point last night, Desmond had come to the realization that it was all a matter of reclaiming his territory. Maybe that’s what lust boiled down to in the end, a battle over property lines; his had been rekindled by the discovery that a sleazy developer was possibly digging a foundation on his land. It would have been easier, and probably a lot less exhausting, if they’d had one terrible fight and someone, preferably Russell, had ended up getting clobbered.

Desmond maneuvered his way around the furniture to the bureau and opened the top drawer. Inside was a jumble of ties and undershirts and socks, his and his, undifferentiated, tangled up together the way their lives and their identities were now tangled together. How foolish he’d been for agreeing to Russell’s suggestion they store their clothes in the same bureau; he should have known that as soon as you give someone what he wants, he loses interest in it.

Underneath a pile of white socks was a pair of black lycra shorts, part of a posing outfit Russell had bought for a sweaty, exhibitionist yoga class he’d attended twice. He tugged at the stretchy material, feeling a strong urge to take hold of each leg and yank them apart at the seams. Instead, he buried his nose in them and inhaled deeply, hoping to catch a whiff of Russell’s body. But no, there was no hint of anything more personal than the recycled plastic they were made of and Tide.

He tossed the pants back and began groping toward the corners of the drawer. Early this morning, as he and Russell were lying side by side on their too-big bed, Desmond had reached over and picked up the idiotic self-help book. He’d read the title aloud and asked, “Yours, sweetheart?” trying to sound disapproving in a lightly bemused way.

“Melanie left it here the other night,” he said calmly. “She insisted I read it, said it changed her life.”