Rafe nearly choked on his tongue, patting at his own chest as the coffee seared his throat. “You think Quinn’s got baggage? What the fuck you think I’ve got? A carry-on? I fucking killed a guy, screwed—”
“You didn’t kill that guy.” Kane stabbed at the air, nearly poking the end of Rafe’s nose. “He died. Yeah, it’s shitty, but you didn’t kill him. You’ve got to get over carrying that, Andrade, or you’re going to fall right back into that fucking pill bottle you were living in. And then what use are you going to be to Quinn?”
The coffee turned sour in Rafe’s mouth, but he swallowed it anyway. Around them the bar continued to hum its own brew of a song, the clack of pool balls mingled with the glasses’ clinking as they were moved around on the bar.
Despite the years-old smoking ban, the place still smelled of old cigarettes and burned tar, a stink probably seeped into the bar’s wooden floors and the yellowed grout holding together its boiler-room brick walls. A glance at the men oozing over their bar stool seats, and Rafe paused, seeing himself in their bloated, careless bodies. They stank of desperation and longing, eyes fixed on a space in front of them, more than likely ruminating over past regrets and stolen moments they kept alive in some fogged-over corner of their brains.
It was a far cry from where he sat now, his body run hot with pleasurable pain from Quinn’s sharp teeth. He’d woken to an empty bed and for a second, panicked with the fear he’d somehow dreamed up his long-legged, black-haired Irish. Then came the sinking feeling, the slight tremble in his lower gut. Quinn’d gone the way of the blond man lying limp and dead against a vomit-drenched hotel carpet.
No, not the life he wanted to lead—not by a long shot—and sure as fuck not one he wanted inflicted on his lover.
“I’m doing my fucking damnedest not to fall back into any bottle, K.” There was no excusing it away. He needed drugs. At some point in his past, some critical pinpoint second, he’d turned a corner and found himself drowning in quicksand. He’d never stop drowning now. “I can’t say I won’t. That’s the worst part about this shit inside of me now.”
“Of all the people… seriously, Rafe… you becoming some junkie? Never would have laid money on that.” There were stacks of creamer cups next to Kane’s cup, and he played with one of the empties, smearing a drop on the table. “But what I would lay money on is that you’ll stay clean. If only for Quinn. You won’t do jack shit for yourself, but for Q, I think you’ll stay straight… ’cause you’d sooner die than break him.”
“I love him, Kane.” The pounding of his thoughts dulled down enough for Rafe to face his childhood friend head on. “I don’t know if you believe that. Shit, I don’t know if Quinn believes that, but it’s true. Last couple of days? I’m kind of scared for him because of all the shit that’s gone down this week around him.”
“Not just you, Andrade.” Kane turned the heavy mug around in his hands. “I’m scared he’s going to fall back down that black hole he’s got inside of him—straight down into the still waters where he’ll drown.”
“He’s not that kid anymore, K.” Rafe shook his head. “That was a fifteen-year-old kid who was lost in his own head. Think about it, dude. There was so much damned shit going for him… and Christ, look at the brain God decided to stuff into that kid’s head.”
“You were a part of all of that, you know? Not that him standing on the edge of that building was on you, but he was tangled hard around you leaving.” His friend stared into his coffee, as if the oily brew could reveal the answers to the universe. “Didn’t really take it seriously, but now here I am sitting across of you talking about you and Quinn being a thing.”
“Don’t know how much I was a part of Quinn’s… shit, I don’t even know what to call it. Doesn’t matter.” Rafe exhaled the memory of Quinn’s young, icy-white face and bloodless responses. Looking back, that moment—that brief, soul-frightening moment—was when Rafe realized how deep Quinn’d reached down into his soul and became a part of him.
A part Rafe’d run away from.
And he definitely was done with running.
“I think he missed me. Was he in love with me? Maybe not really. Maybe not then. Me hitting the road was just a small ripple in his world. He was a boy, going to fucking college, and you know people spit on that kid, or he worked himself into a spin trying to figure the world out so it would fit into his head. Quinn thinks differently than you and me.”
“So fucking different,” Kane agreed.