Connor spilled, uneasy with the role reversal, but he had to admit, between the two of them, Quinn would be the one who could help him sift through what he was feeling. Even if his baby brother sometimes had an odd way of scraping tender parts of a person’s psyche until everything felt bleeding and raw.
“I met Forest right after he found out his da was murdered. I didn’t even talk to him. I just held him when he cried. God, he cried. So fucking much.” Connor shoved his welling emotions down, but they rose up anyway, cracking through his stoicism. “He was so damned alone, and something in me—reached out, and I just… liked what I saw. So I kept going to him, to see if he was okay, or even just to watch him wake up in the morning and stumble out for coffee. I’m surprised he didn’t get me arrested for stalking him.”
“You’re good-looking and huge,” Quinn snorted. “And he’s gay?”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious after the first couple of times I saw him at the Amp. Some of his customers are… very expressive. He flirts right back with them, but shy. Quiet.”
“Then yeah, he wouldn’t arrest you for stalking him. You’re hot. Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t admit you were bi before now so you could get laid twice as much.”
“It’s not like that, Q. He makes me feel… something inside. I don’t know what. Like I can’t shake the thought of him,” Connor confessed. “I don’t even know him. It was just one night… one fucking moment and I was lost. It scares the shit out of me. I’m man enough to tell you that. Scares me down to my balls.”
“Sounds like the flu.” Quinn chuckled. “Or a really scary roller coaster. But is it bad? This thing of yours?”
“I don’t know what to do with him—well, yeah, that part,” Con amended when Quinn rolled his eyes at him. “That part’s not important, and see, that’s where the scary fucking shit comes in, because how does that part stop being important?”
“Have you ever felt like this before? About anyone else?” His brother was a soft presence next to him, but even a feather became torture when applied properly—and Quinn Morgan certainly knew how to apply himself properly. “Or are you just scared to say you want him because he’s a guy? Because you think that makes you less than a man? Less than who you thought you’d be?”
“Oh, brother, serpents envy your fangs,” Con murmured.
“I do not inject a poison into you, brother, but rather I seek to free you from it,” Quinn replied.
“Who said that?” He glanced over at his brother.
“I did. Just now.” Quinn waved away Connor’s snort. “But isn’t that what they do? Use snake venom to cure someone who’s been bitten? It’s the same thing.”
“I’m not sure exactly how it applies here, Q.”
“You’re not asking yourself these questions, not out loud. So it’s me. I’ll ask. What the hell are you afraid of, Con?”
“I don’t know, and yeah, I haven’t… scraped at it, Quinn. It’s been looming up around me, and then today—oh, fucking God in heaven—today. I thought he was dead, and in that moment, I was gone.” Connor set his now empty cup down and stretched out his legs. A quick look at his watch said he had another forty-five minutes to go before the doctors would let him in to see Forest, and the wait itched at his insides, imaginary nettles prickling away at his nerves. “Really, how did you know? And not because I’m ashamed I’m… feeling this way. I’ve been trying to get my arms around this whole mess from the start.”
“First, you’ve got to stop thinking about it as a mess.” His brother smacked Con’s thigh with his open hand. The sound echoed through the alcoves. “Second, if you’re going to sit here and tell me you don’t know what you want, then I call bullshit, because you either want him or you don’t want him.”
“He’s not like a piece of cake, Q. I can’t just take a taste and say no thank you. Not for me. Don’t like this flavor.”
“He’s exactly like a piece of cake,” Quinn retorted. “The question is, does it really fucking matter if it’s a flavor you’re used to or something you really badly want to try? The only person in this that’s arguing about who and why is you. It’s not going to be easy if you love him. People are assholes, Con. Some people hate when the world doesn’t look like they want it to, and they hurt other people.”
“This is different,” Connor protested, trying to find the words to explain his unease, but he kept coming back to the consuming terror he’d experienced as he dug Forest out of the rubble. “I barely know him, and it’s… so fucking huge… this thing. Him. Me. Everything.”
“You’re not a chickenshit, Connor. You face death and crap every day. You’re going to let people you don’t even give a shit about tell you who to love.” His brother scoffed, drawing his knees up and reaching for his shoes. “You should never play safe with your heart. It doesn’t get to grow if you don’t take it out. You break it. You give it away. And sometimes, you kind of hope someone gives it back to you—maybe wrapped up and taped but better because they held it for a little while.”