“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Do you?”
“He loves you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I knew it wasn’t. But I didn’t know the answer to that question beyond the certainty that Alexei would never leave Cam if he thought he needed him. And Cam did need him, like his lungs needed fucking air. LikeIneeded air as my fucking words blocked my throat.
Coughing, I stood and retreated to the sink, cupping water in my hand and tipping it down my throat.
“I have glasses in the cupboard, mate.”
Too late for that. I turned the tap off and faced Cam again, but his gaze was too complicated. And I still couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Go,” he whispered. “I’ll find you in a bit.”
Maybe he expectedmeto leave. To bolt like I had so many times before, but it wasn’t the outside world I needed. It was the convoluted bubble of him and me. Alexei and me. Him and Alexei. The three of us.
But mostly Alexei.
For now.
I took the stairs two at a time, light on my feet, but sure of my path. The shower wasn’t running. The air was dry. And I found Alexei on the landing, sitting on the chair in Cam’s tiny library corner, flicking through a book with unseeing eyes. “Always, you appear,” he said without looking up. “Did you bring the river with you?”
“Is that what you need?”
“What makes you think I need anything?”
Everything.I leant against the banister. “We can go out if you want.”
“Wingman, I cannot jump in the water every time my faculties abandon me. What good would I be to you then?”
“You don’t need to be good to me.”
“Good to Cam, then. That is important to you.”
I hinged forward, resting my elbows on the solid wood, the long night beginning to catch up with me. Every facet of me wanted to crawl into a bed, any bed, with Cam and Alexei and sleep and fuck and fuck and sleep until whatever fuckstorm they’d cooked up in my absence was gone. Iwantedto tell Alexei that he was important to me too. That what he was to Cam had no bearing on what he was to me.
That even without Cam, I’d still fucking want him.
I’d still love him.
But... damn. I couldn’t.
Show him then.
I hauled myself up the last two steps, the lightness gone from my tread, and crouched in front of Alexei.
He slipped the book back onto the shelf and regarded me. “You have something to say?”
Many, many things. I found his hands. They were cold. I rubbed them in mine, pressing our palms together as if I could absorb whatever was eating him up so he didn’t have to feel it anymore.
Wishful thinking. He didn’t pull away, but I didn’t reach him enough.
I let him go. “What happened with Sambini?”
“You don’t already know?”
I shook my head.