"Stronger."
He brings me a beer and sits in the chair across from me and waits. He doesn't push. He just sits there with his legs crossed and a look that's part worry and part the very specific expression Devon gets when someone has hurt someone he loves and he's calculating the appropriate level of retribution.
"Miles told me it's over," I say. My voice sounds weird. Flat. "Whatever we were — he ended it. In the stairwell at work. He said HR flagged us and the partnership is conditional and he can't do this anymore."
"He told you it's over in a stairwell."
"Yeah."
"After sleeping in his bed."
"Yeah."
Devon is quiet for a second. "Do I need to go down there?"
"No." I take a drink. It doesn't help. Nothing is going to help except the one thing I can't have. "It's — there's more to it. He has reasons. He has—" I stop. Because the barrenness is right there, sitting on my tongue, and it would explain everything — why Miles has been scared, why he pushed me away, why he thinks he's protecting me. It would make Devon understand. And I can't say it. It's not my secret. It's the thing Miles has been carrying since he was sixteen and he threw it at me like a grenade and even though it's in my hands now it still belongs to him. "He has reasons he won't let me explain."
Devon gives me a look. "Reasons like what?"
"I can't tell you. It's his thing. But it's real. It's not — he's not being a dick for no reason. He's scared."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"I know."
Alex comes out of the bedroom. He's in a t-shirt and sweatpants and his hair is pushed back and he looks at me on the couch with the beer and the tremor in my fingers and he doesn't ask what happened. He just sits on the arm of Devon's chair and puts his hand on Devon's shoulder and waits for someone to fill him in.
"Miles cut him off," Devon says.
"In a stairwell," Alex says flatly. Not a question.
"How did you—"
"You look like someone who just got their guts rearranged in a stairwell." He shrugs. "I've got eyes."
I almost laugh. It comes out more like a cough. "He told me things. Things he's been hiding. Then he didn't let me respond. He just — pushed me out. I told him it wasn't over and he told me to leave."
"What did he tell you?" Devon asks.
I shake my head. "I can't."
Devon starts to push and Alex's grip tightens on his shoulder, very slightly, and Devon stops. They have an entire conversation in that gesture — Devon wanting to know, Alex saying let it go, Devon deferring. It takes about two seconds.
"Okay," Devon says. "You can't tell us. But you think his reasons are real."
"They're real. They're just — they're not the reasons he thinks they are. He thinks he's doing the right thing. He thinks he's protecting me." The word barren is right there and I swallow it. "He's wrong, but he can't see he's wrong, and he won't let me close enough to show him."
We sit with that for a while. Gabriel makes a noise from the bedroom — not a cry, just a fussy murmur — and Alex tilts his head to listen and it passes.
"So what are you going to do?" Devon asks.
"I'm going to get him back."
"How?"
"I don't know. I'll figure it out. I'll—"
"Ray." Devon leans forward. His voice is gentle but his eyes are doing that look when he's about to say something I don't want to hear. "I'm going to ask you something and I want you to actually think about it before you answer."