“You left first,” I told him. It wasn’t something I could hold against him. He was going to college, I still had my senior year left, and nothing was going to happen, but we kissed. And part of me felt abandoned for a year until he returned. Until the summer we’d spent in the glass and in the forests, away from Nick, away from everyone, keeping the sweetest secret to ourselves.
A sudden laugh ripped from me, and I shook my head. “I stole my brother’s boyfriend, huh?”
Damon shook his head. “You couldn’t have stolen me, Seth. I was never his, I swear.”
I took a step toward him, my arms loosening a little from around my torso. “Really?”
“Really,” Damon said. “I was always yours. Even when I wasn’t.”
“Damon,” I whispered.
“There’s more,” he said, warning me to wait before deciding how I felt. “Last year, after you and I…drifted, I guess, I was lonely. Hell, I was heartbroken. You were in Chicago. And…” Damon closed his eyes. “And Nick was here. He was, I don’t know, the closest thing to you, so we…”
My heart sank. “You slept with him?” I hated the hurt in my voice, but I couldn’t control it.
Damon’s eyes shot open. “What? No. God, no, it didn’t go that far.”
Relief swept me nearly off my feet. “What happened?” I asked.
“We went out. Once. It wasn’t a date, but I should have realized that Nick could think of it that way. And, well, he did. We had a few drinks. We got close to kissing, but I stopped because I couldn’t get you out of my goddamn head, even though I’d slept with everyone in this goddamn city. But I stopped. I did. And fuck, Seth, I should have told you that the first time I saw you in that basement. Nick has plenty of reasons to hate me. One of them is that even after all the shit that happened, I was careless with his feelings. And I was, but only because he was the only thing that reminded me of you.”
“Damon,” I said, but the words dried up. I shook my head as if it would help me shake off all that he had said. He should have told me. “Yeah,” I said again, because that was all I had. My mouth felt dry, my heart too loud. I rubbed my palms againstmy sleeves as if friction could turn all this into something I knew how to hold.
Damon waited. He always did when I was spinning out. That was part of the problem. Part of the undoing.
“I should be angry,” I said quietly. “Not about the going out. About you not telling me any of this.”
His face tightened. “I know.”
“Do you?” I asked. I didn’t mean it like an accusation. It came out that way anyway. “Because it felt like you let me walk around in the dark for years. I thought I was a mistake you liked repeating when you were bored or lonely. I thought you wanted me because Nick hated you for it.”
Damon shook his head fast, like he wanted to throw the thought away before it could settle. “I never wanted you for him.”
“But you let me think it,” I said.
His jaw flexed. He looked at the ground for a beat, then back at me. “I did. I’m sorry. I was trying to keep things from exploding again. I told myself I was being careful.”
“Careful with who?” I asked.
“With you,” he said. “With him. With myself. I kept thinking one bad step and I would ruin your life. Or turn you against your brother. Or make you hate me for dragging you into the middle of something I started.”
“You didn’t start it alone,” I said. The words surprised me the moment they were out. I had never defended Damon in this way. Not to Nick. Not to Silas. Not to myself. “Nick has been feeding that feud for years. He’s been feeding it like it was his job. Like it was the only thing that made him who he was.”
Damon’s eyes softened, then sharpened again. “That doesn’t make me innocent.”
“No,” I admitted. “But it makes you human.”
He took a breath and stepped closer. Not close enough to touch. Close enough to make me feel like I could if I wanted to. The space between us was thick and charged. It felt like the air before a storm breaks.
“I’m not asking you to forgive everything in a minute. Not for the hiding and not for letting you go over and over again,” he said. “I’m not asking you to pretend it didn’t hurt. I’m asking you to let me be honest now.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
He looked at me like I was a bright thing he did not trust himself to reach for. “I walked away both times because I thought that was the only way to keep you safe. I didn’t understand how much it would hurt you. Or how much it would hurt me. I thought love was this neat thing that came with rules and that my kind of love could only be the kind you survive, not the kind you build a life on.”
I blinked hard. The cold air stung my eyes. I hated that my throat felt tight. I hated more that I wanted to take a step into him.
“And when Nick said what he said on the ice,” Damon went on, voice low now, “I heard every old warning all at once. I thought if I fought him, you would be the one paying for it. I didn’t want to make you choose. I didn’t want to be the reason you lost your brother.”