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“Don’t lose your cool.”

Nick gave a wavering laugh. “Kind of hard not to. Do you know what you did?”

“Told someone the truth, which wasn’t mine to tell.”

“That’s,” Nick said, throat constricting, “one way of putting it.”

“Look at me,” his father said.

And so he did.

“When I told Matt, I did it...well, because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Dad.”

“No, listen. Matt didn’t lose his cool, he didn’t act disgusted, and he sure as hell didn’t act like a man gettin’ ready to lose his best friend.”

“You can’t…” Nick tried, shaking himself. “You can’t know that.”

“No, but I know you, and I know him well enough. Better yet, I seen how you boys are. He was shocked, and he sure as shit didn’t see it comin’, but he didn’t look mad or worried.”

Nick let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I bet he was surprised, alright. There’s a reason I never told him, Dad!”

“I said, shocked, not surprised.”

“How is there a difference?”

“It’s the difference between a man bein’ told somethin’ he never even dreamed of and bein’ told somethin’ he realizes he kinda knew already.”

Nick covered his face. “Dad, he wasn’t supposed to know anything.”

“If that boy knows you half as well as I do, and I suspect he knows more than I ever will, then deep down, he did.”

Which did nothing to soothe Nick’s rising fear. Matt knowing, even subconsciously, meant Matt had been just fine with the way things had been. Dragging the secret out into the open meant they had to deal with it, and Nick had been trying not to deal with it for over a decade.

“And that’s the problem,” his father said.

Nick blinked slowly, only belatedly realizing he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. He closed his eyes, shaking his head as he tried to grasp the upheaval of everything that had been his life only moments before.

“Didn’t really think it through, should’ve known somethin’ would come up to make you wonder. I’m sorry, Nick, I really am. I wasn’t tryin’ to upset you.”

“But you did anyway,” Nick ground out.

His father’s hand squeezed his arm. “Talk to him. The last thing either of ya wanna be doin’ with this is leave it be. Think first, deal with it first, then deal with it with him. Whatever happens, that boy is still gonna be at your side.”

Nick shook his head, pulled his arm from his father’s grip, and stepped away. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He didn’t want to hear whatever his father had to say. What he wanted was to get the hell away from the man and the sounds of laughter and music he could still hear.

“Nick,” his father began, eyes wide.

“I need to go,” Nick told him, taking another step back.

“Where?”

“Home, well, the home I have right now. I just need to go.”

He stepped back again, holding a hand up to stop his father from getting closer. Nickknewhis father had only been trying to help, and while it was in a shitty way, it had come from a good place. This was his dad, who had been there for him his whole life and even now, after everything, was trying to help.

But he couldn’t face him, couldn’t deal with him.