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If it had been anyone else, Sloane wasn’t sure he would have been torn. He considered himself completely comfortable in his sexuality while still being open-minded. He knew that other perfectly straight men dipped their toes into the waters of different sexuality. Experimentation was pretty normal in his book; he’d just never done it before.

But it couldn’t just be experimenting with Dean, not him. There was too much on Dean’s end for it to be so shallow and fleeting. Dean had laid his heart bare to Sloane, and how had Sloane repaid him? By letting him give him a blowjob and then not knowing how to react the next day like he was some casual fling from the bar.

But what exactly was it?

It was a question that had been echoing through Sloane’s thoughts since he’d woken with a headache and a nauseated stomach. He’d tried to get through the usual morning conversation with Dean, his gut twisting in knots the whole time. Dean had fled, and Sloane hadn’t stopped him, not knowing how to make it better or go away.

The question was, did he want it to go away?

Simmons stomped back in, glowering at Sloane as he snatched up the checklist near the door. Sloane watched him, wondering how he was going to apologize to Dean.

He was saved from further introspection by the buzzing of a phone. Heart pumping hard, Sloane reached out to take the phone, praying it was Dean. They had been radio silent for over twenty-four hours now, and Sloane couldn’t take another dose of their not talking. He swiped the screen, bringing the message up and freezing.

“Uh,” Sloane sputtered.

The message was a picture and not the sort Sloane could say he’d ever had sent to his phone. In full view of the camera was a man, his ass pointed toward the screen and his legs spread. Below it was a message, racy enough to bring Sloane’s brow up, which was only furthered by the last message above, sent by the phone he had in his hand.

“This...is not my phone,” Sloane realized aloud.

A strangled cry from behind him brought his head up in time to see a blur moving toward him. The phone was snatched from his hand, and Simmons clutched it to his chest. Wide-eyed, Sloane looked from the phone to Simmons’ panic-stricken face.

“Why are you looking at my messages?” Simmons demanded.

Sloane blinked. “I...wasn’t thinking, thought it was mine.”

He’d forgotten he’d taken John’s phone from him before sending the man out to do a perimeter check and had set it on the desk beside him. Without thinking, he’d opened the phone and got more than he expected.

“Why wasn’t it locked?” Sloane asked.

“You don’t lock yours,” Simmons retorted.

True, but then again, he didn’t get messages where he would care if someone else saw them, which was more than he could say for Simmons.

Sloane looked him over, finally speaking slowly. “So, that was uh?—”

“An accident!”

“An accident.”

“Yes.”

“Some guy accidentally sent you a nude.”

Simmons’ fingers tightened over his phone. “My name is...similar to someone else’s on his phone.”

“And you know that without telling him what happened?” Sloane asked, choosing not to mention Simmons's message before the picture came in.

“It was an accident,” John repeated.

Sloane smiled. “John?”

“Don’t.”

He sighed. “Look, you should know that I, of all people, won’t...judge you for that. I mean, look at my best friend.”

Simmons looked at his phone. “I’m not.”

Sloane remembered Dean telling him how hard it had been for him to accept his sexuality in the beginning. How Dean had tried any number of mental tactics to convince himself he wasn’t gay. About how Dean had insisted his interest in the male body was purely curiosity, that it was just hormones playing tricks on him, and any number of hurdles he could think of not to accept the truth. Sloane had found it amusing, coming from Dean’s mouth as his friend recounted all the ridiculous ways he’d avoided it.