Page 15

The name was familiar. “That fancy rich boys’ school in Providence?”
“Yeah. That’s where I went. Kian was over at Saint View High. We didn’t run in the same crowds, but we lived together so there was no avoiding each other. We’d been getting closer all through senior year, despite the fact I had a girlfriend, and by the end of the summer, I just wanted to be with him. Some of the guys threw a party at the beach. One last hurrah before we all went off to different colleges. I tried to ditch the party so I could wait for Kian to get home from his summer job. My friends wouldn’t take no for an answer though, so I texted Kian and told him to meet us there when he was done.”
I could tell where this was going. “Your friends didn’t like him?”
Vaughn shook his head. “Actually, they loved him.” He shoved a bit more of the pillow beneath his head. “Kian hasn’t changed. He’s always been outgoing, and he had them all eating out of the palm of his hand, telling them stories about the shit that went down at Saint View High. Drug raids. Public sex. Teachers hooking up with students. Football team drama.”
“I sense a but coming…”
Vaughn’s soft, warm breath brushed over my cheeks. “I loved that he was getting along with my friends. I was drunk and horny and fucking stupid. I dragged him out of the party, down along the beach…”
A sick feeling swirled in my stomach.
“We were laughing about something. I can’t even remember what anymore. Kissing. Sloppy as fuck, but all over each other. He tripped over his own feet and fell. I tried to pull him back up, but he batted away my hands and undid my fly instead…”
I pushed away the thought of Kian down on his knees in front of Vaughn. It was hot, but now wasn’t the time.
But Vaughn kept going. “He said if he wasn’t going to see me every day, then he was sending me off in style. Then gave me the best blow job of my life. Right there on the beach. It was dark, and there was no one around, but at the time, it was the hottest thing I’d ever done.”
He squeezed his eyes tight for a moment before he continued, still keeping his voice low. “It wasn’t enough. I wanted to go all the way before I went to college. I was staying local but moving out of my dad’s house. Kian was going off to play ball. I didn’t know how much we’d see of each other after that night. I didn’t want to regret not going there with him.”
I swallowed thickly. “What happened?”
Vaughn’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I left him there on the beach while I went to find my friends to say goodbye. I was only gone for a few minutes, Roach. I swear. But by the time I got back, two guys had Kian down on the ground, kicking and punching him.”
I gasped quietly. “What? Why would they do that?”
“They were calling him a faggot.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. “They saw the two of you?”
He nodded. “I shouted that I was going to get my friends if they didn’t stop, and that was enough for them to run off. But the damage had already been done. He was messed up, Roach. Really bad. I moved into my dorm room while he was still in a coma.”
My eyes must have been as wide as dinner plates. “What happened after he woke up? Did you two date?”
Vaughn’s dark-eyed gaze flickered away from me. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never went back to see him after he came to.”
I squinted at him in the darkness. “Why?”
He shifted onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “The simple answer? Because I was an asshole.”
“I already know that, so how about you give me the complicated answer too?”
His voice was tight with emotion when he finally spoke again. “He was so damaged. Bandages, bruises, surgeries for internal bleeding… I barely recognized him, lying so still in that hospital bed he may as well have been dead. At first, they warned his dad that he might never wake up. So I visited every day, watched him fight until his vitals improved, and eventually they started saying he was going to be okay. But once I knew that, I couldn’t go back. He would say it wasn’t my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
His head jerked to the side, and even though it was dark, there was a wealth of pain behind those eyes. “If I’d gone back there to see him, he would have forgiven me in a heartbeat, and we would have picked up right where we left off. Then I would have spent every day of my life terrified of that happening to him again. Every time we held hands. Every time we went to a restaurant. I couldn’t risk it. Providence was too stuck in the Dark Ages to accept the two of us.”
He touched his fingertips to mine in the darkness, and I grabbed them tight, hoping they provided comfort, if that’s what he was searching for.
Vaughn took a deep breath before he continued. “Kian has such a golden view of everything and everyone. He never would have believed it. But I knew. I grew up here. I’d heard my father’s business partner making homophobic comments. I’d heard the way the guys at school talked about ‘faggots.’ I should have known better than to do anything with him in public. I knew better, and one of us had to think with a level head. Someone had to end it.” He pulled his hands away and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Seeing him in that hospital bed, with machines keeping him alive… I’ve never experienced anything that bad. Except maybe you at the bottom of that pool, your wrists and ankles tied.”
Despite keeping his voice low so we didn’t wake Fang, there was a change in his tone. One that sounded like he was barely keeping it together and punishing himself further by not letting me comfort him.