Page 33 of Code Word (The Atrous #3)

I turned my phone on, seeing my battery was almost dead. Figured. I quickly ran through my contacts, found who I was after, and hit Call. Luke cocked a curious eyebrow at me and waited .

“Mr. Acosta,” a familiar, smarmy voice said. “I’m so happy to hear from you today. What can I do for you?”

Another fake person in a fake city, and it reinforced that I was doing the right thing.

“Roman,” I said. “Are you still in the business of selling houses?”

“Every day. Just selling, or you want to buy as well?”

“For now, selling. My place in Malibu. Can you do that?” He’d sold me the house, so I knew he was familiar.

“Absolutely,” he said. I could tell he was smiling, and I could picture his shark-like, smarmy face.

“Good. Let’s get it done.”

“Indeed, indeed. I’ll be in touch with the comparative market analysis and the listing agreement. Then we can schedule the photoshoot and?—”

“Great. Look forward to it.”

I hung up and tossed my phone onto the table.

“So,” Luke said with a laugh, “you weren’t kidding about selling.”

“I wasn’t kidding about any of it,” I replied. “I’m so done with all that fake bullshit.”

“Me too,” he said quietly. “I get it. It just feels so... greasy.”

“Yes! Greasy and fake. I want to look at a new place for us, but I want us to pick it. No real estate agents trying to sell us what we don’t need.”

His eyes were studying me, a smile pulling at his lips. “Living together, huh?”

“Well, yeah... Because we’ve lived together pretty much since we were sixteen.”

“Yes, but not living together living together. Like... a couple.”

My stomach dropped. “Do you not want to live together? I thought you said?—”

“Yes, of course I do. ”

I clutched my chest. “God, my heart just fell through my ass.”

He burst out laughing.

“I thought you were gonna say no.”

He shook his head, amused. “Never. Of course I want to live with you. Hell, yes.”

“Same bedroom?” I asked. “You said before we would, so there are no take-backs.”

He grinned. “Depends. Do you still leave your shit all over the floor?”

I sighed. “See, the best part of living with your best friend is that they know you so well, and the worst part of living with your best friend is also that they know you so well.”

He laughed, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes, looking peaceful and happy. After a few minutes, his foot began to tap, and then his lips were popping quietly, and I knew what he was doing.

He was writing music in his head.

Then he shot up and grabbed his notebook, scribbling down bars and chords. It made me laugh.

He shot me a brief glance. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just knew you were writing music in your head. Your foot taps first, then your lips do this thing...” I mimicked him.

He made a face at me and went back to writing musical notation. “What did you just say about the best and worst parts of living with your best friend?”

I chuckled. “That we know each other so well.”

He picked up his guitar and strummed out some chords, pausing to write it down. It reminded me of our time at the cabins, two weeks and a lifetime ago.

“You’ve been writing a lot more,” I said quietly.

He nodded, not looking up from his notepad. “It’s cheaper than therapy. ”

“Those songs we sang at the cabins before,” I said, “they were great.”

He looked at me then, his hand stilling on the strings. “I wrote those for you,” he said, so devastatingly blasé. “Pretty much every song I’ve ever written was for you.”

I tried not to think about the dozens of songs he’d written...

“It was like therapy,” he added. “Like I was telling you without telling you. But then to have you sing them was torture.”

Oh.

“Luke,” I murmured.

But he smiled. “This song is much happier. It’s been a while since I’ve written something upbeat.”

“Sing me the song that hurt you the most,” I said.

He stopped smiling. “Why?”

“I want to know how much I hurt you. I need to know so I won’t ever put you through that again.”

He made a face. “It’d hurt less to have open-heart surgery without anesthetic.”

I chuckled. “Oh, good. I’m so glad you’re not melodramatic, but okay.”

“Uh, excuse me, but who was gaunt and dying earlier?”

“Not just dying, thank you very much. I was dying . Like the open-heart surgery without anesthetic but also whilst on fire. Or maybe it was more like drowning, I don’t know.”

Luke laughed. “You really want to hear the song?”

“The song,” I repeated. Then, so he knew I wasn’t joking, I added, “All the songs that tell me what you went through, what you were feeling when you couldn’t tell me. When we weren’t... on the same page.”

“We’ve been on the same page for like three days, Blake. I have ten years of unrequited love songs. How much time do you have?”

“The rest of my life,” I replied quietly. His eyes met mine and I smiled for him. “Every day for the rest of my life, Luke. It’s yours if you want it.”

His smile was sweet and shy, and he blushed. But he began to strum his guitar before morphing into a haunting melody.

Long and lonely nights

Flights to I don’t know where

It’s three a.m. and your head’s on my shoulder

I wanna stay like that, like that forever

I’m dreaming with my eyes wide open

Wishin’ this was real

You’re in hotel rooms sleeping

I’m in city streets walking

Trying not to think of you

Tokyo lights

Sao Paulo sights

City streets walking

Trying not to think of you

Midnight in London

Walking in the rain

Hiding the tears falling

Hiding the pain

When you’re in hotel rooms not sleeping

And I’m in city streets walking

Trying not to think of you

What it is you do

When you’re not sleeping and I’m out walking

Trying not to think of you

New York City in winter

Tell me you remembe r

When you fell asleep, your head on my shoulder

He stopped strumming and let out a teary laugh. “That’s all I’ve got. I can’t finish it without crying.” He laughed again. “Fuck. Do you remember New York? It was so fucking cold, and you had on that big black coat, and you wrapped me up in it?”

“I remember,” I whispered.

His eyes were glassy. “It almost killed me. You were so warm, and you smelled so good. I was so fucking tired, and you held me so tight. But then you left me and went and hooked up with some chick.”

Fuck.

I swung my legs off the lounger, and trying to not use my stupid leg, I scooted over to his chair, collected him up in a hug, and lay back down with him in my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, kissing the top of his head.

“It’s not your fault,” he mumbled. “I have ten years’ worth of these songs, ten years of stories just like that. It’s not your fault if you didn’t know. I was too chickenshit to tell you.”

“You weren’t chickenshit about anything. You were being strong, dealing with all of that on your own. And dealing with being bisexual while Maddox copped all that queer hate, and then Jeremy figured his shit out. You must have felt like you were so alone.”

“I felt like I could never come out, like I could never admit it,” he whispered. “Because of what they went through. I never said anything, and then the longer it went on, the harder it was. I tried to ignore it. I really did. I tried to pretend that part of me didn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” I said, holding him a little bit tighter.

“I was drowning in guilt,” he added. “Being with Vana when I was so in love with someone else. And to see you with Becca. I felt like I was losing my mind. And then you and Bec went away together and, I dunno, something in me broke. I lost it. All I could think about was you with her and how it should have been me, if I hadn’t been so fucking scared. ”

I squeezed him and kissed his head. “No, baby.”

He laugh-cried. “Then you came back and wanted to take me to the cabins, and my god. I thought I could do it. I thought I could handle it, but...” He groaned as if he felt ill. “Sleeping next to you that night, it almost killed me. God, I was dying inside.”

“See? Dying. Gaunt, pitiful, and dying . I told you it was a thing.”

He snorted, and I pulled back so he was on his back, me on my side so I could see his face. I kissed him softly. “Never again. I’ll never make you cry again. Or feel sad or so bad you feel like you’re drowning. Never, Luke. I swear it. I love you.”

He smiled, teary-eyed. “Happy tears, okay?”

“I’ll allow that.”

Smiling now, he scanned my eyes. “I love you so fucking much.”

I kissed him again, lingering a little longer before it got the better of me.

“Okay, so disclaimer. I said I’ll never do a lot of things, and I mean that.

Never is a promise, and I don’t break promises.

But there’s a good chance I probably will make you mad at some point.

But as my best friend, you know what you’re getting yourself into, right?

I’m sure there’s a mea culpa clause or something. ”

He laughed and put his hand to my face. “Believe me, I know exactly.” He pulled me in for a kiss. “Now, I do seem to recall something you said earlier about maybe watching some porn.”

A jolt of something hot and delicious burst through my blood? —

“Hola? Hello? It’s just me,” Alma called out from inside. “I cooked you some dinner.”

Luke shot up so fast—like we’d just been busted by our mothers—that I almost fell face-first onto the lounge chair.

“Oh, hi,” Luke said, going inside to meet her. “You didn’t have to do that... Oh wow, it smells amazing.”

“How’s Blake’s knee?” I heard her ask.

His knee would feel a lot better if we weren’t interrupted just now.

I got up and limped to the door, trying not to put too much weight on my knee. “Hi,” I said. “My knee’s okay. I just have to take it easy for a day or two. It’s not that bad.”

“Oh good, good,” she said. “You use that ointment, okay?” She didn’t give me time to reply. She turned to Luke. “You make him use it. I won’t keep you. Just wanted to make sure you were both okay.”