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KAI ENTERED HIS home. It was quiet, quieter than he’d expected. Quieter than he remembered.

He walked through the entryway, dropping his duffle bag next to the door.

There was none of the background noise that he’d grown so used to over the last several days.

No television playing in another room, no coffee pot going, no jingle of a cat toy being pushed across the hardwood floors.

No Atticus singing off-key as he went about his day.

No Atticus at all.

Kai passed through his own home like a ghost. He didn’t pause to look at his new bathroom, just walked slowly past, eyes unfocused as his mind raced.

All he could feel, as he sat on his sofa, was the overwhelming way his mind was beginning to spin out of control.

His limbs felt numb, all the way to his fingertips.

The dull throbbing in his chest that had plagued him the entire car ride home had faded, leaving only an empty void in its place.

Curling in on himself, Kai wrapped his arms around his knees.

The room was dark, his blinds closed and the light still off.

It helped, masking the emptiness. If he couldn’t see it then it just wasn’t there.

The silence though… it pressed in on him relentlessly, from all sides, a weight he felt acutely.

A choked sob finally broke past his defenses, the sound echoing through the room, reminding him just how alone he truly was. Tears stung his eyes, spilling past his lashes as he squeezed them shut.

A part of Kai had known what he was doing. From the moment he crept out of Atticus’ bed, pulling away from the warmth of the of those steady arms and leaving him lying there peacefully, Kai had known what the end result would probably be.

He just hadn’t expected it to be quite so bad.

The weight of Atticus’ feelings, the pressure that came with knowing how much his friend felt for him, it had made Kai want to do what he did best. Pull away. It was something he’d perfected over time, grown so good at that he had thought he could get away with it.

He hadn’t been prepared for Atticus to look so shattered the moment he’d walked into the kitchen. That normally vibrant, cheerful face had been anything but, and Kai had known right from the start that he had fucked up.

And when things escalated, when they had both flung hateful words at each other, Kai did the only other thing he knew how to do. He shut down. He ran away.

Isn’t it a little ridiculous to be pining for so long over someone who doesn’t want you back?

The words had been a spear through Kai’s gut.

Because, in truth, he hadn’t been thinking about Nicholas at all.

Not directly. But Atticus had brought him into the conversation, because he’d just seen Kai crying over his ex mere days earlier, and had only ever known a Kai that couldn’t get over his past life.

Kai had never been able to move on, had never been able to break past his grief and his anger, and even Atticus didn’t have faith that he would be able to.

Now I can move on.

It was as though fate was playing a trick on him. An endless game, a maze that only had false exits, leading Kai to those same words again and again.

He was someone that others moved on from. He was too shattered, too filled with razor-sharp edges, for anyone to be able to hold on to him forever.

Another sob broke past Kai’s guard. He sucked in air, trying desperately to calm his breathing.

He wanted to retreat, to hide away from even himself.

His hands automatically looked for sleeves to pull into, cuffs to tangle his fingers in.

But he wasn’t wearing long sleeves. He wasn’t wearing the hoodie Atticus had given him.

He’d left it behind, along with the horrible things he’d said in that morning-bright kitchen.

Feeling returned to Kai’s chest the moment he remembered what he’d said to Atticus.

The words he’d spun around, only to spit them back in his face, calling him out for doing nothing more than loving Kai for so long.

Pain rushed in to fill the void in his chest, squeezing so tight he feared he would implode.

Kai was so ashamed of what he had said. It didn’t matter that Atticus had said horrible things right back.

All he could see in his mind was the look of hurt on the face he’d grown so fond of.

He’d never seen Atticus look that way before, eyes wide with betrayal, shiny with unspent tears.

He’d looked defeated, and Kai had been the one to best him.

He hated himself for it.

But it didn’t matter now, did it? Because regardless of the pain they had caused each other, Kai had left. He stared out blankly into the dark room. It was for the best, him leaving. Because everything he feared about himself had turned out to be true .

Kai was too sad, too angry and broken, and it was all too permanent. Too much a part of everything he was. Nicholas had moved on, and now Atticus would as well.

His phone chimed, and Kai pulled it out of his back pocket. The light of the bright screen burned his eyes as he swiped away the notification. He paused a moment, not really thinking when he pulled up Ori’s contact and hit the call button.

The call immediately went to voicemail.

Kai deflated a little. He’d wanted to hear his friend’s voice, wanted that sunny presence in whatever small capacity he could get it. Wanted to hear Ori tell him that it would all be okay, even if it wasn’t true.

He was probably busy with practice, with settling in with his new team and new life.

Kai felt as though Ori’s going away party had been a lifetime ago, so much passing in the week since then.

He knew Ori didn’t have a place yet, was waiting for an apartment to open up in the same complex where Julian lived.

He’d been crashing with his friend since flying out to Los Angeles earlier in the week, so maybe…

Kai chewed at his bottom lip as his phone rang against his ear.

He didn’t really know Julian all that well.

If he was being honest, he hadn’t always had the best impression of the guy, considering the way he and Ori seemed stuck in a perpetual dance around one another.

But Julian was Ori’s friend, first and foremost, and he had been a lifeline for Ori when his life had turned upside down with his unexpected trade to the Comets, so Kai couldn’t really bring himself to stay wary of the man anymore.

“Kai!”

Julian’s cheery, sing-song voice blared through the phone’s speaker.

“Hey,” Kai said, his voice still too thick with emotion. He hoped it would go unnoticed. “Is Ori with you? ”

Julian laughed. “He is. Did you try to call him? He lost his phone yesterday.”

That sounded about right. Ori never had been great about keeping track of his things.

“Is he around?”

“Well,” Julian said, and Kai could hear him grinning as he spoke. “He is. Sort of. He’s in the middle of something.”

“Oh,” Kai said. He winced at the disappointment that was clear in his voice. Julian didn’t respond for a long moment.

“I’ll go get him.” His voice was suddenly serious. “It’s not that important. We’re at the gym, some guy made a comment about his height, and he took it as a challenge. You know how he gets.”

“No,” Kai said quickly. He suddenly felt ashamed of himself, ashamed that he was dragging his friend into the mess he had created. The mess he had become. “That’s okay, I can call back tomorrow.”

“Kai.” Julian said his name slowly. “Something’s wrong.”

Kai didn’t respond. His throat felt too tight, and he had to clench his jaw to keep whatever was building in him from spilling out.

“Did something happen with Atticus?”

Hearing Atticus’ name brought it all raging back to the surface. A small sound slipped past his lips. Something ragged. Something defeated.

“Hey, hey,” Julian said, his voice lowered, his words soothing. “I can go get Ori right now. Or you can just tell me what happened. Or we can talk about something completely unrelated. But don’t hang up, okay?”

Kai nodded, a beat passing before he realized he needed to answer verbally. “Yeah, okay,” he said, the words tight and aching as he pushed them out.

“Are you hurt?” Julian paused, and Kai could hear him suck in a shaky breath. “Did he hurt you? ”

“No,” Kai said, suddenly desperate to defend Atticus. “Not like that. We both just said some things.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Kai’s words were still thick, but his tears were drying up as his mind settled back on the pain he’d seen in Atticus’ face earlier that morning.

And there was something about the way Julian was handling it all, the patience he was showing for someone he hardly knew.

It soothed some of the tightness in Kai that had so often kept him from finding his voice. “It’s for the best.”

Julian hummed a little. “I don’t know about that. I have some insider information, you know. He’s head-over-heels for you.”

Kai felt his chest squeeze tight again.

“He’ll move past it.” The words felt like blades slicing his tongue, shredding his lips. “It’ll be better for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just…” Kai began, unsure of how to put it into words.

He’d never voiced it aloud to anyone, and he wasn’t really sure why he was telling Julian Tate of all people.

But the concern in Julian’s words sounded so real, coming across the line in waves.

Kai thought about the way he made Ori smile, so bright and soft.

Something about that made Kai feel comfortable talking to him. He sucked in a breath to continue.

“I’m just too fucked up for any of this. I have too much baggage. I’ve never been able to move past being so sad and so angry and so broken by everything that happened. All of my edges are too sharp, I’ll only hurt him if I stay too close. I already did hurt him. He’s…”

Kai couldn’t keep going as he choked on the last word. He cried silently, tears once again staining his cheeks.