Page 11 of Outside the Veil (Endangered Fae #1)

She held up both hands. “Fine, fine. If I meet him and like him, I’ll drag him along. If he’s a friend of yours, I’m sure he’s a good enough guy. But I’m not going up there until June, just so you know.” She leaned forward to peer at him. “Bit off more than you can chew with this one?”

“No. That is…” Diego slumped in his chair. “My head’s not on straight. I know any decisions I make right now are suspect.”

“You need to get over the last one, hon. What better way than someone new?”

“I can’t do that to Finn. Treat him like some piece of therapeutic equipment.” He twisted his scarf in his hands. “I might be seeing Mitch this afternoon.”

“You know I love you, but you’re an idiot.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With Miriam’s assurances that she would come over for dinner soon, Diego left for the Village.

Café Lucca, nestled alongside Washington Square, had been their favorite meeting place at the start of his relationship with Mitch, a place to people watch and sit with their heads close together in earnest, whispered conversation.

Happy memories. Now the inviting scents of coffee and pastry, the dark-wood table by the window, the comfortable, chatting couples, all made him feel as if he’d been sucked dry.

We are the hollow men.

What a time for his brain to start reciting T.S. Elliot.

A hand fell on his shoulder, turned him. He caught a glimpse of pale blue eyes before strong arms wrapped around him. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”

Diego shivered and Mitch hugged him tighter, rubbing his back. So easy to surrender, to let himself believe again. He clung for a moment, breathing in Mitch’s unmistakable mix of musk and cologne, a stab of desire threatening to take him out at the knees.

Pushed to his knees, Mitch’s hands rough with passion. Fingers kneaded his shoulders with impatient force as he took his time with the trouser button and zipper. The hard moan from above when he wrapped his lips around Mitch’s cock…

The memory jerked to a halt. Mitch had never reciprocated and fallen to his knees for him. Not once. Gone down on him a time or two in bed to coax him along when he didn’t feel like sex, but never that gesture of helpless lust and adoration.

“It’s good to see you, too.” Diego pulled back and slid into a seat by the window. “I guess… I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Your last message, it worried me.”

Mitch laughed and flung himself into the chair beside him. “I was worried about you.” He seized Diego’s hand to kiss his knuckles. “You know how I worry.”

“Yes.” Diego stared at their joined hands, hit by an odd dislocation, everything distant and miniaturized. “Mitch, I…”

“Shh, don’t apologize—”

I wasn’t going to.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Here’s the deal.

I have a new place now, one of those converted lofts, very cool.

Lots of space. Lots of light. Let’s get you out of Brooklyn.

Move in with me. There’ll be less distractions for you.

And if you want to do some charity work, fine.

I understand. Help out at one of the shelters or something.

Volunteer at the library. I don’t mind. Just so long as it’s not this maverick, unsupervised stuff you do now. That’s where you get into trouble…”

The words reached Diego from far away, as if an old movie played in the next room with the sound turned down low. Some part of him wanted to be angry. After all the harsh words, the agony Mitch had put him through, he thought he could waltz back in like this, as if nothing had happened?

Most of his attention, though, went to the wall he felt rising between them, a new course of stones added with every sentence Mitch spoke. Not the Great Wall, perhaps. Hadrian’s Wall. About waist high.

He patted Mitch’s arm, resisting the urge to stroke the fine, golden hairs. “Stop. Please. I can’t. I can’t move in with you. I can’t start all this up again.”

“Well, I suppose I could move back if you really can’t leave the neighborhood.” Mitch’s brows drew together, the smile vanished.

“No, you’re not listening. I love you. I probably always will.” God help me. “But I can’t be with you anymore, living with my stomach always in knots, waiting for the next time you blow up at me.”

“Diego…”

“Christ, please don’t cry. You know what that does to me and I need to get through this.”

“But I need you, baby,” Mitch whispered. “I’m no good on my own.”

“You need someone, I’d say that’s true. But I don’t think you need me specifically.” His chest ached, that ball of black pain Finn had described making itself known. “I had to see you, I think, to be sure how I feel. And now I know. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You’ve been upset. It’s been hard on you. I can see that. But I don’t want you making hasty decisions…”

“This isn’t hasty. And it hurts like hell. But I think it’s the best thing for both of us.”

“How can you say that? You’ll never make it on your own. You can’t even scrape up grocery money some weeks.” Mitch’s eyes narrowed, his voice dropping to an ugly snarl. “Or did you find someone else? That fast? After all that moaning about how you missed me, you had someone on the side all along?”

“Please don’t get bitchy. Please. No, I don’t have a new lover.”

“So I can still see you?” The hand holding Diego’s clutched harder.

“No. Not a good idea. And neither one of us is so na?ve that we’d think we can ‘still be friends’.” Diego reached out to trace a finger along Mitch’s jaw. “I’m sorry. I wish…”

Mitch moved suddenly, grabbed Diego by the back of the head and yanked him into a fierce, bruising kiss. “Something to remember me by, sweetheart. On those long, lonely nights when you’re jacking yourself off ’cause no one else will put up with you.”

He stared in mortified silence as Mitch stalked out. Of all the…

Halfway back to the subway, he realized that for all Mitch’s talk about reconciliation, he had never apologized. Not for a single thing.

Diego trudged up the steps to his place, lead feet stumbling twice. Now he had to deal with whatever Finn had been up to in his absence. Four o’clock. He’d been out too long.

No Finn on the sofa. Too much to ask that he’d be napping. Bedroom and bath stood empty. He pushed open the swinging kitchen door and jerked to a halt with one foot across the threshold.

Stacked four feet high on the table, all of Diego’s glassware winked in the light.

Clear glass mixing bowls served as the base of this bizarre construct, topped by his red glass dinner plates.

Tumblers and wine glasses rose from there in physically impossible positions, feet balanced precariously on rims, bowls stuck to neighboring ones with no visible support.

The whole structure formed a lumpy, inverted pyramid, a temple to improbability.

Finn leaned against the counter, regarding his work with a thoughtful expression.

“What is all this?” Diego managed to choke out.

“’S art.” Finn’s words came out thick and slurred. “D’you like it?”

Diego scrubbed both hands over his face. “It’s…interesting. Though I wish you wouldn’t put my glassware in jeopardy. Is it held together by magic?”

“No. This stuff.” Finn held out a tube of all-purpose adhesive. “Saw a man on’t picture box use it. Smells bloody awful.” He swayed and slapped a hand on the counter to steady himself, mumbling something about the floor turning to liquid.

Sniffing glue. Wonderful.

“Diego…” Finn’s eyes searched for him before they rolled back in his head. Diego flung himself across the room and caught him under the arms. Finn’s head landed with a thump on his shoulder.

“My poor friend,” he murmured. The thought crystallized, clear as the glass piled on his table. He had to take Finn out of the city himself. No one else would do.