Chapter 138

Too late. “Call you what?” Dan asks. When I don’t answer immediately, he turns me around in his arms so we’re face to face, and he asks again, “Call you what, Michael?”

With a weary sigh, I start, “Nothing—”

But Caitlin pipes up. “He said—”

“Caitlin!” I snap at her. “He didn’t ask you.”

My lover grasps my shoulders, his strong hands insistent until I raise my eyes to his. “I thought we talked about this,” he says softly. His voice is always like this, so damnably soft, how can I take offense at it? “This morning? About letting me in?”

“We did,” I agree. But I don’t want to get into it here, with Caitlin just waiting for her chance to jump in and fan the flames. He called me a fag, I’d say, and I have a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to hold Dan back—my lover would race up the stairs two at a time like a one-man SWAT team, kick in the door Ray slammed behind him, and tear my brother apart for that comment alone, family or not.