Chapter 1

1: Boyfriends, Bus Stops, and Babies

“This isn’t about me, Bryson. This is about you. And the problem with you, to be quite frank, is that you’re a train wreck when it comes to the way you deal with people. You need to be a little more…”

Bryson watched Richard—Ricky to his friends, Dick or Dicky to Bryson, at least for the last several moments—turn to look directly into Bryson’s face as if the direct stare might give his speech more impact. But instead of letting the dick continue the obviously rehearsed rant, Bryson lifted his hand and flicked his fingertips against the intercom on the side table. Every room in his mother’s house still had one, even though Bryson hadn’t lived there for over a year now. “Dicky, you champ, you rascal, you cad, you know you’re one word away from getting tossed into the street like so much trash, right?”

Richard put one hand on his hip. “Are you making fun of my accent now?”

“Fairly so,” Bryson agreed, pouring on the extremely bad English inflection he’d started with. “Tally ho, spot of tea, spoonful of sugar, and what have you.” He dropped the accent when Richard clicked his tongue, and he gave Richard a long, disinterested stare. “I mean, train wreck, Ricky? Just because you say something with an accent doesn’t make it classy.”

“Yes. Train wreck.” Richard waved at the-gods-could-only-know-what and sat down on the Victorian settee in Bryson’s mother’s parlour, aka sitting room, aka her cozy nook. This was the room of quietly happy moments. It was a timeout spot for people who wanted to chill and relax, but in a slightly more refined environment than a game room or family room. It wasn’t a place for putting on airs, though. Richard hadn’t seemed to pick up the vibe of the place, regardless of the months he’d spent time in it. At that moment, if Richard had stretched out like Cleopatra with one hand on his forehead, calling for servants to come fan him, Bryson wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

“‘Appreciative,’ by the way. That’s the word I was looking for before you cut me off so rudely. You need to be a little more appreciative. I can’t find it in me to understand why you don’t give me a little more credit for all that I do for you.”

Bryson widened his eyes. That was a new one. He hadn’t been expecting that at all. “I’m sorry. Did you just say the things you do for me?”

Richard casually shrugged. “It’s not easy, you know. I try to carry off a certain amount of normality with respect to your—” he wiggled his fingers as if he were going to pick a word out of the air once he caught it,”—issues. I’m not saying that I’ve settled in order to—”

Bryson was already narrowing his eyes and shaking his head before he cut Richard off. “What exactly are you saying, then?”

Richard waved his hand, dismissing the question. “Look, we’re getting carried away here. This is supposed to be a civil conversation—”

“Get the fuck out, Dicky.”

Most people wouldn’t notice the oh-so-cautious, oh-so-perfectly-put-together Englishman getting riled up, but Bryson wasn’t most people. Bryson had been watching Richard’s expressions for months now—what he looked like mid-orgasm with his stupid mouth wide open and his eyes screwed shut so tight they all but disappeared into his face. What he looked like when he was pleased, with the smug, self-satisfied smile barely contained behind a slightly pursed puss. Yes, those spots of colour heating up his cheeks would become an entire flush, given time. The thinning of his paling lips would press those otherwise-plump kissers into a Muppet mouth if they got the chance. Richard was slowly and surely getting, at the very least annoyed as all fuck, and at the very worst pissed right off. Bryson held back an angry smirk. Jolly good, then.

“Look.” Richard’s voice became as cold as his gaze. “I get that you’ve been coddled a bit. And rightly so, to some extent. The ‘little baby in a basket’ story is an intense one and people have let you feed off it for a while now—”

“Last chance to get out of here without making a fool of yourself, Dick.” Bryson shifted in his seat and prepared himself to stand. He hadn’t been doing a lot of moving and he had no doubt it was one of the reasons that Richard had chosen this moment to pounce. Ricky had a knack for kicking someone when they were down, and Bryson had known before getting out of bed that morning that it was going to be a rough day. There was always pain, but low-level pain could be dealt with using one of the various Jedi mind-tricks the pain management team had taught him. Today, as he’d understood when he rolled over in bed, was one of those low-level days…unless he moved. When he moved, the pain became a solid six, maybe even an eight, existing directly in the center of his hip, right side, one of those godawful deep-in-there-and-getting-deeper kind of pains that had to be the reason people believed other folks stuck pins in voodoo dolls. And this particular pin had been set on fire before it had been used. If he sat, and stayed sitting, things were fine. If he stood, and stayed standing, all would be cool. However, gettingup or down shot shrieks of agony through him that could very well have been his nerve endings screaming war cries as they revolted against his sanity.