A Royal Secret by Jerry Cole

Author:Jerry Cole [Cole, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Published: 2019-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Steve had moved to the couch, curled up watching some animal program on TV, phone nestled in the crook of his elbow. Bobby had been texting him—and calling—and though Steve forced himself to read each one, to listen to every message, he couldn’t think of anything to say in response. Though he tried not to think about it, it had been playing in the back of his head anyway. He had a lot of questions; why Bobby hadn’t said anything, who his mother was, if anyone knew who Bobby really was. None of them seemed to come out the right way when he tried typing them into his phone.

The door to the apartment opened, and Sam and Jamie came down the hall. They were both uncharacteristically quiet, which meant they knew. Fuck.

“Steve,” Jamie said, sitting on the edge of the couch. “Helena called.”

“Great,” Steve said, impassive. He kept his eyes on the TV screen, not wanting to see the expressions on their faces. Jamie would probably say some variation of I told you so or I never liked him, and Sam would just—well he wasn’t the pitying kind—but Steve didn’t want to look at him.

Jamie nudged him with a shoulder, and Steve bit back a curse. Jamie kept it up for a while, and eventually Steve’s hand shot out, curling around Jamie’s wrist.

“Stop it!”

Jamie turned the grip around, and his fingers were tight enough to have Steve looking him in the eye. “Listen to me.”

“What?” Steve growled low in his throat. “He’s been lying to me the entire time! What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

Jamie raised his eyebrows. “Talk to the guy. Did you even give him a chance to explain?”

Steve was incredulous and shoved away from Jamie, moving up to back against the arm. “I felt sick. I couldn’t even think straight. I’m allowed time to try and get my head around it!”

“I get it, man,” Sam said, his voice quiet. When Steve turned back to look over his shoulder, Sam was leaning against the breakfast counter, but he was staring straight at Steve. “I know you’re hurting, and you deserve to be, because it’s a shock. You love the guy though, surely he deserves the chance to explain?”

It made sense, but Steve felt betrayed and lied to. Why could nobody understand that he needed time? It wasn’t an easy thing to come to terms with. “I will talk to him. Just not now.”

“All right,” Sam said, holding up his hands.

“No, it’s not all right,” Jamie snapped, and his eyes were narrowed. “We’ve spent months listening to you get ridiculous over how much Bobby means to you and how in love with him you are, and you’re gonna let him go over this? I don’t get it,” Jamie said, when Steve opened his mouth. “He lied, I know, but did you think about why he was lying? The fact that maybe he doesn’t want to be the person you now think he is, or

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