Swipe by TA Moore

Author:TA Moore [Moore, TA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64405-614-1
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2019-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE BABY carrier hit the barbeque and went up in flames.

Tag flinched in sympathy with Mel Byron’s panicked screech. He knew it was a bad idea, but he flicked to the next video, where Mel thought she’d fed Jeff drain cleaner.

“Jesus,” Tag muttered as he chewed on a slice of cold pizza. Part of him thought that, on some level, Mel had to know what was going on before her pained chuckle to the camera at the end when it was revealed her dad hadn’t been arrested, her cat hadn’t fallen out a window, but her husband was still a dick. After the first five, surely every time anything went wrong, she’d be suspicious of Jeff’s camera somewhere.

But probably not to the degree where she expected to break a small but important part of her back.

Someone sat down opposite, white cuffs in the periphery of Tag’s vision, and he looked up absently to nod his acknowledgment. He flicked his eyes over the pressed collar and the tie he’d gotten him… what, anniversary present? Birthday? … and braced himself for whatever he’d feel by the time he got to Kieran’s face.

“Hey,” Kieran said. His eyebrows creased together in a familiar “We’ve got something to talk about” frown.

Tag swallowed and reached for a napkin. He wiped his mouth and then his hands. “Hey.” He balled up the greasy paper and rejected a dozen sarcastic comments like “Did Freddie finally fall off your ass?” before he settled on something neutral. “Long time no see.”

Neutral-ish.

Kieran nodded. “It’s been strange,” he said mildly. “I used to see you every day for nearly five years, and now you dodge me in the hall.”

Tag snorted. “Don’t try and pull that Psychology 101 shit on me,” he said. “You cheated on me.”

“But you’re the one who left,” Kieran countered.

It was the sort of thing he said like he really believed it, even though he couldn’t possibly think it was reasonable. Like it somehow canceled out his screwup if Tag did something Kieran didn’t like. The spot at the back of Tag’s head, where his spine slotted neatly into his skull, started to ache. He could, without much effort, plot out the next ten minutes of back-and-forth, and it didn’t sound like fun. So he cut across it to the point.

“What do you want, Kieran?”

Kieran leaned forward and braced his arms on the table. “I’m worried about you, Tag,” he said. The hint of his old accent, North Dakota born and bred, caught Tag the same way it always did, like it meant something that Kieran still let that slip around him. Maybe it did, but not enough. Kieran narrowed his eyes at whatever expression he saw on Tag’s face. “And before you say anything, I get to worry about you if I want to. I don’t need your permission.”

It should have felt like… something. Hope? An opportunity? Tag just felt the ache of residual irritation in the back of his skull.

“I don’t need it,” Tag said. “I’m fine. We broke up.

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