But North, still laughing, had picked up the tub and was inspecting it. “Leaf your skin beautiful with the only non-prescription face cream infused with real, healing flakes of twenty-four karat gold leaf.” He tossed the tub in the air and caught it. “Just the basics, right? Fuck me, Shaw. You’re a trip.”

  Shaw couldn’t even say why that was the last straw, but it was. A riptide of hurt washed the ground out from under him. He dumped the bags, shoved North away—“Come on, I was just joking!”—and headed down the hall on autopilot. He’d spent the last week retreating to the bedroom; that’s where he went now, instinct and routine guiding him there. He set the thumb lock and fell onto the bed, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to summon the mantra that Master Hermes had revealed to him or the breathing exercise Dr. Farr had taught him or just a memory of a time when everything hadn’t been quite so horrible. He kept himself on the edge of breaking down completely, and after a few moments, his eyes were hot and puffy, and his breathing was wet, but he wasn’t crying.

  North knocked softly.

  “Go away,” Shaw said. “Please.”

  “I want to apologize.”

  “Ok. Fine. Thank you. I’d like to be alone right now.”

  “Shaw, please?”

  “Just give me a few minutes.”

  After a moment, North’s steps moved away, but he was back—according to the clock—in less than five minutes, knocking again.

  “North,” Shaw groaned, throwing a pillow at the door. “Go away!”

  “No, I feel bad, and I don’t like what I did, and I want to apologize. And I hate when you’re sad because you get my pillows all snotty and then I have to change the sheets.”

  “Well,” Shaw scrambled for a slightly softer version of fuck you and settled on “Too bad. I don’t want you to come in. And if I want to get the pillows snotty, I will. And I’m not changing the sheets because there aren’t any clean ones. And I’m not doing your laundry because you’ve got boot socks in there.”

  “What the fuck are boot socks? Don’t answer that.”

  “Boot socks are the socks you wear when—”

  A massive crack made Shaw stop, and he sat up as the door shot open, the latch tearing away from the frame. North stood there, framed by the light from the hallway, holding something in each hand.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Sure I can.” North stepped inside the bedroom, catching the door with his shoulder when it bounced back. “It’s my house.”

  “It’s not your house. You rent.”

  “Guess I won’t get my deposit back.”

  North was still coming toward the bed, so Shaw scrambled back, sliding on the mattress until his shoulders hit the wall. When North reached the foot of the bed, though, he dropped onto the corner, the mattress shifting under his weight. He set whatever he was carrying on the floor. After a sidelong glance at Shaw, he lay back and stared up at the ceiling.

  “You made your point,” Shaw said. “You’re this big, macho guy, and you can kick down doors, and wow, I’m so impressed and very turned on. Can you go now?”

  Without looking over, North patted the bed next to him.

  “I’m going to make myself something to eat,” Shaw said. “I haven’t eaten all day, and I don’t want to do this with you right now.”

  “I’ll come with. I want some cheese. And I’m not going to slice it, either. I’m going to take bites out of the wedge, the way cheese is meant to be eaten.”

  “That is so gross!” Shaw rubbed his mouth. “Fine. I’ll go play with the puppy in the backyard. You and I need some space.”

  “I’ve been meaning to work on my tan. It’s a nice day, plenty of sun.”

  “No, God, you’re so white I’ll go blind if I look at you.”

  From Mr. Winns’s unit above them came the theme song for The Young and the Restless.

  North patted the bed beside him again.

  “You’re so annoying.”

  “I haven’t even gotten started.”

  “You don’t know how to respect boundaries. How am I supposed to believe you respect me as a person when you won’t respect my boundaries?”

  “Come over here,” North said in that low smolder of a voice, “and I’ll whisper the answer in your ear.”

  With the most dramatic sigh Shaw could muster, he flopped his way down the length of the bed, bouncing as much as possible until he lay next to North.

  “So,” North said, still looking up at the ceiling, “I’ve been doing some thinking recently, and I might have some issues with money.”

  “How recently?”

  “The last seven minutes. But I think they might have been there for a while.”

  Mr. Winns was puttering around upstairs, joists creaking under his steps, and then a mysterious clunk. What had fallen? The Pepsi off his TV tray? A stack of vintage Penthouse? One of the crystal angels he kept in a china cabinet in the front room?

  “It makes me feel like you hate me,” Shaw said. “No, that’s not right. But like you resent me. And I don’t know what to do. Do you want me to give it all away to charity? Because I’ll—”

  North started laughing so hard that he curled up on the bed, rolling onto his side as the laughter rocked his body. Shaw rolled his eyes and started to scoot away, but North looped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer.

  “God,” North whispered, a hint of laughter still in the background, “you rich boys say some really dumb things.”

  Shaw pried at his fingers. “Ok, you said what you wanted to say, and now you’re laughing at me, so—”

  North rolled on top of him. They were close to the same height, although North was built more solidly, and his weight pinned Shaw to the mattress.

  “Get off!”

  “I’m sorry I talked to you like that. And I’m sorry for what I said. You’re generous, and you’re kind, you use what you’ve got to make people happy. I’m happy you grew up with people who could take care of you. It’s certainly not your fault that I feel so…out of place. I’ve felt that way since my first day at Chouteau, and that’s part of why Tucker—” He cut off and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were wet, and he leaned forward and brushed his lips against Shaw’s. It was a schoolboy kiss, shy, almost fearful.

  Shaw raised his head and kissed him again, and this time, North’s mouth parted, and Shaw slipped his tongue inside. Shaw was instantly hard; he’d been sporting a semi since North kicked in the door, and now the erection was painful. He rocked up into North’s substantial body, their bodies meeting at the right spot, and North groaned.

  “Slow down,” he whispered, stroking Shaw’s hair with trembling fingers. His fingers smelled like candlewax and blue snow cone. “I want to talk about this some more.”

  “No talking,” Shaw said. He worked his hands between them, fumbling with North’s waistband.

  “You like talking.” North kissed him. “You always want to talk. I want to figure out some healthy ways to talk about money situations—” The button of his waistband came undone, and he said, “Shaw, I’m serious. We can have make-up sex after—” He cut off with a throaty noise as Shaw wrapped a hand around him. He thrust into Shaw’s grip, and then again, his hips giving abortive little jerks like he was trying to hold back. They went like that for a few minutes, Shaw teasing him when North’s self-control threatened to reassert itself, his grip increasingly slick and North’s hips stuttering faster and faster. “Shit, baby, it’s been too long. Let me go or I’m gonna—”

  “You kicked down that door,” Shaw said, his voice husky as he tightened his grip, “you big fucking brute, and now look at you.”

  North made a noise Shaw hadn’t heard before, arousal and desperation. “Yeah. Fuck yeah. Yell at me. Tell me what a piece of shit I am.” He made the noise again, rutting into Shaw. “Tell me how I don’t deserve you.”

  And what Shaw wanted to say was that he didn’t think that at all. He thought North was the best man he’d ever met. He thought he didn’t deserve North, not the other way around. But he couldn’t seem to think straight, and instead, he grabbed a handful of North’s hair and pulled, and what came out of his mouth was “You come in here, just a big swinging dick, thinking you can do whatever the fuck you want and I’ll let you get away with it?”

  “Yes, shit, own me—own my ass—” North’s face screwed up like a man with an unbearable secret, and then terror and release comingled in his expression. A strained, “Oh fuck,” ripped out of him, and warm, wet heat sprayed Shaw’s belly.

  North buried his face in the crook of Shaw’s neck. His tears were hot against Shaw’s skin. Shaw undid his own fly and jerked himself off in a few quick strokes, adding to the mess between them, shuddering through the orgasm. When he came down, North was kissing his neck softly, whispering to him: “I love you, you’re so beautiful, you’re the best thing in my entire life.” A string of sweet things tying them together.

  Shaw stroked his hair and the back of his head with one messy hand. He was surprised to feel tears again, North’s body shaking under his touch.

  “North, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know,” North said, finally managing to wipe his face on Shaw’s shirt. “I know. Sorry. That was just a lot. All of it. After the fight, and then…what you said at the end. It all kind of got in my head.” He was quiet for a moment, taking big breaths, his exhalations warm against Shaw’s chest. “Are we ok?”

  “We will be.”

  Chapter 29

  SATURDAY NIGHT FOUND NORTH McKinney in khakis and a blue blazer that was too tight across the shoulders. He stood under an amethyst sky, killing a Boston Lager, the first handful of glitter-dust stars competing with the strings of party lights hung across the Aldrich’s back patio. Jazz was playing softly in the background, which sounded like somebody had let five-year-olds run amok, plucking a bass string here, slapping a cymbal there, a woman’s voice like honey going down a garbage disposal.

  The woman across from him was talking stocks. “And James insists that it’s all a bubble, of course, but I really don’t think I should be taking advice from a man who sends his kids to public school, do you?”

  Whether North did or not was irrelevant, because the woman, in her linen smock and her diamond tennis bracelet and strappy heels, was already talking again. He made himself focus: easy smile, deep breaths, if you’re going to make this relationship work, Shaw’s got to feel like he can bring you to things like this. Preferably without you telling the other guests that you couldn’t give two shits about the Dow.

  Shaw had gone to get them fresh drinks, but that had been fifteen minutes ago. North didn’t wear a watch, and he was pretty sure that even though this woman didn’t seem to require much from him in the way of a conversational partner, she wouldn’t look kindly on North pulling out his phone to check the time and, hell, see how the Cardinals were doing.

  “—told me she saw Albion in a Target, and not even the one in Brentwood, and I said that I knew they’d been having money trouble ever since Edie started driving a Volvo.” She seemed to surprise herself—she certainly surprised the hell out of North—with a tinkling, cut-glass laugh. “I mean, honestly, a Volvo!”

  The murmur of voices ebbed and flowed with the jazz. A haze of cigar smoke floated with the party lights, and the chocolatey tobacco smell tempered the overpowering perfume—something citrusy and migraine-inducing—that the woman was wearing. People stood in small knots. A man in a too-small polo and pleated chinos. A woman in a pink wrap. A man talking golf; three other men waiting for their turn to talk golf. A woman explaining that you only had to say fibromyalgia, and Effie, whoever the fuck that was, would set you right up. A woman explaining that the Savage Clinic was the only place she’d go to get her ‘tune-ups’ from now on. A man, with watchful looks over his shoulder, bitching that the Savage Clinic was putting him in the poorhouse.

  Words came on a gust of citrusy perfume. “—remember how you know Wilson and Phoebe?”

  North’s gaze cut to the happy couple, who were circulating now, spending a little time with each group, and then back to the woman. “I’m a friend of Shaw’s.”

  “Oh.” She made the word sound dirty. “How fabulous. He really did a wonderful job on his speech, didn’t he?”

  North made a noise.

  “He’s always had a way with words,” the woman continued. “He knows just how to put his finger on whatever everyone wants to say.”

  Sure, North thought. Like how he told the electrician last week that he’d be doing the world a public service if he spent more time inventing electric dildos and less time rewiring old houses. And something in there about knob-and-tube wiring, of course. Out loud, though, all he said was “He really does.”

  The problem wasn’t that the woman was wrong; the speech had been perfect. The problem was that Shaw seemed perfect too. Perfectly not Shaw.

  Shaw emerged from the house. He was carrying another Boston Lager and a lowball glass with what North hoped was Coke and only Coke. He was wearing a navy suit that managed to look modern and stylish with its cut, emphasizing Shaw’s slender musculature, while still being conservative. A floral-print button-down offered a subdued reminder that he was, after all, gay. Oxblood wingtips completed the ensemble. His hair wasn’t pulled back, and he’d done something to it with a series of products that turned the wild poof into a perfectly tousled mess of curls. He’d even found a tasteful oil painting for his parents’ gift, without any of the usual spins he put on things like bull semen or hoodoo dust or astral infusions. When Shaw had come out of the bathroom earlier that day, when North had seen the clothes and the hair and the complete absence of anything unicorn related, he had made the mistake of asking, “What the fuck is going on?”

  Another gust of perfume. “—horrible business, of course, but you know all about that, I’m sure. Shaw, darling, I was just talking to your…friend.” A salacious curve of the lips. It would have been less awkward if she’d just licked her chops and made a porking noise.

  “Hi, Bitsy.” Shaw bussed her cheek as he passed North the beer. “Are you keeping out of trouble?”

  “I have to, darling, I absolutely have to. The police said that next time they’ll throw me in the slammer!” Another of those cut-glass laughs with the suddenness of a falling chandelier. “They really said that!”

  “Shoplifting is against the law, you know.”

  She made a dismissive noise. “Those earrings were sterling silver. The real crime was that someone was selling them in the first place.”

  “Wild, come here.” Wilson Aldrich waved to his son. “I want you to say hi to Tyler.” He gestured to the young man next to him, who looked like he’d barely hit his twenties. He was poured into jeans and a blazer, and his jawline looked sharp enough to cut titanium.

  “Sorry,” Shaw whispered to North.

  North plastered a smile on his face. “Go on.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  When Shaw reached his father and Tyler, Tyler said something, and Shaw laughed, his whole face lighting up. North set the bottle to his lips and pounded half of it.

  Bitsy was staring at him.

  “Uh oh,” she sing-songed.

  The plaster smile was feeling scraped thin. “Excuse me.”

  Her eyes followed him as he plunged into the house. The party was denser here, the music louder, the smell of expensive colognes and expensive perfumes and raw silk and cigar smoke spinning like a drill bit against the side of North’s head. He slipped between bodies, making his way to the bar set up on the far side of the room. The bartender was a middle-aged woman with a stylish undercut and the hints of tattoo sleeves poking out from under the cuffs of her shirts.

  “Sam Adams,” North said.

  The jazz sounded like somebody was hitting a cat with a bagful of violins.

  The bartender handed him the beer, and North dropped a couple of bucks in the tip jar. Then he spotted the fives and tens and twenties. He glanced up in time to see the look of annoyance on the woman’s face before the professional mask dropped back into place.

  “A Negroni, please.” The voice was familiar, and North tried to take off in the opposite direction. He was too slow. A manicured hand dropped a twenty into the tip jar, and then that same hand squeezed North’s shoulder. He sighed and turned to face Wilson.

  “Nice of you to be here, North. Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it.”

  “Of course. I mean, I’m happy to be here. I mean, thanks for having me.”

  Wilson’s face didn’t change, but North knew another Aldrich pretty damn well, and he could sense the mixture of annoyance and bemusement behind the smile. “What do you think of Tyler?”

  “Who?” North asked, which was a kind of lie.

  “He’s on the fast track, an absolute whiz with numbers. His dad runs a couple of major hedge funds—apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Sounds like you want Shaw to trade up.”

  Wilson’s eyes cut down to North’s hands, where North carried a fresh beer in one and, in the other, the beer he had just finished. The smile took on a patronizing indulgence. “That’s one way to a handle a boring party, I guess.”

  “No, I was just—”

  “Be careful, North. That’s a slippery road.”

  He laughed too loud. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve seen what that looks like up close; I’m not going to make that mistake.”

  Wilson’s answer was a faint arch of his eyebrows.

  “I just meant—” North’s face was on fire. “It’s just a little social lubricant, you know? Grease the wheels.”

  “I’m sorry you feel like we’re so hard to get along with,” Wilson said.

  “That’s not—”

  But the bartender had returned with the Negroni, and Wilson headed off into the crowd.

  North ran through his options: buy a one-way plane ticket to Colombia and learn Spanish; join the French Foreign Legion; scream, “Fire,” at the top of his lungs and hope to get trampled to death.