I hated this.

  Right then, something flickered in my peripheral vision. A distant flashlight beam, maybe? When I turned my head, though, there was nothing. I held my breath and listened. I squinted and searched the darkness. Panic crackled along my nerve endings as my thundering heartbeat drowned out any distant sounds that might’ve told me anything.

  Closing my eyes, I wiped a hand over my face. It was probably nothing. Someone’s headlights on the nearby road? Maybe someone turning around in the cabin’s driveway? Or an out-of-season hunter? Or… were they in-season? I’d never done any hunting myself, and I only ever paid attention to the seasons so I’d know if I needed to wear bright orange on a hike. I hadn’t been hiking in the woods in years. Not since that call out into the forest had led to Rhys and me being ambushed.

  I shivered, goose bumps prickling under my shirt. I’d always been willing to come out here with Seth whenever he’d wanted us to vacation with his family or on our own. I’d never told him about the sense of dread that came with traveling deeper and deeper into remote, wooded wilderness.

  He just had to pick this place to hash out our issues, didn’t he?

  God, I should’ve told him before we left.

  Except I hadn’t wanted to spook him or make him throw up his hands and say “You know what? Forget it.” This was the only chance I had with him, and I was going to do whatever it took, even if it meant venturing out into the goddamned forest where so many of my demons lived.

  And now I was a shaking mess because I might have seen a flicker of light in the darkness.

  Behind me, the sliding glass door hissed open, and I jumped, sucking in a sharp breath. A second later, I relaxed, because who the fuck else could it be but Seth?

  Calm down, Brandon. Jesus Christ.

  I bit back a curse, both because I was annoyed with myself and because I wished Seth would go back to bed. I wanted to see him and talk to him, but not like this. Not when I was on a knife’s edge, raw and sleepless because my whole fucking world had been caving in for over half a decade, and I was finally starting to buckle under its weight.

  The deck creaked softly with his gentle footfalls. In the darkness, I couldn’t see him, but I sensed him beside me. Sensed him watching me.

  I stared out at the forest. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  I winced, grateful he probably couldn’t see me. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Except it kind of is.” I turned toward him, just barely able to make out his shape against the night. “You’re here because of me. You’ve been miserable the last few months because of me.” Shaking my head, I looked out at the dark trees again. “That’s all on me.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He sounded sad and tired. “I mean, yeah, it’s because of—it isn’t because of anything you did. It’s what happened to you.”

  “Still, it’s—”

  “Brandon. Don’t.” Now he just sounded drained. Resigned, even. “Yeah, this is all shitty and awful, but I don’t blame you. You didn’t cheat or do something unforgiveable. It’s just… shitty circumstances.”

  I swallowed against the sudden lump in my throat. “Yeah. It is. And I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know how to fix this.”

  “I don’t either.” He was quiet for a moment, then added a soft, “If it’s this hard for me, I can only imagine how awful it is for you.”

  His empathy hurt. Yes, I wanted his forgiveness and his love, but I also hated that he could look past his own pain to acknowledge mine. That just made me hate myself more for putting him of all people through this.

  You were too good for Andrew. You’re way too good for Brandon.

  He touched my arm. “Maybe we should go inside.”

  “You go ahead.” I made as subtle a gesture as I could of wiping my eyes, hoping the darkness hid the movement from him. “I don’t think I can sleep.”

  “Neither can I. But we can at least turn on a light and crack open a bottle of wine.”

  I bowed my head and let out a long breath. “I don’t know if I should be drinking right now.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  I could read between the lines. He wanted me to come inside, and he desperately needed a drink. He wasn’t the type to self-medicate most of the time, so that just made me feel guiltier about what I was putting him through.

  “Okay,” I whispered, and pushed myself off the railing. “Let’s go inside.”

  Chapter 11

  Seth

  Admittedly, the wine was probably a bad idea.

  Then again, nothing about any of this seemed like a good idea, so what was the harm in adding a slightly overfilled glass of Merlot to the mix?

  Brandon wasn’t a drinker under the best of circumstances, but he accepted a small glass. After I’d poured him some and then more than I probably should’ve been drinking into a too-large glass, we moved into the living room. There, we sat on opposite ends of the same couch where he’d once let my delighted niece give him a makeover.

  In the warm light of a single end table lamp, I studied him. It was weird being in the same room with him. It was even weirder to be on the same couch, but so far away. We’d watched more movies and TV shows than I could count with one of us curled against the other’s side. We’d both fallen asleep against the other dozens of times. Cuddling with him on the couch or in bed—I loved it.

  So now it was both uncomfortable to be this close to him and miserable to be this far away. Especially as, the more I watched him, the more I could see the cracks he’d tried not to let show. Exhaustion radiated off him, and his haunted eyes made me want to wrap him up in my arms and never ask another question about his past.

  That past seemed impossible. This couldn’t be real, could it? Except I couldn’t deny the evidence. For all the questions I still had, one thing was for damn sure—this wasn’t fake. The news stories I’d read before we left Idaho existed, and I didn’t think even Brandon could fake this level of trauma. Whether we still had a future or not remained to be seen. But more and more, I believed the version of the past he’d revealed since he’d arrived at my front door—God, had that only been forty-eight hours ago? It felt like months had passed since Marcus had answered that late night doorbell. I somehow knew more than I’d ever imagined I would about why Andrew had ghosted me, and at the same time, I had millions of questions for Brandon that I’d never imagined having.

  After a while, I chanced, “I know it’s the middle of the night, but as long as we’re awake…” I shrugged. “We did come out here to hash things out.”

  “We did.” He met my eyes across the couch’s broad expanse. “I’m not really sure where to start.”

  “Neither do I. There’s still so much I want to know.” I stared into my wineglass, but then finally made myself look at him again. “I’m just kind of afraid I don’t want to know.”

  “Maybe start with more of the easy stuff,” he suggested.

  “That’s the thing—none of it’s easy. How do I know I won’t ask you about something, and then it turns out that some story I loved hearing you tell never happened? Or… I don’t know. I can’t give you a rational reason.”

  “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I know this is hard. It’s hard for me, too.”

  I absently swirled my wine as I searched for someplace to start. Finally, I managed, “Were you really fishing with your cousin in Montana?”

  Somehow I wasn’t surprised when he shook his head, but it was also weirdly a gut punch. I’d never even met the cousin, and I had no reason to be emotionally invested in him fishing in the wilds of Montana. Was any of this ever going to make sense?

  Brandon’s voice was gentle as he asked, “Do you want to know where I was?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that. On the other hand, if I couldn’t handle this part, then how was I going to stomach any of the other cards he would probably show tonight? Might as well desensitize myself a bit.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  Brandon rolled a sip of wine around in his mouth and gazed into the glass. His voice was startingly raw as he said, “I was visiting my parents.”

  Another gut punch.

  “So your… They’re alive.”

  He nodded slowly, still not looking at me. “No one but my immediate family knew the truth about me. Every few months, I could talk to them on a secure line. About once a year, the marshals would arrange for us to meet in person.”

  I thought about that for a moment, then tilted my head. “But you were only gone for like… what, four or five days at most?”

  Pursing his lips, he nodded again. This time he did flick his eyes toward me. “Trust me when I say I’d have given anything to spend more time with them. It was just too risky to do more than that. My parents only ever took short trips. They’ve never been big on traveling. If they suddenly started taking a longer annual vacation, someone would notice.”

  “Jesus,” I breathed. “They really think of everything, don’t they?”

  “When you’ve got someone gunning for you hard enough to need witness protection? You better believe it.”

  “Wow.” I drained my wineglass, then topped us both off. “But it was safe for you to see them?”

  “Briefly.” He took a small sip. “And I saw my sister a couple of times, too.”

  Another unexpected gut punch. “You have a sister.”

  Another slow nod. “Christine. She’s a couple of years older than me.” He swirled his wine, watching it with disinterested eyes. “Her kids were in elementary school when I left. And we were close back then.” He sighed and put his glass down without taking a drink. “As far as they know, I’ve been dead for most of their lives, and they took that hard. So having me come back… My sister is still figuring out how to reintroduce me to them. What to tell them. It’s… messy and complicated.”

  “Oh, man. Yeah, I guess they couldn’t know, could they?”

  Eyes unfocused, Brandon shook his head. “No. My parents and my sister knew. Even her husband didn’t know.”

  “She didn’t tell him?”

  “No. The marshals were pretty blunt about telling her that if something happened and she and my brother-in-law split up, there was too big of a risk that he might out me just to get back at her.”

  “Do… Do you think he would?”

  “Never in a million years,” Brandon whispered. “But they have to be extra paranoid and assume the worst about anyone. As it was, they couldn’t tell my parents the truth until after my funeral.”

  “Holy shit.” I had to put my own glass down just so I wouldn’t drop it. “So your parents thought you were dead?”

  Pressing his lips together, he nodded. “For about a week, yeah. It seems cruel, but it’s the only way to make sure their emotional response at the funeral is genuine.”

  “Oh my God. And they… How does someone process that? Losing their son, and then finding out he’s alive?”

  “It was hell for them.” Brandon rubbed the back of his neck before dropping his hand into his lap. “It was awful for everyone else in my life, too, especially since they didn’t know I was alive until recently.”

  “So you… They know now?”

  He nodded again, gaze distant. “Yeah. And it was hard. Still is. I mean, people grieved for me. They went through hell because they thought I was dead. And now it’s this weird thing where they’re happy I’m alive—I think—but they resent everything they went through.” He swallowed. “Everything I put them through. My sister’s marriage is strained because she kept it from him. My parents’ physical and mental health suffered. It’s…” He turned to me. “I hurt a lot of people. Including you. And that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.” He paused, and his voice came out thick as he went on, “I can never put into words how much it hurt to do that to them, and how much it killed me to lie to you. And to leave you behind like that.”

  The ghosted boyfriend in me didn’t want to be satisfied with that answer. The cop who understood all too well how much secrecy went into witness protection? Especially at the federal level when someone was being hidden away permanently with a brand-new identity? I understood. In fact, I’d have been furious with the marshals for the lapse in opsec. What the fuck kind of incompetent idiots would jeopardize a witness’s safety just so he could say goodbye to his boyfriend?

  So, yeah. I got it. Still hurt. But I got it.

  When Brandon turned to me again, I was startled to see tears in his eyes. “I understand if you can’t trust me or if you don’t want me back. But just, please—if you take anything away from this, let it be that I never wanted to hurt you. And I never, ever wanted to leave you.”

  I nodded slowly. “I believe you.”

  “But you still want…” He trailed off, chewing his lip.

  “I still want what?”

  “For us to be…” He gestured at the space between us. “I understand if you do, I just…” Again, he trailed off.

  “It’s not what I want,” I whispered. “I just don’t know how to get back to where we were before.”

  “I don’t either.” Brandon sighed as he swiped at his eyes. “That’s—I’ve been trying to get back to something familiar ever since the marshals grabbed me out of Idaho. Not just with you.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”

  He looked at me again. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a stranger in your own life?” His eyes were welling up again, but he held my gaze even as he continued unsteadily. “Everyone in my old life thought I was dead. Everyone in my new life…” He blew out a breath. “And then there’s me, trying to figure out if I’m still Brandon, or if I was Andrew too long to go back, and… I don’t know where to go from here. With my social life. My professional life.” He winced. “My love life.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” I said with total honesty.

  “I’m glad,” he said bluntly. “No one should know what this is like. And I’m not expecting you to swing around and be completely okay with everything. I wasn’t even sure if I should come back. If I should do that to you.” He sat up a little and looked me in the eye. “I came back because being with you is the only thing that’s been right in my world for the past five years. I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I do know how I feel about you.”

  I chewed my lip as I avoided his gaze. “The problem is that I don’t know you.”

  “Then get to know me.” Brandon sighed. “Look, I get where you’re coming from, but I’m not as much of a stranger as you think. Yeah, there’s a lot about me you don’t know. And I’m more than happy to be an open book and tell you everything.” Brandon swallowed hard. Then he slid closer to me on the couch, and he tentatively reached for my hand. “Who I was when we were alone? That was all real.”

  “How can it be real?” I let the hurt bleed into my voice, but I didn’t pull my hand away. “I didn’t even know your name. I get it. I know why you couldn’t tell me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have no idea who you are.”

  “You didn’t know who I was when we started dating, either. We knew nothing about each other. But we got there, right?”

  Avoiding his gaze, I chewed my lip. Yeah, he was right. But it wasn’t that simple. Was it?

  Without preamble, Brandon said, “I really do hate sushi.”

  I looked at him. “What?”

  “I hate sushi.” He drummed his fingers on his knee. “I would rather eat glass than watch football.”

  I swallowed hard. Those little details—yeah, I remembered them. They were kind of cute, especially when I’d order sushi and he’d make a face, or when he’d told me he’d rather do a mid-February skinny dip in Lake Coeur d’Alene than go to his coworker’s Super Bowl party. “Okay, so… I know some things about you.”

  “You know more than you think.” He sat up a bit. “I was terrified to go on waterslides as a kid. Needles make me pass out, but…” He gestured at the tattoo peeking out from his sleeve.

  The flutter of affection I got from those small, familiar things was both welcome and uncomfortable. Like tears that couldn’t decide if they were joy, grief, or both. I still didn’t know what to feel about this man, but I whispered, “What else?”

  Brandon moistened his lips and gazed down into his wineglass. “I think crunchy peanut butter is an abomination, pineapple belongs on pizza, and cooking a steak more than medium rare is a crime.” He met my eyes through his lashes, and a tiny, mischievous grin played at his lips. “I really am ninety-nine percent gay, one percent Shakira.”

  A laugh escaped my lips as those words brought back a silly memory from our past.

  “Wait,” I’d said. “Do you… Do you have a crush on Shakira?”

  “No,” he’d insisted even as his cheeks glowed red. “I’m gay, remember?”

  “Uh-huh, and Marcus is ninety-nine percent straight, one percent George Clooney.” I’d sipped my drink and shrugged. “There’s no shame in having a one percent.”

  “Isn’t that being bisexual?”

  “Well, yeah. But Marcus just says he’s one percent gay for George Clooney, and who am I to argue?”

  He’d snorted, shaking his head, but he’d finally admitted, “Okay. Fine. I’m not into women at all… except for Shakira.” He’d cocked a brow. “Who’s your one percent?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I sipped my wine and put it back down.

  His voice was soft and pleading as he whispered, “I know that’s not major stuff. But it’s me. I’m still, on a lot of levels, the same man you knew before.”