Chapter One

Only the pain in his heart eclipsed the ache in his head. Bleary-eyed, Dr. Jordan Peterson sat slumped at his kitchen table and stared into the void of his house. Empty bottles of vodka littered the table, alongside half-full takeout Chinese food containers.

Still alone .

Each time he awakened, Jordan prayed the nightmare that played consistently in his head would cease. It was like that annoying song repeated on the radio every hour you wanted to forget but couldn't.

"I'm sorry, Jordan, but Keith didn't make it."

How do you move on from the finality of the death of your love when you've promised him the rest of your life? After almost nine months Jordan still didn't have the answer.

The doorbell rang. Groaning with the effort it took to move his protesting body, and with his head pounding from another vicious hangover, he grabbed the bottle of aspirin sitting on the countertop and popped two pills, aided by a handful of water directly from the tap. Then, swallowing his nausea, he shuffled to the front door of his town house. Jordan massaged his temples and squinted through the peephole, grimacing at the sight of his best friend Drew, with his lover, Ash.

Jordan's chest tightened at the happiness on his friend's face as Drew kissed Ash's cheek, unaware he was being spied upon. Smothering the bitterness he'd felt toward Drew these past few months, he yanked open the door to greet the two men.

"Damn, you look like shit." Ash's sharp gaze raked him up and down. "Ow." He rubbed his arm when Drew elbowed him. "Don't get mad at me, baby. You know he does. Look at him."

"Can we come in, Jordy?" Drew's kind smile only made him feel worse, not better, considering the enmity Jordan carried inside.

He said nothing and pulled the front door wider for his friends, leaving them to trail behind him back through the house and into the spacious kitchen. Sunlight poured onto the terra-cotta floors and glinted off the glass-fronted maple cabinets. The kitchen was his pride and joy, and when he and Keith bought the brownstone, it had been the only room he cared about decorating. Jordan had always loved staring out of the large bay window at the garden and the sky as he relaxed with his cup of coffee in the morning, Keith beside him reading the paper. Now he saw nothing.

"Did you have a party?" Drew tipped his head to the table, still cluttered with vodka bottles.

"Party of one, more likely."

Despite a throbbing head and a roiling stomach, Jordan lashed out at Ash's muttered remark.

"Shut up, Davis." He and Ash never had the easiest of relationships; the man still irritated the hell out of Jordan no matter how happy he made Drew.

"Why, Jordan? The truth hurts?" Ash's voice, oddly enough, neither condemned nor derided him. Instead, it held an overall note of sadness mixed with empathy that pulled Jordan up short. "You sit here, night after night, refusing our dinner invitations, as well as Rachel and Mike's, or even Esther's. Don't think we don't know what you're doing and why."

Jordan winced. Shit . A kindhearted, sympathetic Ash Davis was almost worse than the sarcastic, overly confident man Jordan was used to. "I'm not in the mood for company; that's all."

"And I call bullshit on that. You're still mourning Keith, and I get that, but it doesn't mean you don't go on living. When your only company since he died has been a bottle of vodka, you're heading for disaster."

"Jordy," Drew entreated, bracing his hands on the kitchen island. "I'm worried about you. You've lost weight, skipped days at the hospital, and I was told that during surgery last week—"

"Are you checking up on me?" Shaking with anger, Jordan fisted his hands at his side. "What the fuck, man? You're not my goddamn keeper." Humiliation, shame, and a sense of despair tore through him as he turned away from his two friends to sit at the kitchen table. He ran his hands over the battered wood of the long farmhouse table, recalling how happy he and Keith had been to find it in the small Pennsylvania town they'd stumbled upon one Saturday. The memory of making love on top of it after lugging it up the stairs of the brownstone was forever etched in his mind. He gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.

For over thirty years he and Drew had been friends; the man knew him better than anyone. People might think Drew Klein a sweet and easygoing pushover of a man but Jordan knew the core of steel within him. Drew refused to back down if he thought he could help. True to form, Drew dropped into the chair right next to him, challenging and direct.

"Jordan. Look at me."

It took great effort to tear his gaze away from the tabletop but he inhaled a deep breath and smiled into Drew's face. "What is it?"

He didn't fool Drew. "Don't give me that fake-ass smile. I'm not checking up on you. It's common knowledge that you showed up to your first surgery since Keith died and had to wait an extra hour to start because you had the shakes." Drew's mouth thinned to a hard line. "Are you crazy, showing up drunk for surgery? You could lose your fucking license, for God's sake."

"I wasn't drunk. I was overtired and hadn't eaten since lunchtime the day before."

Behind him he heard Ash snort with laughter. "Are you fucking kidding me, Jordan? You can come up with a better one than that."

"Fuck off, Ash," he shot back. "I couldn't care less about your opinion."

"How about mine? Don't lie to me." Drew's stare remained unflinching, his eyes soft. "I know you're still having a hard time moving on from Keith's death but it's going to be a year soon."

"It's only been nine months. God almighty, did you expect me to forget him already?" Horrified, Jordan swept his hand across the table, sending the empty bottles and food containers crashing to the floor. "Keith and I were together for almost four years. You haven't even been with Ash a year; could you forget him so easily? Stop pressuring me to move on with my life. It's over for me. There will never be anyone else."

"So you plan on drinking yourself into an early grave, losing your job and quite possibly your friends along the way?" Drew placed a hand on his arm. "I don't think Keith would expect you to mourn him forever."

"I didn't expect to have to mourn him at all. He was supposed to be here, with me." The tears, always threatening below the surface, spilled over, coursing hot and fierce down his cheeks. It seemed he hadn't stopped crying since Keith had been murdered. "I can't get past it. No matter what I do, he's always there with me, and I can't let him go." All the fight and anger left him deflated like a balloon several days after a party. An ineffable weariness stole through him, and he laid his head on his arms on top of the table. "Go home, you two. Leave me alone."

Without a word, Ash found the broom and dustpan and began to clean up the broken glass while Drew remained seated next to Jordan at the table.

"Look, I understand what you're feeling. But destroying yourself isn't going to bring him back. We know you miss him."

"You don't understand." Jordan shook off Drew's attempt to comfort him. "I'm beginning to forget him. Not only his voice but also the way his arms held me. The way the sound of his breathing calmed me so I could fall asleep every night." His breath caught in his throat, and a shudder racked his body.

Jordan couldn't reveal the worst—that he could no longer recall the press of Keith's lips on his or the sweet sweep of Keith's tongue in his mouth. The warmth and smoothness of Keith's skin, once as familiar as Jordan's own, had begun fading to a cold and distant memory. Sometimes he'd sit in bed late at night and play his voicemail messages simply to hear Keith's voice. How fucking disloyal a love was he? It had only been nine months, yet Keith's touch, something he'd longed for every day of his life and sworn he'd never forget, had slipped away like fog in the summer wind. Gentle and swift, leaving no trace behind that it had ever existed.

"Shouldn't I remember? I lived with him and loved him with my life." He lifted his head to stare into Drew's eyes, seeing the sympathy and pain that had resided there since Keith died. Hating Drew for that. He didn't want anyone feeling sorry for him, perceiving him as weak. He preferred the way Ash treated him, with stark truth and harsh reality. At least with that he could get angry and curse. But when Drew treated Jordan with kid gloves, all sweet and sympathetic, he couldn't strike back.

"It has nothing to do with loyalty. It's merely the way the passage of time allows us to accept what's happened. After my parents died, I raged over not saving their voicemails." Drew's green eyes glimmered with tears. His parents had been gone now for well over ten years, killed in a horrific car crash, and Jordan knew Drew still mourned their senseless deaths. "To be able to listen to their voices might've brought me some comfort. I knew they were really gone when I couldn't hear their voices in my head anymore. But in a way, it finally allowed me to move on with my life."

Jordan watched as Ash placed his hands on Drew's shoulders, bending down to brush a quick kiss on his cheek. That was what he missed. The support, the small gestures letting him know someone loved him enough to care.

"What if I don't want to move on? Or can't?" Unbeknownst to Drew, he was part of Jordan's problem, though Jordan couldn't bring himself to tell Drew that salient fact. It would crush him. Jordan pushed himself up from the table and took the broom. "There's nothing you or anyone can do. I'm doing the best I can, so leave me alone. Go bother someone else."

"You're such a bad liar." Ash leaned his hip against the kitchen counter. "This"—his hand swept at the debris littering the floor—"is the best you can do? Day-old takeout food and empty liquor bottles? Where's the Dr. Jordan Peterson I knew—stylish, arrogant, and always in control?" Ash quirked a brow. "Even before you met Keith, you were a proud bastard. This is far, far from your best."

A knot twisted in Jordan's stomach. That was the point. He didn't want to go back to the way he'd been before. There'd been other relationships, but none had mattered. Only Keith had seen through him right from the start. No one knew how badly Jordan needed Keith to anchor him. Jordan knew he could be that proud bastard, as Ash called him, to the outside world, because he had Keith at home, loving him, flaws and all. With Keith gone, the soft part of Jordan, vulnerable and needy for comfort and love, was dying.

"Go away, both of you, and leave me alone." He continued to sweep up the floor, unwilling and unable to meet his friends' eyes. The thunk of the mail falling through the slot gave him the perfect excuse to leave them. As he made his way to the front door, the bell rang.

Christ, was he to get no peace today? The weekend was supposed to be for resting.

He answered the door to see his mailman on the stoop. "Hey, Bill. You have something for me?" Jordan and his mailman were on a friendly basis since Jordan had operated on the man's knee the previous year with excellent results.

"Yes, Dr. Peterson. I have a certified letter you need to sign for." He held out the green card, which Jordan signed and returned. "Thanks, Doc."

"See you in a few months for your checkup." Jordan smiled at the mailman and watched him walk away, noting with a professional eye the even gait and freedom of movement of Bill's knee as he descended the steps of the brownstone. Jordan turned away and closed the door behind him. As he scanned the letter, he saw with a sinking heart it was from Lambert and North, the financial consulting firm Keith had used to set up his accounts.

Most people hadn't known the extent of Keith's wealth. The man truly had a Midas touch when it came to having his money make money, and he'd been intimately involved in the investment of that money. When Keith died, he left Jordan as his main beneficiary. He'd also created a trust for charities dedicated to LGBT inner-city children.

Upon the reading of the will a month or so after Keith's death, Jordan learned Keith had created a foundation to prevent gun violence among the city's youth population. He'd coordinated it with the police department so that the teens would be taken to Riker's Island to see what happened to men and women who chose to get involved with crime and illegal guns—a sort of Beyond Scared Straight program. But there was much more to it. There were after-school sports programs to be set up, music lessons for kids, computers—anything to keep them off the streets. It was mainly centered around Keith's precinct and the schools in the area. Keith had arranged for several corporate sponsors to keep the money coming, but the hope was that more private funding would flow into it once they publicized the charity.

Jordan had been named president of the foundation and administrator of the trust but had been putting off meeting the financial adviser since the reading of the will. He didn't have the heart or strength to get entangled in the endeavor, even if Keith had wanted him to. He was so tired of it all and wanted only for people to leave him alone.

"Who was that?" Drew asked. He and Ash both looked up from the floor, where they had recommenced cleaning. All the glass had been swept up and put in the recycle bin, Jordan noticed, and Drew had wiped the tile floor with some wet paper towels. He really did have some good friends, even if they came with pain-in-the-ass boyfriends.

"It was the mailman. Nothing important." Jordan knew better than to tell these two how he'd been blowing off meeting the foundation's financial adviser. Drew's own cause, the medical clinic he'd set up for abused teens, was his whole life, and his and Ash's dedication to it was extraordinary. They wouldn't take kindly to him dodging his responsibility. For a brief moment, shame coursed through him, and he decided he'd call Monday morning to set up an appointment.

"Don't think you have to babysit me. I'm going to take a shower and run some errands." He needed to refill his liquor cabinet and some prescriptions but they didn't have to know that.

Ash shot him a hard look, disbelief apparent in his eyes while Drew merely shook his head. "Is that what you think we're doing? You're my best friend, yet I barely see you anymore." Drew's inscrutable expression unnerved Jordan. Seeing Drew so guarded and hurt, shame once again pricked Jordan's conscience. Keith had been his lover, but Drew and their other friend Mike were his brothers in every sense of the word. He'd never hidden anything from them. Until now.

The past few months had made him an expert in masking his feelings. So with a smile he hoped didn't look too fake or forced, he slapped Drew on the back, trying to lighten the mood. "You're right. And I promise to make an effort to get out more and get a handle on my life." With a small prayer of thanks, he watched as his two friends prepared to leave.

"Don't be a stranger. My grandmother misses you." Drew hugged him, whispering into his ear, "I miss you." Guilt cramped his stomach.

"Seriously, Jordan. Come by for dinner this week. Maybe you can distract that cat from attacking my ankles every time I walk by." Ash grimaced, but his eyes crinkled with amusement.

Even Jordan laughed at Ash's running battle with Drew's cat, Domino. Seemed the cat resented Ash's place in Drew's life and took his displeasure out on him every chance he got.

"I can't help it if the cat has good taste, Davis." Jordan smirked and ducked Ash's friendly punch before he followed Drew out the front door.

Jordan couldn't help but notice how, when they were halfway down the block, Ash stopped, grasped Drew around the neck, and kissed him hard. They continued to walk, Ash's arm snug around Drew's shoulders to tug him close. A pain sharp and deep knifed through Jordan, and he caught his breath. There was no one left to hold him. Not anymore.

Grief-stricken and unwilling to face more loving gestures between his friends, Jordan turned his back and reentered his house. He picked up the certified letter and opened it, scanning the brief paragraph.

Dear Dr. Peterson:

I have tried, unsuccessfully these past few months, to contact you regarding the foundation the late Keith Hart created. As you have failed to respond, I will take this as your decision not to participate in this worthwhile endeavor. Please consider this as formal notice that I will be asking the other members of the board to remove you from this position, and we will begin the process of acquiring a new president of the board.

Very truly yours,

Lucas Conover, Platinum Account Services

Lambert & North, LLC

Jordan's eyes narrowed as the burn of anger rose in his face. Fucking snotty bastard . Who the hell was this Conover to talk to him like that? Jordan stormed into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. The bottle of pills sat there, mocking him. Jordan grabbed it, wrenched the top open, and swallowed the last two. If one was good, two were better. Antidepressant? Shit, make it more like anti-feel anything at all. The way Jordan liked it. He slammed the door and faced himself in the mirror, wincing at his too-pale skin and bloodshot, sunken eyes. Once the pills kicked in and he took a shower, he'd be good as new. The languid sense of well-being from the drugs began to seep into his body. He couldn't wait until Monday morning when he'd come face-to-face with that little prick, Lucas Conover.