Reed

"You don't have to do this," Leon complained as we walked along the outer edges of the cabins. They were set up in a messy circle, with the inner ‘circle' being the four-man cabins for the Tier Threes, the next ring was two-man cabins for Tier Twos, and then finally, the outer ring for the Tier Ones, who all had their own, private cabins.

"Yes, I do," I told him with a snort. "I know how stubborn you can be when you're told you can't or shouldn't do something because you're hurt. And I'm not getting my ass in trouble because you decided to do too much."

"I don't think I could get up to too much trouble like this," he grumbled as he walked slowly. No doubt, every step felt like his whole body was getting punched all over again. "I'm not seventeen anymore." The same stubborn petulance and almost indignant tone, as if he couldn't believe I wouldn't trust him despite having repeated proof of how ridiculously hardheaded he could be.

"No, but you do sound like a child who missed their nap," I said because I was still human, and poking fun at him when he was pouting was too hard to resist.

"Yeah, fuck you too," he said, and I had to chuckle silently so I didn't risk setting him off. Leon could take a ribbing with good spirits, but he was in pain and probably not happy that he had been assigned a babysitter for the next couple of weeks, so I didn't want to push too hard.

"I guess it's a good thing none of the guys saw you, huh?"

"Yeah, like you didn't time it so we'd head out during lunch rotations, so the chances of being spotted were low as hell," he said, still sounding grumpy, but I could hear the gratefulness in his voice.

He had never been one to care what other people thought about him. I didn't know if that was self-awareness on his part or just some form of acceptance that he ‘had' to accept other people's judgments of him. He didn't, of course, but in his mind, he probably considered there were far more important things than worrying about whether he should worry about other people's opinions.

The thing was, he was always going to be harder on himself than other people were. He had always seen himself in a harsher light than necessary, a source of many arguments between us in the past. Looking back, I had been a little too hard on him. He'd had every reason to believe the world was going to shit on him every chance it got. All I had to do was see how his parents had treated him growing up, and his brothers, and I had all the explanations I'd ever need to understand his almost paranoid view.

"Ah," he said after a moment. "Home sweet home."

His cabin was no different than any of the other cabins from the outside. The Tier Three cabins were slightly larger to accommodate the extra guys, but not a whole lot. I'd asked about that once, and the idea was that a good chunk of the guys who came into the program were used to a prison lifestyle, and making a sudden change could be jarring. Instead, the program introduced them to the relative freedom of the ranch by keeping certain things they were used to, such as strict scheduling and tighter shared living spaces.

"It's kind of funny when you think about it," I said as Leon unlocked the door to his cabin and pushed his way in, "how we're on complete opposite ends from one another."

"Are we?" he asked, stopping in the doorway to frown at the path behind us.

"Yeah, I'm practically next to The Big House," I told him with a snort. "And here you are, almost butting up against the plains."

"Yeah, it's kind of nice being out this far.," he said as he finally stepped in and let me follow.

The funny thing about the ranch was that there was a commissary just like the prison but with a lot more in it. We were given a wage, but most of it went into a savings fund the ranch held onto until we graduated. The rest of it was put into our commissary account. There were plenty of snacks, drinks, books, and even cigarettes for people to buy if they wanted to.

One thing most guys at the ranch didn't realize or pay much attention to, however, was that there was a second way of shopping for anyone in the program. Despite the signage, very few people took advantage of the catalog they could order from, giving them access to more stuff. It was admittedly decorative stuff, but it was an excellent way to give people a chance to make their cabins more personalized, more like a private cabin than a reminder that we were still technically felons.

To my surprise, Leon had taken advantage of that catalog. The basic rug on each cabin"s floor had been replaced by a dark blue one with intersecting yellow lines along the fringes. The chairs had soft cushions and there was a tablecloth on the small table by the window, and I was betting the row of books on one of the shelves with sheep-shaped book ends were ones he'd bought rather than borrowed from the on-site library.

"Not a fan of the quiet?" I asked him with a snort as I closed the door behind me. "We could trade cabins if you want. All I hear is noise from the guys going about their days when I'm in my cabin. Can't get a moment's peace unless it's late."

He chuckled, considered the bed, and instead went to his desk, where a couple of books and pens were waiting for him. "That's because you grew up in a quiet neighborhood with no siblings. I lived in a tiny ass apartment with two brothers and a whole host of noisy neighbors. Chaos and noise were like white noise to me. The quiet can be too loud."

"After making it to Tier One, you could have had your pick of cabins," I reminded him. "We're slowly inching our way out the door. And I'm sure Mona wouldn't have cared."

"Once, I would have argued and said Mona would have given me shit, but half the time, I can't tell why she's giving me shit."

"You think she still is?"

"Fuck yes. I just can't tell why."

"That a paranoia thing or an intuition thing?" I asked, not for the first time. I knew Mona was pushing him constantly, but it wasn't like I could own up to that right now. Even if I decided to go ‘against orders' and tell him the truth, now wasn't the time. He'd probably get, understandably, upset, and I didn't need him to get excited while he was on the mend.

"Probably both, one feeding into the other," he admitted and frowned. "And if you're going to act like a nervous mother hen, at least sit down and do it. And there's coffee if you want some."

His eyes darted to the small cabinet above the sink, and I could see his gaze linger for a few heartbeats before returning to my face. I didn't even try to hide my knowing smile as I immediately walked over to the cabinet. I dumped the old coffee still in the carafe and opened the cabinet to find the grounds.

"Thanks," he muttered, sounding grumpy, though whether that was because he wanted to make the coffee but wasn't sure if he could get up or because I'd figured it out without any trouble was up for debate.

"Oh ho, some customization in the cabin and fancy coffee?" I said with a snort as I pulled the bag of grounds out. "What is this, twenty bucks a bag? Even I don't have this in my cabin."

He looked uncomfortably down at the desk. "It's not like most of the money isn't going to be waiting for me when I get out anyway. Might as well use what they give me to get something nice for myself, right?"

"I'm not arguing," I said with a chuckle as I filled the small pot with water and started measuring out the grounds. "It's just a surprise. You were always so tight with money, especially when it came to yourself."

"I don't have anyone else to worry about," he said softly.

I paused, took a deep breath, and turned on the machine. "Sorry. I guess I didn't think about it like that."

I wondered how weird and fucked up it was that the loss of his brothers was almost a blessing in its way, as far as I was concerned. It was hard to muster the energy to care about Ray fucking off, if only because, unlike Leon, I was willing to write him off as an ungrateful asshole. Ian though. Well, I guess they both had to hurt Leon no matter the circumstances, yet here he was, free from the chains of needing to care for his brothers.

"It's not your responsibility to keep up on the fucked-up facts of my life," he said, and I didn't have to look at him to know he shrugged and probably winced when he remembered shrugging was a bad idea.

"I never claimed it was my responsibility," I said in a low voice. Once again, I found myself hating how he always tried to dismiss his own problems as if he was the only one who should care about them. He hadn't owned up to it yet, but I knew that was why he had finally decided to cut off contact with me.

"Good," he said quietly, barely heard over the gurgle of the coffeemaker.

I watched the dark liquid fill the carafe and wondered how we'd gotten to this point, not for the first time. It had always been a struggle to get him to admit the tough things he was going through, and that had been in person. Too often, I wondered if perhaps the end of our relationship and our friendship had been inevitable from the moment I left for college.

That was when he started to drift away from me. Slow and hard to notice as I adjusted to a new setting and the constant load of schoolwork. And how stupid I had been not to notice it when it had been him suggesting we end our relationship, considering we barely saw one another, where he couldn't get away to see me, and I couldn't do the same.

Then I'd gained a new social life, started dating casually, and sleeping around because I was still hurting from our breakup. I knew he'd been right, but even then, I didn't pay attention to the signs or see how he was drifting away. It was easier to miss after the breakup. We'd needed time to fall away from being boyfriends and go back to being friends again. But after that? How had I missed it? And when I'd caught on, why had I continued to let it happen without a fight?

"Reed," he began in warning. "Don't go wherever you're going right now. It's not worth it."

"I rather think it is," I said as the coffee began to slow to a drip. "Did I…where did I fail, Leon? Where did I falter so badly that you couldn't…that we?—"

"You didn't. There was nowhere for you to ‘fail,' Reed. It wasn't about you, or I mean, it wasn't about how you failed or that I felt you wouldn't let me turn to you when I needed help," he said in a weary voice.

"Then what? You being stubborn?"

"Something like that."

I let out a weary sigh and poured two cups of coffee before returning the pot to the machine. I walked over to the desk and set it down next to him, realizing one of the books appeared to be a journal from the looks of the plain leather cover and a thin spine absent any lettering.

"Taking advice from a shrink?" I asked.

"What?" he asked, looking down at the book and shrugging. "I guess. How did you know?"

"Because Dr. Mirandez comes into the clinic when he's at the ranch," I explained, thinking of the hard psychiatrist who visited for half a day every Sunday. Anyone could see him, but most guys didn't. It probably didn't help that despite all his awards and accreditation, he wasn't…well, I thought he was better suited for a lab than counseling. "He's made a few comments."

Leon's eyes widened. "Jesus fucking Christ, I only saw him once!"

I blinked and then laughed. "No, no, he didn't tell me anything about you or anyone specific. The guy is awkward as hell, but he won't tell some random convict about other convict's problems. He just asked me once if I wanted to come for a session with him."

"Good luck with that," Leon said with a snort. "All he does is sit there and ask questions and then say some of the weirdest shit about you. He even tried to guess what kind of background I had and guessed that one of my parents ‘inappropriately touched' me."

"Considering your, uh, reticence to share things with me, I'm kind of duty-bound to ask?—"

He rolled his eyes. "No. Unless you count cracking me upside the head and the occasional beating, which is pretty ina-fucking-propriate, but not what he meant."

I managed to keep my uncomfortable wince internal as I nodded. "Well, that's good…sort of."

"He seemed surprised when I told him my parents didn't give a shit about me enough even to try to fuck me," Leon said, smirking into his cup as he prepared to take a drink.

I stared at him. "I…Jesus Leon. I haven't heard you make a joke that dark since we were kids."

He laughed. "I couldn't help it. He was so sure of himself when he made that guess, I had to throw him off. Honestly, I thought shrinks were supposed to be good about that sort of thing, dark humor and all that."

"If it makes you feel better, he was nonplussed when he kept insisting I could tell him what drugs I'd done to get through med school and when I insisted my blood contained only unhealthy levels of caffeine and whatever the hell they put into energy drinks, he didn't know where to go with that."

"Did you know he keeps a picture of Freud with him?"

"I saw that. He uses it as a bookmark."

"Funny, I told Riley about that once when he asked me about the doc, and the look on his face was…well, he looked almost like Reno on a normal day."

"Really?"

"Yeah, said something about how Freud was so terrible a psychologist that the only reason you could call him the founder of psychology was that he pissed so many people off they threw themselves into the field just to prove him wrong, which they did, completely. There were many other things thrown in, too, including a whole tirade that would have made Elliot proud, considering the sheer amount of rambling that happened."

"You know, after what was told to us about him, that makes a lot of sense when you think about it," I said thoughtfully.

"Seemed weird at the time and out of the blue, but yeah," he said with a snort. "All I could do was stare at him, trying to figure out where that had come from before Max appeared and dragged him away, muttering."

"Is it weird that after thinking about it for a bit, the idea of the two of them being a thing is kind of cute?"

"A little," he said, wrinkling his nose. "Kind of like this crabby old cat somehow getting along with the new golden retriever you just rescued. The sort of thing that would get popular online."

"That's…pretty accurate, actually," I said as I sat on the edge of his bed. It amused me that it was neatly made when my own rarely was when I told myself I was just going to collapse into it anyway. Then again, just like he'd said earlier, his life had been chaos and noise growing up, and he'd always been particular about things. Maybe he found the noise comforting because it was what he knew, but on the other hand, he still craved some measure of control and order in his life.

Which brought me right back to what I had been thinking before, with Leon and his brothers. "I don't want to push you into having the conversation or anything."

"Oh boy," he said with a sigh.

I took that as permission to continue. "But was it because of Ian?"

Leon took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah. I mean, sort of. It's complicated. So I guess it's easier to say yes because of that…it came from it anyway."

So I had been right, a ‘victory' that had no real meaning or pleasure. For whatever reason, he had decided to pull away right after the worst disaster in his life had struck. He had made it so he was alone, and I was left completely in the dark about what was really going on.

"It was a perfect set of circumstances, wasn't it?" I said with a shake of my head.

"What do you mean?"

"You didn't have any friends other than me, and I obviously wasn't going to talk to your parents…ever. Ray had never tried to talk to me, though Ian did off and on…fuck I should have known."

"Wait, he did?" Leon asked in surprise.

I gave him a small smile. "We passed messages back and forth whenever one of us thought about it and had the time. It wasn't frequent, but enough for me to know he was around. I figured he decided to drift off like you had and let it go. I never once thought about it being anything else. And without anyone to tell me, how could I have known?"

"Yeah," he said in a brittle voice. "Even if you were keeping up on the news, what would they say? Some lowlife kid from the shitty part of town killed by a drunk behind the wheel? Shocking news at eleven."

I knew his bitterness wasn't about his brother but about the world we lived in. His brother had been one of the most important people in Leon's life, and knowing so few people would care about his death was still a hard pill to swallow. It didn't matter that Ian had been building a good life, that he was a good kid who had grown into a good man who was in love and getting married, or that he was just as inherently valuable as someone from a higher tax bracket. No one cared about the poor and downtrodden, something Leon had always known, but it had to be worse when it was about his brother.

"He deserved better," Leon said quietly, staring into his cup blankly.

"He did," I said because it was the truth, even though we both knew life didn't operate on fairness. Lord knew the number of people on this ranch who had been the product of unfair circumstances beyond their control. Not that it absolved them of their choices, but it was difficult to hold it against most of them when you learned about the homes they came from.

"I wish you'd told me," I admitted, completely flying in the face of what I had told him earlier.

"Look," he said, and I watched him try to bring the cup to his lips and struggle before switching to his other, less damaged arm. "I know what's about to come of this, and you can't say I didn't warn you about leaving it alone."

"Because I'm incredibly well known for leaving things alone when it comes to you," I said with a roll of my eyes. "And you were the one who welcomed me back into the friendship circle, so you're partly responsible."

"I didn't tell you because if I did, you would have dropped everything and come flying back to help me."

I stared at him for a moment as if there was going to be something else thrown into the mix, and when he didn't add anything, I scoffed. "Well, yeah, that's exactly what I would have done."

"See?"

"Leon, that was your brother. Who you basically raised…no, not basically, literally raised. Of course I would do everything I could to be there for you in your time of need."

"Just what? Drop your whole life? You were in med school, Reed. You couldn't just ditch everything. Your life was on the fast track. No need to hit the brake because my shitty life fell apart again."

I rubbed my forehead, trying to find grace and compassion, and realized I would have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. "And who was there for you?"

"What?"

"Who did you have?"

"I—"

"No one, that's who. Don't waste time thinking about it. You already told me Ray disappeared after Ian died, and unless you had some new friend or boyfriend at the time that I didn't know about, then you had no one."

"Okay, you're right. It wasn't like?—"

"And then you made the executive decision for me?"

"Huh?"

"C'mon, Leon, you had to know what you were doing. You made the decision for me, which was not yours to make. I'm not trying to rub salt in the wound here, Leon, but you had no right to do that."

Leon scowled at me. "And what? Just have you make a choice that would take all your progress and do what with it? Throw it all away?"

"Are you kidding me? There are all sorts of things I could have done," I told him with a huff. "Hell, they have entire policies that help people in bad situations. I could have told a simple lie and said a close family member had died. I would have been there for at least a week. Or two."

"And then what? You would have fallen behind."

"Progress can be caught up, especially when you've got a good reason for falling behind. And even if I had to drop, that's still a valid reason, and starting back where I left off wouldn't have been that hard."

"You didn't need to do?—"

"That was not your choice!" I finally snapped, reaching to set my coffee cup down roughly on the desk. "I should have been the one to make that choice, for me! You had the entire world on your plate and decided to take on my decision with it?"

Leon looked away with a snort. "See? Told you to drop it."

"Oh God," I groaned, rubbing at my face. "Is this what you're going to do? Suddenly, play the pity card because I'm calling you out? Well, go right ahead. I've seen it before. I know how to ignore it."

"That's the problem. You ignore anything inconvenient," he snapped at me. "You always did. No matter what I said or did or how I tried to explain things, you always went right along with whatever you thought was the best way to go about things."

"Right, and you were always the pinnacle of facing things," I shot back at him. "You've never been infamous for letting things go by, refusing even to acknowledge they exist, let alone dealing with them. You just pass it off onto something else and dismiss it. Kind of like how you decided my choices were yours to make and passed it off while you sat in the worst misery of your life."

"Just let it go!" Leon growled, turning toward me quickly and freezing, his expression stony. I knew immediately he had probably twisted a muscle that did not want to be used.

"Don't," I said sharply, gripping his arm. "Just take a few slow breaths and carefully straighten your body, alright? No hard movements. Otherwise, you'll be in for it all over again."

I watched sweat break out on his forehead and realized how hard it had to be for him. As far as I knew, the worst he'd ever done to himself was break his wrist when we were fourteen.

"That…well, I certainly felt that," he said as I slowly took the coffee cup from his death grip and set it on the desk.

I slid off the bed, taking his uninjured arm in my hand and pressing my fingers to his wrist. It wasn't to measure his heartbeat precisely, but I could feel it was fine, just racing, with no weakness. "Well, I don't think we have anything to worry about. Any dizziness or lightheadedness?"

"No, but that coffee is disagreeing with me right now."

"Uh, do I need a bucket or something?"

"No, just uncomfortable."

"Okay, I'm going to get you some water. And I have some pain pills?—"

"I don't want pills."

"That are even weaker than I dosed you with but stronger than the over-the-counter stuff. You promised you'd behave."

"I don't want to get dosed. I hate that feeling, like everything is far away and like I don't care. I don't want to feel that again."

"You won't," I promised him as I went to the sink for water. He was still sitting upright when I came back, and despite the sweat, the paleness had dissipated, almost returning to that beautiful tan he'd gained on the ranch. "Take the water. And here's the pills."

I extracted them from the bottles I'd taken from the clinic, under Alice"s direct eye, of course. I doubted even another Tier One would have been allowed to take prescription drugs back to a cabin, but my position afforded me a little more leeway than others. I would be thrown out on my ass in a heartbeat if I violated that trust, but I never would. This was the better option than someone having to make a ‘home' visit to drop off the meds or for Leon to slowly make his way down to the clinic every morning and night.

"I'm going to give you half the dose," I told him, reminding myself to note that when I returned with the notebook I'd been given to track his meds. Trust or not, they weren't stupid, and they needed a complete inventory if I gave him less than ordered. "We'll see how you handle that, and then we'll talk about what to give you at bedtime."

He still wanted to argue, but he watched me break a pill into a few pieces before popping them, grimacing from the taste, and drinking the water. "Why did you break it?"

"Helps get it into your system quicker," I admitted with a guilty smile. "Not something you're supposed to do because it can mess with the rate of metabolism, but I think we'll be okay with one."

"I'll keep your dirty little secret," he said with a small smile.

I couldn't help myself as he set the glass aside, reaching up to brush the hair off his forehead and look at him carefully. "You know, for all the shitty things your parents did to you, your genetics had to be the best thing they ever gave you."

He blinked. "I…what?"

"You haven't exactly had a good life from start to now, yet you still manage to be impressively handsome."

"Oh yeah, GQ, here I come."

"Well," I said, giving his hair a light and playful tug. "I think you're handsome, and I always have. Even when you're beat up, exhausted, and looking cranky as hell, handsome as always. Glad to know I was right that day."

"That day? Vague as hell."

I chuckled, adjusting his hair. "We were young, middle school. I don't remember exactly when, but I remember talking to you, and you were complaining about how big your feet were getting, you didn't have new shoes, and you kept tripping over. You went on this whole rant about how goofy you would start looking. It was then I realized I was crazy about you, and when you grew up, you were going to be handsome as hell. And here you are, proving me right."

"I'm sure I look great," he said, his face regaining color and going pink because, of course, he was still terrible at receiving compliments about his looks. Once upon a time, he used to get so flustered I reserved them for when we were alone, and usually when I knew he could express his embarrassment in a different way.

"Some things don't change, do they?" I asked, more to myself than anything, but it was still an amusing question. Because right now, I could see the seventeen-year-old kid he insisted he wasn't anymore, and I could see the twelve-year-old complaining about needing new pants and how annoying his brothers were. Now I was staring at a man who was thirty-three, who had born the world on his shoulders, and now needed to bear responsibility of some sort, or he'd find himself lost and adrift in a world that simply didn't care.

"Some days, I feel like I haven't changed at all," he admitted with a small smile. "And other days, I feel like a completely different person."

"If you ask me, which you didn't," I said, getting a laugh out of him. We both knew that when it came to him, I'd always been a bit of a busybody, and now the door had been opened on our friendship again, old habits died hard. "I think you're just the same but different, in a mixed-up way."

"I think same but different covered it being mixed-up."

"No, I mean, some of it's better, some…not. You're just different. And the same. And I really think this place is a chance for you to find yourself. To be better, and you've been doing that. All without my interference, so I guess I should consider that when I'm getting into your business."

"I used to get so frustrated when you butted into my mess," he admitted, his hand resting on my upper arm. "And then came a time when you weren't around anymore, and I realized I missed it. How the hell do we as a species manage to survive this long when we contradict ourselves so easily?"

"Don't ask me," I said with a laugh, letting my hand slide down to his face to rest gently. "I went into medicine because it was easier to fix people's bodies than try to understand how their minds work. That's a whole level of confusing I don't need."

He chuckled. "Sometimes I think I understand how people work, but then they turn around and surprise me. It makes my job here, well, a challenge."

"You're a lot better at it than you think," I told him with a small smile. "You forget, I hear a lot of things around here, and people do like to talk about you."

He sighed. "And I'm sure they like to make jokes too."

"A few," I said, evading the question. "But even Reno respects you. He may not show it, but he does care."

"Reno?" he asked, raising a brow. "What's he doing in the clinic?"

"You know I'm not going to tell you why patients are in the clinic," I said, thinking it probably had been a big deal for Reno to come into the clinic looking for sleeping medicine. He didn't strike me as the type to seek medication for any of his problems, so his was definitely a visit I wasn't going to talk about. If he were willing to seek help, I would do everything I could to encourage it, even if it was just keeping my mouth shut.

Leon sighed. "It's just frustrating. I feel like I'm constantly navigating and dealing with these guys, and I'm blind and wandering around. Reno and Elliot are a prime example."

"Listen," I told him gently. "I don't think anyone else could do what you're doing as well as you are. And better than you think you're doing."

"Aren't you obligated to say something encouraging and nice to someone when they're injured?" he asked but betrayed himself by smiling.

"I'm being honest," I said with a smirk. "And it just so happens it works out to be nice to you as well."

"How convenient," he said, his old, dry humor coming back in that little secretive smile I'd always thought of as a secret shared between us.

It was a stupid thing to do, but I was pushing toward him before thinking. And if it was stupid, then it was a shared stupidity because Leon had enough time to stop me before I reached him, but he never tried.

Yet I hesitated when our lips nearly touched, and I could feel his breath for a moment before stopping, and I knew he was holding his breath. It was one of those things I remembered in a sudden blast of understanding and memory. It was something I remembered him doing many times in the past. It was one of those things he only did when he was extremely excited and trying to keep himself in check. It had always been a sign when we were together that it was a green light for me to push him as hard as I wanted.

Maybe it was easier to tell myself it was impossible to stop once I'd started, or maybe that was just a convenient excuse. It didn't matter, though, because I still closed the distance between us and let our lips touch. Our lips were dry and a little chapped from the dry air we were constantly exposed to, and I was betting my breath wasn't exactly fresh after not getting the chance to brush my teeth the night before or after I was dragged out of bed by Mona.

Yet right then, it was just the two of us, alone in the cabin and free to enjoy this moment. I slid my hand down to grip his shoulder and hold him in place while I continued the kiss, neither of us moving. It was soft and gentle, our lips pressing together when he finally leaned forward. I had to turn my head so our faces wouldn't mash against one another.

His hands found my waist, and he squeezed gently, his breath a familiar shuddering sound that sent a shiver down my spine. It was difficult not to simply pull him back onto the bed with me where we could see what else was the same between us, but I knew better. I had already pushed things farther than I meant to, and he was in no state for the sort of things I wanted to do to him.

Which was enough to remind me that this was the time for me to back off before things got too heated. I slowly pulled my hands from his shoulder, placing them in his lap so I could push myself up. His body went rigid, his breath catching again, and I went still as my hand came to rest on his thigh, and my fingers found the distinct, very hard outline of his cock.

Not that I was surprised, he had always been a sucker for getting kissed, and it wasn't like I had a whole lot of room to talk when the confines of my pants were snugger than usual. Our eyes opened as I slowly pulled my mouth from his, feeling a faint ache in my chest at the distance between us.

My fingers had a mind of their own, it seemed, and I found myself stroking back and forth as far as they would go along his shaft. His eyelids fluttered at my touch, and I heard the faintest noise from his throat. It was all too easy to realize that even if I couldn't do everything I wanted, it wouldn't be difficult to do other things. I only needed to get on my knees between his legs, open his pants, and?—

"Oooookay," he breathed softly, bringing his hands from my hips and placing them over mine. His fingers wrapped around my hand and gently nudged it back, and with a disappointed reluctance, I slid them down to his knees and pushed back onto my chair.

"Sorry," I said, even as I had to fight to keep my eyes above his waistline.

He gave me a wry smile and a shake of his head. "I wasn't exactly fighting to push you away?"

That was true. After all, he had drawn me in and wasn't the quickest when I'd started feeling him up. "Well, I should probably try not to take advantage of a guy in pain and on meds."

"Weren't you the one who said the meds wouldn't make me loopy?"

"It's the principle."

"And I don't think the pill has set in. Weirdly enough, that did ease the pain a bit."

"Hormones and blood flow, maybe shifting around a bit," I said with a snort, not ducking my head like I wanted to because I knew where I'd look.

"Yeah, the blood is still flowing," he said, reaching down with his uninjured hand. I couldn't help but trace his movements as he gripped his still hard cock and shifted it in his pants. Undoubtedly, to get it into a more comfortable position but that didn't stop the internal twitch inside me, the desire for it to be my hand instead. "Pervert."

I laughed, pulling my head up to look him in the eye. "You did that on purpose. You always liked to mess with me in situations where I couldn't do anything about it. I used to think you had an exhibitionist kink or something."

"I most definitely do not," he said with a snort.

"No, but you got off on teasing the crap out of me, which I figured out after a while," I shrugged. "I didn't mind."

His eyes twinkled with amusement. "No, you never did seem to mind much from what I remember."

I remembered a few things, but I wasn't going to start remembering his naked body and the things we learned to do with it right now. I was already too revved up. Pushing myself even further would be a form of torture I wasn't willing to experience.

"Still, sorry," I said with a shrug, not knowing what else to say.

"Are you really sorry?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

I opened my mouth and then stopped as I remembered the first, hurried kiss we'd had when he'd practically dove at me. It had been a little mean to string him along for a second, but watching him flounder in the horror and embarrassment of what he'd done had been too damn adorable. I remembered feeling like I wanted to live in that moment forever, which lasted only as long as it took me to kiss him back, and then that was where I wanted to live forever in my mind.

Come to think of it, there were a lot of moments like that.

"Ass," I told him affectionately before sitting back in my seat, glad my dick decided to calm down now nothing was happening and I could sit comfortably again. "Fresh coffee? Should be enough for a couple more cups."

"Sure," he said, surprising me with the lack of angst or drama. If anything, he seemed more at ease, which was a strange thought.

I got up to refill the cups, and sure enough, there was just enough in the pot for us both. I cleaned the pot before setting in a new filter with grounds and refilling the machine so it could be used the following day with just the flick of a switch.

When I came back, that same sense of calmness was about him as I sat down and looked at him, trying to figure out what was going on in his head. Of course, that was easier said than done, and his eyes were locked on the window, looking out over his bed onto the plains just outside the ranch's borders. It looked positively roasting outside, but the air conditioning unit built into the cabin seemed to be doing a better job than the one in mine, so it was comfortable inside.

"I don't want you to think I stopped you because I didn't like it or because I thought there was something wrong with it," he said after a moment, finally pulling his eyes back to mine. "Honestly, I don't know what to feel about what happened."

"Well, we both know emotions are complicated things, especially given our history," I said with a snort, taking a sip of coffee that I was officially going to have to get for my cabin.

"True, and I still haven't processed everything that's happened in the past twenty-four hours. One minute, I was fine, my normal self, and now I'm dealing with the fact that I had a building fall on me…part of one."

"Yeah, Mona is pissed about that. The foreman she had in charge is going to be in hot water if she doesn't find a ditch to roll him in."

"She takes her job seriously, so she expects everyone else to as well," he said thoughtfully as if it had just occurred to him. "Doesn't explain why she gives me shit, though. I take my job seriously."

The explanation he was looking for was sitting in the mind of the person right across from him, and he either didn't know or didn't want to address it. I had warned Mona to be careful talking to me and hoped he hadn't heard too much of our conversation. Mona hadn't been thrilled with me either, considering Leon and I had only reconnected for a couple of weeks, and then he got injured.

Thankfully, there was someone more at fault than me, so instead, she had done what Mona did, and taken an opportunity when it was given. I wondered what her expression would look like if she knew what her new plan had caused. Then again, knowing Mona, she probably wouldn't give a shit if I helped him by being his friend or his lover, whatever got the best results.

But I didn't feel that way, not about Leon. I'd only agreed to her little deception plan because it felt like the only way to genuinely help Leon. I also genuinely wanted to kiss him, touch him, lay down with him, and rediscover things we'd probably thought long gone and buried. I hated that the secret I had to keep from him was the same thing that would leave me questioning every little thing I did with him when I had a moment.

"I don't want to rush things, you know?" he said, glancing at me and smiling. "Once upon a time, we agreed to take things slow, which worked best for us then. And I think it will work for us now. We only just became friends?—"

"I understand," I told him because I did understand, just like when we were sixteen. "I wasn't trying to push or rush anything."

"I know."

"I just wanted to do it."

"I also know that," he said with a grin. "You'll notice I wanted it too."

I smiled at him, feeling the tension inside me bleeding out rapidly. "I did, in fact, notice it."

"Plus," he said slowly with a grin. "I'm not sure I wanted that to continue when I'm basically an invalid."

"You're not an invalid," I said, rolling my eyes.

"I'm certainly not strong and capable of doing stuff on my own. Any argument I might have had about not needing help died when I walked here. That was torture," he said with a chuckle. "So, for multiple reasons, I'm glad you're here."

"I'd say I'm glad to be here, but I think we've had enough cheesy sentimentality for one day," I said with a snort.

"Good point. We should probably see about getting some food that doesn't involve me making a spectacle of myself," he said with a sigh. "And I imagine I'm under close watch for a bit."

"Yes," I said with a smirk. "I'll be crashing here. But there won't be any bed sharing, so I'll take a cot because I do not need a decent bed."

"We'll see about that," he said, leaning back in his seat.

Oh, this was going to be fun.