Tobias winced. “In a nonjudgmental, whatever-makes-you-happy sort of way?”
Sullivan laughed without humor. “Not hardly.”
“I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t the token apology that most people offered in this sort of situation, fulfilling the day’s allotment of social expectation. He sounded like he was truly touched by Sullivan’s pain. It was earnest and endearing and hard to take. Sullivan looked down. “Thanks.”
After a brief hesitation, Tobias asked, “Did you love him?”
“Yes.” Sullivan thought he sounded embarrassingly hoarse, but it wasn’t because of Nick, exactly. Or at least, it wasn’t because he was pining for their romantic relationship. His love for Nick had been platonic for a long time, partially because they’d been young when they met and partially because Sullivan had never dared to let himself hope for more, and he’d have been able to make the switch back to friendship if given the chance. It would’ve hurt, but he could’ve done it. Instead, within two days of Sullivan’s confession about what he needed in bed, both Nick and all evidence of his presence in Sullivan’s life had been gone. He hadn’t gotten the brushoff. He’d gotten a swift and brutal ejection.
Nick had left the gifts Sullivan had given him over the years in a pile on his front stoop, for fuck’s sake.
No, he might be upset, but he definitely wasn’t pining.
“I don’t think some handcuffs and a little wax play would’ve been enough to make him hate me, but the rest of it...” Sullivan tipped his head back against the rest, concentrating on where Tobias’s fingers had tightened around his. “I said I wanted to hurt him. He said I was a monster. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a point, you know, but—”
“Whoa, that’s—” Tobias’s eyes had gone wide. “He did not have a point. What he said is not okay, Sullivan. You’re not a monster. He doesn’t have to like what you like, but it’s not okay to vilify people for wanting or liking different things. He could’ve said no, he could’ve walked away, but trying to shame you and humiliate you because he didn’t have the same views on the subject—that’s what’s monstrous.”
“Hey, hey, easy.” Sullivan tugged his hand loose, but only so he could wrap his fingers in the curl by Tobias’s temple, tugging gently, stroking the skin there with his thumb. “I’m okay. Take a breath.”
Tobias did, but the tension in his lips didn’t fade. “I hate that. When people assume that different is bad. Someone doesn’t have to understand your choices or agree with them to accept that you still have the right to make them. We don’t all have to be the same. We can be different without letting it make us afraid or mean or careless. It’s so stupid.”
“It is,” Sullivan agreed, and his voice sort of broke because he hadn’t expected this. Caty had been fired up, no doubt, but she was always fired up, and her anger had been of the protective, don’t hurt what’s mine sort, not this, this acceptance from someone who knew what Sullivan wanted to do to him and was still all right with it.
Tobias kept going, “And if I want you to beat me from here to Port-au-Prince, that’s my prerogative. Someone doesn’t have to want that too in order to back the fuck up and let me have it.”
“Wow, that’s—Port-au-Prince?”
“The capital of Haiti. Learn some geography.” Tobias scowled fiercely at nothing in particular.
“I know where it is, you just don’t get a lot of references to it in kinky conversation. At least, not in my experience. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say fuck before.” Sullivan’s lips twitched. Tobias cursing was cute. Sort of like a fluffy animal from a kid’s movie busting out gang signs. “Do it again.”
“Oh, shut up.” Tobias knocked Sullivan’s hand away from his face, but gently, so he couldn’t be too angry. “I sound like my Tante Esther. Every other word out of her mouth is an F-bomb.”
Sullivan laughed. “You disapprove?”
“She’s kind of mean sometimes.” He stopped short, then said slowly, “Actually...she’s not.”
Sullivan raised an eyebrow.
“She’s honest,” Tobias said. “She’s the one who told me that I’d been found in a Dumpster as a baby.”
Sullivan had to swallow hard. During his research on Tobias, he’d seen mention of a teen girl abandoning her newborn, but he hadn’t known for sure that Tobias was the infant in question. And what had been a random fact about a stranger before felt like a bruise in a very tender place now. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. My birth mother was very young when she had me.” Tobias glanced out the window, away from Sullivan. “I think she panicked. Didn’t know what to do. My parents never told me about it. I’d resigned myself to the idea that they’d kept it from me, but then I found a letter from her in the trash. And then she called me. She...it was sort of horrible. I think she wants to meet me, and I get why my parents would be afraid of that, but I don’t want to meet her, and if they’d asked, I’d have told them that, but they never asked. Even though I’m an adult, they just made the choice for me, and that’s why I left.”
“Shit. I should think so.”
“We’ll be okay,” Tobias said, but quietly, like the reassurance was meant for himself more than Sullivan. More briskly, he continued, “Tante Esther told me when I was ten. I thought she was being mean at the time—she often said things that hurt people’s feelings, or so it seemed to me when I was a kid. But honesty does hurt, doesn’t it? Sometimes at least. Doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Maybe she thought I deserved to know the truth. Or maybe she refused
