As tempting as it was to freak out, Darren stifled the impulse. He’d talk to Severo as soon as possible, though, because if there was a spirit hanging around him, Darren wanted to know who it was and why it was bothering him. One look at Lee told Darren bringing up the possibility of a spirit having had something akin to a tantrum was probably a bad idea. Lee’s jaw was clenched tightly and Darren could hear him grinding his teeth.
“We’ll figure it out.” Probably with Severo’s help.
Lee unclenched his jaw and gave Darren a look of disbelief. “Right, like there’s a logical explanation for the sudden lack of gravity for the curtains or the self-propulsion of the chair. That shit is just creepy.”
“But it happened, we both saw it,” Darren pointed out. “There is an explanation, it just might turn out to be one that’s hard to accept.”
“Virtually impossible,” Lee muttered then looked down at Darren’s hand on his arm. Darren felt the change in Lee instantly, the anger turning to arousal so strong the air seemed to thicken with it. “Darren, about before…”
“It’s fine, I get it.” Darren started to pull his hand away only to have Lee grab it and press Darren’s hand to Lee’s broad chest. “I do,” Darren reiterated before his brain could turn to mush like it would if Lee kept letting him touch.
“No, that’s not the part of before I was talking about,” Lee said as he pulled Darren into a hug he hadn’t expected at all. The backpack slid from his shoulder as Darren waved his arm, his other hand pinned between them, still pressed to Lee’s chest. When Lee’s arms settled firmly around him, one big hand cupping the back of Darren’s head, pushing until Darren finally gave in and rested his forehead on Lee’s shoulder, Darren timidly reached for Lee, easing his arm around Lee’s hip right above the towel. Darren closed his eyes and reveled in being held for several minutes as Lee rubbed his neck and back.
“I don’t blame you,” Lee said softly. “You shouldn’t blame yourself either.”
Darren disagreed. “I wasn’t there! If I’d been there—”
“No.” Lee emphasized the word with a brisk tightening of his arms. “You can’t think like that. It wasn’t like you knew what was going to happen.”
Lee sounded so certain, but he didn’t know all of it. Darren rubbed his forehead against Lee’s shoulder, soaking up the scent of the man while he could. “I didn’t know, no, but Stefan and I had kind of started growing apart—not, not like we weren’t still best friends, but, you know, we reached a point where other things interested us some of the time. We weren’t always together. Stefan said he’d made a new friend and he’d tell me about him, I was, um, there was this guy, Cody, and we were, you know, curious.”
Darren bit his lip to stop the verbal spew. Lee’s body had gone tense against his as he’d talked. Darren figured he’d be shoved away and told to leave any second now.
“Do you know who Stefan’s friend was?”
It wasn’t what Darren had expected, and he was grateful even though he couldn’t give Lee a name. “No, he was secretive. I thought he was just getting a kick out of teasing me, so I didn’t press. He seemed happy, then Mom died and I…I don’t know. I was a kid really and suddenly I was alone and had to make these decisions and figure out how to do things that would confuse any adult. Stefan was, well, he was Stefan. Happy and sweet, and I couldn’t handle that when I was hurting and so scared.” Darren’s breath hitched as guilt constricted his lungs. “I avoided him for a few days. I was horrible, so selfish and then Cody said we should go to Houston for the weekend so we could…be alone. And Stefan died, and if I hadn’t—”
Darren bit his bottom lip so hard he tasted blood. He wouldn’t cry in front of Lee, like some small child crying for forgiveness. Darren had been seventeen, old enough to know Stefan needed him. He’d understood Stefan’s disability, and he’d still had no patience for Stefan when it might have mattered most. He didn’t deserve forgiveness.
“Darren.”
Despite his best effort not to, Darren clung to Lee as the first tears slipped free. Instead of the rejection he expected, Darren heard Lee’s murmured attempts to comfort, assuring him it wasn’t his fault. Darren had only been a kid, and his world had imploded overnight with his mother’s death. That was true enough, even though Darren’s mom had been ill for a long time, her heart damaged from years of drug abuse before she’d found herself pregnant. Darren still hadn’t been prepared for her to die.
“But I should have turned to Stefan, not away,” Darren sobbed, hating himself for his weaknesses.
“Stefan didn’t blame you. By that time he was, according to the letters I got after he died, already spending as much time with this other guy as he could. I think he transferred his crush on you to this friend, and I need to find out who he was.”
Darren lifted his head, wondering why crying made it feel so heavy, and gaped at Lee. “What do you mean, his crush on me?”
The smile Lee gave him was so sweet it made more tears well in Darren’s eyes. “I figured you didn’t know. He wrote about having a crush on you once he understood what being gay meant. Stefan wrote me and asked if it was okay to be gay. Of course I told him yes, and he wrote back from then on, until he made his new friend, about his crush on you.”
“How did I not know that? We were best friends and he
