They hadn’t spent any evenings together with one of the groupies since. And Tenny’s insults had seemed a little thornier and less teasing in the time since. What Reese had just witnessed with Evan hadn’t been Tenny’s usual, low-simmering disdain for the less talented. He was angry. Upset, something. And he’d taken it out on Evan.
Reese couldn’t help but feel that he was the one Tenny was truly angry with.
He’d improved, especially in the last few months, but he still lacked eloquence or subtlety when it came to talking about delicate subjects. So he cut to the chase. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Tenny’s brows lifted a fraction, and Reese watched his mask slide back into place; its corners unfurling, sticking tight. The veil came down over his eyes.
Reese hated being on the receiving end of it. He frowned again.
“You’re doing that more often,” Tenny said, lightly, glancing away. “Frowning. It suits you better than smiling, I suppose.”
Before he could register the impulse to do so, Reese gripped his wrist.
Tenny looked down at his hand, his pale fingers curled around his own wrist, and then slowly lifted his head, the mask skeptical now. “Something on your mind?” he asked, mildly.
Forget the mask, sometimes Reese still hatedhim. “What’s wrong? You’re acting strange.”
“I am? How so?”
“You’re angry,” Reese said, jaw setting, determined. Tenny could act like an ass if he wanted to, but Reese wasn’t going to be so easy to shrug off and dismiss. “Because of me.”
Tenny made a dismissive sound. “Why would I be angry because of you? You aren’t the one who fights like someone’s grandmother and then cries about it. The wanker.”
“Tennyson.”
He stilled. Didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, his gaze fixed to Reese’s face; a window, in the handful of seconds before he moved again, to a shocking degree of turmoil.Angerwas too simple a word, but Reese didn’t have the means necessary to describe what he glimpsed, in that moment before Tenny turned away, shaking his head in dismissal.
“The last time we–”
“Oh, leave it!” Tenny hissed, bolting to his feet. He took a few long strides across the pavement, one hand on his hip, the other pushing back through his tousled dark hair. Tension radiated from every taut line of his body; his spine was half-curved, a protective, defensive posture wildly at odds with his usual put-upon swagger.
Reese said, “No.”
Tenny whirled on him, gaze wild. “No? What’s gotten into you? What are you bloody digging for? Huh? Like you haveemotions. Like you want totalk.” More barbs, like always, to distract from his own anguish.Don’t look too closely at me, I’m an asshole.
Reese knew the game now. He wasn’t offended. Wasn’t put off. He sat placidly, hands resting lightly on his thighs, and said, “You’ve been looking for a fight with someone since I kissed you.”
Tenny bared all his teeth in clear warning, like a dog backed into a corner.
“If it was bad – if it was wrong – if you didn’t like it, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”
He got another glimpse of raw, pained truth, before Tenny’s sneer covered it. “Isthatwhat you’re worried about? Do you think that little – well, it wasn’t even really a kiss was it? That’s the first time you’ve ever attempted to initiate anything on your own, wasn’t it? You thinkthat…?” He barked out a laugh that Reese could tell was fake, overdone, too loud. He walked back to the bench, patted Reese affectionately on the cheek. “Don’t flatter yourself. There’s nothing wrong with me.” He walked off toward the door, whistling a tune Reese didn’t recognize – when did he ever recognize tunes? He didn’t listen to music.
The door banged shut.
Reese sat for a long minute looking out across the heat mirages that shimmered between the wrecks in the salvage yard.
“You’re a liar,” he said, quietly, and went to pick up his things.
Sixteen
There was no one home when Fox pulled up at Eden’s house that evening, so he let himself in with his spare key and went to see what he could find in the fridge.
When they got back from Texas, Eden dove right back into renovating the tired, nineties-era colonial. Fox had been roped into helping her take the kitchen cabinets off the wall, sand and repaint them, and then hang them back up, now a soft gray. “Shouldn’t the brother who handles woodwork be involved in this?” he’d complained, and she’d told him to shut up.
She’d pulled down the curtains – and who put drapey peach curtains in a kitchen? – stripped the wallpaper, and painted the walls white. The new countertops had been ordered, but hadn’t arrived yet; she’d been eating lots of takeout and TV dinners in the interim, until she had a proper prep space again.
He found a beer in the fridge and went to sit on the couch.
