“Another guy went missing. And people—not thepoliceor anyone official, just a bunch of gossips—were saying maybe you wereinvolved.”
“What?” I snorted. “Oh my God, I’m a serial killer?” I laughed outloud.
“Shut up!” Julian slapped my shoulder. “It’s notfunny!”
I sobered, or tried to. But honestly, having someone think I was a killer was almost preferable to having them find out about my past, because at least the killer thing wasn’ttrue.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry.Continue.”
He folded his arms across his chest and glared atme.
“If you’re not taking this seriously, I can’t tell the rest of thestory.”
“I promise I am!” I shut off the flame under the bacon and stood back against the refrigerator, folding my arms across my chest, my face as blank as I could make it. “I’m very serious. Deadly serious. Tellme.”
Julian huffed. “I didn’t… I didn’tlikeit. That they were talking aboutyou.”
He sounded so put-out, sopetulant, that it was very hard to keep my serious face, and the idea that he was upset because someone had been talking shit about me was… well. I rubbed a palm over my chest to ease the sudden warmththere.
“Julian, I promise you, it doesn’t bother me what Gross Shane and a bunch ofgossips—”
“Including mymother.”
“Damn. Okay. What a bunch of gossips,including your mother, had to say about me. I had nothing to do with thedisappearances—”
“I know youdidn’t!”
Fuck, didn’t I wish I’d had that kind of unconditional support a yearago?
“So it’s fine,” I told him. “It’s honestly, not abig—”
“So I told them we were together,” Julian said miserably. He covered his eyes with one hand. “At the time of the disappearance. I said we weretogether.”
“You gave me an alibi?” I moved toward him, prying his hand away from his face. “Are youkidding?”
“Yes. No.” He took a deep breath, but kept his eyes shut so he wasn’t looking at me as he explained. “Yes, I gave you an alibi. No, I’m notkidding.”
“That’s…that’s…”
The nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. Misguided and possibly going to backfire, butstill.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I told them we weretogether.”
“Yeah,I—”
“Together-together. As in, boyfriends or something. As in, that you were gay. As in, that we were most likely fucking like bunnies while these things werehappening.”
“Oh.” I stared at him for a second, stunned. Then I repeated, “You told them we were fucking likebunnies?”
“No!” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “No. I think it was implied,though.”
“Oh,” I said again, staring at him stupidly. “I, um… I have to.” I took a step backward and jerked a thumb over my shoulder toward the living room. “I need to check a…thing.”
Julian’s eyes widened and he jumped down, like he wanted to come after me. “Daniel, I’m so sorry. It just came out of my mouth, and I didn’t stop toconsider…”
“No,” I blurted, still backing away. “Stay.” I motioned toward the pan. “Have some bacon. In fact, have all the bacon. And I’ll be right back.Okay?”
“Fuck,” I heard him breathe, followed by the sound of a palm slapping the hard wooden countertop. I wanted to reassure him, but I needed a minute to processfirst.
