guard, because he didn’t answer right away.
“Uh, yeah.” Tate’s small voice tugged at Rogan’s heart. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”
Rogan shoved away the can of powder then traveled the short distance around his counter to drop onto his old, leather sofa.
“Not at all. What’s up, Tate?”
Tate chuckled nervously. “I don’t have anyone to talk to.”
Rogan could’ve sworn he heard Tate whisper ‘stupid’ but wasn’t sure.
“Where are you? At home?”
Rogan held in a snort. He’d seen some ratty shitholes in his life, but the slumlord haven where he’d dropped Tate off reached new lows. Tate had explained that the apartment manager didn’t care who they rented to. He hadn’t had much luck anywhere else, given the stain of his previous association with a serial killer, so he’d reluctantly moved in.
“Yeah. But it’s cool if you’re busy, I can go. I mean, we’ll be getting together Wednesday night anyway.” Tate sighed. “I’m not sure why I called.”
“Because you’re lonely.”
Rogan wasn’t about to confess anything out loud, but he could admit it to himself. He’d been feeling pretty damn lonely too.
“Oh.” Tate paused before continuing. “That’s probably it. I know this is going to sound weird, but I haven’t felt like this since I was a kid. Even though…” He cleared his throat. “Even though Cam would sometimes be gone for hours, I always knew he’d come back, that I belonged and there was someone there only for me. But…but I guess that wasn’t true, was it? And then one day he didn’t come back.”
Rogan reclined against the sofa arm, the weight of Tate’s words bearing down on him. “You never told me how you found out. If you don’t want to talk about it, though, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s fine. I think maybe I need to talk about that night, how insane it was.”
“I’ll just listen, okay? And you’re not alone. I’m here.”
Rogan wondered if he might be promising too much. His initial meaning had been in the now. But he knew that wasn’t true. Despite how crazy it seemed, Rogan would support Tate however he could, wouldn’t abandon him. This young man had been forever scarred by Rogan’s supposed dear friend and left to struggle in the aftermath. Rogan’s deep-seated sense of responsibility in all things demanded he help Tate however he could. Even if Tate ended up being less innocent than he appeared, his pain was genuine.
“Well, I was doing my—” Tate cleared his throat. “Uh, how much do you know about the lifestyle?”
Rogan drew his eyebrows together. “The what?”
“The lifestyle me and Cam practiced. Our relationship dynamic. It’s a term used in the BDSM community.”
“Oh! Right.” Rogan scratched his head. He wasn’t a sheltered man, but beyond the occasional porn watch and expressions like safewords, sub and Master—he wasn’t all that informed. He supposed he was a so-called vanilla guy. “I only have a vague concept overall, and Cam never went into detail about the relationship he shared with you. Me, Lenny and Mitch—those are his other buddies from high school—weren’t a part of that world. It was like he wanted to keep that to himself. He never even tried to get us to go to a club with him or anything.”
“I sort of thought that, because the very few times we went to New Sensation together after we met, I never saw you guys.”
“That wasn’t something you did that often? I thought that’s what guys like you—” Rogan gritted his teeth. He couldn’t come off judgmental, or else the poor kid would clam up. Then where would Tate be with his dark thoughts? “What I mean is, I thought that people in the lifestyle regularly attended clubs.”
“Sure, some do. But not everyone. When I was looking for a Daddy, I was at New Sensation every night. However, once he made me his permanent boy and took me home to live with him, we hardly ever went. Only if someone he knew was having a collaring ceremony or something like that.”
Rogan pushed off the couch. He was going to need a beer for this conversation. “I see. So, Daddy huh? Is that like a sugar Daddy?”
As Rogan reached into his fridge for a beer, he waited for Tate to respond. When he didn’t answer right away, he wondered if he’d somehow upset or offended him.
“I don’t want you to think that way about me.” Tate’s voice had gone back to sounding small.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing.” Rogan sat on the edge of his