him a challenging look. “Is it? You want to tell me the way things have been between us lately has nothing to do with the fact that Jason is dating Andrew now?”
“That’s not fair. You know it’s not.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Ronnie said, hugging himself. “It’s understandable. You’ve been in love with Jason for so long, I don’t think you know how to be out of love.”
“That’s bullshit,” Colt growled, even though he knew somewhere deep, deep in the back of his mind that there was truth to that assessment. He was just wrong about everything else, but there would be no convincing him of that if he gave up any ground.
“Is it?” Ronnie asked, growing more confident as he spoke. On the one hand, Colt was glad to see him sounding a bit like his old self, but on the other, he didn’t like where this was going. “Can you really look me in the eyes right now and tell me if Jason asked you to take him back, you wouldn’t hesitate to turn him down? Now that Peter’s gone and there’s nothing stopping you?”
Colt clenched his jaw. He hated himself for not being able to say he wouldn’t hesitate without lying.
“Of course you would,” Ronnie said with a small smile that made Colt’s heart tighten in his chest. “You don’t stop loving someone just because you can’t have them.”
“Ronnie,” he pleaded. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you there’s no part of me that still loves Jason. You’re right. He’s always been there, as a friend if not a boyfriend, and it’s going to take a long time for me to untangle all those feelings, but it doesn’t matter. Jason and I are not together, and we’re never going to be. You’re talking about a theoretical, but the reality is, Peter or no Peter, Jason is still human and I’m not. You said it yourself, it was only ever going to end in tragedy.”
“You probably shouldn’t take relationship advice from someone who’s madly in love with you,” Ronnie said dryly. “That’s hardly an objective source.”
“It was the truth either way,” Colt said, stroking a few loose strands of hair behind Ronnie’s ear. His hand lingered, cupping the curve of the other man’s jaw. “And maybe my feelings for you aren’t straightforward either, but they’re real. I love you, Ronnie. I always have, even if it wasn’t always the way you wanted.”
“And now?” he challenged, holding Colt’s gaze.
Colt swallowed the knot in his throat. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know where the line between one kind of love and the other is, or if there even is one, but I’m willing to figure it out if you are.”
Ronnie gave a dry laugh that broke Colt’s heart even more than his sobs of anguish in the forest had. “That’s just it. I never had to wonder, Colt.”
Before Colt could respond, his phone started buzzing incessantly. He took it out to put it on silent and caught a glimpse of Andrew’s name on the caller ID.
Technically it just read The Douchebag, but it served its purpose as an immediate identifier for the DA well enough. He denied the call and turned back to Ronnie, but the phone kept buzzing.
“Go ahead,” Ronnie said, studying the patterns on the bedspread. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Colt muttered, picking up the phone. Andrew only ever texted in an emergency, and if he was calling, the whole damn city was probably on fire. “What?” he asked sharply.
“You need to come down to my office,” Andrew said in a grave tone that immediately made Colt’s stomach twist into a knot even before he added, “It’s Jason.”
“What is it?” he demanded, as frustrated as he was concerned. Of all the fucking times something had to happen. “You said you had a handle on shit.”
“I did. This is your territory more than mine. I can’t say more over the phone, just get down here.”
“Just tell me what the f—”
The line went dead, and Colt gripped the phone so hard it made a cracking sound. Son of a bitch.
One look at Ronnie and he knew the other ghoul had heard everything. He finally met Colt’s gaze, and the resignation in Ronnie’s was so much worse than if he’d just been rightfully pissed off.
“Sounds serious,” Ronnie said, his voice toneless. Colt could practically see the walls that had risen up around him, impenetrable stone ten feet thick on all sides. “You should probably