hints of it in the brown, but it was nice looking. He also looked a little bit older than he had in the shadows of the bar, but his age suited him. He cast Xan a little wink as he carefully managed the five steps to the sidewalk, then he offered his elbow with a faint laugh.
“Allow me to escort you.”
Xan rolled his eyes, but he looped his arm in Cian’s and was surprised at how nice it felt. “So, you people really didn’t get over that whole Victorian shit, did you?”
“Don’t insult me like that,” Cian said, a sort of playful sternness in his tone. “I’m Irish, and I’ll thank you to never, ever compare me to these barbarians.”
Xan laughed and shook his head. “Duly noted. Um…thanks for coming by. I know the hermit look isn’t really in this season.”
“Never been one for fashion myself,” Cian told him, turning the corner and expertly dodging the crowds of people moving like they had everywhere to be with ten seconds to spare. “I think your cousin’s just worried about you.”
Xan flushed and pulled his arm away, dragging his fingers through his hair and messing up the still-drying gel. “That’s fucking humiliating.”
Cian’s steps faltered a little, and he gave Xan a little frown. “You know it’s not embarrassing to have people worry, right? In my experience it means she loves you enough to care.”
Xan waved him off. “Yeah, but I’m kind of a charity case right now. Shit went probably as bad as it can go back home, and I kind of just…”
“Ran away?” Cian offered.
Xan rubbed two fingers against his left eye and only just missed a mother dragging two protesting children behind her. “Something like that. I’m doing the whole figure-out-how-to-get- my-shit-together for the second time in my life. It’s just worse this time because I don’t have the excuse of being a teenager who lost both parents.”
Cian’s face twitched with pity, and as much as Xan hated it, he didn’t expect different. “Sounds brutal.”
Xan laughed, and it didn’t sound as pained as he thought it would. “That’s…yeah. It wasn’t great. This time was the usual, adult-life bullshit.”
Cian raised a brow, then came to a stop as the park came into view. There was a small crowd hovering around the entrance—the stay-at-home yoga moms in their jogging outfits with strollers and messy buns. A handful of toddlers were running nearby, and it was kind of soft and homey in a way that made the moment easier.
“You know we don’t have to talk about this,” Cian said as they passed the group. The path went quiet after that, and Xan almost laughed when they took in identical full breaths of air.
“It’s nothing huge,” he said, though those words tasted sharp and bloody like the lie they were. “The end of a relationship, an existential crisis to go with it. Falling in love and knowing it wasn’t going to work out.”
Cian sucked in a breath. “I can’t really relate to that one.”
Xan raised a brow. “What? Love? Or the existential crisis?”
With a loud laugh, Cian directed them toward an open grassy spot and flopped down like he was thirteen instead of thirty. “My entire existence is existential.” He propped up on his elbows and waited for Xan to sink down next to him. “I meant the falling in love bit. That’s…it’s always been a complicated idea for me.”
“Are you aro?”
Cian blinked at him. “Am I what, now?”
“Aro. Aromantic?” Xan asked, cocking his head to the side. “You know, like…it’s a bit like asexual, but for romance.”
“I’m not anti-romance,” Cian started, but Xan shook his head.
“It’s not like that.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Sorry, I’m not good at this. Uh…it’s just like, some people don’t fall in love. Just like some people are gay, or straight, or bisexual. Or some people don’t have sexual desire, and some people only have it sometimes. And… some people just don’t fall in love.”
Cian stared at him, then fell back in the grass with a groan.
“Sorry,” Xan started, but Cian’s head snapped toward him, and his eyes were narrowed.
“You do that a lot, don’t you? Apologize for being clever.”
The words struck him hard—too goddam close to words Luca had said to him the first time they met in person. The words had seared themselves into his skin, but he hadn’t been able to stop, apparently.
“I wasn’t trying to be clever,” he said softly. “I just understand that people are complicated, and painting everyone with