“Whoa . . .” He put his hand up. “That’s so none of my business—”
“—not the love of his life.”
Qhuinn pulled another double blink. And then for a split second, he got sucked into someplace where his cousin bowed out gracefully and Qhuinn more than filled the SOB’s chic shoes. Except whatever . . . there was a big-ass glitch in that fantasy: Blay was through with him.
He’d engineered that result over too many years.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you, cousin?” Saxton kept his voice down, even though the wind was rolling and the door was closed. “Do you hear me.”
Okay, this was not a corner Qhuinn had expected to come to tonight . . . or any other evening. Fucking hell, his body was suddenly tingling all over, and he had half a mind to tell his cousin to beat it and go wax his eyebrows or some shit—or better yet move the hell out.
Except then he thought about how old Blay looked. The guy had finally found a stride in his life, and it was criminally unfair for that to be negotiated away out here in the dark.
Qhuinn shook his head. “It’s not right.”
Not for Blay.
“You are a fool.”
“No. I used to be one.”
“I would beg to differ.” Saxton’s elegant hand pulled the lapels of his robe closer together. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best return to the interior. It’s cold here on the outside.”
Well, wasn’t that an ass-smacker of a metaphor.
“Don’t tell him about this,” Qhuinn said roughly. “Please.”
Saxton’s eyes narrowed. “Your secret is all too well protected. Trust me.”
With that, he turned and went back into Blaylock’s room, the door shutting with a click and then the light getting cut off as those heavy drapes were tugged into place.
Qhuinn rubbed his hair again.
Part of him wanted to bust in and say, I changed my mind, cuz—now get the fuck out of here so I can . . .
Tell Blay what he’d told Layla.
But Blay might well be in love with Saxton, and God knew Qhuinn had fucked his best friend too many times.
Or not, as the case was.
When he eventually headed back to his room—only because it was just too damn pathetic to be out here staring at the ass sides of drapery—he realized his life had always been about him. What he wanted. Needed. Had to have.
The old Qhuinn would have driven a bus through that opening—
On a wince, he tried not to take that turn of phrase quiiiiiiiiite so literally.
The thing was, though, the ridiculous, pansy-ass saying was right: If you loved someone, you set them free.
In his room, he went over and sat on the bed. Looking around, he saw furniture he hadn’t bought . . . and decorations that were gorgeous, but anonymous and not to his style. The only things that were his were the clothes in the closet, the razor in the bathroom, and the running shoes he’d kicked off when he’d come back earlier.
It was just like his parents’ house.
Well, here, people actually valued him. But as lives went, he didn’t have one of his own, really. He was John’s protector. The Brotherhood’s soldier. And . . .
Shit, now that he wasn’t indulging in his sex addiction anymore, that was the end of the list.
Pushing himself back against the headboard, he crossed his feet at the ankles and arranged his robe. The night stretched out ahead of him with a horrible flatness—like he’d been driving and driving and driving through the desert . . . and he had only nights more of the same up ahead.