Page 96

“Tadhg and Luke pleaded guilty. They’re going to be sentenced two weeks from now.”

He shook his head like it might get rid of the feeling that he’d ruined their lives by telling the police they’d been involved. Even if he had. Why should he care?

The two of them could fall into a woodchipper right now and the sun would rise on a better world.

Right?

“And what about”—Nat tried to meet his eyes but glared at her drink instead—“him.”

“Cian,” A.J. said without a tremble in the word. Chock that up to therapy. “He pleaded not guilty. He’s out on bail until the trial. Dunno when yet.”

“Not fucking guilty,” Nat said.

The spun glass sphere bumped against his leg as he stood ankle-deep in his stream of consciousness. He knew he was supposed to let it drift on by, but now that he was expected to relive the entire thing in front of a room full of strangers, how could he?

Therapy’s only good when it’s working.

He was trying to get up as the woods spun around him. Falling back into the mud and vomiting up his lunch. Crying after he called out for Bren and he didn’t come.

But he did come.

He’d come and he’d saved him and he’d been the first thing he saw when he woke up.

Weeks turned into months. Bren beat the shit out of Cian in the hottest, most deeply conflicting act of chivalry A.J. never dreamed could have been directed at him. The hand that he worried might never be the same again had found its way back to music and helped tell Bren thank you in the only way he knew how.

This should have all been behind him. So why was it looming over his future now?

“Does Ireland have the death penalty?”

He knew he should have been grateful for the question since it pulled him out of his head, but the look on Nat’s face didn’t make for a good welcome committee.

“I don’t want him dead.”

He’d come to accept that truth, even if imagining Cian toppling off a high cliff had gotten him through some dark times.

Nat made a sound in her throat that told him, in no uncertain terms, that she was team cliff-based accident, and then she took a swig of her drink.

“So, we’re hoping for jailtime, then?”

A.J. flexed the fingers of his left hand around the glass as he tried to peer into the hazy future set out in front of him by Tadhg’s confession.

“I guess.”

From what he’d been told, the Irish justice system tried to focus on rehabilitation over punishment when it came to young offenders. Jail was certainly on the table, but there was still a chance Cian would just get slapped with probation and a side of community service.

At the end of the day, all A.J. wanted was a Cian who felt the full weight of what he’d done and was rendered incapable of repeating it. Then he could get on with never thinking about him again—or the gnawing guilt of not doing enough to stop him.

“I know you’re probably sick of hearing this, but I really wish Bren was here.”

There were only a handful of things A.J. was certain would make him feel better right now, and his boyfriend was more than half of them.

“Me too,” Nat said.

A.J. tried not to, but his eyebrow went up involuntarily.

“OK, I like being an only child again, but you smiled a lot more when he was here.” She shook her head even as the corners of her lips twitched. “It was a bit annoying, actually.”

“I didn’t know my joy was such a bummer, dick.”