Finding Eden(4)

“Excuse me?” Danny snapped, his voice suddenly icy. “I love Evie and I gave her to you without even a fight. Now you’re getting shitty with me because I think you should follow her to New York. You are fucked up.”

Paul huffed in frustration. “Look, if you love her so much, you follow her!”

“Do you mean that?” Danny asked, his voice losing its fierceness, the hope unmistakable.

Paul’s heart jolted, knowing if Danny followed Eve they would end up being much more than best friends. For the first time in his life, doing something selfless was impossible for him. Losing both Danny and Eve was too much to bear. Far too much.

There was a vein of selfishness in Paul after all.

He actually stopped the truck in the middle of the long back road and turned to look at Danny in anguish. “I’m supposed to say yes,” Paul whispered, knowing instinctively it was the right choice. Danny was Eve’s best friend too. If he went with her, she wouldn’t be alone. “I’ll be a terrible person if I don’t.”

“Then say yes.”

“But—” Paul licked his lips, not knowing how to convey his emotions in a way that wouldn’t make both of them extremely uncomfortable. “I just—”

“Whatever,” Danny said before Paul could find the right way to articulate his thoughts. “You’d rather let her go alone than let me have her. I get it.”

“I’m an asshole. I’m sorry,” Paul whispered, the self-loathing choking him. “Just the idea of losing both of you. I can’t—”

“Wait,” Danny cut him off, unreadable emotions showing on his handsome face. “You’re worried about losing me?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, thankful Danny voiced it out loud instead of him. “Losing my best friend and my girl. My life would suck.”

“Your life already sucks,” Danny said, shock still ringing in his voice.

“I know, and if I lost you and Evie both I wouldn’t want—” Paul stopped, not wanting to finish that thought. He couldn’t admit out loud how much he depended on Danny. One guy didn’t confess to another that being separated from him felt like a fate worse than death. “Just forget it. Evie leaving’s got me crazy.”

Danny was silent for a long time after Paul started driving again. Then out of the blue he whispered into the darkness, “I’d probably hate New York anyway. No fishing.”

Paul couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped him. “That’s true. No fishing,” he agreed. “You’d hate that.”

*

The morning sun cast streaks of pink and purple over the white walls of Danny’s room. Rays of warmth blinded him. He blinked against them, then gave up and rolled over. He pulled the covers up, wondering why he was attempting to wake up to begin with.

It was way too fucking early.

“Danny Boy.”

Danny jerked, getting tangled in the covers as he attempted to turn toward the hushed voice, surprised by the nickname. Only two people in the world called him that. The nicknames started in kindergarten and, despite being juvenile, had stuck because they were just between them.

He blinked, the brightness causing Paul to be fuzzy around the edges, his large, muscular frame silhouetted by flickers of sparkling sunshine, making him look eerily angelic. His eyes glimmered like twin aquamarines. His wheat-blond hair, streaked near white in places from too much sun, was mussed and stood out starkly against his golden, tanned skin. He was incandescently beautiful and Danny studied him as his mind lingered in the dazed place between sleep and reality. He licked his lips in longing as he felt himself get hard.

“Are you awake?” Paul asked, frowning as he dropped to his knees at the edge of Danny’s bed.

“Yeah.” Danny struggled to wake up when he realized Paul really was in his room at the ass crack of dawn. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I just left Evie’s. She’s really leaving today. Forever,” Paul whispered, his eyes lowering as he ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back into place. “I can’t go home. My mom’ll freak if she knows I was at Evie’s all night and if she goes insane, my dad uses it as an excuse. It’ll be a big fucking mess and I got practice today. I just need to rest my eyes for a few hours, then I’ll be out of your hair. ”

“Oh.” Danny rubbed a hand over his face, getting a clearer picture of the situation. He sat up, raising his knees to hide the hard-on that didn’t want to subside and blinked several more times. “Gimme my cigarettes.”

Paul reached over, grabbing them off the nightstand. He opened the pack, pulled one out and then lit the cigarette with the lighter next to the lamp. He blew the smoke out shakily, his breathing a bit uneven, his eyes still glimmering in the sunlight.