Gavin didn’t believe for a second that Jace needed to take a piss. He’d hightailed it out of the living room because of Jordan. Annoyance and concern crept up Gavin’s spine like a prickle, and he wanted to grab Jordan by the neck and shake him. Shake that damned smirk right off his pretty face and ask why he’d made Jace so nervous.
Rachel met Gavin’s eyes, her concern plain to see. She leaned in and stood up on her tiptoes to whisper, “Master bath in her parents’ room. Reserved for good friends. Everyone else uses downstairs.”
He took the clue and excused himself from the group. He felt Jordan’s eyes on his back as he threaded his way through the party to the stairs. It felt odd to be going upstairs in a stranger’s house, and once he hit the quieter, darker hallway, he realized he had no idea which was the master bedroom. Two doors were open, the rooms beyond silent and shadowed. The next door was ajar. He stuck his head inside and squinted into the darkness—large bed, picture windows, tidy. Looked like a master.
A thin line of light shined from beneath the door at the far corner of the room. He slipped fully inside the bedroom, then crossed to what he assumed was the bathroom door. Pressed his ear to the door and listened. No sounds of retching, no running water. Just a soft, muffled sound that might be heavy breathing.
Gavin tapped his knuckles against the door twice. “Jace?”
“I’m fine.”
Even through the door, he heard the tightness in Jace’s response. “Liar. Let me in.”
“It isn’t locked.”
For some reason that surprised him. Gavin turned the knob and let himself into a spacious, yellow bathroom. Jace sat on the floor in the corner between a stall shower and a large whirlpool bathtub. His legs were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, chin on his knees. He looked like he was forcing himself to sit still and be normal when part of him wanted to explode.
Gavin shut the door quietly, then moved to sit opposite Jace, keeping a comfortable distance between them. Jace stared at the floor, his skin pale and sweaty, eyes a little too wide.
“Do you feel sick?” Gavin asked, even though the toilet was halfway across the room from Jace.
“A little bit,” was the weak answer.
“From the party?”
Jace shrugged one shoulder, totally noncommittal.
“From Jordan?” Gavin asked.
Jace dropped his forehead against his knees—bingo. Gavin was mad at himself for any tangential role he’d had in Jordan showing up tonight. He knew Rachel had called Ben, who hadn’t been able to talk long, but had said he’d noticed Jace acting funny a few days after he got back from Thanksgiving. Rachel had reported that to Gavin, but not the party invitation. And all of them had been surprised to see Ben’s guest—no one more so than Jace.
Gavin slid over to sit next to Jace. He put an arm around his shoulders, and Jace leaned into his weight slightly, his body mostly stiff and unyielding. “You looked like you’d been kicked in the balls when Jordan showed up,” Gavin said. “Tell me why.”
“I don’t know how.”
Determination and a sharp sense of protectiveness unfurled in Gavin’s chest. He wanted to pull Jace into himself and hide him until that sharp crack in his voice went away. He wanted to kill the demons haunting those four small words and to make Jace safe again. And he couldn’t do that until Jace talked to him. In the few weeks they’d known each other, Gavin had made a point to never push Jace past his comfort zones, to be respectful and let Jace come to him. Maybe this time Jace needed someone to push.
“You’ve met Jordan before?” Gavin asked. “At Temple?”
“A few times.”
“You two get along?”
“At first. I thought he was cool. We hung out at a party back in October. Got drunk and made out some.”
Gavin’s pulse jumped. “Jordan’s gay?”
“Or bi, I guess. He’s been with girls too. Said once he just likes sex. But I wasn’t really into Jordan, and when he pushed to go somewhere and have sex, I told him no.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He said he liked a challenge.” The disgust in Jace’s voice continued to twist Gavin’s insides into tiny knots. “But he dropped it for a while.”
One of the dots connected on its own. “Until after Thanksgiving?”
Jace glanced up, his big brown eyes wide and shimmering. “Yeah. There’s some back story to this that I’ve never told anyone, and I can’t tell you now. It isn’t only my secret, but maybe one day I can.”
“I get it, honest.” Gavin didn’t like not knowing everything, because his brain worked better when he had all of the information to process at once. But he was still following along, and he’d never beg Jace to betray someone else’s confidence.