Working It Out Read Free

I?"
    Affton nodded. "Yeah. We were talking about what happened to you."
    "I don't want to talk about it. It's over. That's the important part."
    "So is the running." Affton wouldn't let Luke run away from him again, he couldn't.
    "Pardon me?" God, look at those beautiful, dark eyes.
    "No more running away from me. You did it four years ago. You did it last night. No more."
    "You have a life that has nothing to do with me. It's working for you."
    Is that what Luke thought? Affton guessed that meant he pretty much had everyone buying his perfect life image. "There's never been anyone else." How could there have been? Luke was the love of his life.
    "Me either."
    "I thought I'd gotten over you." He really had--or at least gotten over the hurt, over the way he ached. Then he'd seen Luke again.
    "You need to. I don't think I'm lover material anymore and you're an executive. You need arm candy."
    "Arm candy." Was that what Luke thought he'd been to Affton. "You realize you were never arm candy to me, right? You were my lover, my partner."
    Luke nodded. "I thought I was. I thought a lot of things."
    "I wish you'd talked to me." For four years he'd thought... He hadn't known what to think. He hadn't known what he'd done to drive Luke away.
    "I couldn't."
    "You could have." He would have protected Luke, gone after the assholes who'd done this.
    Luke shook his head. "I was scared, ashamed. Sick." Luke pushed the Danish away. "I need to go."
    "No, please. Not without promising me you'll let me take you out to dinner." He couldn't let Luke just walk away again, not without trying to... Hell, he didn't know. Make it up to the man? Something. "Anywhere you want, ba-- Luke. Anywhere."
    "I don't know if I can."
    Affton noted that Luke didn't get up, didn't leave.
    "Of course you can." He wasn't taking no as an answer.
    "What do you want? An apology? I had to leave."
    "I want to see you again." He did.
    "Why?"
    "Because I still have feelings for you." Big, huge feelings that it turned out hadn't gone away, but had been deeply buried.
    "You can't. It's been four years. You hate me."
    "Are you trying to convince me or you?" He'd been hurt, confused, but he'd never hated Luke.
    "I don't know." Luke looked almost bruised and Affton just wanted to hold the man, cradle him and protect him. "I don't hate you, baby. I don't." He stroked his fingers over Luke's knuckles. He could feel the man's bones, like a little bird's, under his skin. "Did you stop eating altogether?"
    "What?" There was a hint of that energy, that curiosity that he'd fallen in love with.
    "Skin and bones, baby. There's nothing to you."
    "I've never been big." No. No, but Luke had been substantial.
    "You were more than just skin and bones, though." He let his fingers slide up higher.
    "It's been a hard few years and I needed to rebuild things."
    "I'd like to have built things with you."
    Luke pulled away. "Your friends raped me, Affie. Your work buddies took me into the basement and touched me, told me you'd brought me to them as a present. Did you even look for me that night?"
    Pain went through him at hearing it laid out flat like that and his breath caught in his throat. "You sent me a text telling me you'd gone home. And then you ran away--you never gave me a chance to know what happened, to beat them to a pulp for you."
    Luke shrugged, wouldn't meet his eyes. "All I could hear that night was their voices. Them laughing."
    "I still can't believe you thought I'd do that to you." He wouldn't even do that to an enemy, let alone his lover.
    "You don't understand. It was huge."
    "Of course it was huge--I do get that. But we were supposed to be there for each other." He didn't want to berate Luke, because his hurt was nothing compared to Luke's, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.
    "These were people you worked with. Friends of yours. You never wondered what happened? Did you ask them?"
    "Did I ask them what? I didn't know there was a problem!"
    "You knew that I didn't do well at