Page 73 of Hard Check
Leo’s back hit the doorframe. He caught himself. Stared at Dawson.
The front door opened. Keys on the counter. Boots on the mat. Ethan’s voice, tired and sharp. “Dawson? You up?”
“Yeah.” Dawson’s voice came out normal. Flat. The same voice he used at the shop, at the bar, at family dinners. “Give me a sec.”
He looked at Leo. Leo had put his shirt on. His jeans were still on the bedroom floor, and he was standing in the hallway in a T-shirt and boxer briefs, his hair tangled, but his face was the thing Dawson would see every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life. Beyond anger, past hurt. Recognition. The look of a man who had just been told, without words, exactly where he stood.
Leo pulled his jeans on. Did the button. Ran a hand through his hair. His movements were quiet, precise, the armor clicking back into place piece by piece.
Dawson walked into the living room. Ethan was standing at the counter, jacket still on, running a hand over his face. His eyes were red. Not crying, just tired, the look of a man who’d been arguing for hours and had finally walked away.
“Hey,” Dawson said.
Ethan looked up, saw Leo emerging from the hallway behind Dawson. His face didn’t change.
“Oh hey.” Ethan nodded at Leo. “Didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah, just hanging out.” Leo’s voice was perfectly even.
“Fair enough.” Ethan dropped his keys on the counter. “Sorry to crash the party. Tara and I—” He stopped. Shook his head. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it.” He grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to the couch. Sank onto it with the weight of a man who was done with his night.
Dawson stood by the hallway entrance. His hands hung at his sides and he couldn’t make them do anything useful.
“You want another one?” Ethan held up his beer toward Leo.
“I’m good. I should actually head out.” Leo picked up his jacket from the hook by the door. Sat on the bench and pulled his shoes on. His movements were calm, practiced, the same ease he brought to every room he entered. If Ethan noticed anything off, nothing in his face showed it.
Leo stood. He looked at Dawson. The look lasted less than a second. It was the most devastating thing Dawson had ever seen, not a plea, not an accusation, just a clear, steady acknowledgment of what had just happened and that Leo was going to walk through the door and leave it where it fell.
“See you around, Ethan.”
“Later, man. Drive safe.”
Leo opened the door. November air flooded the entryway, cold enough to bite. He stepped through. He did not look back. The door closed behind him with a soft click, not a slam, and the absence of a slam was worse than anything Dawson had ever heard.
Ethan took a long drink of his beer and stared at the TV without turning it on. “Women, man. I swear.”
Dawson stood in the hallway with his shirt on backward, his hands at his sides, and the warmth of Leo’s body still on his skin. He didn’t say a word.
Dawson went to the bathroom. Locked the door. Sat on the edge of the tub and ground both fists into his eyes.
In the driveway, an engine turned over. Headlights swept across the bathroom wall, the same arc in reverse, and then the sound of tires on gravel faded into the dark. The house settled back into its silence. Ethan’s body shifting on the couch, the fridge cycling on, the wind in the trees.
Dawson pulled his phone out. He wanted to type I’m sorry. He wanted to type come back. He wound up pocketing the phone without sending anything because there was nothing he could say that would make what he’d just done any better.
The bathroom was cold. The light was too bright. In the bedroom, the sheets were still warm and smelled like Leo, and Dawson wasn’t going back in there tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Leo drove like a bat out of hell down the windy county road, both hands on the wheel, the Audi eating the curves like it remembered them. Four miles back to town. Four miles of blacktop with no streetlights, no shoulders, and cornfields on both sides stripped down to stubble. His jaw ached. He unclenched it. Clenched it again.
Leo cracked the window. Cold air knifed in, and he breathed through his mouth until he could take a full breath.
No matter how hard he tried thinking about anything else, his mind kept going back to how spectacularly everything had gone to shit at Dawson’s. What had started out as a leap forward in their relationship had turned into rubble.
The moment Ethan’s headlights flashed across the bedroom wall, he’d known what was coming. Well, he was smart enough to anticipate Dawson building the walls again and scrambling to conceal any evidence of what they’d just done. But nowhere in his imagination could he have anticipated Dawson shoving him.
To make matters worse, he was almost certain Dawson was doing the same as him, and beating himself up for how he’d acted. Leo wanted to reach out to him and ask if they could talk, but he wasn’t prepared to be rejected for a second time in one night. When push came to shove—no pun intended—Dawson had reverted to his life in hiding and felt that getting Leo out of sight was the best course of action.
