Brad was a good-looking guy, with a good sense of humor. He was also bi. As Gavin watched him with Erin, it occurred to him that Brad would be the perfect third in Oliver and Erin’s relationship.
Maybe he should give them some time alone to figure that out.
“No, man,” he said at last. “I’m kind of tired. Think I’ll call it a night.”
Oliver looked ready to persist, but Gavin must have given him a look that proved it would be fruitless. “Okay. We’re just having one. Erin and I will be up in a half an hour.”
“Take your time. Brad’s a good guy, a lot of fun.”
Oliver rolled his eyes. “Stop.”
Gavin narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“We don’t need you playing matchmaker.”
Gavin lifted one shoulder casually. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mmmhmm,” Oliver hummed.
Gavin brushed Oliver’s suspicions aside. “I’m grabbing a shower and then hitting the sheets.”
“I’ll see you in the morning then.” Oliver walked to the bar, claiming the spot next to Brad. The other man placed his hand on the back of Oliver’s high-backed stool and leaned in to say something. Oliver cracked up, his loud, boisterous, infectious laughter filling the pub.
Typically, the sound made Gavin laugh as well, but tonight it just made him…sad.
Then he thought about his mother, and his mood darkened even more.
Just like that, the tension was back in his shoulders.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
Fuck it all.
4
Erin wiped the kitchen counter, while Gavin put the leftovers in the fridge. It was Friday, which meant dinner and a movie at home with Erin and Oliver, a tradition they’d started shortly after Valentine’s Day, when Erin had asked Gavin to give her a chance. Nowadays, he struggled to remember a time when she wasn’t one of his best friends, and he was ashamed of himself for acting like such a tool at the beginning.
They’d just polished off the better part of the beef stew Erin had made—God, she could cook—and Oliver had slipped away to grab a shower and change out of his work clothes. Erin kept a drawer of comfy clothes in Oliver’s room, and the first thing she’d done after arriving at their apartment was strip off her scrubs and don a soft, long-sleeved T-shirt and yoga pants. Knowing her, he figured she was about five minutes away from stripping off her bra as well.
She’d done enough sleepovers with Oliver that Gavin was used to her unfastening her bra at random times and pulling the straps off through her shirt sleeves. He’d called it a cool trick the first couple of times she’d shed the lacy material without revealing so much as an inch of skin.
“You’ve been quiet tonight,” she said, when Gavin pulled three beers from the refrigerator, popping the caps and handing her one. “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just been a long week.” He was relieved his mother hadn’t attempted to contact him. Then he figured she probably didn’t know where he was or how to reach him.
If there was one thing that didn’t exist in the Collins family, it was a secret. So Gavin appreciated that neither Padraig nor Aaron appeared to have told anyone else about his mom’s release.
For the past few nights, he’d lain awake trying to imagine seeing her again, playing it out in his mind. He’d had years to consider their reunion, but as he’d grown older, the visions of it continually changed. When he was fifteen, all he’d wanted was to see her again, to go home. However, as more time passed, as he’d grown closer to Oliver, Sean, Lauren, and Chad, he’d started to see his childhood in a different light, and the anger, resentment, and guilt associated with those memories ate at him like cancer.
Right now, Gavin was torn between telling her off or… He swallowed heavily. He was terrified he’d revert to type and do what he’d always done.
Forgive her.
Give her a chance to make things up to him.
Reassume the caregiver role.
Gavin had never been able to hold on to his anger toward her, even after the most brutal of the beatings. Instead, she would shed what he now believed were crocodile tears, blame her anger on her loneliness or sadness, remind him he was all she had, and somehow, she’d always find a way to convince him the beating would never have happened if he hadn’t done X, Y, or Z.
And in the end, because Gavin hated to see her cry, he’d tell her it was okay. Then, because he’d wanted the peaceful times to last, he’d go out of his way to take care of her, cooking meals, cleaning the apartment, stealing money and food.
Sometimes, he struggled to mesh the Gavin he’d been growing up with the man the Collins family had raised him to be. None of them, not even Oliver, knew about the things he’d done to survive…or the things he might have done.
The night he’d run away from his mother after she’d sliced his arm with the knife, he’d been stopped by their creepy landlord and handed an eviction notice. The fucking asshole had insinuated he would look the other way on the late rent if Gavin blew him. Gavin had shoved the guy away, but he’d woken up in a cold sweat too many nights in the ensuing months, wondering if he would have gone through with it if the cops hadn’t been called and his mom committed.
He couldn’t believe how all of the shit going down around him had felt normal at the time.
Now, he was disgusted by it, even though deep inside, he knew he’d had no choice.
No. That was wrong.
He’d had a choice—he could have confided in his social worker or teachers, but he hadn’t. Because in his young mind, there wasn’t anything better on the other side.
Better the devil you knew and all that.
What was he going to say to his mom now? Too many times he’d played it out, imagined that this time, he would be able to unload every single hate-filled emotion on her, that he’d finally be able to tell her just how much she’d hurt him.
But he was terrified of unleashing all of that, of taking the lid off a fury he’d spent all of his life keeping bottled up.
He wouldn’t be like his mother. He couldn’t spew horrible things, couldn’t inflict that much pain on someone he…
Fuck. Someone he loved.
How could he love her? How could he still love her after everything?
If he never saw her, he’d never have to risk losing sight of the man he’d become without her in his life.
So yeah…it would be a hell of a lot easier if the reunion never happened.
“You sure you’re okay?” Erin asked, and he realized he’d let the silence between them linger a little too long.
He nodded, hoping she didn’t see through the lie. Gavin hadn’t told Oliver about his mother’s release from the psychiatric hospital. It had been on the tip of his tongue to do so all week, but every time he opened his mouth to say it, he couldn’t do it. Probably because his emotions were all over the fucking scale and he didn’t know what to say.
As for Erin, well…he’d never said anything to her about his past or his mother other than she was gone forever, letting her assume his mom was dead.
Since the subject of his mother came up so infrequently, it really hadn’t been an issue.