Of course, they’d been so much younger then. Still growing into themselves. Rory was all man now and a flicker of curiosity lit like a match in Magnus’s belly.
“It’s a nice night,” Rory said quietly, leaning back on his hands and looking out across the lake.
“It is,” Magnus agreed. Silence settled between them like a thick blanket, too warm and suffocating all the things they needed to say. Or at least all the things Magnus wanted to say. He didn’t know how Rory felt about...about anything really. It had been so long since they’d had a real conversation that didn’t revolve around one of Magnus’s brothers that it almost felt strange to be sitting together like this. In so many ways, Rory was a stranger. Despair nipped at his heels like the lapping waves on the sand.
“I wanted…” Rory paused and sucked in a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize to you.”
Even if Rory felt mostly like a stranger, Magnus knew that look on his face. He was gathering his thoughts, and it was somehow a balm to know that maybe there were a few things that hadn’t changed.
“I reacted badly when you moved back home.”
“You were an asshole.”
Rory nodded. “I was. I’m so sorry for that. It’s the last thing you should have had to deal with. It just...seeing you again and knowing…”
“That I was porn star?”
He nodded again. “I won’t lie to you Mags. When I found out it tore me up. I saw red. I wanted to get on a plane and kill every bloke that’d touched you.”
Magnus sat stunned, blood roaring in his ears. “You left me.”
Rory flinched.
“You. Left. Me. Not the other way around! It wasn’t any of your business what I did with my life.”
Rory cleared his throat. “I know.”
“And then you treated me like a-”
“I know.” Rory sat up and turned his head, shining eyes meeting Magnus’s. “I’m so sorry Magnus.”
Nodding, Magnus lowered his eyes and pulled in a few deep breaths, letting his anger cool. “It’s doesn’t matter now, anyway. Water under the bridge, right?”
Rory huffed. “You say that, and I know we decided on a clean slate while Dagen was in the hospital, but I don’t feel that. Not really. Everything feels all...gummed up between us.”
“Because it is, and it probably always will be.” Magnus nearly choked on the words coming out of his mouth. He knew they were true and needed to be said, but they felt like barbed wire scraping up his throat. “We need to move on. Both of us. This clinging to the past and letting our feelings about it color every interaction we have...we’ve got to let it go Rory. We both deserve better than that.”
Rory swallowed. Hard. “That’s what you want?”
No. “Yes.” If he thought for even a moment that they could somehow bridge the gap that time and all their choices had put between them, Magnus would have done what he really wanted—crawled into Rory’s lap and stayed there forever. But there was too much...time. Too much distance...and as much as he loved the Rory that had been his, this Rory wasn’t and never had been. Not really.
It took long moments for Rory to speak again, and when he did, it was quiet. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Chapter One
January
Lifting the hem of his shirt, Rory wiped the sweat off his forehead and stepped back to survey his and Dagen’s handiwork. The bed and backseat of Dagen’s truck were loaded Tetris style with all of Dagen and Ollie’s belongings that were moving with them to their new apartment. Which had been Harbor’s, Dagen’s brother’s, apartment. They’d spent the weekend before moving Harbor out of it and two hours away to Indianapolis into the house Harbor’s boyfriend, Theo Smith, owned. Why they’d decided to do all this mid-January when it was thirty-five degrees outside was beyond Rory. Although, he supposed he should be grateful. If it had been any warmer he’d probably be melting.
“I think this is the last of it,” Dagen Rourke said as the giant of a man made his way down the stairs with two boxes stacked on top of each other in his huge arms. The apartment, the whole Rourke clan including himself and Kayla, were helping them move out of was located on the second floor of the eldest Rourke’s tattoo shop, Open Wounds, and connected to Rourke MMA. The fight gym where Rory worked as a trainer.
“You sure? If it’s not, we’ll have to call Ollie to bring the jeep back for another load unless you want to unload this first, then come back for the rest,” Rory called up. The rest of the crew, minus Niko and Luca Barlos, the brothers who were moving into the tattoo shop apartment, were at Ollie and Dagen’s new place, helping unload Ollie’s old Jeep Grand Cherokee of the first haul. Luckily, Harbor had left most of his furniture in the apartment so Dagen and Ollie were able to leave most of theirs for Niko and Luca.
“I’m sure.” Dagen settled the two boxes on the tailgate and started trying to shift things around to get them to fit. “Sketchbooks,” Dagen said almost to himself. “Ollie has a million of them.” Which made sense considering Ollie was one of the most sought-after tattoo artists in the country.
Rory chuckled watching Dagen’s determination, but was afraid the attempt was futile. Short of strapping the boxes on the roof, Rory wasn’t sure where they were going to put them unless he didn’t ride over to the new apartment with Dagen, and they wedged them into the passenger seat. “How did you and Ollie accumulate so much stuff in so short a time?”
Dagen huffed, turning hazel eyes on Rory. They were the exact shade of Magnus’s. There had been a time when they’d sent a pang through his heart, but thankfully, that had mostly dulled. He loved Magnus’s brothers like they were his own. And while that had been awkward for a time since Magnus moved back from California and bought the club downtown that was now Viridian, they were figuring it out. They were doing like Magnus said, moving on. At least, he was trying to.
“Dammit.” Dagen sighed a moment before a familiar vintage gunmetal gray Shelby Mustang pulled into the lot and parked beside them.
Speak of the devil.
Magnus Rourke, Rory’s one and only love, opened the driver’s side door and stood to look at them across the roof of the car. He was the smallest of the Rourke brothers at five-foot-ten, and Rory guessed a buck sixty soaking wet. His dark hair was perfectly groomed back off his forehead, and the tiniest bit of stubble was showing on his chin and cheeks. Even as he wished he could forget, he remembered what they felt like under his lips.
“We’ve got the jeep unloaded,” Magnus said, looking at his brother before letting his eyes move to Rory for just a moment, giving him a little nod in greeting. Rory returned it and swallowed his sigh. This is what life had been like since last September. Polite little interactions that he knew were a crock of shit. At least on his end. Every moment he and Magnus were in the same space felt measured and calculated. As if in the attempt to move on from each other, they’d squashed down every bit of what made them, them, in order to show that they cared, but not too much, so they didn’t cross that invisible line in the sand. It was bloody exhausting.
“Awesome!” Dagen lifted the two boxes back up off the tailgate and walked to the passenger side of his truck. “Hey, Rory, can you get the door?”
Rory walked over and opened the door, but pursed his lips while Dagen set the boxes in the seat where Rory was supposed to sit for the ride back to the apartment. “What are you doin’?” He quietly asked Dagen.
Dagen turned to him with lifted eyebrows and innocent eyes. “I’m finishing loading the truck so we can go unload it.”
“Right. And where do you suppose I’m going to sit in order to go help with the unloading?”
A shit eating grin split Dagen’s face. “Guess you’ll just have to ride with Magnus.”
“Bloody hell. You’re not helping you know.”
Dagen only chuckled and thumped him on the shoulder as they made their way back around the truck to where Magnus was watching them with calculating eyes. Dagen, the bastard, didn’t even pause, just
hopped in the truck and started it up before rolling down his window and saying, “See you guys there!” Then he was pulling out of the lot, leaving them standing there looking after him.
Rory turned and met Magnus’s eyes. He didn’t seem distressed at the prospect of being in an enclosed space alone with Rory. It would be the first time they’d been alone since their “talk” on the beach last Labor Day weekend.
“Mind giving me a lift?”
“Get in,” Magnus said simply before sliding back into the driver’s seat and starting the Shelby’s engine with a rumble. Rory took a deep breath of the crisp, cold air, letting it pool in his lungs before he blew it back out and pulled the passenger door open. He settled against the warm leather seat and tried not to watch the muscles shifting under the denim of Magnus’s jeans as his legs and arms worked in tandem to get the car turned around and in gear. The bench seat meant he had an unfettered view, but he forced his eyes forward.
“I love the way this car sounds,” Rory remarked, sliding his hand over the pristine dash. He’d never actually been in it, only admired it from afar, but he had to admit it was a wet dream on wheels.
The corner of Magnus’s mouth tilted up. “Same.” He pulled out of the parking lot with a squeal of the tires and Rory laughed.
“You guys get everything unloaded, okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Magnus replied not taking his eyes from the road. “Would have gone faster if Harbor and Theo could have been here, but we managed just fine. Ollie and Kayla were half done unpacking the kitchen when I left to see if you guys needed help.”
Rory nodded, enjoying the purr of the engine and humming along to the classic rock song playing on the radio. The constant awareness that always seemed to fill the void between them, stretched and settled, letting a relaxed vibe fill the car. Since Magnus’s return a year and a half ago, most interactions between them had been on rocky ground at best. After the blow out fight when Magnus had first gotten back, they hadn’t spoken to each other and avoided being in the same place at the same time until summer of last year when Dagen had gotten shot. Even though they’d broken up years before, that initial reunion had been vicious and left them both with wounds and regrets.
Left me with regrets anyway, Rory thought as he watched Magnus out of the corner of his eye. But with Dagen in the hospital, they came to a truce before finally sitting down and actually talking about things last September. Even still, he wasn’t sure where they went from there. Would they be friends? Was that even possible?
He jerked out of his thoughts when the chorus of the song he’d been humming came through the radio, and Magnus belted out the lyrics.
“Sorry,” Magnus said reaching to turn the volume down a little. “You were looking way to serious over there.”
Rory nodded, one side of his mouth pulling up. “Aye, and no need to apologize. I’ve always liked your singing voice.”
“It’s still weird, isn’t it?” Magnus asked, glancing at Rory with a little frown on his face and hesitant eyes. As much as Rory wanted to lie and reassure, he didn’t have it in him, and he figured if they were ever going to get past this phase where the weirdness, the distance, could give way to familiarity, then honesty was probably the best policy. Why don’t you tell him all of it then? The insistent little voice, that sounded so much like his mother, slithered through his mind. He quietly vowed in his heart that he would someday...but he needed them to be on a bit more solid footing first.
“It is,” Rory agreed. “But...I don’t think it’s bad weird, you know? More like…we have a shitload of history, and neither one of us knows what the hell we’re doin’ weird.”
Chuckling, Magnus shot him a grin—a real one—and held his gaze for a moment before moving his eyes back to the road.
Trying to contain the rush of excitement that punched through his belly and hide his stupid grin, Rory turned to watch the suburban landscape slip by out the window. Before he could think of something else to say, a revving engine caught his ear—even over the sound of the Shelby—a moment before Magnus let out a curse.
“What?” Rory barely got the word past his lips when a dark SUV flew past them, coming so far into their lane that Magnus had to bring the car to a rough stop on the shoulder of the road to avoid being sideswiped.
“Fucking asshole!” Rory yelled, flipping the back end of the accelerating vehicle the bird. “I don’t know what—” he turned his gaze back to Magnus to find him wide-eyed and pale, his bloodless hands still gripping the steering wheel. “Magnus?”
When there was no response, only Magnus staring out the windshield to where the offending vehicle had disappeared, Rory reached over and touched his shoulder. “Mags?”
Magnus flinched away from Rory’s hand before clearing his throat. “Sorry.” His voice was gruff, but not angry like Rory thought he should be when someone ran his precious car off the road and could have caused them to crash.
“You okay?”
Nodding, Magnus licked his lips and checked his mirrors before easing them back onto the road. “Yeah. Just rattled.”
“You handled it really well,” Rory offered, eyes glued to Magnus’s face.
“Well, I did live in LA for almost ten years. People drive like maniacs out there. Good to know I’m not out of practice.”
At the mention of California, Rory’s lips pulled tight, and he turned his face back to the windshield. It wasn’t his business, he knew that, but he was still coming to terms with Magnus’s former profession. Just thinking about it lit a hot flash of jealousy in his belly. He took a deep breath and tried not to let it burn away the little bubble of hope growing in his heart.
Chapter Two
“About time you guys got here. Don’t tell me you got lost.” Dagen smirked while he gathered up two big boxes to carry into the apartment he would be sharing with his boyfriend, Oliver Vos.
Magnus ground his teeth. If he wasn’t still shaking on the inside from the near side-swiping on the road, he knew he’d have some comeback on the tip of his tongue to shut his brother up. As it was, he made a mental note to tell Dagen to butt out and grabbed a box before stepping up onto the sidewalk surrounding the apartment building. He knew his brother only had his best intentions at heart, and since Dagen had been bitten by the love bug, he thought everyone else needed to be too. Not that Magnus would have really minded, but he’d rather keep the figuring out of whatever the hell was going on with him and Rory between him and Rory. Breezing up the sidewalk, he prepared himself for the set of stairs he’d have to climb to get to the second-floor apartment. His legs were still burning from running up and down the stairs while unloading Ollie’s Jeep. I need to get back into the gym, he thought as he reached the building’s door and looked back to see if Dagen and Rory were following him.
Dagen raised an eyebrow at him when he made no move to respond, and then his baby brother turned to seek out Rory. Magnus supposed he should be thankful that his entire family was so enamored with Rory. It had certainly made things easier when they were together, except in the beginning. He’d never forget how huffy his eldest brother Vidar had gotten when he told him that he was dating his best friend. Vidar and Rory were only two years older than he was, and honestly they’d all been friends together, but Rory had been dubbed “Vidar’s friend” until one stolen kiss had made him unequivocally Magnus’s...everything. First kiss. First lover. First love.
Magnus sighed. He could hear Rory and Dagen chattering behind him and pulled in a deep breath before climbing the stairs to the second-floor landing. That SUV had gotten under his skin. For a split second he’d been transported to another place and time—one he’d rather forget.
“Hey, sweetie, glad you guys are back,” Stella Rourke, his mom, greeted him when he squeezed the box in his arms through the propped open door of the apartment. She was sitting on the floor in front of a dark wooden bookcase surrounded by boxes, some empty and some still showing the spines of the sci-fi and fantasy books Dagen was so fond of.
>
“Hey Mom,” he said, looking for a place to set the box in his arms.
“Just start another stack by the couch. We’ll have to sort them all out since someone,” she shot a narrowed eyed look at Dagen as he came through the door with Rory right behind him. “Didn’t see fit to label which box belongs in which room.”
“Sorry, Mom.” Dagen even sounded it, too. On cue, Ollie came around from the small kitchen that took up the left side of the apartment’s semi-open floor plan. The front door opened into the living room, and there was a partial wall to the left obscuring the kitchen and dining area, sliding glass doors to the balcony on the right, and a short hall leading back to the bathroom and bedroom directly in front of him. Magnus liked the apartment, it was cute, with its grey carpet and vaulted ceilings. Perfect for a couple just starting out.
“Hey,” Ollie said, leaning up on his toes to press a chaste kiss to Dagen’s lips once his brother had set the two boxes he’d been carrying on top of the one Magnus had just set down. It should have been comical to watch six-foot Ollie having to be on his tiptoes to kiss Dagen, but they seemed so happy together Magnus couldn’t muster a laugh. Honestly, he was happy for them, but seeing the open affection between them clenched his gut with an emotion that had only one name: jealousy. Ollie dropped back to earth from the chaste kiss and turned his head to look at all of them. “Glad you guys are back. Niko texted a minute ago that he and Luca are almost done rearranging and are going to pick up some pizzas on their way over, but I need to call in the order. What does everyone want?.”
Open Wounds: The Boxed Set Page 27
